She flinched when he said she’d exposed him but before her shame or her explanation could find their place in the small cabin he was taking off the ruined shirt and she found her thoughts frozen in place. Bare chested he was even more magnificent, more distracting than just with his shirt parted. She was finding it impossible to think in the face of such taut skin, broad shoulders and clearly defined muscles. What was she to do? 

Ogle, she could do nothing but ogle, damn him. 

Despite her pounding head she followed him with her eyes as he moved to clean the mess he’d made with the ruined shirt. It was the act of cleaning up vomit that pulled her back from her perusal of his very fine bottom and into the moment. She pulled her eyes away from his backside where they fell on the open sketch book not far from where he stooped, a runner of vomit about to reach it where it lay, open to the drawings she’d done of his helpless form.

Merde, she thought and put down her forgotten mug with a thud that made her wince. She stood fast enough to make her head spin and stooped to pick up the book before it was ruined. She pressed it to her chest just as he straightened and tossed the ruined shirt and bandages out the window. 

“I am not gloating.” She said sullenly, and she wasn’t, mostly because she was so focused on not looking at him. Had he been custom made to drive her to distraction? It certainly felt that way, as if god had plucked all that she could not resist from her mind and formed it into the most aggravating man she’d ever encountered. She was just about to point out that she had slurred first, a concession of sorts when he spoke and one little detail she’d forgotten surged to the forefront. 

It was not his shirt that she’d torn off of him in a drunken bit of indulgence, it was the Captain’s. 

“Merde,” she said aloud and slid to the floor in front of him, not even the sight of his luscious chest was enough to distract her from the quandary she faced. She couldn’t just discreetly buy Jax a new shirt avoiding the reason why she had done so. Her pride and her sense of honor were too great for all that she was a disgrace and a pirate to allow her to let him continue to think he was responsible for the shirt, even if it was easier. It seemed her self-indulgence wasn’t something she was going to be able to keep to herself after all. Served her right. 

“Do not worry about it,” she assured him. Wishing she could hold back many of the details of what had transpired. Perhaps he’d just go along with it and not question too far? 

It was Jax, he would ask simply because she wanted him not too. I ruined the shirt.” She confessed, her sweetly grumpy voice murmured softly as she clutched the sketch book to her chest. 

“That was my doing, well not the vomit, but the rest was my doing. I will settle up with the captain.” She added. Thinking to herself, I’ll settle up when I can bear to face him again.