The further out to sea we traveled, the larger the swells became. For a while, I felt queasy, but Stone took me up to the front of the boat, where the air was fresh, and fed me saltine crackers to settle my stomach. He told me to wait and returned with a couple of bands for my wrists that he said activated pressure points to combat seasickness.

Stone stood behind me, his strong arms holding me steady at the rail.

“Do you want to do a Kate Winslet, Titanic move for me?” Stone asked, nodding at the curved rail of the bowsprit.

“God, no, I’d probably slip. Are you sure you’re not trying to finish me off? If I fell, I’d be sucked under the boat and shredded by the propeller.”

Stone nuzzled my ear. “There’s only one way I want to finish you off, Poppins, and that’s either buried inside you or with my mouth between your legs. Why do you keep saying these sexy things? Are you trying to keep me hard?”

Instant arousal the moment he mentioned sex, and when he nudged me with his hips, I discovered he wasn’t lying about his hardness. “Does that thing of yours ever sleep?”

“When I’m around you, my thing, as you insist on calling it, is always ready for action. Just give me the nod, and I’ll find us a quiet spot on the boat.”

Thankfully, Rip called out to us and we joined him on the bridge.

“There’s a lot of activity here,” he said, pointing at the sonar screen, where you could make out the schools of fish beneath us. Rip eased right back on the throttle.

“We’ll drift for a bit here, start chumming, and see what happens.”

“What’s chumming?” I asked, wondering if it was some old English nautical term for making friends. I gripped a handrail. With the boat no longer in forward motion, it rocked violently in the swells before it turned and settled to a gentler roll.

“Chumming is where we throw out bait—fish carcasses, bone, blood—and lure to the boat...ah, anything that’s out there.”

“So, we are fishing.”

Rip and Stone exchanged looks.

“We’re observing, rather than catching anything.”

“What are you hoping to see?”

“Sharks,” Stone said, a massive grin spreading across his face.

He had to be joking. “You’re going to deliberately attract sharks to the boat for fun? You are insane.” I’d seen Jaws, and I knew what sharks did when they came to boats.

“You’re going to love it,” Rip said. He clearly had no idea of the things I loved. Being at home with a good book. A crackling fire on a stormy day. Teaching Buster new tricks. Walks on the beach. Romantic movies. These things, I loved. I didn’t even watch Shark Week without becoming nervous in the bath, because those creatures with their beady, evil eyes were monsters.

“I think we should go,” I said, my head swiveling as I tried to work out in which direction was land. Just then, the gut-churning stench of fish hit me. The chum was going in the water. My anxiety shot up the scale. “Seriously, I’ve seen the movies. The shark’s going to come, and it’ll be all angry because we’re in its environment, and we shouldn’t really be out on the ocean, because we don’t have gills, and the shark will jump on the boat and bite through it, and we’ll sink, then it will eat us, and—”

Stone clamped his hand over my mouth, pulling me against his hard body. I bit him, and he laughed.

“Poppins, settle. Rip knows what he’s doing. I’ve been out with him a dozen times doing this.”

I jerked free. “I don’t care what you and Rip get up to. Why did you bring me here?”

“It’s on the list.”

Stone was completely deluded.

“That must be some other woman’s list, Stone, because it sure doesn’t appear on mine.”

“You wanted an encounter with an apex predator. What could be better than a shark?”

“Apex what?”

“You know, the alpha predator, the guy at the top of the food chain.”

“I meant going on an African Safari, where I could sit safely in a vehicle and take photos through a closed window, of a pride of lions, idiot. Somewhere warm. Safe. On land. Did I mention safe? And don’t try to look all hurt. Who would even think this was fun?”

Rip nudged Stone aside. In another life, I could have enjoyed looking at him with his sun-bleached surfer hair, his piercing, azure eyes, and a broad grin that rivaled Stone’s. Working a club as a pair, they’d be lethal to the women of the world. Predators. Oh, God, there was that word again.

“Katrina, I don’t do dangerous stuff,” he started.

I snorted.

“Sharks get a bad rap.”

“Totally deserved,” I muttered.

“Really, what you see is the media version. They want eyes on whatever it is they’re pushing, and what could be better than a gaping jaw with rows of sharp teeth?”

“It’s a warning, Rip, to make sure we stay away. This…this fear I’m feeling right now? It’s real. It comes from somewhere in my primitive brain that never needed to evolve because it’s simply there to help me stay alive. Primitive brain says no to sharks.”

The guys were laughing at me. Even the deckhand close by smirked.

“These are gentle, curious—”

My hand shot in the air. “Stop. Don’t even start trying to convince me how sweet they are.”

I don’t know how Rip stayed so reasonable when I was doing my best to create a reaction that would have the boat engine started and our noses pointed for home.

“I don’t expect you to get in the water with us,” Rip said.

Us? I faced Stone. “You are not getting in the sea with sharks.”

“Sure I am, and you’re coming with me. Face your fears, Poppins. You conquered the motorcycle and the hot air balloon. What’s a shark swim when compared to that?”

“Dangerous, foolhardy...not to mention, insane.”

Rip frowned at Stone, shaking his head. “I don’t force people into the water. But, I do my best with education. I can promise you, Katrina, that sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges, although they probably should. They’re placid creatures, curious at times, but they don’t hang around plotting ways to terrorize humans.”

