Erin McCarthy: Lady of the Lake

He pulled hard, and she ripped out of the water towards his boat. But in his eagerness to get her to safety, he misjudged the distance. There wasn’t enough room for clearance and her lower half collided with the hull.

A soft moan carried to him as he winced. Then he pulled again, this time sort of scraping her up the side of the boat before she cleared it. His shoe slipped, he went down on his ass, and she fell right on top of him since he was still holding onto her wrists.

There was pain in his shoulder, a whole lot of wet hair slapping him across the chin, and dead weight landing on his lower half. Well, not dead, but damn close, as heavy and limp as she was.

All that exhausted female fell right smack on him, her elbow nailing him in the nuts, but he took the blow like the man that he was. By swearing. “Fuckin’ A.”

Damn, once a goofball, always a goofball, apparently. Somehow he was managing to turn a rescue into a slapstick comedy act.

With a grimace, Dylan glanced down at the closed eyes, as the wetness of her hair and clammy skin soaked through his shorts. She wasn’t moving. At all. Jesus, maybe she really was dead. He was no MD. Of course, she had moaned, but what the hell did he know? It could have been her last breath.

“Are you okay, lady? Please say something.” He was afraid to move, afraid to exacerbate any injuries she might have, afraid that he was starting to panic a little and that for all he was a macho ballplayer, he was freaking out here.

“Just give me a second,” she whispered in a husky voice.

All right then. Alive, thank God. “But are you hurt? I need to call for help. Let me scoot out from under you.” If she was injured, he needed to get assistance, and he was a good thirty minutes from shore. He had his cell phone in his pocket, and he was close enough that he might be able to get a signal. If not, he’d use his radio.

But when he started to shift, she moaned into his pelvis. “I’m fine. Just let me be still for a minute.”

Dylan stopped moving. She sounded pretty intact, just tired, which had him staring up at the sky in some serious relief. “Nothing’s broken? You’re not bleeding, or delirious, or paralyzed?”

“No.”

Good, because he was working on an erection, and he was a sick motherfucker if she was hurt and he was getting off on her face being plastered down in his crotch.

But that facial proximity below his waist, coupled with her chest…holy hooters, she had a nice rack. It was all pressed against his hips and between his legs, and his body was automatically responding to the position. He didn’t mean to, knew that there was a church confessional with his name on it for this one, but damn, her breasts were so soft and big.

There was no way those were fake. They felt pliable and bouncy, sort of wrapping around him in a titty hug.

Dylan looked up at the sky and did a practice Hail Mary. He’d be doing twenty of them after this. Might as well make sure he remembered the words.

She turned her head a little, so that her lips pressed right over his fly, her nose burying into his crotch, only covered by thin swim trunks.

The gates of hell swung wide open in welcome for him.

Because he was hard, getting harder by the minute.

“How long have you been in the water? What happened to you?” he asked, followed by, “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

Man, he was blanking out after that. His mother would beat him with her rosary if she found out. Second confession needed-forgetting prayers as well as lusting after unknown, helpless woman.

“Are you praying?” the woman asked, her voice sounding a little incredulous.

“Yes. I’m praying that you’re okay.”

Oh my God, he had just lied. Shit. And taken the name of the Lord in vain.

How many commandments could he break in one day? He was probably coveting his neighbor’s wife right this very second.

The problem was, he hadn’t had sex in an entire year. His body clearly missed it, given its let’s-do-it reaction to a half-drowned woman.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m just tired. Thank you for the pillow.”

“Uh…” Dylan tried very hard not to move. She had to be delirious. She had fallen right onto him two minutes ago, not a pillow in sight. His semi-erection was right alongside her ear, and while he wasn’t going to brag, he was big enough that she should notice its existence. And it damn well wasn’t soft. “You’re welcome.”

But his voice must have given him away-he never could lie well because of his Catholic guilt. Her eyes popped open and she looked up. Wiped her glasses with a finger. Looked down. Looked left to right, then sat up with a scream.

Which gave him a glorious view of her breasts, covered by tiny triangles in a stars and stripes pattern.

Dylan was pretty sure he was saluting the flag.

Violet screamed. She didn’t mean to, but when she opened her eyes and realized she was lying on a strange man’s crotch, and it was all her fault for being stupid enough to think she could charm Frank into getting her pregnant, well, it was the last straw.

She clapped her hands over her mouth to stifle the volume of her horror. The man had saved her life. She should show a little gratitude.

After all, she had been drifting for what felt like twenty minutes, getting weaker and more worried, resorting to drown-proofing techniques to save her strength.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scream…lie on you…cause you any trouble.” Violet winced. She hated meeting new people. It was so awkward and she never knew what to say. And this was awkward in spades.

He pushed himself up onto his elbows and raised an eyebrow. The position brought him squarely into her space. She blushed. Because he was too close to her, because she had stupidly thought his lap was a pillow, and because she was suddenly aware of the fact that he was really, really attractive.

Like Wow attractive. Like Put Naked Pictures of him on the Internet attractive. He was muscular and dark-haired, with deep black eyes. He was Hispanic, for crying out loud.

“Look, you’ve obviously had some kind of accident. Why were you floating in the middle of the lake?”

“I…fell overboard.” Violet scooted backwards, the floor squeaking as she swung her legs around in front of her. She peeled her glasses off and looked around for something to wipe them off on. She’d feel better if she wasn’t viewing the world through water droplets, but she was in a wet bikini. No help there.

“Where’s your sailboat?” He looked puzzled as he sat up, drawing his knees to his chest. Despite her nearsightedness, she could tell it was a very masculine chest. A rippling sort of chest, with fine black hair and a cross tattooed right in the center.

She bit her lip, stuck her glasses back on, and tried to be vague. The truth was just too embarrassing. “It’s a motor boat.”

He was quiet for a second. Then, “Did it drive itself away?”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“A person.”

“What person?”

“My boyfriend.” He was making this really difficult.

His mouth twisted into a frown. “Was he trying to hurt you, kill you? Did you have an argument? We need to call the cops.”

Oh geez. Violet shook her head. “No, don’t do that! It was an accident. I just fell over when I leaned into the cooler to get a water.”

His hand reached out and pushed her wet hair back off her face. Violet jerked away from his touch, startled.

“So…why didn’t he just turn around and fish you out of the water? You could have drowned out there!”

“He, well…He, you see…Well, it’s just that…” Violet did some fishing of her own for words that wouldn’t reveal the true breadth of her humiliation.