Chapter Ten
Jon Stoker prided himself on never being caught off guard.
He anticipated crises and planned for disaster. Every morning he assumed that the world would fall apart.
It made him a proficient captain and an even better rescuer of women and children and dogs and every other wretched soul he’d somehow admitted to—
Stoker drew a ragged breath. One minute they’d been talking about barrels and the next he was prattling on about being an—Oh God, had he really used the termvigilante? What in the bloody hell had he been thinking?
He hadn’t thought; he’d only felt. He’d been swept up in Sabine’s closeness and attention; wanting, just once, to feel clean and pure in living flesh rather than in his mind.
She hadn’t needed to know. Her life could go on forever without the lurid truth of where he’d been or what he’d seen or how he’d survived. The less they knew about each other’s lives, the less complicated their relationship would be.
Not to mention, Stoker’s priority at the moment was locating his bloody brig. He needed mobility, to provision and sail from London as soon as possible; he needed to return to Portugal. If he could also keep tabs on Sabine’s personal vendetta against her uncle, all the better.
There was no time to be caught off guard by her request to touch his bloody tattoo.
The irony was that women had been asking to touch his tattoo for as long as he could remember. It elicited a thrilled sort of reverence from a wide range of women—everyone from rescued prostitutes to old grandmothers and little girls. He’d gotten the damn thing because being mistaken for a gentleman scared the hell out of him. He’d had no idea at the time how many females were invigorated by the notion of... of—whatever a gentleman was not. He’d never understand why the tattoo intrigued so many women, butSabine?
Sabineasking to touch it, her eyes filled with wonder, her cheeks flushed, the notebook containing her precious investigation bouncing to the floor?
He’d been given no choice but to offer his arm. He’d watched her reach out, watched her trace first one finger, then five fingers, down his forearm. When she’d slid her hand around his biceps, he’d stopped watching and closed his eyes. For the first time since he’d regained consciousness, the burning pain in his side left him. The earth shrank to her cool caress.
This is not sexual,he recited in his head.
This is not attraction; this is not even affection.
This is curiosity.
She is curious, and I will go out of my bloody mind.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked softly, breathlessly.
No,he thought, but he said, “Yes.”
“How?” she demanded, her voice still soft, but a demand, just the same. “How is this hurting you?”
By killing me, by teasing me, by offering me something that will not happen.
He said, “This cannot happen.”
“What cannot happen?” she asked. Her hand was gentle on his biceps. Slowly, she began to fan her fingers out, a featherlight touch of unfolding sensation.
Stoker cleared his throat. “You were curious about the tattoo, and now you’ve seen it.”
She looked up, trying to read his eyes. He leveled her with what he hoped was a most intimidating scowl.
She laughed—laughed. “Are you glaring at me?” She did not release him.
“Sabine,” he warned, “you’re too close.”
“I know,” she said softly, the laughter dying away. “I am too close and you are too... unclothed.”
She chuckled again, a short burst of disbelieving laughter. “I’m not sure why I haven’t fled the room, except that I hate being told I cannot do something for no reason. And I never flee. This is why Sir Dryden and I didn’t get on.”
Stoker’s eyes flew to her face. “You said Dryden never touched you.”
“Well, he never touched me like I am touching you, but he—”
