Gentle Pirate (23 page)

"That's an issue, thank God, which will never arise," he stated with absolute certainty.

"How do you know that?"

"Because you're mine. I think you've realized that at last, haven't you, little one?" The demand in his words made Kirsten lift her eyes. The look of love and fierce possession in his hazel gaze that met her gray one made her catch her breath.

"Oh, yes, Simon. I know it. I should have known it much earlier!"

"I thought so. Now, why are you trying to find out if I could ever get any more furious than I was tonight?" he queried, refusing to release her gaze.

"Because…" She hesitated, searching for the right way to express her feelings, her knowledge. "Because even when you turned me over your knee, you never really seemed out of control. I know you thought you were at the end of your patience, but I also know you would never have seriously hurt me. Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" She looked at him worriedly. How could she explain that she had known the difference at last between a man who could not handle his own anger and one who could express it forcefully without losing his own self-mastery? Between a man who could desire her and one who could combine that desire with love?

"Kirsten, I could never bring myself to damage, either mentally or physically, my own brave little falcon." he whispered huskily. "But that does not mean I don't intend to keep her chained very closely to my wrist in the future!"

"Am I a falcon now? I'm going to have an identity crisis if this keeps up! I've been a kitten, a butterfly, an owl…"

"Isn't it fortunate that I have a fondness for small creatures?" he asked softly, lowering his mouth to hers in a kiss that seemed to convey the full spectrum of his character. In it Kirsten experienced strength tempered with a gentleness she knew she could trust, a man-sized hunger that she wanted only to assuage and then rekindle, and an unrelenting possessiveness that both thrilled and weakened her in a way she had never known before.

"I think," he announced with a sort of grim determination a moment later, "that I'm going to move up the wedding date!"

"Simon," Kirsten said very seriously, brows coming together in the look that he identified as owlish but which she chose to consider serious, "you must know you don't have to marry me. I mean…" Her voice trailed off rather helplessly and one graceful hand moved slightly to indicate the complete willingness with which she nestled in his arms.

"Don't I?" He grinned wolfishly. "I've got news for you, little one. I won't be able to sleep at night until I know I have you bound to me by all the laws of God and man! I'm much too old to spend my days running after an independent woman who can't be bothered with wedding vows! I find I need the reassurance of my ring on your finger and the knowledge that the world will know you as Mrs. Simon Kendrick. I don't want anyone else to have doubts about who owns you!" He nodded his head wisely. "I think we'll be married in the morning!"

"I won't have time to get tuxedos for my fish!" Kirsten giggled and then smiled. "Besides, I don't see how you could possibly schedule it that quickly. There are such details as blood tests and waiting periods!"

"And there are little things like being within a three-hour drive to the Idaho border where a little town called Coeur d'AIene specializes in reducing the total waiting period to about one hour. Including blood tests!"

"Simon! How do you know about that?" Kirsten stared at him.

"That Coeur d'AIene is to Washington what Reno is to California? I made it my business to find out the most expedient method of getting married shortly after I met you, my love! I knew the day you walked into my office and let me know I could go to hell with your job that I wanted all that fire for myself! I also knew you didn't find the corporate world any more satisfactory than I did. Why do you think I teased you by pointing out the similarities to the military structure?"

"Simon!"

"Then I read your businesslike report justifying a research library for a company that isn't even in a position to provide free coffee to its employees and realized your talents were being wasted. You'll be much better at marketing wine, honey! You're so small and so strong, my little Kirsten, I could hardly believe it! I knew you were fully capable of going through life alone and the knowledge hurt. I wanted to convince you that you needed me. That you could trust me. I was prepared to give you a little time, but when you showed signs of being even slightly interested in someone else besides me, I knew I couldn't wait."

"I am obviously marrying a man of single-minded determination," she marveled.

"I'm pleased you realize it. And since I'm tired of lounging around in damp jeans, I suggest we repair to the bedroom, where I can slip into something comfortable." He grinned with satisfaction.

"A warm robe?" she suggested politely.

