earing nothing but her patented Cleavage Clicker bra, Lola stuck her head out of the bathroom and looked around. Her gaze moved from the locked stateroom door to the blue dress lying on the king-sized bed. She’d forgotten to bring the dress into the bathroom with her, and she glanced up at the tinted porthole. When she didn’t see a set of black and blue eyes peering back at her, she rushed to the side of the bed and quickly threaded her arms through the short sleeves. The nightmare of a dress was covered with bunches of red cherries, yellow bananas, and green grapes. It looked like it had been hit by a fruit stand, or with ambrosia salad, the stuff her grandmother always took to the families of those whose loved ones had “passed over.”

She pulled the front closed and buttoned the material over her breasts and her pink bra. The Cleavage Clicker had been one of her first designs, and at that time a revolution in comfort and support. First-year sales had beaten projection by twenty-six percent, and it was still her biggest moneymaker. Embroidered lace over soft stretch satin, with delicately scalloped edges, it was not only comfortable, it gave the wearer three different cleavage-enhancing options. Of course, shortly after it had appeared in her first catalog, the bra had been copied by just about everyone.

At the moment, though, enhancing her cleavage was the absolute last thing she wanted, but with the dress so tight across her breasts, it couldn’t be avoided. When she was through with the buttons, she reached into her purse and pulled out her brush. She carefully removed the tangles from her hair, then raised her arms and wove it into a single braid. It was coated with salty sea air and felt like straw. She would have killed for a bath. A real dunking with soap and water, but she didn’t dare. Not with “good old Max” aboard.

Using the water from the pitcher Max had told her about, she’d brushed her teeth, then filled the sink in the bathroom and had washed as much of her body as possible. Then she’d taken off her pink panties and washed them as well. Once she’d finished, she’d hung them over the shower stall to dry. She figured if she kept her arms down, no one would notice that she wasn’t wearing panties. No one meaning Max.

Besides being a thief, the man might be a murderer, too. And why that didn’t frighten the heck out of her, she didn’t know. Maybe because, other than tying her up and bruising her wrists, he hadn’t really hurt her. And she figured after she’d threatened him with the flare gun and accidently shot the helm, he probably wasn’t going to kill her at this late date.

He did scare her, though. Even with his bruised face and battered body, he had overpowered her with ease. With the fish knife, she felt slightly safer around him.

More than her fear of him was the impotent anger building inside her. The more she thought of it, anger didn’t even begin to describe what she felt about him and the situation he’d forced on her, never mind that he probably hadn’t meant to drag her into his problems. He had anyway, and now she was stranded and there was a real possibility that she and Baby would die in the middle of the Atlantic. After the conversation she’d had with him that morning, she not only had to wonder if she’d die either of hunger or dehydration, but now she had the added worry that she might die at the hands of the drug lords who’d beaten Max to a pulp.

Now when she held the signaling mirror in her hand, she’d have to wonder if it would save her life or bring a fate worse than starving to death. Either way, she had to try. No doubt the Thatches had already reported the yacht stolen, and surely someone would have noticed her missing also. They had to be searching for her.

So she would take her chances, be it with a drug lord or Coast Guard. She would keep signaling for help until someone got her off the darn boat.

Lola searched the stateroom for sunscreen and found a tube of SPF15 in the bathroom. She rubbed it into her dry skin, giving her face and neck a double coating. Sometime last night, she’d lost her sandals, and she looked around the room for another pair. She found nothing but an old pair of canvas sneakers and decided to pass.

She tilted her head to one side and studied herself in the mirrored closet doors. Besides being god-awful ugly, the dress obviously belonged to Dora Thatch, a woman who was five inches shorter than Lola and thirty pounds heavier. It fit loose about her hips and tight across her chest. The buttons closing the front gaped, and even when Lola lowered her arms, the dress hit her about midthigh. But the most disturbing part was the bunch of cherries strategically placed like a big fig leaf over her crotch.

From outside, Baby let loose with a barrage of wild barking and her heart about leaped from her chest. She grabbed the binoculars and mirror and headed out through the galley.

