Lord Of The Sea (16 page)

“We can make that happen.”

“And I hope I do you proud as the captain’s lady.”

His hand left the bottle and settled upon her kneecap. “You do me proud already, Rhiannon.”

She could think of nothing but his hand, resting there on her knee. How warm it felt. How large it was. And how it was making the skin tingle all around it.

“I can learn to swim, but I don’t think I’ll ever dare to go aloft, Connor.”

“We all have our limits.”

“I doubt that the word
limits
is one that could ever be applied to you, sir!”

He laughed. “Lots of people are afraid of heights.”

“I’m ashamed of my fear. Especially when I see how freely you live your life. You leap from the rigging and swim in the moonlight and laugh in the face of terrible storms. Your little nephew idolizes you. Your crew, I think, would follow you to the ends of the earth and back. I see you climbing aloft and going so high up that it makes my stomach feel funny just watching you. I would never, not in a million years, dare to do that, and yet there’s a tiny part of me that wishes that I did. That I could.”

He nodded slowly, and his thumb caressed the inside of her knee.

“You have lived a rather sheltered life, haven’t you, Rhiannon?”

“Well, in comparison to you, I suppose I have. This is my first real adventure, you know.”

“And here you got more than you bargained for.”

Oh, his hand there on her thigh was making her feel very strange indeed.

Rhiannon shivered, suddenly.

“Are you cold?”

“No.”

Suddenly shy. Nervous. Unsure. But not cold.

Even so, he shook out one of the blankets that he’d set on the deck and placed it over her legs, and then stuffed a pillow behind them, cushioning their backs against the curve of the gunwale. The pillow was small, too small for a back as broad as her new husband’s, and he was gallantly giving most of the space to her. Growing bolder from the wine, Rhiannon shifted her weight, and leaned against his shoulder instead.

“Ahh,” he said, and pulling his arm free from between their bodies, curved it around her shoulder to draw her close. The weight of his arm was delicious, and she fit against him as though she’d been made to. And he smelled good. Clean, fresh, untamed. Salt wind and shaving soap.

She snuggled a little closer.

This was nice. Very nice.

“I wish I knew the names of all those stars,” she said, resting her cheekbone against his shoulder and turning her gaze skyward. Beyond his handsome profile, the tall spire of the mainmast and the cross-hatched shrouds that supported it made black silhouettes against the vastness of the night sky. “Do you know their names?”

“It’s a mariner’s duty to know them.”

“Connor?”

“Yes, Rhiannon?”

“Will you kiss me?”

He gave a little laugh, pulled his hand free from behind her shoulders, and turning his body slightly so that he was looking down at her, put his fingers beneath her chin.

“I would love to kiss you.”

How beautiful his eyes, crinkling at the corners with laughter, were in the starlight. How long his lashes were, how handsome the cut of his cheek, jaw and chin. He spread his fingers, gently pushed them along one side of her jawbone, and coaxed her to lift her chin.

His mouth was very close.

Rhiannon shut her eyes as he gently touched his lips to hers, his hand still alongside her jaw, his fingers now threading into her hair and holding her head steady. She twisted a bit and pushed herself closer to him, one hand coming up to palm his chest and explore the hard muscles beneath his waistcoat. Of their own accord, her fingers began to unbutton the garment and soon it lay open, only his fine lawn shirt separating her questing hand from the bareness of his chest. The pressure of his mouth against her own grew harder and more insistent, igniting a vortex of sensation between her legs that both thrilled and frightened her, and she felt her breath beginning to come hard as her body responded to him.

Slowly, they each pulled back, neither one ready to break the kiss, his hand still cradling her jaw and cupping the side of her head.

“Oh, my,” Rhiannon said, a little breathlessly.

“That wasn’t so scary, now, was it?”

“No. No, it was . . . quite nice.”

He just smiled, and drew her close yet again.

Their lips met a second time, his growing more insistent, and she felt his breath coming hot against her cheek now as his tongue slipped out to circle her lips, to push inside her mouth and touch and taste her own. She pressed closer to him, feeling odd sensations moving through that private place between her thighs, through her breasts and along the nerve endings of her skin, and needing something she didn’t understand.

