Page 69 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

“Oh, Sloane.” Annabeth slid her fingers gently across his arm. “This slice is so long.” She smoothed her finger across his stomach. “Are you certain we shouldn’t call a doctor?”

Sloane drew in a sharp breath and steeled himself against her touch. “It’s not that deep.” His voice was tight. Perhaps Annabeth would assume it was from the physical pain.

“If this had been deeper...well, it doesn’t bear thinking of.” She looked up at him, concern in her eyes.

Once, he would have grinned and kissed away her worry. All he could do now was look away. “It’s a bit cold.” In fact, he was filled with heat. But he needed her to hurry up.

“Yes, of course.” She wet the cloth again and returned to gently wash his arm. “You’re right. This isn’t very deep, thank heavens. It won’t need stitching.” She wrapped a strip of bandage around his arm and tied it.

Sloane thought he had passed that test pretty well. But the next one was an utter failure. As she stroked the wet cloth across his stomach, his skin and the muscles underneath jumped at her touch. If there was any pain, it was swamped by pleasure. He clenched his teeth, managing not to let out a groan, but he could not stop the deep pulse of hunger in him. It was a relief when she stopped, but he ached to feel it again.

Annabeth looked up at him, and there was a soft, dreamy look in her eyes that nearly destroyed all his good intentions. But she let out a little sigh and moved away to get the bandage. Annabeth wrapped it around his abdomen, standing so close there was only a sliver of air between them as she reached around him to grasp the end of the bandage. For an instant he was in her embrace.

Annabeth tied the bandage and took a step back. Her eyes roamed his chest. “There’s another scar.” She slid her finger down a small scar high on his chest. “What happened?”

“That was a ball from a musket.”

“And this?” She trailed a finger down a longer scar on his side.

“A knife in an alley in New Orleans. I let down my guard there. I was thinking only of espionage, and I didn’t think of thieves.”

“And here?” She touched his other arm.

“I don’t remember.”

She walked slowly around him. “There are so many of them.” She came to a stop in front of him, looking up into his face. “Sloane...”

“But I survived all of them.” He tried to keep his voice light, but looking down into those luminous green eyes, it was difficult to. He swallowed.

She laid her hand on his chest, her palm spread. Sloane felt as if it burned into him. He laid his hand over hers, keeping it there.

“Was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?” He was having difficulty thinking. The only things in his head at the moment were Annabeth and the need that churned inside him.

“The ship—the reason you went with Asquith. The reason you left me.”

“No. No ship would have been worth that. You haunted my thoughts, my dreams. I loved you beyond reason. I wanted you with everything I had in me.”

“Then why—”

He shook his head. “Please... I had to, Anna. I just—I had to.”

“Do you want me still?”

“You know I do. You had to have known that when I kissed you. But I can’t—”

“No.” She laid her finger against his lips. “Don’t tell me what you can’t do, what I can’t do, what rule we must follow.” Sliding her hand from beneath his, she glided both hands across his chest. “You were the only man I ever felt desire for. The only one I will ever feel desire for, I’m beginning to think,” she added wryly.

His heart was hammering, his head struggling to keep a hold on reason, every part of him aching. “Anna, please...” He wasn’t even sure anymore what he was pleading for.

“You could have died today. I could have died. And I would never know.” She pressed her lips gently against his chest, and it was like a bolt of lightning through him. She raised her head and looked up at him again, her eyes filled with the same passion that thrummed through him. “I want to know, Sloane. I thought I would have you for the rest of my life, and I know that’s all gone now. But I want to know what it would have been like. How it would have felt. What I would have had.”

For a moment he stood still, locked in her gaze. Then he bent to kiss her.

CHAPTER THIRTY

A TINY VOICE of reason in the back of Annabeth’s mind was sounding an alarm: this way was dangerous, this path led to heartbreak. But Annabeth pushed it away, lost in the sensations that flooded her. This was what she had yearned for all these years—to be in Sloane’s arms, to feel his hard body pressed against hers, to drown in the pleasure of his kiss. She wanted him. She had always wanted him. And she was going to have this moment, this bond with him, and if this was all she had for the rest of her life, so be it. A memory of joy was far better than the bitterness she had lived with for the past twelve years.