My Lady Pirate (14 page)

Abandoned.

And if he could abandon his career, he could abandon her.

“Maeve? Are you cold?”

“No, of course not,” she said. But she trembled nonetheless, and her heart was filled with confusion.

Maybe I’m no better,
she thought.
After all, I am the one who will be abandoning
him
—to
Lord Nelson. And to certain death. What kind of person does that make me?

Warm sand crunched beneath her feet and the endless sound of the waves against the beach

made her feel suddenly melancholy.

“Gray,” she said, with a glance up at his tall form beside her, “I have told you much this evening about me, but I know nothing, really, about you but your first name.”

“Why ruin a good thing? Let's enjoy our stroll, Maeve, and then . . . then I think I would like to ravish you in the waves. . .”

“You're being evasive.”

“Aye. You might not like me anymore if I told you more about me. Why risk it?”

“But I
want
to know about you, Gray—” She pushed him away as he stopped and tried to claim her lips. “I want to know when you were born . . .
where
you were born . . .how many brothers and sisters you have . . . what your father and mother are like. . .”

He laughed, his teeth white in the darkness. “I have six sisters and no brothers, my parents live in Surrey, and I was born in Penzance on the fourteenth day of August, in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and sixty-eight.”

And I’m a Knight of the Bath whose head is going to roll,
he thought to himself.

“And your father and mother?”

“Good parents. My father . . . owns land.”

“In Surrey?”

“Aye.”

He paused, stepped out of his clothes, and waited while she did the same. Then he slid a hand beneath her bottom and in one quick moment, hoisted her in his arms. Her skin tingled with anticipation. She smiled and placed a palm against his chest, reveling in the feel of his muscles as he walked, carrying her as though she weighed no more than the foam that rolled in on the gentle breakers. “What else, Gray? Tell me everything.”

“And why do you want me to do that?”

“Because I’ve changed my mind.” She reached up and ran her finger over his smile, feeling a sensation curling hot in the pit of her belly as he gently pulled her finger into his mouth and lightly nipped it. “You see”—she flushed, excited by her sudden decision—”I’ve decided to keep you, and not sell you to Nelson after all.”

He went stiff. In the darkness, his face looked suddenly very pale.

“Gray?”

“Why, that is . . . why, that is, uh, wonderful, Maeve.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it,” she said, frowning. “Don’t you want to stay here

and be my Pirate King, my Gallant Knight?”

Recovering, Gray continued walking, then leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Of course

I want to stay here with you,” he assured her while he cursed himself for the trouble he’d gotten himself into
this
time. Neptune's balls! This was a development he hadn't anticipated, and one that he certainly didn't welcome. Christ, the whole British Navy was probably searching for him and she wanted to
keep
him in this Garden of Eden?

Tell her.

He nearly laughed aloud at
that
totally ludicrous thought. The fate of nations could depend on her reaction—a reaction he didn't even dare consider or contemplate.

“Gray?”

Worried that she could sense his growing alarm, he set her down, took her hand, and

resumed their walk, his mind racing.

“I know you’re afraid Nelson will be looking for you,” she was saying, “but you’re safe

here. After all, no one knows where the Pirate Queen has her lair, and not even your own

Admiral Falconer would know where to find me.”

That was for damned sure.

“I will shield you with my reputation, guard you with my life,” she vowed, tossing her head and sending her hair flying over one shoulder. “And as for Nelson . . . well, I simply won’t go to meet him. You have come to mean too much to me. Besides, he’d probably rather spend his money on his ‘dear Lady Hamilton’ than on a traitor he’d just as soon hang, don’t you think?”

“You are most thoughtful, Majesty.”

“Thank you, Gray. No one’s ever told me that before, you know.” She bent her head, her

hair falling down over her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was uncharacteristically shy.

“You know, maybe there really
is
a future for us.” She paused and faced him, her eyes full of childish hope as she looked up into his eyes. “Think of it, Gray,” she said, her fingers playing with a soft whorl of his chest hair. “We’ll sail the seas together, plundering and pillaging and stealing! We’ll become as famous as Calico Jack and Anne Bonney, and sailors the breadth of the Spanish Main will come to fear your name as much as they do mine!”

