Free The Reef by Nora Roberts Page A

balance.”
    “You really like to analyze things, don’t you, Red?”
    “I guess I do.” Hoping he was unaware of how much courage it took, she shifted closer. “I’ve been analyzing why you were so angry after you kissed me.”
    “I wasn’t angry,” he corrected evenly. “And you kissed me.”
    “I started it.” Determined to finish it, she kept her eyes on his. “You changed it, then you got mad because it surprised you. What you felt surprised you. It surprised me, too.” Lifting her hands, she spread them on his chest. “I wonder if we’d be surprised now.”
    He wanted, more than anything he could remember, he wanted to swoop down and plunder that fresh and eager mouth. The hunger to taste it came in swift, sharp waves, and made his hands rough as they snagged her wrists.
    “You’re moving into dark water, Tate.”
    “Not alone.” She wasn’t afraid any longer, she realized. Why, she wasn’t even nervous. “I know what I’m doing.”
    “No, you don’t.” He shoved her back, arm’s length, hardly realizing his hands were still cuffed around her wrists. “You figure there aren’t any consequences, but there are. If you don’t watch your step, you’ll pay them.”
    A shiver worked up her spine, deliciously. “I’m not afraid to be with you. I want to be with you.”
    The muscles in his stomach twisted. “Easy to say, with your mother in the galley. Then again, maybe you’re more clever than you look.” Furious, he tossed her hands down and strode away.
    The implication brought a bright bloom to her cheeks. She had been teasing him, she realized. Taunting him. To see if she could, needing to know if he felt even half of this draw toward her that she felt toward him. Ashamed, contrite, she hurried after him.
    “Matthew, I’m sorry. Really I—”
    But he was over the side with a splash and swimming toward the Sea Devil. Tate let out a huff of breath. Damn it, the least he could do was listen when she apologized. She dived in after him.
    When she dragged herself onto the deck, he was popping the top on a beer.
    “Go home, little girl, before I toss you overboard.”
    “I said I was sorry.” She dragged wet hair out of her eyes. “That was unfair and stupid, and I apologize.”
    “Fine.” The quick swim and cold beer weren’t doingmuch to scratch the itch. Hoping to ignore her, he swung into his hammock. “Go home.”
    “I don’t want you to be mad.” Determined to make amends, she marched to the hammock. “I was only trying to . . . I was just testing.”
    He set the open beer on the deck. “Testing,” he repeated, then lunged before she could draw in the breath to gasp. He hauled her onto the hammock atop him. It swung wildly as she clawed at the sides to keep from upending. Her eyes popped wide with shock when his hands clamped intimately over her bottom.
    “Matthew!”
    He gave her a quick, not altogether loving tap, then shoved her off. She landed in a heap on the butt he’d just explored.
    “I’d say we’re even now,” he stated, and reached for his beer.
    Her first impulse was to spring to attack. Only the absolute certainty that the result would be either humiliating or disastrous prevented her. Mixed with that was the lowering thought that she’d deserved just what she’d gotten.
    “All right.” With calm and dignity, she rose. “We’re even.”
    He’d expected her to lash at him. At the very least to blubber. The fact that she stood beside him, cool, composed, touched off a glint of admiration in his eyes. “You’re okay, Red.”
    “Friends again?” she asked and offered a hand.
    “Partners, anyway.”
    Crisis avoided, she thought. At least temporarily. “So, do you want to take a break? Maybe do some snorkeling?”
    “Maybe. Couple of masks and snorkels in the wheelhouse.”
    “I’ll get them.” But she came back with a sketchbook. “What’s this?”
    “A silk tie. What does it look like?”
    Overlooking the sarcasm, she sat on the edge