"I had in mind a warm bed," he returned casually. "Now, why are you suddenly turning all tense on me?" he asked, setting her gently on her feet and rising to tower over her. "Didn't you know, sweetheart, that I could never let you go to bed without me again?" His eyes darkened with a possessive passion. "If you're thinking that you can put off the moment of belonging to me until you've had another chance to think things through, I've news for you…"

"No, Simon," Kirsten interrupted quickly, her hands moving up to settle on his shoulders, her expression earnest. "I've accepted the fact that I belong to you in a way I've never understood before," she said simply and with such a touching sincerity that he instantly pulled her closer. But Kirsten wedged her hands between them. "That's not an issue in my mind any longer," she continued.

"Then why are you suddenly so nervous, honey?" he pressed determinedly.

"You seem to have known all along that you could make me yours." Kirsten touched a tongue to her lip. "But I… I've never had quite the same feeling about you. Oh, Simon, I couldn't bear it if you didn't need me as much as I need you! I want to know you're mine as much as you know I'm yours!" she finished in a panicked little rush of words. Whirling chaotically in her memory were images of the way she had come to her first marriage, prepared to give and receive affection. But Jim Talbot had been incapable of either and had thrown it all back in her face. Now she was committing herself to an infinitely greater extent to a man who demanded far more of her than Jim had even realized existed. One could forget a man like Talbot; walk away and build a new life. But there would be no easy way to leave Simon behind. She knew it as surely as she knew the sun would rise.

"My little love!" He swept her tightly against him, crushing her so that she couldn't breathe properly. "Don't you know that the reason I must have you is because you are the other half of myself?" Simon groaned.

Her senses swam as he swung her off her feet and headed toward the bedroom. He settled her with infinite gentleness in the middle of the huge bed in the darkened room and stood gazing down at her with such hunger and need flaring in the depths of his eyes that Kirsten reached out a hand to touch him reassuringly, letting her own expressive eyes mirror the love and need welling within herself.

Then, as if he could no longer wait for her, Simon was tugging off the damp jeans, slipping out of the shirt, and unfastening the hook's harness that wrapped around wide shoulders.

"Tonight," he told her deliberately, pulling back the covers, tucking her underneath, and sliding in beside her,

"you'll have no doubts about your ability to satisfy your man. I could have told you from the beginning that the fires are inside you, waiting to burst into flame. But they must flame only for me, little one, only for me!"

Simon's hand reached out to wrap itself in her loosened hair, locking her head still for his kiss.

This was no gentle, exploratory caress. Kirsten was made to know all of his need and power and she felt herself instantly engulfed by it as he didn't seek permission to enter her mouth, but invaded it at once. Her only wish was to please, to satisfy, to give, as she let her emotions run free for the first time with a man. They leaped higher and higher in huge quantum jumps as Simon's hand stroked her whole body through the robe and nightgown from throat to hip, as if satisfying his sense of touch that she was really there beside him. Trembling beneath the strength of his hand, she reached out to explore his massive body, letting the tips of her fingers touch the masculine nipples, follow the line of his rib cage down to the tautness of his flat stomach and beyond.

His mouth broke free of hers with a wrench that left her gasping for air and descended to the hollow of her throat. Her eyes squeezed shut with pleasure as his lips trailed fire down to the edge of the nightgown and then his hand moved to go to work on the buttons of her robe. But now he didn't tease her by deliberately taking his time undoing them. Instead, with fingers that shook with need, he first fumbled with and then gently ripped the fragile material. In a moment she was free of it entirely.

"No more nightgowns or robes in bed, sweetheart," he muttered huskily against the softness of her breast. "I'll keep you warm enough!"

"Yes, Simon," she moaned in response to the heat of his mouth as it enclosed a hardened nipple. "Yes, Simon!" Her hand clenched convulsively around the tough muscle of his buttock and then relaxed to travel up the sinewy back, kneading and probing as it went.