He gave a little laugh, for such a fantasy was of course, an impossibility. Slowly, he said,

“Er . . . yes, Maeve. Though I fear my blackened blood is not royal enough for a Pirate Queen.”

“Nonsense.” She smiled, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him hard, her hand drifting down to

touch that part of him that had gone temporarily dormant and now, at her soft caress, began to stir once again. “You are my Gallant Knight,” she declared, with a touch of regal hauteur and a defiant lift of her chin. “I have already decided
that!
”

Obviously, she had decided a few other things, as well.

“Gray?”

As much as he would have liked, he could not stay here. And now, with her decision to keep him here on this island, he had to think of a way off of it—and quickly.

His mind had always been at its best when his body was active. Grinning, he scooped her

back up and carried her purposely toward the surf.

Maeve's skin prickled with anticipation, for she was thinking about being “ravished” in the waves. But even the thought of ravishment could not quell the sudden unease she felt at her pirate's odd reaction to her change-of-heart when it came to returning him to Lord Nelson.

Even now, he looked mildly distracted. Troubled. Something didn't quite add up, and she

couldn't put her finger on it.

They were splashing into the waves now, and she determined not to think about things that didn't make sense. Instead, she twisted in his arms, straddling his hips with her thighs and hooking her arms behind his neck.

He moved his hands to support her bare bottom and gazed down at her, his eyes dark with

desire, a wolfish smile lighting his face in the darkness.

Maybe she'd just been imagining his strange reaction. He certainly seemed happy enough,

now, didn't he? She kissed his face and neck and lips until she felt his arousal pressing hot and hard against her womanhood. At last, a man who wasn’t afraid of her, who was her equal in every way. He was strong, virile, and everything she ever dreamed of finding in a lover, except he wasn’t a gallant officer.

But the spell had been fouled, after all. Damned gull shit. What could she expect?

In the darkness, she saw the white glint of his teeth, of starlight in his eyes, his hair tumbling and tossing in the wind. She placed her hands against the wide breadth of his chest, feeling his heart thudding against her palm. For such a tall and powerful man, he moved with easy grace and a gait she was well familiar with.

It was the gait of a sailor.

“Don’t worry, Gray . . . I told you, Nelson will
never
find you here,” she said, to reassure him.

“I know that, dearest,” he murmured, but something like pain flashed in his dark eyes and quickly disappeared before heat, desire, and dark promise burned in them once more. He slowed as he went deeper into the surf, and she felt the warm, gentle kiss of the sea against her heels, and now, her bottom. She looked up, seeing his face dark against a thousand stars; with his earring, he could have been a savage buccaneer captain in the manner of Henry Morgan.

But tonight, he was
her
pirate.

“Are you going to ravish me?” she asked, with false innocence.

“Aye, wench,” he growled in his best buccaneer’s voice. “Here and
now
.”

“Well then, what are you waiting for?” She gave him an equally hot glance, and boldly

reached down between her own legs to touch him.

He smiled down at her, and it was a cunning, wicked smile.

“Gray,
don’t,”
she warned, already guessing his intent.

He chuckled blackly, never taking his dark eyes off her.

Finally he stopped ... and began to lift her up, up, like a sacrifice to the gods.

“Gray, no!”

He laughed.

“Gray,
no!”

She shrieked, but he had already tossed her high, laughing in pure delight as she flailed and swore and hit the sea with a resounding splash. Coughing and choking, she thrust downward, trying to find her footing, but the movement only plunged her head under again. Cursing, she broke the surface, found a foothold on a shelf of coral, and slashing her cupped palm over the waves, sprayed him with water.

“Snake!” she cried, as his rich laughter rolled through the night. She sprayed him again. “I’ll get you for this, you treacherous rat!”

He folded his arms across his chest. Dark eyes challenged her. “Be my guest, madam.”

