To her fury, Riley laughed as she tried to find a comfortable position on the ridiculous pallet. She swore she could hear rats scurrying nearby and it made her blood turn to ice in her veins.
“You will be cold,” he warned.
“I would rather freeze than share a bed with you.”
“You will be lonely.”
“No more so than you.”
That silenced him. “Aye,” he said at last. “No more so than I.”
* * *
Abby awoke to the feel of strong, masculine arms wrapped around her, the feel of rough cloth against her cheek and the sensation of a strong, steady heartbeat beneath her ear.
Blinking, she glanced around and realized that at some point during the night Captain Walker had ignored her wishes and brought her into the bed with him. A blanket was snugly wrapped around them both, though the truth of it was that his body provided all the heat she needed.
As much as she longed to stay where she was, she knew she could not. Staying would cost her whatever ground she had gained the night before. Riley had to see that she meant what she said, and that she would not back down, even under the most tempting circumstances.
She didn’t waste time trying to slip away, but roughly dislodged first one arm and then another. He awoke as she was scrambling over him.
“What is this?” he protested, looping an arm around her waist and hauling her back.
“I told you that I would not share this bed with you. Did your brain not grasp the point?”
He grinned. “Do you not recall crawling into this bed yourself in the wee hours of the night?”
She regarded him indignantly. “Most certainly not.”
“Then surely you must have been sleepwalking.”
Some of her certainty evaporated under his cool, deliberate stare. “I came to this bed of my own volition?”
“So it seemed to me,” he said lazily.
Something about his words and the glint in his eyes troubled her. “Riley Walker, did I or did I not get up from my pallet on the floor and walk to this bed?”
“Did I not already answer that?”
“No, you have talked in circles. I want the truth.”
“You were there. Now you are here. What could be more clear-cut than that?”
“It is the manner of my arrival that is in question. Was I assisted or no?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps I gave you some small measure of assistance.”
“I knew it!” she said and took a swat at him. “You are a liar, as well as a rogue.”
Laughing, he ducked the blow. “There was no lie. Think back on what I said, my lady.”
“Your silver tongue will not talk its way around this, Captain Walker. You brought me to this bed in direct defiance of my wishes.”
“You screamed,” he countered, obviously seizing on a new tack, now that the first had failed.
“I did not.”
He nodded. “I am certain I heard you, my lady. You murmured something about a rat.”
“The only rat in this room is in this bed.”
He looked hurt. “You have such a low opinion of me?”
“It sinks lower by the minute,” she replied.
For some reason, the moment the words were out of her mouth, she saw them as a serious miscalculation, though she could not have explained why. Perhaps it was something in his expression, a wickedness that promised the match was far from over.
“If that is so,” he said thoughtfully, “then it would not seem to matter much what I would do next.”
She watched him worriedly. “I do not think I like the sound of that.”
He grinned. He reached for her and seized her wrist, hauling her unceremoniously back atop him. “Aye, this is much better.”
When she would have scrambled away, he held her tightly in place. “Indeed, this is the way it should be between a man and a woman,” he said quietly, his gaze locked with hers. “Spirit and passion.”
Every last ounce of struggle in Abby died at the haunted look in his eyes. She saw hunger and need and longing, all emotions she guessed he would never state aloud. Perhaps the fact that he felt them would be enough for now.
She allowed herself to be drawn closer. She waited with her heart in her throat for his fingers to close around the nape of her neck, for him to draw her down until their lips met in a kiss of such longing and desperation that it would seal their fate as words had not.
The first touch of his lips was gentle as a summer breeze. But as quiet and tender as it was, it stirred a riot of sensations more powerful than the force of a summer storm. It quite literally took her breath away.
“You are a witch, my lady,” he whispered against her lips, his own chest heaving. “Perhaps that explains how you come to be aboard this ship. You are indeed a witch of the sea.”
Reassured by his pretty words that the effect was as potent for him as it was for her, Abby threw herself back into the kiss with enthusiasm. As if from a great distance, she heard him groan softly, felt him shift uneasily beneath her. His hand swept down the curve of her back, over her buttocks and cupped her solidly to him.
“The game is ended, Lady Abigail,” he warned in a voice tight with tension.
She looked evenly into his eyes and nodded. “This is no mistake, Captain Walker. I know what I am about.”
“Do you? I wonder,” he said.
But even with his doubts, he did not hesitate to claim her mouth again. He did not hesitate to cover her breast with a bold grasp that made her moan with the exquisite pleasure of it. Nor did he hesitate to place her hand between them so that she felt for the first time the power she had over him.
This, surely, was what it meant to be loved. This ability to create fire and excitement, to arouse
