They’d use it for both.
The cabin’s wing door opened with his voice command, lifting out of the way for him to walk them down the steps into the spacious interior.
From the outside, the Andros’s antireflective exterior and aerodynamic design gave the impression of smallness, but it was a false one. Black was such a slimming color. The Andros was outfitted with a captain’s suite, full gourmet kitchen, guest suite, lounge, library and sky-lit, central-navigation room.
He passed all of it without comment, intent on getting her into his bed.
As it always was, the energy between them was electric. Snapping and crackling, it was a constant reminder that he would never be able to contain her, that she was lightning, meant to strike.
If that had been her mission, she had accomplished it, achieving proximity to him he couldn’t think of anyone else reaching on the eve of her disappearance.
He had taken her. She had taken his world by storm.
He would take her now, tonight, as many times as she could handle before they expired.
And it wouldn’t be enough.
Fortunately, they had the rest of their lives.
Finally, after the eternity of time it had taken them to get there, he lay her on his bed.
Her eyes were the sea—blue, deep and greedy, sparkling and glittering as they caught every glimmer of the low light in the room. She was beautiful, ethereal and deadly, like an ocean creature—a thing of beauty and danger.
But she posed no more danger to him—the worst had happened. She had harpooned his heart and he was caught. Destined to bleed out when she removed her weapon, or be taken as her prize—doomed either way.
It was a sailor’s fate to drown at sea, though, and if he was going to go, he vowed he would plumb her all of her depths before.
She was stunning in the clothing he’d had made for her. He watched her move with fluid ease, her attire attuned to her in form and function for the first time since he’d known her. She was fluid grace, her body in motion a thing of beauty, like a racing thoroughbred or foreign sports car.
Slipping an arm under her back, he lifted her mouth to his. She opened for him without resistance. Offering everything up for his plunder with a moan and he took it, before she had the chance to take it back.
Unzipping her tunic, he followed the line of her spine all the way down, curving his palm over the swell of her behind in one smooth motion before bringing his hand back out to slip the shirt over her shoulders.
Beneath the tunic, her moonstone skin glowed.
Her bra was blue, made of supple silk, and hand-sewn. He had not been an expert on ladies’ underthings prior to outfitting her. He was now.
If it concerned her, it necessitated expertise.
She lifted her hips so he could slide the trousers over and down her hips, freeing legs as long and lithe as a river snaking to the sea.
Her panties were lacy boy-shorts, with a tiny bow front and center, also blue.
Taking a moment to simply soak her in, he marveled at her pearlescent skin, silky smooth and clear as a cloudless night, and her slender, well-muscled limbs, each one honed and strong, an elegantly designed weapon at her disposal.
But nothing was so powerful as the mind and soul behind her appearance. The knotted net that had ensnared him. He’d realized it the moment he’d watched he walk away and realized nothing else mattered, not revenge, not justice, if she wasn’t there to share his life. He was entirely at her mercy.
So he balanced the scales now by making her beg here.
Her panties followed the path of her trousers.
He brought his palm to her hip, driven with unexpected urgency and strength to run his hand down the incredible silken length of her thigh. Had he ever met a woman with softer skin? He couldn’t recall.
It was as if every woman that he had ever known had disappeared from his consciousness, their memories cleaned and cleared from his mind in order to make room for her, for this.
She shared herself with him alone, it seemed only fair, he be born again, every woman created in her image. And though he’d sworn excruciating slowness, he could no longer resist the urge to taste. He covered one rose peak with his mouth and reveled in the sound of her moans echoing in the cabin.
Her legs were quivering before he moved to the other side with his attention, and, after only a few moments of attention, she was falling apart in a symphony of cries and gasps he felt as if they were his own.
Returning to earth and emboldened by pleasure, she met him with the fierce intensity she brought to everything, incorporating everything she’d learned from each of their previous kisses.
The effect was as powerful as a nor’easter, enough to rip everything he’d ever known about the meeting of lips out by the roots and unmoor his understanding of the limits of human joining.
He shuddered, desperate to once again be inside of her, desire and need swirling, raising the inner alarm that he was entering dangerous territory, the space where implacable goals were set.
He wanted her in every way, all at once.
With a small shake of his head, he broke their kiss gently, drawing his focus back to pleasing her, noting how easily she tempted his control, her responses a siren call luring him to pillage and plunder when restraint was required.
Because for all her worldliness, the billionaire heiress and tabloid duke, eternal darling of the gossip rag, was still a relative innocent.
For a little while longer, at least.
He was a pirate, after all.
Sweet summer child that she was, she had so much to learn. His grin showed enough teeth to warn any girl that she might be dealing
