The uncomfortable feeling they were lovers hit her again. That’s where she’d seen that look before, and this was precisely where she’d place her hands as she mounted a man and claimed him as her own. Her heart pounded, and her throat, her belly, her core throbbed in response.

She was meant to be searching him, not seducing him.

Wild Hunt take her, she had misjudged. Badly.

Fighting to keep her expression flat like his so often was, she lightened her touch—that made it safer. Her fingertips lowered over the planes of his chest. No sign of weapons, but damn it, he filled his clothes well—there was no padding to give him that fine shape.

Again, with such a subtle movement she wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t felt it, he pressed into her touch, forcing the hard lines of his muscles against her palms.

Heat flooded her, and she snatched her hands away.

The corner of his mouth rose, eyes flashing in triumph.

What a prick.

Bloody hells, why had she thought that word? That was precisely the problem right now. It had been far, far too long, that was all this meant. Her body and its needs were betraying her mind and its dislike of this arrogant, up-tight Navy automaton.

Gritting her teeth, she made herself touch him again, hands sliding quickly down his sides, his hips, the outsides of his well-muscled thighs, and into the tops of his boots.

No weapons. Fine.

Straightening, she raised an eyebrow at him. She could check his inner thighs, a blade could be hidden there, and it was damn tempting to try and get a rise out of him as it were—from the speed of his breaths and the heat in his gaze, he couldn’t be far off hardness.

But—but, no. She shook her head; that was enough torture for both of them.

There was one more thing, though.

Leaning close, she ran her hands up and down his back. Her breasts brushed his chest, sending unwelcome sensation streaking through her body and forcing her to bite her lip.

It was a small victory to hear his breath hitch.

She smiled and turned her mouth to his ear. “If you call me ‘Miss Vice’ ever again, I’ll cut out your tongue with your own dagger. Got it?”

She released him and swayed back but didn’t leave his space, eyebrows raised in question.

He moistened his lips and swallowed slowly. “Yes, madam,” he murmured.

Nodding, she backed off. “He’s clear,” she announced, voice hoarse.

“Glad to see you doing such a thorough job, Vice,” FitzRoy said with a rictus smile before whirling and striding to his cabin.

Blackwood gave her a heavy look, just a second too long for comfort before he followed FitzRoy.

* * *

“Will you please stop pacing and give me a hand?”