Free Touch of a Thief by Mia Marlowe

provided enough starlight for him to make out the placement of the table, his swinging hammock and the curved form of the woman on the bunk.
    Viola had turned her face to the wall, a sure sign she didn’t welcome either his attentions or his conversation. He doubted she was asleep, but she didn’t stir as he moved past her to his hammock.
    She’d braided her hair into one long plait. It draped across her pillow and hung off the side of the bunk. He narrowly resisted giving it a playful tug. She wouldn’t appreciate it.
    He stripped out of his clothing. He always slept in the nude and didn’t see the point in altering his habits to please a woman who wouldn’t be pleased no matter what he did. Quinn wrapped his blanket around himself and climbed into the hammock, sighing as it settled into a gentle rocking motion that matched the waves beyond the porthole.
    Still, she said nothing. Didn’t twitch so much as a shoulder blade.
    He wished the sound of her gentle breathing didn’t go straight to his cock. Or maybe it was her scent, warm and clean with an undertone of musk. Perhaps it was that braid swinging in the dark that made his groin ache.
    “A woman can please a man with her hair in a number of ways,” Padmaa had explained as she loosened her long tresses and dragged them over his prone form. The gleaming black hair was like the caress of a thousand tiny fingers on his skin and left a shiver in its wake.
    But Quinn wasn’t thinking about Padmaa’s jet-colored mane. He was imagining Viola’s auburn braid. Undone. Spreading over her shoulders like an autumn mantle. Teasing over his groin. Forming a living tent as she bent to kiss him.
    He ached so badly, he suspected he’d never get to sleep.
    Then he had an idea. For one of his lessons with Padmaa, she made him concentrate on synchronizing his breath with hers to make their connection as effortless as possible. He closed his eyes and listened to Viola’s breathing.
    It was a soft sound. He had to strain to catch it over the shushing of the ocean against the ship’s hull, but he managed. Once he’d isolated the sound, it was a small matter to match his own breathing to it.
    In.
    Out.
    In.
    He settled into her rhythm and closed his eyes.
    Her breasts rose and fell slightly as she sat cross-legged before him. Viola’s eyes were blindfolded so he let his gaze travel over her without fear of censure. He didn’t know why the woman couldn’t understand that just looking at her gave him pleasure. At least he didn’t have to worry about her trying to cover herself since she thought his eyes were shielded, too. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
    Her nipples were the color of a ripe peach and just as luscious. His gaze traveled down her bare body, past her navel to where her yoni was scantily covered with auburn curls. Her slit was pink and glistening. He could smell her, musky and sweet. He ached to rub his face between her thighs, drunk on her scent.
    But it wasn’t time yet.
    “Like this, Quinn?”
    “Exactly,” he said, reminding himself to breathe. That was the whole point. Joined breath led to joined bodies.
    His lingam stood stiff as a pole.
    “Now we match each other, stroke for stroke.” He reached forward, purposely missing the breast that was his goal, and caressed her collarbone instead. “If I use my right hand, you use yours as well so we mirror each other.”
    She reached for him. Her fingertips danced along his sternum and then brushed the hairs whorling around his nipple. He took it as his cue to move down to torment her breast, circling her nipple till gooseflesh rose around it before he took the little bud between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed.
    A small gasp escaped her lips.
    “Did you like that?” He rolled her taut nipple between his fingers.
    “Oh, yes.”
    He dragged his knuckles over that needy flesh. He flicked it with his fingernail. He tugged it gently. She tried to duplicate the motions on him, but her