Page 107 of Under Arthur’s Protection

I stepped inside, scanning the walls for a fold-down bunk. The confirmation email called it a two-person berth. Our first crossing had been a four-person berth, with four separate beds, so I’d assumed this one would have two.

She dropped her messenger bag on a chair and peeked out the porthole. “It’s like a little cruise ship.”

I opened the bathroom door and took stock. “There’s a full shower in here, too. Mind if I hop in and out?”

“Go for it. I’ll unpack,” she said with a laugh.

If the Navy had taught me anything, it was how to shower in under two minutes. I stretched it to five to get the flecks of blood out of my hair. When I came out, damp but fully dressed, Gwen was standing outside the sliding door at the back.

“It’s got a tiny private balcony with deck chairs.” She came back in and closed the door, frowning at me. “Did you do anything other than wet your hair?”

“I’m fast. It’s all yours.”

“Thank god.” She grabbed the shopping bag, handed me my cologne, and said, “I may not come out until we reach England.”

“Enjoy.”

The door closed, and a moment later, the water started.

I put the duffel on the padded bench at the foot of the bed and sat in one of the chairs. Had Merlin known there was a queen-sized bed? Or had he, like me, read two-person berth and booked it without checking the details?

Or had Lance figured us out and put Merlin up to it as a test?

My fucking friends were a pain in the ass.

Or…

Or I had one bed, a beautiful woman, and nowhere to go until morning. We were as safe on the ferry as we’d been anywhere in the past week.

I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes.

In the car, I’d told her things I’d never told anyone. Not Lance, not Merlin, not the counselor the Teams had made me see after my deployments, and especially not the one Pendragon had assigned to me after Task Force Legacy.

No, I’d shared it all with Dr. Gwen Lyons, and she’d turned it on its head, trying to convince me I knew what love looked like.

The voices normally swirling around my head—mostly my father’s—should have ripped her argument apart. Should have lined up every piece of evidence that I was cut from the same cloth as my father and informed me she was wrong.

Instead, they were all silent.

So I let my mind wander. To the kitchen in the short-term rental, where I’d kissed her after swiping the sauce from her chin—no matter what she said, I was certain I had been the one to initiate the kiss. To last night, with her body under mine, when I’d drawn so many more noises from her than the cake sound. Those fucking sounds would live in my memory forever.

And how she’d nestled against my chest and fallen asleep.

I wanted all of it. Tonight, tomorrow night, and the night after that. I wanted to spend all the time in the world learning how every inch of her body tasted, how to make her laugh so hard she cried, and how to tease out the smile that made the warm thing in my chest pulse.

I wanted⁠—

Easy, there, Penn. You’re getting ahead of yourself.

The bathroom door opened, and steam billowed out around her. She stood in the doorway in a towel, her hair wet, and her skin flushed. She’d tucked the end of the towel between her breasts. All it would take was one little tug to free it.

Our eyes met. She batted her eyelashes at whatever she read in my face, and my dick twitched. “Have you thought any more about what we talked about in the car?”

Had I fucking ever. “Yeah.”

“And?”

I stood up, crossed the cabin, and scooped her off the floor.