And mayhap it was only because she so very much wanted to believe that he hungered for her, as she did him.
At least, in one way.
Somewhere along the way, he’d come to matter more to her, and before she left, before her time here with him was done, she wanted to steal every last memory and moment she could with him.
Nathaniel needed to drown out the bloodcurdling images that had gripped him this day. Of Cassia, sailing over the side of his ship. Cassia nearly killed. He wrapped an arm around her waist, and even as he drew her close, she sighed and curved her body into his, like a bloom angling for the sun.
Nathaniel claimed her mouth, devouring it, devouring her. Hopeless and helpless to do anything in this moment other than to drink fully of her.
Gripping his shirtfront, Cassia leaned up and into the embrace.
Cupping one hand about her nape, he angled her, urging her to open for him, and as trusting as she’d been from the start and in every way with him, she opened her mouth and let Nathaniel inside. He swept in, lashing his tongue against hers, swirling it around that delicate flesh that dueled and danced in return. She’d the sweet, familiar taste of the apples she so loved, and he’d never not see or eat of that fruit again without thinking of her, the Eve to his fallen Adam.
And Nathaniel continued that descent harder and faster, plunging himself fully into that current of this hungering for her, letting himself be pulled and swept away.
Cassia tugged free the queue at the nape of his neck, and she tangled her fingers in his hair.
A primal growl shook his frame, and Nathaniel angled her head, tipping it slightly to avail himself of her neck. He suckled at the place where her pulse beat at a maddening pace for him.
With a growl, he shucked free his shirt and tossed it aside.
There was no danger in this moment. Now, Cassia was safe here with him. For now, there was just this.
There was just them.
And until then, Nathaniel was determined to have this pleasure and passion between them.
Lowering himself slowly, and carefully, framing her body between his elbows, he never broke their kiss. She kissed him with the same abandon and passion and boldness with which she lived her life.
And it was heady and enlivening, a manner of sorcery that charmed a man out of the all-consuming fear of loss and replaced it with the dazzling light of life’s greatest perfection.
Nathaniel slid a questing palm down her side to that graceful curve of her hip that, from the moment he’d discovered she was a woman, he’d been hopeless to fail to note and dream of touching the way he did now.
She moaned, and Nathaniel parted her lips, engaging in that bold dance with their tongues. He swirled it around her mouth and suckled the tip of that pink flesh.
Cassia’s hips moved rhythmically in a reflexive way, undulating against him, pressing her flat belly against the rigid line of his shaft.
He groaned and moved against her in return. Feeling like the green boy of his youth, finding that with this woman, he still was, because everything felt new. Everything was new with her. From the way he saw the sea and the world around him to the way it felt to kiss.
And now, making love with her.
Making love, which would, in turn, also change . . . everything.
Reality bucked its head, demanding Nathaniel’s attention, and he fought back the incommodious intrusion.
He wrenched his mouth away, his breath raspy and harsh from the chore it took to stop, when every part within urged him to take her and this moment.
Cassia’s long lashes flew open, revealing wide, startled irises where confusion melded with passion. “What—?”
“I cannot be landlocked,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough.
Her brow furrowed with that adorable befuddlement that was so patently hers, and she looked left and then right. “We are still at sea.”
A pained laugh rumbled against the walls of his chest, which still rose and fell fast and hard.
He touched his brow against Cassia’s. “I meant . . . after this.”
“After your voyage?”
After the battle.
“After we return to shore,” he said, his tone sharper than he intended, only it wasn’t frustration with her this time, but rather the kick of agony that came in thinking of that inevitable parting.
Understanding dawned in her eyes. “Oh.” She paused, then lifted her right palm, stroking back the strands of hair that hung over his right eye. “I didn’t think you would give up your ship for me, Nathan,” she said so simply that it hit him like a kick to the gut, because . . . she didn’t know just how much she’d come to mean to him? How could she not? How had she not gathered that she’d thoroughly, madly, and completely upended his entire neatly ordered existence and mind and every part of him?
She hadn’t, though.
And it was better that way.
And in the greatest battle he’d ever fought in all his seafaring days, and matches with his father combined, he did the impossible: Nathaniel rolled himself off Cassia and lay on his back, their shoulders kissing in the way he longed to make love to her mouth still. The way he longed to just out and out make love to her. And his randy shaft, who cared not at all for right or wrong or honor or dishonor, throbbed hard within the confines of his trousers.
Cassia turned onto her side, propping herself up onto her dainty left elbow, and then distractedly slid her fingers through the light matting of hair upon his chest.
He winced, and she stopped.
“You don’t want me,” she whispered, and there was such a crushing ache of misery and regret and understanding in those four words that cut him to the core of a soul he’d not even known he’d been in possession of until her.
He should let her to that ridiculously off-the-mark conclusion she’d somehow drawn, and yet, God help him for being weak, he could not hurt her that way. He could not lie to her in this.
Nathaniel caught her fingers in his and dragged them to his chest, to the place where his heartbeat thudded wildly and erratically because of her touch. Because of her.
“I want you more than is good or safe, Cassia McQuoid,” he said harshly, and then he drew her fingertips to his lips, pressing a kiss against her wrist, that delicate place where her arm met her hand. “I want you against all my better judgment. It is only honor that keeps me from doing that which I want to do now. Because you deserve more than a man who cannot give you less than—”
Cassia kissed him; it was a hard, fleeting kiss, and he opened his mouth to deepen it, to take more of her. To take all of her.
She drew back slightly, and his body shuddered at the loss. Only . . .
Cassia moved her gaze over his face. “Why do you not allow me the decision of what I want, Nathaniel?” She cupped the hard line of his jaw in her butterfly-soft touch and angled his face closer to hers so that his eyes met hers. “And what I want is you.” She spoke unfalteringly, her passion-heavy tones rich with an age-old knowing that went back to the days of Eve and her avowal of the very fruit she intended to eat from.
Nathaniel stiffened. And God help him, he was helpless and hopeless to deny her—or himself—that gift. He slid his hands down her trim waist, gripped either side of her hips, and sank his fingers into that supple flesh.
And this time, as they made love, Nathaniel surrendered himself completely and fully to her and this moment.