It wasn’t until she stood on the aft deck, staring at nothing but endless blue ocean and sky, that she realized she’d expected to see the Coast Guard speeding toward them. Hope shriveled in her chest and sank to the pit of her stomach.

Baby stood at the open door at the stern of the boat, staring down at the swimming platform. He barked so hard his back legs rose off the deck. Lola moved to the wraparound seat, glanced over the stern, and got an eyeful of good old Max’s naked butt. Obviously, he didn’t suffer from modesty and had no problem bathing in front of her.

He lowered a bucket tied to the end of a rope into the ocean, then raised it and dumped it over his head. Water ran through his black hair and splashed on his wide shoulders. It ran down the defined muscles of his back and the indent of his spine. Droplets slid down the cheeks of his behind, the backs of his thighs, and puddled at his feet. He shook his head and beads of water flew in all directions.

Lola turned away, feeling a bit guilty for staring. God only knew what he really did for a living and what sins he’d committed doing it, but he had the kind of body reserved for the pages of a men’s fitness magazine or a stripper calendar.

Even with his bruised face and obvious criminal bent, he was the kind of guy who made weak and silly women stick out their chests and purposely ignore obvious warning signs, like hairy knuckles and prison tattoos.

Lola was neither weak nor silly, nor was she attracted to men who tied her up against her will and threatened her dog. She took a quick peek over her shoulder as he lathered up his armpits with a bar of soap. He didn’t have tattoos, but she had to admit that he did have a great butt. For a criminal.

She sank down on the bench seat and turned her attention to the burned-out bridge. When she’d spoken to him earlier, she couldn’t help but notice the hard definition of his chest and arms. Beneath the purple bruises and short black hair covering his chest, the corrugated muscles of his six-pack were hard to miss. For years Lola had worked with beautiful male models, and she knew from experience that kind of body took a lot of work and dedication.

After barking himself hoarse, Baby gave it up and jumped into Lola’s lap. She adjusted his spiked collar, then ran her hand over his fur to his tail. He’d been such a good boy through this whole trying ordeal. Once they were rescued, she’d take him to his favorite retreat, Spas and Paws, where he’d be pampered and made to feel like a Great Dane. Once they were home, she’d pamper herself, too. Get an herbal body wrap and deep muscle massage.

She gathered her binoculars and mirror in one hand, and with her dog in the other, she walked up the stairs to the bridge and looked around for her sandals. She found one in the corner and half the other one beside the helm, the heel scorched and the toe completely burned off. She left them where they lay and raised the binoculars to her eyes.

Nothing but blue sky and blue water filled her vision. She stared so long through the binoculars, Baby abandoned her. Perspiration rolled down her temples and neck, and she wiped at it with her hand. Lola hated to sweat, and she suspected that she smelled bad. Neither of these things improved her mood as she looked for a hint of land or the speck of a boat or ship. She saw nothing, and after a while she couldn’t tell where the sky stopped and ocean began.

A woman of action, she was unused to sitting around staring at the horizon, waiting for something to happen. Yet she had no other choice. She felt restless and fidgety, but with nothing else to do, she stayed up on the bridge with her binoculars and mirror.

She’d been missing less than twenty-four hours. She had to have patience and faith that she would be rescued. The problem was, she’d never had much patience, and she didn’t have faith in anything but her own abilities. Although there had been a few times in her life when a strong shoulder to lean on would have been nice. When it would have been wonderful to dump her problems in the lap of some capable man and let him take care of things. Lola had never found that man, and she doubted she’d let him take care of her anyway.

Lola didn’t know how long she stayed up on the bridge, but only after her head began to ache and her stomach grumble did she abandon her post.

She found Max on the aft deck, his behind in a folding chair, a fishing pole stuck in the chair’s arm, a Dos Equis beer in his hand. He looked like a man at ease, as if he had nothing more pressing than polishing off a few. His wet T-shirt and jeans hung over the back of the boat to dry, as well as a pair of boxer briefs, ribbed cotton, charcoal gray, with a kangaroo fly. She was afraid to see what he was or wasn’t wearing, afraid she’d see more than a fishing rod. She looked anyway.

