Clarisse had taken the time before she left to use the house phone to call an old high school friend who lived in Rapid City. She’d warned her old buddy that Bryan might come looking for her. Clarisse said she might head out that way, possibly to Spokane where another old friend lived.

Red herring. Isn’t that what they called it?

She closed her eyes and startled awake when the clerk called out to her.

Clarisse shuffled forward. “Tallahassee, please.” One more leg.

She’d checked the boards. Take a bus to Tallahassee or wait five more hours for one to Miami. The bus to Tampa left in three hours, but that was too close to her final destination for her comfort.

How many hours, days, since she left? Time blurred. She didn’t know for sure what day it was, only that she hadn’t slept in the twenty-four hours from when Bryan beat the crap out of her early Monday morning, until she stepped aboard the bus in Columbus early Tuesday. Or more than catnaps since. That meant it had to be at least late Wednesday.

She thought she dozed off on the bus. Either that or her mind had gone. On the last leg of her journey, exhaustion claimed what little fight remained in her.

“Where to?” the Tallahassee ticket clerk asked.

“Do you have anything to Tarpon Springs?” Clarisse swayed on her feet while the girl looked it up.

“I do, a bus going to St. Petersburg stops there on the way. It’s leaving in two hours.”

“Perfect.”

* * *

Clarisse hoped Uncle Tad still docked at the same marina. She didn’t dare use the disposable phone yet. She’d bought it on the way to the bus station in Columbus, wanted her calls slower to trace. Now, some time after midnight Thursday morning, Clarisse could barely speak due to exhaustion. The cabby dropped her off at the marina.

Clarisse sobbed with relief when she spotted the Dilly Dally docked in its berth. The fifty-foot fishing trawler was a beautiful sight.

Maybe the most beautiful sight in the whole world.

Oh, thank you God!

She didn’t have a plan B. This was her only plan, and it belatedly hit her she could have called the marina from Ohio.

It didn’t matter now. She was here, and so was the Dilly.

Clarisse slung her duffel bag and purse over her arm, yanked the handle on her large rolling bag, and carefully made her way down the familiar dock. She struggled with her bags, somehow muscled them on board without dropping them into the drink. Her hands trembled as she fished the keys out of her pocket. She studied the wheelhouse door lock.

Please, please, please…

She needed both hands to fit the key in the lock. Then she closed her eyes, and…

It turned.

Clarisse cried. She quickly dragged her bags through the door and into the wheelhouse and closed and locked it behind her. All the while, tears coursed down her cheeks. She pulled her stuff downstairs through the main cabin to the small bow V-berth cabin she used to use. Despite the tight fit, she wrestled her stuff inside and shut the door behind her. Cold inside, but warm compared to Columbus. She didn’t want to risk turning on lights or cranking the generator or engines to start the heater. Clarisse didn’t know if the Dilly was hooked to shore power, and, frankly, she felt too tired to look.

Apparently Uncle Tad had become a better housekeeper than he used to be. Otherwise, not much else had changed.

Clarisse left her jacket and sweatshirt on, fell onto the bunk, then sank into immediate darkness.

* * *

Her dreams took her back to high school, when she spent summers and weekends with Uncle Tad and Aunt Karen, learning how to shrimp, fishing, working on the boat, and enjoying herself.

Before she moved to Columbus with her mom and dad.

Before she met Bryan.

Before Aunt Karen and then later her parents died.

She hadn’t heard anything from her uncle in nearly two years. She worried maybe he’d moved or sold the boat. Calling him wasn’t an option because Bryan tightly controlled and monitored the home and cell phone bills. Before leaving Columbus, she’d risked calling Uncle Tad’s old phone number from Raquel’s cell phone. She received a disconnected number message.

She hadn’t told Raquel that, afraid her friend would talk her into not going to Florida on a potential wild-goose chase.

But the Dilly still sat here in her old slip.

At least something had gone right for her, finally. If she’d stayed in Columbus, anywhere within a thousand-mile radius of Bryan, he’d kill her. She believed that with every sore bone in her body.

Clarisse slept throughout the morning and straight through the day. She never even stirred when the boat gently rocked as two men climbed on board a little after five o’clock that afternoon.

Chapter Two

“So, Captain, what’s on the agenda?” Sullivan Nicoletto playfully asked his partner.

