“Come along, Jamie,” he motioned with his own rapier. “Why are ye refusing tae push yourself today?”
“I dinnae have it in me,” she said. “I was up too late last night assisting Mr. Chen.”
She leaned against the opposite deck railing, breathing heavily.
He sheathed his sword and walked over to her, stopping only a foot away. Her silvery eyes flashed under the mop of her dark curls. Like his own, her skin had bronzed in the constant sun of sea life, scattering new freckles across her cheekbones—wee flecks he traced in his mind, imagining how it would feel to press a shaking finger to her soft skin.
He swallowed.
“So the fireworks will be lit tonight?” he asked.
“Aye.” She grinned. “Andrew even sent word to the governor tae let him know. We dinnae want any of these fine folk tae think they’re under attack.”
“A lot of good you’d be in an actual attack.” He tapped the rapier still in her hand. “Ye need to become stronger.”
Her eyebrows flew upward, wrinkling her brow. She swept her eyes up and down his body, a blatantly feminine perusal of appreciation.
His breathing hitched in his chest, fire spreading in his veins.
“If only I had the proper motivation,” she whispered, her accent reverting to the softer lilt of her birth. She licked her lips. “Pity that.”
She handed him her rapier and pushed past him, disappearing down the aft ladder to the deck below.
Kieran stared after her, mind a maelstrom.
Once more, he rehearsed all the reasons why he needed to keep his distance. They rolled through him like beads on a rosary—he was her senior officer; she trusted him to behave honorably; he had promised her father that he would protect her from harm, himself included.
To that end, he did the sensible thing—he returned to his cabin, sheathed her sword, and stowed it alongside his own.
He would stay in his cabin, maybe read for a bit, write a letter to some friends in Edinburgh.
He continued with this list, even as his feet left his quarters and followed the path to the cabin Jamie shared with Mr. Chen. The carpenter was ashore with everyone else.
Jamie, of course, was alone. She was bending over, placing some tools in a trunk.
He slid the door shut.
What he had planned to do . . . he wasn’t sure.
Talk? Listen to the husky timbre of her voice?
Instead . . .
She stood and turned around, chin notched high.
Her chest heaved, as if she had been running.
He didn’t know who reached for whom first.
But between one breath and the next, Jamie was in his arms, rising on tiptoe to fist her hands into his hair, her mouth hungrily finding his lips.
He hitched her against him, desperate for the feel of her body against his.
Kieran had known want in his life.
He was no stranger to desire.
Butthis. . .