A pair of navy nylon shorts with an elastic waist fit him snug just below his navel. He’d wrapped the bandage around his middle again, thin strips of white around his big chest. A tin of smoked salmon rested on his thigh, and he shoveled a chunk on a cracker, then popped it into his mouth. He dipped his fingers into the tin and flipped a small piece of fish to the dog sitting at his left foot.

Baby opened his jaws and swallowed without chewing. If Max thought the way to Baby’s heart was through his stomach, he was right, but only to a point. Baby was a slave to his appetite for forbidden treats, but he was an absolute prisoner to his Napoleon complex. He would not be swayed from his mission to conquer bigger dogs by a few bites of smoked salmon.

“I thought you hated my dog,” she said.

He raised the beer to his lips and took a long swallow. “I do,” he answered without looking at her. “Just trying to fatten him up in case I need to eat him later.”

She wasn’t certain he was kidding. “Come on, Baby.” She motioned for the dog to follow as she walked inside the boat, but Baby refused to obey, choosing instead to stay by the man feeding him.

Feeling a bit betrayed, Lola checked on her underwear in the bathroom, found them only slightly damp along the elastic, and slipped them on. In the galley she scrounged around for lunch, although since she didn’t have a watch, she supposed it could be time for dinner. In a sealed container in the refrigerator, she found a wheel of Brie. She grabbed it along with a bunch of grapes and a banana. Since Baby had opted to stay outside, Lola was forced to join him to make sure he didn’t eat too much greasy salmon and get sick.

She found a place to sit between Max’s wet pants and T-shirt, then opened the container of cheese. She needed something to cut the Brie, and as if Max had read her mind, he handed her the fish knife sheathed in its scabbard.

“You keep forgetting this,” he said as she took it from him.

Lola opened her mouth to thank him but didn’t. She wouldn’t need a knife at all if it wasn’t for him. She cut off a slice of cheese and ate it along with two grapes. Max shoved a box of crackers toward her, and she took a stack of Rye Crisps into her hand. “Please don’t feed Baby any more fish. He’ll get sick.”

Max didn’t respond, but he polished off the rest of the salmon himself. He didn’t offer her any, which Lola thought was rude, but she really didn’t expect polite behavior from him. She peeled her banana and glanced out at the ocean, looking anywhere but at him. She hated to admit it, but he still made her nervous with his battered face and hard muscles. She took a bite of her banana and spotted her toothbrush sticking up out of a holder in the stern. “Why is my toothbrush in a fishing pole holder?”

“I used it.”

She did look at him then, straight at his bruised face and light blue eyes. She swallowed the banana. “For what?”

“To brush my teeth.”

“Tell me you’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“You stole my toothbrush?”

He shook his head. “Commandeered.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“I soaked it in rum first to kill your germs.”

“My germs?” Her mouth fell open as she stared at him, at the slight swelling beneath his left eye, at his black and purple cheekbone, and the white Steri-Strips on his forehead. She was tired, hot, and sweaty, and a man she didn’t know had used her toothbrush. “That’s just sick... and... and,” she sputtered as she rose, knife in one hand, banana in the other. The container of cheese fell to the deck and Baby pounced on it. Lola didn’t care; she had another sort of pouncing in mind. “And disgusting!”

His gaze lowered from her face to the knife in her hand. “It’s not like I brushed my ass with it.”

“Just about!”

“What are you so mad about?” he asked. He rose also and gestured with the beer bottle. “I put it in the fish holder so the sun would sterilize it.”

She couldn’t believe he was actually serious. “You kidnap me, get me stranded in the middle of the Atlantic, use my toothbrush, and wonder why I’m mad? What’s wrong with you? Did you eat paint chips as a child?”

He didn’t answer her last question, but instead pointed out, “Give it a rest. You weren’t kidnapped, and you got us stranded.”

Lola was in no mood to even consider taking the blame for anything. “What are you going to do next, steal my underwear?”

His gaze slid down the front of her dress, over her breasts, and down her abdomen. He took a slow drink of his beer as he contemplated the red cherries printed on the material over her crotch. “I don’t know,” he drawled, “are they still hanging up in the bathroom or would I have to wrestle them off you?”

“They’re no longer hanging in the bathroom,” she informed him through tight lips.

