I didn’t sense a fever. Just dull aches beneath healing wounds. And fatigue. I’d never felt this exhausted and feeble in my life.

He didn’t need to ask if my hearing had returned. Since I couldn’t judge volume or pronunciation, my voice would sound ill-fitting to his ears.

I love you. Sculpted lips gave shape to those three syllables a second before they claimed my mouth.

The scent of sea and leather saturated my senses as he sipped with warm, unhurried licks, kissing me sweetly, without tongue or expectation. His hands rested on the mattress on either side of my head, his arms bracing the weight of his upper body.

The reunion of our lips freed a solemnity of emotion I’d kept buried and guarded for so long. I melted beneath the sheer force of it, surrendering to the love and longing that buzzed through our breaths.

His tongue played along the seam of my mouth but didn’t force its way in. This wasn’t a kiss that took and controlled. This was his devotion reaching out and caressing me, giving and nourishing, making me strong again.

He shifted, trailing his lips across a cheek that no longer throbbed with pain, roaming down my neck to my arm…

The arm was still there, the brace and stitches gone. It felt strange, itchy, sore… Whole. My relief was unwieldy as he kissed a wandering path over the crisscrossed scars near my inner elbow, the flesh pink and bubbled.

No more infection. His mouth fashioned the words against the healing wound, and I felt his smile, his relief, curving upward, tickling the tender skin.

A leather thong held the top half of his hair at the back of his head, but a few strands had fallen free, framing a face that was accustomed to being regarded with feminine pleasure.

He’d thinned out a little, but his complexion glowed with health. I wanted so badly to slide my hands over his sloping shoulders, up the column of his neck, and across his defined cheekbones. My fingers twitched, and he caught them, lifting them to his jaw.

Instant heat hit my palms. So hotblooded, this man, with a temper that always simmered just below the surface.

He’d shaved only hours ago, for there wasn’t a trace of stubble on his satiny skin. A shirt and breeches clad his muscled frame in his preferred pirate style, only these garments appeared cleaner. No rips or bloodstains.

I still didn’t know where we were.

My arms trembled with fatigue as he lowered them. Then he stepped away, widening my view to the bedchamber.

It reminded me of the one I’d occupied as a child in Charleston. I lay in a bed with four large wooden posts. Tiers of dark silk draped the rails overhead. Wool carpets, a table set with porcelain plates, silver sconces to provide light—the room glittered with wealth and elegance.