When she opened her eyes, his chest was heaving in long, deep breaths, and the way he watched her, eyes at once dark and hot, made her heart stutter.

His fingers flexed on her skin, firm, strong, sending her pulse surging, and his gaze fell to her mouth.

She gave a brittle laugh. “Captain Blackwood …” Somehow formality felt safer, but damn it, did she want to be safe? “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re looking at me like you want to kiss me.”

His fingers twitched against her. “I do.”

The Cave

Pulse far too loud in her ears, Vice swallowed. This was … he was a pirate hunter and she a pirate … but after all that had happened today, the argument fell flat.

He was her betrothed, though—or had been. That could complicate things.

Lords and Ladies, did it matter? He didn’t know who she was, and she didn’t care who he was. He could just be a body fulfilling her body’s need, and she could be the same for him. Gods knew he needed to let off steam after today’s fight.

Besides, cool, restrained Knighton Blackwood wasn’t some foolish boy to lose his heart after a kiss … or more.

She lifted her chin, an invitation. His breath brushed her lips.

“Then,” she said, “why don’t you?” All he had to do was lower his face a few inches.

“Because,” he replied, voice husky, “if I start, I don’t know where it’ll stop.”

So he felt it too. The tension that had been building since that first time they’d met, humming like one of Perry’s high notes on her fiddle. When it broke, it wouldn’t just be a brief kiss in a cave. Her body throbbed, calling for it, for him. Irresistible.

“Maybe you should start and find out.”

Two beats, a slow blink, then his fingers plunged into her hair, and he pressed his mouth to hers.

Warmth surged through her at his touch, highlighting every sensation. The cave’s chilly air on her hands and face. The solidity of his shoulder under her hand. The rough linen of her shirt still gripped in the other. His hand at her waist, fingertips of the other trailing across her scalp.

All that from a lingering union of lips.

They parted an inch, and when she opened her eyes, their gazes collided, as staggering as a pistol shot. She blew out a shaky laugh. A shiver raced through him, lifting goosebumps on his forearms.

Just one kiss. Definitely not enough.

In unison, she tiptoed back to his lips, and his arm circled her waist, crushing her against him.

Lords, he was firm and strong, and his pulse pounded under her fingertips as her hands slid over his shoulders and around his neck.

That pulse—he was alive, she was alive. They’d survived. And this was the reward they’d earned.