My Lady Pirate (12 page)

There was no fight left in her. None at all.

“Kiss me,” she murmured, faintly.

His face loomed above, his eyes wicked with challenge and desire, the dimple in his chin the last thing she saw before her eyes drifted shut.

“I’m going to kiss you . . . everywhere. I’m going to kiss you until you swoon with pleasure, until you melt like sugar beneath my lips, until you cry out my name in the throes of passion. I am in love with you, Pirate Queen, whether or not you believe in the notion.” She turned her head, and her cheek came up against the hard bar of his arm, smelling of salt and warmth and clean, scrubbed skin. His fingers captured her jaw and gently forced her head back around, and she knew then that she wanted this as much as he did.

God, help me,
she thought, faintly—

And was aware of his mouth lowering to hers . . . an inch away . . . a hairbreadth. . .

Touching.

Sinking, sweeping abandon . . . joy . . .
surrender.
She tasted the sweetness of oranges on his lips, on his tongue, felt the rough press of his thumb against her jaw, and sank beneath a feeling of being swept away, carried away, overpowered,
ravished.
Her legs buckled and with his knee positioned strategically between her thighs, he held her up against the wall. She moaned deep in her throat and his lips ground against hers. Her head swam and she felt his hand pushing up the loose fabric of one pant leg until it was bunched around her upper thigh and her skin was bared to the harshness of his palm.

No God, I take that back. . . Don’t help me. . .

The kiss deepened. Her nipples hardened, ignited, tingled against her shirt. She sighed

deeply and pressed into him, even as he slid his fingers up her arm and brought her wrists down with them.

“Love me, Maeve.”

She needed no urging. Hooking an arm around the back of his neck, she drew him close, and felt his kiss become savage, plundering, demanding. . .

A pirate’s kiss.

Hard male muscle imprinted her body. His hands fitted easily around her waist, positioning her more firmly atop his hard thigh, and she leaned back against the wall, gasping as his fingers found the bud of her desire and gently stroked it through her trousers.

“Oh,” she managed, trying to find anger, trying to find control, and finding neither.

But he only laughed, caught her jaw once more and forced her mouth against his. She drove upward to meet it, panting hard and greedily taking his tongue into her mouth. Again, the tangy sweetness of citrus; again, the hot flush of sensation through every nerve in her body. Her legs went limp, her mind reeled. She felt herself growing hot, growing wet, growing . . . impatient.

And then he drew back, breaking the kiss. Her eyes opened to regard him dazedly.

“I may take a prize,” he said huskily, his thumb clearing the hair from her damp cheek, “but I never
plunder
it unless invited aboard.” Hot fingers dragged down her throat, circled her breast, dragged across a hardened nipple. “I can let you go now, Maeve, to continue on your set course . . . or you can indulge your wish to be . . .
plundered.”

She closed, then opened her glazed eyes, her heart beating wildly in her breast.

“What shall it be?”

Did she have a choice? Let him, her mind pleaded. What ill can come of it? When will you
ever have such a dangerously handsome man as this in your bed, ever again?

As long as she did not let herself fall in love with him, she was safe. Unable to be hurt, deserted,
abandoned
—

Her silence was answer enough. She collapsed even as his strong arms scooped her up and

carried her easily to the bed.

He held her for a long moment, relishing the feel of her in his arms before lowering her to the soft expanse of silky sheets and tasseled pillows and feather-down mattress. She lay on her back, staring up at him; then he stood, tall and strong and virile, his gaze raking over her body.

She flushed hotly. Their eyes met, and he smiled a long, slow, smile before easing himself down beside her.

Melting inside, Maeve trembled as he began to undress her, carefully, skillfully, expertly.

Masterful hands skimmed over her belly, grazing the skin there, igniting her blood. She lifted her shoulders so he could draw the shirt over her head. The warm trades kissed her . . .
he
kissed her, with lips burning against her neck, her collarbone, trailing lower to claim one hard, aching nipple, then the other. She moaned as his tongue circled the soft pink areola, the tightened bud, sucking at it greedily, even as his hand found her belt and slowly slid the leather through the buckle and drew it off. Instinctively, her thighs clamped together before his hand gently slid between them and coaxed them apart.

