Page 10 of The Steel Rogue

Her chances were better with whatever was above deck.

Her fingers dug into the sheets of the bed for a long, still second and then she pounced forward, leaping off the bed, her hand outstretched toward the desk.

She grabbed the only thing she could identify as a weapon—the heavy brass sextant sitting on a pile of papers—and she swung it in the same motion to smash it across his skull.

Except he was too tall.

And he ducked backward.

Her crushing of his skull only managed the slightest whiff of the tip of the sextant across his brow.

Damn his height. Damn his reflexes.

The lack of hitting a solid object with her swing sent her stumbling, flailing across the room in front of him.

Just as she looked to smash into the far wall, he flung an arm out in front of her waist and yanked her to a stop.

Double damn his reflexes.

His arm didn’t leave her waist and he yanked her into him. Hard into the unyielding mass of him.

“You’re a harpy, then?” His words were laced with threat—harsh down upon her. “Then I’ll treat you as such.”

He twisted her in his arms, sending the back of her flat against his chest as his free hand slid down her arm and grabbed the heavy metal of the sextant, wrestling it from her grip.

She resisted for a moment, grunting, but he wedged it from her grasp, then tossed it onto the desk.

He didn’t let her go.

Of all things, he stood there, the uptick of his breathing sending his chest to heave against the back of her head and his arm tightened all the more around her waist. An iron clamp there was no escaping.

Every inch of his body she could feel behind her. Every inch of the brutal wastrel he was.

And he stood there. Silent. Not moving. Not letting her move.

His head shifted down, his cheek sliding along her hair. He stopped, his mouth next to her ear. “No one attacks me on my ship. No one.” The low words reverberated in her ear. Not angry, but deadly all the same. “You will only get one warning.”

Her eyes closed, the lump in her throat taking all breath from her.

How had she been this stupid? Why had she followed him? Followed him all over the damn country. Sloane had known. Her cousin had said she was obsessed—to her own detriment. But it was an obsession she couldn’t explain. And now she was suffering the fruits of that obsession.

“Do you understand, Torrie?”

Her head jerked to the side and she looked at him the best she could from the tight angle. “What do you know of me?”

“I know exactly who you are.”

“How?”

One caustic chuckle shook his chest. “And you know exactly who I am, don’t you?”

Her eyes closed and she turned her head from him. From the heat of his breath on her face. From the dark grey eyes that were carving a dagger hole through her mind.

“I do.” The words came out flat, all fire of injuring him deserting her.

“Then we can dispense with the game of intrigue. You were following me in Truro, weren’t you?I want to know why.”

She refused to say a word.