“What don’t I understand?” She continued to stroke his leg, stepping even closer. “Show me what you need.”

She’d misunderstood, and damned if his cock didn’t strain for her. He’d show her what he needed: her and only her. What he needed was to grab her questing hands, haul her over his shoulder, and take her and rob her maidenhead on his damned bunk.

She tilted her head, studying him. Was it lust she saw on his face? Did she see his agony too? His dark despair?

“I’m offering myself to you,” she said with a tender innocence that shattered his blackened heart. “I’ll have you as my husband. And if we consummate our union here, now, nobody can come between us.”

Her naïveté gutted him. “I know a whole world that could come between us.”

“Don’t you want to consummate our union?” Her gaze flicked to his breeches. The question in her eyes was so trusting, curse him but he got harder for it. He saw she’d noticed by the rising blush on her cheeks.

“Want to?” Emotion made his voice ragged. Always there’d been something to come between him and his heart’s desire. Never would he get what he wanted, what he needed. Never would he know satisfaction. “Christ, woman, of course I want to.”

Her hand on his leg stilled. “Is it that you don’t want me?”

“Of course I want you.” As if that was all this was about. He wanted her spread naked and writhing on his cot, laid bare for the taking. And the pain of it was, he knew she’d let him. He wanted her in a new wedding dress, with pretty laces and ribbons, and eyes only for him. He wanted her, and wanted the world to recognize her place by his side as right and true. “But I want all of you. And some rich pig has decided he’d have you instead, and I know better than to hope for anything of the sort.”

Her hands burst into movement again, roving recklessly along his legs. “But I said—”

“What you said tells me you don’t understand.” He had to get away from her touch. He couldn’t have her, and the fury of it was beyond bearing.

Fearing his lust might turn cruel, he stormed down, shouldering past her on the steps. “I can’t have you as my own. I can’t even lie with you. You’re to marry Fraser, and it’s a virgin he’s paid for.”

He heard her sharp intake of breath, but remained staring out the tiny porthole, refusing to look at her. He’d been deceiving himself. He’d lost Elspeth the day Fraser first set eyes on her, and it was only a matter of time before he lost her for good. He didn’t know how he was to survive it.

He couldn’t bear this pain, but he could make her burden easier to shoulder. “You could accept the man,” he said, cursing the defeat in his voice. “You’d be wealthy, Beth. He’s older—he might leave you a young widow. You’d have money and books, and everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“Do you think I want to marry him?” Snapping, she stormed to him, pummeling hard on his back. “You’re everything I ever wanted. You stupid, stupid man. I don’t want wealth. Never have I wanted wealth. I don’t want to marry Fraser. I want to be with you.”

He spun to face her. “What you want. You think a person always gets what they want? No, I’ll not take what doesn’t belong to me. And clearly your father thinks you belong to another.”

“But don’t you see? I won’t go to Fraser.” She planted hands on hips. “I cannot. I will not. So we needn’t wait because I won’t marry anyone. But you. Ever.”

It took her shouts, but finally he heard her. Finally he believed her. She wanted him. And not just for one stolen afternoon on a ship. She’d fight to be with him for a lifetime. The prospect amazed and humbled him.

He took her in his arms, but she continued to rave, an overwrought bundle in his embrace. His gentle Beth was hollering up at him, and he marveled at the sound of it, and at the miracle that he’d been the one to rouse her.

She clawed her fingers into his shirt. “What do I want with riches? Never would I want that. You’re all I want.”

Her passion matched his own, and it seared the last doubts from his mind. Dared he hope for what he wanted? Could it be that together they’d find a way?

She went limp against him, whispering, “But it seems you don’t want me.”

“You’re wrong,” he said, his voice taut with focus. “I want you, Beth. And I’ll have you.”

Chapter 28

Elspeth went from despair to delight in one dizzying moment. She’d thought Aidan didn’t want her. She’d been wrong.

He scooped her up, and she let loose a delighted yelp. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding on as he made his way along the narrow corridor to his cabin. “What are you doing?” she asked, even though she had some idea.

Without putting her down, he stood before his bunk, nuzzling at her neck and throat. “I think you proposed.”

