by Lora Leigh
When she glanced back at him, Thom’s gaze was searching her face. A frown darkened his expression. “Are you all right, Georgie?”
“I will be. Excuse me, please. I have something to do.”
Over the rattling and the noise, he didn’t hear her come. Blade was just turning away from the chain when Georgiana swung the diving dome with all of her strength. The heavy brass helmet rang dully against his skull. Jarring pain shot through her fingers and wrists. Her palms went numb.
Blade dropped in a heap. His gun clattered to the boards. She left it there.
She turned back, but Thom was already at her side, his arms coming around her.
“Georgie?”
“Oh, Thom.” Fighting back sudden, hot tears, she pressed her forehead to the cold brass plate over his chest.
“I’m glad I never pissed you off that much.” His arms tightened before he drew back. “What was it?”
She closed her eyes, hating the tears slipping down her cheeks, but now that it was done, something broke, and she was cold and shaking.
But not feeling an ounce of regret. “He stepped on your hose.”
“Not by accident, I guess.” His voice hardened. “Are you all right?”
“I am. He . . . used my hand.” Simply saying it pushed the sour sickness up her throat again. “And told me tomorrow it would be my mouth.”
Thom didn’t respond. Just held her tighter. But she knew what was burning in him.
They were halfway up to the airship. With a deep, shuddering breath, she glanced down at the diving helmet still clutched in her hand. She’d been careful to hit Blade with the side of it, where the impact wouldn’t damage the valves or the glass face plate. Blood and short hair clung to the smooth brass.
“Not even a dent. After it’s cleaned, it should be fine to dive in again,” she said.
Thom gave a rough laugh. “Georgie.”
She set the dome on the boards, slipping her arm around him to face the airship. Their hands were empty. It was best to show everyone right away that they didn’t intend to kill anyone else.
Not yet, anyway—and not unless they had to.
But hopefully not at all. “Did you find the submersible?”
“Yes. Flooded.”
“Oh.” They wouldn’t be using it, then. She fought the weight of disappointment. “Well, we’ll find another way.”
He nodded. His gaze dropped to Blade, crumpled on the boards. “I’d have done it for you.”
“I thought of asking. But he’d have been wary of you, and more prepared to shoot when you went for him.”
“I’d still have done it.” His jaw tightened, and the sudden anger on his face would have been terrifying if she’d seen it on any other man. But Thom would never harm her, so it couldn’t frighten her. “I want to do it now.”
“I know.”
Because she wanted to do the same to the man standing at the side of the airship now. Southampton had forced Thom’s hand using her life. He just had more protection than Blade. A good number of mercenaries stood behind him now. None with guns drawn, but it was clear that they would shoot, given a signal from their employer.
Southampton frowned down at Blade. “What is this?”
“He forced my wife to touch him,” Thom said flatly.
“Ah. He deserved it, then.” Face clearing, the other man raised his voice. “Remember that Big Thom and his wife are our guests! I won’t tolerate such violations.”
Behind him, not one of the mercenaries seemed disturbed by Blade’s death. A few looked to Mrs. Winch, who was smiling faintly as she regarded Blade’s still form. She glanced up at Georgiana and tipped her head, as if in thanks.
Either Winch had hated Blade as much as Georgiana did, or the woman had just been made the new chief of this mercenary band.
Perhaps both.
Southampton stepped onto the platform, his gaze holding Thom’s. His voice lowered. “But I will hand your wife over to every mercenary on board if you don’t find the gold. Did you?”
Thom didn’t answer for a long second. Controlling himself, Georgiana realized. Wanting to destroy the man now, but knowing they’d both be killed if he did.
“I found the wreck.” Teeth clenched, he finally grated the words out. “But my time was out. It’s tethered off, so I can go straight to it tomorrow.”
“Not today?”
Ridiculous, greedy man. Georgiana had to control her own rage. “You will kill him, sir, and end up with nothing. My husband is standing now. Within an hour, he won’t be.”
Southampton looked back at Thom, his gaze coming to a rest on his bloodshot eyes. “All right. Tomorrow.”
