Merline Lovelace (17 page)

“Pair Eyed—?”

She broke off, gasping at his fierce thrust.

“Fish,” he finished, using his hands and his mouth and his every skill to bring her to a shuddering, moaning ecstasy.

T
he road to perdition, Sarah soon discovered, was paved with delight.

The days after the shark attack passed in a haze of sunshine and showers, the nights in a blaze of sensual exploration. Her shyness and modesty fell away like the petals of a bloom too long left untended. Her woman’s passion consumed her.

Laughing, gasping, contorting her sweat-slick body as instructed, she received lessons in the art of love from one who admitted without the least shame that he was, indeed, an exceptional teacher. In addition to his personal knowledge, Jamie reminded her one hot, sweltering night, he had studied the
Ars Amatoria
in some detail. What his own experience had not taught him, that most informational of all volumes did.

“I doubt it not,” Sarah retorted, taking him into her arms as eagerly as she’d taken him into her heart.

He kissed her until she was, as always, breathless and aching. This time, however, he didn’t slide his body atop hers, or bring hers atop his. This time, he knelt at the foot of their bed of mango branches and palm leaves.

Sarah eyed him with some misgiving. “What are you doing?”

“If my memory serves me,” he replied, “there are some thirty-two positions to attempt before you can consider yourself truly well-versed in matters of the bedchamber.

“Thirty-two!” She sputtered in disbelief. “There cannot be!”

With the rakish grin that stole her breath whenever he turned it on her, he slid his hands along her calves and drew her towards him.

“Thirty-two. And this, I believe, is number eight.”

As much as she’d grown to enjoy his lovemaking, Sarah couldn’t help but be shocked when he draped her legs over his shoulders.

“Jamie! You cannot! You must not!”

“I can,” he murmured, his lips hungry on her hot, pulsing center. “I must.”

“Oh! Oh, my goodness!”

When Sarah finally sprawled across the palm leaves, sticky with sweat and the aftermath of their lovemaking, the moon rode low in the sky. She could see its light glowing silver through the woven sides of the hut. She stared at the silvery glow in a daze. She couldn’t move. Could barely breathe. Repletion, lassitude and the heat, oppressive even this late at night, weighed her down.

Jamie recovered before she did. He
always
recovered before she did. The man, Sarah thought with a sigh, was inexhaustible.

Rolling onto his side, he propped himself on his elbow. His black hair fell over his forehead. His shoulders glistened in the shimmering moonlight. His hand,
which had brought her to such shattering pleasure only moments before, stroked her belly.

“I’ve lost count,” he murmured. “Did we get to number twelve or thirteen?”

Half laughing, half groaning, she pushed his hand away. “I don’t know, and at this moment I don’t care.”

He shook his head in mock reproof. “I can see it’s going to take a long, long while to complete your course of instruction. Unless, I suppose, we skip to number twenty-two. It doesn’t require the least effort on your part. Roll over, sweetheart.”

This time her groan held not the least amusement. Even a woman newly awakened to passion had to sleep on occasion.

“Jamie, I cannot! I’m too tired, and it’s too hot!”

He surveyed her drooping figure for some moments, then scooped her into his arms. Naked, he strolled out of the hut. As bare as he, Sarah clung to his slick, muscled shoulders.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking you to cool off.”

Ignoring her protests, he carried her to the small lagoon. He couldn’t ignore her shriek when he waded into the water, however. Her mouth was only an inch away from his ear, after all.

“Jamie! We can’t bathe at night!”

Wincing at her shrillness, he assured her that they could.

“If another shark should come at us,” she pointed out worriedly, “we won’t see the fin!”

“Sharks don’t feed at night, but if it makes you feel better, we’ll stay in the shallows. No shark will come this close to shore.”

She eyed the placid surface of the lagoon dubiously. “Truly?”

“Truly. Besides,” he added with a lopsided smile, “it’s time you learned to swim. Never again do I want to see you floating face down in an ocean.”

“I don’t particularly wish to float face down in an ocean again! But can’t we begin this new course of instruction in the daylight?”

“Ah, Sarah, you’ve not lived until you’ve swum in the moonlight.”

She gave a little yelp as a cool wave lapped at her bare backside. “I’ve lived quite nicely, thank you, and…”

His arms opened and she dropped like a stone, screeching until she hit the water. Thrashing about with her arms and legs, she finally found her feet and came up sputtering.

