He didn’t particularly want to smoke in front of her, and he wasn’t about to give up smoking just because she had gotten some ridiculous idea in her head to come and see him. He would have to get rid of her.
“If you stay,” he said, “you’ll have to smoke as well.”
She squared her shoulders. “All right.”
All right? Was she mad? He raised his eyebrows at her.
“It’s as I was saying. This is my one and only adventure, and I want to enjoy it as best as I can,” she said. “I want to do everything that I have a chance to do.”
He considered. He supposed she could do it if she wanted to. He hadn’t been serious when he offered, thinking she would be scandalized by the idea, but now that he had proposed it, and she had accepted, he could feel himself warming to the idea. It would be a nice thing to show her what it was like, almost as if he was initiating someone into a secret society. And there was no way she wouldn’t enjoy it. It was wonderful. “If you’re going to do it, you must come here.”
She took a shaky breath. “All right,” she said again, and she stood up.
“If you don’t want to do it—”
“I want to.” She crossed the room to him.
He helped her sit down on the cushions, and he sat down next to her. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”
She shook her head. “Of course not.”
“Well, we will want to go quite slowly. You should not smoke as much as me. Just a little bit.”
She licked her lips.
He smiled at her. “You’re very brave, Miss Bennet.”
“Glad you didn’t kill me after all?” She shot him a defiant glance.
Why would she bring that up now? “You know,” he said quietly, “I am sorry that you got entangled in all of this.”
Now, she looked away.
“I am not…” He sighed. “I am not as bad a man as you imagine me to be, I don’t think.”
Now, she met his gaze again, a challenge. “You don’t know if you’re bad?”
“I don’t know how bad you imagine me.”
“Quite bad.”
“The worst?”
She shook her head. “Not the worst, no.”
“But quite bad even so?”
She nodded. “And yet—” She stopped.
“And yet what?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think me a bad man for allowing you to try this?” He picked up the pipe. “Because you shouldn’t. There is nothing bad about this. This is… pure bliss. You will enjoy it.”
Her upper teeth sank into her lower lip.
He thought of kissing her. He thought of that bare breast, that puckered nipple. He swallowed. He was going to have to keep himself in check, because if she smoked this opium, she would be highly suggestible, and he would have to keep himself from taking advantage of that. He would smoke too, but he wouldn’t smoke nearly as much as he might normally. He needed to keep a bit of his wits about him.
He gestured to the pipe. “I’ll get this started for us. You must… lie back.” He showed her.
She reclined onto the cushions.
He saw to the lamp, adjusting the flame a bit, getting it just so. And then he reclined next to her, so that their heads were together.
Carefully, he held the pipe into the flame, heating the ball of opium in the pipe.
He sucked in the sweet smoke and shut his eyes.
It was quiet except for the sound of her breath.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. After just one pull from the pipe, she suddenly seemed impossibly lovely, like a goddess next to him. He gave her a languid smile. “It’s going well now. You must be careful when you breathe it in.” He handed her the pipe.
She sucked.
Sputtered.
Coughed.
He laughed, taking the pipe back. “Not like that, Miss Bennet.” He demonstrated. “Slow and steady. Try again.” He gave it back to her.
Her eyes were watering, but she took in a lungful of smoke.
“Perfect,” he murmured. He took the pipe back and took a little more for himself. Ah, everything was starting to feel better now. Everything seemed brighter and warmer and sweeter. “Everything is going to be perfect. You’ll see.”
* * *
A feeling of nausea stole over Elizabeth, and she tried to fight it, but she couldn’t.
It was on her, imperative. She must—
She turned over, retching and heaving, endeavoring to bring up all of her supper.
“Oh,” whispered Darcy from behind her. “That sometimes happens at first.”
The warmth of his hand on her back, soothing.
She retched again.
“Shh,” he whispered. “You won’t actually vomit. It only feels as if you will. Don’t fight. Surrender, and it will go away.” He rubbed her back in slow circles.
She felt awful, and she was sure that she indeed was going to vomit. She retched several more times, hotly embarrassed.
But then… it began to ebb, the sensation, and it was swallowed up in soft wondrousness.
She lay back on the cushions, feeling as if she was floating on a cloud. “Oh,” she whispered.
He laughed, a long, slow deep sound of enjoyment. “Better?”
“Much,” she breathed. She looked over at him.
He was gazing at her through half-open eyes, looking pleased and relaxed. “You see? It’s nice.”
She nodded. “It is. It’s quite, quite…” Unable to stop herself, she suddenly reached out for him. She ran her fingertips over his cheek, his jaw. She felt the prickles of his stubble, and that sensation was interesting to her. She left her hand there, rubbing her fingers back and forth.
He caught her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured but didn’t move her hand.
“No,” he said. “I like it. Don’t stop.”
So, she didn’t. She shut her eyes, collapsed into the cushions, and touched him, letting her questing fingers travel down his neck and under his shirt and over his shoulder to the bulge of his thick arm. She loved the way he felt. His skin was hot and smooth. This close to him, she could smell him, and he smelled like a mix of opium smoke and sweet sweat.