“Maeve, my Queen,” he murmured, dropping kisses between her breasts as he drove his

hand beneath the waistband of the cottony trousers and dragged them down her hips. She felt every acute sensation; the hair of his arm grazing her legs, the warmth of his skin against her own. “I have lived for this moment all my life.”

“You . . . you probably say that to every woman,” she whispered, faintly.

“Aye, but I have never
meant
it as I do now,” he murmured, his breath warm against her breasts. His hand moved lower, pressing once more against the junction of her thighs. “Open for me, Maeve. . . Let me explore you . . . cherish you . . .
love
you.”

The last of her apprehension fled in the face of what he was doing to her, and she couldn’t have disobeyed him even if she wanted to. Sighing, Maeve opened to him, shivering with

delight, anticipation, and longing as his fingers moved lazily through the curls at her inner thighs, stroking her until she was wet and gasping and arching shamelessly against his hand. Then there was only cool air against her wet nipples as his head moved downward, his lips skimming over her belly, his breath hot against her navel . . . her thighs . . . her— She started to sit up, but his hand was there against her chest, his thumb circling one nipple as he pushed her gently back down to the thick stack of pillows.

“Enjoy your desire, Maeve. Let me savor every blessed inch of you.”

She lay back, trembling, seeing the ceiling, the top of his head, through half-closed eyes. He was easy with her. Patient. His hands were hard and strong against her thighs, gently coaxing them further apart, and she felt his breath against her thighs, her sex, his fingers holding her inner folds apart, his thumbs stroking the swollen bud of her desire until it was no longer his thumbs there, but his mouth.

“Oh, sweet heaven—” she sobbed, at that first wet thrust of his tongue against her flesh.

He raised his head, his gaze soft and tender. “Relax, my sweet. I’ll never hurt you. Trust me on that.”

Relax.
It was a command, and dazedly, it came to her that he was a man who was well used to issuing them. A dangerous man . . . a man of power, a man of authority.

But she was in no position to ponder that further; not in the midst of such overwhelming

sensation. She gave herself up to the pleasure, and when it became almost unbearable, she pushed him away, rolled onto her side, and, drove him onto his back. His eyes gleamed as he guessed her intent. Wantonly, she moved atop him, straddling him, her palms flat against his chest to brace herself as she began to ease herself down atop his rigid staff.

It had been a long time since Maeve had last known a man, and the years had rendered her

tight and narrow. But she welcomed the pain, gazing down at him and relishing every delicious moment, every sliding inch of wet sensation, the feel of his huge and swollen arousal filling every inch of her, stretching her, almost to the point of pain. He grinned confidently up at her.

His eyes were glowing, drifting shut with desire, then open, the thick lashes half concealing irises of a shade mirroring the deepest blue of the sea. Again, that wolfish smile; again, the dimple in his chin; again, that quiet amusement. He was a man in control, a man who was dangerous no matter how disarming that smile. Her heart fluttered and she bent down, heatedly kissing his lashes, his nose, his mouth. His hands drove up through her hair, thumbing her jaw, holding her mouth to his; then he released her and Maeve, sighing deep in her throat, sat back and took the final inch of him into herself.

Sweet, savage impalement.

“Ah, love,” he said gently, his eyes dark with desire. “Ah, dear, sweet, love . . . I have lived for this moment with you all of my life.”

He cleared away a tumble of hair that had fallen over her shoulder, then pulled her down and kissed her. Deep and long and hard, even as his hands strayed down her body, finally clasping her hips and moving her against himself to begin a rhythm.

The kiss deepened. His hands pressed against her hips, guiding her movements. Sweat began to trickle down her back. The bed rocked beneath them. The motions came faster. Their breaths mingled, hot and damp.

“Damnation,” she moaned, into his mouth. “Oh, God, pirate. . . Take me . . .”

“I will
take you,
dearest, to the stars and back, as many times as you’ll let me.”

Dampness sheened their straining bodies. Her senses reeled, climbed, peaked—

“Oh . . . Oh,
yes!”
she cried.

