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“My father boarded your ship in good faith. His only thought at the time was to rescue you and your men before your ship sank. Even now he has ordered our stores of food and water be given freely to your crew, though we suffer shortages ourselves.”

Dante gritted his teeth but kept smiling. “I have already apologized to your father and attempted to explain—”

She cut him off. “Would an apology and explanation from Victor Bloodstone serve to cool your anger?”

“We are hardly guilty of the same crimes.”

“No? We found your ship foundering and on the verge of sinking and my father’s only crime was showing concern for any possible survivors.

Yet you threatened him with killing me, you took command of his ship and crew and forced both to accept the unwanted burden of your heavy guns.

You have turned the Egret from an honest trading vessel into a warship and dispatched her on a hunt for another warship with no thought to the consequences. ”

“The consequences are that you will be better able to defend yourselves in hostile situations.”

“Our situation will become hostile only if we succeed in finding the Talon. Or if we are found by another vessel and your presence here on board is discovered.”

Muscles folded over powerful muscles as he crossed his arms. “Would it ease your mind if I promise to throw myself overboard should the latter occur?”

“There is no need for such promises, Captain. I shall do it myself if I think the safety of the Egret , her captain, or crew is compromised. ”

“All by yourself?” he asked with an easy smile.

“I am stronger than I look, sir. Better men than you have discovered it to be so, to their disappointment and loss.”

“And what about your disappointment?”

“Mine?”

“Yours … that they were not strong enough to match you.”

Without warning, Dante rose from the bed.

The blanket fell to the floor, but he paid it no heed as he stalked forward the two long strides it took to bring him directly in front of her.

Not knowing what to expect, she tried to stumble back, but her retreat was blocked by the chart table.

She raised the stiletto instinctively. Dante was anticipating the move and managed to grasp her wrist, twisting it sharply enough to startle the knife out of her fingers.

He raked his hands into the damp thickness of her hair and forcibly tilted her head up, and, after supplementing his challenge with a mocking grin, lowered his mouth, brutally crushing her lips beneath his.

Beau was outraged. Her body burned with anger; her senses exploded with a corresponding fury.

Her hands were trapped against the marble-hard surface of his chest and she tried to push herself free, but it was like trying to push against a stone wall.

She opened her mouth to scream a curse, but he only took advantage and filled it with his tongue, thrusting with hard, deep strokes that were as shocking as they were enraging.

His grip was firm, his hands twined tightly through her hair.

His mouth was brutal and possessive, chasing after each cry, each attempt to twist away from the forced intimacy.

Only when he chose to end it was she able to wrench herself free. When she straightened and faced him again, it was with the gleaming threat of another smaller, thicker blade grasped firmly in her hand.

“You son of a bitch!” Crimson faced, she rubbed her mouth with the back of her hand, removing the wetness. “How dare you!”

“I dared,” he said calmly, “because you challenged me to.”

“I … did not!”

“You most certainly did. With those big brassy eyes and that lovely, luscious pout of a mouth. Perhaps you weren’t aware it was a challenge, or perhaps you are simply accustomed to men who find your stubbornness and rudeness intimidating.

But only a fool would misread it as anything else.

” His gaze fell to the knife and his voice became a lazy drawl of menace.

“What’s more, I would suggest you put that away before I mistake it for a challenge of another sort—or have you forgotten my promise if you ever drew another weapon on me? ”

“I have not forgotten,” she said tautly, quivering with fresh outrage. “Nor have I forgotten you are not a man bound by conscience or burdened by an overabundance of honor.”

“You are forgetting patience,” he added succinctly. “Of which I am quickly running short.”

Beau ignored the warning flecks of blue smoldering in his eyes and turned angrily to gather the charts she had initially come to retrieve. He watched, a vein throbbing noticeably in his temple as she circled behind the table to collect her brushes and pots of ink.

“I’ll have someone tell the captain you’re awake,” she said crisply, and headed for the door.

“Isabeau!”

She stopped and glowered back over her shoulder. “I have not given you permission to call me that. My name is Beau. Just plain Beau.”

His eyes took in the soft cloud of her hair, the kiss-swollen lips, and the two hardened nubs that crowned her breasts and pushed impudently against her shirt.

“If I have discovered nothing else, Isabeau” he said quietly, “I have discovered you are anything but plain.”

“Just as I have discovered, Captain Dante, that you are no different from any other bandy-legged rooster, so impressed with what you have between your legs, you expect every woman on earth to be sweating and panting to have at it. Well, I am loath to disappoint, but I have seen better—” she cast a disdainful glance down his thighs— “and had better without becoming the smallest part damp across the brow. And if you ever … ever dare to touch me again, I will fillet you into such small pieces, the sharks will have to search the entire ocean to find a solid mouthful!”

With fury snapping in her eyes, she whirled and exited the cabin, giving the door a resounding slam behind her.