Free A Woman's Heart by Gael Morrison Page A

With a lighter heart, she stepped down the companionway, halting abruptly on the bottom step.
    A dozen piles of neatly folded baby clothes lay in front of her on the floor. Ruby must have worked like a Trojan to get all that done in the short time she'd been gone.
    Thank you, Jann whispered silently.
    "That didn't take long," Peter drawled, abruptly stepping out from the galley.
    "You're still here," Jann said, stunned. She stumbled down the last step. "Why?"
    "I'm just putting away the dish towels." He held up empty hands. "I'm not making off with the silver."
    "Where's Ruby?"
    "She went home."
    "And left you here alone?"
    "I'm a big boy, Jann." He smiled, looking nothing like a boy, looking only like what he was, a very strong, very sexy, man. "I'm not afraid to stay alone."
    "You know very well what I mean." Then her breath abandoned her chest. "Everything's all right, isn't it? Nothing's happened to the Capt'n?"
    The teasing light left Peter's eyes and he stepped toward her, until he was so close, she gave up any attempt to re-capture her breath.
    "It's all right, Jann," he reassured her. "Nobody's hurt." He frowned. "You're awfully quick to assume the worst."
    Relief rushed through her. "It's usually better to expect the worst than be ambushed by it," she muttered.
    "What's made you so wary?"
    "People like you..." She twisted away, not wanting to seek refuge in his eyes. "...who turn up and expect to get everything they want, even if it's something that belongs to someone else."
    "I don't believe that's the reason." He took hold of her shoulder and pulled her gently around. "Tell me," he demanded again. "Tell me what's hurt you so badly."
    "That's none of your business."
    "Everything about you is my business."
    "Why? So you can hold it against me in court?"
    His eyes flashed dangerously and his grip tightened. A current crackled between them as he pulled her to him. At least it appeared he was pulling her closer. He seemed also to be pushing her away. She felt in limbo. Not closer, not farther, but locked in his arms nonetheless.
    Her lips parted, the tug of war she saw waging in his eyes being also played out in her heart. Desire stabbed her loins, and she pressed her eyes shut, praying for the strength to resist this man, wishing someone, anyone, was there to help.
    But there was no one there. She was on her own.
    As she had been for a long time.
    Peter groaned, as if the final giving in to desire had ruptured the bond between mind and body and the rending had caused him pain. His lips met hers as a moving train meets the air. Exacting, unswerving, relentless, his tongue probed deep, exploring her mouth.
    No matter what her brain demanded, her limbs turned to jelly and her blood to fire. She could no more thrust Peter aside than stop the passage of time. And she admitted reluctantly... she didn't want to.
    His hands spread possessively along her back, caressing and kneading her skin until her nerve endings were ablaze. She flowed toward him like water into a chasm, her warmth seeking his as a moth seeks a flame. Her brain shrieked for release before she became consumed, but even if her body had obeyed, his did not. His hands were like steel draped in silk—soft enough to drive her desires to desperation—strong enough to hold her for all eternity.
    He explored her lips unhindered, trailing kisses across her cheek to her neck. Then she arched backward, helpless with need as his mouth paved a path down her throat to her breasts. Her breathing all but ceased.
    Far away, in the distant recesses of conscious thought, she felt the niggling pull of fear. If her passions raged out of control, she would lose everything.
    Not only her soul, but Alex as well.
    But beyond that lay a deeper fear, that the desire she felt was false, that it would die as it had always done in the past, leaving her cold and untouched.
    She moaned, her lips dry with longing, and her chest heaved, air rushing into where, only an instant before, there