I awoke with a start, gasping a deep breath. It was dark and hot, and I was suffocating. The memory of the evening we’d spent together slid through me. The heaviness of Xavier’s arm draped across my middle and the heat of him curled around my back brought me back to my surroundings.

His breathing changed, then his arm moved, squeezing gently before lifting so his palm ran down my torso. His hand flattened on my belly and ignited the banked heat that hadn’t waned since the night in the club.

“Ça va?” he whispered.

I dragged in a breath, filling my lungs with much needed oxygen.

He shifted away, rolling me onto my back. “This is why you visit the deck at night? You wake up like this?”

I nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see me. “Yes. It’s okay. I’m fine. I just need a second to breathe.”

“Do you have a bad experience where this comes from?”

I chuckled. “No. Not that I remember. Not everything has to be rooted in past trauma.” I rolled to face him and slipped my hand into the hair at his nape, scraping my nails along his scalp.

He groaned.

Our lips met. Soft, seductive, demanding.

“You just have to distract me,” I whispered as his lips slid down my neck and I arched my body.

Suddenly his hands slipped under me. “Come.” He made to lift me.

“Whoa. Where?”

“My bed. It’s bigger. More windows. More space. More air.”

I stayed him with a hand on his shoulder, thinking of all of Dauphine’s mother’s things in there.

“What?” he asked.

“What about the top deck?”

“Outside?”

“Under the stars,” I said, wondering if he’d remember what he’d said at dinner. Not that I needed that. I mean, I wouldn’t complain.

“Mmm.” He hummed, his fingers pushing the sheet off me and trailing down my belly.

I grabbed his fingers and kissed them. “Insatiable.”

“Addicted. Come. The stars it is.”

He pulled on his shorts and handed me his shirt lying on the floor. Then he gathered up two pillows and my duvet and we trotted up the levels of the ship until we broke through into the muggy, starlit night. The lights from the port twinkled, and pale yellow light washed up the walls of the citadel high on the cliffs. Out to sea, all was inky black.

Xavier pulled two chaises together and pulled the cushions out of a storage box. We tied the cushions to each other rather than the chair to stop them slipping apart. He lay down the pillows and duvet and then climbed on, holding out an arm for me to slip under and rest my head on his shoulder.

The railing height hid our bodies, but above us the stars blazed. Our only witness.

“Is this better?” he asked.