hooding his eyes, she felt his gaze travel the line of her shoulder and neck. Surely, he could hear her heart thumping, for it nearly deafened her. Bracing a hand against the tree, he leaned nearer, his braids brushing her chest.
“Persuade her,” he purred. The tease in his eyes was countered by a dangerous lilt in his voice.
Her head whirled. Cate held Nathan's eyes with hers, determined not to close them, lest it was a dream—one dreamt a hundred times. She didn’t dare think…She didn’t dare hope…It was almost as if he had somehow known. Had she cried out in her sleep? Dimly—for lucid thought was becoming nigh impossible—she wondered if he had been watching more closely than credited all these weeks, and had known her feelings all along.
Fine tremors coursed through her. Breathing became unnatural, jerky and only with effort. Her heart and body knew what they wanted, even if her mind disagreed. Her nails dug into the bark of the tree at her back. That and a fragile thread of doubt the only thing that kept her from flinging herself at him.
“Persuade her, how?” Damn! Her voice shook like she was a mere maiden.
“I’d move close.” The graveled voice had gone husky, words of sanded velvet. “And put me hand under her hair and touch her pulse just there.”
Cate flinched at the unexpected heat of Nathan's hand on her night-cooled flesh. The dark eyes, now mere inches from hers, flickered with uncertainty.
Damn him! He knew he could melt her with a touch. His fingers skimmed her collarbone, her skin glowing in their path. Nathan pressed lightly on the vein just under her jaw. Surely, now he would feel her blood racing, all her best-kept secrets known. His grasp tightened and she grew dizzy, with a faint ring in her ears.
“Then, I would take her in me arms and put me hand just so.” He did so, his hand tracing the curve of her spine. His fingers splayed wide at the small of her back, and her belly tightened. “I’d hold her close, feel her breath come short, so warm.”
His eyes still holding hers, his mouth hovered so very near. The heat of his body radiated through his shirt. A heart drummed in her ears, hers or his?
His fingers brushed her cheek. “And then, I’d turn her face up to mine, touch me lips to hers—” Cae closed her eyes and parted her lips as his mustache brushed them. “And I’d—”
Nathan stiffened and jerked away as if seared. Blinking, he staggered back like a sleepwalker abruptly awakened. He glared as if she had somehow tricked him.
“That’s what I would do, if she were willing,” he said, with a curt wave.
Cate sagged against the tree, incensed and humiliated. She was no schoolgirl looking for her first kiss! Fury surged and the stars turned to pricks of red.
“Keep looking, Captain.” She pushed upright, praying her legs would support her. “Someday, maybe, you’ll find someone just that willing.”
The backs of her eyes stung, and she dashed at the wetness on her cheeks as she stalked away.
Damn him! Damn him!
Seething with mortification, Cate kicked sand at the glowing coals of their deserted fire. Sparks spiraled into the night’s sky. Sensing she was being watched, she whirled. Expecting to find Nathan, she was met with two golden eyes, instead. Roosted in a tree, Artemis’ flat owlish face stared back.
“You’ll find a nice huge rat just over there!” she snarled, with an angry swipe.
Swearing under her breath, she searched out her quilt from the piles of stores brought ashore. Pausing to dutifully stoke the fire, she threw the wood at it with far more force than was necessary. She knelt to scoop out a makeshift bed, sending the sand in curving spurts behind her, and threw herself into it.
Nathan could be brash and abrasive, but never had he been so cruel, and with pinpoint accuracy, alarmingly so.
The bastard.
Cate rebelled at the thought of being leashed. His presumption that she would be so wanton as to throw herself into the arms of the first man to come along was vexing. Once again, he sought to control her, watch-dog her every move. When she had agreed to stay, she had known such would be the case, but she hadn’t bargained for him asserting himself so soon.
“I managed years on my own—on the worst streets of London, mind—and did very well, thank you very much! I had a damned father and five damn brothers, and I don’t need