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An Excerpt From: WINDWARRIOR
 Copyright CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 2008.
All Rights Reserved, XXXXXXXX
"Milord, you have no idea what you are doing to me," she whispered. "We should not be doing this. You belong to another." She shook her head. "It isn't right."
Dek reluctantly straightened in his chair, removing his hand from the back of her neck. "Forgive me, tarrishagh," he said. "I let my feelings run away with me."
Her heart was pounding against her ribcage, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Her entire body was alive with a tingling that made her blood race but she pushed the building ardor aside.
"One day," she heard him say. "One day I won't stop."
She nodded for she could do nothing else. She was trembling with her need for him and knew if she were a different woman, she would not have stopped him. She would not be suffering the heavy ache that had settled between her legs. She would have opened her arms and allowed him to do with her as he pleased.
"I imagine we will reach Tarryn by nightfall," he said, picking up his fork again. "I had hoped you would be able to see your cottage as we sailed past."
"That would have been nice," she said. Needing to put some distance between them for her body was on fire with an awareness that was sending tremors through her hands she told him she needed to see to making Jules' poultice and tea.
Dek made no move to stop her when she got up and skirted the table. He sent her a gentle smile as she looked back before going out, sighed as the door closed behind her, and then finished his meal without much enthusiasm now that the light had gone out of the room. He felt worse than he had let on and was now longing for the soft comfort of his bed. The wound in his chest were throbbing, itching as they healed. As soon as he crammed the last piece of toast into his mouth, he was ready for his pillow and blanket.
* * * * *
There was more hustle and bustle now that it was full light and the deckhands were busy with their routine jobs. She was delighted to see the prisoners—although restrained with shackles that laced them together—were being allowed the blessing of fresh air instead of being stuck in the hole all the way to Tarryn. The men gave her hard looks then pointedly turned away, leaving no doubt in her mind how they felt about her fraternizing with the enemy.
Going back to the rail at which she'd stood earlier that morning, she leaned her elbows on the teak rail and looked down at the waves flowing past the keel of the ship. The air was warmer the further south the ship sailed and the wind had calmed to a bluster instead of the brisk icy snap it had been the first time she'd come atop. Above her the sun was trying to peek through scudding clouds and she turned her face to its warmth, closing her eyes to feel the play of the wind across her cheeks. A slight spray of water shot up from the waves to surprise her. She flinched then a very vivid memory of the dream she'd had just before she'd risen came back to haunt her and make her body clench once more with need. She turned her head toward the companionway and wondered if perhaps Dek was dreaming, broadcasting his dream for her to share.
"Not only evil but insidiously so," she whispered but turned back to stare out across the heaving ocean, letting her thoughts center on the dream.
He had been no gentle lover this time but a demanding, insatiable one. His hands had roamed eagerly at her breast, between her legs. His hard body had entered hers on a firm, power-filled thrust that had her writhing beneath him, locking him to her with her legs and arms tightly clamped around him. He had rode her hard and given her more pleasure than any woman had the right to know, all the while calling her his love, his lady, his tarrishagh. They had climaxed together with wild cries of abandon then lain depleted in each other's arms.
"I will come to you every night," he told her. "Every night in our dreams until the day comes when it will be as it should with us."
Opening her eyes, Maire no longer saw the undulating rise and fall of the ocean over which the ship was passing. She did not smell the salt air or hear the raucous cries of the sailors as they worked. Her mind's eye was on that underground grotto behind the jungle waterfall where the scent of gardenia was thick on the humid air, on the soft sand where she had lain with her phantom lover, on the promises he had made to her as he'd fused his body and soul with hers and knew she'd never be the same again.
"I am falling in love with him," she said and that thought filled her with anxiety. After all, he was the infamous Black Baron, the scourge of her people, the man responsible for the agonized deaths of many of her countrymen. But he was also the man who had taken her maidenhead and who now claimed her for his own, who promised her a new life in a new land. There was but one major obstacle and that was the woman to whom he was legally married.
A shudder ran through Maire. If she were to believe Dek, there was no love lost between him and his wife and Guy had said the same thing. It had not been a marriage either of them had wanted and both had been trapped in a loveless, childless union that supposedly made them both miserable. But was that true? Did Ynez Yn Baase hate her husband as Dek had said or was she the type of woman who would fight to hold onto him when she learned he had found someone he loved?
"What if she won't let him go?" she whispered. "Out of spite or pride?"
The thought didn't bear entertaining for her whole life was being wrapped up in the stuff of Deklyn Yn Baase's dreams. Not that she believed he would allow anyone to hurt her but if after these nighttime excursions into wild passion she had nothing to look forward to…
Another shudder wracked her and she turned from the rail, wrapping her arms around her to hold at bay the chill that had suddenly descended upon her, leaning against it to watch the sailors going about their duties. Anything was better than allowing her mind to dwell on the what ifs that were suddenly plaguing her.
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