before the night is out.”
Her body hummed in his hold. He really intended to do it again. She gripped his arms to remain standing. Her legs felt more like jam than pins.
“Need some assistance getting there?” he murmured.
“Yes, in fact.”
His mouth quirked up at one side. “You absolutely do not want me to carry you.”
“Absolutely not.” She would rather die. “We could remain here?”
He laughed outright. Then he drew her arms around his neck, turned, and reached to the backs of her thighs. “Up you go, then.”
Viola jumped onto his back and laughter spilled from her throat as she clenched her knees to his sides and hooked her arms around his shoulders.
“I am offering you perfect opportunity to strangle me now, of course,” he said, moving toward her cabin.
“Perhaps later. I have need of your services at the present.”
It was not a long walk, a mere ten yards. But in the corridor leading to her cabin, where he had first looked at her as though he would kiss her, then had not, Viola’s patience disintegrated. She nuzzled his neck, then reached for his face, his jaw. The flavor of his skin, the rough texture of the day’s whiskers, sent pleasure rushing about her midsection again. She turned his face to her and nearly climbed over his shoulder to meet his lips, perfect lips she wanted attached to hers again without delay. He gave her what she wanted for far too short a time. Then he pulled her around off his back and set her on her feet before her cabin.
She went inside and sat to remove her shoes. Peeling off her stockings, she glanced up. He stood in the doorway, his gaze fixed on her writing table. On it sat one item: the spyglass he had borrowed that day that seemed ages ago, that she taunted him about, teasing that he had stolen it. And he had replied that he did not take that which was not his by right.
Finally he lifted his gaze to her. The heated look of the lover was gone. Now the cool crystals were pensive, sober. And oddly assessing.
Chill skittered down Viola’s spine. So many times during their journey he had looked at her so from across the deck. Never when they spoke, though, and never when he stood so close. Because it was a gaze of distance-not of feet or yards, but of a much more profound distance. When he looked at her like this, the loneliness within her blew like the wind off a Maine whaler.
“Tomorrow’s interview with the harbormaster is bound to be uncomfortable,” she said to break the silence and chase that distance from his light eyes. “I don’t have one hundred and fifty pounds.”
He moved into the cabin. “Here, or at all?”
“Here and at all.”
“I have assets on Tobago. I will lend the sum to you.”
“You have one hundred and fifty
“Moments such as this.”
Which recalled them quite abruptly to this actual moment in which their intent had nothing to do with pounds and port officers, only with each other.
Viola tried to speak. Her throat clogged. She made a second somewhat more successful attempt.
“Jin, I cannot accept-”
He pulled her off the chair into his arms and bent his head. “It is nothing.”
“But one hundred and fifty-”
“It is nothing.” And then their lips met again, despite the distance and the money and her astonishment, or perhaps because of them. They kissed as though they had not before, and then as though they could not cease, hands and mouths lost in a need both sublime and violent. Clothes were swiftly discarded-her gown, his shirt, her petticoat. But the removal of her stays proved too much for them both. He put his hands on her unconfined breasts, she moaned as he caressed her through her shift, and quite abruptly there seemed no more leisure for dithering with garments. He dragged her to the bed beneath him, hungry on her mouth as though he had not already satisfied himself in her tonight. But this need pressed inside her as well, and she did not wonder at it.
She ran her palms up his back, smooth, damp skin and muscle, and flattened her body to his-breasts, belly, hips-to feel him everywhere on her. He wanted her, clearly, as she had never known a man could want a woman in a single night.
But she had wept in front of him, because of Aidan.
She broke her lips free, sweeping her fingers through his hair and holding him away. Dear Lord, he was beautiful, his eyes liquid with desire, his perfect mouth hers if she wished it.
“Are you doing this from pity? Because of my tears earlier on the veranda?”
He covered her mouth, parting her lips and making her want him inside again so fiercely. He was hot and unbelievably skilled, and tasted like danger and deliverance at once.
She pushed him away. “Are you?”
“What do you think?” His hand came around her breast, his fingers sure.
She moved into him. “I don’t
“Then, yes.” He bent and through the thin fabric of her shift took the peak of her breast into his mouth.
“O-oh, God.” Her whole body shuddered. “Yes,
“Yes, I did not want you like this before tonight.” He pushed her shift to her waist, dragged her thigh around his hip, and came intimately against her. “This is about pity.” He pressed her into the mattress. His thumb stroked across her nipple, then around it, driving her mad and desperate for more of him. “I pity you, Viola Carlyle, and wish only to give you comfort.”
She clutched his waist and arched against him, fed by the hard heat of his arousal. A sound of pleasure came from his chest, deep and powerful. Her power over him.
“I think you are lying,” she barely managed to utter, her flesh caught between his and heaven. He captured her hand.
“Of course I am lying.” He guided her between their stretched bellies to his shaft and wrapped her fingers around him. It was satin and rock and more heat than she had ever dreamed. He moved her hand on him, his eyes closed, his jaw taut, and she quivered in every corridor of her being. Then, with the greatest reluctance it seemed, he released her hand and sank his fingers into her hair.
“Viola?” He sounded hoarse.
“What?” she whispered, alone now to caress him as she wished, frightened and dizzy with it.
“Make this happen.”
A breath shot out of her. “I-”
“On your terms. When you will.” His brow strained, the muscles in his arms and shoulders stripped with tension. “But I pray you, do not be long about it.”
She trembled in a mingling of anticipation and bliss. “My terms? Entirely my terms?”
“
She released him. “Onto your back, sailor.”
Eyes cracking open, he rolled to his shoulder, and his perfect lips curved into a perfectly breathtaking half smile.
“Aye aye, Captain.” Then he did as he was bid.
She had him then-again-this time on her terms.
Her terms seemed to suit him quite well. But she was his captain, after all, and he owed her obedience. Like the excellent lieutenant he had been in matters pertaining to the ship, he proved his exceptional capabilities in this as well; at some point amid the heated touches and kisses, her terms clearly became his. Or perhaps they had been all along.
When eventually she arose from the daze of pleasure to once more find herself straddling a scoundrel, her body limp with satisfaction, the slight smile again slipped over his mouth, and the stars were no less bright though perhaps a bit hazier.
She snuggled into the crook of his arm, her cheek pressed to his ribs, the scents of cane smoke and salt and man filling her senses and holding at bay the sleep behind her eyes. His breathing seemed to slow, his chest rising evenly. But his hand was splayed against the small of her back and his arm holding her did not relax.
Aidan had never held her. He always left right after.
