Olivia snapped her mouth shut and waited until he was close enough so she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. It took everything she had to resist touching him, to resist burying her face in his chest and breathing him in. He smelled wonderful, a sun-warmed and salted male in his prime. His hands came toward her, his hot gaze dropping to the exposed curve of her breast.

"Hell's teeth!" he growled as the edge of his blade met his aroused cock. Incredulous, Phoenix looked down at her hand, then again at her face. He released a slow, wary breath. "I wouldn't recommend castrating me, sweetheart. One of your duties, after all, is to bear my heirs."

She inhaled a shuddering breath. "I do not believe for even a moment, Captain, that you are Lord Merrick." But the idea was not distasteful. Romantic notions and girlish fantasies-

Phoenix met both of those and so much more. Her father would never have approved of this man, a pirate worlds apart from the carefully selected earl she'd been told to expect. The pirate would not be to any father's taste, but he suited her secret desire perfectly.

Phoenix's brow arched in sardonic amusement. "But you cannot be certain. Have you ever met your husband?" Her hand shook nervously, and he winced. "Steady, love," he cautioned. "You may one day desire the appendage you are so grievously threatening."

"The only appendage of that nature I'll be desiring is my husband's," she retorted.

She watched his grin come back in full force, revealing a dimple on the left side of his lush mouth. How could a pirate have a dimple?

"I'm relieved to hear that." His voice was deep and seductive, purring like a predatory cat. "I wouldn't be agreeable to an adulterous wife."