No…he was not dreaming.
It was Skye.
She was railing against him, hollering like a shrew, and tugging upon him, too. His sword…she was stealing his sword from his sodden leather scabbard!
Reeling from the pain in his gut, straining to come awake and to terms with the morning, Roc realized slowly that it was indeed Skye, she was standing over him, her left hand upon her hip, her right hand brandishing his sword, and a bit too close to his extremities, at that. Her eyes flashed like sapphires in the sun, she was as tense as steel. She stood disheveled, her hair a wild blaze about her, her skirts torn and shredded, her feet bare. If she weren’t so enraged, he would have smiled. She was in a sorry state, except that, even so, she was more captivating than ever. Her legs were bare to her thighs, her breasts strained against the damp material of her bodice, and she might have been some pagan creature from a far barbaric time.
He stared at her blankly. She hissed some other ungodly name his way, and her toe landed hard against his midsection again. His own temper bubbled and soared and skyrocketed with him, exploding like some witch’s brew.
He groaned, and she kicked him anew!
He pushed up from the sand in amazement.
“Skye! What the hell is the matter with you?”
“You!” she told him.
Then he touched his face. Half of the beard was there; half of it was gone. He muttered out an expletive and pulled away the remaining false whiskers, wincing as he did so. He was weary. His head was splitting and he ached from head to toe and she was standing there abusing him verbally—and physically—with a vengeance.
“Get up!” she commanded him, bringing the point of his own sword close against his jugular. His eyes narrowed with a flash of anger as he came slowly to his feet, facing her. “I should dice you into tiny pieces, and save the hangman his efforts. My God, the things that you did to me!”
“The things that I did to you!”
“Oh, Captain-Lord-Cameron-Hawk! How could you! How dare you! Hanging will be far too good a fate for you!” She started walking forward in her vehemence, and with that razor-honed blade so close to his throat, he had no choice but to back away from her along the sand. He’d never seen her this angry. He didn’t know if she would or wouldn’t use it.
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
“Giveyouthe sword? You must be out of your mind.”
“You don’t want me to kill me—”
“Kill you!” Her brows shot up eloquently. “Kill you? Oh, my dear captain! I’m longing to kill you, but torture comes first! I should love to see you stew in boiling oil, or perhaps have your fingers and toes and other protrusions chopped off, one by one—”
“Madame—” he began warningly.
“No! Let’s see,whoshall I kill, Lord Cameron? No, my legal husband, a member of the peerage, no…’tis the pirate I should kill. Captain Hawk. The scurvy knave, the rogue, the—”
“Your lover, Lady Cameron?” he inquired with a long, taunting drawl. She hesitated and he continued, daring to put his fingers upon the cold steel and move it away from his throat and bear slowly down upon her in turn. Once more they moved across the sand, with his voice rising in deep angry tones. “Ah, yes! Captain Hawk, the Silver Hawk. That dastardly villain who so crudely and brutallyrapedyou upon your first meeting. That was the description of what came between us, wasn’t it? Is that what you told your husband, milady, when you threw yourself so completely upon his mercy when trying to disavow your marriage?”
They came against a palm tree. She gasped, startled, as her back hit it. Then her jaw locked and the sword whistled as she smoothly retrieved the blade from his touch. The edge just drew a thin line of blood against his thumb and he made a furious sound like a growl. It did not daunt her in the least. The blade was next to his throat once again.
“You son-of-a-bitch! Youwerecruel and brutal when you seized that ship! You and your announcements that the crew were free to take Tara and Bess…but that I was yours! Thrusting me into that dark chamber, seizing my clothing—”
“I thrust you into my cabin because I wanted you safe from the crew. They are good men and loyal, but a captain always needs to take care. And I seized your clothing because they were damp and you might well have gotten pneumonia.”
“I might have had some choice in the matter.”
“Give me the sword, Skye.”
They had come back center on the sand. They circled one another very warily.
“And on that island—” she began.
“What on that island? What? Go ahead, tell me! Was I cruel on the island, brutal? Ah, yes, that’s where I forced you into my arms.”
“You did force me—”
“Never, lady, and hence your wrath against me! My God, I had the patience and restraint of a saint—”
