Breathless Encounter

Breathless Encounter
Cindy Dees

Someone wants filmmaker Sunny dead, but mysterious Aiden is intent on guarding her life.Sunny had never imagined a sexual chemistry as powerful as her attraction to Aiden, but it’s a chemistry which he seems determined to ignore. Because giving in could be deadly…

“Who wants to hurt you?”

Aiden waited expectantly for the woman to answer, but instead she merely shivered in his arms.

Eventually she sighed and relaxed, her slender body shifting against his and making his chest tighten—but pleasantly. The moment threatened to become intimate as a sexual charge started to build between them. He knew better than to indulge himself like this. He’d sworn off women. Turned over a new leaf … and apparently been lying to himself like a big dog about the fact that he’d actually changed.

“I’m a filmmaker,” she announced as if that answered everything. “I was collecting footage for a documentary on the commercial deep-sea-fishing industry.”

He frowned. “Are you sure it was fishermen who ran you down?”

“I’m not sure of anything except that my boat is gone, and I’m really glad you came along when you did and saved my life.”

So was he.

Dear Reader,

When my mother and mother-in-law were diagnosed with cancer within a few weeks of each other, it sparked a flurry of research about possible treatments. Along the way, I read a whole bunch about advances in modern medicine. I’m delighted to say that, five years later, both moms are cancer-free.

I continue to be fascinated by the latest ongoing medical research. As a writer, I can’t help asking myself what some of these technologies might mean for our future. Many of the ideas currently under development are highly controversial, perhaps partly because the misapplication of them could be truly terrible for mankind.

Of course, that got me thinking. While governments might restrict their own researchers from delving into some extreme experiments, a private company would be under no such restrictions. What do body-altering technologies mean for the individual field operative who volunteers for them? How do they change the person? Can such an altered person live any semblance of a normal life? How does a regular person attempt to love a quasi-superhero? Is it possible? Dangerous?

And voilà, the Code X project was born. Please join me on the breathless roller coaster that is loving a superhero. Who knows? Maybe you’ve already got one of your own, or maybe yours is waiting for you when and where you least expect it …

Happy reading!

Warmly,

Cindy Dees

About the Author

CINDY DEES started flying airplanes while sitting in her dad’s lap at the age of three and got a pilot’s license before she got a driver’s license. At age fifteen, she dropped out of high school and left the horse farm in Michigan where she grew up to attend the University of Michigan. After earning a degree in Russian and East European studies, she joined the US Air Force and became the youngest female pilot in its history. She flew supersonic jets, VIP airlift and the C-5 Galaxy, the world’s largest airplane. During her military career, she traveled to forty countries on five continents, was detained by the KGB and East German secret police, got shot at, flew in the first Gulf War and amassed a lifetime’s worth of war stories.

Her hobbies include medieval re-enacting, professional Middle Eastern dancing and Japanese gardening.

This RITA

Award-winning author’s first book was published in 2002 and since then she has published more than twenty-five bestselling and award-winning novels. She loves to hear from readers and can be contacted at www.cindydees.com.

Breathless Encounter

Cindy Dees

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

I was thrilled to dedicate a book to my mother and mother-in-law during their simultaneous fights against cancer, and it’s my great joy to dedicate this one to them in honor of their double win against the beast. For all of you who have fought the good fight yourself, or who have watched a loved one go through it, win or lose, my heart is with you. You know the true meaning of courage.

Chapter 1

Ankle deep in salt water, Sunny Jordan stared in dismay at the silent diesel engine in her boat. It was dead, and all her plans were dead in the water with it. An urge to cry washed over her. Her documentary film was dead, her goal of exposing the more egregious operators in the commercial fishing industry was dead. She didn’t dare think about the porpoises and sharks and sea turtles that would die without her exposé to rouse the public to save them.

She yanked the hand starter on the bilge pump. At least it coughed to life, and sluggishly began to suck in water and spit it overboard. The New Dawn had a slow leak somewhere, but she’d been unable to locate it so far.

Wearily, she closed the engine cover and slogged over to the ladder. She climbed through the cramped cabin that contained all her worldly possessions and up on deck to stare at the horizon. A slow, three-hundred-sixty-degree check revealed nothing but water and more water stretching away to infinity along the earth’s faint curve. No wonder ancient sailors thought it was possible to sail off the edge of the world.

Not the smallest bump of land or even another boat marred the smooth line of the horizon. She was marooned in the middle of nowhere—literally. If she had half a brain she’d be worrying about her own life and not the helpless little fishies below. But no one had ever accused her of being overly bright when it came to matters of self-preservation.

