Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

her veins that he could swear her blood was ebbing and flowing with the rhythm of the waves. Joy burst through him, a foreign concept so alien, at first he had no idea what the indescribable feeling was. She gave him that—the gift of happiness.
    He watched a big male coming in and knew, just as Rikki did, that he was going to hit that chain of water, slapping it hard with his fluke so that water burst into the air, thousands of crystal droplets raining over them.
    Satisfied, the pod moved on, disappearing beneath the surface once more.
    “That was incredible.”
    She laughed and allowed him to help her up, moving against his body with a not so subtle signal. “Next time, I am wearing that skirt.” She kissed his chin and turned back to throttle the boat forward. ”If you keep watch, they’ll probably come up in anywhere from three to five minutes. They’ll blow in intervals of three to fifteen seconds before they raise their flukes and disappear. They’ll often stay under longer, but if you pay attention, you’ll notice a general pattern: ’
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    “You just throw that out there about the skirt and then change the subject to whales?”
    Her laughter teased his groin into a hard ache. He swore for a moment he could feel her fingers stroking him into a heavy erection. “We have work to do, my man.”
    He stepped up behind her, close, so his body was imprinted against hers, so she could feel him hard and thick, pressed tight against her. One arm circled her waist, and he rested his chin lightly on her shoulder. I like being your man. He couldn’t say such hokey words aloud, but the emotion inside of him spilled into her mind.
    She reached back with one arm to circle his head, turning hers so she could find his mouth. He kissed her long and deep, tasting love in the sweetness of her mouth. She broke away first, turning back to make certain they were on course. They were heading toward one of her favorite spots, just off Elk. She’d told him it was approximately nine miles away and she’d held off working there so she could get a good harvest.
    The ride took about a half hour and she never asked him to move until they were coming up on the place.
    “The cemetery is just up there,” she said, gesturing with her chin, a frown of concentration on her face. “Sometimes I feel the spirits are looking out for me.”
    He no longer had her attention and he stepped back to give her room.
    “Is this dangerous?”
    “Well, if you don’t know what you’re doing,” she admitted. “You have to know how to maneuver in here. The floor beneath us is virtually a mountain range. You see there’s not much rock showing here. There’s a three-hundred-foot drop from the road up there. The rocks are real close to the edge but they extend out suddenly about a thousand feet into the ocean.”
    While she talked, she maneuvered the boat carefully along a hidden path. “The northern end of the mountain is totally under water.”
    He peered below them, and his heart leapt. He could see rocks on either side of the boat beneath the surface of the water. A few jutted out, but most seemed to be out of sight. As they moved closer, little islands appeared, nothing more than rocks protruding out of the sea.
    “I’ll go down about twenty feet, right off those rocks, but I have to come in bow to current, so I can go down the chain, otherwise the flow takes me and the urchins away from the boat. This way I can use the current to my advantage.”
    Each of the little coves formed shelters in the rocks. The stacks were dotted with seals basking along the low-tide rookies. The seals’ spotted 217

    silvery gray and dark brown coats gleamed in the early sun as the mammals rested with their large bodies sprawled out on the rocks.
    “Look at them all. They really are cute up this close, but bigger than I expected.”
    She laughed. “They’re not so cute if you dive in one of their channels between the rocks. They don’t like it and aren’t shy about letting you know.
    All of a sudden they have teeth and claws, and you just get out of their way.
    Most of the time, they rocket past you when you’re down there and you have to ignore them. Never share your catch or they won’t leave you alone—they can get aggressive.”
    Lev studied the seals. They suddenly looked a lot larger than they had a couple of seconds earlier. “How big are they?”
    She shrugged casually. “They reach five or six feet in length and can weigh up to three