Page 10 of Uncharted Desires

She was warm, and he pushed back from her, unwilling to think about the jolt of awareness that had just gone through him. They were floating in the fucking Indian Ocean right now; his body had no business reacting to touching hers.

“Here, hang onto this.” He handed her the buoy.

She grabbed it and pushed it toward him. “This isn’t Titanic.” She smiled. “We can both hang on and not freeze to death.”

West gave a slight chuckle and grabbed hold of the buoy. For a long moment they just bobbed there in the water, the truth of their situation setting in. He could see the emotion play across her face. They were alive, but now what?

“What now?” she asked him, as if she’d read his mind.

“I don’t know, wait to flag down a boat, I guess.”

She gave him an annoyed look. “Really? That’s your master plan? Wait here like bobbing buoys for a boat? That sounds like the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard. If you want to float around like shark bait, be my guest, but I’m finding land.”

“You asked,” he said, anger lacing his tone. “Do you see any land?” He gestured around splashing water everywhere. “Because I sure don’t.”

“Why are you getting angry at me? This is all your fault.”

“My fault?” He thumped his chest for emphasis. “My fault? Why on earth did you think you could pull me up on your own? I told you to get help! If I had fallen in, at least you could have told the captain to turn around. Now nobody knows we’re out here.”

Kat shivered again, and West was almost tempted to take pity on her, if he hadn’t already been so annoyed at her..

Her head turned, mouth agape. “You’re mad at me for trying to rescue you?” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re the one who drunkenly fell overboard.”

“You should have run and gotten help—the captain, Luke, one of the guys.” He took a deep inhale, forcing his anger down. West never did angry. He spent a lot of time in meditation to harness his emotions, to hold back the anger and frustration he always believed he wasn’t allowed to have. But Kat was pushing his last nerve.

“So you’re saying because I’m a woman, I couldn’t save you?”

“That’s not . . . ugh, you know that’s not what I meant!” Weston splashed at the water in front of him, and for the first time his façade—cool, unphased rock star—dropped away.

She smiled, which annoyed West even more.

“It’s dark, Weston, and by my guess, it’s got to be close to sunrise. I bet the sun will come up and we’ll see land any moment now.”

“Fine,” Weston said. “We’ll wait for sunrise.” He laid his head on the buoy between his arms and closed his eyes. She shivered, and, for reasons completely unknown to him, his hand moved out, grasping for hers. Reluctantly, she gave it to him, and he felt how small her hand was in his. The enormity of their situation hit him like a ton of bricks as he thought about how small they both were floating in such a vast ocean. They were royally screwed, but he couldn’t voice that aloud.

“Do you have your cell phone?” he grumbled more to the buoy than her.

She reached into the water, presumably to check her pockets. “No, it’s probably at the bottom of the ocean by now.”

“I’m not sure where mine is. It didn’t work on the yacht anyway, so it’s stashed in a bag somewhere.”

“You didn’t want to use it to take pictures?” Sarcasm laced her tone, but West couldn’t fathom why. Did she have something against him not needing photos of the days preceding his unplanned retirement?

He sighed. “Not really.”

Dread settled between them, and the air shifted as West realized Kat also knew how screwed they were. He squeezed her hand, and heard her sniffle, holding back tears.

They were floating in the ocean. Their only hope of survival was that someone would realize they were missing and turn the boat around, or another boat would find them. Or maybe a shark would eat them. West’s money was on the shark.

They floated in silence for what felt like hours until Kat finally saw the sun crest the horizon. She let out a long breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Her salvation was at hand in the east. Her body ached, feeling like she had fallen from a four-story building. She lifted her head from the life buoy, her neck protesting in pain. If a whale could come around and eat her now, that would be great.

Were there even whales in the Indian Ocean?

She sat up in the water, her hair plastered to her face, her whole body shivering. It had only been a few hours by her estimation, but her body couldn’t take much more of the water. The Indian Ocean wasn’t freezing, in fact it was rather warm from the summer months now that it was fall. She had no idea why she kept shivering, other than it being her body’s response to fear.

Off in the distance, she noticed something floating and decided after further scrutiny it was worth a look. Maybe it was food, or a phone?

Keep dreaming.