“I feel so much better,” I lied. I had no intention of getting in the water, but I was prepared to have a look over the side if a shark came by. Hopefully, they were all on the other side of the world today, but right then, came a shout from the stern.

“We’ve got some action,” called one of the deckhands with way too much joy in his voice for my liking. “Oh, yeah, baby, come close.”

At the corner of my eye, I could see Stone hopping on one leg and tugging a wetsuit over his foot and up his other leg.

“Oh, no, Stone, you’re not getting in the water. Sarah will kill me. I’m supposed to keep you safe.” This was beginning to feel like a floating asylum.

Rip laughed. “This is probably the safest thing Stone’s done since the last time he was out with me. And that was a year ago.” Rip was stripping off, too. “You have a one-in-sixty-three chance of dying of influenza, and a one-in-eleven-million chance of dying from a shark attack.”

“And I can take that chance down to absolutely zero by staying well away from sharks.”

“People find swimming with sharks a life-changing experience.”

“I’m not surprised. Dying is the ultimate life-changing experience.”

Once Rip had freed himself from his t-shirt, I saw the massive scars on his torso.

“What the hell happened to you?” I blurted out.

Rip examined his scars as if he’d forgotten they were there. “Oh, that’s an old surfing injury,” he said.

“From what?” It had to be a shark. The scar was jagged and mean, on both sides of his torso as if he’d been sandwiched between a massive set of jaws.

“Surfing.”

Apparently, that was a satisfactory explanation because he’d fought his way into his wetsuit with a little more finesse than Stone’s continuing struggle, tugged the zipper up the back, rolled his shoulders, and grinned. “All set for show time.”

I could no longer tell if the churning in my stomach was from the smell of the chum, motion sickness or fear. I followed them to the back of the boat and peered at the ominously deep sapphire ocean. In moments, a dorsal fin cruised by. I thought that had to be the most fear-inducing sight on the sea until it was joined by two more. Great. A shark swarm. Next would come the feeding frenzy when they’d all launch themselves onto the back of the boat and lunch on us. Everything in my head screamed at me to get the hell out of there.

“Terrible design, this boat.” My voice seemed to have turned into a high-pitched squeak.

“How would you improve it?” Rip asked, adjusting the strap on his mask.

“It’s too open out here. A ten-foot fence, razor wire on the top. That would improve it. We seem quite close to the water. Is this a good idea?”

“You’re rambling again, Poppins. Sharks hate that. It makes them edgy.” Stone added to the mood by making a terrible moaning sound through his snorkel.

I opened my mouth to reply, but Rip cut in.

“Ignore him. Sharks are deaf.”

I pondered that. I supposed they were. I mean, it’s not like they had ears. “Are they really?”

He winked at me. “No, but they don’t understand English, so you ramble away all you like.” Then he slipped into the water. The sharks were no longer near the surface, and Rip adjusted his mask and snorkel, then reached for the camera Stone passed to him.

I could see I wasn’t going to stop Stone from getting into the water.

“You’re excited, aren’t you?”

“No matter how many times I do it, the adrenaline always pumps. I live for this sort of thing, Poppins. We’re going to hang out on the surface. Grab a camera. You should get some good shots.”

Sure, because the video of Stone and Rip being shredded by sharks was guaranteed to go viral. I waited until Stone slipped into the water, then grabbed my camera. My tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth. What had started as a fun weekend had turned into a nightmare.

Colin, one of deckhands, called me over to where he was standing.

“Look at this,” he said.

I held my breath as the sharks returned, approaching Stone and Rip, then darting away.

“They’re blue sharks,” Colin added. “Pretty common around here and not as skittish as the Makos.”

I started taking photos, fascinated as they kept approaching the swimmers, checking up on them, then swimming off. It all looked so casual until one broke the surface and gave me a firsthand view of its dental work.

I jumped back. “I really didn’t need to see those teeth.”

Colin laughed as I found the picture I’d got and showed him. Flicking through the images created a sense of distance and safety for me, and I hurried back to the side of the boat, ready to capture another surface breaker when I discovered the water eerily empty. No sharks. No swimmers.

My heart thumped at a rate and strength that felt as though it would burst through the wall of my chest. “Jesus, they’ve gone.”

“It’s okay, they’ve dived.”

“They’re not wearing tanks.”

“They’re both excellent free divers, and they won’t have gone deep. Come over here. You can see them.”

I moved to the other side of the boat, and there were Rip and Stone having an encounter with several sharks, the sort of encounter that should have terrified any normal person. But, from where I stood, I had to admit it was kind of enthralling.

Finally, they surfaced, passing up the camera gear before hauling themselves onto the transom of the boat. Relief that they were safe, with all limbs intact, made me grin.

Stone came over and took me in his arms, dripping cold water all over me. I didn’t care. He was back with me in one piece.

“Neoprene suits you,” I teased.

“I’ll wear it to bed tonight,” he said, oblivious to the others on board as he delivered a hot kiss. “Got a surprise for you,” he added, pulling away.

“Thanks, anyway, but I think I’ve had enough for a lifetime.”

Behind us was the noise of scraping metal as the others maneuvered a round platform, previously secured on the floor of the transom, over the side of the boat. It hit the water, creating a decent splash, then floated.

My suspicions rose. Rip passed a spare wetsuit to Stone, who tugged me into the cabin. “Your turn, Poppins.”