Chapter 4

The Raft

Hard arms dragged me under and then out of the water, leaving my frozen gloves behind. I belatedly realized that they'd frozen because they were wet, and I'd grabbed onto a piece of metal. Maybe I wasn't dead yet, but I sure felt like it when my head was jerked under the water-if death was pain and frigid misery, that is.

The next thing I knew, I was shoved hard up onto the top of the floating fishing dock. Michael crawled up beside me, steam rising off of him like a cloud. Unlike me, who lay there sluicing water like a dog being shaved at the pet parlor.

All of that was fine. It was great. Maybe, just maybe, now that I was out of the water, I had a prayer of survival. Except that my wet clothes weren't getting any warmer-or any lighter. That wasn't good, and somewhere in my befuddled mind, I knew it. Despite that, when Michael started to pull my clothes off, I still protested; visions of rape and mayhem flashing through my mind like a freight train crossing a busy road and shoving all the cars out of the way to forge its own passage.

"Stop it, Kim. If we don't get these off, you'll die. You may already have frostbite."

Now I had visions of amputated, black feet rolling through my head. So I let him strip me until I was curled up in a tiny little ball, shivering and clattering my teeth together like castanets tied to a Jack Russel Terrier's tail.

A few seconds later, I realized that he was stripping, too. That, my friend, was a sight to behold. Even lying there near death, it was hard not to stare. The guy is just ripped; absolutely torn up. Muscles everywhere, and if the man has an ounce of fat on him, you couldn't prove it by me.

I was dying, why not enjoy it? Unfortunately, I didn't get more than a few seconds of ogle time before reality reinserted itself into my brain in the form of a wave that crashed over the side of the dock and splashed me with tiny droplets of water. In my naked state, that was enough to feel like little spikes and I think I whimpered at the pain. That water was barely above freezing, and so was I.

Michael lay down next to me, shushing me. "It's okay, honey. You're going to be okay."

And here's how stupid, pathetic, and desperate I am. I was going to die happy, because the hottest man I'd ever met had just called me 'honey'. Ahhhh... bliss.

He wrapped his arms around me, and I swear to you, as God is my witness, he was soooo warm. Heat seeped into me from him, making the side he wasn't lying against feel that much more cold. I found myself curling into him, trying to get as much of my body against as much of his as possible, while my teeth continued to clatter loudly.

"There you go." His voice was soothing and low, not his usual snarl when talking to me. "Good girl." He pulled me closer, adjusting us so that our bodies were locked together tightly-not as tightly as I'd daydreamed, mind you, but tightly.

He put his hand on the side of my head and it was hot, almost painfully hot.

"Y-y-y-you're so warm." It came out a shivery whisper, cut up by the shivers that continued to wrack my body.

He chuckled at me. It was a surprising sound; I realized I'd never heard him laugh before. "Some people tell me that I'm like a furnace."

I could see why. His body, pressed against my back as he spooned me, radiated heat that bordered on pain. The arm he had wrapped around my belly was just as hot. "You're m-m-m-more like an inferno."

He grew so still that for a moment, I feared I'd said something wrong without meaning to. This, my friend, is why I don't date. Well, part of why. I say stupid things and never know why they were stupid. Even after the fact.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked after a few heartbeats.

"N-n-n-no." I finally managed to spit the word out between teeth I simply couldn't still. "Feels nice." I said the last words as fast as I could, so that they came out almost as a single one.

He ran his hand down my belly and along my thigh. It was so warm that it left a burning path where it went, and after a minute or so, I started steaming, too, my skin far warmer than the air around us. Minutes ticked by, and my teeth quit chattering so hard. I actually started sweating where his body was pressed against mine.

"Micheal." I tried to turn my head so that I could look into his eyes, but the strong hand on my head stopped me. Not in time, though. His eyes had that look again; that look like there was something inside his pupils.

He shushed me, but I ignored him. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. You're still in danger, Kim. I can't keep all of you warm." He turned me towards him, and his eyes were clear, honey hazel again with wide black pupils.

He pulled me close, wrapping my leg over his thigh and pillowing our heads together on his arm. We were inches from each others' faces. My heart started to hammer as I stared into his gorgeous face. He looked young to me, probably a few years younger than me, which made it feel rather wrong to be thinking the way I was now thinking. Especially with my ass poking out into the frigid air and feeling somewhat like it was about to be frozen off.

"You shouldn't have come, Kim." He sounded stern, but his hand pushed my hair back gently, almost a caress.

A girl can daydream.

"I know. I was just trying to help, but it was a stupid thing to do."

