Seize the Fire (30 page)

Olympia knew what his body normally looked like. In spite of her sick weakness on that first morning here, the momentary view she'd had of him was quite vivid in her memory.

"Are you ill?" she asked sharply.

He seemed surprised, and then shook his head. "Devilish tired and hungry. Do I look ill?"

"That's not painful? That swelling?"

"Swe—" He stopped, blinked—and then a slow grin lit his face. "Ah.
That
swelling."

Olympia recognized his grin. She'd said something ridiculous; laid herself open to his subtle mockery. She stiffened beneath the seal fur and turned her face away. "Never mind! I'm sure I don't care if you swell up and turn purple all over."

"That only happens if I hold my breath. This is a different kind of malady, Princess Peahen."

"I see," she said with arctic majesty.

"Actually, it begins to appear that you don't. Would you like me to tell you about it?"

"No."

He said gently, "I think perhaps I ought. We might rub along better."

"I'm sure there's no need," she said, and then added rather wildly, "I know all about it."

He shook his head. Sunlight glanced off his black hair. "You don't know the first damned thing. Which I might have guessed, given the kind of well-informed opinions you hold about the rest of the world." He pulled on his coat, scooped up her dress and chemise and headed out the door. "Don't go far," he said blithely. "Professor Sherry commences his famous lecture on Modesty and Morality in the Modem Female in just a few moments."

"You don't have the morals of a cat!" she shouted after him, trapped naked beneath the fur while he had her dress. "Or the modesty either."

"You've got fifteen minutes," he called. "You'd better be back under that fur when I get back, or we'll have a demonstration instead of a lecture."

Olympia took him at his word, scrambling out from under the sealskin and performing her morning ablutions in frenzied haste. Long before he returned, she was huddled in place with the fur up to her chin, staring at the stone wall in miserable anger and uncertainty. Worse than the fury and bewilderment was the confused sense of excitement, all tangled up with the dream and his hands and the way she'd watched him sleep.

It was wrong. It was wicked, like he was—and it held the same impossible allure. She thought of what he'd done to her in Madeira, the way he'd made her feel with his hands and his kisses, and felt sick with agitation.

She heard the rooks squabble and scatter and went rigid in anticipation. When he came through the door, she was pretending to have gone back to sleep, but she knew perfectly well when he rekindled the fire, filling the hut with the tangy smell of peat smoke. Her pathetic effort at sleep dissolved as soon as he sat down so close to her that his leg pressed hard against her hip. Something rustled dryly. She opened her eyes.

To her astonishment, he was unwrapping a small packet of waxy paper.

She sat up, barely remembering to clutch the fur skin over her. "Whatever's that?"

"Breakfast."

"What is it? Where did you find it?"

He smiled, holding up three sticks of horehound candy, spiraled with pale green and white. "Our late friend the chief mate had a sweet tooth. I've been saving 'em for a special occasion."

Olympia's lips parted in awe. "Oh," she said faintly. "Oh, my. You don't know how I've been dreaming of comfits!"

"I daresay I had my suspicions." He pulled out his knife and sawed at one stick, dividing it with his careful and exacting fairness. "Here, my mouse." He laid the sweet in her upturned palm, pressed her fingers over it and kissed the top of her fist before she realized what he was about. She snatched her hand away.

He only laughed softly and stretched out beside her with a stick of horehound in his mouth. He'd shaved, which he did frequently, in spite of arguments over proper use of their single bar of soap. Olympia slid down into the protection of the fur, sucking her own portion of candy with nervous bliss.

He crunched down on his stick, making short work of what Olympia was savoring, and then watched her for a moment. "Do you know how to make a baby?" he asked.

Olympia almost swallowed her candy stick.

"Specifically, I mean," he added. "Not just get married, y' know, and then go look under a cabbage leaf."

She hesitated, crimson. He was propped up on his elbow, regarding her with casual attention. She shook her head slightly.

"Just as well," he said. "At least you're not suffering under some bizarre misconception about doorknobs or something. You wouldn't believe some of the weird ideas thirteen-year-old midshipmen can circulate as truth." He sucked at the tip of his second piece of candy, regarding her over his fist. "But I'm sure your notions on the subject are much more mature."

