“Easy,” he soothed. Sebastian held out his hand and waited patiently for her to step forward again. When she did, he sliced through the rope that tied her hands together and sheathed his knife. He rubbed the marks on her delicate wrists.
“You are a pirate,” she murmured.
“Yes.”
“You have taken my father’s ship and all of its cargo.”
“I have.”
Her head tilted backward on the slender neck and she gazed up at him with melting chocolate eyes. “Why then are you being so kind to me, if you intended to rape me?”
He caught her fingers and placed them on his signet ring. “Most would say a man cannot rape his own wife.”
She glanced down and gasped at the heavy crest that mirrored her own band. Her eyes flew up to his. “Where did you get this? You can’t possibly…”
He smiled. “According to you, I am.”
Olivia stared up into the intense blue eyes and felt certain her heart would burst from her chest. Her mind faltered, stumbling over the shocking revelation that the notorious Captain Phoenix was claiming to be her husband.
She backed away from him in a rush, and he reached to steady her when she would have fallen. A whimper escaped as his touch burned her skin. The day’s events had shaken her, but it was the gorgeous face of the infamous pirate that made her weak-kneed.
Tall and broad shouldered, his presence sucked all of the air from the tight confines of the cabin. His black hair was unfashionably long and the darkness of his skin betrayed how much time he spent outdoors. He was wild, untamed—a man of the elements.
She’d watched, fascinated, as he’d swept onto her ship and took command of it within moments. Phoenix had executed the attack with brilliant precision—not one man was seriously injured and no one had been killed. Having spent most of her childhood on her father’s ships, Olivia recognized singular skill when she saw it.
The way he’d used his sword and barked commands, the way loose tendrils of his hair had blown across his face, the way his breeches delineated every stretch of his muscular thighs…she’d never experienced anything so thrilling. So exciting.
Until he’d touched her.
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Copyright © 2006 by Lucy Monroe
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