Page 56 of Silent Threat
Then Cole had her out of the water and on the wet tiles, on his knees next to her, hovering over her, his dark eyes boiling with anger. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Because she was still scared to death, she shouted back, a waterlogged, half-choked sentence. “What do you thinkyouare doing?”
“I was relaxing on the bottom until you decided to commit suicide.”
Oh God. Fool much?
Her voice weakened. “I thought you were drowning.”
“You could have killed yourself.” His volume dropped too. He spoke in the same gruff tone that she remembered from their first encounter at the gas station. That voice still drew shivers along her skin.
He had bent to her during their earlier shouting, and their noses were now mere inches apart. His massive chest was heaving almost as hard as hers. Hers from effort, his from anger.
That hungry-bear look came into his eyes.
For a stunning, crazy moment, heat flared between them, arched like lightning, and she couldn’t breathe at all. Not a single oxygen molecule. Or maybe she just imagined that the heat was something mutual. Because the next second, he pulled back, his face completely blank as he ran his large hands over her limbs.
She felt hot and cold at the same time. The best she could do was whisper. “What are you doing?”
“Did you break anything?” His hands didn’t stop roving over her. “Dislocate anything?”
She tried one limb at a time. Everything ached, but everything moved. When she was sure that she hadn’t broken any bones, she sat up. This brought them closer together again. Too close. Too much awareness.
He sat back on his heels, ran his palm over his bald head. His dark gaze wouldn’t leave her face. “You took ten years off my life when you stepped off that diving board.”
“You saw me?”
“I noticed you up there when I came in.”
Right. He’d been a sniper. He probably saw things that escaped normal people. She had to remember this in the future. Cole Makani Hunter missed nothing.
“You didn’t call up to me,” she said.
“Looked like you were meditating.”
He stood and reached out a hand to her. She accepted the help but let his hand go as soon as she was standing. When his gaze dipped to her chest, heat tingled through her.
“Don’t do that.” His voice was suddenly the rough rasp of a dying man.
“What?”
But because he wasn’t watching her mouth, he couldn’t see the question.
Her gaze followed his to her chest.Oh God.Her giant, hard-from-the-cold-water nipples were nearly poking through the thin white cotton of her sports bra and shirt.
She crossed her arms, but from the deep groan that escaped his chest, she was pretty sure he could still see the offending peaks.
“Just,” he said as if speaking from the bottom of a well, “suck them in or something.”
Part of her wanted to laugh, but the expression on his face was so intensely focused and tortured, she couldn’t. Cole was looking at her nipples. As if he was affected by them. As if he was struggling with desire and—
Finishing the thought might make her faint, so she didn’t. “I need to go. I have a session in fifteen minutes. I need to change out of these wet clothes.”
He raised his gaze at last. He shifted his weight, an uncertain look on his face—which was startling, because little about the man was uncertain. He looked as if he was about to say something and was still tasting the words to make sure they were the right ones. But in the end, he only said, “Have a fun day.”
She had her doubts about fun. She’d settle for a day that didn’t leave her bleeding. Beyond the visit with her grandfather, she was also going to get Ed’s estimate for the house today.
Cole stepped away from her. The tension eased between them. She could finally draw a full breath.