She ducked inside and turned up the volume on the UHF radio. Static crackle filled the tiny space. She checked her position near the junction of the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, not too far south of the Yemeni archipelago of Suqutra. She jotted down the location coordinates off her GPS before picking up the microphone.

“This is the New Dawn requesting assistance. My engine has failed and I need a tow. I am currently located at eleven degrees, twenty-five minutes, thirty-six seconds north latitude and fifty-four degrees, four minutes, seven seconds east longitude.”

She repeated the message twice more. Now she simply had to wait. Despite its desolate appearance, this stretch of water was crisscrossed by plentiful shipping lanes and fishing grounds. And it was the rule of the sea that any ship who heard a distress call must respond to it. Nobody might own these international waters, and nations might fight like dogs over them, but sailors stuck together.

The sun set in a brilliant splash of crimson and faded into the violet hues of twilight without anyone responding to her periodic radio calls. As the utter blackness of night at sea fell around her, she sighed and settled down to wait out a long, uncomfortable night. She needed to preserve her battery for radio calls and had turned off all unnecessary equipment, which meant no air conditioner or even an electric fan for her tonight.

She must have dozed off because the stars had wheeled around in the sky overhead and the night was balmy when she blinked her eyes open. The New Dawn bobbed on light swells, pulling against the sea anchor she’d deployed to keep from drifting too far from her reported position.

A faint rumbling caught her attention. She looked about eagerly for the running lights of her rescuer and gasped as a massive black shape loomed off her port side. The sharp point of a ship’s prow was bearing directly down upon her. Fast.

Yikes. That ship was really bearing down on her fast! Her sleepy mind exploded to full consciousness as the deadly danger of her situation registered.

“Hey! I’m here!” she shouted, waving her arms frantically over her head. As if anyone would hear her over the roar of the much bigger vessel’s engines. A white V of water sliced away from the black blade of the prow. The ship displayed no lights whatsoever as it raced at her like an attacking shark closing in for the kill.

Panicked, she scrambled backward, stumbling and falling over her waterproof camera bag. She hit the deck hard and her head smacked the cabin wall painfully. She flung herself toward the railing, every survival instinct screaming at her to get out of the way before that ship sliced the New Dawn in half. Clutching her camera bag in one fist as she rolled, she plunged over the side and into the icy water.

The Pacific Ocean closed in over her head, entombing her in a dark so cold and heavy, she felt as if she’d been buried alive.

Panic gave way to shock as every muscle in her body clenched at the frigid grip of the sea. She kicked hard for the surface, but it was as if she attempted to swim through concrete. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to get anywhere. Assuming she was even headed in the right direction. She tried to feel which way the bubbles racing past her skin were headed, but who knew if she’d gotten it right. For all she knew she was kicking down toward Davy Jones’s locker with all her strength.

And then a new threat registered—a deep throbbing noise that pounded through her body rhythmically, growing in volume and intensity with every beat. Oh, God. The larger ship’s propellers. She kicked like a madwoman, praying her random swimming would carry her clear of the rotating blades before they made bloody chum out of her.

The water grew violently turbulent, tossing her head over heels in a chaotic swirl that left her so dizzy she wanted to throw up. Probably not a good idea with the single breath in her lungs already running painfully low on oxygen. Little sparkles of light erupted behind her eyelids.

The ocean calmed around her as abruptly as it had gone mad. She was farther than ever from knowing which way the surface and air might be. Perhaps her best bet was to quit fighting and let her natural buoyancy and lungful of air lift her to the surface. But would it be in time before she passed out?

In a few seconds she wouldn’t be able to hold her breath anymore and she would inhale a single, lethal lungful of salt water. And then in twelve to fifteen seconds, as the last oxygen in her brain was used, she’d lose consciousness. Without the buoyancy of air in her lungs, she would slip down into the depths of the sea, lost in its cold embrace forever. Vague curiosity about whether or not there was life after death passed through her mind. Guess I’ll know one way or the other pretty soon.

Who’d have imagined she would end up like this? It seemed like such a waste to die so young. She was only twenty-seven. She’d assumed she had so much more time. So much more to experience. Her parents’ faces flashed through her mind. Her sister’s face—Chloe was going to be furious at her for dying.

Sunny reached deep and fought one last time. It was simply not in her nature to give up. She’d go down trying to save herself. But her kicks were feeble now, and to no avail. As she used up the last of her strength and oxygen, the darkness claimed her.

Aiden McKay scanned the ocean through binoculars from the bridge of the Sea Nymph, one-hundred-forty feet of pure yachting luxury on loan to him from billionaire Leland Winston.

“Do you see her?” he asked the Nymph’s captain, Steig Carlson.