“Thank you for helping me earlier,” she finally said.
“We’re safe,” he said. “For now.”
“What’s going to happen to my brother?” She hated the quiver in her voice.
A thump threw her forward. Panic gripped her as the engine ku-clunked before dying.
“What was that?” she asked.
His hands went to work on the controls. “A bad sign.”
The engine whirred but didn’t catch. He picked up the binoculars and scanned the area. “We can’t stay here. You know how to swim?”
“Yes.”
“In the ocean?” he asked.
“There a difference?” she shot back.
“In the water, your clothes will turn to lead weights in a matter of minutes. I have no idea how long we’ll be swimming. But I’m certain of two things. Stay here and you’ll die. Wear those and you’ll drown.”
His shirt was off and crumpled on the floor. His muscled chest glistened from the light rain as he dug around in the scuba gear. He examined a wetsuit. “This should be the right size for you.”
He tossed the material toward her.
She shot him a look. “You expect me to put this on right here?”
“You see a dressing room?”
“Fine. Then turn around,” she said stiffly, before turning to face opposite him.
“Nothing I haven’t seen before, sweetheart.”
Feeling more vulnerable than she wanted to admit, she slipped off her pale green tank top. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck pricked as she slid her skirt down past her hips and turned just in time to catch Jaden boldly staring at her.
Breath stalled in her throat. She stepped out of her skirt. Her heart thudded against her ribcage.
“I told you not to look.” She covered herself with the wetsuit.
He grinned a devastating little grin, saying nothing.
“Besides, how do I know you’re not working for one of those jerks?”
He stepped closer, using his large frame to crowd her against the side of the boat. “You really think I’m the kind of man who does other people’s dirty work?”
She jolted at the nearness of his voice. He was so close now she could smell the woodsy scent of his aftershave. For the first time she was keenly aware of just how tall he was. He had to be at least six-feet-three, maybe more. Standing this close to her, he nearly dwarfed her frame at five-feet-four.
“No.” She didn’t think that. If Jaden Dean had dirty work to do, he did it for himself. “I don’t know what kind of man you really are.”
“You don’t need to.” He didn’t lack confidence and maybe that was part of the draw to him.
“If you’re trying to scare me,” she said, “it won’t work.”
“I supposed you’re not trembling, either.”
Frustration shot through her, because damn it, he was right. Refusing to give an inch, she shot back, “I’m cold.”
“Try again.”
Chapter 5
With shaky fingers she zipped her wetsuit. Thank God he’d turned back to the pile of equipment, no doubt searching for anything useful. She needed a second to pull it together and calm her rattled self.
“I never could figure this thing out.” She hated how uneven her voice sounded as she pointed to her buoyancy control vest.
“Tighten it here.” He moved closer, his tone dropping an octave. His finger brushed across her stomach, causing heat to swirl low in her belly. “Should be snug across here but not too tight under the arms.”
Lauren slipped on her weight belt, followed by her tank, ignoring the sensations igniting her nervous system from his slightest touch. He was dark and dangerous, and he’d just saved her life. Her body was simply reacting to that. “I don’t know anything about you aside from your name.”
“No. You don’t.” he tanked up without breaking rhythm; his gruff tone suggested they were done talking. “If you want to stay alive, you’d better follow me.”
She clutched her overnight bag.
“You can’t swim with that.”
Panic widened her eyes. “This is everything I have. There’s no more. I told you. If I don’t bring this my brother’s dead. I have to—”
“You give them that and it’s game over, you die.” As if to punctuate his sentence, Jaden picked up his gun and fired off a round into the water, emptying the chamber, and then tossed the clip overboard before securing his gun back inside his wetsuit.
“What did you just do?” she asked.
“Bullets on a Glock and water don’t mix,” was all he said. Then came, “and I’m serious about losing the bag.”
Lauren flinched as she set it down, cleared her throat, and positioned herself on the edge of the boat, preparing for the backward spiral into the water. The sound of an engine roared in the distance. Panic gripped her. The men were getting closer.
If they got the money, would they kill Max?
“Hold on.” She grabbed the fire extinguisher, tied it onto her piece of luggage, and tossed it overboard. “This might buy Max a little more time if they find the boat.”
Standing there, watching her life savings sink into the water, her heart seized.
Jaden nodded approvingly, and that same heart stuttered. She shouldn’t care what this man thought.
She reclaimed her seat and noticed that the vessel was taking on water. Normally, the water in the Caribbean was like glass, providing a clear view to the sand below, but the storm-churned seas had her diving in blind.
She leaned back, splashed into the water and then righted herself in order to swim.
When they’d gone a great distance, thumbs up, Jaden gave the signal to ascend.
Waves broke over her head. Rain came down in buckets, dropping visibility down to a few feet. All she could see was water.
“What’s going on?” She had to shout to be heard over the howling wind, terror vibrating her tone.
Jaden raked his fingers through his hair. “We’ll
