Nicole Jordan (34 page)

Deverill’s eyes flared with heat—and followed her every move when she ambled toward him again. He held completely still as she pressed her body against him slowly, tauntingly.

The swells of her naked breasts met the warm hardness of his chest with the impact of a searing brand, making her pulse leap and his jaw tighten. And when she ground her hips against his naked loins, Deverill’s breath grew shallow—she could hear it.

Despite the rapid beating of her heart, Antonia summoned a smile of mock triumph. Then taking a deep breath of her own, she brushed her fingers across the ridges of scar tissue on his bare chest. This time Deverill didn’t flinch away but kept his gaze locked hard with hers.

Swallowing, Antonia concealed a rush of tears with a forced smile. This beautiful, scarred god of a man made her heart ache. She had to remember, however, that while Deverill might be disfigured, at least he was alive. It chilled her to think how close he had come to death at the hands of his tormenters, but he had survived. And her own anger at what they had done to him was less insistent than the tenderness filling her, less powerful than the ardent need to give him intense pleasure, not pain.

“You are surprisingly beautiful for a man,” she drawled in a husky voice. “I think I shall allow you to pleasure me for the morning . . . if you promise to obey my every whim.”

His silence spoke of resistance, but she trailed her hand lower to fondle his thick length. Reflexively Deverill sucked in his stomach, and Antonia smiled in satisfaction. Already his phallus was lifting and jerking helplessly in response to her caresses.

She set about increasing the delicious torment. Her gaze dropping to his member, she rubbed her thumb over the swollen head, spreading the bead of moisture that had accumulated there. The low sound that rumbled in Deverill’s chest might have been a protest or a groan, she wasn’t certain.

“I think you desire me,” Antonia said with a saucy toss of her head. “Now, unless you want to suffer dire punishment, I command you to lie on the bed.”

“As you wish, your highness,” he muttered, his tone more truculent than meek.

When he complied, stretching out his naked, bronzed body to recline on his back on the yellow counterpane, Antonia moved to stand over him.

“Now what?” Deverill demanded.

“You are being insolent, captive. I did not give you permission to address me.”

After another hesitation, he answered more meekly. “Forgive me, your highness.”

Pulling off her eye patch and laying aside the knife, she drew out a pair of satin ribbons from her sash.

Deverill’s eyes sparked when he realized her intent was to shackle him to the bedposts, but he silently gritted his teeth. Climbing up to kneel on the bed, Antonia secured the ribbons to the mahogany frame, then raised both his arms above his head and looped the satin loosely around his wrists.

Deverill only had eyes for her, however, possibly because she was deliberately distracting him, her breasts dangling like lush, ripe fruit above him. When she bent low enough to allow him a brief taste, brushing a taut peak against his mouth, he couldn’t help but groan. But just as quickly, she drew away to survey her handiwork and his body.

She let her fingers tease his arousal briefly before sliding off the bed to remove her gown. When she was naked, she stood before him challengingly, legs spread slightly, hands on hips, her proud, thrusting breasts taunting him, her eyes sparkling with mischief and something deeper and more mysterious.

Deverill found himself transfixed; he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He had never seen Antonia like this. She was all wanton siren, all seductive temptress, clearly reveling in her newfound abandon.

It made him wild with desire and longing—just as she undoubtedly intended.

“My dear queen,” he said more huskily than he would have liked, “I don’t suppose you would consider putting me out of my misery by taking me now?”

“Not yet. I intend to make you beg for mercy. So what kind of torture will be the most arousing, do you think?”

“You obviously don’t need any instruction from me, your highness.”

When she laughed lightly, he savored the sound of it. Then she reached down to stroke his erection, and he clenched his teeth. She was taunting, daring, and determined to make him plead.

“Devil take you,” he ground out. “I will never beg.”

“Take care, captive,” Antonia warned. “If you are not obedient, I will leave you here and find one of my crew to pleasure me instead.”

“Your crew is a scurvy lot,” Deverill drawled with derision. “I’ll wager you prefer to be ridden by a real man.”

