The Devil and the Deep

Lord alone knew, if she hadn’t had sex for almost a year on top of fairly pedestrian sex for the previous five she’d be looking at a way of fixing that pronto. And if it so happened that the man of Stella’s fantasies was there at the precise moment she decided to break the drought, then surely everyone won?

‘So it shouldn’t be a problem, then?’ Diana asked innocently. She held up her hand as Stella went to speak again. ‘Look, Rick’s right. Just sleep on it. I know it’s a lot to consider but, for what it’s worth, I think you’re mad if you don’t.’

‘But the book...’ Stella murmured in a last-ditch effort to make Diana see sense.

Diana shrugged. ‘Whatever you’re doing here on good old terra firma ain’t working, is it, babe?’

* * *

Stella went to bed determined to wake up in the morning and tell both Rick and Diana to go to hell.

But that was before the dream.

She dreamt all night of a mermaid following a pirate

ship. No...

She was the mermaid and she was following the pirate ship. Inside the hull a lone, rich, tenor voice would occasionally sing a deep mournful song of lost love. It was a thing of beauty and she’d fallen in love with the man even though she’d never laid eyes on him. But she knew he was a prisoner and she knew with an urgency that beat like the swell of the ocean in her breast that she had to save him.

That he was the one for her.

Stella awoke, the last tendrils of the dream still gliding over her skin like the cool kiss of sea water. It was so vivid for a moment she could almost feel the water frothing her hair in a glorious golden crown around her head.

The urge to write thrummed through her veins and she quickly opened the drawer of her bedside table, locating the stash of pens and paper she always kept there. She brushed off the dust and started to scribble and in ten minutes she’d written down the bones of a plot and some detailed description of Lucinda, the mermaid.

When she finished she sat back and stared at the words in front of her. They were a revelation. And not just because she’d written something she didn’t have the immediate urge to delete, but because it was a whole new approach.

Stella hadn’t imagined for even a minute that the heroine’s point of view would take precedence in her head. Vasco had been so strong and dominant, striding onto the page, demanding to be heard, that she’d assumed starting with the hero was always going to be her process.

All this time she’d been beating herself up about not being able to see a hero, getting her knickers in a twist because, no matter how hard she tried to visualise one, no hero was forthcoming.

And he still wasn’t. But Lucinda was fully formed and she was awesome.

Lucinda excited her as nothing had since Vasco had arrived. Lucinda was no Lady Mary waiting around to be saved. The world had gone crazy for Vasco last time, this time they would go crazy for Lucinda.

She could feel it deep inside in the same place that had told her Vasco was special, but she’d been too inexperienced to listen.

Well, she was listening now.

God, Joy was probably going to have a fit at her kick-ass mermaid. She could hear her now saying, But what about Inigo, Stella?

Stella gasped as his name came to her. Inigo. Of course that was his name. Inigo. It had to be Inigo.

It was working.

The buzz was back. The magic was here.

Inigo would be strong and noble, a perfect match for Lucinda because a strong woman required a man to equal her. A man secure in himself. A man who would understand the divided loyalties she endured every day and wouldn’t demand that she chose between the sea and land.

A subject that Stella could write about intimately.

God, why hadn’t she thought to approach her story from this way before? It seemed so obvious now. She kicked off the sheets, reached for her polar fleece dressing gown.

She had to get out of here. Had to get to her computer.

She almost laughed as she tripped over her gown in haste. The revelation had come just in time. It had saved her. There was no time now for seafaring adventures.

There was a mermaid to write. A hero to rescue.

Lucinda was calling.

Inigo too.

Stella padded straight to her computer, notes in hand. She drummed her fingers on the desk as she waited for it to power up. As soon as she was able, she opened a new word document and typed The Siren’s Call in the header.

She blinked at it. Her fingers hadn’t even consulted her brain. The title had just appeared.

It was all happening.

Then the cursor winked at her from a blank page and the buzz and pulse inside shrivelled like a sultana.

What? No...

She took her hands off the keyboard, waited a moment or two, then placed them back on. She waited for her fingers to roam over the keys, pressing randomly to make words on the page. She consulted her notes and desperately tried to recall spunky Lucinda.

But nothing came.

‘You’re up early,’ Rick’s voice murmured in her ear as he plonked a steaming hot cup of coffee at her elbow and she almost leapt two feet off the chair.

‘Bloody hell, Rick, do you mind?’ she griped as she clutched at her chest. Had she been that focused she hadn’t even noticed he was up, or smelled the aroma of coffee?

‘Whoa there, sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.’ He grinned. ‘What are you working on?’

Stella minimised the document, leaving only her screen saver to view. She glared up at him. Then she wished she hadn’t. He was wearing long stripy flannelette pyjama bottoms and nothing on top. The drawstring was pulled low and tight on his hips, revealing way too much skin right at her eye level.

Suddenly Lucinda whispered in her head again, murmuring her story, buzzing through Stella’s veins like an illicit drug. Flashes of her childhood felt sweet against Stella’s tongue. Lucinda’s despair over Inigo tightened Stella’s chest.

This was crazy.

Stella turned back to the computer, the need to write an imperative even with Rick hovering. But as suddenly as it had come upon her the flow stopped. Stella blinked—was there a tap somewhere that somebody had just turned off?

Rick let out a long low wolf whistle, ignoring her silence—Stella had never been a morning person. ‘Sexy cover,’ he murmured, taking the other chair at the desk and straddling it. ‘Great rack.’

Stella, still willing Lucinda to come back, took a moment to work out what Rick was referring to. She looked at her computer, the cover for Pleasure Hunt her screen saver. Lady Bingham’s flowing scarlet dress with the plunging neckline made the best of her assets, pushing her milky breasts practically into the face of the leering Vasco Ramirez.

‘Nice.’ Stella glared at him as she reopened her blank page, obliterating the screen saver.

Lucinda? Lucinda? Where are you?