Depths of Salvation (Love on the Edge) (14 page)

Approaching the site, it didn’t take long to confirm my earlier assumptions.

She went in. Alone. Without telling anyone.

She’s more reckless than I am.

That kind of confidence was sexy as hell, but it could also get her killed.

Entering the ship, I took a moment to see if I could spot a bubble trail. Most likely I’d find her collecting some sort of plant sample, and my panic would be unmerited, but I knew the sharp cringe in my gut wouldn’t settle until I set eyes on her.

I had a mind to start in the direction of the rooms with the superhero plant, but a flourish of neon-yellow overhead caught my eye. Her retrieval line. Following it, I stopped just before a large hole in the ceiling; it’s sharp edges enough of a warning sign to any diver to proceed with caution—or be smarter and just not go up. I shook my head and made my way upward as carefully as possible, barely making it through without scraping a tank.

A
thunk
of something hitting the hard floor of the packed room forced me to jump, and I swam as fast as I could through the debris clogging the area. The beam of a flashlight had me sighing in relief, and I scooped it off the floor, lifting it until it hit Sadie.

She was a few feet away, her eyes wide and panic-stricken. They softened when I approached her, showing myself in the darkness of the room. An array of bubbles shot out of her tubing, and my heart fucking stopped in my chest.

Not only was she tangled, she was losing oxygen. At a rapid rate.

Fuck.

She pushed her radio button, her voice filling my head. “Just detach my tank for me, will you? I can make it to the halfway point that way.”

I resisted the urge to lay into her, tell her just how reckless she’d been. Again.

Like you’re any different.

I wasn’t. Now was not the time to share that fact.

“You’ve already leaked half a tank. Detaching it will lose thirty percent more. Too risky.” I kept my voice steady, not showing an ounce of the terror I felt watching her levels drop. I closed my eyes, forcing my brain to think, and not about how the prospect of losing Sadie—or of her being seriously injured—affected me beyond that of one human being to the next. The woman had touched me in a way no one ever had. In a way that had every cell in my body urging me to rip my mask off and give it to her, let her get to safety and leave me here to rot instead.

“I’ll be fine. Just—“

“No!” I cut her off too sharply. “I’m going to unhook you, and you’ll use what you have left to get as far as we can. Then you’ll use my air.”

“Connell.” Her tone had a warning in it, and I knew she’d give me hell for not going with her plan—part of me looked forward to it—but I couldn’t risk her. I
wouldn’t
.

Carefully reaching out to where her tubing was tangled, I worked meticulously and as fast as possible. The damn thing was wrenched in the one spot that could tear up her line. What were the fucking odds? Every time I made progress I made another tear, and more of her air evaporated into the ocean around us.

After two precious minutes, I looked up at her. She was too calm. Calm as I was when death was only a few breaths away. I may as well have been looking in a mirror. But how could she be like me? There was no way this bright woman’s past was as dark and gritty as mine, and that past was the only thing that gave me a steady hand in situations like this—at least when it was only my life at stake. With Sadie’s on the line? I was a fucking mess.

“I can’t get it. It’s going to severe,” I admitted.

She nodded slowly. “Too late to detach the tank. I’ll take a deep breath and book it. Just cut me free.”

I shook my head. “Hell no.” I stopped her finger from pushing the talk button because I didn’t want to hear any plea she had. My heart raced in my chest, beating so hard I was sure it’d break the fuck out. “We go together. Share air.”

“These masks aren’t really built for that,” she said once I let her hand go.

“Well, we’re about to fucking test them.” I raised my eyebrows at her. There was no other way, she was good, but she wasn’t clearing the halfway point with one breath.

“Okay.”

The trust in her acceptance felt good, but not good enough to erase the cold fear clawing my gut. I reached behind me and loosened my mask so it would be easier to get on and off while we switched. A tiny amount of water got inside because of the movement, but I could handle it. Soon we’d have a lot more to deal with.

“I’ll unhook you, and you clear this floor. Then I’ll pass the mask to you in the cafeteria, you take your breath, and give it back. We work our way out and up the same way. Deal?”

She nodded, and I severed the tube, freeing her from the tangle. She slipped the useless gear off, holding on to her dive mask under one arm, and then darted past me with swift, fluid movements. Making it through the hole was a cinch for her without any gear, and I stayed on her toes. The second we were free of the cluttered mess that room had been, I drew her to me, encasing her body in my arms. With my free hand, I ripped my mask off and secured it over her head, my lungs burning from the quick lack of air supply.

She blew the unwanted water out of it and then sucked in two deep breaths, returning it to me. We moved forward and out of the ship’s interior, swimming as one unit, our bodies flush. It would have been a real fucking turn-on had we not been sharing the same precious air that was our lifeline to get out of this mess.

In the open water, it was much easier to pass the mask back and forth, but it made tedious work of surfacing. Still, there was something intimate in the way we shared the air, in the way her eyes never left mine as we moved together, using the same motions to propel upward. We were in sync in so many ways, but it still scared the shit out of me.

It took us three times as long as it normally would have, and the cold fear that set in each time I had the air and she didn’t was enough to make me contemplate never diving again.

If it saved Sadie’s life, I would give it up in a heartbeat.

One more fact to file away in the
I’m fucked
list.

I kept my hands wrapped around her waist as we finally broke free of the ocean, surfacing to the sweet and beautiful free oxygen, both of us filling our lungs with greedy appetites.

