Page 48 of Any Duke in a Storm

“Are you ever going to be honest with me?” he asked quietly.

Shadows fell over that green gaze, her face morphing into the impersonal mask he was beginning to loathe with every ounce of his being. “Honesty requires trust, Saint.”

“Raphael,” he countered.

Her mouth tightened stubbornly. “I prefer Saint.”

He could have left it, he supposed. It was just a name, but it bothered him for reasons he’d rather not define. He needed that mask of hers to slip. “Calling me Saint while the sweet taste of you is seared into my senses seems rather formal, wouldn’t you say?” Nowthatelicited a response. Her cheeks flushed with hot color, but he wasn’t done.She might want to pretend that what happened between them was unremarkable, fine, but he had no intention of doing the same. “Or with my release soaking into your glowing, pretty skin.”

“Saint, we’re in public!” she hissed.

“So?” he countered. “Are you ashamed, Lisbeth?”

Her mouth gaped. “What? No! That’s not it.” She blew out a breath and shot a quick glance over her shoulder in the direction of Parson and Hale’s. “What happened between us was—”

“If you say ‘a mistake,’ I will personally toss you over my shoulder, dunk you in the bay, and leave you to find your own way back to Exuma.” He was only half joking.

“If you’d let me finish, I was going to say spontaneous. But that doesn’t change who we are to each other.” She glowered at him and started a brisk walk down the street.

“And what is that?” he asked, following her swift steps with long ones of his own. “Friends? Enemies? Almost lovers?”

“Shipmates.”

Raphael caught up to her, noting that the flush of deep rose had wound its way down to her décolletage. The very same part of her that was carved so compellingly into his memory—a lethal goddess on her knees. “I think we’re a little more than that. Why do you insist on keeping everyone at a distance?”

“I do not,” she replied.

“I see you, Lisbeth Medford,” he said, making her stumble slightly before she righted herself. At the nextintersection, she turned blindly, striding down a narrow street, but Raphael kept pace easily with her. She was trying to run and she didn’t even know it. “I see the softer parts of yourself that you try to hide and the fact that you try to be an island without letting anyone get too close to your shores.” He blew out a breath. “Like Narina. Like Estelle. Like me.”

Now she whirled, pure fire in her gaze, lips thin with anger. “Then take the hint and stay away. Don’t presume to think you know me, Saint, or understand any part of my past or my choices,” she said, seething. “Just because I let you have power over me for one second on that ship doesn’t give you any right to try to study me and pass judgment. You see nothing.”

He didn’t falter in the face of her fury, knowing exactly from where it stemmed: fear that he was treading too close. “On that ship,youheld all the power. And the truth is you don’twantme to see the real you. Because what do you do when that happens, Lisbeth? When someone breaches all your defenses? Do you run? Do you hide? Do you push them away? Cut them out of your life fordaringto care?”

The flare in her eyes told him that he’d hit a sore spot. She spun and advanced upon him until they were nearly touching, fury frothing from her very pores. One finger jammed into his chest. “You’re operating on the flawed assumption that I give a rat’s shit about any opinionyoumight have about me. You’re nothing but a passing distraction who has already worn out his welcome.”

He kept his hands at his sides, even though every instinct roared for him to press her to his chest and punish that beautiful, deceitful mouth with his. “I think you’re lying to yourself. I think you do care and that scares the spit out of you.”

She huffed a mocking laugh. “Trust me, Saint. Your tongue wasn’t that good. If it’s honesty you desire, women do it better.”

He let the cruel barb go, a slow smile spreading over his lips. “Ruthless to a fault, aren’t you, Viking?” One palm slid slowly across her heaving ribs and around to the middle of her back, loosely enough for her to pull away if she so chose. “But I’m afraid, chérie, you’re going to have to do much better than that to damage my pride and chase me away.”

Her body trembled at the light touch but she remained stationary, the only movements the rise and fall of her chest with each shallow breath. Desire warred with resentment in her eyes, her usual fight-or-flight impulses hard to control when overpowered by another more carnal compulsion…the need to lose herself in desire. He felt it, too.

Raphael ghosted his mouth over her brow as his other hand slid up to the strings of her bonnet, untying them and removing it before cupping her nape. He looped his fingers into the rope of hair there and drew her head back, watching her pupils blow wide with passion. “I warned you before. Lie to whomever you please, but not to me.” He licked his lips as hers parted in unconscious invitation. “I’m going to kiss you now. Stop me or slapme, that power is always yours, but you can’t run from this, Lisbeth.”

Both hands skimmed up to cradle her face as he bent over her. With a groan, she shoved upward at the same time. The almost violent connection of their lips could hardly be called a kiss. It was a concentrated battle of lust and domination. His Viking kissed like she fought—with spite and rage, her teeth nearly grinding into his, tongue spearing into his mouth like she owned it, the taste of her drowning all his senses. He nipped her bottom lip and she bit him harder.

Without warning, she spun and shoved them into the nearest wall, thrusting her pelvis into his thighs, his hard length jutting into her stomach. She twined her hands into his coat and mortared her body to his. Raphael let her. She had her own demons to slay before she’d submit.

But submit she would…eventually.

And he’d be there to hold her the instant that happened.

Damn this man.

Who did he think he was?

Her thoughts were chaotic, vengeful, and bitter, even as she devoured him like he was the last repast she’d ever have. His mouth was just as forceful, offering no mercy like the callous pirate he was. He took and she returned the favor. God, kissing him was like sailing the ocean in the midst of a lightning storm. Beautiful. Violent. Powerful.The risk of immolation there with every strike. They consumed each other, this thing between them electric and raw…and everything she should be running from.

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