Stranded With The Navy Seal. Susan Cliff
touched her swollen lips. “So do I.”
“I’ll try to go slow.”
“Okay,” she said, swallowing hard.
After that was settled, they both rushed down the hallway toward his room. She burst out laughing at their lack of decorum. He laughed along with her. His hair was mussed, his collar askew. She’d never felt like this before, awash with joy and arousal. He pushed her up against the door and kissed her breath away. All of her senses were heightened. They were standing on the threshold of ecstasy.
But she didn’t get in.
There was a sudden flash of movement behind Logan. He was yanked backward and thrown into the opposite wall. She counted three figures in black masks, circling like sharks. She shrank against the door, but one of them grabbed her and clamped a hand over her mouth. Her scream was muffled by a leather-covered palm. She was shoved into the room next to Logan’s. It was dark. Thin curtains fluttered by the open balcony entrance. Her knees met the edge of the bed and she fell across it with her captor. She kicked her legs wildly and bit at the gloved hand. He didn’t let go.
Logan crashed into the room and got immediately wrapped up by two assailants. They wrestled him onto the balcony. He managed to jerk his arm free and throw a brutal punch, staggering one of the masked men.
Cady watched in horror as the second man swung a blunt object at Logan, hitting him in the temple. Logan dropped to his knees. Blood streamed down his forehead. Strangled sounds emerged from her throat. Logan fell onto his stomach and stayed there, motionless. The two men hauled him upright and pitched him over the railing.
And that was it. He was gone.
She stopped struggling. Tears blurred her vision, and her mind went blank. She didn’t understand what was happening, but resistance seemed futile. There were too many hands on her. One of the assailants gagged her and bound her wrists with rope. He tied her ankles, too. Some kind of bag went over her head. Then she was lifted and carried onto the balcony. Although she couldn’t see anything, she could feel her body being lowered over the railing. She sobbed into the gag, frozen with terror.
She went down and down and down. She didn’t hit the water. There was someone waiting for her on a raft below. The other assailants joined them. After they started moving it dawned on her.
She was being kidnapped.
Logan hit the water like a ton of bricks.
He was still reeling from the blow to the head. The hard slap against the surface didn’t help him regain his senses. He plummeted into the dark abyss, blood streaming from his scalp. Although he was an expert swimmer, among the best in his BUD/S class, he faltered. He was disoriented. He couldn’t tell up from down.
Panic gripped him, and he let out a silent scream. Bubbles emerged from his mouth. Bubbles that led him toward the surface.
He swam hard and broke through, gasping for breath.
Good God. He’d almost drowned like a rookie. Worse, he’d been easily overpowered by a couple of lightweights—after almost banging a woman in the hallway outside his room. How embarrassing. He wasn’t even drunk. Extreme lust wasn’t an excuse. Neither was his injury. He’d let three unarmed men get the drop on him.
He was lucky to be alive.
He touched his brow, wincing. He felt nauseous. His vision sucked. He had a concussion, no doubt about it. He spent the next few minutes treading water, waiting for his thoughts to clear. He couldn’t seem to focus.
Damn. He might still drown yet.
While he struggled to stay alert, he became aware of a raft in the vicinity. It was dark, and he couldn’t see anything but vague shapes. The black expanse of the cruise ship hull loomed against the foamy breakwater. There was a figure sliding down a rope from the balcony of Logan’s cabin to the raft below.
The raft had a motor, but they didn’t engage it. Maybe it made too much noise for a stealthy getaway. Two men used paddles instead, cutting quickly through the chop. Logan counted four heads on the raft. One was lumpy, as if wearing a hood.
Cadence.
They’d taken her. She was the target of this raid, not him. He didn’t know why...and now he was faced with a tough decision. He could follow the raft and try to rescue her, or stay here and save himself.
SEALs were taught to put the team above themselves, but they were also taught that dead men couldn’t help anyone. Sometimes self-rescue had to be the top priority. Logan knew he couldn’t keep pace with the swift-moving cruise ship. There was no way to climb aboard. These vessels were built to discourage pirates, not give them a convenient ladder. The only way to get rescued was to shout for help and hope someone heard him.
But down here at sea level, no one would hear him. Except the kidnappers.
While he waited for the raft to move out of range, he considered his only other option. The mother ship would be nearby, probably less than a mile away. He could swim a mile in his sleep. If they didn’t fire up the engine, following them would be easy. Climbing aboard the mother ship and fighting off multiple assailants would not be easy, but screw it. If he was going to die anyway, he might as well choose the nobler cause.
So he started swimming.
His mind was fuzzy, but his body worked fine. He swam after the raft until it disappeared in the dark night. The sound of the motor made his spirits plummet. His chances of catching up to the raft narrowed. Even so, he kept swimming. He didn’t look back at the cruise ship, because it was too late to change course. He was committed.
It occurred to him that the kidnappers had mistaken Cadence for Maya O’Brien. They’d broken into the room adjacent to his, which had been reserved for Maya. The two women were about the same size. They had similar coloring.
Logan’s gut clenched with unease. If this was a targeted attack on a former president’s daughter, ransom might not be their endgame. Either way, Cadence was in extreme danger. Because she wouldn’t pass for Maya O’Brien up close, and as soon as they discovered their mistake, they’d kill her.
He swam harder, galvanized to action. It was one of the most grueling swims of his life. Top five for sure. He surged forward, his arms pumping. He’d done a six-mile in Santa Cruz during storm swells. He’d crossed the Persian Gulf in the dead of night. He’d made the trip from Coronado to the San Diego Bay in a flak jacket.
But he’d accomplished all of these feats as a team. He’d never been in the middle of the ocean alone, with a bum knee and a head injury. He had no support, no intel and no visuals. If he reached the ship, which seemed more unlikely now that he’d lost sight of it, he’d be outnumbered by at least three to one.
The stakes were high. The chances of survival were low.
On the plus side, he was making great time. He also had the element of surprise. The kidnappers shouldn’t have been so careless in disposing of his body. They clearly expected him to drown, not give chase.
He was Logan Nathaniel Starke. He didn’t quit. He didn’t sink. He didn’t die. He protected his assets, and he was going to make those bastards sorry they hadn’t finished him off before throwing him overboard.
His perseverance was rewarded by a dim light ahead. He’d found the mother ship, and by some miracle of fate, it wasn’t even moving. He closed the distance as quickly as possible, his muscles burning from exertion. They were pulling up the anchor. The raft had been stowed. He switched to a modified breaststroke on the last stretch, which kept everything from his nose down under the surface. He didn’t want to be spotted.
The ship was a forty-foot deep-sea cruiser with a protected wheelhouse in front. The galley and cabins were in the back. There was a transom door and a convenient swim step. It was an ideal setup for an ambush. He assumed