Sully wiggled his hips against Mac, whose softening cock was still planted in his ass. “Thank God I brought a few pairs of sweatpants. Otherwise I’d be freezing my butt off.”

“I should have modified them and cut a hole in the ass.” Mac dropped his hand to the other man’s still-hard cock. “You’ve got thirty seconds to come or you have to wait until the next time I feel like doing this.” He started stroking as Sully’s eyes dropped closed, his hips working against Mac’s hand. The action immediately revived the interest of Mac’s cock, which started inflating again.

“Mmm, yeah, I get seconds,” Mac said. He wrapped his fingers tighter around Sully’s cock and pumped his fist up and down his shaft.

Sully fucked himself back and forth between Mac’s cock and hand, groaning as he struggled to make it. Just when he thought he never would, his climax rocked him, coating Mac’s hand with his juices. “Fuck yeah!” he groaned.

Mac gave him a few seconds before he grabbed Sully’s hips again and pounded his cock into him. “You lucky bastard, you barely made it. This is what happens when you torture me before we get on the goddamned boat. You left me fucking horny this morning…ah!”

He leaned against Sully for support again, trying to catch his breath. After a moment, he withdrew and slapped Sully’s ass, hard.

“Be right back.”

“You’re leaving me here?”

Mac laughed. “Gonna clean up. I’ll take care of you in a minute.”

He walked around the sorting table. “Hey, at least it’s too cold for me to hose you down.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“I might. My boat, my rules. That’s the deal.” He grinned. “I told you, payback’s a bitch and so am I.” He didn’t bother zipping his jeans. He walked below decks to the aft head and cleaned up. Then he zipped, washed his hands, and walked over to the box of supplies on the galley counter. He reached in, hesitating before he pulled out a banana. He returned to the deck.

“Hey, you been into the food already?” he asked Sully.

Sully glanced at him. “That’s a weird tangent.”

Mac didn’t bother untying Sully. He lounged next to him in the deepening gloom and peeled the banana. “There’s only three bananas left. You been into them? I thought I grabbed a larger bunch than that.” He broke off a piece and fed it to Sully after taking a bite himself.

Sully shook his head, chewed, and swallowed. “Nope.”

They finished the banana. Mac tossed the peel overboard. “Well, whatever.” He caressed Sully’s ass. “You’re feeling a little chilly there, buddy.”

“No shit.”

Mac started slapping his ass again until Sully’s flesh turned warm and pink. Only then did he relent and untie his hands. “Go clean up.”

When Sully turned from the railing, Mac grabbed the front of his sweatshirt, pulled him close, and crushed his lips with his. “I’m gonna love using your ass this weekend. You’re gonna be gone a lot next month. That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.” Sully grinned. “You’ll just have to get creative.”

* * *

Clarisse huddled in the V-berth and prayed they didn’t find her.

How would she find Uncle Tad? Maybe the marina would know.

Worse, where would she go? She still had more than five hundred dollars in cash, but she wouldn’t be able to access the other funds in the new account for several days. She’d been gone from Florida for so long that she didn’t know anyone else here but Uncle Tad, unless some of the regulars still had slips in the marina.

Now she’d have to call Raquel and admit this was a dead end. She felt so tired, bone-dead tired, exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Maybe she should have just stayed and let Bryan kill her. No more struggle, no more fighting. She’d be with her dad and mom, right?

Hopefully.

She closed her eyes and rested her head on a pillow. No, definitely exhaustion speaking. She didn’t want to be dead. She wanted to be free, and it’d been so damn long since she’d been free that she’d forgotten what it felt like.

Her eyes snapped open. She must have slept again because she saw through the tiny port window that night had fallen. She didn’t hear the men, just the sound of the diesels.

What woke her?

Her heart raced. Something had awoken her. Her instincts from all the time she spent on board kicked in.

She closed her eyes and listened, trying to pick out old, familiar sounds. The diesels—they sounded smooth, no problems there. But something…

Then she heard it again and immediately recognized it. The auxiliary aft bait tank circulation pump had clogged or sucked air, jamming the automatic kill switch open. That happened sometimes.

She waited, anticipating one of the men would go below decks and unplug it. Usually Uncle Tad didn’t bother using the auxiliary pump unless absolutely necessary.

The minutes ticked by. What the fuck are they waiting for? How could they not hear that? If it overheated, it could short-circuit and cause a fire in the engine compartment. At the very least, it would ruin the pump.

She sat up and waited, chewing her nails.

The sound grew more shrill.

She heard a noise from the master cabin and realized why the men hadn’t reacted.

Didn’t anyone tell those assholes you have to have someone on watch?

She waited for several minutes. Unable to take it any longer, she yanked her suitcase out of the way and pounded on their cabin door as she ran past. “Get up! The pump’s burning up!”

* * *

Mac jumped, startled by the pounding on the door. He whacked his head so hard against the bulkhead that he yelped in pain and dropped to the berth, swearing and gripping the back of his head.

Sully yanked on his restraints. “Who the fuck is that?”

“I don’t know!” With one hand on the rapidly swelling goose egg on the back of his head, Mac used the other to unclip Sully’s wrist cuffs and grab a pair of sweatpants. The men tumbled out of the cabin as they pulled on clothes. By the time they reached the main cabin hatch, they saw the engine room cover was up and caught a glimpse of a woman’s head disappearing through the opening.

