My Heart's Desire (Barrett 1)

Alex started, but didn’t turn around; she could feel his presence without looking.

“No.” Her voice sounded breathless, even to her ears.

Drake walked up beside her and stared into the hypnotic water. “I seem to be suffering from insomnia as well.”

Alex allowed herself to glance up at him. He looked strained, tired, magnificent.

“You did not have to don the same clothing,” he said without looking at her. “I can arrange for more of Thomas’s clean clothes to be brought to my … your cabin.”

“Thank you.” She gave him an uncertain look. “It was very kind of you to forfeit your cabin …”

“Kindness had nothing to do with it.”

Alex swallowed, falling silent.

“Tell me, princess,” he resumed after a moment, “do you enjoy driving men to the brink of madness and then pulling away?”

He heard her gasp. He had hurt her with his ugly reference to last night, but damn it, he was hurting, too. The moment he had left her his body had been cast into hell. The dousing of cold water from Smitty’s pitcher had not helped, nor had the hours of pacing the cabin.

Drake had spent countless hours thinking of Alexandria, cursing himself for all kinds a fool. Yet now, even after her unforgivable behavior today, seeing her standing small and alone on deck, garbed in men’s clothes, he was drawn to her again like a moth to a flame. An irresistible, lethal attraction.

Alex recoiled from the anger in Drake’s voice, but she also sensed his frustration. Before last night that emotion would have escaped her notice. But having experienced a newly awakened restlessness and an irrepressible longing, she was now able to understand some of what Drake was feeling. From his perspective, she must look not only like a trollop but like a tease as well.

“Captain—” she began.

He gave a harsh laugh. “Aren’t we a little beyond the formalities, princess?”

Alex nodded. “Yes, Drake, I suppose we are.” She ignored his surprised look. “I can neither explain nor excuse what happened last night. But I never meant for it to happen, nor did I mean to … hurt you in any way.”

Hurt him? Did she have any idea how much, even now, he wanted her? How desperately he wanted to drag her to his cabin and bury himself inside her?

Drake turned to face her, ready to verbalize his anger. Until he looked into her eyes. Even in the blackness of night they shone, as clear and gray as polished jewels. Open, remorseful, waiting for his response.

His anger evaporated as if it had never been there.

Alex smiled. “Could we try to be friends?”

“Friends?” The dark brows went up.

She giggled. “All right, then. Not enemies, at least.”

He smiled back, in spite of himself. “I suppose we could try that.”

“And could we sit and talk for a while as well?” Her voice was so hopeful, her eyes so appealing. Drake’s resolve s

lipped one notch further.

“Since we can’t seem to sleep, why not?” He gestured toward a spot where they could sit and lean back against the foremast.

Without hesitation Alex sat, watching quietly as Drake lowered his tall frame beside her.

“When must you relieve your man at the helm?” she asked, attempting to fill the uncomfortable void of silence that hung between them.

“Not until the morning watch begins at eight bells.” He saw her puzzled expression and explained, “Four o’clock in the morning.”

“Oh.” Alex waited patiently for him to continue talking. When he did not, she succumbed to her natural curiosity. “Do you have a family?” She could see that her question surprised him. He stiffened slightly.

“Doesn’t everybody?”