Chapter 15

The English Channel

“Son of a shit-speckled Fraggle fart!” Ace bellowed when the catamaran tacked quickly to starboard, causing Emily to lose her balance and stomp all over his feet. Her arms pinwheeled, and the entire ship tilted.

Or is that just me?

She prepared her ass for a personal introduction to the deck, but she was suddenly pulled forward and into Christian’s lap. Blinking and feeling a little dizzy, she glanced at Ace. He was bent down, rubbing his ill-treated feet.

“Sorry,” she said. Then she turned to thank Christian for coming to her rescue, but the words stuck in her throat.

She’d never been this close to him.

Holy duck balls! To say he was smokin’ was an understatement. He had a quintessentially English appearance. Handsome in a way that American men were not. His face was all sharp angles and hard planes. And his jaw? Well, his jaw appeared to have been hewn from granite, resulting in a stubborn, resolute slab of flesh and bone.

For the first time, Emily could make out the brown flecks in the centers of his light-green eyes and measure the bump on the bridge of his straight English nose. And then there was his body…his hard thighs beneath her ass. His chest like a steel wall along her side. She imagined she had jumped astride a machine made of pure muscle, something built solely for tensile strength.

Or, she thought, in layman’s terms, he’s all that, a bag of chips, and a twenty-four-ounce soda.

And here she was, on a boat with five other people and no place to give her kitty a quick spanking.

My kingdom for a little privacy! she silently railed.

“You all right?” Christian asked, his accent making the last two words sound more like awl roight.

For the love of Paulie Konerko, his warm breath smelled good, like teacakes and toothpaste. It brushed over her cheeks in a teasing caress, and she considered leaning in to take a quick taste. Of course, right after that wholly inappropriate thought rolled a tide of common sense.

No. No way. So much nope. Best that she keep on doing what she had been doing since she walked through the big doors of the warehouse back in Chi-Town. Namely, ignoring the fact that Christian should go by the name of Smokin’ McHolyhot and that he made her pulse stutter any time he opened his mouth and out came that delicious English drawl.

Emily had never thought of herself as an anglophile before Christian. Now? Well, as they say, God save the Queen!

But she’d learned her lesson about fraternizing with coworkers. The last time she’d done so, her entire life had been turned upside down. And considering she quite liked the new life she’d built for herself, the one that included a move back to her hometown—Go Sox!—and a job with the Black Knights, she was determined not to make the same mistake she’d made before.

Therefore Christian Watson, with his hella hot bod and even hella hotter accent, was strictly off-limits for anything more than a little flirtation via a few well-placed verbal barbs.

Was that immature? Like the boys who had sat in the pew behind her at St. Mary’s and pulled her ponytail when she was a little girl? Sure. But it was still damn good fun. And it helped soothe the ache she sometimes felt, knowing that she could never have a happily ever after, that she would never—

“Emily?”

She blinked and realized she’d been sitting there staring up at Christian like a slack-jawed idiot. If she’d thought riding behind him on that Ducati was heaven, it was nothing compared to sitting on his lap. The smell of his expensive cologne tunneled up her nose. It was both zesty and sweet and brought to mind two sweating bodies rolling around on cool silk sheets.

“Sorry!” She scrambled off Christian and plopped onto the bench beside him. “Thanks for the catch. I’d be flat on my ass if it weren’t for your quick reflexes.” When he lifted a brow, she frowned and demanded, “What?”

“Just…that may well be the first time you’ve ever thanked me for anything. Are you feeling a touch lurgy?” He pressed a hand to her forehead, feigning a look of concern.

Before she could answer, or ask what the hell lurgy meant, Zoelner demanded from the top of the steps, “What’s all the ruckus up here?”

“I’ll give you two guesses, and the first one doesn’t count.” Ace shot a quick, meaningful glance back and forth between Emily and Christian.

“I’m not talking about those two.” Zoelner made a face, then seemed to get distracted by Chelsea who had come to take a seat on Christian’s opposite side.

If Emily wasn’t mistaken, that was beard burn around Chelsea’s mouth. She looked over at Zoelner and noticed that his hair stuck up every which way, like he’d plugged his finger into an electrical socket.

Well, it’s about damn time, she thought with a smile.

“Hello?” Zoelner snapped his fingers. “Emily, mind filling me in on why you came down the stairs like your hair was on fire and declared we might be in trouble?”

How had she forgotten about the cutter that was three nautical miles off their port side? Oh, of course. Finding myself sitting on Christian Watson’s lap, that’s how.

“It’s the HMC Valiant,” Rusty answered for her, pointing at the tiny gray speck on the horizon. The sky was overcast, and the Channel was the color of wet cement on a Chicago sidewalk, so the cutter was only visible when one of its windows caught a stray ray of light. Rusty kept one hand on the wheel and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. “She’s a Border Agency vessel. Think something along the lines of our Coast Guard back home. I’ve seen her patrolling these waters plenty of times before.”

“So where’s the trouble then?” Zoelner asked.

“The trouble is I’ve made two course corrections that the Valiant has mirrored. Unless I’m mistaken, she’s following us.”

“Oh. Well…fuck.” Zoelner raked a hand over his beard.

“You said it,” Rusty concurred.

“Why would she be following us?”

“Talk over the marine channels makes it seem like they’re checking all the ships in the Channel that are coming from England.” Rusty lowered the binoculars and glanced at the group sitting behind him. “Just who did you guys piss off anyway?”

“You haven’t turned on your television or radio today, have you?” Zoelner asked.

“No.” Rusty’s eyes narrowed. “Should I have?”

“Probably best you don’t,” Zoelner assured him. Some men would pace back and forth, given the situation. Zoelner just got ghostly still and asked, “So what now?”

“Well”—Rusty shook his head—“as always happens when you’re dancing with the devil, there is an alternative. But none of you are going to like it.”