Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

mind.
    Her eyes darkened even more and she frowned at him as she shook her head. “No, Lev. I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay with me. What’s out there for you? Tell me that. Do you really want to live in the cold and dark, in the shadows, without a name or family?”
    “No. But I want you safe, Rikki.”
    She burst out laughing. “Are you insane? Look around you, Lev. I don’t live safe. I don’t need or want safe. I want to live life. If you don’t want me, that’s fine, but if you think you’re being all noble and protecting me, then just think again. You’re somebody here. You’re concrete, real, not insubstantial like a ghost.”
    228

    His hand curled in her wet hair, fisted there, drawing her slowly toward him until she was standing so close he could smell the ocean on her. “What am I going to do with you?” His hands framed her face. “I feel like you did the first time we made love. I don’t know the rules, Rikki. I’m in new territory.”
    She smiled at him, and he stroked caresses over her soft, curved lips with the pad of his thumb. The knots in his belly unraveled just a little.
    “Then we make up our own rules, Lev. Who you are, that’s safe with me. Stay, don’t slip back into the shadows. Just stay.”
    “It’s that easy?”
    Her dark eyes probed his until he swore she could see inside of him.
    “Yes.” She nodded, very solemn, making him shatter inside—and give her everything he was or would ever be.
    He didn’t want to leave her. He didn’t want to go back to being alone, not knowing right from wrong, having to make life and death decisions, watching torture and horror for a greater goal. He was tired. And he needed Rikki.
    “You’re sure? Be absolutely certain, Rikki. This could get ugly.”
    “I’m sure. And I’m hungry. Hand me a sandwich and tell me what happened.”
    A slow grin spread across his face. He liked that she was so pragmatic in the face of adversity. He found her a sandwich and they sat together while she ate hungrily.
    “I spotted a man I know. He cleans up messes, meaning he disposes of problems.”
    “And you’d be that problem.”
    He nodded.
    She twirled her sandwich in circles with her thumbs and index fingers.
    The movement was fascinating. She didn’t appear to notice she did it.
    “You knew he was going to come. He’ll ask questions of the people up and down the coast. Fisherman, divers, the people most likely to have seen a survivor.”
    He nodded. “Hospitals, clinics. He’ll be thorough.”
    “So hole up at the farm.”
    “Your sisters ...”
    She shrugged. “Won’t say anything. Judith and Airiana will read him like a book. There’s no reason for him to question any of them.”
    “You make it sound so easy, Rikki.”
    “It is easy. You stay out of sight, and he’ll go away and declare that you’re dead.”
    229

    “What about Ralph?”
    She took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. Washing the peanut butter down with water, she ate a couple of cookies before she answered.
    “He never actually saw your face that day. He’ll see Lev Hammond today, an old diving buddy.”
    He shook his head. “Not Lev. Don’t use that name. It’s Levi . A Russian name as common as Lev is bound to be a trigger. And we were more than diving buddies in the past.”
    She made a face at him. “ More than diving buddies? What does that mean exactly?”
    “It means you were such a little diving hussy, you were sleeping your way up and down the coast and I’ve had to come chasing after you again.”
    She opened her mouth to object and he kissed her. She tasted like peanut butter. He was beginning to think he might actually come to like the stuff. His hand bunched in the back of her hair, holding her in place and he kissed her again, just because he could.
    She blinked up at him, a small smile on her face. “There might be a few perks to being a diving hussy. Up and down the coast, hmmm?”
    His fingers tightened in her hair. “You just remember I carry a gun at all times.”
    “Ah, but now I know what that gun is for—killer fish.”
    She burst out laughing again, the sound floating around him like the droplets of fog, enveloping him in a misty, melodic embrace. It was a strange sensation, sharing her love of the water and the feel of moisture on his skin. Individual drops felt as if velvet tongues licked over his skin. The sensual stimulation was more than just sexual—it was elemental to life, feeding his energy,