His kisses were wet and his breath was hot, and a pure, animal lust barreled through her, surging from deep in her womb, shimmering along the surface of her skin in delicious waves, until her breasts pulled taut and a pulse throbbed through her, sounding her want. “Proposed?” she managed, her voice weak. “Yes, I think you’re right.”

He threw her onto the bed, and the savage possession in his gaze turned her desire sharp. He shucked off his breeches, not tearing his hooded eyes from hers. “And you said something about consummation.”

“I did.” She trembled, breathless to see what he’d do, how he’d look. She’d imagined how Aidan’s strong body might appear without clothes, but until this moment, her imaginings had been only vague. But now, even though his shirt fell almost to his knees, she spied something ominous straining from the shadows between his legs.

She was about to see all of him. To feel his naked skin touch hers. A fresh bolt of longing speared her, till her body felt wet and hot and needy.

He sat on the bed, and she wasn’t sure where to look, so much did she want to see every inch of him, all at once.

He pushed the arisaid from her shoulders, revealing the vest and skirt she wore over her petticoat. “You’re mine, Beth.” He made quick work of her buttons. “Not Fraser’s,” he said, tugging at her laces. “The only man who’ll tell you who you can and can’t marry is me.”

Her clothes loosened, freeing her breasts, and the sensation stole her breath. She felt wild and free. “And what if I don’t listen?”

Aidan leaned close. The stubble on his jaw scraped against her cheek as he whispered in her ear, “Then I’ll make you listen.” He claimed a breast in his hand and kneaded it, thumbing her nipple.

Flinching from the shock of pleasure, she gripped his arms, curling her fingers tightly into the muscle of his biceps. “How?”

He moved her hands aside, and she heard the pop of threads as he tugged her clothes down and off her body. “I’ll devise some torture.”

Her heart was hammering, pounding her blood agonizingly close to the surface of her skin. She felt flushed, barely able to speak. “Indeed?”

“Aye.” He took her breast again, quickly replacing his hand with his mouth, and she cried out. The feel of him suckling her was too much, too exquisite a pleasure to bear. It felt wanton and sinful, and her body quivered, feeling on the verge of some precipice.

He pulled away, leaving her wet skin chilled in his absence. “Because the only man you’ll be marrying is me.”

She was panting now, an alarming heat thrumming through her body, and she felt as though she were enduring some frightful transformation, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. She looked down at her body. But seeing her meager breast shining damp, hardened to a sharp, aching point, she blushed. She was nude before him, and sudden shyness made her cringe inside.

“You’re magnificent,” he said.

Clamping her eyes shut, she blindly reached for the blanket to pull it over her body. “I’m thin as a post, pale as a ghost …”

Warm fingers gently pinched her chin, and she opened her eyes to his affectionate smile. “And silly as a loon.”

He kissed her again, tenderly this time, until her shyness ebbed and she felt herself relax and kiss him back. He laved kisses down her neck, between her breasts, over and below them, murmuring, “Fool woman. Yours is the most beautiful, the finest of bodies.”

She looked away, feeling fresh chagrin crumple her brow. “You’ve seen many, I’m sure.”

He was quiet for a moment, and her heart broke with it. But then he tipped her face back to his and said, “Aye, I’ve seen women, Beth. And all of them pale compared to you. You’re the only one. The finest and the loveliest of them all.”

His mouth found hers again, and she found herself believing that she was glorious and luscious and kissable, and those tender kisses quickly turned hungry and deep. The whole of her responded to him, and she wrapped her hands around his back, roved them eagerly up his arms, frantic to touch him.

The linen of his shirt kept getting in her way, and she bucked her body up to him, tugging at the fabric. She tore her mouth from his. “Get this off.”

“Allow me.” Aidan pulled away and did the work for her, ripping the shirt up over his head in one violent motion, then dove under the blanket to lie beside her.

Elspeth glimpsed his naked body, and she gasped, her muzzy gaze turning sharp. He was covered in scars.

He froze, uncertainty shuttering his features.

Inching the cover down, she gingerly touched a fingertip to the worst of his marks, the jagged, rippling brand that covered his left forearm. Though she wanted to look away, wanted his marks not to exist, she took in every last one, a map of his pain carved forever on his body. Broad swaths where shackles had rubbed him raw, thin bites of the whip, and the shining WP that named him property of some other man. “Oh, Aidan,” was all she could manage, her voice tight with unshed tears.