His Last Defense

One of the players landed a bull’s-eye and a deafening roar erupted.

“This late in the season?” Dylan asked once the noise died down. “The only guys you’ll get won’t have much experience, or references. Going out to sea, this time of year, with a green crew, is suicide.”

“Cod season’s over.” She drained her glass, needing the boost. “Some of those guys might be looking for work.” Dylan had a point, not that she’d heed it. Catching fish instead of crab wasn’t the same thing at all. Not even close.

“Why are you doing this? Taking these chances?”

She shrugged. “It’s not chance when you know what you’re doing.” All the confidence she’d gained from her accomplishments filled every syllable, full and weighty. She wasn’t the same woman he’d left nine years ago, not that he seemed to recognize that.

“You shouldn’t have been out in that storm yesterday.”

“Weather reports didn’t predict it’d jog that far west.”

“You gambled.”

“To get ahead, you have to.” Seeing him revert back to the by-the-books, all-work-no-play guy bugged her. “You know, you and I aren’t that different,” she added, when he didn’t speak. There was a brief silence. She looked at him, but was discomfited by the intensity of his gaze.

“What do you mean?” Their fingers brushed each other as they searched for unshelled peanuts in the bowl, the contact making her skin tingle in awareness.

“We both like living on the edge—we just went after that in different ways.”

He stared at her for such a long moment, she wondered if he’d heard her. The crowd around the dart game swelled and a few pressed close to their table, jostling Dylan’s elbow, making his drink slosh onto the surface.

He threw a couple of twenties on the table, stood and extended a hand.

“Let’s go,” he said. It was more a command then an invitation. Maybe his sense of humor had slipped lately, but not that air of authority, that strength that’d always drawn her. Challenged her. Turned her on.

She jammed on her knit cap, slipped a hand in his and let him lead her through the crowd, the group parting, making way for his broad-shouldered march. “Where?”

He paused at the door outside, lifted their hands and rubbed hers lightly against his chest, sending sizzles of excitement shooting through her. His voice deepened.

“Somewhere I can actually talk some sense into you.”

* * *

OUTSIDE, THE CHILL shimmered off the frozen ground but did nothing to tamp down the heat Nolee’s nearness stoked inside Dylan. Dressed in a blue fleece and faded jeans that outlined her delectable curves, and work boots that underscored her tough-girl persona, she drew his eye. Kept him looking as they tramped across the icy parking lot.

A ragged plume of air escaped him. Being this close to her, alone, was playing with fire. He was having a hard time keeping his hands to himself. Yet he needed to make her see reason.

And satisfy the drumming hunger to have her to himself for a few moments, one last time, before he shipped out of Kodiak.

“My truck’s over here.”

Nolee spotted a red pickup that must be his, and she looked at him directly. The wind lifted and tossed long dark strands of her hair across her lips, luring his attention to their fullness, making him remember the soft feel of them against his yesterday. Driving him to want another taste.

“Okay.”

A moment later they were seated on the plush seats, the ignition purring to life. Heat blasted from the vents and an old-school thrash band tune thumped in the dark, intimate space.

“I remember this song,” Nolee mused, shooting him a sidelong glance.

When she rubbed her gloveless fingers together, he raised his hands to hers, touching them, and then, more firmly, enclosing them within his own. He brought them to his mouth and blew on them, unable to resist the impulses pounding through him.

Her liquid eyes rose to his and the challenge in them made his stomach muscles tighten, his whole body respond.

It took every ounce of strength to tamp down his desires and focus on what he’d brought her out here to say. What he needed her to hear.

“There’s a difference between calculated risks and recklessness,” he began. His voice emerged husky, low. She was so close he could feel her breath. Her body was rigid, listening, her fingers now laced in his. Her cool skin was blistering.

“We both like putting everything on the line. Admit it.” Her mischievous smile kicked up his heart rate by several blood-pounding notches. She smelled like an ocean sunrise and he breathed deep.

“Not true.” He lowered their joined hands to her lap. She was wrong. He wasn’t the wild risk-taker his parents saw him as—she really was that way, not him.

“Come on,” she scoffed in that tone that’d always called him on his bullshit. “Remember the time we jumped from Jagged Rock Falls? You took my dare.”

He nodded mutely, recalling that twenty-foot leap into churning waters, her body pressed to his afterward, behind the roaring falls. The material of his jeans tightened around his swelling groin. “I could never say no to you.”

He brushed a thumb along her knuckles and a visible shiver passed over her skin.

“You should have,” she whispered against his cheek, straight into his ear. His whole body hummed with unleashed hunger for her, not heeding the warning reminder in her words when he damn well should have. He forced himself to let go of her hand.

The music shuffled to another one-hit wonder hair band tune and she tensed beside him. “Is this the...”

He gritted his teeth to keep the telling admission from escaping. Then she snapped her fingers beneath his nose and shot him a knowing look. “It’s the playlist I made for you for your nineteenth birthday. Why are you still listening to this?”

“Some things have a way of sticking with you.”

The teasing look in her eyes faded and she blinked a little too swiftly before she dropped her gaze.

They sat in silence for a moment and he stared out the windshield at the point where the black sea met the sky.

“You didn’t object when I dared you to jump in our ice fishing hole, either,” she said after a moment.

“We nearly froze to death.”

“We warmed each other up,” she countered.

The buzz of blood in his veins at that wicked memory seemed to throb along to the thumping beat. “We made good use of that fishing shack.”

He caught the quirk of her lips in the gloom. “Though we didn’t catch a single fish. Not that we cared.”

No. He’d only cared about Nolee back then. Had insisted, over her objections, that he would give up everything, his dreams of joining the Coast Guard, of leaving Kodiak, because she’d been what mattered most.

And she hadn’t felt the same way.

The windshield began to fog and he flipped the heater to defrost. A couple of snowmobiles whined in the distance and a memory resurfaced. “We stole that ski-doo.” He felt himself smile at that crazy day that’d nearly landed them in the ER and jail.

“Borrowed,” she clarified, shifting, her knee bumping his. He was aware of the press of her against his side, hip to hip, leg to leg, arm to arm.