Page 26 of The Heart of an Earl

She shifted her head forward, her stare on the swells of the sea. “With my time at sea—even though it was forced upon me—it is odd how it has become a part of me—the waves. I never thought much of the sea one way or another until I was on it, unable to escape. I would watch it in those early days on theRed Dragon, drowning in the pity I had put upon myself. It was so tempting—alluring—the possibility of just stepping over the railing and letting the sea take me.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No. I wanted to make Redthorn pay in those days. Lived to someday see him die a horrible death. Which is exactly what happened, though not by my hand.” A cringe tightened her face. “The yellow fever ate away at his body from the inside.”

“That was what kept your feet firmly on deck? Revenge? For a highborn lady, hoping for another’s death seems a bit extreme.”

“Just because I’m a highborn lady doesn’t mean I am not a blood-thirsty one when the situation dictates.”

Des nodded. “Making the dregs of the sea pay for their sins is what has kept me on a ship this long. Though I could do without the blood part of it all.”

She laughed. “Your distaste for blood?”

He nodded, a crooked smile on his face. “Vengeance can be hard when one has an aversion to blood.”

She turned fully toward him, her left hand remaining on the railing. “Tell me, is it more a revulsion of your own blood, or is it worse on other people?”

“Both. All of it.” His eyebrow cocked. “Is that an answer?”

“It can be whatever you want it to be.”

He chuckled and stood straight, his chest swiveling toward her. “I do like your hair out of the braids, Jules. It makes you look…lighter…not as rigid.”

She grinned, her eyebrows lifting. “I’m rigid?”

“One of the most rigid women I’ve ever met. The suspicion in your eyes around everyone is hard to watch sometimes, though you’ve come by it naturally. But it seems to be waning.”

“I think I have you to thank for that.”

His hand lifted, his forefinger snatching a wisp of hair by her temple and twirling it around the digit. “You have yourself to thank. You were the one that survived the last six years, and with your spirit intact.”

“Enough of it, anyway.”

“More than enough.” His hazel eyes met hers, the depths in them vibrating in the shadows of the night.

She felt it. The pang deep in her stomach, dropping to her core. Sending her body to tingle, her muscles to coil in anticipation.

“I do believe I want to kiss you, Lady Julianna.”

A soft smile came to her face. She hadn’t been addressed as that in so long. So very long. That was what she liked so much about Des. He was a link to her past—a beacon of light to everything she’d once held dear, to everything she once was.

He made her remember.

For everything he’d been to her on this ship, for how much she liked when his hazel eyes were intent on her, his low voice wrapping around her insides, making them tremble—she wanted that as well. Wanted his lips on hers. Wanted it just as much as he did. Maybe more.

She met his stare, the tip of her tongue wetting her lips. “I am quite certain I wouldn’t mind that in the slightest.”

He leaned down before her words were finished, his warm lips meeting her cool ones. His hand that had just teased a wisp of her hair dropped, sliding along her jaw, slipping into the hair at the base of her neck. She leaned into him instinctively, her right hand finding his chest, her palm slipping upward along his coat until it lifted, curling into the dip where his neck met his shoulder.

Tilting her head, he deepened the kiss, the heat of his breath on her skin, and he parted her lips, his tongue dipping, exploring. It set her nerves on fire, a direct line to her core.

Awakening the very heart of her.

Too much. Too much like Redthorn.

The base instinct that had parted her legs to her husband, fanned alive by one simple kiss from this man.

It couldn’t be the same. It couldn’t.

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