to sea sucked at her legs and lower torso. It was all she could do to hang on to Tom’s raft and ride the surface waves to shore.
But then she could stand up, no more than thigh-deep. Even when a big wave came in, she was able to jump into it and land mostly back on her feet. She dragged Tom the last few feet to shore on his floating pallet. Without the sea’s buoyancy to hold him, he abruptly was unbelievably heavy. But she had to get him far enough out of the water so he wouldn’t drown.
Using the piece of metal backing still attached to the cushion as a sort of sled, she dug in her heels and leaned back, pulling on his inert form with all her strength. By inches, she managed to wrestle him up the beach to what seemed a safe distance from the water.
They’d made it.
Relief making her even shakier than she already was, she knelt down on her hands and knees to check him for injuries. Not that there was a whole lot she could do about it even if she had found something wrong with him, but it seemed like the thing to do. She ran her hands over his bare legs…they were muscular and hard. Under the tattered remnants of his short-sleeved shirt, the guy had an impressive set of shoulders. She didn’t find any obvious broken bones or cuts.
The guy sure was in great shape—and shaped great. Were she not so exhausted, hardly able to keep her eyes open, she’d have enjoyed drinking her fill of the sight of him. As it was, a thrill of…something…tingled through her palms and throughout her body at touching him like this. It was terribly personal. So…intimate.
Despite getting felt up by her, he remained unconscious. A head injury, maybe? She pressed her ear to his chest to listen to his heart, and its beat was a slow, steady thump beneath her ear. Stymied as to what to do for him, her own exhaustion finally overcame her. Shivering, she stretched out on the warm sand beside him, pressing the length of her body against his solid, reassuring heat. Mmm. Nice. She laid her head on his shoulder. Whether she passed out or merely fell asleep she couldn’t say as the darkness closed in around her, sucking her down, down, into nothingness.
Tom roused slowly. His first sensation was of a splitting headache. And then pain. Grinding slowly through his entire body. He must’ve gone on a hell of a bender to feel this bad. He was wet. And lying in sand. He struggled to sort through the fog enveloping him. Something heavy was sprawled across him.
And that something was soft. Curvy. Intensely feminine. Hello. He made a habit of never picking up women when he went on a binge. He hated not remembering anything about them the morning after, not their name, nor where he’d met them or even what they’d done together. But apparently he’d broken his rule.
He lifted his impossibly heavy arm and looped it around the woman’s tiny waist. Her toes tickled his shins, and her head rested on his shoulder. She felt small against him. Fragile. That was odd. He never went for the petite, delicate ones. They usually made him feel big and awkward and clumsy.
He cracked one eye open. The sky overhead was black. Turbulent. Looked like bad weather brewing. Groggy recollection swam through his head, half-understood. Something about a storm coming.
His brain might not be working, but his ears were. A sound not of the night registered. The ocean was rumbling like a ticked-off Rottweiler to his left. But this noise came from his right. From the shoreside. A rhythmic whoosh of sand, too slow for someone walking at normal speed. But if that person were creeping cautiously toward a threat of some kind, the measured noises were about right.
Instinct roared through him. Danger!
The man crouched in the shadows, stunned. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing! After all the publicity, all the news coverage, this pair in front of him had the temerity to roll around like a couple of savages on a beach?
For the past few weeks—ever since the last cleansing of souls he’d undertaken—the beaches he prowled had been satisfyingly deserted. Pure. This part of the world was unbelievably sinful. Tucked far away from most of the world, the South Pacific attracted people who wanted to hide their dirty affairs.
The woman in front of him moved, draping herself even more blatantly across her lover. Rage exploded behind his eyes, sending ice picks of unbearable agony through his skull. He grabbed his head with both hands to keep it from splitting in two.
Must. Stop. The. Pain.
He fumbled at his waist blindly, feeling for God’s instrument of punishment. His palm caressed the form-fitted rubber grip, his loyal and trusty friend. His vision cleared, and the sinners—all but naked—writhed before him.
Usually, he waited until they were lost in the throes of their sin, but these two were taking too long, and the pain in his head…ah, God, the pain…he couldn’t take it anymore….
He moved farther out of the shadow of the trees, one cautious step at a time.
Tom struggled to rip away the gauze obscuring his brain, to bring himself to full battle alert. But his head wouldn’t cooperate. And his body responded even more sluggishly. He flailed against the awful feeling of paralysis gripping him.
Threat! He didn’t question the intuition. It had saved his neck and his clients’ more times than he could count. If only his body and mind would obey him…he silently cursed himself.
With effort, he managed to slit his right eye open enough to make out a pale ankle protruding from a khaki pant leg. It was hairy. Male, then. Caucasian. Easing forward, rolling from heel to toe with each careful step, like a hunter stalking his prey.
The screaming voice of caution in Tom’s head was deafening. Trouble! Warning! Wake up! But still, his mind and body steadfastly refused to answer the call. He felt drugged, unable to swim free of the haze of it.
The feet stopped maybe six feet away.
Below the crashing noise of the sea, a male voice muttered something just beyond the edge of Tom’s hearing, syllables that didn’t quite form meaning in his sluggish mind. But the tone of voice was unmistakably hostile, dripping in vitriol.
Tom forcibly readied himself for action, ordering his muscles into a state of relaxed readiness. He was probably deluding himself that they would react with any semblance of speed or accuracy to his commands. But his threat-response training had been drilled into him so deeply over the years that even now, barely conscious, mind and body went through the motions.
The woman, perhaps because of his arm tightening about her waist, moved against him, a sinuous, sexy stretch across his sprawled body that would have riveted him had it not been for those feet paused in the sand so close.
“Whore,” the voice gritted out. “Sinners.”
Blank incomprehension was all Tom’s mind could muster to the unexpected words. But as he regained his senses bit by bit, he became aware of evil radiating from the stranger. Malice rolled off the man in waves as every bit as powerful as the ocean’s fury beside them.
The guy leaped.
In sheer reflex, Tom exploded into motion, rolling away from the pouncing attack, carrying the girl with him, covering her protectively with his body, presenting his back to the attacker. Something slashed past him, burying itself in the sand where they’d been lying, not a second before. Agonizing pain sliced across his back. His skin melted like butter before a hot knife. A knife. The bastard had just cut him!
Tom surged up onto his hands and knees, driven by the pain, some primitive part of his brain taking over completely. On pure instinct, he leaped to his feet and whirled, dropping low into a fighting crouch, his hands outstretched before him. Killing rage roared through his brain. This wasn’t fight or flight. This was kill or be killed. Fury erupted from his throat in a feral snarl.
The attacker was already running, a dark shadow fleeing up the beach and melting into the jungle beyond. Tom lunged forward, intent on catching his prey and crushing him, when a mewl of distress from behind drew him up short.
The woman.
Reluctantly, he turned away