He'd been careful with the knife. His body was shaking from cold, but he'd kept his hands steady. It was an insult for her to think that he might accidently nick her wet suit. And she should have been worried about him cutting her throat. He let his breath out and knew his strength was waning. He had to make a decision. Life or death. He had no doubt he could manipulate a woman-he had more weapons in his arsenal than guns-but he was weak and that made him vulnerable.

A little reluctantly, he removed the knife from her throat and eased his weight from her. The moment she was free, the woman flung herself onto her back and sat, pushing backward with her heels to put distance between them. Overheated, she tore off her wet suit top, uncaring that she was exposing soft skin to his startled gaze. She dragged a sweatshirt from behind her and yanked it over her head.

They stared at one another across the deck. The moment their eyes met again, his heart contracted. She had the blackest eyes he'd ever seen, turbulent-stormy-a dark, fierce velvet that appeared almost as liquid as the sea itself. She looked like a wild thing, moody and beautiful and out of reach.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

That was a good question. Who exactly was he? He had many names. Many faces. People who saw him rarely survived. Damn, he was tired. He brushed at his face and his hand came away smeared with blood. What should he tell her? He needed her now. Needed an ally, a place to hide, to recuperate. What would appeal most to a woman like her? And that was the problem: it was difficult to get a handle on her.

He read people easily. It was a gift of birth, of training, of years of experience. But she was difficult. She fought with the fury of the devil, was obviously a free soul out here on the sea and had the most direct stare he'd ever seen on anyone. He hunched his shoulders to make himself look smaller and less intimidating and wiped at his face again, deliberately smearing more blood.

"You look like hell," she observed. "I can't call the coast guard because you ripped out my VHF. I'm going to have to get you to shore as fast as possible."

He held up his hand. "No. I can't be seen." He forced a trembling note into his voice. "I think someone's trying to kill me."

"That's a shocker," she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

It wasn't exactly the reaction he was going for. And people thought he was a social nightmare. Where was all the womanly concern and sympathy? She was looking at him with dark, stormy eyes that still said she wanted to kick the crap out of him. She wasn't the most forgiving woman he'd ever run across. He tried a tentative smile.

"I can't blame you for being upset. I was disoriented. I think I was just in survival mode." That much was the truth. "I didn't really understand what was going on. I thought you had attacked me."

She took a breath and nodded, accepting his explanation. He had the feeling he would have to stick close to the truth with her. And what the hell was the truth? He didn't know anymore. He found himself rubbing his temple and wincing when he touched the raw, jagged edges of a wound.

"I can't remember what happened. Do you know?" That sounded pathetic enough to touch even a skeptic. And he was beginning to really like her face, that pixie face with the incredible bone structure. She hadn't taken her enormous eyes off of him, almost hadn't blinked. She looked at him like he was a tiger crouched on the deck of her boat, ready to attack at any moment. She hadn't exactly relaxed.

Her eyes were too big for her face and were heavily fringed with black lashes. Her hair was thick and a little wild, with ragged edges making her look even more like a pixie. Her chin was stubborn, her mouth generous. She regarded him with suspicion, but he could see she might just have an Achilles' heel-a soft spot for someone in trouble.

"A rogue wave knocked me off the boat. I found you in the water, but I have no idea where you came from. There's a shelf down about thirty feet and you were being slammed into that. The fault line runs along there and I managed to snag you before you dropped off it." She poured cold water onto a clean rag and handed it to him, keeping her hands in sight and her movements slow. Then she handed him a glass. "Drink this."

He took the tumbler from her, his fingers brushing hers. His heart jumped. Raced. His breath hitched. He frowned as he took his time drinking the contents. He didn't have reactions to women-not real reactions. Not like that. Not unexpected and for no reason. His body was freezing. It felt as if he'd been beaten with several two-by-fours over and over. It wasn't as if he needed sexual relief. So why the hell would he react to her touch? He didn't like puzzles. And he sure as hell didn't like things he couldn't explain.

"Your name." It wasn't a question this time.

He ran his fingers through his wet hair and kept his expression as blank as possible. He frowned as if trying to remember. What to use? He needed something as close to the truth as possible. There was just something about her that raised a red flag. Like maybe she was one of those rare people who sensed lies. And he was damned good at lying-he didn't know any other way of life. "Lev. I think it's Lev. I can't remember much."

"Are you a criminal? A smuggler?"

