Page 98 of Wicked Dares
He doesn’t.
My stomach squeezes.
“Okay, not funny!” I call out louder. “Levi, where are you?”
Still nothing.
Panic starts creeping in fast, along with images from every terrible ocean survival movie I’ve ever watched. They all flash through my head—shark attacks, people disappearing underwater, tourists getting stranded at sea.
What if he did dive deep and got trapped somehow?
“Oh my God.”
The horrible thought makes me jump straight into the water.
Cold crashes over me as I dive down and look around for him. The water’s not as clear as it appears to be from the surface. It’s blurry in that way water is when you’re trying to see through it without goggles.
My air runs thin, and I resurface, pushing wet hair from my face while I turn frantically in circles.
“Levi!”
My pulse pounds harder as I imagine all sorts of terrible things.
Something must have happened to him. And what about me? What will I do? I can’t sail the boat back.
Never mind that. I need to find him.
The thought barely finishes before strong arms suddenly wrap around my waist from beneath the water.
I scream.
Levi bursts up beside me laughing while I nearly climb him out of pure shock.
“Oh my God!” I smack his shoulder while he laughsharder. “You asshole. What is wrong with you?”
“You should see your face,” he chokes out between laughs.
“My face? Lord, have mercy. Boy, you about gave me a heart attack. I oughta leave you out here.”
That only makes him laugh more. “I love when you go all Southern on me.”
I wade my arms to stay afloat, but he still has me. “You’re lucky that’s all I’m doing. Do you know how worried I was?”
He cocks his head and smiles wide. “Oh, good, my plan worked.”
“Plan? You wanted to worry me on purpose? Who does that?”
He brushes his nose against mine. “Me.”
Something in me softens at the contact. “Why?”
“So you can admit you like me.” He presses a hand to his heart and feigns innocence.
“And you’d be terribly distraught if, God forbid, something ever happened to me.”
A small laugh slips out of me, but it fades quickly when his words settle somewhere deeper than they should.
He stares back at me as though waiting for an answer.
