Nathaniel took her mouth a third time, and this time, she melted against him, opening her mouth and letting him in.
Dimly, he registered shouts from above, and a splash as a ladder hit the water.
“Come,” he said gruffly. Making himself relinquish her proved, however, as hard a task as any battle he’d waged or fought on these seas.
And yet as she effortlessly kept pace with him, no easy task, given the height difference between them and the years of practice he’d had, Nathaniel’s gaze continually went to her.
She flew through the waters, a mythical mermaid come alive in every way.
They reached the side of the ship, and with the same agility as she’d moved through those waters, she now climbed the rope ladder’s rungs with the grace and ease of a lady winding her way up Italian marble steps to some grand ballroom.
Following close behind, Nathaniel’s gaze took in her every moment, the sway of her hips and the way those trousers hugged her sinuous frame, highlighting the delectable curve of her derriere. Her garments, soaked from her dunking in the sea, clung to every inch of her. Every inch, from the white lawn shirt that left nothing to the imagination to her trousers that kissed each curve of her long, sinewy legs.
Lusting after her . . . in this moment?
You truly are a cad.
The moment she reached the top, Hayes was there to help her over. “You can swim,” he remarked with the same veneration that had gripped Nathaniel.
“And”—Cassia shot a finger up to punctuate her point—“dive.”
Hayes grinned. “And dive.”
“In Lach Morar, the children have always gathered for annual Loch Games, we call them, in honor of the Greeks and the first Olympics. My father is an antiquarian who studies ancient civilizations and fashioned the events around them. There is racing, but I was not so very fast on land. I knew if I was to compete, my best chance at a victory was always in the water, and . . .”
And as she rattled on and Hayes drew up the rope ladder, Nathaniel was never more grateful to the other man for being the effortless talker and listener he was.
Until he took his last breath, Nathaniel would forever recall the moment she’d gone hurtling overboard, her delicate, willowy form there one moment and gone the next, and then the violent splash as she’d struck the waters below.
His breathing grew raspy and harsh in his own ears, and he had to remind himself to breathe again. More easily.
She was alive.
But she almost hadn’t been . . .
Had she been any other woman, she’d have perished at sea, and it would have been Nathaniel’s fault.
His fault for the end of that smile and—
“Nathan?” Cassia ventured hesitantly.
“I’m fine,” he said roughly, and she immediately went quiet.
And he knew he was surly, but God help him, he’d always been hopelessly rough around the edges, and this moment was no exception, this moment with her alive only because of her tenacity years earlier and determination at winning a game amongst her siblings and cousins.
This was why he’d resolved to never let any woman in his life. Nathaniel was too much like his father, incapable of warmth and more comfortable with running his business. His shipping enterprise was something he understood, and even the seas were predictable with their unpredictability. Women, however? He’d no idea how to make them happy, and it’d never crossed his mind that he’d ever wed and bring a woman aboard his ship.
That brief—but also eternal—moment of terror where Cassia had almost perished because of him and the work he did and the people he’d dealings with. Only, in all his years as a privateer, he’d amassed any number of enemies whom he’d foreseen as threats; he had known threats against him and those he cared about, posed by those past foes. Never had he expected his own men to turn upon him.
Nathaniel firmed his jaw.
It was an essential lesson he could not forget.
It was a reminder he’d desperately needed.
He needed to return Cassia to the folds of her family, and then, once he knew she was safe and being looked after, he could resume sailing without the paralyzing fear that continued to grip him, even now.
At Hayes’s side, Shorty dropped a blanket around Cassia’s shoulders. “Ye lived.” The older sailor’s lower lip trembled, and tears filled his eyes.
“I can swim, Shorty,” Cassia chirped happily. “Worry not about me. The better question is, How is your head?” she asked, patting Shorty’s sun- and age-weathered hand.
And just like that, the tears vanished, and a lopsided grin formed on the other man’s mouth. “Gonna take more than a knock on the ’ead to do me in, miss.”
Aye, Nathaniel well knew that feeling. He’d felt that same smile on his lips just moments earlier, when Cassia had sluiced her way through the ocean waters to reach him. What lady who’d nearly been killed worried not about herself, but another? There was no one like her. He’d sailed nearly every end of the world, and there wasn’t a person like her.
What if she hadn’t known how to swim?
His mind shied away once more from that question as terror licked at the corners of his mind, and fueling the rage to drown out the mind-seizing fear, he looked to the one who’d nearly ended Cassia McQuoid.
Fury tightened in his gut as he turned all his focus on the subdued sailors caught between five other members of the crew.
The loyal lot restrained Carlisle and the others, their grips white-knuckled, indicating the strength of those holds. And yet, given the man’s sag forward, and between his stooped shoulders and the lifeless quality of his arms, their efforts were unnecessary. Unnecessary, and yet also essential.
For there was no greater danger to a ship captain than to have a crew member who gainsaid orders. Failure to assert his role as commander and hold the other man accountable was the stuff mutinies were born of.
Icy tendrils of rage furled about Nathaniel’s heart, spreading to every corner of his chest cavity, and he welcomed it, fed it. Fueled himself upon it.
“Escort the lady below deck,” Nathaniel murmured, and strode the length of the deck toward a quaking, pale Carlisle, Turner, and Oliver.
The bastards had nearly killed her.
And they would pay the price for it.
Fingers settled on his sleeve, and he whipped his gaze sideways.
Cassia stared up at him, through those saucer-size round eyes. “What will you do to them?”
“It isn’t your concern,” he said tightly, motioning once more for Shorty.
Cassia stayed the giant of a man with nothing more than a single gentle look, and then she turned her focus back up to Nathaniel. “I say that it is,” she insisted.
Murmurs went up from amongst his crew.
Silently cursing, Nathaniel looked to Hayes. “Attend the three while I escort the lady below.” With that, he took her lightly by the arm and steered her away from the assembled crew members and below deck. The moment they were out of sight, he whispered sharply, “You cannot challenge me in front of my crew, Cassia. They’ll mutiny.” They’d already come damn close this day.
Her face grew stricken. “I didn’t think . . . ,” she whispered. “I’m sorry. I’d just thought, given I was the one tossed overboard, I had a right—”
“No.”