He frowned and rubbed at the blood with the wet cloth. "I don't know."

Her expression didn't change much. Her lips compressed and some of the storm in her eyes dissipated. He'd been right not to deny the accusation. She was more comfortable with his lack of knowledge than if he'd denied being a criminal. He obviously wasn't a fisherman. He was armed and he looked dangerous, even as battered as he was. She wasn't going to buy an innocent act.

"Do you know how you got out here? I didn't see any other boats before or after the wave hit."

He looked her straight in the eye and allowed a touch of fear in his gaze. "I don't know. My mind is a blank. I can't remember what happened to me or who I am. But every time I think about going to the authorities, I get this very bad feeling." That was a calculated risk. She was alone on a fishing boat out in the ocean. A maverick. A loner. One who didn't frighten easily. She probably had an aversion to authority and police and questions. It was a connection between them, small, but at last he'd found one. He could find more.

"You need a doctor. What the hell am I going to do with you?"

Triumph swept through him. His teeth were chattering now, and he could feel the edges of his brain fuzzing over. He held on to consciousness grimly. "Thanks for pulling me out of the water." He touched his chest as if it hurt. "You did CPR."

She scowled at him. "I used the regulator."

It seemed important to her to let him know she had not touched her lips to his, no matter how tempting the thought might be. And-strangely-he found it tempting. She had a very attractive mouth and he mentally kicked himself for noticing. Never allow emotions to come into play. His life was at stake. She was . . . expendable. A stranger. She meant nothing.

He attempted a small smile, although his face seemed frozen. "From the feel of my chest, the CPR was vigorous."

"I'm not good at anything medical."

He allowed his gaze to slide over her. She was too thin. He doubted if anyone would call her beautiful-but she had a certain wild appeal, smelling of sea and salt and wet suit. "However you managed it, thank you." She seemed too fragile to have pulled him on board by sheer strength, so she was resourceful and tenacious. Admiration for her snaked inside of him and settled somewhere he didn't want to think about.

She held up her hand. "Don't try to stab me. I'm just getting you a blanket."

Lev noticed she'd used the word try. She still thought she was the one in control. He watched her every movement carefully through half-closed eyes. It didn't matter that he was in bad shape. He was alert and coiled, ready to spring should she make one wrong move. She was trapped on deck with a dangerous predator-and she moved as if she knew it, keeping her hands in sight as she pulled a blanket out of the locker for him-yet he knew she didn't accept the knowledge. She obviously didn't want to get too close so she tossed the blanket to him.

Lev didn't disabuse her of the notion that she was safe-out of his reach. He could be on her in a second and he knew just about every way there was to kill someone. He sighed as he wrapped the blanket around himself, still shivering uncontrollably. "Thanks," he murmured again. He was injured more severely than he'd first guessed because she was definitely getting under his skin. He had the feeling he was just as uncomfortable with her as she was with him.

"Look. You have a concussion, and if you've lost memory, it's severe. You were really battered against the reef before I could get to you. I have to get you help. We can't just stay out here."

"I'm not going to die," he reassured her. "Can you recover your bags?"

She blinked. Shocked. He'd definitely shocked her. "My bags?"

"With your catch. You said you dumped your catch in order to rescue me."

She waved that aside. "You need help. That comes first. I'll come back out and see if I can recover them later."

She looked down at the water and for the first time he could read her expression. There was longing. Need. Not for her lost catch, but for something else. His mind, as clunky as it was, as shadowy and hazy, began to form an idea that left him a little shocked. An element? Could this woman be element bound? Where there was one bound to an element, there were at least three others. He'd read about such a thing but had never run across it. It was a miracle of nature. But there was that look on her face, almost loving, certainly in need.

"Have you always lived your life by the sea?"

She shrugged. "I don't like being far from the water. And it's how I make my living."

It seemed impossible to just stumble accidently over something that had the potential for tremendous power. A key to one of the elements. Water. He shook his head and instantly his vision blurred, reminding him he was probably hallucinating anyway. He looked her straight in the eye again. "I'm not going to a hospital. I can't afford too many questions, not when I have no answers. Just get me back to shore and I'll find my way."

Rikki scowled, turning away from him, trying to think when those intense eyes had her more than a little rattled. His eyes were a piercing blue, like the sea itself. He was gorgeous. She didn't get close to men who were gorgeous. She judged his height to be over six feet. Wide shoulders, a thick, muscular chest, narrow hips; he was all muscle. The man was a walking mythology statue-a poster child for women's fantasies. His face was all hard angles and planes. He looked tough and she had no doubt that he was. He was shivering continually.

