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Creeping closer, I spied Croygen asleep on his back, his arm tucked under his pillow, his head turned away from me. The thin white cotton sheet pulled up just above his hips wasn’t hiding anything.

Involuntarily my breath sucked in, my body responding to what I was seeing. Heat slid down from my cheeks, pulsing hard between my thighs, making me very aware I had no underwear on. For a moment, I couldn’t move, my twelve-year-old crush transforming from innocence to something completely different. Grown-up. Filthy.

Croygen was gorgeous. His face was angular with a sharp jaw; the beard only added to his sensual appearance. His features, especially the shape of his captivating eyes, suggested he had some Asian ancestry, though I knew almost nothing of his childhood, only bits and pieces he let slip over the years.

His body had always been tall and lean, but he had bulked up a lot during our years apart. His muscles corded over his figure, leaving no fat. Tattoos covered his arms and chest, most of them new. My attention trailed down his torso, a deep V-line disappearing under the sheet. His cock, thick, long, and hard, was outlined clearly under the cotton.

My innocence back in the day would have turned me away with an embarrassed squeal. I wished that was how I felt now.

Desire surged, along with the sudden need to climb over him, slide my pussy down his shaft, and ride him until I couldn’t breathe. My body trembled at the notion, drowning me in the craving. The yin of my hate battled with the yang of my need.

What the hell was wrong with me?

I had been so enamored with him. Boldly wrote in my diary that I would be the one to marry him. When I grew up, he’d be mine.

Now I was grown up, and the only thing I planned to do was kill him.

Yet, I stood still, watching him and wasting the precious seconds I could have used to execute him and escape.

Out of the corner of my eye, something glinted off the moonlight. I twisted my head to a hook on my left. Hanging from it were his jacket and belt, which displayed the gold handle of my father’s dagger.

All the desire I had experienced a moment ago turned to pure, red-hot rage, coloring my vision. My blood boiled with fury, striking out everything else. Pain and grief set fire in my gut.

It called to me, the perfect end for the pirate. To die by the very blade which killed my father. My revenge complete. Just.

I reached for the dagger with my free hand, the gun in the other, the decorated handle fitting into my palm like it was made for me. Ripping it from its holster, I swung around, ready to bury the blade in Croygen’s throat, giving him only a few moments to understand who I was before I sliced his neck all the way through.

I swung with precision, the tip of the blade about to kiss his neck, when the sound of a gun cocked against my ear, a barrel pressing into my forehead.

Shock froze me for a moment, my attention shifting down to the man on the bed. His dark eyes stared into mine, a cheeky smile hinting on his mouth.

As if he had been waiting for me.

“Nuh-uh,” he tsked, his throat bobbing against the blade. “Not so fast…Katze.”

Chapter 8

Croygen

Sleeping with my door unlocked over the years turned me into a light sleeper. It might be easier to just lock my damn door, but the panic of being trapped inside with no way out harbored in my chest, rattling around like a ghost, the screams that would never go away playing in my mind. A rogue wave took my family—everyone but me—that fateful night. As though I was kept alive to be punished for eternity because I was the one who wasn’t trapped in my room. The one who disobeyed his father.

I’d rather sleep light than not at all. Not that I was sleeping tonight. My brain had been buzzing around insistently.

The girl’s eyes. So unique and stunning. I remember being entranced by them even when she was a small child. Her face, voice, and mannerisms were altered, but the more I dug into my memories, the more I sawher.

I tried to push it away, the tight sensation in my gut, disgusted by what I had said to her, what I was thinking, while my dick was still hard as a rock.

To be fair, I didn’t know who she was. Then I saw her jacket.Myjacket. The one I still tried to match centuries later, never finding anything that fit me like that one had.

I had been furious when it disappeared, ripping the ship apart trying to find it.

Yet I still couldn’t reconcile the tiny child I used to know with the woman locked up in my brig now. The one who had my entire body standing on end the moment she rammed into me. Her curves, her face, and her voice… the sultry feline way she moved.

There was no fucking way it was the same girl.

It couldn’t be.

That’s what I wanted to believe anyway. Especially because she acted like she knew my reputation, but not me. That told me she was a liar or just a common thief. I trusted neither.