“In truth, I prefer not to be ridden at all.
I
wish to do the riding.”

With that, Antonia climbed up on the bed again and straddled him, her hands planted firmly on his chest, her cleft nestled against his shaft.

“I like a demanding lover,” Deverill said in a strangled voice.

“Good, since I intend to be
very
demanding.”

Pulling off her pirate scarf, she threw it aside and shook her head, making her hair tumble silken wild around her shoulders. Then bending down, she deliberately let the flaming tresses pool across his body.

Deverill sucked in a sharp breath. Yet her purpose for the moment apparently was not to arouse him.

Instead, she kissed each and every one of his scars tenderly, lingeringly, deliberately soothing.

Deverill squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the soft press of her lips, the quiet swirl of her tongue. How in God’s name had he let himself be lured into this vulnerable position? It showed the measure of his trust in Antonia that he would let her expose this dark, defenseless part of him. He wanted to escape, wanted to close off the fierce emotion she was arousing inside him with her gentle, burning kisses, yet he couldn’t bring himself to pull away.

And Antonia obviously was not about to stop. She succored him with light nips, comforted him with tender, healing kisses and wet swirls of her tongue. She paused only long enough to lift her head, gazing down at Deverill to judge his reaction.

Her blue eyes were bright and raw with feeling. The sight brought a sudden tightness to Deverill’s throat, but with effort, he forced the ache away and tried to focus only on the pleasure she was giving him.

Her hands slid along the bare skin of his arms, over his tensed shoulders, making the muscles coil and quiver involuntarily. Yet she clearly was determined to make him quiver elsewhere. Shifting her position, she knelt between his parted legs, looking down at the expanse of his chest, his belly, the sprawl of his thighs, the swollen, jutting erection that reached almost to his navel.

Careful not to touch that prominent masculine part of him, she bent again and lightly kissed his abdomen, nipping at him with her lips, then soothing with her tongue.

Deverill stirred restlessly, helplessly aroused. As if intending to increase his helplessness further, Antonia cupped the heavy sacs of his testicles, slowly brushing the soft skin. Then reaching higher, she curled her fingers around his thrusting erection, molding her palm to his hardness. The thick length surged in her hand when she gently squeezed.

All the muscles in Deverill’s body tensed, yet he remained silent, struggling for control. It was a challenge Antonia apparently couldn’t resist. She bent low between his legs and nuzzled the soft sacs. Her caress made his breath catch, then rush out in a harsh hiss as she settled her lips at the base of his shaft and began to nibble.

Moments later she deliberately let her tongue trail slowly upward, laving his rigid flesh. Impossibly aroused now, Deverill made a low, tortured sound deep in his throat and tilted his head back in surrender, an invitation for Antonia to have her way with him.

Holding his swollen member in a light grasp, she closed her mouth around him fully. He shuddered, his hips instinctively rising off the bed, his spine arching against the sweet torture she was inflicting. When he started to slide himself slowly between her lips, however, Antonia would have none of it.

“Be still,” she commanded in a husky voice, “or I will stop.”

He obeyed, yet it required a herculean effort for him to maintain control. His fingers clutched at the ribbons loosely binding his wrists as she went on stimulating him, her hands a continuation of her mouth as she tormented him slowly, maddeningly. When he groaned aloud at the aching pleasure of it, she suckled harder, as if relishing her sense of power, her feeling of delight at how he was responding to her touch.

Deverill nearly bucked, knowing she was causing him to lose control. His pulse pounded as she urged him on, arousing and tantalizing and inflaming. . . .

Finally he let out a hoarse curse. “God . . . enough, wench. Come here.” He tore free of his satin bonds and reached for her, drawing her up to straddle his thighs.

“Queen,” she countered huskily. “I am a queen.”

“No, you’re a damned witch—and you are driving me mad.”

“You are driving me mad as well,” Antonia whispered.

He could tell she meant it, for the folds of her sex were already drenched and pulsing as she poised herself over his erection. Deverill’s fingers tightened convulsively on her hips. With every breath he took, he wanted her more intensely.

