“Baby!” she cried, and frantically looked about her in the water. “Baby, where are you?”

The dog bobbed up once, then went down again, a brown spot of fur in the blue sea.

“Shit,” Max swore as he tore off his T-shirt. With his ribs throbbing and his muscles protesting, he dove into the Atlantic Ocean after Baby Doll Carlyle. The cool salt water hit his face and rushed over his chest. He dove just deep enough to come up under the dog, and he grabbed him in one hand. When his head cleared the water, he glanced around for Lola, but he didn’t see her. The dog coughed and hacked and immediately started to shake. Max was just about to chuck the dog and dive for Lola when the back of her head surfaced.

“Baby!” she coughed on a mouthful of ocean.

“I have him,” Max called to her as he easily treaded water.

She turned and splashed toward him. Not only was she a lousy warrior, she couldn’t swim worth a damn, either. Her brown eyes were huge and she sucked in quick, shallow gasps of oxygen. If she wasn’t careful, she’d hyperventilate, but it didn’t look like she was going to be careful anytime soon. She grabbed Max’s shoulder and nearly pushed him under. At the height of his SEAL team days, Max had been able to hold his breath for three minutes underwater, bob back up, and swim for hours. He wasn’t worried that either of them, or the dumb dog, would drown. He was only concerned that she’d make getting to the back of the boat harder than need be.

“Is baby o-okay?” she managed, and reached for her dog. A wave washed over their heads and she pulled them under this time. Down they went in a tangle of legs and arms. One of her knees smashed into his side, and he sucked in half a mouthful of salt water. The dog’s toenails scratched Max’s neck as Lola got him into a head-lock, smashing the side of his face into the tops of her breasts, and clinging to him as if he were a buoy. He pried Lola’s arm from around his head, kicked to the surface, and spit out the water in his mouth. “Relax,” he said into her panic-stricken face so close to his own. Their noses touched and they shared the same breath. “Relax or you’ll drown.”

Her mouth opened and shut, working to get the words out, but only a sob came from her chest.

“I can get us all to the back of the boat, but you have to relax and let me do the work. No more grabbing me and pushing me under. And keep your knee out of my chest.” He thought a second, then added, “If you knee my cojones, you’re on your own.”

She nodded and he handed her the dog. She held Baby’s head next to hers as Max wrapped his arm over her shoulder and across her breasts. He towed them toward the swimming platform, but she didn’t make it easy for him. She kicked him twice in the shins when she should have done as he’d said and let him do all the work. She twisted her head around to see where they were going and the top of her head bumped his bruised cheek. He pulled her back tight against his chest as he scissor-kicked in the water. This was the absolute last time, Max vowed as he reached a hand for the swimming deck, that he would jump into the Atlantic to save an underwear model and her worthless dog.

He hoisted Baby onto the back of the yacht, grabbed the boarding ladder from the platform, and pulled it down into the water. Getting up those steps was going to hurt like a son of a bitch, which was why he’d rigged the bucket and rope to bathe the day before. Lola started up first, her muscles sluggish, her grasp on the rail weak as if her hands were numb, which Max figured they were because she was hyperventilating real bad now. Her dress clung to her thighs and water ran down her smooth legs and the backs of her knees. He placed one of his hands on the curve of her wet behind and pushed.

Max went up after her, and he’d been right. Climbing the ladder hurt like hellfire. He lay on the platform, his pants soggy, and concentrated on slowing his breathing and controlling the pain in his side.

Lola sat next to him, clutching Baby to her chest, crying and gasping for air. If she wasn’t careful, she would pass out cold, which was one way to cure hyperventilation, he supposed. But there were other, less dramatic ways.

“Concentrate on taking slow easy breaths through your nose.” He wiped salt water from his face and he pushed himself to a sitting position. Other than a paper bag or passing out, taking slow breaths through your nose was the only way he knew to ease hyperventilation.

She looked at him as if he were speaking a mystery language, her brown eyes were wide with fear. “I can-can-can’t catch my br-breath.”

“Lay down with your arms above your head,” he instructed, and moved to give her room. When she stretched out, he told her again, “Close your mouth and breathe slowly through your nose.”

