Master of Seduction (20 page)

But it hadn’t. It hadn’t accomplished anything except make him hate himself for what he’d done to her.

And for what? For vengeance?

For…

For himself.

He sank down under the shelter of the railings and hung his head in his hands. He was no better than those craven bastards who bid on the young girls who had first come to the bordello.

How many times had he listened to those girls cry over the deed and complain about the pain? ’Twas why he always avoided virgins. He had never wanted to prey on innocence. Never hear a woman cry because of something he did to her.

“Jack?”

He looked up to see Lorelei standing in the moonlight. Her hair was down around her shoulders and her pale gown shimmered. She looked like an angel and it took all his control not to cross himself.

Why had she come to him?

No doubt she hated him, and he deserved her hatred.

But the worst part of all was that he still wanted her. Even after having her, he wasn’t satisfied. His body was already stirring again.

“Why did you come out here?” he asked.

“I was worried about you.”

He snorted at the very idea.

She knelt down beside him and brushed his hair back from his face. He stared at her, amazed that she showed him such tenderness. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had touched him that way.

He leaned his head into her palm, relishing the soft feel of her skin against the stubble of his cheek.

If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was someone else. That he was…

But he wasn’t someone else. He was Jack Rhys. Pirate. Murderer. Purveyor of sin and of death.

He could offer her nothing.

Not even himself.

“I wish you’d talk to me,” she breathed. “Tell me why you look so troubled.”

He laughed bitterly. “You sound like Morgan now.”

“The man who’s following us?”

He nodded. “You sort of met him the night I kidnapped you. He was the one who tried to talk reason into me.” Leaning his head back, he stared up at the stars. “I should have listened to him.”

She dropped her hand to his shoulder as she sat down by his side. “Jack,” she said, her tone chiding. “I had a choice in the matter.”

“No, you didn’t. You were innocent and curious and I preyed on you.”

Silence hung between them for several seconds, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and held an amazed tone to it. “So, you do have a conscience after all.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” He looked at her and saw the tender look in her eyes. The tender look he didn’t deserve.

’Twas her hatred he deserved, not her comfort.

She reached down and took his hand into her own. “A few weeks ago perhaps,” she said, lacing her fingers with his. “But it’s not so amazing now.”

“Oh, God, Lorelei, you don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand. “You don’t know me. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be me.”

“I would like to try.”

And for the first time in his life, he wanted to talk to someone. To tell her what was inside him and have her soothe it. Could she?

Trust no one at your back unless you want a knife in it
. ’Twas the pirate’s first code and a lesson he’d learned firsthand. He’d never even trusted Morgan to that degree. But in spite of his arguments, he wanted to trust her.

Without thinking, he reached out and drew her into his arms. He held her between his knees, her back to his chest. Inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, he leaned his cheek against her head and curled his left arm about her.

Lorelei closed her eyes at the tenderness of his embrace, praying that this one time he would actually open himself to her. Patiently, she waited.

When he spoke, his voice was nothing more than a whisper. “I never wanted to be a captain, Lorelei.”

She opened her eyes, but resisted the urge to turn and look at him. “Then why did you?”

“After Robert Dreck retired, his crew voted me into the position.”

“But you seem to enjoy the position and you do it very well.”

“Perhaps. But I was quite happy being a boatswain.”

“Then why didn’t you decline?”

“That is easier said than done. I’d led the crew to victory several times when Robert was injured and they probably would have gutted me had I refused.”

She cringed at the thought. “How terrible.”

“Pirates generally are.”

She relaxed against his shoulder and inhaled the sweet scent that was Jack. “Not you,” she breathed.

“Now you’re deluding yourself,” he said with a hard edge to his voice. “I assure you I well earned my reputation.”

This time she did yield to the impulse to face him. “No, you didn’t. I saw the entries in your log. You paid men to tell those stories.”

He shook his head. “I’ve done that as well. But I’ve also committed a lot of crimes in my day, including murder.”

