Page 28 of A Pirate's Pleasure
Yes. I went for another snort. This one wasn’t as satisfying as the first. Almost like it was fake. “Jealous? In your dreams.”
Zephyr’s gaze scoured my face, and I did my best not to twitch beneath the scrutiny. It was difficult when we were sitting so close, when I could think of nothing but how those sharp features of his combined so well to make a stunning whole.
Zephyr had always stood out from a crowd. As a teenager, and as a man. My gaze dropped to his lips, my tongue darting out of its own accord to moisten mine. He followed the gesture, a familiar heat building in his smoky gray eyes.
“No,” he said.
“What?” It was difficult to remember what we’d been talking about.
“I’ve never slept with Dax. It would be like sleeping with my brother.”
Dax, right? “I thought maybe once I’d left.”
“That we might have fallen into each other’s arms?”
“Something like that.”
“And that’s why you think he always has rum for me? Is that how things work in your world, Lief? That everything operates on a, you give me something and I’ll give you something back basis. You never used to be like that.”
I didn’t even know what we were talking about anymore. All I knew was that the thrum of desire in my body kept growing stronger. That the more we drank and the more we gravitated toward each other, the harder it became to ignore. And I knew Zephyr felt it, too. I’d once been able to read and interpret every single micro-expression of his. And he hadn’t changed that much. Not in any way that mattered, anyway. Would it be so terrible to give into it? He seemed to think so if him pushing me away the previous night in bed was any indication.
“Zeph.”
“Lief.”
We’d both spoken at the same time. I laughed. “You first.”
He pushed his half empty tankard away from him. “I should probably stop drinking.”
I pushed it back in front of him. “I think you should drink more.”
“Hoping to render me unconscious?”
“Something like that.”
He took another drink, but it was barely more than a sip. “What were you going to say?”
What had I been going to say? That damn throb of desire and want had thoughts flitting away like they were butterflies. “We were good together once,” I said before I could reconsider the words and stop them from escaping my lips.
“We were,” he agreed to my surprise. Even more surprising was him not feeling the need to add and then you left to the end of what he’d said.
I turned my head and pressed my lips against his. And he didn’t move away. He didn’t move away. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops. I would have climbed the mast of The Navarino to scream it from the crow’s nest if I hadn’t been more interested in the feel of Zephyr’s lips against mine. It was a strange combination of being all too familiar and completely alien. It made eight years feel like a lifetime and swamped me with regret over the decisions I’d made when I’d been young and idealistic and hadn’t known the first thing about compromise.
I brought a hand up to cup Zephyr’s cheek as I tilted my head to deepen the kiss, his stubble rasping against my palm. I needed more from him, whatever he was willing to give. His hand splayed against my chest, each fingertip burning like an individual brand through the thin fabric of my shirt. Our lips parted, heat building between us as our tongues came into play. I wanted to climb on top of him. I wanted to slide my hand between his legs and discover if he was as hard as I was. What I didn’t want was to be in a tavern, on some godforsaken rocky island, with other people around, where we couldn’t follow this to its inevitable end.
Thumb still stroking across Zephyr’s cheek, I drew back slightly, soaking in the evidence of his arousal with a primal satisfaction: blown pupils; flushed cheeks; swollen lips; the way he’d tried to lean in to stop the kiss from ending. Oh yeah, we weren’t done, Zephyr and I. Not by a long chalk. We had unfinished business. “When we get back to the ship,” I said, my voice husky with promise, “I’m taking you to your cabin and we’re going to bed for a few hours.”
“Tired, are we?” Zephyr teased, his eyes never once leaving my face. “You must be getting old, Lief, if afternoon naps are now a requirement.”
“You know exactly what I meant. You and me. Naked. I need to fuck you. Or have you fuck me. I don’t care which way round it is. Say yes, Zeph, please. Don’t tell me it can’t happen, that it would be a mistake,” I pleaded. “It can be whatever we make of it.”
Zephyr let out a little sigh. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It can be. No past. No future. Just the present. What do you say?”
A small smile played on Zephyr’s lips. “I would say…”
Someone cleared their throat, stalling whatever answer Zephyr had been going to give. An answer that had become the most important thing in the world to me. Far more important than the tavern keeper wanting to know whether we needed more ale or food.