When we’d caught our breath, I pushed the hair back from her face that had plastered itself there and claimed her mouth. She opened willingly underneath me, letting my tongue slip between her lips, caress her with words of relief I couldn’t speak. She wrapped her legs around my hips, the water making her weightless against me. I cupped her perfect ass with one hand, my other tangled in her hair, which I gently tugged backward enough to break our kiss.

“Don’t ever do that to me again.” It wasn’t a fucking request, and she knew it from the way her eyes widened, and her body went pliant against mine.

Mine.
That’s exactly what Sadie was, and I’d make damn sure she knew once we boarded this ship.

“Ah hem.” I heard Nemo clear his throat from above us, and we both turned toward the sound. “You two okay?” The kid had a smug-ass look on his face.

Sadie had the gall to laugh.

I wasn’t fucking amused. She’d nearly killed herself again. All for the sake of her site and the people she believed it would help. If it didn’t terrify me so much, I might admire her determination and selflessness.

I was too mad to see reason and too revved up to care. Pushing her toward the ladder, I watched every movement of the ass I’d had in my hands not seconds ago while she climbed.

“I hit a snag,” she said once we boarded.

A snag? More like a fucking trap.

“But you’re good?” Nemo asked, his eyes darting between us.

“Yes. Thanks. I really shouldn’t have dived today. Without you and my fierce headache . . . well, I made poor decisions.” She cut her eyes to me. “Lucky for me Connell really is as good as he claims.”

Oh, she had no idea but she would the minute I could get rid of this kid. If he didn’t hurry up, I’d toss his ass overboard and fuck her right here on the deck. Crew be damned. I couldn’t contain my need to show her just how much she scared me and how much she meant to me.

“I’m going to go see if Liz needs me.” The kid shook his head and quickly walked away. More perceptive than I’d given him credit for.

Sadie’s breath hitched, and she didn’t even look at me before she walked across the deck and down a set of stairs that led to the interior of the ship. A few more paces down a long hallway and three doors down, she slipped into her room, her back still to me as I shut the door behind me.

It was a bigger room than I had on the vessel, but not by much. The bed was tiny, though she kept it tidier than I did. The sound of the lock clicking behind me might as well have been the starting gun going off at a race.

She whirled around, her eyes flashing brilliant white-hot
need.

This is where I usually gave my “understanding” speech. The one where I explained I

didn’t do relationships, or intimacy, or anything that would involve any kind of commitment.

The urge didn’t come, the words nowhere to be found.

I held her gaze and took down the defenses I normally kept up when about to fuck someone. Because I wasn’t going to fuck Sadie. Not with the way I felt about her. Not with the way she’d altered the course of my life in the span of a couple weeks.

No. I was going to worship her.

And even if I did everything right for the rest of my life, I still wouldn’t be a good enough man for her.

Sadie

CONNELL’S WET, BLACK
hair framed his face but didn’t hide the passion in those hazel eyes of his.

No walls now. Guess all I needed to do was nearly die again. Stupid of me. Idiot mistake I wouldn’t make again, but I
so
wasn’t thinking about that right now. All I could see was the primal need practically vibrating off Connell’s hard body, and I couldn’t wait to feel it against mine.

The concerns—how he had control of what happened to my site, how he barely spoke, how I knew nothing about his past—evaporated as the heat between my thighs rose to an all-time high, and he hadn’t even laid a finger on me yet. The anticipation was enough to make me want to scissor my legs just to get a little relief from the ache.

He walked toward me slowly, maintaining control when I couldn’t. I met him halfway, crushing my lips against his and hopping up to wrap my legs around his hips. He caught me, his strong hands gripping my butt and turning to press me against the door. He sucked my tongue into his mouth, using exactly the right amount of pressure to make me gasp between his lips.

I unlocked my ankles, letting my toes touch the floor long enough to free him of his soaking wet shirt. It landed with a thud on the floor, mine quickly following. He sucked in a sharp breath as he untied the halter of the bikini top I wore underneath, and my nipples hardened from the cold air hitting them.

“Fucking perfect,” he said, a near growl as he lifted me back up, taking a nipple in his mouth and lightly biting it.

I moaned, his warm mouth mixing so well with the cold wetness of my skin. He rolled my other breast in his hand, expertly kissing and sucking, biting and cupping, working me up so much I ground against him.

He gripped me closer, and I sighed when my breasts hit the warmth of his hard chest. Spinning us, he gently lowered me onto the bed, peeling off my shorts and swimsuit bottoms as his hands trailed along the skin of my legs.

I expected waves of nervousness to hit me or insecurities over being completely bare to him in the bright light of my cabin, but nothing unfurled within me besides undiluted
want
. And with the way Connell looked at me—like I was the most delicious item on a menu catered specifically to him—there was no way I could feel anything less than goddess-like. It was a first and took the raw edge in which I needed him to an entirely new level.

I beckoned him with my fingers, and he quickly dropped his shorts and underwear on the floor.

Good Lord, he was glorious to look at. All hard edges, a few scars across one hip, and a whole lot of
man
to admire. The tattoos that decorated his muscular arms resembled the vibrant colors of the coral I spent most my days surrounded by in the depths of the ocean. My mouth watered, and I backed up further on the bed as he advanced, drawing out my admiration of him.