L
orelei pulled back from Jack, aghast at his confession. Could the man holding her so tenderly really be capable of murder? True, he was a pirate who’d been rumored to have killed hundreds in cold blood, but that was a legend. Surely the man she’d come to know would never do something so horrendous. Not without good cause, anyway.

“You killed someone in cold blood?” she asked bluntly.

His face betrayed nothing of his feelings or thoughts. He nodded.

“Why?”

Jack looked away and now she saw the sadness and remorse inside him. “He killed my mother.” His voice was empty. He stated it like some simple, innocuous fact.

“What happened?” she asked, wanting to understand.

Jack sighed and leaned his head back. She could sense he wanted to withdraw from her, to speak no more about a subject that was so close to him.

She waited patiently, hoping he would learn to trust her with the truth.

To her amazement, Jack repaid her patience. “He owned the bordello where my mother worked. When I was eight, she sold me to him for the price of a new pair of shoes, then ran off with some sailor.”

Even though he didn’t move, raw emotion seemed to bleed from every pore of his skin. Lorelei closed her eyes in sympathetic pain. No doubt he’d carried that secret all these years.

She couldn’t imagine the callousness it would take for a mother to not only abandon her child, but to sell him on top of it. What other horrors must there be within him?

“Four years later,” he continued, “she returned. Baxter took her back in, but by then the years had taken a terrible toll on her beauty. She was so pock-marked and scrawny that no one wanted her. One night when she failed to…” His voice trailed off and he shifted his gaze to the side of the ship.

Jack’s stern face showed the strain of a man who had seen hell firsthand and had barely lived to make it back to earth. “She hadn’t earned any money that night. In a rage, Baxter killed her for it.”

Dear Lord, what horrible things he’d seen. Horrible, dreadful things he must have known. And then to have his own mother murdered by the man who owned him….

She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

“You killed him afterward?” she asked, jumping to the most logical conclusion.

Jack shook his head. “I was too afraid of him at the time. All I did was carry her body outside and bury her in the tiny plot reserved for dead prostitutes.”

Her stomach wrenched at the thought as a vivid image played through her mind.

“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his face. “I’m so sorry.”

Tears welled in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. “Don’t be. I survived it, which is more than I can say for my mother.”

Had he? His body had survived, but not his heart. His mother and what she’d done to him had torn that from him long ago, and Lorelei wondered if anything could revive it.

They were quiet for a little while as Lorelei sifted through her tangled emotions and the awfulness of his past. There was still one question she had, and though part of her didn’t want it answered, she felt she needed to know. “When did you kill Baxter?”

He rubbed his hand over his chin, then brushed the stray tendrils of her hair down her back.

“Two years later,” he said simply. “I was cleaning out the chamber pots when a young girl was delivered to Baxter. She was probably no older than twelve, and he took her into the room where he inspected his new
merchandise
.” Jack curled his lip at the word. “I could hear her screaming and begging for his mercy. He just laughed like the evil bastard he was, and then I heard him start slapping her.”

Anger and hatred flared in his eyes, and she could feel the agony of his memories.

“Something inside me unfurled,” he whispered. “And when next I came to my senses, he was lying dead at my feet and I was covered in his blood with a dagger in my fist. The girl started screaming again, and I ran off and jumped aboard the first ship I reached.”

She could see the scene so plainly, imagine the terror Jack must have known as a young boy. Still, it wasn’t cold-blooded murder. It was wholly justifiable.

“That’s not murder, Jack. You saved that girl.”

His eyes turned dull and he yielded a heavy sigh as if somehow resigned to his fate. “I was a slave who killed his master. There’s not a court on this earth that would spare me for the crime.”

Her throat tightened as the truth dawned on her. He was right. Though it was wrong, in the eyes of the world, he would be considered a murderer.

But he would never be such to her. She knew him better than that.

Lorelei laced her fingers with his.

