Free Once a Pirate by Susan Grant Page A

sweetness left on her lips from the sugared coffee she’d sipped earlier.
    She closed her eyes in bliss, drifting between wakefulness and sleep until something solid bumped into her thigh, jolting her back to consciousness. She prayed it wasn’t one of the resident rats.
    Whatever it was poked her leg again, more insistent this time. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she found a tall figure looming over her.
    “Why, Captain, are you the rude individual kicking me?” she asked in a sleep-thickened voice.
    Andrew’s eyes sparked with humor. “I am not kicking you. I merely nudged you with my boot to assure myself that you are alive.”
    “Ah,” she said. “Looking after the cargo.”
    “Aye. It disturbs me to see it lying upon the deck.”
    She gave a soft laugh.
    “And what, may I ask, are you doing?”
    “I was napping until you kick—er, nudged me. Before that I was taking each of my five senses and concentrating on them one at a time. It was lovely. Want to try?”
    “No.”
    She patted the planks next to her. “Come on. You’ll like it.”
    Andrew clasped his hands behind his back and intentionally ignored her invitation. He allowed himself a slow perusal of her long, slender thighs, outlined rather nicely by her ridiculous trousers. Lying in the sunshine, her silvered hair tumbling over her neck and shoulders, Amanda was all mischief and sweetness.Her full lips curved in a smile, and the sun had left behind a hint of pink on her cheeks.
    In the deepest reaches of his soul, he knew the way she would feel in his arms.
    He remembered.
    Yearning swept through him. Not merely arousal, but something else, something more. A basic need that had always eluded him. Had he been another man, perhaps he could have traded his heavy heart for the lightness she seemed to possess. To laugh and talk of whimsical things such as senses, sunshine, and silly tales, to lie next to her and breathe in her scent. To touch her, taste her—
    Blast! She was like a spark in the powder room, and twice as dangerous.
    “Well?” she asked, propping herself on one elbow.
    “I think not, milady. I have no time for frivolous pursuits.”
    She lay back down. “I bet you’re fun when you loosen up.”
    He gave a quick, surprised laugh. She was nothing like the women he had known. His chilliest retort did not intimidate her, nor did anything else he threw her way. He rather enjoyed not having to tread carefully for fear of frightening her.
    “Come inside before twilight, milady,” he said in the sternest tone possible. Then he strode off with one purpose: to put as much distance possible between himself and temptation.
    “See the red . . . duh-ah-guh. Dog.”
    “Good job, kiddo.”
    Theo grinned as Amanda ruffled his hair.
    “Now let’s try this.” She scratched more words onto the slate and propped it on her lap. “Go ahead. Make me proud.”
    Theo drew his finger over the slate.
“That
one I don’t have to sound out.”
    “So what is it, smarty pants?”
    “Pilot.”
    “Very good!”
    Amanda ducked as Theo swerved both hands past her head in what the lad called a mock air battle.
    Andrew chuckled. Observing the lessons was a pleasant addition to his daily routine, and he’d been loath to miss a single one.
    “I’ll be reading the captain’s books next, won’t I?” he heard Theo boast.
    The boy probably would, at that. Any sailor who could read and write was a valuable addition to the crew—there were logs to be kept, ledgers to be gone over. Had anyone told him last summer that the scraggly orphan he’d found on the docks would soon be reading and working with figures, he would not have believed it. It was a pleasure to be proved wrong. Until Theo joined the crew as his cabin boy, there had been nothing but misery in the lad’s short life. And now that Amanda had been taken aboard, the boy had blossomed, thriving on the maternal attention she so generously gave him.
    Lord knows, a boy needs a mother.
    Something deep