The Pirate Next Door (10 page)

She blinked. “Well, of course not. He actually wanted to be added to my list of suitors. Can you imagine? He is not even English.”

“I don’t give a damn if he’s Turkish. He will not take you from me. Not you.” His gaze darkened. “Not you.”

His hot palm on her thigh rubbed circles on her cold skin. Was he going to kiss her? Her heart fluttered in anticipation. It had been a week since he’d last kissed her, when she’d sat on his lap at her writing table, and he’d teased her about her list.

But he did not kiss her. He studied her so intensely she felt as if his eyes bored all the way to the back of her skull. He was thinking of something else—not her—leaving her behind in a mist of confusion.

Well, she would show him what she thought of that. If he were about to ravish her, he should at least pay her some mind. She settled herself closer to him, then leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

Grayson came out of his contemplation with a start. Eager, soft, innocent kisses caressed his lips, sweet gifts of delight. Oh, Alexandra, a dangerous move.

Her mouth began to explore his, gliding kisses over his lower lip. She gazed up at him from under her lashes in sheer fascination, which made his lower body tighten, calling for immediate attention. No, let it wait. See what she would do.

Her hips rocked a little bit as she unconsciously arched herself to him. He cupped her soft, round hip and found that it just fit into his hand. The vivid vision of her on hands and knees, he behind her came to him. Her lovely hips would rest in his palms, and she would look back at him, eyes heavy with passion, and cry his name.

More tiny kisses brushed his lips. Her fingers found the edge of his shirt, from which he’d ripped the strangling collar and cravat, tossing them who-knew-where in the hired carriage. Several times since he’d met her he had
caught her interested gaze riveted to the scar that began just below the hollow of his throat. She was presently most engrossed with that scar. Perhaps he ought to thank Ardmore for laying open his side that day.

She raised her head. “Oh, dear.”

“What? Don’t stop kissing me.” Please, not yet.

Her blush complemented the confusion in her eyes. “I might ruin your fine breeches.”

His brow furrowed. “Mm? How is that?”

“It’s just that everything is getting a bit damp all of the sudden. I have no idea why. It felt like that when I slept bare, as well. It is most strange.”

His black mood moved toward delight. “I can guess why.” He slid both hands up to the top of her thighs and let his thumbs dip down into her sweet warmth. A shudder went through her as he touched her, all hot and dark and wet. “You beautiful, beautiful woman.”

“How can you say beautiful?” she whispered shyly. “I am such a mess.”

“I like you a mess.” He withdrew his hand and touched fingers to his lips, then closed his eyes to savor her.

When he opened his eyes again, she was watching him, red lips parted. “Lovely lady,” he whispered. “May I taste you?”

She stared at him in pure astonishment. Then she flushed so deeply red her complexion nearly matched her hair. He expected her at any moment to draw herself up, to again become Mrs. Alastair the duke’s granddaughter, and ask him how he dared even think such a thing. He waited for it, the end of his pleasant daydream.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes, please.”

Good. The word beat through him. Good, good, good. Where now? he thought, as he scraped her to him for a long, deep kiss. On the bunk? It was a good foot away—so
far. No, wait. He would not even have to leave the chair.

He pressed her away from him, sliding her to her clumsy feet before he broke the kiss. His hands wadded the warm silk gown and pushed it above her pale and waiting hips, all the way to the sash that bound it beneath her breasts.

Her hips curved gently from her waist, and in the V between her legs, a soft swirl of dark red hair awaited his fingers. Her belly was the only part of her not perfect. Softly rounded beneath her naval, it contained small puckered pink lines that criss-crossed in uneven directions, curving down her abdomen to the waiting delights below.

He understood what the lines meant. Once upon a time, Mrs. Alastair had carried a child. The evidence was there on her skin. But no child lived in her house, and she’d never once spoken of motherhood. He’d glimpsed a dark pain deep in her eyes, and he understood it now.

That pain made him want to treat her gently. His arousal wanted to be rough and playful. He’d show her both. If he could control himself.

He leaned forward and traced the marks on her belly with his tongue, going over each one with care. Her skin prickled beneath his touch, and the rise and fall of her breath quickened. He bent his head and swirled his tongue over the small tuft of hair between her thighs.

She inhaled sharply. He smiled into her, kissing the warm place, nuzzling it. The scent of her was overwhelming. He wanted to stay here forever, breathing her, kissing her. He flicked his tongue over her, smiling again as her gasps turned to tiny groans of delight.