And then, as though he could somehow know just what it was she wanted, his hand cupped her breast and his thumb roved gently over the nipple.

Rhiannon gasped into his mouth, suddenly unsure.

He pulled back just the merest fraction, brushing kisses against her cheek, down the  sensitive side of her neck, his teeth gently nibbling at her ear lobe and his thumb, oh, his thumb, brushing over her nipple, over and over again until she thought that part of her was surely on fire.

“Frightened yet, dearest?”

“Only of these sensations I don’t recognize.”

“They are nothing to fear.”

“What . . . what are they?”

“They are what your body does to prepare itself for love,” he murmured, against the hollow of her collarbone. “I have them too.”

“Do you?”

He pulled back then, and caressed her cheek with the rough pad of his thumb. It was impossible not to trust him, not to fall in love with him, when he smiled at her like that. “I would be less than honest if I were to say otherwise.”

“But your body is . . . different than mine.”

Hard where mine is soft. Hairy where mine is smooth. Strong where mine is delicate.

He gently took her hand and guided it to his crotch. “Touch me,” he said quietly.

Fascinated, she stretched her fingers toward his pantaloons. Beneath the warm fabric his flesh was hard and bulging, like it had been that night after their swimming lesson. And after the kiss at Sir Graham’s house.

“See?” he said, gently.

“But why. . . .”

“You really are an innocent, aren’t you?”

She blushed. “I hope that’s not a disappointment to you.”

“It’s a delight. You’re a wonderful gift that has never been opened by anyone else, never been sullied by another, and all mine to enjoy.”

“But, this part of you. . . . Why is it like this sometimes, but not others?”

“Well, when a man desires a woman, nature makes it such that his . . . his, um . . . oh, hell.  That is to say, his—”

She smiled, enjoying his uncharacteristic discomfort and thinking about fists and mittens. “Really, Connor. You’re a sailor. Just say it.”

“His cock responds to her in a way that makes it possible for the man to impregnate the woman. It . . . changes.”

“You’re going to make me pregnant tonight?”

“Do you not want children?”

“Of course I do! Lots of them!”

“Just because we do this—”

“You mean
that
—”

“Doesn’t mean it will result in a child.”

“But you’re saying it might.”

“Yes, it might.”

“I see. May I touch your . . . cock, Connor?” She took a deep breath. “Can I see it?”

He reached down and unbuttoned his pantaloons, and then lay back against the curve of the gunwale, watching her with a little smile.

Shyly, Rhiannon reached out, pulled down the flap front, and touched the warm flesh that was suddenly revealed to her gaze in the starlight shining down from above. She rather wished she’d asked Mira to tell her more, because how could men possess something of this size and keep it safely contained behind fabric, buckskin, leather or silk? Fascinated, she ran her forefinger over the length of this strange part of him, finding it both soft to the touch but hard as rock beneath the velvety skin, warm and rigid and strangely exciting. As she explored the soft, bulbous tip with her fingers, the whole organ seemed to grow even bigger.

Her new husband gave a soft groan, and she saw that he had tilted his head back against the gunwale, his eyes half closed.

“Do you mind that I’m touching you?”

“No, I quite enjoy it,” he said, then sucked in his breath as her fingers circled and squeezed the tip, and then wandered down to explore his testicles in their bed of soft auburn hair.

“Does this hurt, when I do this?”

“No, Rhiannon. But for now, I think you should stop.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to make this last. To make it special for you.”

“What about making it special for
you
?”

“It will be.”

“It’s going to hurt me, isn’t it?”

“Who told you that?”

“I read it in a book that Alannah gave me last night. That it’s very unpleasant for the woman, and the best thing you can do if you’re a woman is just close your eyes and look at cracks in the ceiling until the awful moment is past.”

“Awful moment? Rhiannon, if this is the education you’ve received through reading books, I think you should pursue other hobbies. You’ve been woefully misled.”

“I know . . . your mother set me straight. She said it’s more wonderful than anything I’ll ever feel in my whole entire life.” She swallowed, hard. “But she also said it would hurt. The first time, at least.”

