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his problem. Hell, he would practically be acting in a professional capacity, which would mean he could reel in all the sizzle. She’d be like a… a student and that meant hands off. He’d take her to Ilhota Rosa, an undeveloped island off the north side of Duchess Island, so named for the pink sand beach. Tourists had no access to it, so it would be very private.
    It was perfect.
    She could get to a place where she wasn’t scared of snorkeling and he could make sure nothing happened to her. Win-win.
    “What do you mean?” she asked cautiously but thoroughly captivated.
    “I’ll go under with you.”
    She hesitated long enough that he thought she was going to say no. But she didn’t. “You’d do that?”
    “Sure. I’m a certified scuba diver, and I’ve got more than a passing familiarity with CPR. Who better to get your feet wet with than me?”
    Her shiny eyes blinked and regained a bit of the my hero that she’d lost yesterday when he’d driven her away for her own safety. Something unwound inside in a place that he’d always governed with strict control, and he had a very bad feeling that it didn’t matter what kind of imaginary barriers he put between himself and Emma, he’d still want to sink into her as badly as he did at this moment.
    “Right now?” She glanced dubiously at the crashing surf.
    No. Not now, definitely not today, maybe not even tomorrow. Only at some undefined point in the future when he could get a measure of control back in place. “When you’re ready. Come find me. If I’m not at the parasailing dock at the resort beach, one of the guys will know how to get in touch with me.”
    Before he could find even a smidgen of that control, a smile so full of emotions he didn’t even have names for broke open on her face, and it filled him from the inside out. And then she iced that crazy cake by leaning in and kissing him on the cheek.
    “Thank you,” she said simply. “I’ll think about it.”
    The ability to speak dried up in his mouth as she walked away for the second time. Like yesterday, he burned with a thousand unfulfilled needs, only one of which rhymed with Dex, and he still didn’t know her last name.

    After a night where nothing resembling sleep happened, Dex rolled from bed in a mood more suited to go raid an Iraqi village in search of ISIS generals. It wouldn’t take much to get him primed to shoot a few terrorists in the forehead from two hundred yards away.
    Of course, he didn’t do that anymore. For a very good reason. And that put him in a worse mood. If he wanted to deal with the dark stuff inside his brain, he’d go to therapy.
    Evan nodded as Dex stomped into the kitchenette where they made coffee, refrigerated beer—for Dex, since Evan was a recovering alcoholic—and sometimes slapped together sandwiches but did little else in the way of domestic niceties. That would be too much like a home, and neither of them had any desire for that.
    Except sometimes Dex did. Usually he just worked up a sweat doing something physical and taxing until the yearning for something other than a place to stay went away.
    “Meeting this morning, 0900,” Evan commented, his voice even more gravely than usual.
    Dex growled. “About what?”
    Charlie, their fearless leader, never called meetings that early. But they were running a business on the side and that meant administrative stuff that couldn’t be avoided.
    Aqueous Adventures was Charlie’s baby. He’d recruited select members of their former SEAL team to join him, and Dex owed his former commander more than he could ever repay, not the least of which was a spot as part owner of their fledgling company. If Charlie needed to talk to them, they needed to be there.
    Except sitting around a table jawing about finances or strategy or who knew what all was so not what Dex wanted to do right now. He’d been looking forward to pounding out his aggression in a five-mile run across the island before they had to ship out to