A few mercenaries shifted their feet. Not one looked glad to hear it—but also not as upset as Blade had suggested.
Holding tightly to Thom’s hand, Georgiana left the platform. Winch turned to follow them—would be their guard, she realized. Better than Blade.
Georgiana paused for a moment. “Will Southampton still pay Blade’s share, Mrs. Winch?”
“He will. It’ll be split between the rest of us.”
No wonder the others hadn’t looked too upset. “Like a bonus?”
Winch shrugged. “If you like.”
Georgiana did.
* * *
The divers’ disease hit Thom hard soon after they reached the stateroom. She managed to get him out of his suit and into the bed, but there was little she could do after the first pains started. Soon he was sweating, his body twisting up in agony. Georgiana hovered over him, massaging his joints when he could stand to be touched. He was silent through it all, jaw clenched, and she wished he would make some sound—but she was the only one who did, whispering his name through the worst of it.
But whatever was happening inside him, the mechanical bugs soon healed it. The pains passed just after noon. Too wrung out to even raise his head for a bit of soup, Thom fell into a deep sleep that lasted the remainder of the day.
It was after dark when he woke. Georgiana had dragged a chair to his bedside, and glanced up when she heard him stir.
Her heart lifted. He was awake, looking at her—and his bloodshot eyes had cleared.
“Oh, Thom. Are you well?”
“I am.” His voice was a dry rasp. He swallowed. “And you, Georgie?”
“So much better now.” And sitting here, smiling at him like a useless ninny, when he hadn’t eaten all day. “Dinner is waiting. I told Southampton we wouldn’t be joining him, so they brought it here. Would you like it in bed or at the table?”
“Not in bed.”
He sat up, the muscles of his stomach rippling. Sometime soon, Georgiana vowed, she would run her hands over them when he wasn’t sick. But not now. She waited long enough to ask whether he needed help—he laughed at that before crossing the cabin, just as strong and steady as always—then laid out their meal while he tended to the necessary and washed. He pulled on trousers, but didn’t tuck his shirt before joining her.
Her neat and orderly Thom, not so orderly now. And she liked it very much.
His knee bumped into hers when he sat and pulled up his chair.
“Now eat,” she told him, and he suddenly laughed before obeying and taking a bite.
She didn’t know quite what had amused him, but couldn’t stop herself from smiling again—smiling, even though they had no submersible. Smiling simply because he was there.
“I’ve spent every moment this afternoon trying to think of a clever escape. I haven’t yet, though I do know how to avoid the guards outside this cabin.”
Mouth full, he raised his dark brows.
Georgiana tapped the porthole over the table. “We’re fortunate that our abductor is a rich man—or that he has the credit of a rich man. You would never find such large windows on the bow of a poor man’s airship. Not when the glass has to be replaced every time they hit a goose.”
Thom grinned. “That’s a truth.”
“I don’t think we’d have to break it, eit
her.” Which would make far too much noise. She fingered a bolt in the metal frame. “Are your hands strong enough to pull these out?”
Taking another bite, he nodded.
“Then we can climb up outside the hull and onto the deck. We’ll have to surprise whoever is on watch—and maybe take one of the boats.” She sighed. “But I don’t know what to do after that. This flyer will catch up to us. They have every advantage. Weapons. Speed. And I don’t see how to turn that advantage around.”
Her voice broke at the last. Oh, God. It was so hard to remain practical and unaffected when their lives were at stake.
He set his fork down. “We will, Georgie.”
Yes, they would. Trying to gather herself, she drew a deep breath. “Do you think we can delay another day?”
He lifted his gaze to stare out the porthole. Not looking at anything, she knew. Just weighing their chances, as she had been all afternoon.
“Maybe I can bring up just a bit of it, and tell him I have to go back down the next day for the rest. Or we’ll convince him to wait another day so that I can bring up the submersible. If he’s after money, it’s worth a bit. And we’ll take our chances in the boat tomorrow night.”
Her chest tightened. “How far do you think we are from shore?”