Catching her wrist, he gently guided it away from himself. Then he leaned close, his handsome face blotting out the stars above. “Dearest, the first time it may indeed hurt for just a little bit. But it won’t for long, and I give you my word—indeed, my promise—that you’ll soon forget you ever felt any pain.”

“You promise, Connor?” she said in a little voice.

“My promise.” He reached up and traced her lower lip with his finger. “But you must trust me.”

“I . . . trust you.”

And then he began to kiss her once more, brushing gentle, feathery kisses along her jaw, nibbling at the corner of her mouth, licking at the seam of her lips until she finally opened to him with a little moan and began to boldly kiss him back.

He tasted of wine. She felt his hand in her hair, the thick tresses falling down around her shoulders as one by one, he loosened the pins and allowed her glorious mane to tumble down her back. One of his arms went around her, supporting her, and her world swam as he carefully eased her down upon the blanket. He turned onto his side, propped his head against his hand, and grinned down at her as he spread her hair out on the pillow, running his fingers out over each thick, lustrous hank.

“Comfortable?” he asked softly.

Her eyes very wide, her body throbbing in ways that were making her want to squirm, she nodded up at him.

He reached out and tenderly grazed her forehead with his knuckles, traced a path down the hollow beneath her cheekbone, and let his hand drift down her neck.

Over her collarbone.

And to the bodice of her gown, such thin, helpless protection against a hand that looked so broad and dark and masculine against the pale blue fabric. A hand that could expertly wield both sword and pistol, a hand that had probably killed, a hand that expertly steered this beautiful ship, a hand that knew how to make a woman ache and tingle in ways that were beyond her most fervent imaginings.

A hand that was now tracing the edge of her neckline, following the fabric where it lay against her skin and sending heat radiating out from every place he touched.

Please touch me again, there, Connor.

She only thought the words, but he must surely be connected to her in some mystical way because she only had to think them before those same fingers that were moving along the edge of fabric were dipping beneath it, sliding between gown and chemise and finding the upper curve of one breast. He knew what she wanted, what she craved, what she dared not ask for shame of being thought a strumpet, and she sucked her lower lip between her teeth as his warm, calloused fingers began moving over her nipple, this time with no muslin between them and the burgeoning peak.

“Ohhh,” she said a little breathlessly, and clamped her legs shut against the building ache.

“Awful?” he teased.

“Not yet, Connor.”

“Shall we continue?”

She made a noise that she couldn’t recognize, something between a moan and a reply in the affirmative and closing her eyes, sank back into the pillow. She heard her own breathing growing more labored as he gently rolled her nipple between thumb and forefinger, felt sensations gathering between her clamped legs, felt an alarming wash of wetness down there that was unfamiliar and mortifying and oh, thank goodness that he could not know about
that
—

His lips brushed her nipple, and Rhiannon stopped worrying.

His mouth closed over it, and Rhiannon stopped thinking.

He began to suckle her, and Rhiannon nearly stopped breathing.

Sweet torture. She whimpered deep in the back of her throat and arched upward, unconsciously giving him access to her body, willing him to take more of her breast, now throbbing and tingling as though on fire, up into his mouth. He did, laving the nipple with his tongue, tracing circles around it and finally suckling it hard, pulling it deep, deep up into the hot cavern of his mouth and causing that sensation between her legs to become almost unbearable.

“Ohh, please stop,” she said breathlessly, turning her face away. “I can’t bear this!”

He pulled back, and cool air swept against her nipple where his mouth had left it wet. “Does it hurt?”

“No! Yes! It . . . it feels strange, and I’m afraid.”

The deck moved gently beneath them as the tide began to turn.

“There is nothing to be afraid of, Rhiannon. Can you trust me on that?”

“What is this strange feeling, Connor?”

“It is called desire, my dear. It is perfectly natural.”

She stared up at him.

“Just relax, and enjoy this . . . this adventure.” He smiled down at her, and gently palmed the side of her cheek. “Isn’t that what you’ve been telling me you wanted? An adventure?”