He bristled. “What?”
“I’d not imagine you of all people issuing platitudes to anyone.”
“Because I don’t. I don’t waste my time with them,” he said bluntly.
“Oh,” Cassia said softly, and her eyes glittered and sparkled in a way he’d not known eyes could. In that way the poets whose works his former tutors had insisted Nathaniel read had written of, and in a way that Nathaniel had believed was utter rubbish because eyes didn’t shine. Only to be proven wrong in this moment, by this woman. For her eyes did. They glittered like a thousand stars within the vast night sky. “But I have no illusions of who I am. I’m a woman who’s been sheltered”—aye, she was correct on that score—“and who desperately wanted to see the world, and my family knows precisely what I am. Myrtle is clever and capable.” And there was clearly sisterly pride in her tone.
Surely she saw that, whatever her sister was, Cassia was a thousandfold more capable. “You’re clever and capable, too,” he said gruffly as he finished up her plait.
Cassia gave her head a wag, toying distractedly with the ends of the ribbon he’d made in her hair. “No, I’m not,” she said matter-of-factly, and it grated. “You think it, too.”
He’d thought it, but he now knew that wasn’t really true. “You’re just a woman who is out of her element, Cassia.”
“My one passable skill is painting, and you see the mess I made of that when you had me paint.” His gaze went over to the unfinished nautical scene, and now, knowing the identity and the source of confusion that had brought that work about, Nathaniel studied it and saw it in a new light.
“You really are very good with a brush,” he said bluntly.
“Thank you. I did think I was, if not good, passable.”
“You paint, but that isn’t all. You’re curious and interested in people and experiencing life, and those are skills, too. You are clever and capable, and I’ll not debate you further on the point.”
He should have recalled she was the one person who’d not simply take the nail he put in the end of a point or discussion as the end it, in fact, was.
“If I were so clever and capable, you’d not keep me shut away, afraid I’m going to land myself in trouble, Nathan.”
If she were anyone else, he’d have thought she was angling to get herself out of hiding. “You will . . .” Nay, not “will.” That wasn’t an option. “You would land yourself in trouble.” Keeping her in his cabin was for her own good, even if she was too innocent to see it.
“First complimenting my painting, then calling me clever and capable. Well, if I were”—she flicked him on the arm with her middle finger—“if you were confident in my abilities, you certainly wouldn’t have to shut me away the whole voyage.”
“It’s not a voyage. It’s a . . .” Mission.
She stared at him through the biggest, widest, most innocent eyes. “Yes?”
Cassia, who spoke too much and said even more, was the last person he could afford to have discover his wartime efforts for the Crown. Those were details not even his own parents were in full possession of. “Fine—it’s a voyage,” he settled for. “And it’s not you I don’t trust.”
“It’s your crew then?” She batted her eyes, those long lashes fluttering too innocently to ever be coy or pretend.
“No.” He tensed his jaw. “Yes.” Bloody hell. “It is complicated.” He’d trust his crew with his life, and yet . . . these weren’t all his men. “Men at sea are a superstitious lot, and there are . . .”
She stared expectantly back. “Yes?”
“Enough superstitions about women at sea that it’s safer if we don’t . . . test my crew.” Because he’d never had a woman aboard his ship before Cassia, and he’d never have one aboard his ship after her.
Odd, that it should leave him strangely . . . sad at the thought.
“What kind of superstitions?” she asked, her patent curiosity tingeing that question.
“Women are a distraction to sailors, and the seas seek to punish the crew for their behaviors.”
Cassia laughed. “What rot! And if that is the case, then why do you have a carved, painted, painted . . .” Her cheeks flared a crimson berry red.
She was adorable when she was embarrassed. If he were a true gentleman, he’d have let her leave that sentence unfinished. Alas, he was no gentleman in truth, only in name, and it was deuced enjoyable teasing her. “Yes?”
“Naked woman”—she dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper—“on the front of your ship.”
“Because naked women calm the seas.”
Cassia burst out laughing before registering his expression. “You’re serious.”
“Deadly. A woman’s bared breasts are said to shame the unruly seas into a calm, and sailors are clear-eyed and able to safely guide the ship.”
“La,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “If that’s the case, then I should just go without a shirt and there’d be no problem.”
Except her playful response conjured an image of Cassia, naked, prancing and prowling about with her breasts bared, and lust coursed through him, his shaft rising uncomfortably large, straining the front of his breeches at the image she painted. His breathing grew shallow and labored.
“Nathan?” Cassia’s voice called across the storm. “I’m just teasing. I would, of course, not go naked about—”
With a growl, he reached over and drew her onto his lap. He had his mouth on hers in a moment.
And she was all softness and warmth and surrender in his arms as she sighed and tangled her hands about his nape.
“I like your kiss,” she admitted, breathless, between each angry, bold slant of his lips over hers. Each angry, bold slant that she met with a like vigor.
“I’m so glad you approve,” he grunted, angling her nape to better avail himself of her mouth.
“Love it,” she whispered against his mouth. God, she was a chatterbox even in moments of passion. Oddly, that only fueled his wanting for her. “‘Like’ is hardly a strong enough word to capture my feelings on the—” Nathaniel slipped his tongue inside and tasted of her once more. Drank of her, as he’d longed to do since that first, and earlier, kiss.
This. This right here was why women had no place aboard a ship. Because he was hopeless to think rationally or to think anything but of how damned good it felt to have her in his arms.
Nathaniel swirled his tongue around hers, lightly sucking at the end, and she whimpered, her body moving rhythmically against his. Her hips lifted in slow undulations that redoubled his hungering.
In one fluid motion, Nathaniel guided her back and downward, and never breaking contact with her mouth, he positioned himself over her. Anchoring himself on one elbow, he brought his other hand up to cup the gentle swell of one of her breasts.
The enormous fabric of his lawn shirt hung loose about her, and taking advantage of that gift, he shoved the article down and bared her breasts to his touch.
Nathaniel palmed the pillow-soft mound and then shifted his attentions to the pebbled peak, closing his lips around it and suckling of the pink tip.