Pirate Wolf Trilogy (70 page)

“And a foolish
lord who allowed his retainers to starve over a harsh winter.
However, as you have taken great pains to remind me at every
opportunity, I have no friends here. My title bears no weight, my
position carries no influence, no authority. Having been in your
company for less than three days, I can see how I might have made a
comical a figure with all my arrogance and pretensions, yet I ask
only for the chance to prove otherwise. Moreover, I would ask that
you be tolerant of similar errors I have made in judging you.”

The offer and
the way it was delivered with his hands spread in supplication,
sent her head tipping to one side, as curious now as she was
wary.

He had a
silvery tongue, that much was a certainty. She suspected there was
a good deal more to Varian St. Clare than met the eye, and not all
of it was the formidable physical strength he camouflaged beneath
the velvet and feathers.

To that end,
she let her gaze rove down the pillar of his neck and across the
impressive breadth of his shoulders. He wore only a shirt and
breeches, no doublet, no starched collar. The shirt, in fact, was
open midway down his chest, revealing the wealth of smooth hairs
that formed a natural, dark breastplate.

“I think I have
already been quite tolerant,” she murmured. “Especially after last
night.”

“
Last
night was a mistake. My behavior was... totally inexcusable. I
suppose I could blame it on the rum, yet no ... Not even that in
good conscience, for I should have better control over my actions.
I
do
have better control, by God,
and the fact there was moonlight, and starlight, and you were half
clad... ”

His voice
trailed away as he realized the same conditions existed before him
now. The moonlight was in her hair, sparkling off the dampened
curls. She no longer smelled like salt water and canvas, and the
collar of her shirt was loose and had slipped to one side, exposing
the smooth roundness of a shoulder to the starlight.

“At any rate,”
he continued, “it should not have caused me to lose all sense of
propriety.”

“Are you saying
you have better control over your urges tonight? If so, I am glad
to hear it, for I am in no mood to fight you.”

Her voice was
so soft it sent an unexpected spray of gooseflesh rippling up his
arms. The infernal shirt had slipped lower and likely would have
come right off her breast if the nipple had not tightened and
snagged the silky fabric.

“I have no wish
to fight with you either,” he said.

“Well then,”
she mused, “what shall we do instead?”

If there was
still a moment when he might have reclaimed his senses enough to
beg her pardon for the interruption and walk away ... it was lost
when she took a step away from the rail, rose up on the tips of her
toes and pressed her mouth over his. Her lips were soft and the
kiss fleeting, but when it ended, he felt as though he had been
struck by a bolt of lightning. The first bolt was followed by
another as she slid a hand up and circled it round his neck,
dragging his mouth down into another longer, bolder caress.

When it ended,
he studied the hard sparkle in her eyes and felt more than just the
tiny hairs across his nape begin to stand on end.

“May I ask why
you did that?”

“Why did you
kiss me last night? And if you say again it was a horrible mistake
and you’ll regret it to the end of your days... be warned that your
days will end here and now, and in a most unpleasant fashion.”

His jaw
slackened a moment, then clamped tightly shut again. “I expect the
answer you are looking for is that I kissed you because I wanted
to.”

“And why did
you stop?”

“Really,
Captain, I—”

Juliet laughed
softly and stood back. “Does your hand still pain you?”

“I... I beg
your pardon?”

“Your hand. Let
me see it.”

He drew a wary
breath and slid both hands out of sight, clasping them behind his
back. “The burns are much improved, thank you. The thumb is still
bruised, but I can move it without screaming.”

Juliet smiled
and reached out, grasping his wrists and drawing them forward. She
had remarked once before that his hands were big and capable, too
strong to have spent idle hours sitting at card tables or playing
at dice. The fingers were long and tapered, blunt at the tips with
enough calluses to suggest he did not always remember to shield
them in kid gloves. They were the hands of a swordsman, with wrists
like iron. Angling them into the light now she could see the
redness from the rope burn was almost gone on the one palm and if
one had not been there to hear the thumb pop from the socket, the
faint swelling would hardly tell the tale.

