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He pulled back, frowning at her. "I do not have kind eyes."
"You do when you look at me." She took a deep breath. "If you're trying to warn me that you won't be a good, gentle lover, I think you're underestimating yourself," she said.
He captured her hands and held them tightly. Hers were stubby, small, and pale; his were large, square, darkened by sun, and heavily scarred. He didn't look up from his inspection of their differences as he said, "I'm saying that you are no doubt used to the refined ways of modern men who make a study of women, who understand how to—"
"Liam." She raised his chin with a finger under his chin. "If modern men have ever made a study of women, it's the first I've ever heard of it. If you think that I'm going to be comparing you to all my previous lovers, well, don't, because that's a list that includes two men, one of whom was a mistake, and one of whom was an awful mistake. And neither one of them gave a damn about how I felt during the process anyway."
Liam looked flummoxed. Appalled, even. "You mean, with all the magazines and writings and all of the visual—instruction—" He'd found the pay-per-view cha
"Not a bit," she said.
He seemed completely relieved, and she had to stifle a laugh that she knew would be completely inappropriate. "So they weren't meant to be instructive."
"Did you watch the porn? Accuracy, not its strong suit."
He slid his palms up her arms, a warm glide of flesh. "Of course I watched it, my dear. I'm no Puritan."
"Prove it."
He slipped his hands under the thin lace bra, slowly, watching her face without blinking. He didn't restrain a smile when she let out a gasp, and it was one of his full, charming smiles, with a razor-thin edge of darkness—the kind that, she imagined, had spontaneously brought several women in his lifetime to shed their inhibitions.
Not a problem. She seemed to have left hers on shore, anyway.
"I've been thinking about this for hours," he said, and his voice was low, barely audible over the creak of timbers and rush of the sea. "There's a question I've been wanting to ask you, Cecilia. It's important."
"Yes?" Her voice came out almost calmly.
He put his lips very close to her ear. "Do you prefer the left side of the bed, or right?"
She laughed out loud, unable to stop herself. "Right side."
"Ahhh," he sighed regretfully. "That'd be a problem, then, lass, as I like the right side of the bed."
"Only one solution," she replied, straight-faced.
"Dice? A game of cards? Pistols at dawn?"
She kissed him, slowly and deeply. He groaned low in his throat, and pulled her closer.
"One of us has to be on top," she mumbled into his mouth. "I'll let you go first."
Under Liam's black trousers he wore, of all things, Joe Boxer briefs. With red lipstick prints. She stared. He shrugged. "Argyle advised me," he said, sounding faintly unsure. "All right?"
She smothered a laugh. "So long as they come off, I'm fine."
They did. Her lace top was also disposed of, though they took good time to enjoy the journey. It took a timeless, sunlit eternity for him to work his way from the relatively safe territory of her collarbones, nibbling down in slow, steady kisses, to her breasts. She couldn't keep herself from pulling in as much as her lungs could hold, arching toward him, desperate to have those clever, clever lips do more, go farther.
Oh, and they did. They definitely did. And it took a deliciously long time.
Liam paused for breath, looked up at her, and drew his fingertips in a slow, hot line down over her stomach, straight down. "Pace yourself, lass," he said, with a grin that took her breath away. "We've leagues to go yet." He hooked his fingers in the thin elastic band of the triangle of lace that pretended to be panties. "And plenty of territory left to explore. We've not even made landfall yet…"
She heard a distant shout. Liam's smile vanished, and he turned his head, frowning. She hadn't made out any words, but evidently he had. He rolled off her, and roared, "God's blood, lads, we'd better be bloody sinking!"
She heard a kind of shrieking hiss, getting rapidly louder. He grabbed her and rolled her hard off the bed, thumping them both to the carpet between the bed and the cabin wall, an instant before something hit the stern of the ship so hard, it felt like a giant hand shaking the massive vessel. The mullioned window exploded in a shower of glass shards and lethal shrapnel.
By the time she blinked, Liam, stark naked, was already up on his feet, cursing with a bitter violence all the more alarming because he was doing it in a whisper. He shook broken glass from his trousers and stepped into them, not bothering with the fancy underwear, even while he asked, "All right?"
She nodded mutely, swallowed, and managed to say, "What's happening?" She could hear the alarm bells ringing on deck, ru
"Bloody bad timing, at the very least," he said, and bent to give her a quick kiss. "Get dressed. If we're boarded, give a good account of yourself, you're the captain's wife now."
She gave him a shaky salute. "Aye aye, sir."
He eyed her with longing and great regret, touched his forehead in a casual salute, and dashed for the door.
Cecilia quickly dressed and armed herself with whatever was left over from his quick exit—a dagger, a spare cutlass, and a spare pistol. She checked. Fully loaded.
"I am not hiding in the corner," she said. That was a safe enough declaration; there was nobody to argue with her about it, at least not yet. She left the cabin and went down the narrow hall, blinking as she emerged into the bright shimmer of sunlight on deck.
The sails had been piled on, and the Sweet Mourning was cutting through the water at an incredible pace, flying like a bird. The rigging crew were on the masts and yardarms. Up on the quarterdeck, Liam was at the wheel, with Argyle leaning on the railing.
"She's got speed on us!" Argyle shouted. Cecilia ran to to the side to lean out for a look; behind them, far in the white wake, she saw another ship advancing on them. It was smaller, with a enormous single square mainsail, wider than it was tall, and a much smaller triangular sail at the prow. The design was thin and long, and somehow it put her in mind of a shark, the way it cut cleanly through the water. Argyle was right, it was frighteningly fast. Even though they had the advantage of more canvas, the other ship was rapidly gaining. "She's coming within range again! 'Ware ca
Cecilia watched, wide-eyed, as a black dot traveled across the blue sky, grew in size, and ended its trajectory with a shattering crash amidships. It sent fragments spraying in every direction. Some of the shards had fallen near her feet, and she saw they were glazed pottery, not metal.
They were throwing pots?
And then a thick, greenish liquid that had splashed in a broad swath across the deck caught fire, an eerie flickering flame that took on a hellish intensity in less than a breath.
"Greek fire!" Argyle shouted from the quarterdeck. "No water! Smother it! Move!"
She got out of the way of a stampede of sailors carrying spare canvas, who began putting out the fire.
"Mrs. Lockhart!" Argyle bellowed. He no longer sounded friendly, or amused. "If you must expose yourself to every danger that presents, at least do so up here!"
She blinked, saw Liam and Argyle staring at her with identical expressions of disapproval.
"We'll discuss who wears the pants later," Liam said once she was on deck. "Argyle. Is it that damned madman Salvius?"