Page 119 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Six
Mallory knew she was in trouble when she couldn’t flex her fingers. She glanced around the ocean floor, searching for Adrian.
Nitrogen narcosis wasn’t causing her numbness—she’d experienced that once in Greece. This was something else, cold, maybe, but she had to go up, now. Even though she’d been down such a short time, she still had to make the decompression stops on the way up.
Why would the cold affect her today when it hadn’t yesterday? Jacob’s suit was too big, yes, and allowed so much water into the suit that her body couldn’t warm, but she hadn’t had the same weakness on her other dive. The water was colder since the storm but shouldn’t have this much of an effect.
She signaled to Adrian, motioned up. His brow furrowed behind his mask. She mimed a shiver and swam toward the guideline Adrian had created last night, marked with decompression stops. She tried to grasp it, but her fingers were too stiff. Hesitating, she decided not to hang on, instead finning her way to the first stop. When she treaded water, she only floated away from the line. She paddled back to wrap her arms around the rope but drifted up. Damn. She couldn’t stabilize herself. An experienced diver should be able to control her movements.
And then Adrian was there, swimming in front of her, closing his hands around hers on the knot in the line, his eyes dark with concern.
She waved him off, urging him down, but he shook his head. As her shivers became uncontrollable, he guided her to the next decompression stop and wrapped his arms around her to warm her. Tension only made the shivers worse, so she tried to relax, but relaxing meant snuggling against Adrian’s body, something she couldn’t do for her own sanity.
That didn’t mean she didn’t want to. But she couldn’t.
By the time they reached the last decompression stop, she was so stiff her joints ached. This was the longest stop, twenty minutes that felt like twenty years. She had to relax in Adrian’s arms or she’d never make it to the surface. Hesitantly, she eased forward until her mask bumped his arm. He read her intentions, as he always had, and gently folded his arms around her, giving her one last chance to back away before he tightened his hold. His embrace didn’t make much difference in temperature but made her feel safe. Her breathing evened, her shivers subsided.
She’d forgotten how Adrian used to make her feel safe.
He guided her to the surface, helped her out of her gear. Her jaw was clenched so tight he could barely get the regulator out of her mouth. Once he unzipped her wetsuit and the wind hit her, her shivers became uncontrollable. He grabbed a big towel from the bench, wrapped it around her for modesty, then tugged her wet clothes off. She was too cold to protest. He pressed her arms to her sides to hold the towel in place, before he stripped off his own gear with less finesse than usual.
He opened up the towel and stepped closer. Against her. Naked skin to naked skin.
And they were alone in the middle of the ocean.
His skin was cool too, but heated quickly against hers. He’d always been so warm to the touch, and she burrowed into his chest without thinking as he chafed the towel against her back, blocking the breeze with the thick terry.
Slowly she became aware of the swell of her breasts teased by his chest hair, her belly pressed against the hardness of him, and she could feel his awareness as well. She turned her head and her lips brushed his chest. God, she wanted…
He jumped back as if burned. She snatched the towel just in time, lifting her eyes to his. His eyes were hot with something indefinable—anger? Pain? He swung away and snatched up his clothes before climbing into the skiff, leaving her cold, confused and naked.
Linda stood at the dock when they pulled in. Great. On top of being confused over her feelings for Adrian, Mallory had to deal with someone the minute she got off the boat, though at least she’d learned the truth about her relationship with Adrian. She started past the girl without a word, ignoring Adrian as he tied off the skiff, needing distance.
“Mallory, there’s someone here to see you.” Linda turned to follow her.
“What?” Mallory pivoted, her mind yanking back to the present and not to the scene on the boat, the heat of Adrian’s body.
Linda pointed, and Mallory whirled to see a man standing on the rise overlooking the beach, watching her.
Jonathan, neat and tidy in a tropical shirt and creased khaki shorts.
Holy hell. This curse thing was making more and more sense. She smoothed her hair, knowing the ponytail was in all sorts of disarray, hoping Jonathan wouldn’t glean why. She wiped her palms down her shorts and realized they were Adrian’s trunks. Would Jonathan see in her face that she’d just been in Adrian’s arms, skin to skin?
Before Jonathan could see her hesitation, she gathered herself and charged up the hill toward him, all too aware of Linda’s—and Adrian’s—open curiosity.
Halfway up the rise, she remembered she wasn’t wearing her ring. Shit. He would notice. She reached in the neck of her T-shirt—Adrian’s T-shirt, damn it—and pulled the chain free, letting the ring dangle.
She stood before her fiancé, awkward, ill at ease in her own skin and her ex-husband’s clothes, her body still humming from Adrian’s embrace.
Jonathan gave her a soft kiss before looking past her to the boat.
“Jonathan! What are you doing here?” Okay, that came out a little more accusatory than delighted. She winced.
“I came to bring you home.” He glanced at her, then at the boat. Mallory refused to turn to see if Adrian was watching them.
“How did you get out here?”
“The roads weren’t as bad as I was led to believe.” Jonathan nodded toward the boat, and still Mallory refused to turn. He plucked at the shoulder of the too-big T-shirt. “What is this you’re wearing? I didn’t see you pack these things.”
