Free So Silver Bright by Lisa Mantchev

so I don’t look like him!” The second bit slipped out before she could stop it, and Bertie contemplated banging her head into the sturdy wooden door until she passed out, if only to save herself further embarrassment.
    First things first. I have to get out of this ridiculous dress.
    Swearing under her breath, Bertie wrestled the garment off. It would have been satisfying to jump up and down upon it, but there was no time for such childish indulgences now, so she settled for flinging it out the door. The silk chiffon drifted away, disappearing like mist on a sunny morning. The only trouble with such a dramatic gesture was that it afforded Nate an unhindered view of her standing in the doorway wearing only her undergarments.
    Rather than ducking his head and swearing, as he might have only a short time ago, he caught the dress in one deft hand and headed up the stairs after her. “Ye weren’t serious about yer hair, were ye?”
    “No. At least, I don’t think so. I can’t be certain about anything just at the moment.” Dragging out the nearest trunk, Bertie set to rummaging, as much for something suitable for road travel as for the opportunity to hide her expression from him. Her jeans sat atop a jumble of velvets and satins; once in them, she felt a bit more herself. The soft crimson pullover added another layer of comfort, as did the hood. Twisting the strands of Arctic Tempest out of her face, Bertie gripped the impromptu chignon and went in search of hair combs.
    “I’m already gettin’ used to it.” Reaching up, Nate coerced Bertie’s fingers into loosing her hair. Then, as though it reeled him in, he lowered his head a few inches to inhale the exotic scent of the bathhouse soaps that lingered, even after Sedna’s saltwater assault. “Ye smell like th’ ocean. An’ dessert … orange, mint, a bit of vanilla.”
    Bertie’s mouth dried up, wondering what her expression would reveal now that she couldn’t hide anything from him, but it was Nate who surprised her again when his lips grazed the side of her neck, his breath wreaking soft havoc upon her ear.
    “What would ha’e happened already if he hadn’t come between us?”

CHAPTER SIX
     
I Must Attend Her Majesty’s Command
     
    Bertie almost choked on the thought. “My guess is ‘nothing much.’ You’ve an unusual sense of propriety for a pirate.” She would have pulled away, except Nate’s massive arms had shifted so that the left encircled her back and the right cradled the base of her neck; she was well-trapped, and she could hardly breathe for the realization.
    “Mayhap ye carved my propriety from my flesh wi’ yer arrow.” His body was like a bow tightly strung and drawn. The smallest shift in his weight lifted Bertie onto her yet-bare tiptoes, and gentle leverage tilted her head back.
    There were protests to be made—Bertie hadn’t meant to shoot him when she’d thought she was the Forest Queen, Sedna was on the rampage, Her Gracious Majesty had summoned the troupe—but traitorous lips formed the query “Why don’t you shut your piehole and kiss me?” instead.
    The invitation, once issued, would not be rescinded. The truth of the matter was that she wanted him to kiss her, that she welcomed the rough feel of his mouth against hers and the light scrape of teeth and the way his arms tightened about her in a vise. She couldn’t be swept away by the tides, not while he held her; there was no safer feeling in all the world, and she fell into it headlong, like Alice down the rabbit hole.
    By the time Nate was done drowning himself in her, neither of them could breathe properly. The darkness inside the caravan wrapped them in black velvet curtains, the air as thick about them as that of a long-sealed tomb. Bertie had her hands clenched in his shirt, and her breath came in tiny pants; perhaps oxygen deprivation explained the next conversational jewel that dropped from her mouth.
    “I want to be with you, but you are a pirate, which