"How did you know I would be here?" I heard the other questions he didn't voice. How I knew what he was, and why he was coming to Lenny's tonight.

"Well, I've been meaning to tell you. You really shouldn't have such private conversations out in the parking lot. I've overheard so much just standing in the trash enclosure, you wouldn't believe it. You'd think that someone would have the sense to check it before blabbing all of their secrets."

He stared at me, blinking those perfect hazel eyes. I've never seen eyes like that. They really looked like honey, and they even seemed to swirl like that sweet elixir does when it's slow-stirred.

"Why do you hate me?" I know, brave, huh? Or stupid.

In typical man fashion, he answered my question-it was clearly a question, wasn't it?-with another question, "Why do you work for a criminal, especially since you know he's a criminal?"

I shrugged, which was a mistake, because it made my breast move against him, which made my mouth water. I was already hyper aware of him, but that motion made me almost feel crazed. To make matters worse, I felt his body react, too; solid evidence rising between us.

"He was the only one that would give me a job. I have to choose between paying my bills or starving so I can refuse to work for a criminal. I have a son to take care of; I'm picking my bills."

His hand was smoothing my hair away from my head, and I realized it was almost dry already, which was obviously impossible. His eyes held mine, and the stroking of my hair combined with that made me feel slightly giddy.

"I don't hate you. You're hard working, you're courageous, you're loyal. You run the floor of that restaurant with surprising diplomacy. You're also responsible, except when it comes to sticking your nose into other people's business." He said the last with a slightly quirky grin that melted my heart.

I was guilty of the last for sure; I'm not sure who he was saying the rest about, but she sounded pretty cool. "I don't run the floor."

"Oh honey, you run that floor like nobody's business."

Yep, he called me 'honey' again, and I wasn't even dying this time. But he still had me confused with someone else. "You don't know what you're talking abo-"

His fingers had left my hair and were now tracing across my lips, cutting me off mid-sentence. "False modesty isn't attractive, Kim."

What a jerk! I scowled at him. "It's not-"

He cut me off again, but not with his fingers. His lips touched mine, his hot and sleek-mine surprised and fascinated. It was a light kiss, his tongue tracing first one lip and then the other. When I kissed him back-because, hello, it was Michael, and it wasn't like I'd have another chance to be kissed by him and still be able to pretend that I was half out of my mind when I did it-his hand buried into my hair and pulled me closer against him.

He deepened the kiss and then rolled me over so that I was under his glorious, naked, hot body. The wood under me was warmed from us lying on it together, and his body over me was all heat and magic. I felt the warmest I had since being shoved under the water, but I barely noticed it, because the epicenter of my focus was Michael.

Alas, here my story ends, for I had died, and I was now in heaven. Sweet blissful ecstasy was mine for eternity.

That is until it was interrupted by catcalls. "Nice ass!" and other such comments that I won't relate here.

So much for heaven. I guess I was very much alive, and Michael was being ribbed by a bunch of guys on a boat floating only a couple of feet from us. I'd never even noticed them approaching.

Michael shifted away from me. "Throw us a damned blanket already, and have some gods-damned manners, you apes."

One of the guys cursed, apparently surprised to see my head under Michael's. I guess they thought Michael had four arms and four legs... idiots. But a moment later, to my relief, a gray wool blanket was ripped from a package and thrown onto Michael. And, by extension, onto me, because I felt it land, and it was strangely sexy to feel the impact through another person's body.

It wasn't until Michael got up, carefully wrapping me in the blanket so no one would see my nudity, that I realized how much I had missed the feeling of a man's skin against my own. I felt empty and lonely without his touch, and cold without his extraordinary heat.

He helped me up onto the boat, which was surprisingly huge. It even had a cabin. It definitely should have been out of the water by this point in the year. I felt him swing up behind me. One of the other guys was leading me towards the cabin, but stopped to look back.

"How are you?" a different one of them asked. He was tall, with dark hair. He looked enigmatic, and I found him unsettling. I didn't realize I was staring at him until I heard Michael's voice behind us.

"Hungry." It sounded guttural, Michael's voice rough and snarly.

A shift took place in the men around me. All of them seemed to stiffen slightly, and several took a step back; including the guy holding my arm to escort me into the cabin.

I glanced back and saw that Michael's eyes were glowing. I also realized that these men knew him and were afraid of him. I don't know if he saw me look back or not, but I admit that I didn't dawdle when I followed my guide into the inside of the boat. The tension in the men around me was a dense fog that curled in around me with near physical presence.