The state of Florida required a site with any sort of historic significance must contract a trained and certified professional to document the salvage process. And since there wasn’t a more historic relic in all the Caribbean than the grand ghost galleon, enter Mia Ennis, acclaimed marine archeologist.
But back to the skitchy arm hair, mutinous stomach, and insufficient O₂ levels...
No two ways around it, they happened because Romeo had a thing for the brainy little strawberry blonde.
Nah. Not a thing. That word didn’t come close to capturing what he felt.
It was more like he craved her like a drowning man craved air. Like a starving man craved an all-you-can-eat buffet. Like a poor man craved a winning lottery ticket.
It was a bone-deep hunger—emphasis on the ‘bone’ and the ‘deep.’
Blame his insatiable appetite for her on her athletic figure, or her creamy skin that always held a hint of a blush, or her fascinating, amber-colored eyes that he was forever sinking into.
Lioness eyes was how he thought of them. And like those big cats that roamed the Serengeti, Mia moved with an innate grace that hinted at the kind of lover she would be.
The slow kind. The savoring kind. The thorough kind.
Sweet Mother Mary. Yeah, that last thing was surely the cause of his unprecedented preoccupation. Because while he was no stranger to attracting and being attracted to the opposite sex—his nom de guerre was ‘Romeo’ for shit’s sake—never in his life had he found himself plagued by incessant thoughts of one woman.
Mia was an earworm that spun endlessly inside his head. Only instead of catching himself humming, he often caught himself dreaming about kissing her lips.
Those perfect lips that were so small and plush and pink. Like a rosebud just waiting to be plucked.
Dreaming about, but never daring to do it because even if she’d been interested in a little hunka chunka—which she’d assured him she was not—she was what was known in the dating world as relationship material.
We’re talking the kind of woman whose vocabulary doesn’t include the word “fling.” The kind of women who only has affairs that are chock-a-block full of potential and meaning. The kind of woman that expects a man to take a page from Beyoncé’s book and...put a ring on it.
And he? Well, he’d gotten his reputation as a straight-up skirt-hound because he liked his liaisons fun and dirty, with no holds barred and no expectations. Uncomplicated and...most importantly...short-lived.
When it came to romance, Mia Ennis was the heart-and-flowers yin to his one-night-stand yang. Which meant he’d be smart to stop wishing she was someone different, a good-time girl only out for a little fun in the sun, or that he was someone different, a man made to go the distance, and instead satisfy himself with what they did have. Which was a mutual like and respect for one another. A...friendship.
Never mind the look he sometimes thought he saw in her eyes. A look that, despite her words to the contrary, told him she might be curious what it would be like if they were ever to do the No Pants Dance.
As Wolf, their resident philosopher liked to say, “Only a fool tests the water with both feet.” Which Romeo took to mean he should never jump into something he knew might end up drowning him or someone he cared about in heartbreak.
And hot damn, Mia’s eyes are the deepest pools of all.
Glancing away from Doc and the black-haired woman sidled up next to him, Romeo watched Mia gracefully weave her way across the little dance floor to find an empty table under a palm tree. Mason and Alex followed close on her heels, but he barely spared them a glance.
As always, when Mia was present, he only had eyes for her. And suddenly, all he wanted was to be near her.
As a friend, he quickly reminded himself before tapping Doc on the shoulder. “Hey, bro. The others just showed up. Want to join them?”
Doc waved a distracted hand, keeping his attention on the dark-eyed Venus who rested her boobs on his arm like she was tired of holding them up on her own.
Doc was a man on a mission to drown his sorrows in a pitcher of beer and the willing ministrations of any woman who’d have him. Considering the guy stood nearly six and half feet tall, with shoulders that stretched about that wide, there were plenty of ladies to choose from. The buxom beauty who’d introduced herself as Candy had simply been the first to respond once Doc deployed his patented Dalton “Doc” Simmons sexual allure arsenal.
“You go on,” Doc told Romeo over his shoulder before pulling the toothpick from his mouth and drawling to Candy, “That’s an amazing dress.” His scratchy voice made him sound like he smoked a pack a day even though Romeo had never seen him take so much as a puff. “What do you say to me taking it off you later?”
Romeo rolled his eyes, expecting Candy to either giggle and smack Doc on the arm, or get offended and stalk off in a huff. He was surprised when, instead, she came back with, “Funny. I was just thinking how good that shirt looks on you. Not as good as I would look on you, but still.”
Doc sputtered and tugged his ear, a sure sign he’d been caught off guard.
Romeo was a little surprised, too. In his experience, women with names like Candy weren’t usually known for lightning-fast repartee.
The couple exchanged another volley of cringe-worthy pickup lines, and Romeo took that as his cue to vamoose himself. Of course, before he left, he gave himself an imaginary pat on the back for a wingman job well done.
Grabbing his glass of Don Julio straight up—because that’s how his grandmother had taught him to drink it—he slipped off the barstool and made his way toward his friends.
Friends, friends, Mia and I are friends, he reminded himself for what was probably the fiftieth time that day.
The hot, humid air was ripe with the smell of spilled beer and the slightly fishy aroma wafting in from the nearby marina. A three-man band played sea shanties on the little stage in the corner. And outside, the stars sparkled like cut diamonds across the black underbelly of the night sky.
All around him, people danced drunkenly, conversed loudly, and laughed heartily despite sunburned noses and wind-chapped lips.
Key West...ain’t she grand?
Never once could he remember having a bad time while visiting the island. The Conch Republic had a way of forcing a person to kick off their shoes, shove their toes in the sand, and slow way, way down—preferably with a drink in hand.
He took a sip of tequila while side-stepping a drunk who tried coaxing a recalcitrant woman out of her seat and onto the dance floor. If the look on the woman’s face was anything to go by, the last thing she wanted was to cut a rug with a guy who couldn’t pronounce his S’s without sounding like a snake. But neither did she want to make a scene, so she was trying to politely tell the dude to go row, row, row his boat gently the hell on out of her line of sight.