Shifting onto his side, he scooted as far from her as the narrow bunk allowed. “It’s who I am, Beth.”

There was something foreign in his voice—some vulnerability, some trepidation—and her courage soared. Her dangerous rogue was just a man, and he needed her. She wrapped a steady hand around his forearm. “You’re more than this.”

She looked at the scars again, facing them full on, her fear gone. She smudged her thumb over the rippling skin of his brand. To mark a man as though he were cattle—it was unthinkable. “How did you ever bear the pain?”

“Pain.” He pulled his arm from her, and fisting his hand, studied it. “Some say it lights a fire within.”

“And is that what you say?” Though too timid to press her body to his, she was eager to maintain contact, and slid her arm beneath the blanket, idly feathering her fingers up and down his side.

“It certainly fueled my rage. My anger.” He inhaled deeply, as though that alone could clear the memories, then cupped her face in his warm, broad hand. “But no, Beth. You’re what’s kindled me to life.”

She continued to stroke her hand up and down his body, and he grew still. She could tell by the wicked flash in his eyes that he’d become focused on her touch. “And you’re kindling more than that, I daresay,” he said.

Abruptly, he shifted his hand to her back and pulled her close. It was a shock to feel the naked stretch of him, pressed against her, scorching her with his heat. With a firm and confident touch, he shifted her into a position he liked, and his mastery sent a sensual shiver rippling up from her very toes. Leaning close, he nipped her ear. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me.”

His member was hard, pressing into her thigh. For a moment, for her, it was the only thing in the room, this mysterious evidence of his maleness, of his want for her, and she tried to picture him in her mind. “Nor you to me,” she said breathlessly.

“I see I’ve shocked you.” He chuckled, a low, seductive sound. Cupping her bottom, he pulled her closer still, until he was nestled in her cleft.

Her eyes grew wide. How that would ever fit inside her, she knew not.

He stilled, his every muscle taut and hard as sunwarmed granite against her. “Are you certain you want this?”

“Quite,” she said quickly, and his body eased. But then she hesitated. “It’s just that…”

He kissed one cheek and then the other. “That?”

“Well, it appears you’re quite large and …”

“And?” he asked, with a kiss to each temple.

“Well, tumescent.”

He pulled from her with a laugh. “Tumescent, am I?”

She grew shy again, uncertain. “I’ve not offended you, have I?”

“Not in the least. Seeing as I’m the one forced to bear up under it, I’d be the first to agree upon my own … tumescence.”

“Is it quite heavy, then?” she asked, genuinely curious.

Though he schooled his face to seriousness, she saw the humor in his eyes. “No, not heavy. But a … a bit of a burden, nonetheless.”

“A burden?”

He considered it. “Aye, one that tends to put all other thoughts from one’s mind, you might say.”

She glanced down to where he was hidden beneath the covers. “Might I touch it?”

He chuckled again, nuzzling her. “I was hoping you might.”

She found him under the covers and wrapped her hand around him. He was thick, and infinitely smoother than she’d have guessed. “Oh, I quite like the feel of you.”

“I’m glad,” he rasped, tilting his pelvis to her. “Now show me how much.”

Unsure of how to proceed, she drew her hand up along his length. The skin dragged in her palm, and it fascinated her, like steel beneath silk, but then she stroked him more and forgot her fascination, the knowledge that she was about to take this most intimate part of him into her body inflaming her beyond reason.

“I want this.” She cupped the head of him, rubbing the sticky wetness. “Get closer to me, Aidan.”

With a groan, he snatched her wrists and rolled her onto her back. His movements were quick and sure, and the desire simmering in his eyes brought hers to a fever pitch.

Twining their fingers, he pinned her hands over her head, his body hot and hard atop hers. Bearing most of his weight on his elbows, he kissed along the length of her arms, her breasts, he kissed her all over, chafing his cock in her wetness all the while.

She’d lost all sense—no longer a logical being, she’d become pure feeling. Her mind, usually a clamor of thoughts, was reduced only to impulse and sensation. She knew only him, a hard wall of muscle, the rasp of his whiskers, the coarse hairs on his body. The sound of his breathing and his intermittent groans. The scent of salt air and their musk. The ship gently rolling, rocking their bodies closer, grinding his hardness so unbearably close to her, yet not close enough, in a teasing suggestion of what was to come.

