Burning Up

Afraid of hurting him, she grabbed the sheets and twisted, crying out as he pounded into her.
    “This?” Letting go of her hip, he buried his fingers in her hair, as if to anchor her for each heavy stroke. “Is this what you need?”
    Too overwhelmed to speak, Ivy nodded. Then his mouth covered hers, hungry, searching. Her legs wrapping him tight, she found his rhythm and met each powerful lunge. Her breasts swayed with the force of his thrusts, their stiffened tips brushing his chest in a maddening tease. Need spiraled, like a screw turning tighter and tighter with every desperate plunge. Her limbs suddenly locked, her body straining and rigid. His kiss deepened. His mouth caught her cries as she shuddered around him, her inner muscles clenching on his shaft. Then he was pumping into her again, hard and fast, gripping her backside to hold her still. He was finally letting go, Ivy realized, and she moved with him, urged him on until he shoved deep, shaking as he pulsed inside her, groaning against her lips. She clung to him, panting, sweating.
    And decided that she’d liked it, after all.
     
    Unable to sleep, Eben rose long before the end of first watch. He dressed in his breeches and shirt, and crossed the cabin as quietly as his leg would allow. After pouring brandy, he sat at the window and looked out into the dark sky.
    He tried not to think of Ivy. He tried not to think about twenty days from now, when she would leave his ship. He tried not to think about how proving that he was a man of his word meant keeping his word . . . and that meant he had to take her home as he’d promised. He tried not to think about the risk she’d taken by accepting him into her body—not because she believed he’d care for her, but because she would be fine without him.
    In the few minutes that he managed not to think of those things, he drank his brandy, and tried to think of what might persuade Ivy to call Vesuvius her home.
    But there were places Eben didn’t dare let his mind wander, where lurking terrors might rise up and swallow him whole. And so he didn’t let himself think about how Ivy deserved so much more than his ship—and how loving her meant that he might have to let her go.

TEN
    I vy had never taken a bath with a revolver at an arm’s length away before.
    Though if she were to pick at nits, she hadn’t taken that many baths before—at least, not fully submerged as she was now. A cloth and a bowl of water had always sufficed. But this was better.
    With a blissful sigh, she leaned back in the steaming tub, trying to block out the noises from the tavern downstairs. Eben had assured her this Port Fallow inn had the best rooms and food, despite the rough and tumble patrons. Considering that Ivy had never stayed at an inn before, she’d had to take his word for it—and she’d have been happy sleeping in a shanty near the city wall, as long as Eben shared the dirt floor with her.
    She glanced at the gun again, then at the door, solidly locked. Eben hadn’t said whether he’d worried more about the patrons or the odd chance that a zombie might make it over the wall and across Amsterdam’s old canals, but he’d been adamant about keeping the weapon with her at all times. Knowing this city, she had to agree. Though she’d only been here a few weeks before she and Netta had flown north to Fool’s Cove, she’d heard about more murders and theft than over the course of a year in London.
    And within six days, she’d be in Fool’s Cove again.
    A familiar ache settled in her heart—and though she sat in the bath until the water cooled, the pain still hadn’t faded. Every day, it remained for a longer time. She feared that by the time she reached home, the ache would have taken up permanent residence in her chest.
    With a sigh, she left the bath. The blue dress that Netta had made for her hung in the wardrobe. Ivy didn’t know what Eben had planned for the evening, but he’d requested that she wear it. She slipped it over her head, and though it fastened in the back, a design that usually required assistance from a maid—or a friend—Ivy had no trouble bending her arms around and maneuvering the tiny hooks. She looked inside the small bag that Eben had given her before he’d left the room. . . .and had to sit on the bed when her knees went weak.
    Her heart pounding, she withdrew a pair of silk stockings. Her silk stockings, the pair she’d left behind at a London inn, two years before. He’d kept