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‘I won’t ask what was. My point stands.’
‘What is your point?’
‘That you’re a menace! If I have to sit through one more...’ He swiped his face again.
‘I’ll stay in my cabin,’ she offered, a little shocked at the degree of his anger and with his belief she really meant to encourage poor Captain Meacham. ‘I am tired of trying to be charming anyway. I was never good at it and it is almost as exhausting as weathering your disapproval. You may tell them I always become ill once we pass Gibraltar.’
As if to make her point, the ship tipped and sank beneath them again. She reached out to steady herself and her palms met his chest. The ship rolled back, but she stayed there. The urge to move closer and sink into his warmth was so powerful she stepped back and immediately regretted it. She was behaving ridiculously. She was a widow, not a newly deflowered virgin.
If anything he’d re-flowered her that night in Cairo. That was what it had felt like with the scent of the gardens weaving into the warm air around them as he’d coaxed her into heaven. He’d made her body bloom. She hesitated and then placed her palm once more against his chest. His pulse wasn’t as fast as hers, but it still felt swift and harsh.
‘I apologise for forcing myself on board, but it is done, Edge. Can we not start over?’
She searched his face for some sign of softening. His eyes fell from hers and suddenly he looked more sulky than furious and her heart eased a little. Before she could press her advantage his gaze flickered to the cot, away, and then back.
‘Where is your mattress?’
‘My mattress? Over there—I roll it up after I use it, it takes up too much space if I leave it on the floor.’
‘On the...you are sleeping on the floor?’
‘That way if I fall off there isn’t far to go.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were having trouble sleeping?’ he demanded and she smiled at his outrage. This was the Edge she could cope with.
‘Because I hate when people say I told you so. I have heard that enough times from you to last me several lifetimes. Besides, it is not so very uncomfortable.’
‘Yes, but what if there are...?’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. If you cannot sleep on the cot, I will bring a hammock. It attaches to these.’ He indicated the steel hooks embedded in the walls, but her mind fixated on his avoidance, her eyes skittering around the room. They were on a ship, for God’s sake. Why had it never occurred to she might be sharing the floor with the ubiquitous naval rat? She brushed at her dress, her hair, but the image rose as sharply as if she’d actually awoken to it—the scuffling, snuffling, scratching...the sudden pressure as the small forms skittered over her legs... Her arms crossed over her chest, her hands at her throat in an instinctive defence.
‘Sam, you are perfectly fine, this room is well sealed, I’m sorry I said anything.’
He placed his hands on hers, his fingers moving soothingly on them, against the soft skin beneath her jaw, stroking the tense sinew along the side of her neck.
‘I am not afraid of rats,’ she denied, but her voice wasn’t as firm as she wanted. ‘It is only... I imagined...’
‘Yes, your imagination was always too fertile for your own good. And a sensible person should be afraid of rats—they carry disea—’ He stopped again at her glare and his face shifted into an all-out grin. Out of nowhere she remembered something Khalidi’s daughter Fatima had said about Edge more than a dozen years ago.
‘He has the smile of a god. He does not bestow it often, but when he does it is as if the sun and the moon and all the stars all join hands to bless you.’
At the time Sam remembered being thoroughly disgusted with Fatima’s infatuated adoration of Edge. She’d had no patience for such nonsense at fourteen and even less when Fatima’s foolishness landed Edge in gaol. To be fair it was as much Sam’s fault, since Edge had only been protecting her when she tried to stop Khalidi’s deputy from taking Fatima out of Bab el-Nur. Another of her well-meaning crusades gone wrong, as Edge had pointed out. He’d been even less impressed with her failed attempt to rescue him from gaol and had studiously ignored her for weeks afterwards.
His beautiful smile dimmed as she remained silent.
‘Sam, there really is nothing to worry about. Don’t look like that.’
‘I’m not.’
His hands traced the juncture between her neck and shoulder and it wasn’t soothing any longer. Her body heated, the hair at her nape rising as nerves tingled down her spine. His eyes rested on her lips and his jaw flexed, deepening the lines beside his mouth. She was desperate to lick her lips, her tongue was pressing against her teeth, begging. She couldn’t stop herself from sucking her lower lip in a little, testing it. Yes, she was ready, so ready for...
