“Nothing.”

“You can’t mean that. We have to do something!”

He lowered the binoculars, and through the darkness he looked into her eyes, but he remained silent.

“Please Max. Please do something.”

He continued to stare at her, and she was just about to plead again, when he finally said, “Get the remaining flares in the emergency kit. The gun is sitting on the table,” he continued, his deep voice cool and calm. “And turn on every light you find.”

If Max was calm and cool, Lola was the opposite. She rushed to the closet and grabbed the three remaining flares. She flipped on the light switches in the stateroom and both bathrooms. On her way back out, she snatched the gun off the table. “Is it still there?” she asked, out of breath as if she’d just done an hour on a treadmill.

“Yes, but it needs to move closer.”

“How close?”

“As close as possible.”

Her mouth was dry and she licked her lips.

“Lola?”

“Yes.”

“Take deep even breaths.”

Yeah right. “Okay.”

“If you hyperventilate again, you’re on your own.”

She placed a hand on her chest and pulled air deep into her lungs. She did not want to hyperventilate, pass out, and miss being rescued. “Is it moving closer?”

“Yes.” It seemed to Lola as if five minutes passed before he handed her the binoculars and she gave him the flare gun. “Stand back. I don’t know if this thing will work.”

Lola moved to the starboard side and watched through the darkness as Max loaded the gun.

“Call your dog,” he said, and once she held Baby close, Max raised his arm and fired. Nothing happened. “Fuck.” He pulled the hammer back once more and fired. This time a red ball shot from the barrel, the blast of the twelve-gauge shell louder than she remembered. The flare traveled at a ninety-degree angle for thirteen hundred feet before erupting like the Fourth of July. It lasted for six brilliant seconds, then burned itself out.

“It worked!” Too excited to stand still, Lola crossed the deck and looked out at where she knew the other vessel to be. “How long before they get here?”

“Not long, if they saw the flare.”

“How can they miss it?”

He took the binoculars from her, and she looked up into his face. Light from the interior spilled out onto the deck, and she noticed the grim line of his mouth. For a man who was about to be rescued he didn’t appear excited. “If they’re not looking for it, quite easily.” He raised the binoculars to his face and stared out at the Atlantic.

“Are they coming this way?” she asked, although she refused to believe that the other vessel hadn’t spotted the flare.

Without a word, he moved to the starboard side.

“Are they coming this way, Max?” she repeated as Baby jumped from her arms.

“It doesn’t look like it.” He lowered the binoculars and loaded the gun. The second flare fired on the first try and lit up the sky.

Lola took the binoculars and raised them to her eyes, but no matter how hard she looked, she saw no distant light hiding among the waves. “Where is it?”

“It’s traveling east, probably to Andros or Nassau.”

“I don’t see it.”

“That’s because it’s moving away from us now.”

“Fire another flare.”

“We should save the last one for when we drift closer to an island.”

“No!” She reached for the gun. Max wouldn’t release it. “They’ll see it this time and come back,” she protested. “Please, Max.”

Within the deep shadows and slices of light, Max looked down at her. Then, without a word, he loaded the gun and raised his arm. Like the other two, the third flare traveled at a ninety-degree angle and exploded in a red ball of fire.

“They had to see that one.” Lola closed her eyes and said a quick prayer. She promised God a lot of different things. She promised to pray more often- even when she didn’t need anything-and she ended by promising to attend Uncle Jed’s new church, a real Pentecostal bible-banger, complete with tent and miraculous healings.

When she looked through the binoculars again, she half expected to see the distant light once more. She saw nothing but the black pitch and roll of the Atlantic. “How could anyone with legal vision miss seeing those flares?”

“It’s late and everyone is probably inside. Unless someone is standing on the deck looking up, they would miss it quite easily.”

She strained her eyes looking for anything. A dim light, a shadow on the water.

“Lola, they’re gone now.”

“Maybe we just can’t see them turning around.” She heard Max and Baby move into the galley and return a few moments later. Her arms began to tire, but she refused to give up. She refused to think that she’d been so close to a rescue, only to have it slip away.

Max peeled one of her hands off the side of the binoculars and wrapped her fingers around a cool glass.

“Take a drink of water, Lola. You’re about to hyperventilate again.”