Brant MacCaffrey arched an eyebrow at him. “You’re a real ballsy guy for someone who’s stepping into my domain, aren’t you?”

Sully grinned. “You know I enjoy it, Mac.”

“You try to yank my chain, I might find a few new interesting ways for you to spend the weekend on the water.” He grabbed a box of groceries off the dock and handed it over the side to Sully.

“As long as I can pay you back on dry land, we’re copacetic.”

Sully winked, his grey eyes twinkling.

Mac cranked the diesels and let them idle. Fifteen minutes later, with everything stowed in the galley and their familiar routine complete, Mac checked the gauges and set the GPS. “Okay, go ahead and cast off. I want to be at the head marker before low tide hits.”

Sully untied the lines, neatly coiling and stowing them. Then he took his usual position on the gunwale as Mac smoothly steered the boat out of the berth.

“Clear?” Mac called out.

Sully kept his eye on the final piling. “Okay, now.”

Mac used the bow thrusters to turn them in the marina basin. They cleared the marina and idled down the Anclote River channel toward the Gulf of Mexico. An hour later, they motored into open water and watched the sun set on the horizon in front of them. With the closest vessel in sight more than several miles away, they were virtually alone. Mac set the autopilot and radar guard alarm before he turned to Sully.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

Mac held up a leather collar. “Don’t make me tell you.”

Sully rolled his eyes but reached for the collar.

“Oh, don’t even do the eye roll, buddy,” Mac playfully warned.

“That’ll earn you another ten.”

When Sully had the collar fastened around his neck, he turned so Mac could affix a small, silver lock to the buckle. “Now what?” Sully asked.

Mac pointed to the wheelhouse door. “You know what I want.”

Sully walked outside to the railing and bent over, placing his hands on it and spreading his legs. “Like this?”

After grabbing a couple of straps from a storage nook, Mac stepped behind Sully. “Damn straight.” With fluid, practiced movements, he securely bound Sully’s wrists to the railing.

Sully looked over his shoulder at Mac. “It’s cold out here.”

Mac pressed his body against Sully’s ass and gripped his lover’s hips. “Yeah, but you’re damn hot, buddy.” He reached around, unfastened Sully’s jeans, and shoved them down his hips. Sully had gone commando. His bare ass prickled with goose bumps in the chilly evening air.

Mac ran his hands over Sully’s ass and squeezed his cheeks.

“Gonna warm that up for you real fast.” He stepped to the side and spanked him, leaving the skin red and warm.

Sully tightly shut his eyes. “Don’t fucking tease me, man,” he groaned.

Mac laughed and ground his hips against Sully’s ass. “Payback’s a bitch, and so am I.” He reached around the other man again. This time he grabbed Sully’s hard, throbbing cock and squeezed it. “Doesn’t seem like the cold air’s bothering you too much.” Sully tried to rock his hips against Mac’s hand, but Mac squeezed even harder, which drew a pained moan from Sully. “Uh-uh. No you don’t. You get to come when I say so, and I’m not ready to let you do that yet.”

Sully groaned again.

* * *

Clarisse realized three things immediately upon awaking—the engines were running, from the way the boat rocked she knew they weren’t at the dock anymore, and that her entire body hurt like a motherfucker.

She groaned as she slowly sat up and scrubbed her face with her hands, then glanced at her cell phone to check the time.

Holy crap.

The fact that she’d slept more than twelve hours shocked what little sleep remained right out of her system. Despite protesting muscles, she opened the door to the small bow cabin and looked around below decks. No one in sight.

She started to mount the galley stairs to the wheelhouse when through the open wheelhouse door she caught sight of two men on deck. Neither her uncle. The one man…

Oh, shit.

She ducked, her heart racing and her muscles screaming at the sudden movement. In the dim light she couldn’t see them well, but they both looked hunky. A shorter, brown-haired one bent over the rail with his jeans shoved down past his ass, and the other…

Oh, baby!

Was that a collar around the brown-haired man’s neck?

The blond man ground his hips against the other’s bare ass. Then he unzipped his jeans and reached for something. She watched as the blond man slicked his cock with lube before sliding it inside the other man. Her throat went dry as she watched his firm, tight ass clench and relax as he thrust into his partner.