Page 5

FOUR

ISOLDE

I solde's eyes finally fluttered open. Consciousness returned in disorienting fragments: wetness clinging to her skin, gritty sand beneath her, and the unmistakable taste of saltwater coating her tongue.

As her vision cleared, she found herself staring into the most intense blue-gray eyes she had ever seen, belonging to a man kneeling beside her in the sand.

His face hovered inches from hers, his chiseled features frozen in apparent shock.

Isolde blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the situation.

The man's broad shoulders blocked the moonlight, casting his face in shadow, but there was no mistaking the raw masculinity emanating from him.

Her confusion deepened as awareness spread through her body—and with it, the realization that her rescuer was completely, utterly naked.

Her eyes widened, a flush warming her cheeks despite her exhaustion and wooziness. The blush spread rapidly down her neck as her gaze inadvertently dipped lower for a split second before snapping back to his face.

"This complicates things," he muttered, the deep rumble of his voice seeming directed more at himself than at her.

Isolde opened her mouth to speak, but her body betrayed her as another violent coughing fit overtook her.

Her lungs burned as she expelled more seawater, her body convulsing with each racking cough.

The man's strong arms pulled her against his hard, warm chest, his skin radiating heat that penetrated her soaked clothes.

A man is holding me. A very naked, very muscular, very... well-endowed man is cradling me like I weigh nothing , her brain supplied unhelpfully as she continued to cough. When the fit finally subsided, Isolde twisted away, pointedly averting her eyes.

"What—" Her voice came out as a rasp. She cleared her throat and tried again. "What happened?"

Instead of answering, the stranger shifted his weight, his presence overwhelming even without looking directly at him.

The motion triggered a cascade of fragmented memories in Isolde's mind: the peaceful beach walk, the impossible wave rising out of nowhere, the terrifying sensation of being pulled into the depths.

Then... a man's voice in the darkness, trying to guide her.

And strangest of all, the warm nuzzle of what she could've sworn was a wolf's muzzle against her cheek after being deposited on the sand.

That can't be right. Wolves don't swim miles in the ocean to rescue people. I must have been dreaming.

"I was just taking a sunset walk," Isolde murmured, more to herself than to him. "The wave came out of nowhere."

She rubbed her temples, trying to make sense of the fragments. "Were you... swimming?" She glanced quickly at his naked form before fixing her gaze firmly on a piece of driftwood several feet away. "Skinny dipping, I guess?"

The man remained silent, his breathing steady and controlled beside her as if weighing his response carefully.

Isolde hugged her knees to her chest, suddenly realizing how cold she felt in her wet clothes. "The research station," she gasped, memories flooding back now. "Did the wave hit it? There could be people hurt!"

Isolde suddenly shot to her feet, swaying slightly as her head spun from the abrupt movement. "Oh my God, the research station—Dr. Thompson was staying late to finish a report on the dolphin migration patterns, and Marcos always works past midnight in the lab, and?—"

The naked stranger rose fluidly, towering over her with an authority that seemed almost primal. His muscular frame continued to block the moonlight, casting long shadows across the sand. He started speaking in a commanding baritone that rippled through the night air.

"The researchers are safe. I pulled everyone out myself. They're all accounted for, gathered a couple miles up the beach. They didn't know you were there, which is why no one was looking for you."

But Isolde barely registered his words. Her mind raced with images of her colleagues, her work, the years of research that might be destroyed.

What if someone had been in the storage room checking on samples?

Would emergency services arrive in time?

Her pulse thundered in her ears, drowning out whatever the stranger was saying.

"Are you even listening to me?" His voice cut through her spiral of anxious thoughts.

"What? I—no, sorry." Isolde shook her head, droplets of seawater flying from her tangled blonde hair. "I was thinking about the station and all our research and?—"

Without warning, his strong hands clamped onto her shoulders, spinning her around to face him directly.

Her breath caught in her throat as those intense blue eyes captured hers, demanding her full attention.

The moonlight carved shadows beneath his cheekbones, highlighting a face that could've been sculpted by a Renaissance master.

"Look at me," he commanded, and Isolde found herself obeying without question. "Everyone is safe. I've already called for help."

She fixed her gaze determinedly on his face, fighting the urge to let her eyes wander over the rest of him. Despite her best efforts to maintain eye contact, she was acutely aware of his nakedness—the broad shoulders, the defined muscles, the radiating heat of his skin even through her wet clothes.

