Logan peeled his gaze off the panes in the French door and focused it on the white cabinets over the micro-wave. Then at the faded-denim curtain the designer had insisted he needed over the window. At the maroon-and-navy, rope-design tile along the top of the backsplash the same designer had insisted on.
It was no use. His eyes wanted to return to Angel. She looked like… He didn’t know what she looked like in that outfit. Perfect was the only word that came to mind.
Her long, blonde hair—the soft, silky hair he’d felt trailing over different parts of his anatomy yesterday and wouldn’t mind having along other parts of his body—hung to her hips, damp loose waves making him think of nights spent in wild abandon. Her face, with those rarest-of-color eyes, was breathtakingly beautiful. Her smile, so generous and quick, a Cupid’s bow of a mouth and the dimple high in her cheek… the woman was utterly stunning.
And he’d had her up against the cabinets, devouring her with his lips and wanting to do the same with the rest of his body.
His gaze dropped to her breasts, round and full be-neath her sexy top. He remembered exactly how her nipples had stood out against the dress last night, how they’d felt against his chest, and if he wasn’t wrong, he could still seen their outline.
Nothing was designed to drive him to his knees quicker than the sight of her hardened nipples—except maybe it was that lip-licking thing she did. But nor-mally he wasn’t a breast man. If asked, he would have said the smile and eyes caught his attention first, fol-lowed by the rest of a woman’s beauty, both inside and out.
He was going to have to amend that when it came to Angel. He honestly couldn’t say what it was that drew him to her more. Of course, he hadn’t had the benefit of seeing other women he’d dated naked before he’d started dating them—
Logan took a deep breath. It’d been damned hard to exorcise that image of her bare body from his mind last night.
“Are you ready, Logan?”
Michael looked at him with an expectantly hopeful smile.
Oh he was ready, all right, but he was going to fail in the father department if he didn’t get his mind and his eyes off Angel.
“Sounds like a plan to me, sport.” He tapped the rim of Michael’s cap, praying he hadn’t just agreed to something he’d come to regret. But from the smile on Angel’s face and Michael’s “Cool!” as he bounced out, it couldn’t be that bad.
He couldn’t get to the wildlife refuge quick enough.
If there was one thing guaranteed to cool his libido, it was the sight of nonmermaid-like, elephantine animals.
Q
Harry swung his tail back and forth, lining up his troops a hundred meters offshore. The sun had crept over the horizon, beginning the countdown to sunset.
Angel’s time on land was limited.
Harry knew it, and he knew that Angel knew it. And he knew that she knew that he knew it.
It made the anticipation that much sweeter.
“So how long do we have to wait here?” A.C., the most recent addition to the pack he’d recruited off the coast of New Jersey, didn’t like taking things on faith, and the bad-ass attitude was starting to piss Harry off. The kid thought he knew it all, but then, the young al-ways did.
Harry eyed the Hammerhead’s pristine tail. For a self-titled tough guy, A.C. was short on battle scars. He’d had an entourage, which was what had caught Harry’s attention in the first place, but the shark wasn’t living up to his own press. Nah, Mr. A.C. Hammer could take that punk demeanor and stick a harpoon in it. Harry was the boss here. He called the shots, and if the kid didn’t learn to take orders, he’d be out on his tail.
This time, Harry chose to ignore the punk. Let him know he wasn’t as important as he thought.
“Okay, guys, here’s the plan.” Harry eyed the rest of the Hammerheads he’d assembled. Seven of the most battle-scarred, meanest bounty-hunting ’Heads he could find. “We’re going in, in sphere formation, the opening
closest to shore. That’s where we’ll herd her, but no one takes a bite.”
“What the fuck?” A.C. added a swagger to his stroke. “I didn’t sign on to be a shepherd.”
“You’ll be whatever in Hades I say you are and like it.” Harry went snout to snout with the kid.
Harry’s was bigger—and as usual, size mattered.
But the kid didn’t back down. “So if we’re not taking a bite, what are we going to do with her? She’ll start singing bloody murder, and we’ll end up with a feeding frenzy around us.”
“You only get a feeding frenzy if you actually bite her, punk.” Harry considered shredding the kid just to make a point to the others, but he’d recruited lean and couldn’t afford to lose one member of the formation. Angel, for all her Human studies, was one smart Mer when it came to tactical maneuvers. All the Tritones were. Their father, Fisher, had seen to it.
Probably for just this reason. Sharks weren’t known for taking direction well from Mers. Especially when the members of The Oceanic Council didn’t give them one ounce of say in governing the oceans. Not even a seat on The Council. Even after Vincent had saved the day all those selinos ago—much as it pained Harry to admit it— he’d thought The Council would recognize the rights of chondrichthyes. But no.
“So what are we supposed to do with her?” Gianni, another recruit, asked.
Great. Just what the fuck he needed. A mutiny of the bounty hunters.
“She’s our ticket in. The Council will realize we mean business.”
“So we’re not going to eat her?” Lou, a hunter lured out of retirement by the promise of a royal tar¬get, started frothing at the mouth—never a good sign. “Then why the fuck did you trawl me along, Har? This is bullsharkshit.”
Okay, so maybe Harry hadn’t exactly explained what this job would entail. But, dammit, he’d needed the best, and Lou was it. Too bad Lou had settled down to raise little ’Heads. But that’s what you did when you landed a trophy wife apparently. Harry couldn’t see it. Lou’s mate had more air between her eyes than water, but hey, to each his own.
“Look, we can eat her, just not right off the beach. Give me some bargaining power, and if The Council doesn’t cave, you each get a bite. But if we turn her into chum right away, we lose any hope of negotiation and will put ourselves on the endangered list. Fisher will be back in the hot seat and rally his troops out in full force, so let’s not do anything rash.”
“Rash?” A.C. rolled his eyes. “Rash was following you off on this wild grouper chase. I’m outta here.”
Harry flicked his tail, propelling himself in front of the deserter. He inhaled enough water to inflate his gills to three times their normal size. He could do intimidat-ing better than any punk kid.
“You aren’t going anywhere. You signed on for this, and you’ll finish it.” Harry grinned, all of his teeth gleaming white. He knew because he’d paid those Spanish hogfish to do an extra good job. Intimidation could work wonders in a showdown. He wasn’t about to get beat by this piece of floating garbage.
“Before this is over, The Council will acknowledge
us. They will hear us out, and they will pay attention.” He stared A.C. back into the lineup. “It’s time we sharks got what we deserve.”