Her feet moved apart of their own accord, opening herself to him. He nipped at the little bud that rose and swelled at his touch. He had drunk the finest wines in
the world, been fed the nectar of kings, but all paled in comparison to the taste of this woman.

And then, to his great delight, she climaxed right before him. She gave a cry and arched to him, seeking his mouth. He obliged. Low throaty moans escaped her, the song of a woman who had found her desire. Her hands furrowed his hair. “Grayson. Please—”

He took her plea for a directive to continue. He drank her hungrily, letting her twist her hands through his long hair. She cried out again, pressing her warm, sweet deliciousness to him—
ah, love, that’s the way.

After a long time, he slowed his plying tongue, drawing from her the last sighs of ecstasy. He carefully withdrew and looked up at her. Her lips parted, her thick lashes shielded her eyes. Her fingers in his hair gentled, smoothing it, hands trembling.

He rose to his feet and gathered her to him. The gossamer dress snagged on a silk fold, bunching up at her waist, leaving her legs bare. He let his hands remain on her smooth hips while he held her close and buried his face in her fragrant hair.

My lady.

His arousal snarled at him, telling him in very basic terms what it thought of him. He held a beautiful woman in his arms, one he’d just brought to climax with his tongue, and what did he do? Throw her to the bunk and complete the deed? No, he simply held her, his face in the curve of her neck. Just held her body against his, learning her fragrance and the feel of her skin.

Mine, he said, in a litany that would not cease. Mine, mine, mine. Never Ardmore’s.

In the dozen years after Grayson stole Sara from James Ardmore, James Ardmore had taken every other woman away from Grayson. From a casual fling with a tavern girl
to Grayson’s more serious affair with a beautiful free black woman in Charleston, James Ardmore had taken them all. He had not done anything so crude as abduction or rape—no, he had employed subtler methods and enticed each one to him willingly, whether their relationship with Grayson was finished or no. Ardmore did not believe in taking revenge and having done. He continued it year after year after bloody year.

Not this time.

Grayson had thought Ardmore would change the rules after making the bargain that allowed Grayson to return with Maggie to England. But Ardmore made his own rules. Grayson would pay the forfeit—he’d given his word—but he would not give him Alexandra.

His lady kissed his ear. He looked down at her. She gave him a tired smile, her eyes smoldering with latent heat. “What happened?”

“You came,” he said. “Has that not happened before?”

She shook her head. Her soft hair brushed his cheek. “Never.”

Good lord. She was as puzzled as a maiden who’d never been touched, never mind she had borne a child. And when he had kissed her the night she’d rescued him, she had not known how.

Her husband must have been a blind idiot who deserved a kick in the pants. This lady should be savored, taught, coaxed, every response delighted in, like a sip of delicate and potent wine.

“What happens now?” she whispered.

He leaned away from her and pressed her fingers to the front of his too-tight breeches. “
This
wants me to have you. Every bit of you.”

Her supple palm molded to him, turning the heat in
side him volcanic. “It is quite—” She wet her lips. “Formidable.”

His sense of humor returned. “It certainly hates me right now for not getting on with it.”

She glided her hand up every agonizing inch. She whispered, “Does this mean you want to take me against the wall?”

He started. There was nothing but innocence in her eyes. Laughter burbled inside him. Thank you, God. Thank you, thank you. How did I find this woman? He put his fist under her chin, tilted her head back. “Against the wall?”

“Is that not customary?”

Good lord, customary for what? Against the wall, hmm. There was not much wall space in his cabin.

“Alexandra, if you want me—” He slid his hands to her hips beneath her dress, lifted her again, and started walking with her toward the line of windows behind the desk “—to take you—” He leaned her back against a wooden slat between the panes, holding his arm between her spine and the hard panel “—against the wall—” He swiftly unbuttoned his breeches and let his very annoyed hardness spill out. “Then my love, I will oblige.”

She breathed, “Good.”

He lifted her hips to him. She was open and wet, ready. At long last, he slid his very impatient erection straight into her.

Now this—This—He closed his eyes and drew a ragged breath. He belonged there. God, yes.

She kissed his lips. The kiss was clumsy, her breathing unsteady. He answered with a fierce kiss of his own. “Love,” he whispered. “Love.”