She wasn’t, but she finally lowered the binoculars and took a drink anyway. The cool liquid wet her dry tongue and throat and she downed it all at once.

“There will be other vessels,” he told her as he took the glass from her.

Lola looked into his face and burst into tears. Appalled, she pressed her hand to her mouth, but she could not stop the pent-up emotion and crushing disappointment from escaping. The more she tried, the harder it became to control until she was caught somewhere between uncontrolled sobs and hiccups. “I want that one, Max.”

He reached for her and pulled her into his broad chest. “Shhh, now. It’ll be okay.”

“No, it won’t,” she cried into the denim material covering his shoulder, finally giving in. “I want to go home. My family must be crazy with worry.” She shook her head and looked up into his dark face. “My daddy has high blood pressure and this will kill him for su-sure.” She curled her fists into the front of his shirt. “I want to go home, Max.”

He stared down into her face and brushed his warm palm up her spine. “I’ll make sure you get home,” he said. Then, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, he lowered his mouth to hers.

“How?” she asked against the soft brush of his lips.

“I’ll think of something.” Then he kissed her.

This time there was no question of his intent. The firm press of his lips to hers made his intentions perfectly clear. He wasn’t helping her breathe, and he wasn’t asking permission. His finger plowed through the sides of her hair, brushing it back from her face and lifting it from her shoulders. He held her face in his palms, tilted her head back, and took advantage of her parted lips. His tongue swept into her mouth, warm and slick, instantly possessive and consuming. Lola wanted to be consumed. She wanted to forget about the rescue vessel slipping farther away, her family, her career, the humiliation of Sam’s porno site, and whether she would die out here. She wanted Max to take away the disappointment and fear that were so real they griped her throat. Within his embrace, she wanted him to make her believe everything would be okay.

The binoculars fell from Lola’s grasp, and she ran her hands down his shirt, then back up again, feeling beneath her palms the sold wall of his chest, the bunch and flex of his ripped muscles responding to her touch, the overwhelming strength of him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and raised onto the balls of her bare feet. One of his hands slid to the small of her back and brought her closer. The ridge of his erection pressed into the crease of her thigh and pelvis, and the kiss immediately turned hotter, wetter. With their mouths and tongues, both of them fed the desire running through their veins and threatening to consume them.

Like the flare Max had shot into the night sky, the kiss burned hot and intense and raised the tiny hairs on her arms and the back of her neck. It spread to the places her body touched his, her belly, breasts, and hands. To the places untouched, her behind, down the backs of her legs, her toes.

The yacht rode the waves of the ocean, pitching the deck starboard before righting once again. Max spread his feet wide and let the natural rise and fall of the yacht grind his hard penis against her. The erotic rhythm drew a deep groan from his chest and left her aching for more.

He slid his moist mouth to the side of her throat, and Lola leaned her head to one side to give him better access. The tip of his tongue touched her ear, then he whispered her name, a warm caress filled with rough longing. He worked his way to the base of her throat and paused to suck the sensitive flesh in the hollow as one of his hands unbuttoned her shirt. Before Lola could decide if she wanted her blouse removed, he peeled her shirt from her shoulders, down her arms, to her elbows.

A fleeting thought about quick hands flitted through her head as he kissed a warm path across her collarbone. Then one of those fast hands found her breast through her bra. She sucked in her breath as her nipple instantly hardened in his hot palm, and she knew she’d better stop him before they went too far.

“Lola,” he whispered against her neck, and instead of stopping him, she raised his head and brought his mouth back to hers. His hand tightened possessively on her breast, then relaxed. Through the lace of her bra, he brushed his palm across her nipple. Perhaps she did not want to stop. Maybe she wanted to go wherever Max would take her. There was something about him. Some elusive thing she chased with her tongue. Something hot and vibrant and bigger than she. Something that turned the pit of her stomach hot and hungry. Something dangerous that made her want to shed her morals along with her clothes. She moved her hands to the front of his shirt and pushed the denim apart. In the grip of a wild hunger she hadn’t felt in a very long time, she combed her fingers through the short fine hair on his chest, her other palm skimming the hard muscles of his stomach. Max Zamora was intriguing and frightening. Brute strength and supreme confidence. He was physical perfection.