Cursing under her breath, she knew she couldn't just leave him. "You know you could have a blood clot. You hit pretty hard."

"I'll be fine." He settled deeper into the blanket, and long lashes veiled his blue eyes, giving her some relief. "Go get your catch. I'm not going to a hospital, so it doesn't matter where we are or how long it takes us to get back to the harbor."

Rikki studied his face. He could take the boat while she was down searching for the nets, but it seemed silly not to just kill her and throw her overboard. She was very tempted to try to recover her catch. She couldn't afford the loss of the urchins or her gear. Selfish or not, it was how she made a living and the farm needed cash coming in.

"Take the keys with you if you're worried," he said, without opening his eyes.

"I can rig a motor," she said, "so I'm guessing you can as well."

He opened his eyes and looked straight into hers with that penetrating stare that shook her. Ocean blue, his eyes held no real emotion. None. Flat and as cold as the deepest sea. Yet they were brilliant, like two sapphires mesmerizing her. She shook herself. Or like a cobra. He was her catch, fair and square, no matter how difficult he was to handle. She'd been the one to pull him out of the sea-and that made him hers.

"Do whatever you feel comfortable doing, but truthfully, I'll need you to get me out of here. I don't have a clue where I am or which direction I would go to get back to the harbor."

She studied his face. He wasn't exactly lying, but he wasn't telling the truth. He had no doubt that he would find his way to shore-and neither did she. He was a resourceful man.

"Drink some more water. This won't take long," she said, making up her mind. She was going to take him at his word. If the boat started up, she might be able to "dance" the water right over the top of him and spill him right back into the sea.

Lev watched as she poured hot engine water inside her wet suit top and then stripped off her sweatshirt and pulled on her vest with a diver's immodesty. He couldn't help but think she didn't notice him as a man, more like a catch she'd pulled from the sea. A part of him was a little disgruntled over that, while another part wanted to smile. She was very focused once she decided on a course of action. She reached for her gear, hurriedly shrugging into her bailout tank.

He watched her get ready to dive through narrow, brooding eyes. He wanted to move, to put his hand in the water and feel the response to her when she went in, but he couldn't summon the energy. Instead, he watched her go in. Watched the water reach for her. Welcome her, as if it enveloped her and held her.

He held his breath as she disappeared beneath the shimmering surface. She looked peaceful, like part of the sea itself, not awkward like some divers he'd observed over the years. And the water poured over and around her, caressing her body . . .

He pulled himself up short. What the hell was he thinking? He was losing it. The continual rocking of the boat made him feel slightly nauseated, which he would have found mildly alarming if his brain wasn't quite so fuzzy. As it was, his queasiness was just another discomfort among so many. Mostly the cold bothered him. Even his insides were cold. Pain he could manage. He'd lived with pain as a child every damn day. He could walk on glass and keep going. But the cold . . .

He couldn't stop shivering. With her off the boat, he could relax, just for a few minutes-try to get oriented. Try to remember what the hell had happened to him and who wanted him dead this time. Survival mattered. He had a strong sense of self-preservation, and this unique woman with her solitary lifestyle could be his best chance. He needed to have a plan.

The sound of the water lapping at the boat was soothing. The Honda ran lightly in the background as it fed her air. Occasionally there was the cry of a gull overhead. He didn't look up. It was too much effort. This woman went from rage to calm in seconds. She was controlled. Had good instincts. She could see lies better than most. She had incredible eyes. His body jerked. Where the hell had that come from? Women were tools. That was what this one was. A tool. To be used. Like anything else handy.

He leaned his head back until he could rest a little more comfortably. Just this once, he wanted to disappear. Be someone else. Anyone. He wanted to be like all those people running around living their lives. What the hell was normal? He didn't even know. He solved problems. He killed people. He moved in and out of the shadows and never emerged into sunlight. That was his life and he'd always lived it without question. And why could he remember that when he didn't know which of the names or faces in his mind were really his? What the hell difference did it make that she had incredible eyes? And a very generous mouth.

He wiped his face and looked down at the amount of blood on his hand. Head wounds tended to bleed pretty badly. He should stitch it up, but he was too tired. His arms felt like lead. It was easier resting beneath the light high-tech silver survival blanket and thinking about-her. What was it about her that appealed to him? He'd slept with many beautiful women. Seduced them. Used them. Took the information essential to what he was working on, and then in some cases disposed of them if it was needed.

