“He was not so hard on you this time, Alex,” he said as he smoothed the salve along a thin line on her thigh. “It’s a miracle, considering what you tried to do to him.”
“He only wanted me to beg.”
“Did you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think that’s how you got the black eye.”
“You’re right.”
Cloud put the bottle on the bureau and undressed and joined her in bed, pulling a sheet over them. Alexis blew out the candles on the nightstand, then nestled close beside him, fitting the contours of her body to his own.
“I thought you were dead,” Cloud said after a long silence.
“I know,” she said softly, her voice breaking in her throat. “I thought about it all the time I was aboard that frigate. Revenge was little comfort when I realized I might not see you again. I would not have hesitated to kill Travers if I hadn’t thought that. Somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it until he said he was going to get rid of me…to pass me off as a slave. Then it all came back. The hate, the disgust—everything.”
“It’s all over now. You are free of all of it.”
“Except you.”
“That’s right. You’re my captive. Do you mind?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we should get married.”
“You’re right.”
Exhaustion and pain were ignored, overridden by a driving hunger that sought pleasure as an expression of all they meant to each other. Cloud’s light touch elicited soft moans and gentle urgings. His mouth on hers stilled her whispered pleas until his lips moved to her throat, her breasts, and she could not remain silent. Her hands moved across his back, up his neck, and while he caressed the length of her leg, her fingers wound in his thick copper hair.
“When we’re together…like this, I feel alive.” She expressed herself softly, not wanting to break the special reverence of the moment. “Do you know what I mean?”
Cloud lifted his head and searched Alexis’s face. His eyes were darkly passionate and his thickly lashed lids were heavy with his desire as he gazed into her slumberous amber eyes. “From the very beginning, Alex. I’ve always known you were necessary to me…like the air and the sea. I was only afraid you would never admit it was the same for you.”
“I was scared.”
“I know.” He kissed her briefly, soothingly. “So frightened in some ways—so courageous in others.”
She returned his kiss, tasting his mouth with the tip of her tongue, asking his forgiveness for a time when she had not been brave enough to be honest with him or herself. She felt him tremble as his fingers moved caressingly along the edge of her brow, her jaw, then along the slope of her neck. She noticed her own hands were trembling as they traced a similar pattern along the ridges and angles of his face.
Her smooth legs sought the masculinity of his. Her hips and thighs, vulnerable to his pleasure, arched searchingly to find and satisfy him, ensuring that her own desires were met.
When they joined there was no longer the sense of a battle between them. Each only strove to give the other greater pleasure than had been known before. Alexis found it first, her senses assaulted, her mind teetering on the edge of oblivion and moments later, unable to withstand the contraction of her muscles, the demands she placed on him with her mouth, her hands, he joined her.
Breathing slowed, heartbeats found a normal rhythm, as muscles ceased to quiver and tremble. Cloud touched the chain at Alexis’s throat and brushed his lips against hers.
“I love you.”
Alexis’s sigh was as eloquent as the words she might have spoken. She turned in his embrace and rested her head against his chest, her hair fell softly across his shoulder.
“That sigh. It’s mine forever.”
“You will have to work just as hard as you did tonight to get it. Does that bother you?”
He laughed softly in the darkness and bent his head forward, kissing the top of hers. “What do you think?”
“I think I’ve found everything I ever wanted.”
“You’re right.”
And the bitter memories were laid to rest, replaced by a calm acceptance of all that had happened. The kind of peace Alexis had only known in her crow’s nest she found once again in Cloud’s arms. As if sensing her discovery his arm tightened about her waist, assuring her that she had found her place at last.
