His mouth kicked up in a wicked smile echoed in his eyes.
She slugged his arm. "At your job."
"That, too."
Her fingers unfurled to caress his tattooed bicep along an arm that had saved her. "Thank you for the big rescue."
"Rescue? Hell, woman, I've never met anyone less in need of rescue. I'm sure you'd have bludgeoned him with his tasseled loafers before much longer."
Maybe. Maybe not. "Thank you for coming soon enough so I didn't have to."
He winked. "No problem."
Her fingers twisted in the softness of his over-washed T-shirt. "I hated feeling helpless like all those years before. I hate losing."
"Staying alive, hell, staying awake constituted a major victory. I don't care how precise Perry thought he was with those drugs. He pumped enough tranqs in you to down two dolphins for twelve hours." He bracketed her face in his broad palms. "Darcy, you're a survivor. You were twelve years ago and you are now."
His words soaked into her brain, into her. Damn it, she was a survivor. But thanks to Max, she was also alive. Really alive in her soul, ready to take on the world.
No fear. Not because she'd battled and won, but because she finally realized she didn't have to battle alone.
Yes, she could take on the world, fight her own wars, but having a wingman in life as well as in the air was a good thing. A person needed someone to count on. Even more so, somewhere to recharge. Recoup. Simply be alive.
As she was in Max's arms.
Loving Max didn't mean losing herself. She'd just found a better, stronger Darcy in being with him. "Hey, Doc?"
"Yeah?'' He toyed with her dog tags draped along the neck of her bathing suit.
"I'm ready now."
She wondered how long it would take him to catch on as he stared back at her.
Not long at all.
A smile creased dimples into that bronzed-god face of his, this man who heard her needs before she voiced them. Sometimes before she even thought them.
Yes, he understood, but he deserved to hear the words.
She skimmed her hands up his arms and around his neck. "Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah, Darcy, I think I do. But why don't you go ahead and tell me, anyway."
"I'm the woman who loves you, damn it." She reinforced her vow with a brush of her lips against his. "And I'm also damned certain I always will."
His laugh caressed her skin seconds before his lips. Max kissed her back. Just kissed her, but man did he ever have a way with just kissing her until she couldn't think.
Finally, she rested her forehead against his and inhaled the scent of coconut oil, musk and man. Hers. "If you start having second thoughts about the OSI, don't do it. I would never ask you to make this change for me."
"I know. That's what makes it so easy." His sea-green eyes lit like the glistening sparks on a cresting breaker. "And the way I see it, Darcy, this is a new adventure. A new wave. Sometimes a guy can get so caught up in catching every wave, he misses the big one."
She looked into his eyes and realized that unspoken communication of his worked both ways. She could see that Max was really okay with the new direction for his life.
For their lives.
She allowed herself the pleasure of finger combing his spiky hair. "No dreadlocks, please."
His laugh rumbled up and free, taking flight into the air and over the ocean he sometimes called home.