Jack gave a light squeeze, then brought her hand up to his lips where he placed a gentle kiss on the back of her fingers. “You’ve no idea how many women I saw ruined by men like Baxter, men like my father.”

He frowned as he stared down at her and again she saw the raw pain on his face. “And tonight I realized for the first time that I’m no better than any one of them.”

“That’s not true,” she insisted.

“Isn’t it? We both know I ruined you tonight. Justin won’t have you when he finds out.”

Chewing her bottom lip, she diverted her gaze to the deck of the ship. That was one part of all this she wasn’t looking forward to. How on earth could she confide such a thing to Justin? It would devastate him.

“He certainly won’t be pleased,” she agreed.

“You’re so naive.”

“Perhaps, but I’ve known Justin all my life. He’s a good man and he will still honor me.”

Jack tensed and malice shone in his eyes. “You still plan to marry him?”

She fell silent as she thought the answer over. Marrying Justin would probably be the wisest course of action. No one would ever dare shun her so long as she was his wife. Nor would they openly torment her.

But that wouldn’t be fair to Justin. Nor to her. Her loyalties now lay somewhere else.

“No,” she said at last. “I can’t marry him now. He’ll no doubt argue the point, taking the blame for it all upon his own shoulders.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

“You needn’t doubt it,” she said, sitting up and taking offense at his slander of Justin. “He will blame it all on his scheme gone awry.”

Still, disbelief showed on his face. Lorelei wished she could convince him of the truth, but he wasn’t about to listen to her. She’d learned that much about him over the last few weeks. Once he got that look, there was nothing that could sway Jack Rhys’s point of view.

“So then,” he asked. “What’s to become of you?”

“Don’t worry about me.” She smiled at him, certain of her words. “I have a father who loves me, and whatever scandal comes of this, I shall survive it.”

Sighing, he looked up at the stars as if exasperated by her. “If you only knew how many strong women I’ve seen broken. I was
so
wrong to take you.”

And it was then Lorelei made a dreadful, frightening discovery.

She was in love with Black Jack Rhys. Completely, utterly head over hills for the pirate.

The thought terrified her, and yet sitting in the moonlight listening to him spill his soul to her, how could she not love him?

In spite of whatever crimes he’d committed, he had a good heart. A generous heart. He cared for her and he was sorry for his actions.

But with the thought came a new fear. Could he ever love her back?

Could someone who had known such atrocities in his life ever accept what she wanted to give him?

She vowed to find some way to reach him. There had to be a way to make him see reason, to make him realize that he could be loved, that she could and did love him.

She leaned her head against his knee and thought over what he’d told her tonight. His words drifted over her, until one part in particular stood out.

She sat up with a gasp. “You know who your father is?”

He looked startled. “What?”

“You said your mother was ruined by men like your father. How would you know that?”

He shifted his gaze to the deck and tensed all around her. “She told me so.”

She tilted her head suspiciously as every instinct in her body told her he was hedging. “And she told you who your father was.”

He had that look in his eyes like he wanted to run again. She prepared herself to grab him if he did.

Instead, he answered. “Yes, I know who he is.”

Her mouth dropped. Even though she’d guessed the truth, hearing it spoken aloud still left her shocked.

Completely baffled, she stared at him. “Then why didn’t you go to him for protection after your mother’s death?”

“I didn’t have to,” he said blandly. “He showed up at the bordello one night not long after she died.”

Lorelei frowned. It didn’t make any sense. “He came to get you?”

Jack snorted. “He had no idea I was there, but I knew him on sight. How can you forget the face of a man you once worshipped? Someone who was the night and day to you. A man you wanted to be just like when you grew up.”

No
! Now the full tragedy of his life hit her. He’d once cared for his own father as much as she cared for hers. But something had happened. Something had destroyed their loving bond.

“What did he do?” she asked.

His gaze hardened. “I begged him for a guinea to buy my freedom.”

“And?”

“He told me to leave him alone.”

“Oh no, Jack,” she gasped. “He didn’t.”