He wasn't capable of emotion. Emotion got in the way, and by the time he was twelve, he'd learned not to let himself feel anything for anyone. There were moments of weakness and this was one of those moments. It would pass. He was tired, hungry, cold, and had no idea what the hell had happened to him. His mind simply blanked when he tried to remember what he'd been working on. Who he'd been after. Who was after him.

His life was a game of cat and mouse. Survival was always the prize. If he didn't know what the hell was going on, he was already down. He needed the woman. She was a tool for survival. His wanting to stay with her had nothing to do with her eyes or mouth. Or her fiery temper. Her absolute passion. What would it be like to feel passion? To have someone with those eyes look at him and no one else? Look at him for no other reason than because she thought he was hers?

He pressed his fingertips to his temples and applied pressure. He must be really weak and sick to be thinking like this. There was no belonging. No home. No hers. There couldn't be for someone like him. He was a machine. He wasn't human. He'd lost his humanity nearly forty years earlier in a school where children were taught to kill. To serve. To be robots-no more than puppets. He frowned. What in the hell was going through his mind? One didn't question service, or who or what they were-but, he'd been programmed from his childhood. There was no deprogrammer for someone like him. Only a bullet in the head at the end of the day. Odd that he could remember details of his past yet not the why of it or what the hell had happened to him.

He'd tracked a preacher once, one who liked boys and often visited Thailand. His appetites were insatiable. Right before Lev had shot him, the man had told Lev that he had no soul. At the time he hadn't even thought about it. Why now? Why was he suddenly contemplating the truth of that? The woman had looked at him with her large, heavily lashed eyes, dark as midnight. Suspicious. But she'd looked at him. Into him. She saw him. And for one moment, while she'd looked at him-he had seen himself.

His heart thudded, and for the first time since he'd been a child, fear gripped him hard. She'd seen inside of him. No one could see him. He'd built a fortress, strong and powerful, surrounding that one small broken piece inside of him that he'd never been able to harden. She'd seen it-he was certain she had. His fist hit the side of the boat, hard. He had to kill her. He had no choice. She couldn't live, not if she knew he was vulnerable.

He forced air through his lungs. It would be easy. Cut her air line. Leave her down there. Take the boat and sink it somewhere. She'd vanish in the ocean like so many fishermen did. It was the smart thing to do-the logical thing. He didn't move. Not one muscle. He just crouched there, waiting for her to come back. Waiting to see her eyes again. And that was just about the stupidest thing he'd ever done in his life.

He thought he might have been unconscious for a short while. The boat creaked and rocked, and the motion would have been soothing if it hadn't been for the nausea and the ever-present headache. His skull felt like it was about to explode. He was thirsty, but it was too much effort to lift the water to his mouth.

He sat there and tried to piece together his life. It came to him in images, jagged pictures, all violent. Scraps of boyhood memories haunted him with blood and pain. Bullets slammed into his body, piercing flesh and bone, shattering his insides. He felt the blade of a knife, stabbing at him over and over, cutting deep. Something pounded the soles of his feet. Pain engulfed his body. He accepted it. He could stand while in pain. Fight while in pain. Perform while in pain. He could withhold information, lock it away in a part of his mind even he couldn't access.

Discipline. The word repeated itself over and over in his head. He murmured it like a talisman to hold on to. Discipline.

"Yes," a voice agreed softly. "Discipline is important."

The voice was soft. Feminine. Too young. He shook his head to clear it. So many of them died and he couldn't stop it. Like a flood.

"Shh," he cautioned. "Don't make a sound, no matter how much it hurts. You can live with the pain. They'll just hurt you more if you make a sound."

"I won't. Don't worry. I won't make any noise."

A cool hand touched his forehead and he caught the wrist, pinning it down. His eyes flying open. He didn't like anyone touching him. The face in front of him wavered-he couldn't center on it. He tightened his grip, not understanding what was happening to him. It was difficult to see, but eventually, through all the haze, he made out a pair of heavily fringed eyes looking back at him. His world narrowed to that intense gaze. Black as night, so black the eyes were nearly purple. Liquid, like the sea on a stormy night. A man could drown there if he let himself. His breath hissed out. "Sex is a tool. Nothing more."

