Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (top fiction books of all time txt) 📗

Simon, she discovered, was staring into the tube-like thing they were lying in, his expression tight.

“Did she breathe better with your tongue down her throat?” he asked sardonically.

Ian shrugged, glancing from Simon to meet her gaze. “I don’t know, but it gave her something to think about besides drowning.”

Discomfort wafted through Anna and she felt her cheeks heat. She couldn’t think of anything to say, though. She still hadn’t come up with anything when Simon had helped her out of the tube and into the sub.

“Did you get lost?” Simon asked finally.

Anna felt her face growing redder, but she doggedly repeated the lie she’d told Ian. “I was out for air and a little exercise. What in the world are you two doing here?” she added on inspiration. “I thought this sort of looked like the sub Joshua and Caleb brought me home in. Is it yours?”

Simon exchanged a look with Ian.

“So this is a nightly thing for you?” he persisted, sarcasm lacing his voice.

“Oh! Not nightly, no. But occasionally I like to get out.”

“I’ll go get the rental,” Ian said dryly.

Traitor! She glared at him, but it was a wasted effort since he’d swung himself back into the tube. “So I rent a paddler occasionally. I have to collect seawater for my project, you know.”

“And the water out here is different than the water at the edge of your yard, of course!”

“Well, of course it is!” Anna snapped, knowing the entire tale was sinking, but determined to maintain it. “Contaminates from the city, you know!”

“I don’t suppose it occurred to you that it might scare away anybody that could be watching you?”

Anna gaped at him guiltily. “Well, that wouldn’t be a bad thing would it?”

“Except that they’d just wait for us to leave and come back,” he said dryly.

That was unnerving and dismaying, particularly since she realized she’d also just blown her lie. She struggled for a few moments to come up with something to say that would cover the mistake and couldn’t. “Well … it is late and it’s dark. The boat’s dark and I’m wearing dark clothes. I doubt anybody saw me.”

“We saw you,” Simon said grimly.

“You did?” she asked in dismay, wondering if he’d seen her loading the boat. He didn’t leave her in doubt long.

“Yes, we did—when you were loading the boat with whatever it was you were heading out here with.”

Anna blinked at him, searching her mind a little frantically. “I wasn’t coming here,” she emphasized, pointing down at the floor. “I was just out for a little fresh air and exercise. Really!”

Simon was still studying her in patent disbelief when Ian emerged from the tube again. “Got it.”

“Got what?” Anna asked uneasily.

Ian opened the thermal carrier up and looked over the contents. “Looks like dinner. You hungry, Simon?”

Anna smiled weakly. “Oh! Help yourselves! I brought plenty .... I thought I might get hungry.”

“Anna!” Simon growled.

Anna sent him a wide-eyed look of innocence—or tried. When she discovered he was advancing on her purposefully, panic replaced that effort. She encountered the wall of the sub the moment she backed up, though. “Alright!” she said testily. “I thought I saw it out here … the sub … and I’d asked Caleb and Joshua to keep an eye on me in case my father came back. So, I figured I’d just fix a little something for them as a gift, you know? Appreciation?”

He tilted his head, studying her speculatively. “So, you expected to find Caleb and Joshua?”

“No! No,” she said quickly, worried by that time that she was going to get them in trouble. “But, I’d asked Caleb and when I saw the sub I figured he’d sent someone and I just thought I’d show my appreciation.”

He planted a hand on the wall beside her head when she started trying to ease to one side to escape. “So … show me.”

Anna gaped up at him blankly. “Show you?” she gasped weakly, watching in petrified fascination as his face moved closer and closer. She thought for a moment her heart was going to beat her to death. She felt weak and dizzy and torn between panic and …. Her lips tingled as his breath brushed them. Doubts ricocheted through her mind, the certainty that he was testing her or playing a trick on her. He hated her. He didn’t want to kiss her. He was trying to make a fool out of her!

Too late! She was way ahead of him!

Somehow, despite her doubts and her certainty that he was just trying to unsettle her, though, she discovered she simply couldn’t resist lifting her lips just a tiny bit and touching them to his. For a handful of almost painful heartbeats neither of them moved and then she ran her tongue over her dry lower lip, brushing it along his as she did.

She heard him swallow. He hesitated and then eased away from her.

Anna stared at him blankly as he turned away, trying to get her runaway heart under control, trying to grasp what had just happened—hadn’t happened. Hurt and anger flooded her abruptly in almost equal measure as she stared at his retreating back, bringing her to the verge of tears, which only unsettled her more.

Ian, she saw when it finally occurred to her that she’d let him make a complete fool out of her, was watching her. She looked away, glanced around the small sub in search of a place to hide and finally moved to the nearest porthole to stare out and try to compose herself. It