Thom was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, “I think we have a better chance in a boat than we do here.”
A long distance, then. She nodded, and despite her best effort to stop them, her eyes suddenly spilled over with tears. Then Thom had her in his arms, holding her in his lap while she sobbed against his neck.
“Georgie, Georgie.” His fingers stroked through her hair, her name a broken murmur in her ear. “I’d kill him again if I could.”
And he knew. He knew how wrong this all was. Everything wrong, except being in his arms. Her breath shuddered against his throat. “I was so angry. So angry. I’d have ripped it off if it hadn’t risked you.”
“You should have, anyway.”
“Would you have? If it was me needing that air, would you?”
His livid silence gave Georgiana the answer. He wouldn’t have risked her, either—and just thinking of it infuriated him.
It did her, too. “And not just because he made me feel so disgusting. Not just because he took something that should be a gift. But that he would dare use your life against me like that. And his reason was that he hadn’t been paid enough. But Southampton’s just the same. He feels that he’s owed something, and he’ll use our lives to get it—and he degrades you just as much while he’s at it.”
Not in the same mean way that Blade had, but Southampton degraded Thom in his own manner, by treating him as less than a man. He was just more subtle about it. Georgiana didn’t even know if Southampton recognized what he was doing.
Thom shook his head. “It’s the same in some ways, Georgie. But not anything like what Blade did. I can ignore what Southampton says and he doesn’t hurt us for it, as long as I dive. Blade didn’t give you the choice to ignore what he’d done.”
That was true. But both men were wrong, either way. She sat back in Thom’s lap, met his eyes. “Do you want to kill him?”
“Yes.” No hesitation. His gaze flattened, and the same terrifying anger hardened his expression. “If I knew of any way to do it without risking harm to you, I would. But I’ll warn you, Georgie. Right now he’s just full of threats. The moment I think he intends to hurt you, I’ll rip him in half. I won’t stop myself, no matter the danger. If you see that happen, you get to one of the boats, because I’m going to tear this ship apart and bring everyone else down with it. But for now, I’ll leave him alive if that’s what it takes to get you away.”
“And get you away, too.”
He shrugged.
Georgiana frowned. “That’s not something to be dismissed, Thom.”
Though he didn’t argue, she saw the response in the bleakness of his eyes. As long as she got away, Thom didn’t think it mattered if he did.
Or maybe he didn’t think that was a possibility anymore.
But he was wrong on both counts. He would escape with her. And she would fight for him to stay with her.
Maybe that wouldn’t be their future, though. It hurt so much to think it might not be. But whether he stayed or not, she needed him to know he did matter.
More than anything.
“Thom.” Gently, she cupped his face in her hands. “I know you felt that you’ve never brought me anything worth having. But you did. You brought yourself back—and you’re worth more to me than a hundred thousand chests full of gold.”
And for the first time, he didn’t quietly shake his head or insist he should have done more or apologize for not supporting her. His throat worked, but his only response was a rough whisper. “Georgie.”
“Thom.” Smiling, she softly pressed her lips to his, then the corner of his mouth, and the silky beard over his jaw. “Today, you were the only light I knew. While you were gone, I only felt fear and rage. But then you came back to me, and there was hope and joy again.”
His eyes closed. “That’s all there is when I see you. And fear when I think you might be hurt. I’d risk anything to stop it.”
“As I would for you.” She lightly kissed his mouth again. “And I was terrified when I discovered that you were diving four hundred feet. You didn’t have to lie to me, Thom.”
He looked at her again, his arms tightening around her. “I didn’t want you to be afraid.”
“But I was, anyway.”
“I wanted to protect you from that.”
“And you don’t have to.” Sliding her hands around the back of his head, she pushed her fingers into his thick hair, still rumpled from his long sleep. “I suspect there is much in you that you don’t let me see or know, because you think I’ll be frightened or you need to protect me. Please don’t hide it anymore, Thom. Don’t hold it back. I have no right to ask this of you. But I want to be with the man that you are, rather than the man you think you should be.”