"It's all right. It's going to be all right."

He shook his head. "I can't save you if you won't listen to me."

"It's all right. I'll get you out of this."

Her choice of words puzzled him. He was the one to get her out. But he'd failed. He'd failed them all. How could she know what needed to be done when he didn't know? She didn't try to fight his hold on her, rather she stayed very still, almost as if she knew any movement might set off his instincts-and none of his instincts were good.

Discipline mattered. Pushing the shattering pain away, he forced his brain to function. His thumb stroked back and forth over the inside of her palm. She'd removed her mittens and he was touching bare skin. The center of her palm drew his attention until he pressed the pads of his fingers there, tracing two small circles over and over, as if he could etch them into her skin.

"They're missing," he muttered, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown. "The symbols. They should be right here."

"You've got a concussion," she explained. "You need to be in a hospital."

He closed his fingers around her hand, holding tightly. "They'll kill me. If you take me there, they'll find me and they'll kill me."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to let anyone kill you."

He had no way of telling her he was her enemy. He couldn't form the words. And that told him he really wasn't thinking clearly at all. Everyone was either his enemy or a tool. There were no friends in his business. He just needed a safe place to rest, to figure out what was going on.

"I'll take you somewhere safe."

Her voice was soft. Melodious. A fantasy. He knew a hallucination when he was in one. There were no beautiful eyes promising him a sanctuary, looking at him as if they saw inside of him and past every shield, stripping him down until he was vulnerable. If someone really saw him, they'd kill him and throw his body overboard, not fight to save him-and if they didn't manage his death, he'd have to kill them to protect that vulnerable part of himself.

"You're in danger." He tried to warn her. If she was real and she was looking at him like that, then for once in his life, he had to take the job personally. Just this once. For those eyes.

What the hell? Was she stripping off her clothes? Her wet suit? No one actually hung up their wet suit, did they? She used a bucket of fresh water to rinse off the salt water and wiped herself down without embarrassment, as if he wasn't really there watching the towel glide over her body before she pulled up her jeans and half buttoned a shirt. There were scars on her legs and feet; he was certain of it. He'd mapped out her body in his head. He was mesmerized by the shape of her, the look of her soft skin. So thin but still complete.

All the while she'd dressed, her movements were quick and efficient-there were no flirty moves or hints of seduction, almost as if she thought herself alone, although those black, black eyes bored right through him. She had no adornments, no piercings, not even in her ears, but she did have a tattoo flowing down one hip. Tears? Water droplets? She'd kept it away from him and that only intrigued him more. He had a mad desire to lick those shimmering drops from her skin. The deck beneath him vibrated. The boat rocked more.

"Stay away from the nets. Those spines aren't poisonous, but they can puncture you and break off in your skin. I had surgery after one went through my hand. They'll go through a car tire and cause flats. When I close my eyes at night, sometimes I see them everywhere and I can't get away from them, like they're hunting me. They can be bad news. I've got them away from you, but don't move around."

He wanted to laugh at the warning. He should be afraid of sea urchins? That really was laughable. He was so far into the hallucination, it was insane. Sea urchins? Spines? Where the hell was he? A theme park? He felt along his thigh and found the reassuring presence of his knife. A pro would have searched him and found multiple weapons. She hadn't touched him, other than to pound on his chest and get his heart working again.

What was real? What was in his mind? His skull squeezed down on his brain and little explosions went off so that he grabbed his head and just held it. The boat threw him around a little, as if they were speeding through the water, but she left him alone. He needed that space to gather his defenses and come up with a plan of action. Every movement of the boat was agony, but he was used to pain and it steadied him. He used it to concentrate, to bring his splintered mind back under his control.

First thing, assess his situation. Basically he was fucked. He had multiple identities, but he had no idea which ones were safe to use or which was real. He couldn't remember how to get access to money or weapons. He wasn't certain what he had with him. He knew he was in danger, but from whom or what, he had no idea. He was in enemy territory, but there was no clue as to how he'd gotten there or what his mission was. He had no idea who he was supposed to report to. If his head wasn't hurting so damned bad, he'd smash it against the wall out of sheer frustration.

He could only glimpse pieces of his past. Fragments of violence, of running, of danger. He didn't have a family. Nothing soft in his life. Nothing vulnerable. He had no friends. No one he trusted. What the hell kind of life did he live anyway?

"Nothing makes sense," he murmured aloud. "She doesn't make sense."

3.