things together. Yet we went through the movements as if we shared everything and had known each other our whole lives.
Once my gown was in place, I didn’t need to ask for his assistance. His hands were already there, tightening the laces and adjusting the pleats in the back.
Only this time, when he finished, he didn’t pull away.
His fingers sifted through the coils of my hair, brushing the tresses over my shoulder. Looming behind me, he set his lips against the exposed side of my neck. Not to kiss. He simply rested his warm mouth there, breathing me in, scenting my skin. Apologizing?
His hands curled around my waist, bringing my backside against his groin. A pained noise sounded in his chest, followed by a whisper at my ear. “You’re the chief cause of my misery.”
I flinched, eyes narrowing.
Not an apology, then.
“You make me hard, Bennett.” His cultivated accent cracked like kindling. “So unbearably, ceaselessly hard I’m in agony. I can’t think, can’t do my job, can’t—”
He released me and turned away. I spun toward him, watching the frock stretch across his back as he ran his hands down his face and over his mouth.
“Ashley.”
He shifted back and pinned me with an accusatory glare. “I will not fall for your trickery.”
“Trickery?” I squared my shoulders. “You think I want to feel affection for a man who intends to watch me hang?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Then they cleared, and his jaw worked side to side.
“Don’t play games with me.” He strode toward the exit. Big surprise.
“You’re the one playing games.” I raced after him and caught his arm in the day cabin. “You touch me and kiss me and work us both into tangled knots. Then you run away.”
He swung back, his ocean eyes bright and deep, as he clutched my face in his hands. “Who says I’m running?”
I didn’t understand his meaning.
Until he kissed me.
His mouth paralyzed all thought as his assertive tongue delved between my lips, past my teeth, and straight through my heart. I moaned at the heady contact, the emotional intimacy, gulping down the force of his ravenous intensity.
Tongues twining, hands sliding, his mouth, his potency, his overwhelming masculine presence consumed me. Then he hooked a knuckle beneath my chin, lifted my face, and did something no man had ever done to me.
He kissed the tip of my nose, soft, lingering, deep in its affection.
“You feel me running, Bennett?” He rested his forehead against mine.
“No.” My chest rose hard, my voice barely a whisper. “I feel you falling.”
He closed his eyes. When they opened again, he stared at me with sullen austerity. His mask locked in place.
Stepping back, he straightened his frock, turned toward the dining cabin, and left.
I pressed a hand against my mouth, trapping the heat from his lips.
It was hard to love a man—much less tolerate one—who would choose his career over my life.
But it was impossible not to love Ashley Cutler.
He was complicated, iron-bound, steadfast, and passionate. Like Priest in the best of ways. Not better. Just… He was everything I longed for, for so very long. To give up on him would be to give up on myself.
I looked around his empty quarters, debating whether to go topside for a stroll in the ocean breeze. But I shouldn’t strain the stitches in my foot. Infection was the last thing I needed.
My gaze snagged on the unfinished gown on his desk. Fabric and sewing supplies scattered every surface. I’d left his day cabin in total disarray.
And he’d left me painfully, miserably, completely unsatisfied.
I sat behind the desk, focused on the sewing project, and tried to ignore the ache. A few stitches here. Some fabric cuts there. But the throb between my legs persisted, accompanied by the tingling simmer that his kiss had left upon my lips.
Damn him and his beautiful pouting mouth. It was the bane of my existence and the only thing I could focus on. So I did what any immoral woman in my position would do.
I propped my bandaged foot on the desk, spread my legs wide, and reached beneath my skirts.
I didn’t need him or any man for this, but it didn’t hurt to imagine his sensual blue eyes. Hooded, unblinking, unsmiling, gorgeous gulfs of blue. I swirled my fingers around my swollen flesh, stirring my slickness and growing hotter. Until those blue eyes turned silver, sharp and glinting like blades.
Stop.
Concentrating harder, I fingered my ache while imagining Ashley fucking me. Then Priest appeared, pounding his magnificent length between