Tristan knocked. No answer. The silence beyond the door thickened. He set his hand to the knob. It turned. She had notlocked him out. His cabin glowed in low candlelight. A gilded washbasin sat where a regulation tin basin ought to have been, its rim catching the lamplight. In a hard roll, it would break free and cross the cabin like shot.
Beside it, a mirror leaned against the bulkhead. One sharp list and it would shatter into a hundred flying edges. He marked it instantly as the first thing to go in a storm.
Then he saw his desk. His chart table had been converted into a vanity. Brushes lay where compasses belonged. Small bottles stood in a neat line, stoppered and scented. Perfume. Oil. Things meant to be opened slowly, not flung aside in haste. A chair had acquired a cushion. Where in God’s name had she found a footstool? Sooner or later, all this frippery would have to go overboard.
His jaw tightened. She had taken his disciplined command space and turned it into something perilously close to a boudoir. As if comfort were not a weakness to be guarded against, but a necessity.
The tub stood behind the screen, drawn close to the warmth of the brazier. Steam softened the air around it, and water lapped faintly as the ship moved. He took a step closer. One pale shoulder rose above the rim, slick with heat and candlelight. Her head rested against the copper edge, hair piled in a heavy knot that had begun to slide free.
Heat pulled low through him. He wanted her and was not saint enough to pretend otherwise. He took a step toward the tub and saw her face.
Steam had returned color to her skin. Her lashes rested against her cheeks. The stubborn little tension she carried at the corners of her mouth had loosened. She looked warm at last.
His chest tightened. Her contentment should not have struck him like a prize.
Her eyes opened. “Is it—” Her voice came hoarse. “Is it midnight already?”
He grunted. “To the second.”
“I’m sorry.” She sat a little straighter, and water slid from her shoulder in a shining line. “I lost track of the time.”
Her voice went through him like brandy taken too fast. Warm intimacy, hoarse at the edges. That, or the bare curve of her shoulder above the water, undid him.
Her gaze traveled over his wet hair combed back with his fingers, his clean shirt open at the throat, the dark coat he had put on.
“You…” Her brows drew together. “You had a bath as well. I suppose I must thank you.”
“I did not have a bath. I took a dip in the ocean.” He had stripped, climbed down the side, and dove into black water cold enough to bite marrow.
Her eyes widened. “You cannot mean you plunged into the sea. At night. The water must have been freezing.”
“Not cold enough.”
The words came out too rough.
Color touched her cheeks, turning steam-pink into crimson. “But what about sharks?”
Tristan glanced down. Bad choice. The water hid her, but not sufficiently. The upper swell of her breast showed at the rim of the tub, pale and wet and. His cock rose with the loyal stupidity of a mast answering wind.
“Woman, no shark would dare come near me. I was armed.”
“With what?”
“With a harpoon. Enough about sharks.” Exhaling, he stepped farther into the room and touched the edge of the screen. “You’ve been busy.”
“You can say that.” Her gaze flicked toward the chair. “Could you—would you hand me the robe?”
The words landed like a signal flare. He had stood under fire without blinking. Now his pulse beat like a cabin boy’s on his first port visit because a damp woman asked him to pass a garment. He crossed to the chair and lifted the robe. White and thin enough that his imagination became a criminal instrument.
He held it out. When she reached, her fingers brushed his wrist.
Every hair along his arm lifted, and a shiver ran through him, like a swell catching the hull broadside.
He could hear the faint unsteadiness in her breathing now, see the color rising along her cheek. He wanted to see every inch of her. Wanted the water sliding over her belly, her hips, her thighs. Wanted to put his mouth where steam had been and lick her dry.
Instead, he turned to give her privacy, a civilized scrap that cost him. Behind him, water sloshed as she rose. He felt the warmth of her body displace the air, felt it brush his back like a following wind. He braced himself as he would in heavy seas—feet planted, shoulders squared, breath measured.
“Done,” she said softly.
