With a shriek, she flipped the whole cup just as he threw her to the ground, covering her body from the rain of acid.

“What the hell!” he grunted, writhing over her.

“Get off me!” She shoved at him, not knowing if any of the acid had touched her clothes, or his. “Get the hell off me, you bastard!”

She tried to scramble away, but he snagged her sweatshirt. “Take it off!” he insisted. “Now! Take it off!” He grabbed the zipper and started to rip.

“No!” She slammed her hands into his chest, just as she felt the air on her arm, where a hole in her hoodie suddenly appeared and grew, the acid on it centimeters from her skin.

“You’ll burn! You have to take it off!” He jabbed at the shoulders, pushing the jacket over her, stripping the sleeves as he pulled her to her feet and ripped off the cotton tank top, leaving her entirely bare.

“Your pants! Hurry before you burn!” He seized the waistband of her sweats just as she saw two gaping holes widening over her thigh.

“Off!” he demanded, dragging them down over her hips and taking her underpants with them. In one more lightning move, he flung them away. “Water! Wet your skin!”

He pushed her to the sink and flipped the faucet on, the water shockingly cold on her arm. Then he tore his dark shirt over his head and ripped his jeans off, whipping his clothes into the same corner he’d thrown hers.

“More water,” he said, pushing her closer to the sink and cupping his hands. “Give me your leg.”

Who was this man?

She lifted her leg and he started splashing handfuls of water over her thighs with one hand, and onto his shoulder with the other.

“Why the hell did you do that?” he demanded. “You could have blinded me.”

“That was the idea. You attacked me.”

He snorted softly, looking at her face. “I caught you stealing. Big difference.” He lifted his own leg to the sink and started splashing.

“I was not-” She grasped the side of the sink, adrenaline dumping through her like a straight shot of whiskey, her body rubbery and wobbly as she stared at the huge, dark, naked, furious stranger next to her.

“Who are you?”

“The new diver.”

Oh, no. Oh, no.

“The new…” Her voice gave out under the force of his laser-beam glare. Instead, she looked down, at the dark nest between his legs, his manhood fully exposed, lying against the soaking wet thigh he held up to the sink.

The new diver.

Oh, please. This wasn’t happening to her.

She finally managed to meet his sharp blue eyes again, her stomach flipping around like a hooked fish. “I thought you were going to rape me,” she said quietly. “Or… worse.”

He stopped splashing water long enough to drop his gaze over her body, as if he were… considering it.

“This isn’t enough,” he said gruffly, still studying her.

“What?” What the hell did that mean?

“We have to shower. Now. There could be droplets on your skin, and they’ll burn. They might already be burning. Come on.”

She hesitated only for a millisecond; he was right.

“In my cabin.” He shoved her toward the door.

He really was the new diver. The one who was coming ing… tomorrow. The one who was going to sleep in the small cabin next to the lab because it was the only unoccupied bunk on the boat.

The new goddamn freaking diver. “I thought you were… ”

“I know. Rapist. Killer. Pirate. I got the picture.”

“It’s only five percent nitric acid,” she said as she led him through the shadowed lab.

“It’ll still burn you. And scar.” She turned to look over her shoulder. His gaze was trained directly on her bare bottom.

Flynn had told them they were getting a new diver. But he failed to tell them the new guy was tall, dark, and so far past handsome that he was in another time zone. And she’d tried to burn that face?

He nudged her into the hallway and the first cabin, then whipped open the door to the head, a typical combination toilet and shower in one fiberglass closet.

With one hand, he shoved her into the tiny area, lifting the showerhose off its hook as he flicked the water knob.

“You know what they say, don’t you, Lizzie Dare?” He stepped inside, stealing every remaining inch of space with his big, bare body. He pulled the door firmly behind him and looked down at her with a dangerous gleam in his eye as he pointed the ice-cold spray right at her breasts. “Payback’s a bitch.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHE GASPED AS the water hit her, honey gold eyes flying open as she held her hands up to stave off the shock.

“You know my name?” she sputtered, backing up.

Con didn’t answer but moved the nozzle to target that shapely little bicep she’d splattered. “Does it burn anywhere at all?”

She shook her head, a mop of shoulder-length blond curls already dampening from splashed water. “You?”

As if she cared, the treacherous little thief. “No, but like I said, that stuff can sneak up on you.”

“Kind of like you did,” she shot back. “What were you doing in there, anyway?”

A pretty treacherous little thief, with beautiful pink nipples that were beading up like pebbles before his eyes. “I heard you go in.”

“There’s no way,” she said under her breath.

“There’s a way,” he assured her. No matter how silent she thought she’d been, Con could hear. He’d heard her breathe when she passed the bunk. He’d heard the key in the lock. And she, of course, never heard him follow her.

Could it be this easy? Could he have found his target less than three hours after he climbed on board?

“Other arm, Lizzie.”

Her cunning eyes narrowed, forming a delicate crease that pointed straight to a pixie nose and a heart-shaped face that looked far too innocent and appealing to be a criminal’s. Looks could be so deceiving.

Hesitantly, she stretched out her arm for washing. “How do you know my name?”

“I was given a list of crew members when I signed on.”

“There are four women on this boat.”

“And only one is five-four and a hundred and ten pounds.” A hundred and ten well-distributed, nicely proportioned, sweet little pounds of trouble.

“The list had our heights and weights?”

“I’m thorough.” Water sluiced over her breasts and down a clenched stomach. “This leg got hit, didn’t it?” he asked. “There were holes in your pants on your right leg.”

“Yes.” She offered him her thigh, and he studied it for signs of burn dots. He saw none and his gaze moved up to the narrow strip of darkened hair between her legs. Beautiful, feminine, and wet.

No surprise, his cock stirred.

“Turn around,” he said sharply, using his free hand on her shoulder to get her in the other direction.

When she did, he lingered over her back, taut and toned, straight down to a high, round ass.

“At least you’re smart enough to take the treatment and not go all modest on me.” So he could be equally smart, and not let his body respond to the visuals.

“I live on boats with divers for months at a time. Most of them are men, and all of our days are spent in bathing suits. I lost my modesty years ago.”

He called up his mental file of Elizabeth Dare. Daughter of famed salvager Malcolm Dare. Highly skilled SCUBA diver with a recognized expertise in treasure hunting. Thirty, single, and commonly known as Lizzie.

It didn’t say anything about smart-mouthed, prettyfaced, or smooth-assed. And Lucy thought she was so damn thorough.

He aimed the spray right between her legs, drinking in the curves of her heart-shaped behind.

“It’s a shame I have to turn you in tomorrow morning.”

“Turn me in?” She spun around, eyes on fire. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

He just lifted a brow and turned the spray to his shoulder where a few drops of the acid had splashed on his T-shirt. “You were breaking and entering the cleaning lab and about to help yourself to the treasure. Define wrong for Mr. Paxton.”