“Slowly, love,” he urged, as much for his own benefit as hers as she lowered herself upon him.

“Perhaps I can’t go slowly,” Antonia rasped, sheathing him fully.

It was a tantalizing act of possession. Deverill felt her glide lusciously around him and nearly erupted.

“You are so damned hot and wet,” he groaned as he thrust upward hard.

His impalement made her gasp, made her hips writhe. He began to move urgently in answer, giving her the rhythm she wanted, but it was the ragged whimpering sound Antonia uttered that was the breaking point for Deverill. He growled her name again as the hunger in his body swelled into something huge, turning deep and desperate and driving.

Her response was just as desperate. She rode him with a fierce and beautiful savagery, losing herself in the surging tempo of his body. When she peaked, his sanity fled and together they ignited in explosive passion.

Their climax seemed to go on forever. Deverill shook from the force of her body’s response and from his own. When Antonia finally collapsed upon him, he wrapped his arms around her and sank his face in her hair.

It was a long while before the tremors stopped, longer still before he could find the breath to speak in a feeble rasp. “It appears I am insatiable when it comes to you, vixen. You fire my blood.”

“Queen,” she murmured just as hoarsely. “I am still your pirate queen.”

His strained smile was hidden in her hair. When Antonia would have eased off him, Deverill tightened his hold and kept his now flaccid manhood buried inside her. He could spend hours lying joined to her like this, savoring her warmth, her special brand of passion. Her compassion.

“I’ll warrant,” he acknowledged truthfully, “that I will never again think of pirates in quite the same way.”

“That was my intent,” she replied, her weary voice holding a hint of smugness.

Deverill felt a strange ache in his chest. She hadn’t offered him pity, but understanding and sympathy. And he had accepted it without struggling, when he had never before allowed anyone or anything to comfort him.

It was remarkable what Antonia did to him. Remarkable and troubling. She was so astonishingly sensual, so bewitching, that she kept him in a constant state of arousal and anticipation. But his hunger was more profound than carnal desire. What happened every time he touched her was outside his experience. She made him feverish with want, with need, with
feeling.

He hadn’t expected her to stir his emotions so powerfully, so deeply. For so long he hadn’t allowed himself any deep emotions at all. After the torment of losing half his crew, he’d cut off any feeling simply to save his sanity.

He needed to continue doing so, Deverill told himself. Antonia made him
feel
far too much.

Disturbed, he toyed absently with a strand of her hair. It had been a grave mistake to give in to her request to teach her pleasure, he admitted. He was in deep water now, and if he didn’t take care, he would find himself drowning.

There was peril in too much closeness. Already it was an effort for him to ignore how right this felt . . . this intimacy, this sense of possession, of being possessed. Already he regretted having to set sail in a few hours.

Deverill scowled up at the timbered ceiling. He couldn’t recall ever regretting having to leave a woman behind before. It was a first for him, he realized, remembering how often he had politely discarded a lover who became too amorous or clinging.

Mentally, he shook his head. In truth, he was
glad
to be leaving Antonia this afternoon. He needed to put a significant distance between them, since his craving for her was becoming uncontrollable.

Just then he felt the lazy, rhythmic stroke of her hand along his thigh, suggestive and arousing. Deverill felt his body tense with unmistakable desire.

He hadn’t intended on taking her again, but evidently Antonia had other ideas in mind.

She raised her head to gaze down into his eyes
seductively. “You are still my captive for the rest of the morning, you know.”

He didn’t want to deny her; he
couldn’t
deny her. His response was entirely out of his control. Amazingly he could feel himself swelling inside her.

And when she kissed him, her mouth so wet and soft, her touch cauterizing his mind with need, he could do nothing but surrender.

Ignoring the warnings of danger clamoring in his head, Deverill pulled Antonia against him and sighed into her mouth, wondering if a man could die of the tormenting pleasure his glorious pirate queen was forcing upon him.

Fifteen