Page 17 of A Dance with the Wayward Duke
He moved. Both hands came onto the armrests of her chair, one on either side, and he leaned forward until the lamplight caught the line of his jaw directly above her, and the cabin, which had already been too small, became considerably smaller.
She leaned back a fraction. He was very close. She could smell the salt on him, the clean wool, the brandy. Her pulse made an ungoverned decision she chose not to acknowledge, and heat flooded low in her belly, even as the back of her neck prickled. Her body could not seem to decide whether to flee him or lean closer, and the indecision left her breath stranded halfway up her throat.
"The termination," he said.
"If you will only repeat my words," she managed, "this will be very one-sided."
"No. I have every intention of making this very two-sided." His eyes held hers.
"In my experience, contracts work best when the parties agree in advance on a date to part. It prevents misunderstanding. It protects both parties equally." She kept her hands folded in her lap with some effort. "Naples is a natural terminus. We both have business there."
He caught her wrist. The bare one. His fingers circled it loosely, his thumb finding the inside where the bracelet had been, where the skin was slightly paler than the rest.
“So you will be a prize I take that comes with a return date.”
The piratical metaphor didn't fit well in her diplomatic syllabus, but in the spirit of good faith, she nodded.
A shadow moved across his face and was suppressed so quickly she might have imagined it, except that she had been reading men's faces for four years and she did not imagine such things. His jaw tightened. His mouth opened by a fraction.
He was going to object.
She waited.
He closed his mouth. Looked down at her wrist. His thumb stilled.
Then he released her, straightened, moved back to the table and leaned against it, arms folding.
"Works for me," he said.
She smoothed her skirt with both palms and reminded herself that the first clause was always the hardest.
"Now," she said. "The matter of my reputation. This arrangement cannot be public. Not to your crew and certainly not upon arrival in Naples."
"I will tell my crew that you are a passenger of honor. You will stay in the captain's cabin alone."
Her eyes lifted at that, and her shoulders lowered a fraction.
"I will visit you every night. Between midnight and three."
She startled. "You will sleep only three hours a night?"
"Who said we would be sleeping?"
Heat rushed up her throat, and her skin warmed everywhere his gaze landed—throat, cheeks, the curve beneath her ear. She looked away at once, furious with herself for the betrayal.
"I will bunk with the officers," he went on, untroubled. "If anyone asks, the cabin is yours. Will that suffice for your reputation?"
She nodded. That went well. Better than expected, really. "There is one further matter. About…the joint operations."
Her cheeks burned, and she glanced up from beneath her lashes. He was a virile man. She was not under any illusion that he sought a mistress for intellectual diversion. Nor was she an innocent. But neither would she embark on that particular aspect of their arrangement without terms clearly drawn.
A corner of his mouth twitched. "Just so we are entirely clear, you mean the sex."
"Yes. How often do you anticipate commencing such operations?" Her toes curled inside her shoes, and she kept her face composed through an act of diplomatic violence.
His brows rose, just a fraction. "More than twice in a night and I imagine the secrecy clause would be rather difficult to maintain."
She nodded at once, as though this were a perfectly ordinary logistical observation. "Of course. Discretion is essential. There is also the matter of consequence."