She brought the
injured hand forward and placed it over her breast. She heard him
take another sharp bite of air, heard it catch in his throat, but
he did not jerk away. Not a finger twitched, not a hair bristled,
and any other time she might have laughed out loud to see the
shocked rigor on his face.

Any other time
she might not have been feeling so damned unsettled and at odds.
She was back in the bosom of her family, her ships were safe in the
harbor, she was being lauded as a hero. Her belly was full of good
food, her skin tingled from a hot soak and a lusty scrub ... and
yet she had not been able to eat, drink, or wash away this feeling
of restlessness. A bug had landed on her arm earlier and she had
nearly stabbed herself, for pity’s sake. Now, just the sensation of
having his hand on her breast was setting every square inch of her
flesh on fire, warming her to the demon that was already coursing
through her blood.

At the same
time she became disturbingly aware of the heady scent of his skin,
the broad expanse of his chest only inches away. The beating of his
heart was tangible against her fingertips and, lured by the open
shirt, she coaxed the linen slowly aside and rested her hand on his
warm skin. He was all muscle, hard and sculpted, and when her
fingertips started roving, she felt a shiver race through his
flesh.

“You managed to
avoid answering my question,” she murmured.

“I... scarcely
remember what you asked.” His voice was hoarse, forcing an
indifference that broadened her smile and sent her hand searching
farther afield. The hairs tickled her palm and she combed her
fingertips through the springing curls until she found his nipple.
A slow, speculative circle traced around the sensitive flesh had
the tiny nub stiffening into a hard little peak.

“I asked if you
had better control over your urges tonight.”

The question
set the blood pounding through his temples, stinging through his
veins even as her hands moved lower, sliding further beneath his
shirt to explore the bands of muscle that quickened across his ribs
and belly. Appalled by his utter inability to deter her, he watched
as she leaned forward and touched him with the tip of her tongue,
then followed the same path her fingers had taken to his breast.
When her mouth closed over his nipple, she sampled it like one
might taste an offering of some exotic delicacy. Her teeth gently
caught the skin, pulling the dark disc inside the heat of her mouth
where she continued to torment it with her tongue.

His body turned
to iron. His hands came up and gripped her arms, but still he did
not push her away. There were tremors in his fingers, tremors in
his throat as each breath came harsher than the one before.

Intrigued,
Juliet took more of him into her mouth. At the same time, she
started to gently ease the tails of his shirt free of his breeches.
When the cambric hung over his hips in loose folds, she searched
for the fastenings at his waist, releasing one button, then the
next. She did not wait for the cloth to part completely before she
slid her hands beneath and what she found there caused her own
breath to falter in her throat, for he filled her two hands and
still strained upward for more.

“Dear Christ.”
His voice rasped against her forehead. “Do your excesses know no
limits, madam?”

“Not tonight,”
she replied, her lips nuzzling his throat, the warm underside of
his chin. “Not here, not now... unless you want there to be some
boundaries such as do not do this... or do not do this... ”

Varian groaned
and his whole body shook as her hands stroked him. His grip
tightened on her shoulders and she felt a massive shudder wrack his
body as some of the pressure pulsed free, creaming her fingers with
a threat and a warning.

His hands came
up from her shoulders to cradle her neck. His tongue thrust
fiercely between her lips to smother her mocking laughter and
somewhere, somehow in the blink of an eye, the power shifted
happily from her mouth to his. His lips, his tongue ravaged her
with none of the gentleness she had teased him with earlier. This
was lust, heated and urgent, and she felt the effects curling
between her thighs, shivering through her limbs.

Wanting more,
she lifted the hem of her shirt and brought him thrusting forward
so he could slide himself into the sleek warmth of her cleft. His
flesh bucked and thickened beyond all conceivable thought,
stretching until the veins beat against her fingers and his mouth
tore free of hers on a ragged gasp.