She whimpered, her wanting of him become unbearable. “Now, Aidan.”

“I don’t want to hurt you. We need to—”

She couldn’t bear it any longer. Tearing her hands from his, she grabbed his ass. “Now,” she cried, pulling him into her.

There was a sharp pain, but his shout of pleasure blacked it from her mind, and he pumped into her until the pain was gone and all that was left was this joining. The feeling of their bodies connected. All she knew was the slide of their sweating bodies, the sweet ache of her breasts, and the acute want growing between her legs, the need for release, to fall spiraling with him into ecstasy.

She became aware that he was whispering in her ear. “Mine,” he was telling her. “You’re mine.”

Her body seized, stilled, and for a breathless moment she floated in blackness, and then the blackness shattered, and she was filled with light. She felt her head rise from the bed, her body curling into his, like a puppet lost to herself, Aidan’s body her master.

With a last, hard thrust, he shouted his climax, and collapsed over her. For a while, they simply lay there, panting, she unable to speak, unable even to close her slackened jaw.

And then they laughed. His was deep and unfettered, and she couldn’t stop her giggles, so joyful she was, transformed. Her pleasure was too much, it had to bubble from her.

“Sweet heavens above.” Aidan rolled off of her, still clutching her close. His laughter faded and he grew serious. “Elspeth Josephina Farquharson, I’d sell my soul to the devil, I’d call myself the devil’s own, if only you’d let me do that once more.”

“Oh yes,” she said, beaming up at him. “More, and more again.”

Chapter 29

Aidan couldn’t believe his ears. Or his eyes, or his body, for that matter.

“Am I truly to have more of you?” He smoothed the hair from her damp brow. Goose bumps shivered her skin, and he pulled the covers over her shoulders and hugged her closer. She was cool against his body, he like a furnace, on fire with a craving for her he’d only begun to explore. “I dare not believe it.”

He molded her breast through the blanket, and her nipple hardened at his touch. He gently pinched her, and her instant reaction had his cock stiffening. She’d feared she was too small for him, but really she was perfect. He’d spent years around women who foisted their lush curves upon the world, propping their goods atop the shelves of velvet bodices, dazzling with silks, feathers, and threads of gold. “You were fashioned just for me, I think.”

“I think it so too,” she said, giving him a shy smile.

How the woman could be a sexual wanton one moment and a sweetly uncertain miss the next had won him.

She’d given herself so freely. And the honor of lying with her would’ve been gift enough, but Elspeth contained a fiery ardor that’d staggered him. Her selflessness was humbling, but it was the memory of her consuming ardor that had him fantasizing already about when he might take her again.

He couldn’t imagine a woman better suited to him. She was kindness and sweetness, yet with a passion that matched his own, she didn’t fear the tempest broiling within him. Fashioned for him, indeed.

“Shall we test the theory?” He tugged the covers down, and her skin pebbled in the cool air. He’d not allow a moment for her shyness to return and took her breast in his mouth, nibbling and sucking, until he felt her body loosen and melt beneath him.

Hoisting himself up onto his hands, he shifted over her to lie propped against the wall on her other side. It was a new angle, and he took a moment to appreciate it. “I could spend the day just staring at you.” Tilting his head, he peered closer. “But what’s this?”

He lifted her left arm above her head, momentarily transfixed to watch the mound of her breast rise with the motion. Then, cradling her arm in his, he studied a small birthmark at the juncture of her breast and rib. “How could I have missed this beauty?”

“It’s a heart,” she said proudly.

Squinting, he saw that, surely enough, there was a tan spot shaped like a little heart beneath her breast. “So it is.”

“I’ve always thought it meant I was marked by love.” She traced the mark, her fingers knowing where to go without her looking. She watched him, as if she expected he might challenge her assertion. “In Hindustan they read folks’ palms. Some people read tea leaves. It seemed reasonable to infer some meaning in such a shape, and on my breast no less.”

He, who’d spent over half his life wearing a scowl, couldn’t help but smile down at her. The woman was as fanciful as a poet, and he loved her for it. “Destined to find true love, were you?”

“Well, I always knew I’d feel love. It’s been a surprise that I’ve actually found it.”

His heart soared. “Have you indeed?” He’d not felt loved, not been loved, in many long years. He placed his hand over the mark, barely touching her skin. “And this wee spot foretold all that?”