"Touch me, Simon!" Hold me!" Kirsten was barely aware of her own breathless voice murmuring incoherently in the darkness, but Simon reacted to it as if it were another torch being added to his flaming, fiery desire.

"You're mine, little one. Tell me again! I want to hear you say it!" he ordered, moving one heavy thigh over her soft ones and letting the weight of his leg force its way between hers. Instantly Kirsten's moved apart to allow the further invasion. With each new caress, each new inch of her body explored, Simon was seeking more. He gave her no breathing space, no time to relax languidly beneath the waves of feeling, but demanded and pushed and took until she could do nothing else but respond to him in a series of ever deepening surrenders.

"I'm yours, Simon, my love," she whispered softly, wonderingly feeling him stroke the sensitive inner part of her thighs. Higher and higher his hand moved until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt of her readiness to receive him.

"So warm and moist and welcoming you are, sweetheart," he breathed. "I don't know how I ever waited until tonight to make you mine. I should have taken you to bed that first night!" His fingers moved in a delicate pattern to the center of her heated desire and Kirsten flinched in reaction.

"Simon!" she groaned. "Please, please touch me again!" she begged, arching herself against his hand, pleading for more of the strange sensation she had begun to sense would lead to some astounding place.

With a slashing, supremely masculine grin, Simon lifted his head to study her curious, expectant, wide-eyed look. His fingers moved again and he seemed to take great pleasure from the small tremor that shook her. She closed her eyes as a new, even hieher level of need raced through her.

With a hungry growl, Simon rose briefly beside her and then settled himself firmly between her thighs.

"I can't wait any longer, honey," he warned, setting up shock waves that spread out to the tips of Kirsten's fingers.

For a stunned instant Kirsten gasped for air and then she felt him begin to move inside her as his hand sought her breast and his mouth covered hers. It was as if he would absorb her essence into his very being. Kirsten felt as if she were caught up in a huge, irresistible tidal wave that tossed her helplessly, gloriously about in its grip. The powerful, dizzying experience made her cling and cling and cling to the solid man above her who was at once the source of the storm and the only shelter.

Kirsten felt the tremors that Simon initiated begin to grow until they began to block out all other sensation. With a wondering, thrillingly excited sense of discovery, she felt them intensify, knowing only that Simon Kendrick was the amazing cause of all this, wanting to repay him completely in his own coin.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," she repeated over and over in a litany which found an echo in him.

"You're mine, forever, and I love you! God! How I love you!" Simon blazed fiercely, reaching down to lift her hips even more tightly against his.

And then the explosion came for Kirsten. It was all she had ever imagined it could be! A bursting, quaking, uncontrollable release that was made even more incredibly satisfying by the knowledge that Simon had gone over the thrilling edge with her! And then they were falling, falling…

It was a long time before Kirsten could bestir herself sufficiently to uncurl from the warmth of Simon's arms and look up into his face. When she did, she couldn't restrain a rueful grin at the look of sheer masculine contentment and satisfaction etched there.

"How does it feel to belong so completely to a pirate?" he asked with a rich chuckle.

"How did you know I thought of you like that?" Kirsten blinked, surprised. Was the man really a mind reader as he had once claimed?

"It was in your beautiful gray eyes so many times whenever you looked at me. I suppose the hook contributed toward the illusion? And the fact that I'd been a Marine?"

"I don't think it's an illusion!" Kirsten murmured. "You really are a pirate. But it's all right," she assured him seriously. "I always found Captain Hook much more exciting than Peter Pan!"

"You didn't answer my question," he reminded her, probing eyes searching her face.

"About belonging to you? It doesn't appear to be an intellectual decision. It's turning out to be one of those things a woman knows intuitively. But I warn you! I consider you as much my property as you consider me yours!"

"Good!" he announced with great satisfaction and kissed her soundly. "Then I suggest we toast our future. A future in which, no matter what happens, we will allow nothing to come between us!"

"What do you propose to toast this future with?"

"Silly girl," he grinned affectionately, pulling her close. "Come here and I'll show you!"