I move closer until I’m right alongside him; the pillow concealing my dagger within reach. Another quick glance tells me he’s still asleep. His hand rests low on his chest as his breathing stays steady, and the glint of metal catches my eye. Athick gold band sits on the third finger, marring his otherwise empty hand.
Is Westonmarried?
What woman could put up with this incessantly irritating man enough to marry him? Something deep inside me squirms at the thought, and I ignore it before realizing it can’t be true. This band is on the wrong hand.
No more reason to feel sorry for that poor imaginary woman.
Yanking my eyes away from the ring and trying to ignore the bare muscular chest beneath it, I focus back on my task.
There’s no sign that my dagger is under the pillow, but I know it’s there. I heard him unsheathe it again tonight and slide it between the sheets when I was faking sleep.
I need to be careful. The blade could be pointing in either direction, and I don’t want to slice open my hand. The last thing I need is an injury to tend to on my way off the ship.
Holding my breath, I extend my arm slowly, trying not to shift the bed as I reach. My fingers slide under the cool sheet, flat as possible, so I don’t jostle his resting head. They slide over the metal, and I try to avoid the sharp edge as I move toward the hilt. I stretch a little farther, my balance wavering slightly on my one shaky arm.
I stop short as my fingertips brush against something warm.
Fuck.
Everything happens so quickly, I don’t have time to process that Weston’s other hand is under the pillow, wrapped around the hilt of my dagger. I am suddenly flipping in the air, my back slamming down onto the bed as a heavy weight lands on top of me.
Weston hovers, his face so close to mine we share a breath. His forearm presses against my chest, his hips lining up square with mine, pinning me beneath him. Heat pools between my thighs as I gape up at him until I feel cold metal digging into myneck. I lift my chin to avoid being sliced open, but my eyes don’t leave his. He stares right through me, his glassy gaze unblinking, his disheveled hair falling over his forehead.
I don’t move. I don’t say a word. He doesn’t look like he’s awake, but I’m scared to break his trance and have him move against me, slicing through my skin before he knows what he’s doing.
Maybe he’d mean it.
His eyes flutter as I stare into them, his pupils widening as he slowly comes to. My cheeks heat as his gaze trails over my face, then down to the blade he holds to my throat. I watch as the realization strikes him barely a moment before he speaks.
“What are you doing, princess?” His voice is deep and gravelly with sleep.
“Nothing,” I lie. He caught me, but I’m still not going to admit to my plan. The word comes out breathier than I intended, but I don’t break the eye contact as his search mine for the lie. I ignore the throbbing between my thighs as I feel every plane of his body pushing me down, and instead try to focus on slowing my heaving breaths.
The cold press of the dagger is gone instantly as he flips the blade away from my throat and tosses it across the bed, out of my reach. Even without the threat of breaking skin, I don’t move. I stay frozen beneath him as he shifts his weight, lifting one side of his body off mine as he looks down toward our feet. His eyes rake over me and my skin burns beneath my clothes. My gaze lowers, following his, until he snaps his head toward me, his stare intensifying.
“You were trying to escape again.”
It isn’t a question, so I stay silent, pressing my lips together, and breathing through my nose, trying to slow the rapid pounding of my heart.
His arm lifts off my chest and I feel like I can breathe again, until he sits back on his heels, his knees between my thighs. I almost choke on my breath as the moonlight illuminates every hard angle on his shirtless torso. My mouth dries as my eyes graze his skin, snagging on a large gnarled scar that slashes across his abdomen, just above the defined muscles that disappear into his low hanging waistband.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had him pressed against me, but it is the first time I can actually see it. I can understand Sig’s statement about women being happy to be in my position because Weston looks like someone straight out of Tila’s books. I’ve been around training men all my life, and no one has looked anything like Weston. Even Dane, with his height and broad frame, doesn’t feel like this.
His hand wraps under my thigh and he swings my leg over his knees, dropping it on the other side of him, only to plant his hand on my hip and push me off the side of the bed. My knees hit the floor with a loud thud and I snap back up to glare at him.
“Hey! What the fuck was that for?”
“What did I say about outdoor clothes in my bed?” he says as he snatches the dagger back up and swings his legs over the side to stand.
That’s it? Is he going to ignore the part where he held my dagger to my throat and pinned me to the bed?
I scramble to my feet and snarl at him, “That’s all you have to say right now? No apology for almost killing me?”
His loose linen pants are distracting as they hang low on his hips. He strides over to the desk and opens the top drawer before dropping my dagger inside. The drawer slams and I hear a click before he pulls a key. He stares me down as he lifts the key and slides it right into his pocket, his eyebrow lifting slightly, as if challenging me to try to take it.
“What else do you want me to say, princess? I didn’t kill you. Didn’t even nick you. There would be no need for an apology if you hadn’t been trying to leave.”
“Can you blame me? Why would I want to be around you?”
