Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

chest. It was impossible to miss the defined muscles rippling beneath the material. He looked gorgeous to Rikki.
    Blythe stood up and backed up a couple of steps, her eyes wide with shock. Lev smiled at her and offered his hand.
    “I’m Levi Hammond,” he announced. Make certain you use Levi instead of Lev, he cautioned Rikki.
    Blythe reluctantly shook his hand, all the while looking at Rikki. She couldn’t have failed to notice his bare feet or the intimate way he brushed his hand through Rikki’s hair before toeing a chair close to her and straddling it.
    “Blythe Daniels,” Blythe muttered, and raised her eyebrow expectantly toward Rikki as she took her seat, a determined, almost alarmed, look on her face.
    “I’m hoping for the tender job on Rikki’s boat,” Lev announced.
    Rikki choked. She glared at him.
    I’m telling the truth.
    He sounded so innocent. She kept her face averted from Blythe. Damn the man. She could already see what was going to happen. He was going to use Blythe to manipulate her into letting him aboard her boat.
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    Her mouth tightened. “I told you, I don’t need a tender.” The moment the words left her mouth she knew she’d made a major mistake. If she’d just kept her mouth closed, Blythe would be concentrating on Lev’s dangerous look, not on whether she needed someone watching over her out at sea. And that was exactly how Blythe saw it. She knew nothing about urchin diving, but she wanted someone on board checking on Rikki’s safety. And Lev looked like the kind of man who could handle things.
    “Of course you need a tender,” Blythe objected, falling neatly into Lev’s trap. “I’ve told you so for a long time. It’s just much safer with someone up top looking out for you.”
    Behind the dark glasses Rikki rolled her eyes. Although she’d offered on the day of the wedding to go to sea with her, prior to that, Blythe had refused to even go out in the boat after the first time when she’d been so sick. The water had been calm the day Rikki had taken her out, but Blythe had been terrified. She was certain a great white was going to come up under the boat and take a big chunk out of it, or a giant squid would rise up and wrap its tentacles around the boat, dragging it beneath the sea. Now that the word was out that a methane gas bubble was suspected in the sinking of the yacht, Blythe had one more thing to worry about.
    “I don’t want to have to go rescuing some amateur,” she muttered.
    “I know how to dive,” Lev asserted.
    “Tenders stay in the boat.”
    “Which I have every intention of doing.” He managed to look pious.
    “Where did you meet?” Blythe asked, looking from one to the other.
    “Out at sea,” Lev said. “And we were sort of thrown together in the harbor. She was diving alone and I’m out of work. I know my way around a boat, so I was hoping it might work out for both of us.”
    He spoke in an easy, casual tone. Believable. Even Rikki believed him.
    How had he gone from scary, gun-toting killer man to cuddly puppy in five seconds? He was sprawled out, his face in the shadows of the porch, which somehow softened his edged features. He looked open and honest, although still tough and strong, which would appeal to Blythe. She would want someone tending the boat who appeared to be able to pull a whale out of the ocean. She didn’t understand sea urchin diving and what the very real risks were.
    Rikki took off her glasses and pinned him with her darkest stare.
    Blythe nudged her. “Stop trying to intimidate him.”
    “If he was on my boat, he’d be intimidated,” Rikki muttered.
    “Are you Rikki’s neighbor?” Lev asked, all chatty.
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    Rikki clenched her teeth together as she pushed her glasses back on her nose. She should have known he could pull out the charm. He was a chameleon, and she was beginning to get a sense of how lethal he could be.
    Blythe wasn’t a woman who could be snowed easily, and while she couldn’t say Lev was lying, he certainly was misleading, acting like a docile goldfish when he was a really a shark.
    Suddenly his head went up alertly. “Someone’s coming.”
    Rikki turned to look at the road, but she didn’t see any dust to indicate anyone was traveling on it. She waited a few heartbeats, and sure enough, a small cloud of debris shot into the air. Lev stood up—not exactly stood up, more like flowed to his feet, a graceful, fluid motion, more like a dancer than a big man.
    “Would you like