Something electric passed between them. The air itself seemed charged as though the ocean had summoned a silent storm around just the two of them. His thumbs moved almost imperceptibly against her collarbone, and Isolde felt a shiver that had nothing to do with her wet clothes or the night air.

It's my birthday, she thought absurdly. Thirty years old, and the ocean delivers this... this vision of a man straight to me.

Maybe it was the aftermath of nearly drowning and being saved by him. Maybe it was the surreal quality of the moonlight on the deserted beach. Or maybe it was simply that for once, she wanted to do something completely unexpected and completely for herself.

Isolde rose on her tiptoes, her hands finding his solid chest, and pressed her lips to his.

For one terrifying heartbeat, he remained motionless.

Then his arms encircled her waist, pulling her flush against him as he deepened the kiss with a hunger that stole her breath.

His mouth claimed hers with confidence, his tongue sweeping past her lips with assured possession.

One hand slid up her back to tangle in her wet hair, tilting her head to allow him better access.

Heat coiled low in Isolde's belly as his other hand splayed across her lower back, pressing her closer against his hard body. She could feel every inch of him, every solid plane of muscle, every inch of bare skin radiating delicious warmth that penetrated her wet clothes.

This is insane, her normally sensible mind protested weakly. You're making out with a complete stranger—a naked stranger—on a deserted beach in the middle of the night after nearly drowning.

The thought was enough to break the spell. Isolde pulled back, breathless, her lips tingling and her heart pounding against her ribs. She stumbled back a step, putting distance between them, her mind reeling from what she had just done.

"I—I'm sorry," she stammered, pressing her fingertips to her lips. "I don't know what came over me. I never do things like this."

The stranger's intense gaze never left her face. His posture remained relaxed despite his nakedness as if being completely bare on a moonlit beach was the most natural thing in the world for him.

"It's fine," he said, his voice a deep rumble that seemed to vibrate through her core. His lips curved into a slight smile that transformed his hard features. "Are you okay?"

That simple question—offered without judgment—made something unravel inside her. Isolde hugged herself, suddenly aware of how ridiculous this all was. Here she stood, soaking wet, having just kissed a naked stranger who'd somehow pulled her from the ocean.

"I think I might have hit my head," she confessed, tugging at a strand of her wet blonde hair.

"I went for a walk along the beach to clear my head, and then I remember.

.." She frowned, trying to piece together the fragments of memory.

"A massive tidal wave. It was heading straight for me and the research station. "

She looked at him, doubt clouding her sea-blue eyes. "But that couldn't be possible, could it? It had to be my imagination, right?"

The man crossed his arms over his broad chest, the movement drawing her attention to the defined muscles there before she forced her attention back to his face.

"There was a tidal wave," he stated matter-of-factly. "I saved everyone at the station like I mentioned a few minutes ago."

Isolde stared at him, her brain struggling to process his words.

"That's impossible," she blurted. "That kind of thing doesn't happen here. I work for the research station. If there was a storm predicted or any issues, I would have known about it earlier today. We would've been prepared."

She began pacing in a small circle in the sand, her scientific mind racing through possibilities. "I mean, a tsunami caused by an unpredictable earthquake could make sense to some degree, but still..."

Her voice trailed off as she looked back toward where the research station should be visible in the distance. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she could see debris scattered across the beach. A sinking feeling settled in her stomach.

The stranger stepped closer, his presence commanding the space between them. The moonlight highlighted his face as he regarded her with an expression that was both intense and calculating.

"There will be no record of an earthquake," he said, his voice dropping to a lower register that sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. "Because the wave wasn't caused by that."

He took another step toward her, closing the distance she had created. Despite his nakedness—or perhaps because of it—he radiated a primal authority that made Isolde's breath catch again.

“ You caused it."

The words hung in the air between them as impossible as they were definitive.

She stood frozen, her mind rejecting the very concept.

She, a marine biologist who spent her days cataloguing dolphin behaviors and analyzing water samples, had somehow created a tidal wave powerful enough to destroy a research facility?

Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. The certainty in his voice was unnerving as if he were stating that water was wet, or the sky was blue. Not presenting a theory but declaring a fact.

By me? That's... that's...

For once in her life, Isolde Morgan, who could lecture for hours on cetacean migration patterns, who could name every species of coral in the North Atlantic, found herself completely speechless.