Free Saved by Sin [Paladin Protection Agency 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) by Susan Hayes Page B

blood heat and filled her head with other things they could be doing to each other as they lounged in the water of their own private beach. Inspired, she shifted her grip to his wrist and sat up slowly, bracing her free hand on the rounded stones beneath her as she tugged him in closer. She wanted to feel his body under her fingers again, the need to touch him flaring to life like gasoline thrown on slow burning embers. He was only a foot away from her when she saw something moving out on the lake. A dark shape was forming near the lake’s center, and she glanced up at the sky to see what had cast so large a shadow. The sky was clear. Weird.
    Michelle let go of Sinjin’s wrist and propped herself up higher in the water, trying to get a better look. It looked as if the shadow was moving closer. Her passion of a moment ago was doused in a wash of ice-cold terror as the distinctive sound of howling wind reached her ears and she realized what she was looking at. An impossible storm was racing across the surface of the lake, turning the water from blue to slate gray as it churned nearer. The millpond tranquility of a moment ago was transforming into a foam-crested chop, and there were waves cresting and rolling toward them beneath the perfect summer sky.
    “Sinjin!” She screamed his name and grabbed his hand with desperate strength, struggling to drag his big body with her as she lunged toward the beach. He turned toward her and sat up, bracing himself against the stony beach and stopping their movement toward the shore. He stared at her in confusion as she tugged on him again, clearly concerned by her sudden, frantic behavior.
    She gestured wildly to the gathering storm. “We have to get out of the water!”
    He turned back to the lake just as the full fury of the storm hit, and she lost sight of him as the waves rose up and swamped them both. A wall of water struck her and knocked her backward, pushing her under. The lake closed over her head, and she felt herself tumbling head over heels, tossed into a cold and confusing whirl of darkness and a deafening roar that filled her ears. Pain lanced through her as she was cruelly slammed into the rocky bottom. Her lungs burned and her abused body ached, but she managed to cling to consciousness and realized that if she was touching the ground, then she knew which direction the surface was. She planted her hands against the only solid thing in her universe and shoved hard, pushing herself up and out of the water.
    She sucked in a lungful of air the moment she cleared the surface. Her hands frantically rubbing at her eyes, still filled with the silt and grit of the churned up lake bottom. The moment she could see again, she shielded her gaze from the glare of the sun as it struck the water, desperately looking around her for Sinjin. Fear escalated to terror as she realized he wasn’t beside her, and she staggered to her feet, ignoring the pain as she reopened yesterday’s cuts and added fresh bruises to ones barely beginning to heal. With her heart in her throat, she scanned the area, looking for him. Around her the water was calm again, but further out the strange wind and chop still lingered.
    “Sinjin!” She finally spotted him, a small figure struggling in the heart of the storm. He was swimming hard toward her, but somehow he wasn’t making any headway. The wind and waves seemed to converge on him, dragging him toward the deepest part of the lake. She didn’t hesitate to go after him.
    She threw herself into a dive and started swimming faster than she’d ever done before. Nothing else mattered, not her fear, not her bruised and battered body. She needed to reach Sinjin and protect him. From the moment she’d heard the wind she knew this was not a natural storm. It was Robert, lashing out in a jealous rage. This was her fault, and Michelle was determined to stop him from hurting Sinjin. She wouldn’t let him be hurt by the nightmare that she’d inadvertently dragged