“You okay down there?” Tristan answered, skipping the greeting.
“We’re okay. You?”
“I’m getting us the hell out of there. Someone shot at my fucking boat. High-powered rifle. I’m pretty sure it hit us, but the Desperado is like an armored truck. It could have hit a window or something. Anything broken down there?”
She went cold. Part of her had hoped that Raul had imagined the gunman. But not only had he seen an actual gun but that gun had been fired. At them. If it had gone through a window, it could have hit her or Raul. Raul had possibly, hypothetically, saved her life.
“Not in the galley.” She glanced around, confirming that was the case. “Raul saw the gun too. I was starting to stand up but he flattened me. Quick thinking kid.”
His eyes huge and dark, Raul managed a smile full of pride.
“Are you okay?” The concern in Tristan’s voice made her heart do a funny little flutter.
“Mostly. Might have twisted my wrist.”
“Get some ice on it. No, stay where you are. Hand the phone to Raul.”
Feeling faint from pain, she did as he said. She could overhear Tristan’s rapid instructions, but they were in Spanish so she didn’t understand them.
Raul put the phone on the bench and crawled across the floor to a cooler. He dragged it back under the table and took out an ice pack. “Here, Miss Lulu. El capitán says to put it on your wrist.”
From her phone, which was still connected, she heard a growl, probably at the word capitán. That made her laugh, which gave her enough focus to maneuver her wrist toward Raul. With one hand, he held her hand steady, and with the other he applied the pack.
She winced as the shock of cold hit her skin. But as the numbing effect of the ice filtered into her bones, she relaxed.
“How’s it going,” Tristan called from the phone. “Lulu, you okay?”
“Good. It feels better. Don’t worry about me, just get us out.”
“Working on it,” he shouted over the roar of the engines. “Pretty much at top speed right now. It’s a ride.” The hull of the boat slammed into a wave just then, and he let out a whoop.
“Are you enjoying this?” she demanded.
“Not the gunfire part. But the going fast part? Hell yes. Normally I don’t like to burn fuel like this.”
Exhilaration radiated in his voice. Suddenly, she wanted to be up there with him, sharing the wild adventure, no matter the risks. The pain in her wrist had subsided to a dull ache, so why not?
She ended the call. “Stay here, Raul,” she told the boy. “Under the table is safest. I’m going to check on Tristan.”
“Is it safe?”
“If that gunman was shooting at us from the shore, we’re way out of range by now.”
“Can I go in my bunk? It’s safe there and I feel a little seasick.”
“Yes, good idea.”
They both extracted themselves from the galley table. Keeping a low profile, she made her way across the cabin and up the stairs. The lunge and lurch of the fishing boat made every step a leap of faith. Would the floor be where it was a second ago? Total crapshoot.
Somehow, she made it up the stairs without falling on her face. Clinging to the wall, she sidled into the wheelhouse. Tristan stood at the wheel with his legs braced far apart, his hair wild from the sea spray, his dark oilskin jacket flapping like a cape.
He was singing something, too. A sea chanty or a rebel fighting yell, she couldn’t tell. When he caught sight of her and turned in surprise, she saw a Tristan she hadn’t seen yet—young and free and full of life.
“Lulu! What are you doing here? How’s your wrist?”
She held it up, ice in place. “Still attached.”
“You should stay below where it’s safe.”
“I don’t want to stay where it’s safe.” She lifted her chin. “I want to be up here, with you. Raul’s in his bunk. Feeling a bit off.”
After a moment’s hesitation, he lifted one arm from the wheel and beckoned her to his side. She came toward him, helpless to resist that bearded grin, those gleaming wild eyes. He settled her in front of him, her back pressed against his front. She cradled her wrist against her chest and despite the ice pack, felt warm and cozy.
His body heat relaxed her. In the circle of his arms, she felt safe and protected, even though they were on the run from a bad guy who had just upped the ante. She leaned against the hard muscles of his chest and stomach. This is life, she thought. A strange life. One she never could have imagined even a year ago, when she was feeding spoonfuls of pureed pears to her mother. But a life beyond her wildest dreams.
Even if it lasted only a day or so more, she was grateful for this time on the Desperado. She’d never forget it, or the man with his arms bracketing her, humming softly into her hair.
“Are we safe?” she murmured.
“I wouldn’t say that. But no one’s shooting at us right now.”
She gazed out the spray-flecked window at the gray waters ahead. White lines of foam spread across the ocean as if someone’s cappuccino machine had malfunctioned. Birds wheeled overhead, riding invisible currents. “Is a storm coming?”
“Around here? Always.”
She laughed, because why not? “If it’s not gunfire, it’s a storm. I guess it’s always something.”
He dropped a kiss on her hair. The warmth of his lips reassured her almost as much as his words did. “Don’t you worry. We’ll be fine.”
“Is that a promise, Captain Del Rey?”
His only answer was a low growl that sent tendrils of heat through her body. And she wanted him, hard and fierce and urgent. She wanted to live. Not just run. Not just hop on the next cruise ship for the next faraway destination. She wanted to experience those feelings that Tristan brought out in her. She wanted to give back to him. To see another side of Tristan Del Rey—the unleashed sexual side that every fiber of her being knew would be sensational.
“Safety aside, there’s something else we have to figure out.” She tilted her head back so she was addressing his chin. It was covered in scruff. His Adam’s apple moved as he spoke. She smelled sweat and salt and heat.
“What’s that?”
“Keeping that promise we made to ourselves.” She flexed her lower back against the bulge that had been steadily swelling ever since she nestled into his arms. “Any ideas?”
“Lots. All of them dirty.”
“Just the way I like them.”
Twenty-One
Tristan had never had to battle arousal while the Desperado tackled ten-foot swells. Another first brought to him by Lulu Spencer-Bennington. Face it, nothing was going to be quite the same after this experience with her. For better or worse, he couldn’t yet say.
But she sure felt good in his arms. The perfect long-limbed bundle of strawberry-tart sexiness. He would have taken her right then and there, in his wheelhouse, up against his dashboard, if she weren’t injured and they weren’t caught between a storm and a gunman.
When they were almost to Far Point, Lucas radioed him. “Message from Maya. The FBI is on their way. Come on home.”
“Ten-four.”