With bodies flush together, the heat coursing through her built, pushing her mouth open and inviting his eager response, tongue brushing hers.

At that touch, a boundary crossed, the kiss grew raw, hungry, frantic, his skin burning under her hands, their breaths mingling and echoing through the cave.

This was what she needed. Gods, this was exactly what she needed. She threaded her fingers into his hair, pulling him closer, deeper, and a groan rumbled in his chest—the louder cousin of the sound she’d felt when she’d checked him for weapons.

Maybe this was what he needed, too.

His hands sank to her backside, kneading, pressing, and with a surge of muscles, he lifted her from the floor, bringing their faces level.

She huffed a soft laugh—damn it, she didn’t need encouragement, not in this. Pirate hunter or not, this was what she’d wanted to do that first time she’d seen him in deLacy’s ballroom, all tall and broad in his uniform. And the want had only built the more he irritated her, the more he flirted and teased, and the more he was simply in her presence.

It didn’t mean anything, only that she wanted him. That was all.

Trusting in his hold, she wrapped her legs around him, creating an unbearably perfect angle between his hardness and her core, sending pleasure streaking through her.

Too many damned clothes, though, but … what if he didn’t want this? Not really. The last thing she wanted was his regret, his awkwardness tomorrow back on The Morrigan.

Bodies were just bodies to her, but not to everyone.

She wouldn’t take advantage of him.

Hands on his shoulders, she pulled away, leaving her lips tingling.

A frown flickered on his brow, and he cocked his head, panting.

She caught her breath and swallowed in an effort to make her voice box remember how to work. “Do you—do you want to?”

Teeth flashing, he scoffed and nodded, his eyes wide. “Do you?”

“Oh, yes. Gods, yes.”

His chest heaved in a long breath, then their lips crashed back together, all tongues and gasping and a nip to her lower lip that wreaked havoc with her spine.

In that case, they needed to do something about these pesky clothes. She scrabbled at his shirt, tugging it up until she was forced to break off their kiss to pull it over his head.

When she threw it to the floor, he went to continue, but she pressed her fingers to his lips, grinning. “Just a second,” she murmured and let her gaze rove over him at leisure as she hadn’t been able to before they’d swam the coral reef.