Desire tingled through his body, racing like pins and needles up and down his limbs. Fire curled behind his
eyes. She was hot and wet and slippery and yet so tight. She was warm and welcoming and he never wanted to leave.

She whispered incoherently, her lips leaving his to play on his cheekbone, his ear. She lowered her head and nipped his neck. The tiny pain made his arousal jerk and throb. He pressed harder into her, beginning a slow rhythm that his hips knew without instruction. Gently, inexorably, he loved her, faster now, faster.

His climax was coming. He felt it build, felt the clawing darkness seeking release. No, not yet. Not here. Not now.

He lifted her from him, though his erection wept and sobbed at the sudden loss of warmth. He swept her into his arms and laid her back on the bunk, almost falling on top of her in his haste. Her tangling hair swept a wide arc on the blankets. He pressed her against the mattress and nudged her knees a part.

“Are we not finished?” she gasped.

Finished? Was she mad?

“Not yet, sweetheart. Very soon. I promise, with all my heart.”

He slid into her, heat and desire and need wrapping itself about him like a warm blanket. She put a shaking hand on his shoulder. “I do not like it—in a bed.”

Interesting. Apart of his mind filed that away for examination later.

He pinned her wrists above her head and began to love her again. His arousal applauded him. This was more like it.

Her face twisted in desire, her eyes dark and heavy. A red curl straggled across her cheek. “Grayson,” she whispered.

“Yes, sweetheart?”

She flexed her fingers but did not try to pull away from his weight on her wrists. “Grayson.”

“Alexandra.” The name rolled from his tongue as if it belonged there. “Love.”

And then he came. Darkness swallowed him and he let it. The instant before his release was complete, he snaked himself out of her and let the blanket take his seed.

She drew a long breath, and her hand came up to weakly stroke his hair. “Oh,” she murmured. “That was not so bad.”

As if from far away, Alexandra felt cool, still air on her skin. She heard his deep even breathing as he lay, half on and half off her, felt hot bands around her wrists where his hands still pressed her.

A spider spun a web from the underside of beams above, lazily descending a fraction of an inch at a time from an invisible thread. Exhaustion laced her inside and out, and astonishment, and a trembling that began in her belly and would not stop. If she cried, what would he do? Become disgusted, tell her to go? Would he make her row herself back to London alone? She bit her lip and willed the tears to remain hidden.

He released her wrists and kissed her neck. “Mmm.”

The thong that bound his hair had come undone, and his sun-streaked locks tumbled down. She trickled her fingers through the rough silk of it.

He raised up to look at her. His lazy smile made her heart speed again. “Not so bad, did you say?”

“No.”

His eyes were full of laughter. The anger that had ruled him earlier had fled for now. “I am happy I pleased you, my lady.”

She smoothed a lock of hair from his brow. “No, my lord, you are pleased with yourself.”

He laughed softly, shaking the mattress. “I damn well am pleased with myself. I am in bed with the most beautiful next-door neighbor a man could want.”

“You think me beautiful?” she asked wistfully.

“I never lie about a woman’s beauty.”

She traced the crooked bump on his nose. “What do you lie about, my lord?”

“An amazing number of things. What do you lie about?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head against the pillow. “I am very bad at lying, so I try not to practice it.”

He gave her a lazy grin. “Practice makes you better.” He kissed her skin just beneath the point of the diamond necklace. He touched the jewels. “One of your husband’s gifts?”

“Yes.” She really did not want to talk about Theo. In fact, in this past week Theo had receded like a half-forgotten dream. His barbed wit, his complete disregard of her wishes, and his blatant infidelity, all the pain and embarrassment they had caused her, had drifted away like mist before a stiff sea wind. A new viscount had moved in next door, and suddenly, everything was different.

He flipped a dangling jewel. “It’s hideous.”

Anyone with eyes could see that. “It was the best of the lot.” She paused. “Are you going to steal it?”

He half-laughed. “What?”

“I thought it was traditional. That is what pirates do.”

“Who told you I was a pirate?”

“Are you not?”

His hand drifted from the necklace down to rest, warm, on her bared belly. “I am a viscount. With a daughter.”

“That is what Lady Featherstone said.”

He blinked. “Lady Featherstone?”

“She said it was unlikely a pirate would have a daughter.”

He nodded sagely. “She is wise.”

“You have not answered my question.”

A crease formed between his brows. “Which question?” he asked cautiously.

“Will you steal my necklace?”