“Willa?” Her husband’s voice floated across the dark inside their cabin. She’d doused her candle and scrambled into her bunk when she’d first heard his approach. Now the sound of her name on his lips inside the tiny space they shared did not so much reach her ears as lap at the tips of her fingers and the very ends of her toes. The sound invaded her body, like waves wearing away the shore.
After a few minutes of agonized indecision, she answered. “Yes, Cullen, I’m still awake. Light a candle if you wish.”
“No need.” He stumbled a bit in his progress to his side of the blanketed “wall.”
Willa pondered her next words while the sounds of Cullen shedding his clothes wafted across the barrier. “She’s a beautiful woman.” She bit her lip and squeezed shut her eyes after the blunt words tumbled out. Her cheeks burned, but her hands were ice cold from the uncertainty and fear coursing through her. “You must have loved her very much.”
The silence from the other side of the blanket stretched out for what seemed an endless abyss of nothingness. Finally, he coughed and cleared his throat. “Yes, Ariadne is a beautiful woman, but she has no soul.” The silence wore on.
On Willa’s side of the wall, her mind scrambled to make sense of his words. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t comprehend your meaning.”
“Let me explain. Ariadne would never think to protect the feelings, let alone the health, of an old, injured man who’s worked his hands into twisted knots feeding this ship. Ariadne would never have lost a night’s sleep saving the life of a draft horse in the midst of a difficult birth. Ariadne would never have stayed upright in the surgery for blood-soaked hours helping me save a man’s life.”
“But…” Willa tried to interrupt her husband’s intense outpouring.
“Please, let me finish.” There was a loud intake of breath on the other side. “That woman shot me and left me for dead four years ago, because once in the midst of battle, I thought she needed protection. But I was merely an obstacle to her mission, and she had to eliminate me.”
“But, surely, there is some logical explanation…”
He cut her off, his voice like gunshots in the dark. “No, there is not, and I warn you, once again, do not cross her. Under no circumstances find yourself alone in her presence. She is ruthless. Human life means nothing to her.”
“I’ve done nothing to invite her ire.” Willa’s temper spiked at her husband’s assumption that she was helpless.
“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong.”
“How can you be so arrogant and sure of yourself?”
“Even though you believe I do not care for you, it is obvious to the rest of the world that I do. You are precious to me. You are mine, and what is mine I protect, to my last dying breath if necessary. Never doubt what I carry inside for you.” The sound of his fist thumping against the bulkhead cracked so loudly in the dark, Willa feared he’d break his hand.
She sat up suddenly, intending to go to him, to calm him. But when she stood, he was there, close and warm. He cradled her face in his large, calloused hands, the same hands that shook and were clumsy during their strange, late-night wedding, or strong and deft, when he sewed up a sailor’s torn limbs.
The kiss he claimed was so soft at first that she didn’t know whether she should respond or not, but he deepened the pressure on her lips and pulled her closer. She could taste the salt on his tongue, and the scent of clean soap mingled with the musk of his bare skin flooded her senses. With each ensuing kiss, he continued to whisper, “You are more beautiful just the way you are than she could ever be.” At the last minute she panicked and tried to push him away. That was a mistake. The feel of the strong, steady beat of his heart mesmerized. She couldn’t pull away.
He thudded down onto the bunk and took her with him, pulling her back against his chest. Willa jerked away at the hard prod at her backside.
“Shhh,” he said, and whispered snippets of a strange tongue into her ear, Gaelic she supposed, as if gentling a mare. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want only to give you pleasure.”
Chapter Twelve
Cullen had grown up on his mother’s family’s Highlands estate, tending sheep, gentling horses and working side-by-side with clan tenants in the fields.
Everything he’d ever learned, everything he’d ever experienced had led to this moment with this woman. Patience, he’d decided long ago, was highly overrated, but now he understood what a precious trait it could be and how lucky he was to have had to cultivate the art throughout his life.
Willa remained stiff and alert to his every movement, his every word, his every breath. Tucking her warm, shapely bottom close within his thighs was excruciating, but he was determined to let her take the lead in love-making. His cock, of course, had other ideas, but, damn him, he’d have to wait.
His wife pushed a bit to the side, avoiding the hard-ridged intrusion. When she accidentally touched him, he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Did that hurt?” Her tone was anxious. Then she brushed her hand against him, slowly and deliberately, and he stopped breathing.
He put his hands over hers to stop further exploration. “If you don’t cease stirring up a conflagration, this will be over before we start.”
“Oh.” She turned her head, her mouth open
