Gracious! She hadn’t had such a visceral attraction to a member of the opposite sex in, well, ever. Not since…

No. She wouldn’t think of him.

Not that a boy from her youth could compare. This was a man. A very large, very broad, and clearly very powerful man. She couldn’t see his face, but his overlong hair was a sandy sun-streaked brown. Idly, Sarani wondered what he looked like and whether his front would match the back. Perhaps he would be old and weathered. His sun-bronzed back gave little idea of his age, but his face would.

She had a sudden, indescribable urge to see it.

A bottle rolled into view from beneath the bed as the ship rocked, amber liquid sloshing around inside of it. The bed’s occupant groaned and flung one hand up over his head. Sarani didn’t dare breathe as lucidity and understanding of her situation rushed back to her woolly brain. She should have been trying to hide instead of mooning over some half-naked—albeit put-Adonis-to-shame kind of naked—sailor.

“Cap’n, are you awake?” a voice said, footsteps stopping just outside the door, and Sarani’s heart plunged to her toes as she shot a wry glance at the dozing man. She bit back a groan. Of course this had to be the captain…a duke, no less. It couldn’t have been the cook or the surgeon or someone without the power to toss her overboard.

“Should we wake him?” the same voice asked.

No, no, for heaven’s sake, don’t wake him. He’s dead to the world, and I need him to remain that way.

“We ’ave to ’cause Crawley found a stowaway,” a hushed voice said.

A stowaway? Sarani clapped a distressed hand to her mouth. Had they discovered Tej? It was only a matter of time, she supposed, but at the rate they were going, she’d be discovered next…trespassing in the captain’s quarters. When the voices grew more heated, arguing about what to do, she glanced around for a place to hide.

But as large as the cabin was, there was nowhere she could escape detection. The desk, more of a table, offered no hiding room beneath, but on the far side of the bed, there was a wardrobe and what looked like a door that led to a privy. She could probably hide in there.

The only problem was…she would need to clamber over the sleeping man to reach it. Not insurmountable, but not easy either. He was so tall that his feet hung over the edge of the bunk, propped upon a pair of trunks that blocked the way and were stacked too high for her to climb safely. There was no help for it. She would have to creep over him and hope that he was foxed enough to stay asleep.