The smile Kyle bent on her was one of gratitude and approval, and it warmed her to her very soul. She would have braved the sea itself, she thought, if she could have been the recipient of another smile like that.
She caught her breath as Kyle helped her rise, wincing at the pain in her bruised ribs, but shook her head when he asked sharply if she needed medical attention herself. She was glad for his support, however, when she had to negotiate the wildly rolling deck again.
Taking care of Hardwick wasn’t as bad as she feared, however. When Tiny had carried the unconscious man to Selena’s cabin, he risked lighting a lantern, securing it to keep it from falling and setting the ship on fire. In the glowing light, she could see at once that Hardwick’s wound wasn’t fatal. Unlike hers, his ribs were probably broken, but the blood was only caused by superficial lacerations from slivers of wood.
She had Tiny strip off the wounded man’s wet clothes and tuck him beneath a warm blanket, and when she was alone with her patient, she braced herself against the violent rolling motion of the ship and went to work removing the splinters and binding his chest with clean strips of cloth. She was glad to be occupied, for it prevented her from dwelling on the fate of the schooner.
Hardwick woke shortly afterward, not remembering what had happened after the first wave had hit him, and anxious, despite his pain, to return to his duties on deck. Selena alternately soothed and threatened, until she finally convinced Hardwick that he was in no condition to do battle and wouldn’t be until his ribs healed. Then she managed to find him a bottle of rum when he asked for it, hoping it would ease the worst of his pain. He was pleasantly happy by the time Tiny came to check on him and was sleeping peacefully when Kyle entered the cabin an hour later.
Kyle listened a moment to his mate’s quiet breathing, then glanced down at Selena. She was sitting on the floor beside the bunk, her knees drawn up, her arms wrapped around herself.
“You saved his life,” Kyle said quietly. His tone held an odd note—of gratitude and pride and perhaps awe—that made Selena lift her face to him. Kyle drew in a breath. With her hair half escaping from its pins, she looked pale and bedraggled, even pitiful, as she huddled
there, shivering. Something in his chest tightened.
“Selena,” he murmured, sinking down before her, “are you all right?” Placing a gentle finger under her chin, he compelled her to meet his gaze. “What is it?”
“Would you…” Selena whispered, her teeth chattering, “do you suppose… you could hold me?”
She was still clothed in the wet pelisse and gown, he noted, and was chilled to the bone. But it was more than the cold that was causing her body to shake so. She was only now realizing, he guessed, how close she had come to death.
Wordlessly he opened his arms, and when she came into them, he could feel her body trembling. “There’s nothing to fear now,” he said gently, stroking her damp hair. “The storm is over.”
“It wasn’t the storm. I thought…you would fall. I was afraid you would be killed.”
Kyle pressed his cheek against her hair. He had been afraid, too. Afraid that he had lost her to the sea. “Don’t ever,” he breathed, remembering that devastating moment when he had looked down to see that mountainous wave sweep over her, remembering the helplessness he had felt, “disobey me again.”
“No.”
Kyle repressed a smile, suspecting her docility was a measure of her fatigue.
“Come now,” he urged, “we’ve got to get you out of those wet clothes.”
He scooped her up and rose with her in his arms. Catching up the lantern, he carried her to his own cabin, where he settled her in a chair. When he had hung the lantern on a peg, he knelt before her. As he began chafing her cold hands, he saw she was watching him quietly with wide, expressive eyes that looked trusting and vulnerable.
He hesitantly raised her skirts to pull off her shoes and stockings and found she wasn’t wearing slippers. Realizing that she had lost them in her heroic rescue attempt, he felt his heart flood with tenderness. Untying her garters quickly, he stripped off Selena’s stockings and rubbed her shapely calves to bring the blood back. Then he unfastened the buttons of her pelisse, pushing it off her shoulders, and stood up, bringing Selena with him.
His gaze was drawn to her face, to her cold, trembling lips. Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his, warming her. He heard her sigh, and when he felt her arms tentatively reach up to rest on his shoulders, he deepened his kiss, thrusting gently into her mouth, warming her tongue with his.
When she shivered, he didn’t think it was from the cold, but he left off kissing her to peel the wet, icy garments from her body. The chemise was last, and when he drew it over her head and she stood before him, pale and naked, he could see that gooseflesh covered every inch of her skin and that the nipples of her high, firm breasts were chilled and rigid.
His gold-green eyes darkened at the sight. Selena tried to cover her breasts with her arms, but Kyle caught her hands and pulled them away, scrutinizing her carefully for injury. In the lantern light he could see the bruises that shadowed the right side of her rib cage, and his mouth hardened. Gently, he reached out to touch the faint discoloration. Then, without conscious intention, his hand moved up to the curving swell of her breast, to brush a puckered nipple with one finger.
Her reaction was immediate; she gasped softly. Kyle heard her faint inhalation with satisfaction. Purposefully, he splayed his fingers, covering her ripe flesh and molding it against his palm.
Selena closed her eyes and shuddered, and Kyle realized with a surge of desire that her demureness and reserve hid a woman of passion, of courage. He wanted her. Wanted to fill his mouth with the taste of her breasts, to span that impossibly narrow waist with his hands and draw those inviting hips beneath him, to have those long, lithe legs wrapped around him.
The fierceness of his wanting startled him.
“You’d better get into bed,” he forced himself to say in a voice suddenly grown deep and husky. Alone, now, please, he pleaded silently.
“Please,” Selena breathed. She moved closer, seeking the haven of his arms and solace from the turmoil of her emotions. Kyle represented safety, warmth, security. His ruggedness made her feel so feminine, his concern so cherished and protected.
“Selena—” the word was a rasp “—I can’t take much more of this. Any minute now I’m likely to forget I shouldn’t be here, alone with you… like this.”
“Please… don’t go.”
His arms went around her then, his hands tracing her curves without volition. “You should get some sleep.” The words were jerky, gritted out between his teeth as he felt her flesh warming beneath his callused palms.