And then he drove savagely upward into her. She felt the warm spill of his seed at the same time she found her own release. Her head fell back and she cried out in sweet agony, her senses exploding in a shower of glittering light. Sobbing, she collapsed atop him, her lips falling against hot, salty skin, her heart pounding a tattoo against her ribs.

She lay there, tears of joy and happy defeat rolling down her cheeks. At that moment her

heart filled with something huge and warm and inexplicable.

Something she hadn't felt in a very long time.

His arms came up to wrap protectively around her shoulders, clasping her hot body to his.

She heard his pounding heart just beneath her ear, and it was a long time before she could speak.

“Pirate?”

“Aye, Majesty?”

His fingers drifted through her hair, and she kissed his damp chest. “I . . . I don’t believe I’ll kill you, after all.”

She felt him smile against her forehead.

“Maybe you really are my Gallant Knight,” she murmured, and on that thought, drifted off

to sleep.

The fate of England was of little consequence to Maeve Merrick as she lay dozing in the

arms of her handsome lover. She may have the Sight—present at times, absent at most—but

even such a gift could not have foretold her how important she and her prisoner were to Lord Nelson’s hopes for saving England.

And at the moment, Maeve would not have cared.

Outside, the sounds of her crew’s laughter could be heard as they built up the bonfire and cracked open another barrel of Jamaican rum. At any other time, she would be down there with them, the first to hold her cup beneath the spigot, the first to partake of the excessive revelry, the first to damn the world and everything it contained to hell and beyond.

But not this time.

Young Aisling had come earlier, knocking urgently at the door to report that the captive was still missing, and her shrieking retreat when Gray himself had answered her summons had

brought the rest of the crew charging into Maeve’s bedroom with knives, pistols, blunderbusses, and swords drawn. But her pirate had handled this life-threatening situation with fearless, unruffled aplomb.

“Why don’t you ask Her Majesty if she wishes to send me away, eh?” he’d asked, calmly

pushing Enolia’s dagger away from his throat and turning with an elaborate, encompassing, sweep of his arm to indicate Maeve—lying in bed with the sheets pulled up to her chin and a guilty blush spreading over her face.

It had been a rather mortifying scene, to say the least. Now, Maeve sighed contentedly and forcing open her sleepy eyes, rested her head in the hollow between his shoulder and chest. His heart beat steadily beneath her ear, slow and rhythmic in sleep. Stretching, she let her palm rove over his broad pectorals, touching one hard little nipple, absorbing his heartbeat through the flat of her palm. Then she moved her head and kissed the warm, salty skin.

What on earth are you doing, Maeve?

Taking advantage of a gift from the sea,
she answered herself.
Allowing myself to experience
the thrill of having a dangerously handsome man tell me he wants me, and then proving it to me
in the deepest, most meaningful sense of the word.
But Maeve did not believe in love at first sight. True, she had lain with, admired, and enjoyed this pirate’s body, but she had held back a good part of her mind, a good part of her heart, and certainly
all
of her wary soul. She had been hurt before. Badly. She would not be hurt again.

Yet her heart, wretched organ that it was, could not remain still, and like a current beneath the surface of a calm sea, stirred and ached and moved restlessly. She felt wantonly reckless for allowing this stranger to make love to her when there was nothing between them except carnal lust. She felt ashamed that she had used his body for the sole sake of physical enjoyment, and that she had let him use hers. And then she felt guilty that she wasn’t as ashamed as she
ought
to feel. But no, she was the Pirate Queen, and there was nothing wrong with taking a lover. After all, it was a sovereign’s right. But deeper down lurked feelings of unsettlement, anxiety, and foreboding, for this man had an air of intrigue about him, of authority and command that both drew and fascinated her; he was dark, he was dangerous, and she had no doubts whatsoever that it would be perfectly possible—if not likely—that she
could
fall in love with him.

She trembled, despite the warmth of the day.

I shouldn’t have lain with him. I should have kept fighting him, as I had been wont to do.

Then, at least, my heart would be safe.

My heart
is
safe.