Read The Sea Rose for Free Online Page B

he would wake for sure. The sheet
slipped passed his waist and the tan line that so intrigued her
before became visible. She knew she should stop and she
hesitated. Now or never. She closed her eyes and exhaled to prepare
herself. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her eyes came open to see
him staring at her.
    “ Have you seen everything
you wanted to?” he drawled with a randy grin.
    Her fingers dropped the sheet
instantly, the silk fabric fluttered to conceal all that she’d
uncovered. “I apologize,” she sputtered. Her cheeks bloomed in a
bright blush.
    He raised both his hands over his
head, “I won’t stop you. Go ahead, investigate at your leisure,”
his voice gravelly and sexy with sleep.
    “ Oh no,” she protested and
shook her head. “I’m very sorry.” She rose to climb out of
bed.
    He grabbed her by the waist and drew
her back into the bed beside him. She watched him warily, not
exactly sure if she wanted him to seduce her or not. She knew she
wouldn’t have the fortitude to stop him if he kissed her
again.
    “ We will be pulling into
Nassau today. Do you know where to find your fiancé?”
    “ I have an address where I
sent letters to him, but it was in my trunk,” she paused when she
realized she no longer had the scrap of paper.
    “ And your trunk is at the
bottom of the ocean,” he finished for her. His finger strayed to
her collarbone where it skimmed along the ridge there. “How will we
find him?”
    “ We?” she asked, “You’re
going to help me?”
     “ I’m certainly not
going to abandon you in that town alone. Nassau is Sodom and
Gomorrah reborn, and I won’t have you wandering around there with
no escort.”
    She tried to ignore his wandering
finger for a moment and focus on the words he’d just said. “I did
just fine by myself in London on the merchant ship. You don’t owe
me anything.” She made every effort to be indignant, but he was
very distracting.
    “ And look how well you
faired on your first voyage.” The finger had a mind of its own and
down it went as it followed a path between her breasts.
    “ Well, it’s hardly my
fault that the ship sank, now is it?” Where was his finger going now? A
trail of fire followed in its wake.
    “ Believe me, if you fall
into a bad situation in Nassau, you will be wishing you went down
with that ship.” He pressed a kiss on her shoulder. Of course, one
kiss led to another and then several more connected from her
shoulder to the sensitive indention at the base of her throat. “I
only want to insure your safety, my beautiful Rose.”
    “ Did you say ‘your’ Rose?”
She was nearly past the ability to speak, but his endearment caught
her attention.
    “ At least for this
morning.” Jack slid his thigh between hers, laying half on her. “Do
you trust me?” he asked her.

    Roselyn looked into the well of his
black eyes and saw strength of character that she wasn’t sure even
he suspected he possessed. Why shouldn’t she trust him? If he’d
wanted to hurt her he’d had ample opportunity the previous day and
night. He hadn’t harmed her when she first came on board, or in the
bathtub or, at her most vulnerable, when she was drunk and willing
in his bed. Of course she trusted him.
    Go ahead, be
wanton, her darker self urged. Father accused you of it enough.
    As it turned out, she was perfectly
capable of making decisions for her life. Had she known all that
was available to her, what the world outside her small English
village offered, would she have allowed her father to betroth her
to Rupert? Rupert, a man exactly the same as her father, two men
cut from the same cloth. How might her life have been different if
her mother had lived? Roselyn had never known her. The woman died
from a bout of influenza when she was only two. Was her mother the
meek and subservient woman her father tried to mold his daughter
into?
    Did she trust him?
    She answered him with a searing kiss
that she hoped properly conveyed her desire to