He looked back up into her face and smiled, with his nice, white, recently brushed teeth. “Go ahead and keep them. Pink really isn’t my color.”

With the realization that he’d probably touched her underwear, she discovered in that moment what she’d wondered the night before. No, she couldn’t stick a knife into a man’s throat, because if she was capable of it, she’d have killed good old Max. Gladly.

“I don’t know what has you tight as a tick,” he said right before he polished off his beer. “It’s not like I have anything you can catch.”

“What? Am I supposed to take your word on that?” She took a step back and looked him up and down. “I don’t even know who or what you are.”

“I told you last night who and what I am.”

Moisture trickled down her neck, and she wiped it away with her shoulder. She had a headache, her eyes felt scratchy, and she wanted a bath. She was so darn miserable, she couldn’t stand herself. All she really wanted was to slip between clean sheets and sleep until this nightmare was over. “I know what you said, but you can’t prove it.”

“True. You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

“Right.” Lola carefully resheathed the knife and desperately tried to control her emotions before she did something mortifying like break into a fit of crying hysterics in front of him. “I’m supposed to take the word of a man who stole my private property and just threatened to eat my dog.”

He shrugged. “You don’t have a choice.”

“Oh, I always have a choice, and I choose not to believe a word that comes out of your mouth.”

“Suit yourself, but fighting with me over something so trivial as a toothbrush might not be in your best interest.”

“You don’t scare me.”

“I should. I’m bigger than you and meaner than you ever thought of being.”

“You don’t know how mean I’ve ever thought of being.” And at the moment, she was feeling mean. Real mean.

He tipped his head back and dismissed her with a deep laugh filled with amusement, which pushed her beyond her fear of him. She took a step closer and stuck her finger in his chest. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“What are you going to do about it? Poke holes in my chest with your fingernail?”

“Maybe I’ll smack your good eye and give you a matching shiner.” The thought of it almost brought a smile to her face. Almost, but she was too mad at the moment.

He wrapped his hand around hers and removed her finger from him. “I probably wouldn’t let you take a jab at me.” She tugged, but he tightened his grasp, imprisoning her within his strong warm palm. “Now that I can see it coming.”

“I could wait until you’re asleep.”

“You could, but I wouldn’t advise you to come anywhere near me when I’m in bed.” Again she pulled, and instead of letting go, he took a step closer, closing the slight gap between them.

“Or what? You’ll tie me up again or something?”

His gaze dropped to their hands, his still wrapped around hers and the only thing separating her breasts from the dark hair on his chest. “Or something,” he said just above a whisper, then raised his gaze as far as her mouth. “Oh, I’d definitely come up with something. Something a little more fun than a poke in the eye.”

Lola recognized the suddenly rough texture in his voice. The flash of desire in his blue eyes. She’d heard and seen it a lot in her life. While she felt no answering spark, no reciprocating interest, neither did she feel a flicker of revulsion. Which really didn’t surprise her, given her all-consuming anger.

“Well, don’t tax your brain,” she told him, and finally pulled her hand free. The force of the motion carried her a few steps back. “I will never be a willing participant in any of your warped fantasies.”

The light inside the galley poured over Max’s head as he studied the map he’d spread out on the table. He’d started one of the generators as the sun had dipped below the horizon, and he had changed into his dry clothes, the material still stiff from the salt water. He’d plugged a Jimmy Buffet tape into the stereo, and “Cheeseburger in Paradise” competed with the hum of the refrigerator. With the lights on, the Dora Mae would be a little easier to spot by passing vessels, but Max wasn’t overly concerned. It wouldn’t be that easy to spot and, since they weren’t sending out any sort of distress signal, wouldn’t attract much attention.

He circled his estimated position on the map, which he had determined by using the position of the stars in the sky and a compass he’d found in the stateroom. He was certain they were between Andros and the Bimini Islands. How close to either one was the question. They were still drifting on a warm northwest current, but a southeasterly wind had picked up a little. He doubted they were traveling much more than two knots in any direction.

The click-click of toenails drew Max’s attention to the doorway. Through the darkness, Baby Doll Carlyle entered the galley and jumped up onto the seat. He hopped onto the table, put his ears back, and stared at Max.

