Page 22 of Unearthing the Smuggler's Heart
“Patronizing?!” He gave a mirthless laugh. “You are assuming I give a toss whether or not you like the way I run my ship.”
"And you are assuming haplessness where there is none!"
He stared at her in disbelief. She stood at her full height, arms crossed and nose in the air, awaiting his rebuttal.
He forced himself to breathe for a moment, to let the silence sit between them and cool the air.
"Well," he said after this pause, warily sizing her up across from him, "one must make assumptions when the other won't lower herself to simple, friendly conversation. How am I expected to know a damned thing about you? You barely answer direct questions, and I suppose I should forget any conversation further than that!"
"I told you before," she replied darkly, "you are welcome to ask me whatever you wish. I will answer honestly."
"Happily," he muttered without thinking.
"What?"
"You said you would answer happily," he corrected, a prickle of remembrance working its way across his skin. "That was the word you used, when we were alone together. Before."
She had stood there and watched him as he stood naked, without a single tell of what she was thinking or why she would not look away. He had never felt like that before, completely unknowing of his surroundings, of the implications made therein. She had let him come very,veryclose to her, wrapped in only a towel. She had let her eyes roam over the bare skin of his torso without shame or subterfuge, as though she did not know or did not care how suggestive the path of those big eyes had been.
Which was it? That was what he had wanted to ask. Did she not know what she was doing, or did she not care about the reaction it would inevitably cause?
"Happily then," she replied, a bit softer. She was toying with the loose tresses of her hair, her fingers winding in and out of the silky strands.
"Why do you wear your hair loose?" he heard himself asking, as though his curiosity had gotten control of his tongue while his thoughts were elsewhere.
It surprised her. She dropped her hands quickly to her sides and tilted her head in consideration. "Because I like how it feels," she said after a moment.
"How does it feel?" He could hear his voice deepening, his tone softening. He resisted the urge to reach out and find out for himself how her hair felt between the pads of his fingers. The air felt thicker, heavier on his skin. He saw the way her cheeks colored, the way her eyes seemed to falter before meeting his dead on, just for a moment.
This was dangerous territory, but could easily be diffused if he wished. He could jape or snap or simply excuse himself.
He didn't.
"It feels comfortable. Simple," she managed to say, though she sounded baffled by her own answer. "It is preferable to pins and braids and so on. It feels free."
He took a step closer to her, wanting to see if he could do it again, draw so near that electricity crackled between them, without her shying away. "It's not because of the way it looks when it is loose?" he pressed.
"How it looks? I..." She paused, a shiver passing through her, raising the faint prickle of gooseflesh along her slender throat. "I haven't thought about how it looks."
"It looks...tempting," he told her, perhaps only to rattle her further, or perhaps because he wanted to see how far he could take the unique atmosphere of this moment. "You must feel the way the men watch you."
She looked truly stunned. "I... I did not know. I will tie it back for the remainder of the journey. It was not my intention to..."
She trailed off, her words ending in a release of warm air. It was more like a gasp than falling silent. She hadn't been expecting him to touch her.
He wasn't certain he could have helped it, even if he'd had the urge to. It was a simple thing, a brush of the backs of his fingers down the length of her hair, just behind her dainty ears. He was prepared for her to flee, to put a stop to it right away, so when she remained still, he almost groaned in distress at the temptation she was presenting. He let his fingers sink deeper into the soft strands, winding the wayward curls and waves around his big fingers.
"Do not tie it back," he said, in a voice that was barely a rasp, and turned his eyes from his fingers in her hair back to those big, green eyes. "I like it this way."
She almost smiled then, the apples of her cheeks rounding, the curve of her lips giving more than just that customary tick of amusement. "Yes, Captain," she replied, almost shyly.
Being addressed this way in this particular circumstance was enough to drive him to brashness. If she wasn't so determined to look him in the eye, she would be able to see how far into this he'd allowed himself to fall. Part of him wanted her to see him straining against his trousers, aching for more than just a brush of her hair. Part of him wanted far more than that.
"Have you ever kissed a man, Miss Ferris?" he asked, lavishing in the way his hand glided through her hair, wrapping it around his hand.
"Yes," she said immediately, true to her word to answer whatever he wished to ask. "There was a young guard who—"
"I'm sure there was," he said thickly. "I'm sure many of them wanted to."