“Shit!” Sully growled. He took the lead, ripping off the leather wrist cuffs as he ran. He raced down the ladder ahead of Mac. The woman had the engine room light on and was already buried headfirst in the far alcove behind the port engine where some of the electrical junctions were located.

Mac reached for the protective earmuffs he kept hanging inside the hatch and found them missing.

What the fuck?

Then he heard the screeching noise, what he didn’t hear before.

Okay, so he’d been distracted, but still.

Sully started to go after the woman. Mac caught his arm and shook his head. Sully wouldn’t have heard him over the engine noise anyway.

After a moment, the screech stopped. The woman emerged. Yes, she wore the earmuffs and held a flashlight. The flashlight that also hung by the hatchway.

Who the hell is she?

* * *

Clarisse had found the connector and, with no time to waste, yanked as hard as she could on the wire. When it broke loose at the junction box connector, the auxiliary pump shut off. Flipping the switch in the wheelhouse wouldn’t have done any good, because when the float switch stuck it overrode the on-off switch. It would have taken twice as long to find the damn fuse and yank it, but that would have killed both pumps. Uncle Tad had always sworn he never should have let his brother-in-law install the damn thing. He’d meant to rewire it properly to eliminate the problem, hence why he rarely used it when the other pump usually sufficed.

Old habits died hard. Even though she wasn’t thin and hadn’t set foot on the boat in years, Clarisse had no problem carefully wiggling her way out of the alcove. She maneuvered around the back of the port engine and avoided the exhaust manifold. Even with the earmuffs on, it was still friggin’ loud.

The two men looked stunned. She glanced at them only long enough to shove past them, her face turned away. She replaced the flashlight and earmuffs before scrambling up the ladder to the deck.

Fear set in. She raced for the V-berth cabin, hoping to get there first. Maybe she could talk to them through the door and they wouldn’t press charges against her for being a stowaway or breaking and entering or whatever since she’d saved their asses.

* * *

His initial shock waning, Mac raced after her. He managed to grab her jacket and yank her back. “Stop! Wait, who the hell are you?”

She fought, hard and viciously. In the narrow passageway, he had to wrap both arms around her and drag her back to the main cabin area. She still managed to land a few good strikes to his shins with her heels. Fortunately for him her sneakers didn’t cause him much damage.

“Stop fighting! We’re not going to hurt you!” He muscled her into the galley and forced her to sit in the booth table. Sully pushed in, blocking her escape. She cringed away from them, her long hair obscuring her face.

“I’m sorry! Please don’t call the police!” She curled into a tight ball against the bulkhead wall.

“Are you on the run from the cops?” Sully asked.

She shook her head.

The men exchanged a glance. They still couldn’t see her face.

With Sully keeping her penned in, Mac slowly slid into the other side of the booth. She cringed. Jesus, she seemed so familiar—

Then it hit him. Betsy. She acted a lot like his little sister had the last time he saw her alive.

Before her husband killed her.

Sully started to say something else but Mac held up a hand. His Joe Friday cop routine wouldn’t fly right then. “What did you do? In the engine room?”

She still wouldn’t look at them, her hair concealing her face. “The auxiliary bait tank pump. You can’t use it. It gets stuck because the wiring’s messed up. I yanked the wire, that’s all. I heard it going. If it’d burned up, it could have short-circuited the panel and caused a fire.”

Mac felt Sully’s eyes burning into him, but he refused to look at his partner. Only someone with intimate knowledge of the boat could know that. He’d stupidly forgotten it, even though Tad had warned him about it and suggested calling an electrician to fix it.

“Look at me,” Mac softly commanded.

She cringed again, but she tipped her head just enough he spotted one eye through her hair. Still not enough to see her face.

“Thank you,” he said.

The girl froze. “You’re welcome,” she finally said.

Mac grabbed her wrist, firmly but not painfully. He reached for her chin and hesitated when she flinched.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said. “I promise, neither one of us will hurt you.” When she relaxed, he tilted her chin so she had to look at them. Mac heard Sully’s sharp intake of breath when they got their first good look at her face—and her injuries. Someone had beaten the crap out of her. No wonder she was hiding and scared.

“Who did this to you?” Sully growled.

Mac felt her tremble. He released her chin, but laced his fingers through hers.

“Bryan. My boyfriend. Ex.”

Her soft, scared voice ripped at Mac’s heart. He wanted to wrap his arms around her, protect her, never let her go.

And he didn’t even know her name. Dammit, she looked familiar though, like he’d seen her somewhere before.

“You’re not going back to him,” Sully growled. With Sully, Mac knew that was a command, not a request or even a question.

At least they were on the same page.

She vigorously shook her head. “No, but I have to return to Columbus at some point in the next few weeks to handle the legal stuff and get my things.”

“I’ll go with you,” Mac immediately volunteered. What the fuck?

His reaction surprised even him.

Sully arched an eyebrow at him over that outburst. Okay, that would cost him some stripes back on dry land, but it’d be worth it.

The girl shook her head and slowly pulled her hands back. “No.

That’s okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t know you guys owned the Dilly now.”

She dipped a hand into her jacket pocket and withdrew a ring of three familiar-looking keys, laid them on the table, and cautiously slid them toward Mac. “You’ll want these.”

He looked at the keys but didn’t reach for them. “Let’s back up.

Who are you? How did you get keys to my boat?”