He let out a soft sigh. “Ah, Miss Bennet.”
And she didn’t stop. She wasn’t sure how long it went on, because she felt as if she got a bit lost behind her eyelids, where everything was tunneling into itself, patterns dancings behind her lids in time to the flickering light of the lamp. It seemed to go on and on, and she was sinking deeper and deeper into a place of such goodness. It was nice here, and she had never felt anything so amazing in her entire life.
Then his fingers grazed her cheek, and her eyes fluttered open.
It was explosive, his hand on her. It tingled and glowed. “Captain,” she breathed, finally calling him what he wished her to say.
“Call me Fitzwilliam.” His voice rumbled.
“Fitzwilliam,” she repeated. And kissed him.
She didn’t have any intention of doing it, no foreknowledge of the act. Before she knew what was happening, she was doing it, putting her lips on his, and then letting her tongue dart brazenly into his mouth.
He groaned, but he didn’t break the kiss. He deepened it.
She let her hands move higher, sinking them into his hair as she had wanted to, and she felt as if she were tunneling into him, or that he was tunneling into her, and inside each other, everything was a wonderful world of lights and sounds and sweet goodness.
He moved, pressing his body against hers, half-covering her with one leg.
Mmm, she liked that. She wriggled to get closer, wanting every bit of him against her, wanting to feel what it would like to be buried under him.
He obliged, so that now he was over her, his arms over hers, his shoulders over hers. His hips cradled in her hips.
Oh, that was lovely. She sighed in satisfaction, and then she parted her legs. It seemed natural. She wrapped
them around him, through her skirts. Even so, even with his trousers as well, she could feel him against her inner thighs, and she had never felt anything quite so nice.
He gasped, opening his eyes. “Miss Bennet, we can’t do this.”
“Oh,” she said, feeling very disappointed. She liked this. This felt so good, better than anything she’d ever felt. And it all seemed to be flowing, happening just as it should.
He propped himself up over her, so that their chests were no longer touching.
She missed his weight. His heat.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “You don’t know what it is that you’re doing to me. You don’t know how you tempt me.”
“Tempt you to do what?”
He shut his eyes.
She kissed him again.
He kissed her back, and they were lost to that for some time again, a tangle of limbs and lips. It was lovely, and she clung to him, running her hands over his back, and lower to brush his buttocks, which were round and firm and quite nice. She was shocked at her wantonness, but happy with it as well. She didn’t mind what she had done. Nothing mattered now. Everything was bliss.
He pulled away, removing her hands. He was out of breath. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?” she said, feeling bold. “I think you liked it. I rather liked it. You feel quite nice under my hands. I like how… hard you are.”
He groaned again, and his hips ground against her, and there was something else there that was very, very hard, and it was sticking out of him…
What had he told her before? That conversation about what was between men’s legs? He’d said a word.
He heaved. “Don’t say things like that. You will drive me absolutely to the brink, and I shall not be able to stop myself.”
What was the word? “Cock,” she said, remembering, feeling proud of herself.
“Miss Bennet?” His voice was strangled.
“That’s what’s between your legs,” she said. “You told me that men had them, and that they used them to… to…” She put her hands on his face again, tucking his hair behind his ears. “If I want you to do it, then it isn’t rape, is it?”
“No,” he said, shutting his eyes. “But you don’t know what you want. You couldn’t possibly know.”
“I do want it,” she said. “I won’t have any chance of doing it ever, I don’t think. I’m not to have a husband.” She remembered her anger towards him earlier, but she couldn’t manage anger anymore. All she remembered of that emotion was the yearning underneath it all. That she had wanted to be his wife, and this was what wives did with their husbands, wasn’t it?
“No,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly. You don’t even know what you’re asking for.”
“I’m asking for your cock.” She said the word again. “I want it.”
He groaned again, driving that hard part of himself against her belly. He claimed her mouth again, and there was a harshness to his kiss, as if he was desperately fighting some internal battle and losing.
“Please?” she whispered.
“No,” he said again, but his voice wasn’t strong.
She put her hand between their bodies, questing, feeling for him. There. That was it. The hard part. It was… long and round, like a… sausage or something. She smiled. She squeezed it.
“Stop that.” He gritted his teeth. “Let go.”
She threw her head back. “Oh, I’ve never felt anything this good. I want everything. I want the whole world. You must give it to me, Fitzwilliam, or I shall go running through the ship and throw myself at the entire crew.”
His eyes widened. “You wouldn’t.”
She giggled.
“I should never have let you smoke that. I should never have allowed you. I have corrupted you—”
“Use your cock on me.”
He laughed a little at that. “That is not what you say.”
“It’s not? How would I know? What should I say then?”
“Say…” He sat back, and he put his hands under her skirts, pushing them up, baring her thighs. His voice was hoarse. “Say, ‘Put your cock inside me.’” His hands slid over the inside of her thighs.
