core and knife went on a small table. From an armoire, he removed another dark blue frock and shrugged it on. Black leather boots came next. He took his time lacing them over his wool stockings before returning to me. On his way, he passed a sea chest, where he grabbed a large glass bottle.
Uncorking it, he brought the drink to my lips. The syrupy, toasted sugar flavor of rum burst across my tongue. I gulped it down, taking long, greedy swills until my chest burned.
I coughed, wanting more, my eyes locked on the bottle. Instead of taking it away, he drifted closer, all of him, with his nose at my throat, inhaling.
“Stop smelling me.” My insides cringed.
I tried to close my legs, but his hips prevented the attempt.
“I’ve never met a female like you.” He dragged his nose through the wind-blown curls of my hair and returned to my neck. “You smell like the sea.”
Masculine heat pressed into the juncture of my thighs, which was a great degree less deceptive than the implication in his soft voice or the lazy indifference in his half-mast eyes.
“Look at you.” His gaze roved from my legs to my face, lingering on my mouth. “How can something so small rouse such widespread fear in the king’s navy?”
“I’m a magical witch.” I squirmed and bucked, trying to dislodge him.
He patronized me with the click of his tongue and set aside the rum. Then he pushed closer, making me horrifyingly aware that my futile wriggling had hardened the flesh in his tight breeches, extending that swollen girth down his thigh.
“It seems, my lord, that you’re unable to hide every reaction.” I attempted to kick free of the iron grip on my knees. “Untie me at once.”
He made a scoffing sound. “You’re a snarling, immodest, uncouth creature. I knew better than to tie you up. When an animal is rabid, you don’t put a leash on it. You put it out of its misery.”
“Call me whatever you please. It doesn’t change the bulging want between your legs.”
“You have no idea what I want.” He caught my throat in a bruising fist, immobilizing me. “If you did, you would curl into yourself and tremble for mercy.”
I wanted to tell him I didn’t curl up or tremble for anyone. But I was doing both now, hunching and shaking and gasping for breath in the painful collar of his hand.
Bending over me, he pressed every inch of his body against every inch of mine. His impressive height and latitude of shoulders consumed my field of view and suffocated my senses. And his scent… Dear lord, he smelled clean. The soap he used to bathe, the aromatic mint on his lips, the cedar oil on his skin—the concoction was an aphrodisiac flooding what little air trickled in through my nose.
The sight of his powerful physique before without a shirt had struck me with sizzling awareness of his beauty. And now, with the blue coat stretching across the solid expanse of his chest, his nearness had the same effect.
I bit down on my tongue, but I couldn’t quell my shaking.
How many times had I faced down a cruel, attractive man and came out on top? I was more brazen than any titled lady, physically stronger than the average woman. Priest was the only person who’d managed to knock my knees out from under me. Because I’d let him. And I’d learned.
But I was no match for a man who dangled me over the bellowing sea without a hint of pity or slack. As tightly as he was squeezing my airway, his face should have been on fire with fury. Yet he maintained his usual phlegmatic expression. Chillingly calm. Self-possessed.
“Ashley…” My lips moved without sound or breath. Please, release me.
He shifted, trapping one of my knees between the rail and his hips. Maintaining his hold on my neck, he lifted my other leg and tossed it off the balcony.
Panic surged, and I flailed, trying to adjust my weight to straddle the balustrade. But the rope didn’t reach, and he allowed me no space to move. The position suspended me in the air with one leg hooked over the rail and the other kicking into the darkness.
Fighting gravity and fatigue, I couldn’t close my thighs. I twisted uselessly, spread wide open with the warm wind smiting my feminine flesh. “Ashley, stop! What are you—?”
He slammed his palm between my legs with unholy force.
Pain exploded, and I cried out soundlessly, gulping and flinching through