Page 38 of Any Duke in a Storm

She eyed him. “You think he’ll do something? Dubois?”

“Most definitely, but not now,” Saint said, gripping the railing and looking out to the empty horizon. “He’s too much of a coward for that. He will want to distance himself from any foul play. It’s how he works, like a moray eelin the dead of night, waiting for the perfect time to strike with no one the wiser.”

He ran a hand through his sea-blown hair, the inky strands tangling around his fingers. The fabric of his slightly damp shirt pulled tight over his biceps and shoulders as he gathered his hair into a tail, and Lisbeth stared. Since when was she calf-eyed for a few bulging muscles?

“Who’s on the wheel?” she asked, her voice too throaty for comfort.

“Boisie.” She’d met the stout, friendly, dark-skinned man when he’d brought them to Exuma. He was an old captain Saint trusted to watch his back, and he appeared to be respected by most of the crew, old and new. She could have helped man the helm, of course, but it would have revealed their ruse. Saint rubbed his stomach. “Need to eat and then I’ll be back up there. Shouldn’t be too long to Cedar Key.”

She frowned. “Not Tampa?”

“Give me some credit, love. I might be a bumbling fool on a good day, but I am not so stupid as to sail right into a trap where a surprise inspection by corrupt customs agents might be on the books.”

The rumbled endearment was part of their fake performance, but it still landed like an arrow right between her thighs. When had liking his company given way to feelings of desire? Without thinking, she reached up to tuck a wayward tendril that had blown loose from his queue behind his ear. Saint froze, that silvery-brown stare falling on her like a tangible caress that she felt drift over her skin, pebbling her nipples and making her core throb deliciously.Heavens, it had been so long since she’d enjoyed the attentions of a lover.

Ever since that kiss on the beach, the tension between them had only heightened. Her fingers shook as she curled them into a ball and let them drop instead of winding in his collar and dragging him down to her. She wanted more of his hands on her and her mouth on his. She wanted him splayed down on a bed and her tongue tracing the edges of that beautiful tattoo on his chest…following that dark line of hair to his waistband and what lay beneath.

Oh, good God, what waswrongwith her? Her cheeks flushed at her indecent thoughts.

“Stop looking at me like that, for the love of all things holy,” Saint groaned in a low whisper, as though conscious of the deckhands milling past them.

Lisbeth exhaled. “Like what?”

“Like a ship you intend to commandeer and plunder,” he muttered.

Well then. He wasn’t wrong. “And if I do?”

Saint’s eyesburnedin response. She had no idea where the boldness came from, only that they were on a vessel that belonged to a devious man who had his own designs upon the voyage. There were no explosives that she’d seen, but the ship wasn’t small. The tiniest hole in the hull could cause the largest of ships to sink. Or worse, what if there was another ship waiting on the open sea to blast them to pieces? Life out here was much too short to wonder about what ifs. She wanted him like she’d never wanted anything. Sheached.

“Lisbeth.” The low snap of his voice held a warning that the tether of his control was thin. That whatever game she was playing would come to swift fruition. That she’d better be certain of what she was offering.

“Yes, Saint?”

His pupils expanded at the husky rasp of his name, and her cheeks flared hotter, lashes dipping to hide her reaction. Lisbeth was rarely embarrassed, and she wasn’t ever needy. She was a woman who went after what she wanted and made no excuses for it. The freedom from the expectations of her sex in the ballrooms of London did not exist here. There were no exclusionary drawing rooms, no gossip rags to write about scandalous behavior, and no dreadful social rules to obey.

Lisbeth lifted her eyes to his, letting him see the desire there. It was barely a heartbeat and then she was being swept off her feet as he swooped her into those strong arms she’d ogled earlier, to the lewd whistles and raunchy hollers of the surrounding crew. Core heating, Lisbeth buried her face into his neck, breathing in the unique smell that was Saint. Unable to help herself, she licked the sweet salt of his skin beneath his ear and felt him shudder, arms banding tight about her.

“Keep that up,” he rasped. “And I’ll have you right here, discretion be damned, and give the crew a show they won’t soon forget.”

That idea should not have been as titillating as it was—to be pleasured in front of an audience. The space between her legs went liquid at the scandalous, vulgar fantasy thatovertook her imagination. Lisbeth was the furthest thing from a prude, but the notion of people watching them couple while in the throes of pleasure was both absurd and arousing.

They reached his quarters, which were adjacent to hers, and Saint kicked the door shut with his bootheel before sliding her down to her feet. On the way down, she felt every delicious hard inch of his body, including the breath-stealing extra ones at his groin Like the rest of him, he was big, no doubt of that. The thought was enough to send a frisson of nerves through her, but it didn’t stop the desire that pulsed wantonly in her veins.

They stood there for an eternity, pressed together and panting, their breaths harsh in the silence of the empty cabin. “It’s not too late to change your mind,” Saint said.

That low-pitched baritone did unspeakable things to her. Lisbeth crept her hands up the front of his shirt, her fingertips ghosting over the piercing in his nipple. He sucked in a breath when she gave it a teasing flick of her nail. “Do you want to changeyourmind, Pirate?”

His answer was to cup his big hands under her arse and lift her to grind against him so that there wasn’t any question of what he wanted. With a groan, she wrapped her legs around his waist as he walked them toward the anchored table in the middle of the space. The surface of it grazed the back of her thighs, and then she was sitting with her legs splayed wide to accommodate his size between them. One palm slid to her lower back, keeping her in place as he ground his pelvis into her, making them both moan.

“Does it feel like I’m going to change my mind, Viking?”

There was that silly nickname again. The one that never failed to aggravate and get a rise out of her. Only now, the playful notes of it only made her want him more. A quiet, wistful part of her wondered what it would sound like were he to call herlovein this scenario, and she shoved that errant thought back right where it belonged. In the land of make-believe and never. She was much too cynical in the ways of the world to believe that lust was love in any form. This was about carnal pleasure, nothing more.

Keep telling yourself that.

It was a lie, she knew. The bane of her existence was the need to have an emotional connection with a partner before any physical entanglements. She didn’t even have to love the person. Respect was enough. Admiration even better. Some measure of trust was essential. Fondness came occasionally, as it had with Estelle. Her feelings for Saint were complex, but they were definitely there. Fucking him might be the worst mistake she could make, but she’d never been a woman to wallow in regret.

She reached over to untuck the hem of his shirt before grazing her knuckles down the front of his trousers, causing him to hiss in pleasure. “No, it doesn’t feel like that at all,” she whispered throatily. “It feels like you’re committed to staying the course.”

---