Janna looked at the man with confused, gray-green eyes, wanting to ask who he was and how she had gotten there and why she was so terribly cold. Nothing came out but an odd whimper as the last of her strength bled away and the world darkened around her.
Raven caught her against his body, peeled off the remainder of her clothes and carried her to his oversize bunk. The sight of her pulse beating against the smooth curve of her neck reassured him, but her skin was far too cold. He yanked back the blankets from the bunk and dried her as best he could before he slid her between the sheets. He pulled off his clothes with harsh sweeps of his hands, ripping cloth in his haste. Pausing only long enough to jerk a special blanket from a cupboard, he crawled into the bunk with her.
„I don’t know if you can hear me,“ Raven said as he arranged the woman on top of his big body, „but you’re going to be warm again. This survival blanket takes every bit of our heat and reflects it back to us. It wouldn’t do you much good by yourself, but as long as I’m wrapped up with you it’s better than a bonfire. I’m too damn big to be chilled by a few minutes in a summer ocean.“
There was no response from the woman but the convulsive shuddering of a body that had been pushed too hard and now was too cold to warm itself. Raven shook out the survival blanket and wrapped both of them within its thin, flexible folds. The inner, heat-reflecting side of the blanket gleamed in shades of silver. The outer, heat-absorbing side of the blanket was a midnight blue as dark as the sodden flannel shirt that lay in shreds on the deck by the bunk.
Long shudders of the woman’s body threatened to shake off the blanket. Raven’s hands moved gently over her, both soothing and slowly rubbing warmth back into her clenched muscles. After a long time her body began to relax as the violence of her shivering waned. He shifted slightly, bringing her into more complete contact with the heat of his body. She murmured and instinctively burrowed closer to the abundant warmth that was radiating into her.
Raven’s hands gently massaged the long, slender back to the swell of the woman’s buttocks. The firm, deep muscles were still cool to his touch but no longer chilled. She was bruised, numb, exhausted, but no longer in danger of succumbing to hypothermia. He smiled and felt a sense of satisfaction that for once his body had been good for something more than drawing sideways stares from strangers. He wondered if the woman would be frightened when she awoke and saw what had fished her from the sea.
He hoped not. Even half-drowned and utterly exhausted, she had looked sleek and very feminine beneath the soggy clothes. She also felt amazingly good in his arms, fitting against his body with a perfection that would have shortened his breath in other circumstances and was threatening to do so even now. Her hips swelled smoothly beneath his hands. Her breasts were soft and her nipples were as hard as pebbles against his chest. He wondered if she would respond like that to heat rather than cold – a man’s heat. Would she come to a man with the same elemental passion and courage with which she had faced the storm?
The thought chased the last of the cold from Raven’s body. He felt a surge of hot, sweet heaviness in his blood. Abruptly he cast his willpower over his glittering, leaping thoughts as though they were wild salmon coming to the net. She had trusted him enough to give herself over to his keeping despite the fact that he must have looked almost as frightening as the sea to her. He would no more violate that trust than he would have let her drown before his eyes.
„Can you hear me yet?“ he asked softly, feeling his own deep voice rumble in his chest. „You’re going to be fine. A few hours of sleep, some warm food, a few lazy days, and you’ll be ready to tackle me with one hand tied behind your back.“
The thought of anyone taking him on like that made Raven smile. He was still smiling when the woman’s head stirred and wide eyes studied him through dense eyelashes. At close range her eyes were the color of a cedar forest veiled by silver fog. They were deep, intelligent, exquisitely clear.
Janna blinked, trying to connect the resilient warmth beneath her with the clear, oddly gentle black eyes that were so close to her own.
„You’re very warm,“ she said slowly, grappling with each word through a haze of exhaustion.
„You aren’t,“ he said, amusement clear in his deep voice as he ran his palm down to her cool, naked thigh.
„I know.“ She sighed and let her head sag onto his chest, too exhausted to keep her eyes open any longer. „What… happened?“
„Sleep,“ he said softly as he pulled the survival blanket up over her wet hair. „You’ll remember when you wake up.“
Raven felt her breath wash over him with reassuring warmth. Her body changed subtly, taking on the heaviness of utter relaxation. Before she took another breath she was asleep. The trust implied by that simple act washed over Raven in another kind of warmth until it was a subtle radiance shimmering within the darkest reaches of his mind. His breath sighed out to mingle with hers. He fell asleep with the scent of the woman and the sea reaching out to him, surrounding him.
Janna woke slowly. With one hand, she reached out, fumbling for the control on her electric blanket. She must have been very cold when she went to bed last night; she had left the dial on high. Even her pillow was hot. Blindly her fingers began searching for the control that hung over the mattress midway down the bed. What she found was smooth, firm, resilient, as hot as satin left out in the sun. She searched the surface with sleepy curiosity, wondering if she were still dreaming. Something stirred beneath her touch.
„Careful, woman. You’re fishing in rocky waters.“
Janna’s eyes flew open and her head came up in a rush as she propped herself on her elbow. An odd, silvery blanket slithered aside with her sudden motion, revealing an expanse of bare male chest that was frankly intimidating – or would have been if she hadn’t grown up with men nearly as large. Black hair gleamed in a neat wedge that tapered swiftly to a dark line bisecting a very large, very powerful body. Farther down the hair fanned out into a black tangle. That was where her hand was. Her fingers weren’t resting in that tangle of masculine hair. Not quite.
With a gasp, Janna yanked back her hand. „I’m sorry, I… I…“ Suddenly she realized that she was as naked as the giant who had stirred beneath her touch. She had been lying half on, half off his body, her breasts nestled against the muscular swell of his arm. „Who…what?“
„People here call me Raven,“ he said in a voice so deep that it vibrated down her spine. „As for what – “
„Never mind,“ she interrupted quickly, feeling a blush crawl from her breasts to her cheeks. „I might have gone crazy, but I haven’t forgotten eighth-grade science.“
„Science?“ he asked, as he reached for the survival blanket that was sliding farther away with every instant.
„Human reproduction,“ she said succinctly.
Raven’s laughter sent odd shivers through Janna. It was such a rich sound, as warm and textured as his very masculine flesh had been beneath her fingertips.
Janna’s blush deepened at the sensual direction of her own thoughts. The cold water must have frozen what passed for her brain.
Abruptly memories exploded. Cold. Storm. Water. A silver disk floating impossibly far above her head. Everything came rushing back on Janna with dizzying force. She stared at the man lying so close to her. Strong hands. Black eyes. A voice like waves breaking over rocks, yet somehow warm, caressing. She had known it instinctively. She was safe with him.
„You saved my life.“
„You fought with everything you had in you and them some,“ Raven said. „I just gave you a little hand.“
Janna looked at the broad, dark, strong hand holding the strange blanket, pulling it up over her, tucking her within its warm folds. She would have died out in the storm if it hadn’t been for those strong hands. She knew it.
„Little?“ she repeated softly. „There was nothing little about it.“
Raven held up his hand as though he had never seen it before and nodded. „You’re right. There’s nothing little about it,“ he said, deliberately misunderstanding. As casually as though he were alone, he leaned forward until he could flip the dark blue bed sheet up over his naked hips. „Warm enough?“ he asked,
