Abby touched a finger to the pulse at the base of his throat and felt the skin heat, felt his heart race. She loved the way his skin felt, rougher than her own, hotter, more intriguing with its tiny cuts and scars that hinted of adventures past. Her hand was so pale and delicate against his tanned flesh that the very contrast became a source of fascination. She wondered how far the sun had touched. Just this place on his neck? His chest and back, perhaps? Or lower still? Intrigued, she slid aside his shirt while he watched her intently, surprise and delight in his eyes. When she reached for his breeches, however, he stopped her.
“Enough, my lady. You would test me too severely.”
Glancing at the distinctive bulge in his breeches, she said dryly, “It would appear that you are up to the test, Captain Walker.”
His laughter echoed off the walls of the tiny cabin. Holding her in his arms, he rolled until she was beneath him, his legs tangled with hers, her skirts well up beyond the point of decency. The touch of flesh against flesh sent waves of pure delight rolling through her.
She wanted more, though. She wanted to see and touch...everything. She wanted her own skin ablaze from his caresses. She ached with the very longing for it.
His hand was lifting the bottom edge of her skirt, skimming along her thigh, teasing her with the promise of so much more, when there was a terrible pounding on the door.
“Captain! Captain! There’s a ship coming up starboard, the one they call the ship of gold.”
Riley was on his feet in a heartbeat, leaving her abandoned and filled with a terrible, aching emptiness.
“Stay below!” he ordered as he ran for the door, excitement blazing in his eyes.
As he went, without another thought for her, Abby wondered ruefully if she could ever mean as much to him as these rare and dangerous adventures that brought such fire to his eyes. How long would it be before she began to hate the competition for his attention, especially since, despite his pretty words, he evidently had no intention of sharing the actual adventure with her?
With a sigh, she straightened her clothes and used the pitcher of water on the nightstand to freshen up as all sorts of hell raged over her head. Cannons fired. Screams tore through the early morning quiet and shattered her attempt to pretend that this was a normal, everyday occurrence.
She pulled at the cabin door, intent on going to see for herself that the man she loved was alive, but he had guessed she would do exactly that, despite his orders, and had locked her in again. Left with no choice at all, she huddled on the bed while the terrible sounds exploded above her.
“Riley,” she murmured over and over, part curse of frustration, part prayer. “Riley. Damn you. I love you.” On and on, she called out his name, until it was the only sound left to break the sudden, ominous silence all around her.
CHAPTER TEN
She was calling his name.
Riley woke with a start to find that Abigail was whispering his name over and over. Her voice was raspy from disuse, but there was no mistaking that single word. Her movements were even more agitated than they had been when she’d set off her monitor earlier in the week.
“Riley? Riley!”
There was a frantic desperation in her tone that tore at his heart. What in God’s name could she be dreaming that had put her in so much distress? Before he could figure it out, she cried out his name once more.
“I’m here, darling,” he whispered, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. He allowed his fingers to linger against the pale skin in a reassuring caress. “I’m right here.”
She quieted at once, an expression of peaceful serenity stealing over her face. He wondered at the calming effect of his presence, wondered what she could possibly be dreaming that painted him as the good guy, wondered if he could live up to her expectations this time, as he hadn’t when he’d tried to ship her home to safety.
Since she seemed quieter when he talked, he kept at it, suddenly determined to tell her all the things he’d kept hidden in his heart.
“Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? I don’t mean just these past few days. I mean ever since I left home,” he said, glad of the lateness of the hour so that he could make the admission without fear of Jared turning up at any moment to taunt him for it. Except in an emergency, the doctors and nurses paid scant attention to their patients in the wee small hours of the night. He desperately needed this privacy, needed time to make amends to her, to say all the things he had deliberately kept bottled up inside during the long, lonely years of his self-imposed exile.
He had left Phoenix all those years ago knowing that he was falling in love with Abby, knowing that he could never give her the kind of emotional commitment that she deserved. He had been convinced he didn’t have that kind of love left in him after so many tragic losses.
Still, he had not been able to stop himself from sending an occasional postcard. He had chosen the pictured scenes with care, searching for the most exotic or most romantic. Writing the brief messages, penned only after careful thought, had been his only link to Abby and to his past.
“Dear Abby...Paris is exactly what we always imagined.”
“Dear Abby...Found the most amazing ruin in Egypt. Those books we read didn’t do the place
