Romancing the Pirate 01 - Blood and Treasure (22 page)

Waiting for the mercurial stars to disperse, she heard the thud of his boots hit the floor. Her eyes fluttered open just as his mouth descended on hers. She tasted herself on his lips and his tongue swept into her mouth. Headiness enveloped her and she eagerly returned his succulent kisses.

Taking her hand in his, he laced their fingers together, holding them firm. He slid himself in her waiting core, watching her. She sucked in as Zane eased into her. Pride emanated through her with the brief close of his eyes as he relished her tightness. An urgent anticipation built in her. She needed him so badly. He obliged, first slowly, and then paced to rhythmic rocking. Deeper and deeper his strokes as he crushed into her.

Lianna’s groans grew louder with every thrust as she ground her pelvis up to meet him. She was going mad, delirious with his hot thickness filling her.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if she was wrong, wrong to enjoy every pounding moment of this. For certainly once the anchor dropped, she would lose her mind wanting, wishing for him like this again.

Zane rolled her to her side, both of them facing the window. The clouds had swallowed the moon. Lightning cracked through the sky. He nudged her leg up, diving in deep from behind. He rubbed a hand down her belly to her mound and he quickened his strokes. She let out a whimper as his fingers circled over her pulsating, swollen folds.

“You like that?” His utterance came gruff with each thrust of his hips. He nuzzled against her neck, nipping at her shoulders. “Do you?”

She teetered on bursting into a million pieces. “Yes.” The word floated on a breath.

“You are mine for the taking.” Faster and faster he stabbed to the hilt. “A prize most valued.” Banging against her core. “You belong to me now.”

“Yes…you.”

Lianna reached her peak and screamed, disintegrating into white-hot heat. Burning pleasure rippled through her again and again. She shuddered then seized as Zane groaned, reaching his own apex, his body jerking and spilling into her.

Outside, the thunder rolled.

For a long moment, she lay still with Zane in the pool of bedding, melded together in their shared intimacy and glistening sweat. The air pressed warm around them. The fog from their breath on the window panes faded. Rain came in heavy sheets, pelting at the glass. The ship rocked, creaking noisily from the tempering winds and angry waves.

Lianna rolled to her back to face Zane, wholly content, satiated, and complete. Even as she quivered down to Earth, she couldn’t rein in her heart. It soared from her reach. She was sure she rushed headlong for a heartbreak, for she wasn’t slated for anything more. He didn’t mean what he said. He didn’t mean that she belonged to him. ’Twas just the heat of the moment. Still, at the risk of never feeling like this again, never feeling this desired, this happy, she would savor the evening for all it was worth. Whatever may become of her tomorrow.

Zane propped himself on his elbow. He bathed in her sweet fairness, smitten by the freckles that lightly dusted her pink sunburned nose. Her smile, though, couldn’t hide her apprehension. It saddened him she might think she had made a mistake and regret letting him in. She mustn’t feel he merely burned off animalistic steam. Every sensuous touch, every dire kiss, he indulged with her as he never had with any other woman.

“You have bestowed upon me tonight a most precious gift, Lianna. I will cherish it my whole miserable life.”

“I, too, shall carry this night in my heart.” This time her smile reflected winsome contentment. And it pleased him.

She began tracing the lines to his tattoo again. “It’s beautiful,” she admired.

The tickling of her fingernails sent chills down his spine. “Got it in Madagascar. It signifies rebirth from the ashes of death.”

“Does that mean something specific to you?” She followed the bird’s tail down his breastplate. Her skimming fingers loosened the tight rusty grip of ages past.

He exhaled heavily, rolling to his back with his hands tucked under his head. “Aye.” She had touched a tender nerve. In that one hesitant word, he had piqued her interest.

“And?” She pressed him further.

“I was ten years old when a group of men came to my small village looking for the able-bodied to serve as seamen. They offered handsome payments to all who joined. But they had no intentions of hiring the men who stepped forward. Those runners were dealing in a more…lucrative business.”

“Oh?” Her forehead crinkled and her eyebrows shot up in dubious suspicion. No, ’twas plain that she was not blind to the cruelties of humankind like so many other maidens, maidens carefully sheltered from the real world.

“In the middle of the night, I was abducted from my bed along with several other young boys from the village. We were bound, whipped, and blindfolded, then boarded on to a boat. Soon after, we docked in a port bustling with slave traders. That’s when I met Blade. He, too, had been taken from his home. ’Twas at this wretched God-forsaken port we were sold like livestock. I never saw my family again.”

Zane paused. He had never told anyone of how he became property of the sea. Not that it was necessarily a secret, just that he didn’t
talk
about it. He cast a glance at Lianna. Her dewy eyes were weary with sadness, her lush mouth frowning. He reached up to rub his thumb across her lower lip. She took his hand and placed a soft kiss in his palm.

“Blade and I were bought by a merchant,” he continued, “that sailed between Europe and the Barbary Coast running spice, ivory, muslin, and the occasional slave. ’Twas ironic being as he had a ship full of them at his disposal. Unfortunately, that was exactly how we were treated. Disposable. Boys were cheap to come by. If a lad became indocile, couldn’t or was too slow to learn sea faring, or even if a hapless boy fell ill, he would be considered lucky to be sold off at the next port. But more often, the captain would cut his losses and toss the miserable wretch into the sea.”