“Aye, and when I went down on my hands and knees to beg him for it, he kicked me like I was a dog trying to piss on his boots.”

Tears choked her. There was so much pain in his eyes that it took her breath. Dear heaven, no wonder he was so hard to reach. She couldn’t imagine anyone treating a child like that, let alone having to live through something so horrendous.

She blinked away her tears, knowing they wouldn’t please Jack. Nay, he was a strong man and wouldn’t welcome her show of weakness. And right now, she wanted his trust more than she’d ever wanted it before.

“That’s why you bought Kit, isn’t it? Because of what your mother and father did to you.”

He nodded. “And that’s why I will never allow him to know the truth of his mother.”

Lorelei cupped his cheek in her hand. She could feel the tautness of his jaw as he held his emotions in check and she admired his strength.

No wonder he denied knowing his father. Such a person should be hung, drawn, and quartered!

He rubbed his stubbly cheek against her palm and she pulled him into a hug. He tensed for a moment, then surrendered himself to her touch.

His arms came around her, drawing her closer to him and he turned his face to hers. Seeing his desire to kiss her, she opened her lips in invitation and he took it.

His kiss was warm and sweet and intoxicating. Against her hip, she could feel his desire for her as his body stirred.

Jack pulled back slightly and nibbled her bottom lip.

“‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’” he whispered. “‘Thou art more lovely and more temperate; Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath too short a date.’”

She smiled at him, warmed by his quote. “Come back to bed with me, Jack.”

And before she could blink, he rose from the deck, scooped her up in his arms, and took her back to his cabin.

He didn’t release her until she was beside the bed. “Shall I fetch us more wine?” she asked.

He arched a suspicious brow.

She laughed. “Untainted wine, then.”

“If you wish.”

She went to the dining room and when she returned, she caught him flipping through the pages of her sketchbook. “You really are very talented,” he said as she handed him his goblet.

“Thank you.” She took a sip of her wine.

Jack took a sip of his, then reached his hand out and fingered her cheek. His gaze searched her face and she wondered what it was he sought.

“I could devour you,” he said at last.

She should be shocked and offended by his words, but in truth they delighted her.

Smiling, she said, “Then do so.”

A slow smile spread across his face.

Jack set his goblet down and pulled her to him. He dipped his head down to the swell of her breasts over the neckline of her gown and trailed his tongue over her flesh. Lorelei gasped in stunned pleasure as her body immediately ignited.

Straightening, he took her glass from her hand, placed it next to his, then led her back to the bed. This time, they took their leisure undressing each other.

“You are wondrous,” she whispered as she wrapped her legs around his bare waist.

He leaned down to kiss her. As he started to enter her, Lorelei pulled back. “Wait.”

He frowned.

She reached out to run her hand across the muscles of his chest and licked her dry lips. He had shared himself with her tonight and she wanted to do something special for him. Show him how much he’d come to mean to her.

“I want you to tell me what you like, Jack.”

His frown deepened.

Lorelei forced him to roll to his back, then straddled him. She could feel the deep ridges of his stomach pressing against the most intimate part of her body. It was wondrously erotic and sent ribbons of desire thrumming through her body. His groan radiated through her.

He reached up to cup her breasts, but she caught his hands and pushed them back to the mattress.

“No, Jack. It’s my turn.”

Jack stared at her in wonder as she boldly dipped her head to his throat and flicked her tongue across his Adam’s apple. He tried to cup her head, but she still held his hands beside his face. His body molten, he sucked his breath in sharply between his teeth.

With a thoroughness that astounded him, she explored his neck and chest with her lips, her tongue. And every time he felt the hesitant stroking, he thought he would die from the pleasure. No woman had ever treated him this way. They merely took what he gave them and were as eager for him to leave as he was to be gone.

But not Lorelei. Her delicate hands caressed his stomach before they moved lower. Writhing in ecstasy, Jack gripped the headboard in his fists as she took him in her hand and explored the length of his manhood.