Lord of Devil Isle Read Free Page B

expected.
    “Anyone hurt?” he shouted.
    The screamer whimpered.
    “Not yet,” the one trying to pacify her said. “Get us out of here.”
    As if he wasn’t trying.
    “My men can pull two of you to safety at a time.” Theweight of the three of them would likely drag the women under. “Grab this rope and hold on!” he ordered the most sensible one of the bunch. In addition to a level head, she had fine features and high cheekbones—a bone-deep beauty that would only ripen with age.
    “Not bloody likely,” she said. “You’ll take Sally and Penny first.” Her lovely eyes were wide, but her voice didn’t waver. She looped the cable around the other two. “Pen, grab hold of the rope.” She forced the screamer’s hands around the line. “Sally, shut up and hold fast.”
    Nick wasn’t used to being countermanded, but there was no time to argue.
    “Whatever happens, don’t let go,” he said to the quaking pair.
    He waved both hands over his head and the rope drew taut. The women shot across the surface like a corsair under full sail. Nicholas spotted a fin trailing them. The big tiger shark was back.
    “Make some noise,” he said to the woman clinging to the hatch beside him.
    “What?”
    “Scream, wench, or your friends are nothing but shark bait.”
    That got her attention. She yowled like a cat with its tail caught under a rocker. She flailed her arms and legs, splashing and whooping.
    “Good. Keep it up,” Nick bellowed.
    As he expected, the fin slowed and turned. Given a choice, a shark would always pick an injured target over one moving smoothly through the water, and the beauty beside him seemed like she was mortally wounded all right.
    The shark headed straight for them.
    The woman stopped screaming and loosed an impressive string of expletives.
    “What part of this is a good idea?” she demanded.
    “This.” Nick pulled her close and planted a hard, wet kiss on her mouth. His only regret was that he must be brief. Nothing like a spot of danger with a beautiful woman who knows her way around profanity to make a man feel achingly alive.
    He flashed her a quick grin, then looked back toward the oncoming shark. She had enough grit in her gullet for two of his men, but her lips were butter soft. With any luck at all, he’d have time to explore that sweet mouth with greater leisure later. Who knew what outlandishly wicked things a grateful woman might do for a man who faced a shark for her?
    Unless this night’s work claimed him.
    The fin sped up and sank.
    He was out of time now.
    “Tuck your knees to your chin and be still. Wait for my men to haul you to safety.”
    Nick took a couple quick breaths, then dove down to meet the shark.
    “Wait!” Eve gasped as the man’s feet disappeared with a final kick. A wave smacked her in the face and once it passed, she’d lost track of where he’d gone down. The shouts of the men in the jolly boat were louder now. She glanced up in time to see her friends being reeled in to safety.
    She tucked up her knees, as the man had ordered. He might be a fool to attack a shark with nothing but a knife, but his advice made sense. Her broad skirts swirled in the water beneath her like jellyfish tendrils.
    Something passed below her, catching and tugging at the trailing muslin. It sucked her down for a heartbeat.Water shot up her nose and brine burned the back of her throat. Panic grasped her belly. Then she was suddenly free and bobbed back up, clawing at the surface. The hatch cover was nowhere to be seen.
    The inky sea thrashed around her, the water mounding up. Then as a bolt of lightning jagged across the sky, the shark breached beside her, its body glistening silver in the moonlight, its mouth a gaping maw.
    The man clung to one fin, his legs wrapped around the cylindrical body. His other hand sliced the knife along the shark’s belly. Blood streamed black against its smooth skin. They slapped the surface and sank with a mighty flip of the shark’s tail,