"I never thought about it," she said stiffly.

"Oh, really?" He lifted his eyebrows. "A virgin and a liar to boot."

"I haven't dwelt on it," she amended abruptly.

"Why did you touch me this morning? "

She turned her face away. "I didn't touch you. I despise you."

"Yes, we're all well aware of that. I'm a villain and a blackguard—every quaking little maiden's nightmare." He lowered his lashes, watching her with a moody smile and eyes like smoke. "But some get a taste for the devil, don't they?"

Olympia drew in a sharp breath. "This is nonsense! I want to get up."

"By all means," he said mildly.

She glared at him, still trapped underneath the fur by her nakedness. He showed no inclination to leave.

"Don't you want to know?" His question was soft and provocative. "Knowledge is power, Princess. Did your learned tutor never pass along that political lesson?"

Olympia glared at him.

He lifted one eyebrow in a subtle curve. "Wouldn't you like to torment me? You can, you know. You've got revenge right in your hand."

"Oh, I'm sure you intend to tell me exactly how I can torment you."

His lashes lowered on a silver gleam. "I might."

"Why?"

"It's a game, Princess. I can tell you how to play, but that doesn't mean you'll win."

Olympia gave an unladylike snort. "I'm sure if it were a game, you'd cheat."

He tilted his head. "Now, cheating is an interesting subject. For instance, is it actually cheating if one doesn't get caught?" He looked back at her. "But the rules are pretty flexible in this particular competition, so I encourage you to connive against me to your heart's content. If you think you can."

This challenge, delivered with a sly smile, made her sit up on her elbows, pulling the fur up under her chin. "I'm tired of your idea of riddles. If there's something I ought to know that you can tell me, do so directly."

He reached across her, spreading his fingers in the fur as he caught her arm, pulling her against him. Her face was on a level with his, her skin flushed. Her loosened hair spilled down over her shoulders and the soft bedding. For an instant he stared at her, so close she could feel his breath on her eyelashes. As her lips parted to speak, he lowered his head and kissed her.

Olympia made a sound in her throat: furious protest and unwilling excitement. His grip tightened on her arm. Heat and sweetness invaded her, the taste of sugar on his tongue, the scent of horehound candy and of him—honey and salt mingled, unexpected and fascinating.

The sound of the ocean seemed to rise to a roar in her ears. She was drowning in him, in the length of his body, in the heat of his mouth taking hers, when he suspended the kiss with an abrupt move. He left her breathing hard and raggedly. She stared up into eyes of cloudy silver beneath black lashes.

"Direct enough?" he murmured.

"Let go of me."

"When the lecture's over. We might require further demonstration on certain points." He bent to brush caressing kisses at the corners of her lips, his breath warm on her cheek. "Don't fight it so, my little mouse. I won't hurt you."

She closed her eyes with a faint trembling in her chin, a strange, painful pleasure spreading through her. "You will," she whispered. "Yes, you will."

His light caresses stopped. In the silence a rook cried above the sound of the surf. Olympia pressed her mouth closed against the quivering.

When she opened her eyes he was looking down at her. The teasing smile was gone, leaving the grave, beautiful curve of his mouth. He lowered his lashes, and the sulky expression stole in to shadow his features. He glanced away toward the fire. "If it's guilt and regret you want, you're looking at the wrong man."

"I don't want anything from you. Not anymore."

He turned back, his eyes smoldering. "That's a lie, Princess."

She felt herself redden beneath his hot look.

"Unlike you," he said, "I happen to have a jolly good notion of what you want. And it's fine with me, but for the fact that we're stranded on this damned desolate island for the foreseeable future, and I don't wish to have three of us to worry about instead of two."

"Three!"

"A baby," he said politely. "I don't want you pregnant. Not here."

Olympia's blush deepened into scarlet. "That couldn't happen," she exclaimed, covering her agitation and embarrassment with a scathing tone. "We aren't married."

"Well, what do you think, that they wave a magic wand at the ceremony and you start littering right there at the altar? That ain't the way it works, as I've been at pains to try to explain to you, if you'd come down off your high ropes and listen."

