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She laughed then, scooping them back up. “I’m sure you do, but don’t you dare. I shall name them, and it won’t be names like Red.”
“What’s wrong with Red?” He placed a hand over his heart as though wounded. “I thought it the perfect name for one of them.”
She shook her head. Her husband…
She kissed him again, kittens between them. Who was she kidding? He was perfect. Her reformed rake, her perfect husband.
A RENDEZVOUS WITH A RAKE
“I’ve got one rule and it’s no women on board. Ever.”
When the youngest brother of the rough and tumble Smith family turned to smuggling, Fulton Smith knew he had to keep his operation simple to keep from being caught.
But the beautiful stowaway, Sophie, makes his life anything but easy. His smuggling self knows he ought to drop her at the nearest port and follow his own damn rules. It’s a dangerous business. The lord in him, however, can’t help but protect the fragile beauty who has demons of her own.
But when his past begins to haunt them too, danger lurks around every corner and not even his boat is fast enough to outrun it.
Keeping her safe will push him to the breaking point.
Keeping his hands off her…
Impossible.
A RENDEZVOUS WITH A RAKE
LORDS OF TEMPTATION
Laws of the Liberty:
1. No women on board the boat. Ever. For any reason.
2. No drinking during a storm. If we’re sinking… then there is drinking.
3. No stealing… from each other. We are thieves but we are thieves with honor.
4. No poking in other people’s business. We are not women and so we mind our own.
5. No shirking your duties. Each man pulls his weight, or he can sink to the bottom.
Nothing turned a stomach like the smell of day old fish.
Despite spending his adult life at sea, Lord Fulton Smith despised the smell. He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as the salty stench of the fish market filled his nostrils.
Normally, he could tolerate the scent without any outward sign of discomfort. But as he’d gotten fall down drunk last night, an event that had been happening more often of late, the smell made his stomach roll.
He swallowed the rising bile back down and took a fortifying breath.
Mistake.
Breathing in only made his mouth fill with the acrid stench, some particles climbing up the back of his nose and making him gage.
Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he looked at his second in command, Mr. Jack Mate, and tried to hold his chin high as he issued an order. “You’re going to need to stock the fucking ship with fish. I’m leaving.”
Jack, always shrewd, and never one to be cowed by any man, not even the boss, curled his lip. “Had too many cups last night, didn’t you? Finish the last of the wine?”
Jack was one of the few men Fulton would tolerate such an insubordinate comment from. At over six feet tall, Fulton’s second in command was built like an ox with a shaved head a bushy black beard. He frightened nearly everyone he met. Fulton respected that, and the man’s tireless work ethic, which is why he let the comment pass.
Well, perhaps for that reason and the fact that he didn’t have the stomach to fight this morning. “Mind your fucking business and the rules,” Fulton snapped, not because he cared Jack knew he was hungover. Men of his ilk didn’t admit weakness ever. It was part of their acknowledged code on the ship. “It’s part of our rules and you know it.”
