After we shared a breakfast of fried hasty pudding, molasses, apples, and tea, Ashley strode aft toward the sleeping chamber. With a sigh, I admired the muscles flexing in his thighs beneath the hem of his blue frock.‌

My attraction to him was a ball and chain. There was no shaking it. His head-to-toe prettiness made seducing him a palatable plan. But what if this became more than a ruse? What if I lost my grip on what was real and what wasn’t?

I needed to remember that I had a violently possessive husband coming for me, and he would rip apart every man who touched me. Ashley could die on Priest’s sword. Or vice versa.

My stupid heart constricted at the thought of either man perishing. How did that make sense? They were both my enemies!

Ashley returned, carrying a comb for dressing hair. Where had that been hiding?

Rather than offering it to me, he stood behind my chair and arranged my curls to hang down my back.

Frozen, I sat upon the cushion he’d provided for my sore backside, bracing for the impending pain from his ruthless hands. But it didn’t come.

He started at the ends, gently working at knots and moving his way upward. Each gentle drag of the comb sent tingling comfort across my skull and down my neck.

Peculiar. He doted upon my hair every night when he thought I was asleep. Like a secret compulsion. But showing tenderness in broad daylight? And combing with a finesse that rivaled a female hand?

“You’ve done this before.” I relaxed beneath his touch and closed my eyes. “Who is she?”

Not his betrothed. A lady of virtue would require a chaperon. And absolutely no touching.

He glided the tool rhythmically through a section of my locks for several minutes before responding.

“My sister.” He divided another portion of curls and crouched to comb the ends. “She had hair like yours. Tight, coiling curls that bounced around her waist. Except hers were black.”

“The same color as yours.”

“Quite so. She used to cry when the lady’s maid took a comb to it. I was many years younger than her, always clinging to her skirts. Very much the annoying little brother.” Affection softened his voice. “I hated when she cried. So I took over the task and learned how to smooth the stubborn knots without causing her pain.”

I felt my eyebrows shifting from squished disbelief to raised surprise. I was probably the only soul on this ship who’d heard this story. Perhaps I was the only one who knew he had a sister.

He was opening up to me.

But my brief victory didn’t taste sweet, for I detected tragedy in his tone and verb tense. “You speak of her as if she’s in the past.”

He set the comb on the table and proceeded to gather my untangled tresses into a long pleated rope down my back. Deft fingers braided mindlessly and tied the end with a leather thong.

That done, he didn’t move, holding his unnerving stance behind me, depriving me a view of his expression.

“There were complications during the birth of her first child.” His hand clamped onto my shoulder as if to prevent me from turning. “Neither she nor my nephew survived.”

Death. An incurable disease.

I breathed out slowly, achingly. “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly, my lord.” My chest squeezed. “What was her name?”

“Arabella.”

“Do your parents have other children?” “Just me.”

My feelings toward this cruel-hearted man loosened, just a little. I owed him nothing, but my hand moved anyway, reaching back to wrap around the

stiff fingers on my shoulder.

He didn’t reject me. Instead, he took my hand in his and pulled me to stand. By the time I turned, he’d erased any sentiment that might have leaked into his countenance.

“Will you tell me about her?” I squeezed his fingers. “Your sister?” “Another time, perhaps.” With a hard stare, he searched my expression

as if expecting to find ill intent.

I stared back, daring him with my eyes to say something mean.

His gaze lowered to my lips. His hand wrapped around my braid. The air quivered.

Then he kissed me.

Deep and drinking, his mouth plundered and claimed. The sudden taste of him stole my senses. My pulse stalled somewhere between utter shock and overwhelming delight before bursting into a gallop. I lifted on my toes and gripped his arms, opening for him, greeting his warm tongue, and moaning against his firm full lips.

His muscles hardened beneath my palms, and I clung, holding him, drowning in the fever that surged between us. His fingers curled around my waist, pulling me close, immobile, tight against his grinding hips.

God’s teeth, the man could kiss and move his body. His tongue rubbed against mine. His mouth conquered and consumed. His pelvis rotated, subtly, suggestively, stoking fierce flames of longing in my belly.

I shook uncontrollably as he licked the inner flesh of my lips, infusing my blood with potent desire. He tasted exactly how I’d imagined—wet, dark, and masculine—like a devastating storm. His powerful body quaked as his throat produced the deep guttural noises I’d heard on the balcony.

My heart danced. My legs quivered. Then I was moving, being lifted by strong hands and set onto the edge of the table.

He wedged his hips between my thighs, shoving the skirt up and out of the way to make space for his indomitable physique. Through it all, his mouth stayed with mine, refusing to release that glorious, voracious kiss.

Teeming with hunger, I leaned into him and reached for his cheek. His jaw flexed beneath my buzzing fingertips, the skin supple and smooth over unbending steel. He cupped the back of my head and angled my mouth where he wanted it, deepening the crush of our lips.

My hand slipped to his corded neck, caressing the tension beneath his cravat. His Adam’s apple bounced against my touch as he swallowed our

kisses in greedy gulps.

Tucked into the hollow beneath his iron jaw, his jugular throbbed and swelled beneath my finger. His heart definitely existed. It had beaten for his sister once. And now it pounded for me.

My body thrummed with awareness as he kissed me into oblivion. I was so lost in the intimacy I hadn’t realized where my hand wandered until he gripped my wrist, stopping me from seizing him between his legs.

He didn’t halt the kiss, though. Guiding my fingers up his body, he flattened my palm against his neck. But I kept going, reaching higher, until I discovered the soft, thick texture of his hair.

With a groan, he expressed his pleasure in the touch. His arm hooked around my back as his mouth feasted and fed with no end in sight.

Gradually, in a melting of lips, the kiss dissolved on its own.

His brow fell against mine, our breaths rushing forth in sharp spurts. My heart dealt blows like a hammer, my entire body trembling in a sheen of restless want.

I’d enjoyed that with a recklessness I didn’t want to analyze. But as my pulse slowed, irrational guilt crept in.

I hadn’t kissed another man since I’d met Priest three years ago. The betrayal tasted like stale ale in my throat, and this was only the beginning.

I banished the thought before it grew roots.

Ashley leaned back, and his eyes captured mine, intense and dilated.

“You feel this.” I glanced at his groin, unable to see the engorged ridge I knew was hiding beneath his frock. “You took as much pleasure in that kiss as I did.”

“Relish it.” He lowered his mouth and kissed me with infinite kindness, as though for the first time. Or the last time. He straightened and retreated a few paces. “It won’t happen again.”

I slid off the table and abolished the distance, pushing into his space and craning my neck way back to meet his eyes. “Is the view so very different from up there?”

He glared down at me, nostrils pulsing. “What I see is—”

“A whore sleeping beside a naked man every night? Tell me how this cozy situation doesn’t become cozier.”

In answer, he clutched my waist with both hands, lifting and setting me aside as if I weighed nothing. Then he strode into the day cabin and vanished around the corner.

I simmered until he returned with two cocked hats. One, he jammed onto his hard head. The other, he wriggled onto mine.

After adjusting my braid to drape just so, he offered me an elbow. “Would you like a tour of the finest warship ever built?”

Since talking seemed to get me nowhere with him, I welcomed the change of scenery.

“Yes, my lord. I would like that very much.”