Page 104 of Dagger in the Sea

I came up behind her, a hairbreadth from her back. “Your home is beautiful,” I said, nudging at the spell that bound her, not wanting to break it.

She blinked. “It is.” She unlatched a vintage window pane. A flower-filled garden lay beyond. Stalks of lavender swayed in the hard breeze, sending us their fragrance.

Adri let out a breath. “I haven’t been here—spent the night here—in ages.”

A flare of heat sheared through me. We’d be spending the night here tonight and a few more. How would we be “spending the night,” I wanted to know? After last night, I’d be treading gently.

As gently as I possibly could.

“Let’s get changed and go for a swim at the castle. It will probably be quite chilly.” Those eyes of hers glimmered with more blue than gray now, casting their magic—a mixture of shy, excited, and passionate—on me.

“Whatever you want,” I said, my voice husky. “Let’s do it.” But I wasn’t only referring to swimming. I meanteverything.

She smiled, a vulnerable, truly happy smile. And here in this house, in that smile, I knew that I didn’t care if she was hung up on Alessio. I didn’t care that I didn’t get the chance to confirm that Gennaro would talk to Mauro and play ball. I didn’t care that Mauro was waiting to hear back from me. I didn’t care that Luca and Alessio were probably furious. I didn’t care that I hadn’t decided on a return date for my airplane ticket.

For the first time in a long fucking time, I didn’t care about any of the things Ihadto be caring about. There was onlynow. There was only this beautiful island, this incredible house, this gorgeous girl.

Girl. Yes, she was a girl, but also a wildly alluring woman. A woman whom I did not, could not, would not resist. She had resisted me last night, but something was troubling her, and I would find out what that was and exorcise it.

I drew her chin close to mine and planted a soft kiss on that remarkable mouth. She kissed me back, gently. My tongue slid against hers and she let out a small moan, her body relaxing into mine, mouth opening fully.

Yes, just where I want you. Wanting more, ready and waiting for me.

“Tell me,” I breathed against her lips, lips that were damp, swollen, lips that wanted more of mine.

“Hmm?” Her eyelids fluttered, her tongue licking the seam of my mouth.

“The model ship. Tell me about it.”

Her head pulled back, face reddening, and she let out that rich, rolling laugh. I loved surprising her. Did she think that I’d try to get down her panties again so quickly?No, baby, not just yet.

“My great-great-grandfather—well, I suppose four or five times back really—made this model with his father. That’s him in the painting, by the way. Stefanos.” She gestured at the portrait hanging on the wall. “He fought in the Greek War of Independence which started in 1821. And this is a model of a cutlass that one of his brothers commandeered in a naval battle in 1825 during the revolution. He fought alongside him on this ship.”

“These facts must be seared in your brain.”

“They are, and in my heart.” She touched the edge of the model’s glass case. “The Greeks were greatly outnumbered, but they triumphed, and what was left of the Ottoman fleet scattered south. There was another battle here earlier, in 1790, and another ancestor, an uncle of Stefanos’s, was a captain in that battle for a famous Greek privateer who had a fleet of small ships.”

“Privateer as in pirate?”

She shrugged in that nonchalant way of hers. “Merchant, pirate…”

“Entrepreneurs all. My kind of men.”

“Yes.” She smiled, her shoulders dropping, our eyes meeting. “Mine too.”

I cleared my throat. “What happened in the 1790 battle?”

“The Greeks were outnumbered almost two to one, but still managed to defeat the Pasha’s ships.” She tapped the edge of the glass case. “Andros has a colorful history. The island went from Venetian rule, to Ottoman Turk, to Russian. The islanders were able to manage treaties that gave them naval privileges. They exploited what little freedoms they had and created a small merchant fleet.”

“So Andros did well on its own before the revolution was even over?”

“It did, even before the revolution. Greece endured almost five hundred years of Ottoman rule until they finally fought for their independence, and the island persevered, always producing and exporting a lot of goods—olives and olive oil, honey, even silk.”

“Silk? Really?”

“Yes. But then the silk worms were hit by a disease that wiped them out in the late eighteen hundreds. After that it was all about the boats. Bigger ships were built, more routes opened up when other nations were busy fighting wars. The Andriots got organized and built a shipyard on another island nearby, whereas in other Greek islands the sailing industry died a slow death. After the Revolution, ships from Andros were traveling across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, even reaching India, and later on, Latin America. That’s when they began registering the majority of their fleets in England, to benefit from the global maritime market.”

“And thus a dynasty was born.”

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