“Enough, damn
you! Enough before I shame us both!”

For one wildly
blind moment she thought he was going to push her away, but the
hunger in his body was raw and pounding. It overwhelmed his every
common good sense and he scooped her into his arms, carrying her
across the veranda in brusque, powerful strides. He kicked aside
the gauzy curtains that belled outward from his room and went
straight to the bed, where he threw her on top, delaying only long
enough to shed his clothes before joining her.

Juliet welcomed
him eagerly into her arms. She was ready—sweet Christ she was more
than ready—and she laughed for the sheer pleasure of it when he
grasped two fistfuls of her shirt and tore it from neck to hem. He
knelt above her a moment, his shoulders gleaming in the
candlelight, his eyes dark and full of questions that had no
answers.

Slowly, almost
reverently, he placed his hands on her breasts, then stroked them
down to her waist, to her hips, curving them around until they were
between her thighs and sliding into the soft, coppery curls. He
bowed his head and she writhed when she felt his mouth and tongue
painting her breasts and belly with fire, but when he took his
assault lower, she came arching up off the bed.

“Wh-what are
you doing?”

“You said there
were no boundaries, Captain.”

“No, but—”

“Or would you
prefer to impose some now, such as... do not do this—” he lowered
his head and touched her with the tip of his tongue, sliding lushly
down one sleek fold and up another. “Or this—” the gentle lapping
was replaced by a swirling invasion, a series of wet, silky thrusts
that sucked the breath from her body and sent her melting
helplessly back onto the bed.

Varian probed
and stroked until the resistance left her thighs and he could feel
the shock of discovery fluttering through her limbs. He explored
every tender crease and crevice, layering pleasure upon pleasure
until she was no longer fighting the extraordinary intrusion but
opening herself eagerly for more.

He obliged by
bringing his hands, his fingers into play and she was conscious of
her own hands clutching desperately at the bedsheets. She did not
know where to look, what to grasp to keep her from flying out of
her body and in the end, she flung her arms above her head to catch
hold of a bedpost but it was too late.

She rose off
the bed in a taut arch, her body strained like a bowstring. Each
ruthless thrust of his tongue caused her to cry out into the
shadows, to shudder and writhe and eventually issue the frantic
plea that brought him sliding forward to replace the heat of his
mouth with the driving shock of his flesh.

Juliet crested
before the first thrust was even complete; the second brought her
hands down from the bedpost to claw frantically at his shoulders,
then his hips. She could not have drawn a breath to save her life,
for there was only pleasure, intense and unstoppable, great
shuddering contractions of ecstasy that seemed to never end, never
relent in heat or intensity.

Varian drew on
every skill he possessed to resist the lure of those grasping
muscles. He lifted her hips higher to change the angle of
penetration and watched the silvery eyes glaze in disbelief as the
shudders from yet another orgasm sent her head thrashing side to
side, scattering the dark cloud of her hair across the bed. He kept
her there, trembling and senseless, as long as he possibly could
before his own pleasure broke in dark, rushing torrents.

The sheer force
of his release brought him plunging forward into her body. He felt
her legs twine around him like a vise and he flung his head back,
pouring himself into each greedy roll of her hips until he had no
more to give. A final, heaving shudder left him so utterly and
immutably drained that he sank back into her arms and lay there
panting, steaming in his own sweat.

Juliet fared no
better. Her blood was thrumming through her veins, her heart was
beating like a mad thing in her chest. Every shiver, every tremor
that raced through his big body found an echo in her own. She could
feel his breath against her neck, the hairs on his chest where they
lay crushed against her breasts. She felt exposed and vulnerable,
lying there with a man sprawled between her open legs. Part of her
wanted to push against his shoulders and shove him aside. Another
part wanted to run her fingers up into his hair and turn his face
so that she could taste the silky heat of his mouth again.