Deadly Engagement. Elle James

stood close enough that she could smell the salt of the sea on him. She swayed toward him. “Yeah?”

      “Could you not tell anyone about finding the yacht?”

      She straightened. “Why?”

      “I suspect it was carrying stolen or illegal property, and someone might want to recover it.”

      “But you want to get to it first.”

      “That’s the idea.”

      “How do I know you’re not the crook?”

      “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

      “What if I don’t?”

      “That would be a shame.” He gripped her arms again, his head dipping close to hers, his mouth within kissing distance. “Then I’d have to steal this kiss.”

      “Oh, no, you’re not.” Her heart raced, her breath seizing in her lungs.

      “If I’m not stealing it, then you’d be giving it to me freely.”

      “Never,” she swore, her gaze firmly fixed on his descending lips.

      “Oh, sweetheart, never say never.” He bent to capture her mouth with his, pressing down hard.

      She gasped, her teeth parting enough that his tongue slipped through, stroking the length of hers, wiping away all thoughts of lies, subterfuge and treachery. Emma couldn’t think past how incredibly wonderful his lips felt against hers, his chest pressing against her breasts and the hard ridge of his fly nudging her belly.

      When he came up for air, he whispered, “You’ll keep our secret?”

      She scrambled for a brain cell and what to say next. “Why is it so important?”

      “It could get really dangerous if you don’t.”

      “For you, or me?”

      “Both. Can you pretend I’m on vacation and you’re my dive master, taking me out to dive the reefs?”

      “That would be lying.” She couldn’t drag her focus off the way his lips moved to form words.

      “I don’t want the danger to come to you. Please,” he said, the word a puff of air tickling her mouth, a soft reminder of how his kiss stirred her.

      “Okay,” she whispered, though she suspected the danger was not in the yacht or what it held, but with the man holding her in his arms.

      Emma climbed into her Jeep and drove away, her head lost in a fog of lust and longing. When she neared town, her gaze fanned out over the harbor, and she spotted a shiny white yacht resting in the center. She wondered if anything Creed had told her held a grain of truth. It was still early in the summer season for the yachts to start filling the cape, and how coincidental was it that this one showed up the day after the other yacht sank?

      For that matter, how likely was a former SEAL like Creed to take a job as an insurance adjuster? Not likely. If not an adjuster, what was he and why had he lied to her?