His Wicked Kiss (39 page)

“Oh, darling,” she murmured sympathetically.

“Ah, but you haven’t heard the best part,” he chided. “Got a bit belligerent at the pub. Every pint I gulped down made me ever more keen for a fight. Chip off the old block, eh? After a few too many, the landlord threw me out, and just my luck, I walked straight into the clutches of the press gang.”

“The press gang!” she cried. “Jack, you were shanghaied?”

“Aye,” he said, chuckling.

“But as an aristocrat—”

“I was drunk. They didn’t believe me when I told them I was the Duke of Hawkscliffe’s son. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“So, what did you do?” she cried.

“There was nothing I could do. They carried me off and signed me up for the navy.”

“Good heavens. How did you fare?”

“Oh, about as well as I had in my brief stint at
Oxford
, dear. For about a month, I put up as much of a fight as I could. Made a point of disobeying every order I was given. Finally, I got tired of being flogged and seized to the shrouds and thrown in the brig, so I quit fighting. I learned how to work, and I learned how to sail.” He ran his hand lovingly along the stout oak planks of his ship as he leaned against the bulkhead. “I daresay it saved my life.”

Eden
regarded him with a tender gaze. “I’m sorry for what you went through, Jack.”

“Don’t be,” he said with a wry smile. “Press gang was the best thing that ever happened to me. If the sun and sea can’t cure a man, nothing will.”

“So, what happened then?”

“By the time the question of my identity was cleared up and they saw I’d been telling the truth about my lofty connections, there were a great many apologies issued. Feeling vindicated, I chose to reenlist for another two years. His Grace of Hawkscliffe, now rather penitent in his illness, offered to buy me a handsome commission, but I refused. I didn’t want any favors from him.”

She studied him, trying to picture Jack all those years ago, young, alone and hurting, angry at the world. “He was awfully hard on you, wasn’t he?” she asked softly.

“He was better to his hunting dogs.”

“A lot of people have failed you.”

He said nothing.

“I’m glad you told me, but all of that is behind you, my darling.” She pushed away from the wall where she was leaning, crossed the short distance between them. “You’ve got me now—” She slipped her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. “And I’m going to give you all the love you can possibly stand.”

“You’re very sweet,” he whispered, resting his hands on her waist.

Eden
stretched up on her tiptoes and gave him a kiss, offering comfort.

Jack lowered his head, happy to accept. With a firm yet gentle touch, he pressed his hand into the small of her back, bringing her closer.

When her body was flush against his—chest to chest, belly to belly, the intoxicating heat of his loins fitted snugly to hers—the reaction was mutual and instantaneous.

Desire bloomed between them there in the hull’s dim twilight, like one of the jungle’s night-blooming flowers.

The tender caress of his mouth upon hers deepened. A wanton sigh escaped her as she shifted restlessly between his legs. He kneaded her shoulders for a moment and then cupped her head with both hands, his fingers invading her neat chignon, and carelessly disheveling it.
Eden
didn’t care.

Clinging to him, she ran her hands through his hair, clutching a handful of it gently to coax him down further to her. He spread his legs wider and slid his back down the wood-planked wall a few inches.

“Come here,” he ordered in a husky whisper, pulling her closer still. She stepped one leg over his angled thigh, forming a closer fit between them in the place where she wished she could have him inside of her now.

He clasped her thigh through her skirts as he went on kissing her in rising passion. Her heart pounded, but the subtle motion of his hips was an invitation her body could not resist. She moved with him in scandalous simulation of the act, but Jack had become increasingly determined.

As she nibbled his lower lip in seductive teasing, he loosened her tight bodice and worked his hand down inside, cupping her breast. She let out a whimper when he gave her nipple a delicate squeeze between his thumb and middle finger.

His smell, his touch, his body against hers was driving her mad. She couldn’t believe she had ever wanted a silly Town dandy in a fancy coat when there were men like this in the world—not many of them, to be sure, but this one was all hers. She stroked his face, his neck, bringing her palm slowly down his chest.

Reaching down between them, her touch sought the hefty length of him through his black trousers. He let out a low, relishing moan and she smiled lustily upon finding him already hard.

She kissed him aggressively, molding her hand along the bulging ridge that she had found.

“You’d better stop that,” he whispered, panting.

“Why?” she asked innocently, squeezing him—hard.

“God.” He closed his eyes and dropped his head back against the planks.

It really was the most intriguing organ. She could feel it throbbing against her palm, and the slightest homage she paid it seemed to give him so much joy.

She brought her lips to his ear: “Remember that thing you did to me?”

“What
thing
?” he asked with a wicked smile, dragging his eyes open. They smoldered with blue flame.

“When you… kissed me. Here.” She took his hand and guided it between her legs. At once, he cupped her mound through her skirts.

“Vividly,” he replied, his fingertip finding her pleasure center with unerring aim through muslin skirts and cotton petticoat. The slight touch made her shudder with bliss in response. “What about it?”

“Can—I be allowed to—do that to you?” she asked, panting.

His eyes widened briefly. “Yes!” he blurted out.

Eden
smiled, her eyes flashing, but when she licked her lips in anticipation and laid hold of his waistband, he shook his head with a low, chiding laugh. “Not here, little wildcat. We’ll get to that some other time.” He captured her wrists and moved her hands up to his neck, giving her a soft kiss. “Right now, I have to be inside you.”

“Right now, Jack?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yes.” He picked her up, carrying her a few feet down the corridor, out of the gloom and into the ray of sunlight beaming in from above. “We’re going to have to do this quickly,” he whispered as he sat her down on a rung of the companionway’s tilted ladder.

