Preview

Lara Croft heard something moving through the water.

As keen as her senses, that wasn’t much of a challenge for them. She was in the middle of the Aegean Sea, or at the very least, so far off from shore that she might as well be in the middle. There were no seabirds to disturb the silence with their cawing, and no other people for as far as the horizon stretched. The ocean was calm, the waves so quiet she could barely hear them over the sound of her record player singing out the aria Vedro con Mio Diletto from Il Giustino.

What she could hear was the sound of a man knifing through the water. His form was good, she judged from the regular chop of his arms and legs, but the man was simply too large to camouflage the vast quantities of water his passage displaced. She compared him to the Takian fishermen of Lao Lao, none of whom were above five foot five. They could swim through the currents with barely a ripple in the water. This man, she judged, was big enough in comparison to pose a certain danger. Especially if he was armed.

The prospect was thrilling, but Lara always tempered her risk with caution. She reached off of the towel that held her lotion-wet body and picked up one of her twin Heckler & Koch USP Match pistols from her gunbelt. She moved the gunbelt under the beach bag she had brought out with her and pulled the gun underneath her towel, so she was holding it out of sight.

It wasn’t like she had very many places to conceal it. She was taking advantage of her privacy to suntan with nothing more on than some oil and her sunglasses, the summer-hot sun pouring down on her naked body with such intensity she felt a little like she’d just had a good spanking. It was not a very ladylike way to receive guests, she conceded, but then, her visitor was the one who hadn’t phoned again.

A waterproof, military-grade rucksack came sailing over the side of her yacht, splashing down on the hull. Its impact disturbed the record player enough to make the record skip. Lara winced at the sound of the needle scratching. She rearranged herself slightly, folding her arms under her chest to prop herself up a little as her guest hauled himself up after his bag. The pose hid her breasts, or most of them, at least—she was rather voluptuous—but Lara neither could hide her bare buttocks, nor did she try to. As far as she was concerned, she had nothing to be ashamed of.

And neither did her uninvited guest. He stood well over six feet tall—tall enough for Lara not to care about the precise measurements, just that he towered over her. His chest and shoulders were huge, his legs long and well-muscled, his arms equally sculpted. All that muscle should’ve been bulky, but he carried it with the economical grace of a well-trained dancer. He wore only a pair of swim trunks. His handsome face was clean-shaven, the better to show off his geometrically square jaw, and his shortly cut hair was sandy blond. He combed his fingers through it, taming it down to being somewhat neat. 

If anyone were to happen upon her naked, Lara could think of much worse choices.

He swept his gaze over the yacht, quickly noticing Lara’s bronze tan against the white lacquer of the hull and the mahogany glaze of the deck. He was, of course, taken aback by her nudity—Lara would’ve been offended if he weren’t. For a moment, he stood there gaping at her creamy skin as it cascaded down from her windswept hair to the almost pornographic bulge of her naked ass… nearly enough to eclipse the appeal of her long, tapering legs with their toned thighs and powerfully muscled calves.

Lara, through some small feminine tricks, flaunted herself while not even appearing to move, except to angle her head slightly so as to inform him he was being regarded. 

“Do you mind?” she asked.

“I, uh, miss…”

“The record,” Lara clarified. “Either put it back on track or put it out of its misery.”