Free Forbidden by Julia Keaton

her face, mulish and stubborn, and painfully shy and
reaching out, he brushed gentle fingers across the tight space at
the corner of her mouth. As if he could loosen the tension there by
will alone and bring a smile to her face.
    “I have never thought of it quite that
way. You’re a fascinating woman, Miss Holbrooke.” She flushed
again, though there was more pleasure in it this time than
satisfaction.
    Only then did those tight lips relax
into the smile he craved. She angled her chin at him and
challenged, “What of you then, Mr. Burleigh? What does it remind
you of?”
    “Me?” he turned to it and considered.
“My first kiss.”
    She blinked rapidly. “Excuse
me?”
    He looked at her, not in the least
apologetic though a bit wondering. As if he’d realized some
momentous truth that had never occurred to him.
    “The craters in the moon. When I was
thirteen my best friend Danny dared me to kiss this girl, Yasmine,
who tended my family’s gardens with her mother. Her face was so
pockmarked I almost couldn’t do it.”
    As stunned with him as he had been with
her a moment before, she asked, “How did you manage it
then?”
    His grin was blinding and a little
drunken, his eyes clouded as he recalled the event with obvious
relish.
    “Her breasts.” He demonstrated by
cupping his hands out far beyond the muscled planes of his one
chest. “She was a year or two older than me and her breasts were as
big as my head, bigger. Her backside too. Those two things alone
were enough to strengthen my resolve, though God knows why I was so
fascinated with them when I had no idea how to handle it all.” He
fell silent, then said, “Hmm, so I suppose that’s two things the
moon reminds me of then. Yasmine’s face and Yasmine’s ample
backside.”
    Though she knew she shouldn’t, though
she knew it was incredibly inappropriate for him to speak of such
things in front of her, and she really shouldn’t encourage him lest
he become impossible, Jocelyn bent over and began to laugh.
Infectious, bubbling, belly hurting laughter that made her weak.
She thought of her own theory and how ridiculous it was and how Ava
had thrown up on her. Of the two Midshipmen who preened and
strutted but smelled bad and couldn’t keep their food in their
mouths. She thought of her father and the handsome captain who
giggled at their own jokes like children, and all of these things
conspired to render her an intelligible mass of chuckling snorts.
Damon seemed just as amused, if not more by the sounds she was
making and it was as she was gasping for breath that he leaned
forward and kissed her.
    Soft, sweet, and achingly brief, his
lips were gone before she noticed their heat, leaving the salty
taste the ocean spray had blessed him with, to coat her tongue when
it darted out to lick where he’d been.
    She looked up at him to find him
smiling down at her and something dangerous and irreplaceable
fluttered helplessly in her chest.
    “Was your time with me more than
‘adequate’, Miss Holbrooke?”
    Her lips quirked and she held out a
hand for him to lean over and kiss as she corrected him.
    “You may call me Princess or Jocelyn,
just as you have been, Mr. Burleigh. There’s no point in standing
with formalities between us. And yes. I have to say my time with
you has been more than ‘adequate’.”
    He blinked, surprised she’d noticed
that he’d been trying to drop the nickname, as well as his casual
use of her first name, since his loss of control last
night.
    Then shaking his head he ran a hand
through his hair and winked at her.
    “Well that’s a weight of my mind
Princess.”
    “That’s good to know…Damon.”

    * * * *

    One day the call went out for
land.
    Jocelyn was sitting with her back
against the mast, cool and comfortable from the sea breeze and the
shade the sails set up over her face and upper body. Her legs were
stretched out and her skirt bunched up around her knees. Not at all
ladylike, but she was too busy trying to