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Shocked that there was any more of him to expand, her body went completely still beneath him. Her breath came faster, the pounding in her blood became distinct enough that he could feel her heart hammering in her chest and see her panic throbbing through the small veins in her temple.

“Was it something I said?” he asked with a wolfish grin. “Or something you might like me to do?”

His face was so close, all she could see was the black slash of his eyebrows, the splash of ebony hair flung forward over his brow and cheeks, and the amused mockery in his eyes.

She closed her own for a moment and when she opened them again, they blazed with such fiery contempt, he almost laughed out loud.

“I gather we understand each other?”

She managed a jerky nod and he cautiously eased the pressure from her mouth.

He did not remove his hand completely, choosing instead to rest it across her throat in such a way as to lock her head flat and firm on the desk, not allowing her the luxury to turn either way or avoid the further confrontation in his eyes.

“I say again, mam’selle. Quite the ferocious little corsair. Ferocious, warm, and surprisingly tempting,” he added, shifting his hips slightly for emphasis. “I don’t suppose I could interest you in a small skirmish of another nature? ”

She swallowed and he could feel the movement of her throat muscles beneath his hand.

“Get off of me,” she rasped.

“Ah. Mam’selle declines,” he said softly. “Pour le moment.”

“Get… off… of me!”

He watched her mouth shape the words and savored the echo of them as they vibrated down his spine.

He had made the proposition in jest, yet his flesh was betraying the fact she was soft and warm and extremely tempting.

And that there were other needs besides food and water he had gone too long without.

“If I do, I want your word—your blood oath—that you will not try any more of your foolish tricks.”

“My word?” she spat. “My blood oath? How do you know you can trust it?”

“Because you are going to trust me when I give you my word, and my oath, mam’selle—” he lowered his head, lowered his mouth until the heat of it renewed the flush of warmth in her cheeks— “if you ever … ever draw another weapon of any kind on me, I will bind you hand and foot to the shrouds and flay your backside into bloody strips. And that—” he molded his fingers more poignantly around the arch of her throat—“only after I have sliced out your tongue and fed it to the sharks.”

She swallowed again and her lips parted, trembling as much from the force he was exerting on her throat as from the cool promise mirrored in the silver-blue of his eyes.

“Your word, mam’selle?”

She tried forming the words twice before there was any substance to her answer. Her face felt as if it were on fire. Her hands were curled into fists, cold as ice, and her limbs were aching from the strain of trying to keep him at bay.

“You have it,” she whispered. “You have my word. ”

“No tricks?”

“No tricks.”

He allowed a crooked smile to underline the warning in his finger as he lifted his hand from her throat and traced a smooth line along the curve of her lower lip.

His other hand released her wrists and he was struck by another image as he straightened: that of her lying exactly as she was now atop the clutter of papers and charts, naked, with her hair unbound and spread like dark silk beneath her.

His flesh jumped noticeably and he had to suppose, after being at sea so long and having come so close to death, anything female, supple, and breathing would have had the same effect. A purely reflexive response, comparable to a thirsty man’s reaction upon stumbling into a pool of fresh water.

He left her to struggle upright on her own and walked back to the sea chest. He found a pair of relatively clean hose and, testing his sanity along with Beau’s word of honor, finished dressing with his back to her.

He did not bother bandaging his calf and barely glanced at the raw wound before pulling on his boots.

The pain helped to clear his head and distract his body, and after thrusting his arms through the sleeves of a leather doublet, he buckled his belt, raked his hands through his hair, and was all business again.

Beau had used the same time to gather her faltering wits about her once more.

Her body still seethed with the impression of his, her skin was stretched so tight in places, she wanted to scratch herself to ease the tension.

Her breasts in particular were as prickly as pincushions.

Her thighs ached from being nearly split asunder, and the bridge of flesh between felt oddly hot and runny, as if the sensation of melting she had felt earlier had not all been in her imagination .

“I’m going up on deck,” Dante said casually, eyeing her from across the cabin. “Feel free to join me when you have finished here.”

He stepped out into the passageway, ducking his head to clear the low lintel, but only moved a pace or two into the gloom before stopping and cocking his head back to listen.

He did not have long to wait. The sound of Beau’s curse and the smashing of a brass candlestick hurled at the door assured him her temper had not been permanently sup- pressed. Why it should make him smile, though, he had no idea.