Cut and Run 3 - Fish and Chips

would have been more concerned and active if they were in any imminent danger. So he shifted his arms to hold Ty closer and evened out his breathing as they gently ascended.
    They were making progress, though it was hard to judge how much more time it would take to get there. Zane knew one thing; Ty never would have made it to the surface if he’d been down there without help, especially not if Ty believed he had to ascend this slowly.
    When Ty took the mouthpiece once more, he drew a deep breath from it, then nudged his nose against Zane’s and kissed him again. This was a gentler kiss, a languid indulgence that could almost make Zane forget someone could be trying to drown them.
    When Ty broke it off, he looked up and took one more deep breath from the mouthpiece, and then he placed it carefully back in Zane’s mouth and dropped a few more of their weights. They rose faster, picking up speed as Ty began to kick toward the surface.
    When their heads broke the surface of the water, it was loud, the splash of the water against them and itself nearly deafening Zane for a moment. Ty gasped deep for air and yanked his mask off. He appeared just as relieved as Zane felt as he blinked away the water that streamed into his eyes. Zane jerked his mouthpiece out and looked around. They were about thirty yards from the dive boat, where one of the crew was waving at them. He turned to Ty and reached to take the empty tank off his shoulder.
    Ty batted at his pawing hands. “You can’t swim and hold onto it too,” he said in a harsh voice. Instead he reached out and yanked Zane’s mask off his head, both of them treading water with difficulty as the waves lapped at them. Ty didn’t say another word. He just pulled Zane closer and kissed him a third time as they bobbed in each other’s arms. Zane let Ty control it — and him — as they gasped for breath through the kiss, not letting go.
    When Ty finally pulled back, he lifted his chin out of the water and looked at Zane seriously over the gentle roll of the waves. “That’s for the air,” he gasped out, still slightly out of breath.
    “What the hell happened?” Zane asked.
    “I felt funny. Giddy. Not supposed to feel like that underwater. Come on,” he grunted, and he turned and began swimming with sure, powerful strokes toward the boat.
    After that kiss, Zane was about as out of breath as Ty had been. But he gamely started swimming after him.
    The crew had already helped Ty aboard the flat end of the craft when Zane reached it, and several strong hands gripped him and pulled him out of the water as well. He knelt beside Ty, who was taking in deep, grateful breaths of the warm Caribbean air.
    “I’m sorry,” he said to Zane as he reached out and patted his shoulder. He was speaking with the British accent, and after all that happened below the surface, it seemed wildly inappropriate. “I couldn’t let us surface too quickly. I was afraid we might be deep enough to risk the bends.”
    “So that’s what you were trying to say.” Zane shrugged out of the tank as one of the dive instructors took the weight from his shoulders.
    Ty shrugged in embarrassment, his cheeks reddening under his tan as another instructor knelt next to him to take his pulse. Worried, Zane reached out partway but stopped, then remembered he could touch his fake husband without looking odd. So he did reach out to touch the top of Ty’s thigh, then his cheek. “You okay?”
    “I’m fine,” Ty answered with a vigorous nod. He looked up and met Zane’s eyes for a moment, then turned his gaze to the woman kneeling beside him. “Bushed against the bottom down there. Suppose I knocked something loose,” he told the girl with a carefree laugh and an elegant shrug of his shoulders. It was enough to fool a stranger, and the woman smiled at him worriedly and helped him out of the useless tank.
    “It happens to the best of us,” she offered kindly. “At least you didn’t panic and had someone close enough to help you.”
    Zane ran his hands through his hair to slick it back and kept watch over Ty carefully. “We’ll just have to take it easy this evening,” he said, letting his hand drop lightly onto Ty’s knee. He knew he was venturing into touchy-feely territory, but damn it, what had just happened was scarier now, thinking about it, than it had been under the water holding Ty in his arms. He knew why Ty was keeping a lid on it, but he wanted to scream from the rooftops that