Chapter Nineteen #2
“I’m sorry for not recognizing just how different our lives are,” Michael said quietly.
He took another step forward and this time, Phylis did not retreat, her breath tight, her whole focus attuned to his gaze.
“I’m sorry for trying to ignore the challenges that lay between us.
I’m sorry for not talking about this with you—for rushing forward, for ignoring the fact that you have responsibilities here. ”
He gestured around the ship and Phylis’s pulse skipped a beat.
They were the words she had not expected but had longed to hear. The knowledge that he actually realized how he had hurt her…and that he was sorry to do so.
Phylis swallowed. “That… That’s—”
“And I’m sorry I didn’t fight for you,” continued Michael, his voice low now, but as he was standing so close to her, it didn’t matter. “I’m sorry you left before knowing just how much I adore you.”
Her lungs became taut and she could not take in air, but that did not matter because she was breathing in Michael.
And all she needed was him.
“I’m sorry I didn’t work harder to find a way for us to be together,” Michael said softly, lifting a hand to caress her cheek. “I’m sorry you ever had to wonder, for one second, if you were worth chasing after. Because you are.”
“Michael,” Phylis breathed, hardly sure what she was going to say next.
She didn’t need to wonder. The instant his lips touched hers, there was no need for words.
His lips were powerful yet restrained, so restrained that Phylis realized he needed her to respond, to know that she wanted this kiss just as much as she did.
So when she threw her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, parting her lips to welcome in the only man she had ever desired, the growl of want that roared through Michael was enough to make her quiver in his arms.
“Phylis,” he murmured, pressing kisses down her neck before returning to ravish her lips.
She had intended to murmur his name in return—but how could she when his tongue was trailing sparking flickers of ecstasy in her mouth, her breasts pushed up against him and her thighs quivering as molten heat pooled between them?
Eventually, the kiss ended, but Phylis remained tight in Michael’s embrace, pressing her forehead to his as she breathed him in.
He was here. He was here, and he wanted her—needed her, she could tell that now.
And he wanted to make this work.
But then reality intruded, a crashing sense of impossibility that made Phylis blink back sudden tears.
“Phylis?” He had noticed, damn him. “Phylis, what’s wrong?”
“It—It can’t work. This. You and me, I mean,” she whispered, hating that she had to be the one to be the realistic. But of course she did; the man was a dreamer, and she loved that about him. But he had to see, didn’t he? “We’re too different.”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, eyes sparkling, “I think we found enough common ground in your bed—”
“I am serious, Michael!”
The light in Michael’s eyes danced. “So am I!”
It would have been so much easier to argue with the man if he weren’t so handsome. “You’re a landlubber, and I live on the ocean—”
“I’ll go where you go,” he said lightly.
What nonsense the man spoke, even if it was delightful nonsense.
“You’re a viscount or you soon will be—”
“It has been known,” interrupted the dashing man with a winning smile, “for a viscount to associate with non-viscounts!”
Honestly, the man was impossible! “You want to immigrate—”
“What I want,” Michael said calmly, a weighty certainty in every syllable, “is you, Phylis. You. Nothing else, nothing more, nothing beyond that or different to that. I want you and if I cannot have you—”
“Oh, you can have me,” Phylis muttered, knowing full well she could not deny this man anything.
Michael’s grin warmed. “Then that’s all that matters.
I want to spend the rest of my life adoring you, Phylis Seaton, if you’ll let me.
I’ll probably spend the rest of my life adoring you from afar if you don’t let me.
You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I cannot—I will not countenance you leaving my presence not knowing that. ”
Oh, this man. This impossible, idiotic, wonderful man.
Phylis had never imagined that there could be someone like this. Someone who would not see past the captain’s title, but see her with it. Admire her for her expertise and wish to know her, as he did.
As her Michael did.
“You,” Phylis whispered as the Dreamer continued on, cutting through the waves, the few crew left on deck giving the pair as much space and quiet as possible, “are my anchor.”
Quite unexpectedly, Michael released her. It was like losing all air, or finding one’s ship beached, to lose his arms around her and his comforting strength enclosing her.
“I’m a what?” he said, horror in his voice and a furrow across his brow.
“My anchor,” Phylis began, but she was unable to continue because Michael was shaking his head and speaking rapidly.
“Phylis, I—I’m so sorry. I never intended to be… I know how you feel about anchors, about how they drag you down, force you to stay in one place. Oh, God, it was never my intention to—”
Phylis could think of about six different curses that would halt the man in his tracks due to pure shock, and she could think of two statements she could make that would render the man utterly speechless.
She did not bother with them. She kissed him instead.
Michael accepted the kiss without question, his hands clasping her waist and holding her tight even as his hips pinned her against the balustrade.
Phylis could sense, somewhere in the dazzling twist of sensuous heat and need, that a certain thick manhood was pressed up against her solar plexus, and her body quivered at the expectation of ecstasy.
When the kiss finally ended, she said swiftly, “An anchor doesn’t just keep you somewhere, Michael. I mean, it does, but it also keeps you somewhere safe. Somewhere grounded, somewhere certain. And you know the most important thing about an anchor?”
Michael shook his head, his eyes glazed with desire.
Phylis batted her eyelashes. “It’s only the captain who gets to decide where you weigh anchor. It’s my decision, to…to love you. My decision to make you my safe place. My decision that I want to be with you, Michael, I—I can’t imagine being without you.”
“But you left—”
“Because I felt like I had no choice,” she said ruefully, wondering what would have happened if she had marched over to the Chance household and demanded to see him. “I was afraid, and I was scared, and I ran. And you… You ran after me.”
Michael’s handsome face split into a grin. “Of course I did. I can’t live without you, Phylis. I won’t.”
Joy was rising within Phylis and she knew nothing could keep them apart… Nothing.
“You are impossible, you know,” she said conversationally, pulling herself from his embrace with great reluctance. “And I’m going to have to punish you in some way.”
“‘Pun—Punish’ me?” came Michael’s astonished voice from behind her. “Why the hell would you need to do that?”
“Oh, you know how it is,” Phylis said as nonchalantly as possible, stifling her giggles and leaning out across the balustrade out onto the sea. “You are a stowaway, after all. A stowaway can’t be allowed to get away with such things. It’ll set a bad precedent for the rest of the crew.”
Michael’s arms encircled her, and he pressed a kiss onto her temple as he leaned out too, capturing her in his arms as the pair of them looked out over the torrid waters. “I suppose that’s fair.”
“And I can think of a number of punishments that might suffice,” Phylis said lightly, trying not to think of bedlinens and writhing bodies and panting moans in the night air.
His low chuckle thrummed through her. “I bet you can.”
“And as your captain, I am going to expect some level of respect,” she said sternly. “After all—Michael!”
He had spun her around so that she was facing him once again, and the look of commanding power in his eyes was enough to make her weak at the knees. “You frothy mixture of flotsam and—”
“Michael!” Phylis gasped, splaying her palms against his chest and reveling in the strength she felt beneath them. “I’ve never heard you speak that way!”
“Good. Because you’re going to get many, many opportunities to hear me expand and extend my vocabulary.
” The man she adored grinned. “Because I am going to spend the rest of my life with you, Captain Phylis Seaton. And unless you really are going to throw me overboard, I suggest you start getting accustomed to it.”
Phylis sank into his kiss and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she would never get accustomed to such a man.
But she was willing to try.