“You detestable creature! How ungentlemanly of you!”

“I lay no claim to being a gentleman,” he reminded her carelessly. “Come, lie on your back and try to float. I’ll support you.”

“Ha!” She backed away. “As if I would believe you now.”

“Come, Sarah.”

“No!”

“Sarah…”

“No, I say!”

When she reinforced her refusal with a splash of water that took him full in the face, he lunged. She danced out of his reach. He followed. She slipped out of his hold like an eel. Cavorting like children in the moonlight, they played a noisy, laughing game of retreat and pursuit. No longer the least lethargic, Sarah
finally allowed herself to be captured. She paid her forfeit most willingly, sliding her wet body down his until they were fused at mouth and chest and hip.

It was some time before Jamie insisted that they resume her swimming lessons. Too boneless now to even attempt an argument, Sarah placed herself in his hands. True to his word, he kept her buoyed in the salt water while she floated, arms and legs spread. Quite soon, Sarah discovered that the annoying creature was right. Never in her life had she experienced anything as soothing as the feel of cool water lapping over her bare skin, or as mesmerizing as the liquid silver that rippled with her every languid movement.

Despite the wary eye she cast every so often toward the deeper part of the lagoon, Sarah thought that she could float forever. Just like this, with Jamie supporting her with a hand on her bottom and the moon above and none but the two of them in the entire world.

“How strange,” she murmured, moving her arms lazily back and forth.

“What is?”

“For so many years, I had resigned myself to the fact I would find my happiness only through my family’s joys and contentment. Yet now I’ve found a measure of both without knowing in the least how they fare.”

He made no answer to that, except to steady her when she turned to glance at him. With his back to the moon, his face was in shadow.

“What of your family, Jamie?” she asked curiously.

“I have none.”

Her hands made a little splash. She had heard he’d inherited his title from his brother, but knew little else
about him. For all his free and easy ways, Jamie Kerrick rarely spoke of himself or his life before he took to the sea. Emboldened by their intimacy and his relaxed manner, Sarah probed gently.

“You have no family at all? No aunts or uncles or cousins?”

“None who will acknowledge the connection,” he replied easily. “As the pompous little toad who’ll inherit the title if I die without issue once informed me, the rest of the Kerricks want only to live out their days without hearing my name spoken aloud, or seeing me darken their doorstep with my scandalous presence.”

The devil take the lot of them!
Sarah thought fiercely. They sounded much like her mama’s family, who had been too full of themselves and their status in the world to recognize the worth of a man like Papa. Admittedly, it might be more difficult to recognize the finer qualities of a rogue who had seduced his admiral’s wife and now made his living smuggling goods up the China coast than those of The Reverend Mr. Abernathy. Still, that was no excuse for Jamie’s entire family casting him off. Quite incensed on his behalf, Sarah peered up at him through water-beaded lashes.

“You don’t care a fig for what the rest of the Kerricks want, but what do you want, Jamie?”

He gave her a wry smile. “At one time, all I wanted was to wear the uniform of the Royal Navy.”

“After that?”

“After that?” He shrugged. “A fair wind and a fast ship and a sharp enough deal on whatever cargo we hauled to keep the
Phoenix
provisioned and the crew in rum.”

Sarah knew she shouldn’t ask the next question. She suspected the answer would only bring her pain. But
she’d come to love this man too much not to want to know what it was he desired in life when…if…they ever left this atoll.

“And now? What do you want now?”

His head lifted, and his gaze drifted over the lagoon. For long moments, he didn’t answer.

Then he seemed to stiffen. His lazy, relaxed attitude seeped away with each lap of the water. Slowly, imperceptibly, he withdrew from her. Not physically. His hand still curved under her bottom. His body still brushed hers when the wavelets pushed them. But in his mind he was no longer with her. Whatever he saw, whatever he wanted, did not seem to include her.

A little splinter of pain lodged in Sarah’s heart. Resolutely, she tried to pluck it out. He’d made her no promises. During these weeks of intimacy, he’d whispered no words of everlasting devotion, only of laughter and seduction and delight. Nor had Sarah burdened him with her own hopeless emotion, which grew deeper with each day and each touch and each rakish smile he gave her. Instinctively, she’d known to keep her love locked in her heart. Jamie didn’t need it. Or, it seemed, want it.

