Nick saw Luigi gesture acknowledgment of Nick’s request for tea, and headed for his cabin while Miss Chase and Smitty went to the slop chest to return their costumes.
Nick eyed the coiled-up hammock just inside his door. Would he finally get to sleep in it again tonight? Two nights in Norton’s cabin was too long. The hammock in the surgery was just as comfortable, but too far from Miss Chase.
For her safety, he told himself, calling himself a liar in the next breath.
He didn’t have long to stew as Miss Chase appeared within moments, dragging her fingers through her hair, undoing the haphazard chignon she’d put it in under the bonnet. He’d done a double take upon seeing her dressed like a lady, so used to her in dungarees and waistcoat, and now she was dressed like a deckhand again. Except her long, light brown hair flowed loose over her shoulders, still wavy from so much time spent in a braid.
The dichotomy was enough to make Nick’s head swim.
Flynn knocked and then at Nick’s bark to come in, set a tray on the table, laden with biscuits, fresh fruit, and jerked boar in addition to the tea things. “Luigi figured as how you might be a tad peckish, Cap’n,” he said, clearly addressing Miss Chase.
“Thank you, Flynn,” she replied, color flooding her cheeks. “And tell Luigi grazie.”
Flynn tugged his forelock, turned to Nick and did it again, and closed the door as he left.
Miss Chase didn’t sit down. Instead she fished the leather cord out of her waistcoat pocket and grabbed her brush from her portmanteau, then moved over to Nick’s desk, away from the food, and began brushing her wayward locks.
Nick bit into a piece of meat to distract himself from the act of intimate domesticity going on four steps away.
“How far in advance of Ruford do you think we’ll reach Porto?”
He slowly tipped his head from one side to the other, indicating he was giving it great consideration, while he chewed and swallowed. “About a day, if we’re lucky.” He finally dared look at her. “Maybe less,” is what he intended to say but it came out as a croak. She was working on a knot, her brow furrowed. What clenched his gut and sent blood singing through his veins was the tip of her pink tongue just poking out between her lips. Her luscious, berry-colored lips. Were they chapped? In his shaving kit, he had small tins of a beeswax and African shea butter concoction that he applied to protect his lips from chapping. Wonder what it would taste like on her lips?
He must have made some other sound because she suddenly looked up at him, the tip of her tongue still visible.
He cleared his throat. “May I?” Before his brain caught up with his body’s intent, he’d crossed the few steps separating them and held his hand out for the brush.
She slowly raised her hand, as if not sure why she was doing so, and gave him the brush. She licked her lips, and her tongue disappeared.
He took a quick breath and stepped behind her, putting her tongue and mouth out of his mind.
Right. Tell yourself another one, boyo.
He gathered her wind-mussed hair in his hands, gently collecting the strands and pulling the length back over her shoulders, his fingers brushing the side of her neck. He wasn’t sure her sharp intake of breath was related to him touching her so he causally did it again, just checking there were no loose strands left around her face, a slow stroke of his fingertips on her neck, from just below her jaw all the way around to her nape.
Her breath definitely hitched.
Nick filed the information away for later.
He started brushing at the bottom of her hair, below her shoulder blades, working in small sections, barely moving an inch or two higher at a time. Slow, steady strokes. When he encountered a knot, he held her hair so as not to pull on her scalp, and gently worked it free.
One small section done, smooth all the way to her scalp, he pushed it in front of her right shoulder and started on the next section.
“Do you do this often?”
Nick paused in lifting the brush for another stroke.
“Have someone else pretend to be captain, that is.”
Nick resumed brushing. “It’s come in handy now and then. We saw French navy near Singhapura, so we had Captain Chang for a day. Luigi was captain when we were off Sicily once.” He stroked from the crown of her head all the way down to the end of her hair. “Did you enjoy it?”
She hummed.
He gave another long, slow stroke, crown to tip.
She took a deep breath, which enabled Nick from his height and close proximity to notice that she’d missed tightening the strings on her shirt, where the lace had been tucked in. A patch of creamy skin was briefly visible in the gap, a hint of the top curve of her breast. “It was an experience I’m glad to have had,” she said thoughtfully, “and happy to give Jonesy back the helm with the watch change.”
It took Nick several heartbeats to remember what she was talking about. He dragged his attention away from her chest and back to her hair, which now softly reflected the lamplight, and resumed brushing.