But his grin was infectious, and even mock anger could not be sustained. Maeve thrust her hand up, shot him an obscene gesture that was challenging of its own accord, and without

waiting for his reaction, turned and made a clean, perfect, dolphin dive, allowing him a taunting glimpse of her bare backside before the sea swallowed her up.

Behind her came the splashing thunder of roiling water, and with a swift kick, she angled her body down, down, down, swimming with sure, easy strokes, and unable to see a thing in the darkness. But she knew every finger of coral, every bed of seaweed in this bay; knew them as well as she did every spar and line and gun aboard
Kestrel.
Hands spread before her, her hair streaming sensuously against her spine and backside, she felt her way over sharp ridges of coral and out into deeper water. Then she kicked her legs and angled upward, breaking the surface thirty feet from
Kestrel's
dark hull.

Treading water and breathing hard, she blinked the salt from her eyes and felt the night wind sighing over her wet hair and face.

Her pirate was nowhere to be seen.

A shiver danced through her, and instinctively, she drew her legs up toward herself,

strangely thrilled and excited and nervous all at once. Although she knew he was down there, in the darkness, the idea of his grabbing her legs and pulling her under was unnerving.

She waited.

Nothing.

“Gray?”

Again, nothing. Only the ominous sigh of the breeze making the palms crackle and hiss.

Maeve took a deep breath and dived, swimming back toward the beach. Halfway there she

paused just beneath the surface, listening to the underwater sounds. She could hear the muffled thump of the anchor cable against
Kestrel,
the distant, high-pitched clicking of Turlough, and the dreamy, contained rush and swell of the sea.

And nothing else.

Growing nervous, she surfaced.

“Gray?” she called, frantically.

Nothing.

The wind soughed through the trees, and alarm rose in her breast.

“Gray!”

Panicking, she turned and slammed right into his chest.

“There ye be, my pretty!”

“Damn you, you scared the living
daylights
out of me!”

He roared with laughter and, yanking her up against his chest, crushed her to him. His mouth drove savagely against hers; his tongue forced its way between her teeth and dueled with her own, swirling, tasting, exploring, conquering.

She moaned, sagging against his hard strength and lost in a rushing flood of erotic

sensations . . . Wet skin against wet skin, sealed by the heat of their bodies; waves lapping around her waist; the bottom sand giving away beneath her heels and toes; the tropical breeze against her wet skin.

He broke the kiss and began nibbling her throat. Her head fell back, offering the pale flesh to his hungry lips, and she felt his broad hands close around her ribs, her waist, her hips. He lifted her high, and instinctively her legs wrapped around his torso and she pulled herself toward him, searching, seeking, wanting.

He laughed in triumph, hooking an arm behind her nape and tipping her backward until her

hair fanned out just beneath the waves like a dark, undulating mermaid’s pillow. His gaze raked over her throat, her ripe breasts, bared to the stars like some sacrifice to the gods; she melted beneath that primal gaze, feeling the currents kissing her back, swirling over her belly, and probing her womanhood, now shamelessly bared to the sea’s kisses between her open legs. His hands caressed her breasts, first one, then the other, until her nipples grew hard and pebbly. He took one, rolled it gently between his fingers until she was sighing with pleasure; then he was lifting her, his lips against her breasts, kissing, suckling, plundering, until they tingled with the combined sensations evoked by wind and wave, hot mouth and tongue. She gave herself up to the erotic pleasure, her hand anchoring in his wet hair as his fingers drove downward and underwater, spread the soft folds of her femininity and slipped inside.

She gave a throaty sigh, helpless against the building waves of pleasure. “Oh, Gray . . .”

His fingers probed deeper, his thumb rhythmically stroking the hard bud buried between her folds until she was gasping for air. She tried to drag herself up but his lips were there, pushing her back, his arm like a rock behind her shoulders, the heavy wetness of her hair pulling her head down and back.

“Oh, Gray,” she managed, her breath coming faster as waves of sensation built within her.

He bent his head, and as the sea swirled around her breasts, he took one of them into his mouth and suckled her hard, even as his thumb and fingers continued to massage her beneath the warm water. Oh, heavens, oh, sweet torture, oh . . . oh . . .