As her dog licked her face, she nodded and sucked a huge breath into her lungs through her mouth. Max had only hyperventilated once in his life, and he knew it wasn’t all that easy to control your breathing when you felt like you couldn’t get enough air. Ocean water lapped at the platform as he straddled her hips and shoved the wet dog out of his way. The buttons on her dress had popped open to her navel and droplets of water slid from the pink lace of her bra and pooled in her deep cleavage. Her breasts heaved with each breath, and Max placed his hands on both sides of her face. Ocean water clung to her lashes, and he stared deep into her eyes.

“Close your mouth,” he reminded her, and he had to give her credit for trying.

“I’m-I’m going to-to pass out,” she gasped.

“Concentrate on breathing only through your nose.”

“Ca-can’t.”

He thought about putting his hand over her mouth, but he figured she’d accuse him of trying to kill her. “Then concentrate on this instead,” he whispered, and, against his better judgment, lowered his face to hers. He told himself this wasn’t a kiss. He was helping her, forcing her to breathe through her nose so she wouldn’t pass out.

Beneath the pressure of his mouth, he felt her tense. She sucked in one last breath and held it as he lightly pressed his lips into hers. He brushed his thumbs across her smooth cheeks. “Relax now,” he whispered against her mouth. She put her hands on his shoulders and he thought she would push him away, but she didn’t. Her big brown eyes stared into his, and in a flash, the warmth of her palms spread across his bare skin. Pure lust sped like a wildfire through his blood and tighten his groin.

Whether it was for the taste of food or drugs or rum, Max hated weakness of any kind. He didn’t like to admit to having any weakness at all, but if he did have one, this was it. He had a weakness for the taste of a woman’s mouth and the feel of her face held within his hands. The catch in her voice, and the smell of her skin and hair.

Her lips parted as if she would speak.

“Breathe through your nose,” he reminded her, and his lips brushed against hers as he spoke. She tasted of sunshine and salt water and pure heaven. Women were such a mystery to him. They were illogical and often contrary to the point of being irrational, and yet there were times he craved the sound of their twisted logic. Just as there were times that he definitely craved the touch of their flesh beneath his hands and mouth and body. No doubt about it, a woman’s satiny places and warm curves were an intoxicating weakness, but one he’d always managed to control. He would control it this time, too.

“Max?”

“Hmm.”

“You’re not kissing me, are you?”

Max lifted his head and looked down into Lola’s face. He saw confusion in the slant of her brow, and alarm in her clear brown eyes, but not a trace of the same lust that beat low in his belly and had turned him half hard.

“No,” he said as he sat back on his heels. “If I were kissing you, you’d know it.”

“Good, because I don’t want you to get any ideas about me and you.”

“What ideas are those?” he asked, even though he guessed he already knew.

She sat up and pulled her feet beneath her. An ocean breeze picked up several strands of her drying hair. “I appreciate you saving Baby, but you and I will never become romantically involved.” She shook her head. “Never.”

There it was. A cold slap that cooled the warmth in his blood. The reminder that good old Max was good enough to save her butt, but not good enough to kiss her lips. At least Lola was honest about it.

“Honey, don’t flatter yourself,” he said as he put his hands on his thighs and stood. His ribs ached, and the cut on his forehead stung. “I don’t get romantically involved with anyone. Not even for you.”


* * *

Jumping in after Baby, Lola had lost her binoculars and signaling mirror in the Atlantic. And she wasn’t sure, but she thought she may have hurt Max’s feelings, too. She sat on the aft deck, huddled beneath a wool blanket he’d thrown at her. Waves slapped against the sides of the yacht as it rode the ocean current. The morning sun touched her cheeks and bounced off the white walls of the Dora Mae.

“I am grateful to you for saving Baby,” she said as she raised one hand to shield her eyes. Her dog’s wet fur tickled her chest and she hugged his shaking little body.

Without acknowledging her in any way, Max unpinned the wet Ace bandages around his chest.

“And me, too.” She’d never been a strong swimmer. Though, under normal circumstances, she was certainly competent enough to have made it to the back of the boat, but the thought of Baby drowning, scared and helpless, of him sliding beneath the waves as his little lungs filled with water, had stolen her breath, and she wasn’t so certain that she wouldn’t have drowned right along with her dog. And even if she had managed to get back to the swimming platform, Baby would certainly be dead if Max hadn’t dived in and saved him. She was pretty sure she’d insulted him, and after what he’d just done for her, she owed him more than that. “I’m sorry I insinuated that you were using the situation to kiss me.”