"How does it work?" she demanded in alarm, and then a dreadful thought occurred to her. She stared at him, horrified. "You
kissed
me."

Then an even worse memory blazed, of scandalous intimacy in Madeira. "And…and touched—" She swallowed frantically. "Oh, God."

He threw back his head with a bark of laughter. "Aye, I did, didn't I?" He grinned wickedly. "Feeling a bit queer yet? Any sign of dizziness? Queasy in the morning?"

She sat up, pulling the fur around her. "The only thing that makes me queasy is you! Go on. Tell me everything, and if you lie to me, I swear I'll make you sorry."

"I'm terrified." He smiled at her, his glance lingering on her bare shoulders. "All right, then—listen up. Forget all that rubbish about wifely duty you've undoubtedly been stuffed with. It'll give you terminal respectability. Think of the way you felt when you were touching me this morning."

She wet her lips, evading his eyes.

"You don't have to be shy. It's only me, you know… despicable old Sheridan the Thieving Coward and Fraud. There's no one else to hear. And you don't care what I think, do you?"

"Not in the least."

"There." He smiled a little. "Now—how did you feel when you were touching my hand?"

Olympia shifted uncomfortably, holding tight to the fur.

"Restless?" he suggested gently. "Excited?"

She bit her lip.

"Where?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She couldn't. Watching him stretched out like an easy cat, with his gray eyes and tangled lashes and faint lazy smile, was bringing back the feeling in force.

"Here," he supplied for her, and spread his hand on his abdomen. Olympia stared at it, at his fingers as they slid downward toward the apex of his legs. "And here."

His palm rested over the place where she'd seen his body change. The thought made waves of heat and agitation wash over her. She thought of the dream, of Madeira: the sweet center of fire. Her own body began to feel queer and melting there in the same place where his hand lay.

"I feel that way, too," he said softly. "When I see you, or think about you in particular ways—sometimes if I think about what I can't see…" He half closed his eyes, dreamy and diabolic. "Your ankles…I think about how small they are, and how they're shaped…the way they curve down to your pretty white feet. I think about how soft they'd be if I could touch them…how they'd taste if I could kiss them, how warm and smooth and…" He lifted his hand. "See?"

Olympia blinked at the change in his anatomy, her face burning a furious red.

"I'm not ill, Princess. I'm just a man, and I want you."

"What do you want from me?" Her voice was a suspicious squeak.

"In spite of my brain's better judgment, my body wants to get a child in you." He shook his head at her shock. "It's nothing perverted, unless you've got a quarrel with the way God made us. All of us. This ain't just me and my rotten character, you understand. If you'd been stranded here with Fair-Haired Fitzhugh, he'd have felt the same way. Probably worse, since he's still young enough to get himself desperate thinking on the topic. Only he'd have lied about it, to you and to himself, being one of those manly and virtuous nincompoops that seem to abound in the world."

She closed her eyes, breathing rapidly. The mere thought of carrying Sheridan's child made her feel peculiar: not proper disgust at all, but mortification all mixed with excitement and agitation. The idea of him imagining her ankles sent liquid heat pulsing through the place he'd awoken.

"And you, too," he murmured. "What you're feeling—the reason you want to touch me—it's all part of the same thing. It's natural, and I'm not lying now, Princess. Don't ever let some holy fool tell you different, or make you feel ashamed. It's a joy, and God knows there's little enough of that in life sometimes."

It didn't exactly seem like a joy to Olympia. The way she felt seemed more like slow torture. "I want it to stop," she mumbled into the seal fur.

"Yes, it's certainly an inconvenience here. Short of building separate huts, or moving me into exile on another island—"

"No!" Olympia felt a surge of terror at the idea. "No, don't—leave. I—I think we do better together."

"Well, I'm in neither the mood nor the shape to build another hut, and I doubt it would help anyway. Once this sort of thing gets hold of your mind, it doesn't take much more than imagination and the occasional encounter to keep it hot as hellfire."

"Perhaps if we just put our thoughts to something else." She looked at him hopefully. "Would that help?"

He lifted smoky eyes and regarded her, his mouth a seductive curve. "Would it?"