Struggling for control, he tore himself from her clasp.
“Rhys—” Her voice was thick, clogged with sated passion.
He clenched his jaw. “Don’t.”
He needed to bloody think! And he couldn’t with the heady scent of her in his nostrils and the sweet taste of her on his tongue. Every battered sense was reeling. All he wanted was to throw himself back into her embrace and lose himself in her. Drag those luscious hips to the edge of his desk, part her thighs, and drive into her body until they were both lost to pleasure.
He spared a glance to the wild-eyed, red-lipped woman standing inches away. Emotions chased across her face, and she pinned the inside of her cheek between her teeth. Sarani looked as staggered as he felt—stunned that the inferno between them had somehow managed to stay alive after all this time.
How had it? Because despite everything—betrayal, rejection, bitterness, and a half decade of hate—the attraction, the passion, was still there. Rhystan wanted her with a ferocious desire that had not abated in five years.
And she wanted him.
But regardless of the random flare of lust, they were over. Sarani Rao was in his past. She was female and he was simply a man with needs that had not been met in some time, as evidenced by the unrelenting pressure in his groin.
“Damn it,” he muttered, raking a frustrated hand through his hair.
Dark lashes dropped over her eyes, hiding her thoughts from view, one bandaged palm rising to quell the shaky rise of her breast. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should go.”
Rhystan scrubbed his face with one hand and took another step back, giving her a wide berth as she swept past him to his cabin door in case he did something infinitely stupid like try to stop her. She had to leave, and he needed to clear his head and stop thinking with other disorderly parts of his body.
With a shaking hand, he reached for the tumbler of whisky she’d left behind on the desk and drained it. The thought that her lips had been on this glass, too, made his bruised lips burn. Rhystan swiped at his mouth with the back of his knuckles, sucking in a breath at the residual tenderness. Recalling the sight of her red, swollen lips, he knew she’d given as good as she’d gotten.
But then, Sarani always had. In Joor, she’d lived and fought with passion, never giving ground, never conceding. Their first kiss had been a battle for position, for dominance. Surrender had never crossed her mind, and he’d loved it. He relished her fight, that fierce intensity that had always called to its likeness in him. Even with the illusion of submission, this kiss had mirrored its predecessors, and Rhystan wasn’t sure who had emerged the victor.
He smiled reluctantly. She’d make love like a warrior. The image of a gloriously nude Sarani Rao riding him into the bedsheets filled his addled brain, and his knees nearly failed him.
Christ, he needed to have some bloody sense beaten into him. He was full of sap and spoiling for a fight. And he knew just the man for the job. Without a second thought, Rhystan made his way to the upper deck to find his quartermaster.
Gideon threw one look at him and raised his eyebrows. “Now?”
“Now,” Rhystan growled.
Gideon grinned, the sight of which usually made grown men piss themselves, but Rhystan only stared back as the enormous man shed his belt, boots, and weapons without another word. He did the same, yanking off his boots and shirt.
Nothing like a bracing round of bare-knuckle boxing to get one’s head sorted out. It didn’t take long for a crowd of his older crew to gather, some pulled from their beds because no one liked to miss the captain and the quartermaster beating each other bloody—or miss out on the wagers. Bets and money were already changing hands as the men formed a loose circle.
“Rules?” Gideon asked, rolling his massive shoulders.
Rhystan scowled. “None. First to call it.”
Gideon shot him a sardonic look. “That bad?”
Snarling, he answered with a nasty jab to the man’s jaw, and the fight was on. It took every bit of his focus—thank God—to avoid Gideon’s punches. The man was the size of a mountain and built of pure muscle, so getting hit by him was tantamount to getting hit by a train. Despite his bulk, he was also fleet of foot and moved like he was executing the most delicate of waltzes, with swift, beautiful, lethal precision.
But then again, so was Rhystan.
He dodged a thick fist swinging at his head and ducked to pummel Gideon’s torso. Crowing, the man barely flinched at the attack and kicked out, catching Rhystan in the thigh. He swore he could feel his bone shudder from the blow, but managed to limp out of the way and jab his knuckles into the softer tissue of Gideon’s throat.
They traded more savage blows, getting some in and missing others, and after a good while, Rhystan finally felt weariness start to creep in. For all his skill and size, Gideon was also looking a bit the worse for wear. Blood trickled from a cut at his eye and one on his lip. Rhystan was sure he looked much the same, feeling a stinging on his cheek and tasting the metallic tang of blood in his own mouth. He swiped a lock of damp hair out of his face and eyed his adversary.
They wouldn’t stop until one of them was unconscious or called the fight.
Those were the rules.
“Had enough yet, Captain?” the bigger man drawled.
“I’ve got all night.”
“Do you? Doesn’t seem like you have the stamina. Or is it the ballocks? Then again, could be the stem, too.” His quartermaster laughed, showing a row of bloodstained teeth. “Stem or berries, Captain?”
Rhystan’s gaze narrowed. “Shut the hell up.”
“Been a while since you had a woman, no? Can’t figure out which end is up? Let me help you out there—it’s the pointy end.”
The men around them roared with laughter and hollered lewd insults. The rub to his masculinity was salt in an open wound, and Rhystan couldn’t help feeling rage that he’d been reduced to a dithering greenhorn who’d fled from his own private quarters with his tail between his legs. After one blasted kiss.
Gideon was right. The current version of him wouldn’t have hesitated to toss any willing bit of muslin to his bed or bend her over his desk, no matter who she was or who she’d been, and finish what he and Sarani had started. And she had been willing…desperately so.
Then why had he stopped?
As if his thoughts had conjured her, Rhystan caught a glimpse of Sarani hunkered down by the stairs, her stare trained on the fight. She didn’t display an ounce of worry. She’d seen him spar before, though his style and technique had changed in the past handful of years.
Eyes as beautiful as the night sky met his. Arousal roared and churned anew through his beaten body. His desire had not waned in the least, not even with a man the size of a house giving him and his libido a thrashing. No, only one thing would satisfy.