Clutching the rung behind her head, she leaned back but didn’t dream of protesting as he lifted her skirts, pausing to play with the ribbon garters that held up her stockings. “Very pretty, Miss Farraday,” he remarked as he stood between her legs.

“Jack?”

“Yes?”

“What if we get caught?” She flinched with a little shiver of delight at his tickling touch above her knee.

“We won’t. Ahh,” he breathed, as his climbing touch glided up to her flowing wetness.

Eden
fixed him in a sultry stare, too hot for him to bother with maidenly embarrassment when he realized just how ready for him she already was. The place between her legs was soaked with want.

“Take me,” she commanded him in a whisper.

Lit up by the single golden sunbeam deep in the underworld gloom belowdecks, Jack stared into her eyes and seemed to realize in that moment how genuine her feelings for him were. Yes, she wanted him, but she was not the sort of girl ever to act on lust alone, and he knew it.

She reached out and took hold of his shirt, pulling him toward her. “I love you, Jack,” she breathed. “Make me one with you again.”

He leaned down to kiss her, unbuttoning the placket of his black breeches. Then he entered her with a groan. “God, Eden.”

She wrapped her legs around him and savored every deep stroke of his wonderful cock. His devouring kisses ravished her mouth.

There were voices from one of the decks well overhead, but instead of deterring either of them, the risk of discovery only spurred on their stealthy lust, making them hurried, panting, frantic for each other.

When one of the voices from above them came too close, Jack lifted her off the ladder, his manhood still buried deep within her. Holding her buttocks in his hands, her skirts spilling over his arms, he carried her back into the darkness, still making love to her on the way.

She hooked her heels behind his back, dazzled and quite crazed by his virtuosity. Rippling muscle, flexing massive biceps, raised her up and down on his slick shaft with ease. His sheer physical power took her breath away, and then he had her right where he wanted her, with her back braced against the wall.

Her feet still couldn’t touch the ground, so she kept her legs wrapped around him, her rear end gripped in his hands. His growl thrilled her; soon she was arching her back while Black-Jack Knight simply had his way with her deep in the lower gun deck, ramming her against the wall with the most delicious barbarity.

“Shh, sweeting,” he whispered, panting. He hushed her with a soft kiss. She hadn’t realized how loud her moans had become—but she noticed her lover had worked up a sweat.

“Oh Jack, you delicious beast, you’re
so
good.”

He smiled modestly at her moan and took a short break, breathing hard. He rested his forehead against hers, as though merely savoring the experience. The way he brushed his face against hers so lovingly reawakened her tenderness amid the storm of passion. She stroked his hair and kissed his cheek gently. She knew now how much this hard man needed her love.

Starting again, he moved much more slowly now, more deliberately, in counterpoint to his wild ferocity of a few moments ago.
Eden
gasped, helplessly; threw her head back and surrendered to him, going weak in his strong, strong arms. As she writhed, each breath ripping from her turned into a bewildering sob; his sweetness had burst a floodgate inside her, releasing a long-buried anguish of such piercing pain that she found herself weeping for reasons she could not begin to explain. Words sounded senseless tumbling from her lips as he kissed the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I found you. I can’t believe I truly found you—Jack.”

“I love you,” he whispered barely audibly, and then he gave himself to her in huge pulsations of pure virility. His kiss was too fierce for her mouth—he bit her shoulder through her dress as he came, just hard enough to let her know that she was his. Shudders racked him. “Oh,
Eden
.” After a long moment, he eased her upward a bit and then withdrew from her body, shaking.

She collapsed against the bulkhead behind her, staring at him while her chest heaved. He dragged himself two steps away, to the other side of the passageway, and leaned heavily against the wall across from her.

He let out a ragged exhalation and slowly raked both hands through his tousled hair.

She ran her hands sensuously down her belly, half imagining she could feel his potent seed sparking life in her womb.

Physically spent, her emotions also felt thoroughly wrung out as she wiped the traces of those strange tears away. “Why did I cry?” she whispered.

“Because you know now you won’t be alone anymore.”

His quiet answer brought fresh tears to her eyes. Maybe her heart had remembered all those times she had climbed to the jungle’s highest treetops and had searched the empty horizon, praying for someone to love.

She had found him now.

“You won’t be alone anymore, either.”

He gave her a smile with such sadness in it, as though he was trying, but could not quite bring himself to believe.

Tra-la!

A distant sound reverberated through the silence at that moment, carrying to
The Winds of Fortune
from over the waves.

Eden
turned her head with a small gasp, listening. “What was that?” She could have sworn it was a hunting horn. Two rich, mellow notes—

Tra-la
! again.

When she glanced at Jack in question, his white teeth flashed in a grin as he hastily tucked in his shirt.

“Sail-ho!” the men shouted abovedecks.

Tra-la!

“What on earth is that sound?” she exclaimed, nervously tying her bodice and trying to smooth her rumpled hair.

“That,” he replied, “is my uncle.”

“Sail-ho!” They could hear Higgins hollering from all the way up in the crow’s nest. “It’s the
Valiant
, lads! Lord Arthur’s come!”

A general cheer arose from the men.

“Sail-ho!”

Hastening to make themselves presentable after their blazing encounter, Jack and Eden hurried up on deck to greet their guest. Flying the company’s colors and insignia, the frigate,
Valiant
, soon anchored at a short hailing distance off the starboard bow.

Jack gave the order for the
Winds
to drop anchor as well, coming to a full stop.

Before long, a mellifluous baritone carried across the waves as the noble old captain of the
Valiant
commanded his crew to lower one of his ship’s boats.