Jo Goodman by My Reckless Heart

Author:My Reckless Heart
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-10-26T21:06:17+00:00

Chapter 9

Jonna recovered from her faint as she was being carried to the cabin. Her lashes fluttered once, and she caught a glimpse of Decker's taut and impassive features. "You may put me down," she said.

"I may," he replied easily. "And I may throw you overboard. I'm not yet set on the matter." Seeing Jonna's lips flatten and the appearance of that elusive dimple, Decker smiled for the first time since she had collapsed.

Inside the cabin, he set her on the bed. She tried to sit up immediately, but the pressure of his hand on her shoulder kept her in place. "I assure you, I'm quite all right," she said. Indeed, she was more embarrassed by what had happened than physically discomforted.

Decker was not entirely convinced. He studied her face for a moment and then touched her brow and cheek with the back of his hand. "You're warm." His fingers grazed Jonna's throat. Her pulse was racing. "I think you should rest. There's some good reason why you fainted. You may be sickening."

There was a good reason, she thought. Decker had been dangling upside-down by his ankle twenty feet above her. That sight had been enough to stop the blood flow to her head and buckle her knees. "I don't feel sick," she said. Nothing could induce her to tell him what had gone through her mind before she fainted. He could put any construction he wanted upon her warm cheeks and racing heart as long as he didn't suspect the real cause.

Decker's thumb passed lightly across the hollow of her throat. "What possessed you to go topside?"

The truth served her well enough here. "Boredom mostly," Jonna said. "I can't bear it in this cabin any longer."

Her tolerance for those four walls had exceeded all of Decker's expectations, but something more had prompted her visit. "And what else?" he asked.

"I'm tired of being afraid." She stared him straight in the eye as she said it, daring him to laugh at this confession.

"Ah," he said softly, one brow arched. This was perfectly believable. "So you decided to confront your fear by stepping out on a rolling and pitching deck with no warning to anyone that you were about. You might have pitched yourself right into the Atlantic."

That had occurred to her only belatedly. "I didn't make it even half the distance to the rail. I'm not so brave as you might think."

Decker almost smiled. Failure did not sit well on Jonna's shoulders. "You're fearless to the point of being senseless." This observation was softened by the kiss he placed on her mouth. Her lips parted under his. Her breath was warm and sweet, and he had the sense the kiss was welcomed rather than merely suffered. He was of a mind to linger, to draw out the kiss in the hopes that it would become another and yet another, and eventually something more altogether. He liked the thought of making love to her in the daylight, of being able to see her pale skin made pink by sunshine, of watching her shadowless features respond to pleasure.

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