Her breath caught. The duke was still sound asleep, but he had turned and now lay on his back. The arm that had curved around his head lay flung over his face, hiding it from view. A chiseled chest dusted in crisp hair rose and fell with deep, even breaths. Her dread didn’t allow her to appreciate the frontal view of him—she was only intent on escape. Muttering an oath under her breath, Sarani blew out a breath.

Easy does it, she told herself.

Retracing her steps with her skirts in hand, she climbed up on the bottom bar and stretched out her left leg toward the bunk rail. She made the mistake of looking down in her precarious and admittedly lewd position—she was straddling the man, for heaven’s sake—and nearly toppled over. Everywhere her eyes fell, she saw nothing but acres upon acres of masculine perfection. If his back had been delicious, his chest was a veritable feast. A slow ache took up residence in her belly and then spread like hot oil elsewhere.

She might be in a hurry, but she wasn’t dead!

This man did not look like he had an ounce of excess anywhere on him, unlike most indolent aristocrats she’d met in India. The scattering of bronzed hair on his broad chest tapered into a trail that arrowed between the carved muscle of his abdomen to narrow hips. He was not given to indulgence, this man. Sarani gulped and suppressed a shiver at the dormant predator sleeping beneath her. If he woke, she’d be done for.

Then for heaven’s sake, you henwit, stop bloody looking.

Sarani had almost swung all her weight over when she realized the soft sounds of breathing had ceased. There was no noise in the cabin at all. Chill bumps spread over her flesh, her sense of danger heightening unnaturally. She spared a glance down and almost shrieked as his hand descended from his face and came to rest on her stockinged ankle, lodging her in place.

Her gaze flicked back up, and Sarani couldn’t move, not because he was gripping her with loose fingers. But because every bone in her body had stilled in horror, her eyes locked on his face—proud forehead, an imperial blade of a nose, and a bearded, square jaw framing lush, parted lips. Lips that had been seared into her memory.

This was the duke?

No, it wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Not him.

She had to be hallucinating. But those slanted eyebrows and bold cheekbones were distinctive. Taken together, his features were enough to make her heart leap and quail in equal measure, battering against her rib cage with a force that would leave internal bruises. Her lungs ached but breath wouldn’t come.

“Dreaming…” he mumbled and inhaled deeply. “Devil…jasmine.”