“Sarah, go back to the hut. At once.”

His low, terse command broke into her troubled thoughts. She frowned up at him, as confused by the abrupt order as by the way he stared into the darkness.

“Go back to the hut? Why?” She twisted her head to follow his intent gaze. “What do you see? What…? Oh, dear Lord!”

Flailing her arms and legs wildly, she tried to find her footing. “It’s another shark!”

“It’s—”

“No!” Frantic, she grabbed at his arm and dragged
him toward the shore. “I will not allow you to battle this one! You don’t even have a spear!”

“Sarah…”

“No, I say! If I must clout you over the head with a rock and drag you by your hair…”

He dug in his heels. “Sarah, it’s not a shark.”

“Then what?” She twisted frantically, searching over her shoulder for a glimpse of the threat. “An eel? A squid?” Her voice spiraled to a screech. “Not one of those sharp-toothed killer whales you told me of!”

“Sarah, for pity’s sake, they don’t swim these waters!”

“Then what?” she wailed.

His gaze went to a distant spot over her left shoulder. “I think it’s a ship.”

The sharp, clipped reply turned Sarah to stone. She ceased her jerking and pulling at his arm. Her heart fell to her knees.

No! she cried in silent, unthinking anguish.

Jamie turned her toward the outer reef. Pointing over her shoulder, he indicated a spot in the moonswept darkness.

“There. Do you see that speck of light?”

Sarah saw nothing but a blur of silver on a dark, swelling sea. She
wanted
to see nothing. Not yet Not for another day. Or a week. That’s all she asked for. Just one more week.

“At first I thought it was the reflection of the moon,” he said slowly, his breath warm on her cheek. “But it’s moving on too erratic a course. I’m guessing it’s a ship’s lantern.”

He waded out another step or two. His gaze narrowed on a glow that only he could see. Tension radiated from his body in waves.

Gradually, Sarah’s initial shock faded. Shame coursed through her for her wanton, so very selfish initial reaction. This speck of light could mean their rescue. Safe passage to England. A return to her family. Jamie’s reunion with his ship and his crew.

Or, she realized with another small shock, it could mean their doom.

Suddenly recalling that these waters were home to the most barbarous pirates on earth, she waded out to stand beside Jamie. Her body grew rigid with a tension that matched his as she squinted in earnest at the horizon.

“What kind of ship is it, do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“Could it be the
Phoenix?
”

“Only if Liam has lost all sense!” he muttered. “No sailor with a lick of sense would linger for weeks in these pirate-infested waters.”

Although he merely echoed her thoughts, Sarah couldn’t hold back a shudder of dismay. Jamie caught the small movement and turned to her.

“Listen to me, Sarah. The vessel, if indeed it is a vessel, is too far away to identify. It may not come any nearer this atoll at all. If it does, we’ll have plenty of time to determine whether it’s friendly before we attempt to signal it or make our presence known to those aboard.”

“And if it’s not friendly?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“Then we’ll have to decide whether we wish to bargain for our souls with the devil.”

The next hours were the longest Sarah had ever spent in her life.

Jamie estimated that the ship would be upon them by dawn or be gone from sight completely. They had only the remaining hours of darkness to prepare for the first eventuality and ponder the second. Following Jamie’s terse instructions, Sarah helped him dismantle their little hut and destroy all evidence of their occupation of the atoll. Unless and until he determined that it was safe for her to show herself, she was to burrow into the little lair he intended to dig for her in the densest part of the mango forest.

Pulling at the palms woven into the sides of the hut with shaking hands, Sarah protested. “I don’t want to hide like an animal.”

“You’ll do as I say.”

“But I’ll be of no use to you if I cower in a hole.”

With a violent oath, he tore apart the latticework frame he’d so carefully woven. “Dammit, Sarah, you’ll be of no use to me staked out on the shore, with your arms and legs spread and an entire crew lined up to take their pleasure on you.”

Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. She knew his brutal reply was intended to shock her into compliance. It succeeded, but not for the reasons he intended. Jamie would fight to defend her from such bestiality. To the death, if necessary. She didn’t want him dead any more than she wanted to be raped by an entire crew.