She moaned. She trembled. “Put your cock inside me,” she gasped. The way he was touching her, it was…
His fingers moved higher, to the lips of her most secret spot, and that was—
She let out a little cry.
He rubbed her, the heel of his hand against some sensitive part of her while his fingers pushed into her body.
She gasped.
He winced. “It might hurt you.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” she whispered. “It feels very, very good.”
“You’re wet,” he muttered. “You’re so wet.”
“What does that—”
“Shh.” His mouth on hers again, and now his hands were behind her, loosening her bodice, pulling it over her shoulders and baring her breasts.
The air was cold. She shivered.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful…” And his mouth was on her breasts, on her nipples, kissing them, sucking them, making them stiff, and sending quakes through her body, making her clench between her legs.
She writhed against him.
He was fumbling at his trousers, freeing his cock, and she strained to look, to see it, but he was touching her again, stroking her between her thighs, and she cried out at the sheer sweetness of all of it and then…
It was happening.
She bit her lip.
It did hurt.
It was big and thick and it was filling her up and she was frightened of it, worried. She tensed.
But he was driving himself in and out of her, his face burrowed in her neck, and he was gasping.
She shut her eyes, cringing.
And then the drug found her again, numbing the pain almost immediately, as if it had never been there. She was floating in the dark warmth of wonder again, and now he was here with her. He was inside her body. They were joined. Connected. Like one flesh.
Like the bible, she thought idly as her hips began to find his rhythm and move against him. Pleasure began to kindle within her, something warm and sweet and good. She moaned.
His mouth found hers, and now they were so tangled together that it was exquisite. Waves of pleasantness rode in on the heels of the opium and she was lost, so lost. The only thing she could cling to was him, and he was inside her too. He was part of her.
Yes, this was really quite nice, actually. This was…
“You’re lovely,” he whispered. “You feel like heaven.”
Tears formed in her eyes, and she clutched him tighter.
Maybe this was heaven.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Darcy stirred awake, his limbs tangled with Miss Bennet’s. The opium lamp had long gone out, but the air still smelled cloyingly of old smoke.
He sat up. He looked down at her sleeping form, and a knot formed in his stomach.
What had he done?
Waking up after a night of opium smoking was never a pleasant proposition even in the best of times. It wasn’t as physically debilitating as the morning after drinking too much, but it was somehow… emotionally debilitating? He spent the entire day feeling strangely unattached, as if nothing was really real. He would have liked to have spent the entire day in bed, but that was nearly never possible, not when he was the captain of a ship. He had to get out and about or the men would get antsy.
Next to him, she stirred in her sleep, tugging the blanket they had slept with tighter against her body.
He rubbed his forehead. What the hell was he going to do?
What if she was with child?
“You’re very stupid, Darcy,” he whispered to himself. “Weak and stupid and horrid.” He shoved aside the blanket and got to his feet. He wasn’t wearing his trousers anymore, but he spied them on the floor, and he stepped into them. He tidied his clothing, smoothed his hair.
Then he came
back to look at her.
He had sworn to himself he would never put himself in this position, but he’d done it. He’d ruined everything.
And he couldn’t have given in to his lusts with a whore like all the other men. No, no, he had to go and take the virtue of a gentlewoman, a girl too innocent to even understand—
Ah, God, but the things she had said to him last night. He would have had to have been made of stone to resist her.
“Or just not been smoking opium,” he muttered.
The face of Georgiana swam in front of him. She was crying. I couldn’t have told you, Fitz. I didn’t know what he did would get me with child. He never said that it would.
Darcy felt like vomiting. Oh, Lord, what had he done?
She stirred again.
He needed to get her back to her own bed, away from him. He could put her in that room, and he could pretend that it had never happened. They weren’t that far from India, after all. He could leave her at the port as he said, find someone to take her to England, and then wash his hands of the matter.
But if she was carrying his child, by the time she got back home, she’d be so far gone, there would be no hiding it.
He pictured her, waddling around, a huge belly, and he was horrified at the thought that he could have done something so drastic because of a moment’s indiscretion.
Well, it had been more than a moment, but that hardly mattered. Dear Christ, if only he’d had the presence of mind to pull himself out before his climax. That wouldn’t have stopped the danger entirely, but it would have put his mind somewhat at ease.
He rubbed his temples. There was nothing he could do about it, though, was there? He couldn’t take it back. He couldn’t get the seed he’d spilled into her back. What was done was done. And if she was with child, well, that wasn’t necessarily his problem, now was it?
But the thought of that sent him reeling into agonies of guilt.
He thought of her now, belly huge and heavy with child, tears streaming down her face.
Or maybe it was Georgiana’s face.
He shivered.
No, no, no.
But he didn’t know what he could do to help her. He couldn’t marry her. He was floating on a ship in the ocean, and he was a pirate, and there was no question of having a wife.
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