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Alex suggested she try to sleep and made her a nest in some piled fishing net, which stunk of raw fish. She was so miserable, though, that she curled up in it and managed to pass out for a couple of hours.

Finally, as a spectacular sunset stained the western sky in a dizzying display of color, a black hump took shape on the horizon below the sunset.

“There it is,” Alex said. “Cuba.”

“How come there aren’t any lights—“ She broke off. Because of the hurricane. She supposed coming ashore right after thestorm like this would make it a lot easier to sneak onto the island. At least, that was probably the idea.

But as the shore drew near, she saw there would be nothing easy about this at all. Giant waves pounded the rocky crags and cliffs that formed the coastline., sending up massive geysers of white spray in the twilight. If she and Alex tried to swim ashore in that they’d be torn to pieces on the rocks.

“How on earth are we getting from here to there?” she asked him.

“Wind blew us off course. The landing point’s a little further north along the coast. Pedro says there’s a beach at our rendezvous point.”

She sensed another swim in her near future.Fantastic.

They motored up the coast to a stretch of shoreline without the intimidating cliffs. However, Pedro still refused to pull in close to the shore. Apparently, the storm surge was still way up the shoreline and he didn’t want to risk running aground on the remains of some sort of dock that had stood at this spot a few days ago.

When she slid over the edge of the boat, she was startled to discover that she was only standing in chest high water. The boat pulled away into the darkness behind her as she started the long swim to shore behind Alex.

It took forever to reach land. She was nearly as chilled as last time when they finally slogged through the wet sand to another thick wall of debris from the storm. This pile contained evidence of human habitation: sawed lumber, bricks, and mangled sheets rusty aluminum.

“Now what?” she murmured below the sound of the surf behind them. “Are we going to set the coast on fire and send up the mother of all here-we-are beacons?”

“Not hardly. Now we get dry, get warm, and get clothed. Then we wait for our guide.”

Perversely, it made her feel better to know he was cold and miserable, too. She reached for her bag of clothing, but Alex stopped her. “The fastest way for us to warm up is to share body heat. Skin to skin. Didn’t you learn that from your brothers or Nursing 101?”

Crud. She should’ve remembered that. “I’m not thinking on all cylinders, tonight.”

“Symptom of encroaching hypothermia. Most people only associate it with winter cold exposure. They don’t realize hypothermia is a real problem even in a mild climate like this, particularly if a person is wet like we are, now. “

“Thank you, professor,” she replied dryly. He opened his arms and she wasted no time accepting the invitation to press herself against him from head to foot.

He wasn’t any warmer than her and was also shivering, but before long, warmth built between their bodies. Still, it took them a long time to warm up. She muttered against his chest, “Wouldn’t this go faster if we had sex? The exercise and friction would help, right?”

He chuckled into her hair. “True. But our contact could show up at any second. I didn’t think you’d appreciate being discoveredin flagrante delicto.”

“Is that fancy Latin for humping like bunnies?”

“It is.”

“I’m so glad I fell for a Harvard educated genius. Life is nothing if not educational around you.”

“You have no idea,” he murmured back, a distinctly sexual edge in his voice.

He had yet to show her most of the dark sexual tastes he claimed to have. One of these days, though, she was going to get him to really cut loose with her and take her there. A shiver of anticipation rattled down her spine. If only danger wasn’t so danged sexy.

“Still chilled?” he asked.

“I wasn’t shivering from cold,” she grumbled.

He laughed low in her ear. “Ahh, one of these days, my little innocent, we’ll appease your curiosity.”

“Promises, promises.”

His arms tightened lightly around her, pressing her a little closer to his muscular body. His hands roamed up her bare back while her hands roamed down his. His buttocks were firm and imminently grippable. They made her think of athletic sex.

“You have the best ass, ever,” she whispered.