“I will be pressured, regardless,” Sam said.
“What if they offer you a permanent commission?”
The stroking of his thumb slowed.A tightness crept around his eyes, and his gaze passed through me, through the deck.
I laid my free hand atop his.“Sam.”
He seemed to come back to himself.“I am tempted.”
He looked at me then, wholly looked at me, and the world shrank around us.Gone was the rush of waves against the hull, the creak of timber, and the grate and clack and rumble of the vessel’s constant maintenance.All yielded to this singular moment—Sam and I and the uncertainty of what he would say next.
“But your contract remains with the Usti.They are your protection.”
For a moment I couldn’t find anything to say, then I managed, “If you decide to retake your commission, I would go south and join my mother and Demery.”
“You would not find a new ship?”He seemed wary.I wondered precisely what had provoked him—the idea of me not wanting any other captain, or the reality that the small progress he and I had made for the good of my kind would quickly fade from memory.
I shrugged, forcing more nonchalance than I felt.“Who would I trust?But please, Sam, feel no obligation towards me.I have other prospects.”
“There is no obligation.Though I intend to stay by you, if you will allow me to.”A small smile touched the corner of his mouth, though sadness tugged about his eyes.“Aside from my affection for you, there are other complications.Ben, for one.I took the fall for his crime because I knew his discharge from the Navy would destroy him.That remains true.”
He kept speaking but my attention had come to a sudden, jarring halt.I intend stay by you.How could he say that and continue speaking of other things?
I frowned at him.
“Ben is a villain, his reputation destroyed.He will be pushed even farther into the darkness.Yet we now have a cure—or so Ms.Alamay claims.And he will not use it,” Sam continued, oblivious to my irritation.“Do I force him, then, to be healed?Must I trick him?If I do not, I am as good as abandoning him, and all the sacrifices I have made will be for nothing.”
I do intend to keep you.
I forced my mind forward.“Yes, we trick him, lie to him, force him if need be.You have given everything for him, including nearly all our lives.”
Guilt cluttered his expression.
“He lost the ability to make the right choice a long time ago,” I stated, holding his fingers tighter than necessary, though Samuel seemed unbothered.“So make the choice for him.That is not so uncommon for the pair of you, is it?”
“No,” he affirmed.“It is not.”
“Then it’s settled,” I summarized, slipping farther forward on my chair.Our knees touched.“You will stop worrying, and I will help you trap Ben for his own good.And for your own good, I will now distract you.”
Sam abruptly met my gaze.Emotions flickered through his eyes—a ghost of promised happiness.Then they were chased away by a familiar hesitation.
My stomach sank.
“Don’t do that,” I warned.“Don’t close yourself off now.”
All of a sudden both his hands cupped my head, pulling me in for a long, slow kiss.His wind-dry lips were rough against mine, but warm and needy.My head felt light and I leaned forward, but that was not close enough.
I jerked up my skirts carelessly, straddling him with a clatter of my chair and deepening the kiss.He let me grasp his face in turn and tilt his head back.
His hands fell lower, flexing on the curve of my waist and slipping their way under my skirts.Distantly, I felt Tane’s presence leave, slipping away through the wood of the ship to keep watch outside the cabin door.
“I did not hesitate… about this.About you.”He fumbled for words.I’d freed his mouth, using my own to plant a row of kisses and nibbles down the side of his throat.His fingers skimmed across the bare flesh of my thighs.“I was only thinking of… Saint, you are not wearing trousers.Mary.Why are you not wearing trousers?”
“I intended to bathe, but you distracted me.”
“It is still quite cold.”
“I’m quite warm.”
