Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Priest rested a possessive hand on my lower back and escorted me past the boatswain, pilot, surgeon, carpenter, and a dozen other concerned faces. They all knew he’d betrayed me. They knew I’d been running from him ever since. I would only need to give them a signal, and they would charge him with weapons raised. He would fight back. Some of them would die. He would be injured, possibly killed, as well.
There was a better way to deal with this.
Judgment and distrust wafted from them as we walked by. Priest’s presence wasn’t just horribly belittling. It was openly belittling as he marched me across my own ship with nothing more than a hand on my back.
I pushed him away and squared my shoulders.
No captain could ever be certain of her command or crew. If I didn’t prove to them by the morrow that I had this under control, I would lose their allegiance. And possibly my ship.
Without a nod, glance, or so much as a twitch in their direction, Priest led me toward the companionway that descended toward my cabin. I focused on keeping distance between us and many steps ahead, as if I were the one steering this madness.
Trailing behind, Reynolds barked orders to set sail the moment the remaining crew boarded.
At the threshold to my quarters, I glanced back, casting Reynolds a warning look. One that demanded he not interrupt until I called for him.
“Run along,” Priest said to his brother. “Unless you prefer to watch.”
I shook my head at Reynolds as he bared his teeth and released a menacing sound.
Undeterred, Priest shoved me into the cabin and kicked the door shut behind him with a rattling bang.
“Two years.” Priest prowled toward me, unleashing the force of his temper with a soul-shivering roar. “You are my wife!”
I flinched at the violence in his voice and swept around the desk in my private chamber, putting the heavy furniture between us.
Rather than chase me, he listed over dishware and maps on the scarred surface, using the long reach of his fist to ensnare the neckline of my bodice.
“So help me God.” He hauled me right up to his icy gray eyes. “I’m going to bloody your arse for the hell you put me through.”
“The hell I put you through?” My hackles rippled. “You betrayed me!”
A lantern glowed beside him, casting his expression in terrifying relief. He was all menace, vibrating rage, and man.
Predator.
His grip tightened on my bodice as his fingers tunneled into the valley of my breasts. My feet scrambled backward, but my body held fast, restrained by that large, callused, invasive hand.
The heat of it made my breath hobble, injecting an edge of thrill into the fear. The scent seeping off him was every bit the sun and sea, hot and male, leather and sin, everything I remembered and more, scrambling my senses. Disarming me.
And those unremitting iridescent eyes… Never in my life had anyone looked at me with such ardent concentration. It unnerved me. It aroused me. I lowered my gaze, evading the dark, dangerous, masculine beauty that caved in my lungs.
“Two years without you.” He pounded his free hand on the desk, nearly toppling the lantern. “You punished me for two unbearable years.” Yanking me closer, he gave me a hard shake. “Dammit. Look at me!”
Livid heat radiated off layers of muscle and seething brawn, dissolving my strength of will.
I lifted my gaze to his.
“I love you.” His brittle whisper barely penetrated the sound of blood beating in my head.
Outrage thrashed through me. Outrage and pain. All I could see was him clinging to another woman the same way he held me, whispering the same three words with the same arresting passion.
It put my life in perspective. A life that must continue without him, no matter how badly it hurt.
With a calm resolve that made me proud, I opened the desk drawer at my hip and removed a worn, heavily creased vellum letter.
“Do you love me as much as you love her?” I set the paper on the desk between us, turning it so he could read the bold, elegant scrawl.
He stared at it, refusing to answer, as his expression twisted with recognition and grief. His eyes darted over the words, and his hand fell from my gown to trace the handwriting.
“My dearest Priest…” I lowered into the desk chair and recited the opening from memory. “Last night, I didn’t just welcome you into my body. I let you into my heart. Again.”
My voice quivered, and I closed my eyes against the anguished look on his face.
To hell with his anguish.
A week after we became husband and wife, he sneaked out of our bed and left the room we’d rented in Nassau. Early the next morning, he returned, saying he hadn’t been able to sleep. Given his pallid, disheveled appearance, I thought he was ill.