"A lot you would care. You abducted me, kept me bound and gagged, then dragged me here on the back of a horse."
"It was necessary!"
"Necessary? For whom? You? And who are you?" Water dripped off her, creating an expanding puddle at her feet. She silently dared him to come closer. She'd like to blacken his other eye.
"That's of no importance to you!" Water dripped from his hair. He wiped at it angrily.
"No importance?" The absolute nerve of the man! Anger goading her beyond all caution, she pulled back her arm. Her clenched fist shot out and was easily caught.
"I'm in no mood for games," he said coldly.
"Games?"
"No mercy! Keel haul the bloody bastard!"From somewhere down the companionway, the voice she'd heard earlier screeched above the storm. She went white at those words. Her teeth had begun to chatter violently, but not from the cold.
"I suppose you're going to torture me." Her voice was strained as the screeching continued.
He turned from her. "Damned if that isn't what you deserve. But Sebastian doesn't give the orders around here. I do." Going to the chest of drawers along the side wall, he took out a towel and threw it at her.
"Sebastian?" What sort of character he might be, she wondered. Undoubtedly another pirate.
"He's a bird, and a damned bossy one at that. I may just decide to have him served up for supper one of these nights. Now, get out of that wet thing yer wearing and dry yourself off. I won't have you catching your death of cold simply because you were foolish enough to go up on deck in the middle of a storm."
She caught the towel, her eyes narrowing, and threw it back at him.
He whirled on her, patience gone. There was something dangerous in his voice that warned she may have pushed him too far. She refused to cower or back down.
Zach should have known better. But he was tired, and angry. He saw her stubbornness as defiance, pure and simple. He crossed the cabin and with a single move, separated the fabric of the chemise that had clung to her like a second skin.
Shock, and then anger came. First her wedding gown, now this. She couldn't run, and she couldn't hide. She wrapped her arms about her to hide her nakedness, anger burning through her.
Her defiance was like sand in a wound. Zach pulled her against him, his gray gaze meeting brilliant blue as he stripped away the last of the clinging silk. Seizing the discarded towel, he bent down, roughly rubbing her bare legs dry. It was practically his undoing.
Swearing, Zach came to his feet and threw the towel into the far corner. His angry gaze bore into her. Then he turned and pulled a dry shirt from the drawer. When he turned back, the sight of her completely naked, dripping wet and shaking, sent everything spiraling out of control.
She stood there proud and angry, her arms crossed over her breasts, vivid color on her pale cheeks. But she didn't pull away or try to hide from him.
'I hate you!'
She wanted to say it, but couldn't, her throat aching as he walked toward her and she felt herself being pulled into that gray gaze, the anger slipping away no matter how hard she tried to hold onto it.
'Touch me', the words whispered between them.
Had she said it, or had he? She didn't know, as his fingers gently brushed her cheek, and his lips brushed hers.
Her hands closed around the front of his shirt, holding on, eyes closed, as the warmth, the taste, moved through her, taking away the anger, taking her away to another place, another night...
Who was she, Zach thought again? Why did he want her again, with an ache so deep and so painful that he could hardly breathe. He tasted the wind and the rain on her lips, and something that waited in the shadows of his mind, something that pulled at him, like a deep hunger that would always want more, like the air he breathed.
"Lys."A name out of the past...
He stepped away from her and wrapped the shirt around her.
"It's several hours before daybreak," he told her. "It's safer if you stay below deck."
Then he was gone.
Sixteen