The appalling notion played across her face in her sorrowful stare. But she couldn’t possibly imagine the horrors they withstood. He would spare her the more horrid details of starvation, abuse and the tortures, the barbaric tortures.

She peered down at him, fondling his hair with slender fingers. “’Twas do or die,” he said. “Those that endured had to become skilled to the craft, seasoned to injury, to survive. Blade and I, we became brothers in our suffering.”

“How awful.” She reached down to touch the small bruise he knew had formed on his cheekbone from her earlier blow. He caught a glimpse of guilt flicker across her sullen gaze before she looked back at him. He let a smile slip, unashamed. Let her suffer just a bit. A reflex reaction to her weakness.

“After a few years, the Royal Navy intercepted us, arresting the captain on violating trade embargos. Our salvation was short-lived. The young men were gang-pressed into naval service. We went from one tyranny to another, faring only slightly better. We were hammered into soldiers, fought like soldiers, but were denied the soldier’s benefits, pay and honor.

“As fate would have it, an opportunity arose during a deadly skirmish.”

“A mutiny.”

He cut his gaze to Lianna. “If you like.” She sympathetically nodded. He had to give her credit for her perception. “I have been a man of enterprise ever since.”

“An affluent and highly regarded one, I’ve heard.”

He laughed softly. “That depends on whom you speak with.”

“Never mind the source. I’ve my own first hand knowledge to frame my opinion.” She rubbed the back of her hand down his cheek.

Craning his neck up, he stole a kiss.

Lightning crashed. The ominous flash lit the thrashing ocean. Howling winds slapped frothy waves against the brig, sending sprays of the sea across the windows and tossing the
Rissa
about the toiling sea. In the captain’s cabin, Lianna looked up to watch the lanterns swing precariously on their hooks, watched as the room moved with the shifting shadows. The tempest stirred a carnal urge in her that reared its randy head.

She returned to his kiss, deepened it further in her desire. She could feel him smile as she crawled on top of him. Abandoning his mouth, she swept her tongue down the length of his body. She made bold lazy circles around his belly button. A tender jab of her tongue into his navel garnered a soft moan from him. His whole body stiffened as she took his girth into her hands, running her tongue up his length, and tracing around his darkening crown before taking him into her mouth. She gloried at the sight of the muscles in his neck, face and thighs cording with tension as she drew upon him. Taking control of his pleasure gave her an unbelievable, unbridled rush of power. She was exhilarated in knowing his ruttish groans were because of her.

“No. No more of your torments.” He swiftly flipped her over. Pinning her underneath him, he drove himself in. With every buck of the ship, they rocked, and he delved into her until they expired in a spent, sanguine felicity.

*****

Lying with Lianna wrapped in his arms, Zane tried coping with a strange feeling, a feeling of falling, of vertigo. Although he sensed he was caught in an intense whirlpool, he soaked in serenity. But if this was love, well, he had no room for it. He couldn’t betray his real mistress. What woman would embrace or tolerate being second in a sea captain’s life? Nay, ’twas no good. No good for him, no good for Lianna. Yet he could never turn her away. Not now. He made a silent affirmation to protect her at whatever cost.

“Capt’n!” The knock at the door startled them and Lianna flinched in his arms.

Zane groaned. “Go away!”

“Capt’n!” Jason’s voice called again from behind the door, “It’s Henri. He’s been hurt.”

Zane sat up bolt right.

“Hurt bad.”

He scrambled from the bed. “Hold on!” He stuffed himself into his breeches. “What do you mean hurt bad?” He swung open the door. Jason stood soaked in the hall, pale as a ghost. “Out with it, son!”

“We were on deck,” the boy rambled on. “Securin’ the riggin’. One of the sails came loose. The wind is so bad and the sail just broke loose. Henri was knocked down and slid straight into a hook.”

Zane squinched his face at the thought. “A grappling hook?”

The lad nodded, water dripping from the tips of his matted hair.

“Is he in the galley?”

Jason nodded again.

“Where’s Blade?” Zane shoved his feet into his boots.

“With Henri.”

Zane shot a look over his shoulder at Lianna, wrapped in his sheet. It pained him to see her there; her hair draped down around her shoulders, the way the sheet clung to the roundness of her breasts, the rosy glow of her angelic face. Damn if he didn’t crave her.

“Stay put,” he ordered.

She gave him an emphatic nod. “They need you. Go.”

*****

The moment the door closed, Lianna bounded to her feet and dressed. Like hell was she staying put. Slipping into her shoes, a glint of gold under the bed caught her eye. Immediately she recognized it to be The Serpent. She plucked it from the floor. It twirled from its golden chain. The medallion must have fallen from Zane’s pocket. “We can’t have you just lying about, can we?”

Though many of the lanterns had been extinguished during the storm, Lianna made her way down to the ship’s galley without stumbling once, or getting lost. She silently thanked her lucky stars for small miracles. The noisy kitchen sweltered with the many men jostling around the table where Henri sat.

“Ow! Ye killin’ me! Zane! Git this lunatic away from me!”

“Quit your squawking.” Blade gingerly moved the hook around Henri’s leg, examining its difficulty in removal.

“Just shoot me! Put me outta me misery.” Henri howled again. “I’m comin’ home, Lord! I’m comin’ home!”

“Hush up, Henri. You’re worse than a wee girl,” Zane snapped.