“Oh, Christ, not again,” Max groaned, and rose from behind the table. He grabbed his second beer of the day from the refrigerator and held it up in silent salute. Not only had the Thatches furnished him with a yacht, but they’d provided him with good beer, too. The galley was stocked with enough party food and booze to last a month.

Luckily, he’d also found more substantial staples in the pantry. Mostly it was filled with tomato juice, jars of green olives, and vermouth. He figured if he were a big drinker, there was enough alcohol aboard to keep himself good and drunk for weeks on end. But on a bottom shelf he’d also discovered white rice and cans of pears.

He thought of Lola, of seeing his hand wrapped around hers and her breasts threatening to pop the buttons on the front of that ugly dress. He pried off the top of the beer, and for about half a second the thought of getting shit-house drunk, to escape into a bottle for a few days, held a certain appeal. But Max knew the reality of that sort of existence. He’d watched it take his father, and he’d made up his mind long ago that it would never take him. He was stronger than that. Stronger than booze and stronger than his old man. He would never let anything control him the way rum had controlled Fidel Zamora.

The little dog on the table let out a yap, and Max slid him a glance. “Where’s your owner?” he asked, although he had a pretty good idea. The last he’d seen of her, she’d grabbed a chaise lounge from a storage compartment and dragged it to the bridge.

Max took a drink of the Dos Equis and headed outside. Lola hadn’t said a word to him after their toothbrush confrontation. Maybe he should have asked her permission first, but he’d figured she’d say no, and he would have used it anyway. So he hadn’t seen any point in asking and still didn’t. And like he’d told her, it wasn’t as if he had anything she could catch. God knows part of his annual physical consisted of every test known to the medical community, but if it made her feel better, he’d boil the damn thing.

His feet bare, he moved up the stairs to the bridge. He took a few steps and looked down at her through the deep shadows of night. The running lights from the port and starboard sides still worked and shone in Lola’s hair. Her eyes were closed and her lips were slightly parted. Her breasts rose and fell on soft even breaths, the buttons on her dress still gapping and threatening to pop. One empty hand lay open across her abdomen, her other hung over the side of the chaise, the mirror clutched within her fingers.

The red shawl she’d worn earlier for a skirt was tangled about her legs. Max pulled it up over her, then reached for the binoculars on the floor. He looked out at the horizon, searching for buoys or any signs they might be nearing a coastline. He saw nothing but the reflection of the moon on the black surface of the ocean and the slight breaking of waves.

There was a real possibility that after Max was rescued, he would be arrested for theft and kidnapping. At the very least he would be detained, but he wasn’t real worried about that. One phone call and any charges would disappear.

The only thing that had him worried was sitting in the middle of the Atlantic without his vest of lethal goodies, namely his 9mm sidearm, two mags of subsonic ammunition, and his K-Bar assault knife. Without them, he felt naked and at the mercy of any passing vessel. Max trusted no one and nothing, least of all unknown elements.

He glanced at Lola, and at the fish knife that had slipped from her hand to the deck. As a warrior, she sucked. She slept through his intrusion of her space, and she couldn’t keep track of her weapon. He reached for the knife and slid it into the waistband of his jeans.

Moonlight caressed one side of her face and touched the bow of her top lip. No doubt about it, Lola was one beautiful woman. The kind of woman men fantasized about.

I will never be a willing participant in any of your warped fantasies, she’d told him as if she’d read his mind. Warped? His fantasies weren’t warped. Well, not as warped as some guys’ he knew.

He’d never been the kind of man to buy swim-suit calendars or flip through underwear ads, but he would have had to have lived on another planet not to know who she was, not have seen her on calendars, in bra commercials, on billboards and the covers of magazines. He would have to be dead below the waist not to have wondered what it would be like to have sex with her. To get all sweaty and mess up her hair and eat off her lipstick.

Max thought of the first time he remembered seeing her likeness. It had been in Times Square, probably about eight years ago. He’d been waiting for a cab outside the Hiatt when he’d looked up and seen her, staring back at him from a billboard, her blond hair scraped back from her face, her brown eyes heavy, as if she were gazing at her lover, her lush body clad in nothing but a pair of peekaboo lace panties and matching bra.