His body stiffened against hers. “No holding back?”
“Not with me. With others, do as you please.” She didn’t want to share him, anyway.
He stared up at her, his blue eyes slowly beginning to burn. Georgiana’s gaze fell to his mouth, and she suddenly felt every inch of her dress twisted around her legs and stretched across her breasts.
“All right.” Abruptly, Thom lifted her against his chest, carried her to the bed.
And left her there.
Uncertain, Georgiana watched him move to the wardrobe. Reaching behind his neck, he dragged his shirt over his head.
Without looking at her, he said gruffly, “You’d best get that dress off.”
Oh. With heat in her cheeks, she quickly unfastened the buttons at her throat. Her gaze followed Thom to the vanity. Oh, but he was a fine man—his back muscular and broad, his wide shoulders a smooth meld of flesh and steel.
Water splashed into a bowl. Thom’s eyes met hers in the oval mirror hanging above the vanity, then he looked down and began lathering his beard.
Shaving.
Her breath stilled. Thom had done this every time he’d come to her bed, but she’d never watched him before. His soapy fingers moved in sure, even strokes. With his trousers hanging low on his hips, he braced his left hand against the edge of the vanity and leaned in closer to the mirror. His weight shifted to his right foot, left leg slightly bent, and his back was not just a beautiful sculpture now but the most arousing thing she’d ever seen, the muscles bunching over his left shoulder and smoothing along his ribs, and the groove of his spine the perfect width for her fingertips.
The razor scraped over his jaw, the rasp of it like a slow abrasion over her skin. Her heart thudded, as if her blood suddenly ran thick. With trembling fingers, she finished unfastening her dress and stripped it off, leaving her clad only in a chemise.
Hands lifting to her nape, she began unpinning her hair. At the vanity, the razor clinked against the bowl
before swirling through water. Tipping his jaw back, Thom scraped beneath his chin. Soapy water ran in thin rivulets past the hollow of his throat, down the center of his thickly muscled chest. Her lips parting in envy, Georgiana followed the soapy path in the mirror, until the lather slipped past the bottom of the oval frame.
When she glanced back up, Thom was watching her in the reflection. Tilting his head slightly, he scraped another swath up his throat.
“You’ll have me again, Georgiana?”
Have him. She clenched her thighs, trying to ease the sudden ache. “Yes.”
“I promised myself I wouldn’t.” He glanced down. The razor clinked and swirled. “After the last time, I promised I wouldn’t risk hurting you again.”
And they’d both said and done and promised far too many things based on what they’d thought was true of each other, rather than what was true. “I think we should forget about all of the promises we ever made, and make new ones, instead.”
He nodded. With his thumb, he pulled the skin taut at the sharp corner of his jaw. The scrape sent another delicious shiver racing across her nerves.
“And, Thom”—she waited until he glanced up—“you didn’t hurt me the last time. I just didn’t know how to tell you how much I was liking it.”
He stared at her in the mirror for a long second, eyes narrowed. “That’s truth?”
“Yes.”
With a nod, he angled his chin, scraped away the last of the lather and whiskers. Water splashed. When he looked up, his strong jaw had been rinsed clean.
He turned toward her, not bothering with a towel. A swipe of his hand flicked the soapy water from his chest.
“Here’s my first new promise, then.” He rounded the foot of the bed, untying the front of his trousers as he walked. The thick weave strained across his heavy erection. “Tonight, I’ll have you over and over again.”
Oh, sweet God. Arousal pulsed through her in a thick, liquid beat. She rose up on her knees at the edge of the mattress, waiting for him. “And I’ll finally touch you like I wanted to.”
Passion roughened his voice to a growl. “You’ll get your chance when I’m done.”
All at once, Thom captured her face between his palms, and his mouth slanted over hers for a ravenous taste. With an eager moan, Georgiana wound her arms around his neck, opening to the stroke of his tongue past her lips. The scent of soap and wet, bare skin filled her senses. He clutched her to his chest, the damp linen of her chemise clinging to her breasts.