White. His favorite.

As he’d looked up at her that first time, he’d wondered who she was. And just like every other man looking up at her, picturing her naked, knowing he didn’t stand a chance with a woman like that, he’d told himself she was probably a lousy lay anyway. Too skinny and afraid of smudging her lipstick to be any good. Probably the type of girl who expected the guy to do all the work. Yeah, that’s what he told himself, only he’d never been a man opposed to work. Especially not that kind.

Looking at her now, he decided she didn’t appear too thin. In fact, she was just the sort of woman Max like to wrap his arms around. Full-breasted and enough behind to fill his big hands. When he held a woman, he liked to feel her soft, curvy body pressed against him. He didn’t want to feel bones. He didn’t want to worry she’d break.

He gazed at her softly parted lips, and unbidden, his thoughts turned to kissing Lola Carlyle. She wasn’t wearing any lipstick now, and he wondered what it would be like to sink slowly into a kiss and taste her lips. To feel her hesitation, the uncertain hitch, right before he felt her sigh. The ahhh that let him know she wanted him, too. The moment she turned soft and willing beneath his mouth. Beneath him, Max Zamora. Fidel Zamora’s boy. The dirty-faced kid whose father forgot about him whenever he fell into a bottle of rum. Which was most of the time.

Max hadn’t been born into money, he wasn’t a famous actor or rock star, the kind of guys women like Lola Carlyle usually went for, but that didn’t keep him from wondering what it would be like to touch a woman like her. To feel her soft breasts pressed tight against his chest as he tangled his fingers in her sweet-smelling hair.

Max sucked in a breath of cool salty air and let it out slowly. All that wondering was quickly taking him to a place he was better off not going. Someplace that had his battered body reacting as if there were something he could or would do about it. Someplace that spiked his blood and shot a burning ache straight to his groin. Someplace he would never go with a woman like Lola. Someplace she would never go with a man like him. He wasn’t rich and famous or a pretty-boy model.

She wasn’t the kind of woman who’d put up with a man who disappeared for days and weeks on end, never telling her when he’d be back or where he’d been. Hell, he’d never found any woman who’d put up with that for very long.

Max turned on his heels and walked from the bridge. It was best for them both if he didn’t think about her at all. Taking a seat in the folding chair he’d sat in earlier, he reached for the fishing pole and reeled in the line. He concentrated on the empty line instead of the sleeping underwear model on the bridge.

He figured he’d have more luck catching a fish if he had a better idea of what he was doing. Over the past several years, he’d fished a few times in lakes and streams, but he’d never been a real angler. Hell, he’d done most of his “fishing” in the front yard of the old house he and his father had rented in Galveston.

Thinking back on it, he figured he must have been about seven when the old man had bought him that Zebco reel mounted on a six-foot rod. He still had it hidden away in a closet, one of his few childhood possessions.

Even now, he could recall the weight of that rod and reel in his hands. His father had been on the wagon then, and he’d tied a sinker to the end of the line and had given Max casting lessons, the two of them side by side, standing in that yard as the sun set, aiming the sinkers at clumps of grass and talking about the fish they planned to catch someday. Max could still recall the touch of his father ‘s hands and the sound of his Cuban accent on the soft humid breeze.

Unfortunately, the old man spent most of his time off the wagon and he’d never managed to take Max fishing, but that hadn’t kept Max from waiting and practicing. After a few years, he’d become one hell of a caster. Overhead, sideways, and underhanded, he could hit any target dead on. He’d always figured all that practice had come in handy and was the reason he’d breezed through sniper training.

As he shifted positions in the chair, his ribs ached only slightly less sitting down than they did walking or standing. He raised the binoculars to his eyes and gazed out into the black ocean. The only complete relief he’d found from the pain in his side had been the few hours he’d managed to lay perfectly flat on his back the night before. He could use a few hours of sleep, but he wouldn’t get it tonight. Not when anyone could catch him off guard.

But Max hadn’t slept in over two days, and he drifted to sleep an hour before the sun rose above the eastern horizon.