by Julia Knight
Paul swallowed hard and shook his head. Even if he’d had the intention to say anything—and he didn’t, no, he didn’t want her to hide herself—he didn’t think he would have been able to past the tightness in his throat.
“Good,” she said and pulled him from the chair. He struggled to stay upright, the weakness in his limbs, the heat in his groin and the fluff in his head making the room spin and swirl. “Because now it’s your turn.”
She stood with her body not quite touching his, unabashed, unashamed, the most sensuous woman he’d known, and he had yet to even kiss her. He wanted to spend hours, days, kissing her, all of her.
The top of her head barely came to his shoulder and, when he moved his hand just a little, it came to rest on the side of one silken hip. He ran his fingers lightly over her stomach, just glancing her breast, and her breath quickened. Then on, over the delicate collarbone, brushing the soft skin of her throat. Her lips parted, inviting him to kiss them. His fingers searched her hair as he slowly brought up the other hand. Her nipples tightened under his touch. He went to kiss her, wanting that taste of her, but she pulled against him, turned away with a strained twitch of her mouth, and his lips found nothing but the edge of her cheek.
He hesitated a moment, but if that was how it had to be, he wouldn’t complain. The taste of her salty skin under his lips was enough. He teased them around the sensitive skin by her ear, and she shivered against him. Down, along the shoulder and round, his hands always ahead. His fingers grazed her nipples, and she gasped again as his lips found one and took it in. Goose bumps prickled all over her flesh, and he smiled. He’d tease her as badly, as achingly, as she’d teased him. He rolled the nipple with his lips and tongue, worked it till it was a perfection of tautness and released it, gratified at the shiver that provoked. His lips moved almost of their own accord across to the other, as though they knew what they were searching for without his thought.
He skimmed his hands over her waist and along the firmness of her buttocks, smooth and warm under his fingers. His lips traced a line along her belly, then she pushed on his shoulders and he sank to his knees. His goal was in front of him at last. His hands drifted around her hips to the tops of her thighs. His thumbs dipped between them, teasing her with a feathery touch. Catherine’s fingers twined in his hair, and she tried to pull him in, but he wouldn’t, oh no, not yet. He would torment her first, as she had him. She wouldn’t get the better of him.
His thumbs caressed the insides of her thighs. The musky scent of her enveloped him, and dampness coated his thumbs. He edged them up, just brushing her entrance. She gasped sharply and pulled on his hair. He dipped his head forward. There it was, his aim, peeking out of blonde curls, already damp and glistening, waiting for his touch.
He gave it the merest brush of his tongue, and Catherine’s legs shook so hard he thought she might fall. Paul steadied her with one hand at the small of her back and dipped his tongue forward, letting his thumb caress along her slit as he did. She groaned loudly and held his shoulder to steady herself. He pulled his arm more firmly around her, reveled in the scent that seemed to invade every part of him, and took her in his mouth. His tongue found her sweet spot, the one that almost had her legs buckling as he flicked along it. He eased his thumb inside her, and she leant against him, her nails digging into his shoulder as she cried out. But he didn’t stop. He let his lips and tongue and hands carry on until her hips ground into him and she cried out again, louder this time. She clenched around his fingers until they dripped.
After a moment, she gained control of herself, twisted his hair more tightly and pulled him away. She was taking charge and, while that normally would have stung his male pride, now he didn’t care. He’d never been so aroused, never wanted so desperately to have a woman. It didn’t matter what it took to get her, to feel himself inside her, to make her clench like that round his cock.
Her face flushed and she dropped to her knees. Her eyes had a faraway look of both satisfaction and want. Her lips curved into a smile, and she pushed him to the floor, with her on top. Her damp cunny slid along his cock, edging upwards until he could feel her opening at its tip. His cock quivered. Finally. She glided down, achingly slow, and then he was in her. Her smooth muscles enveloped him, and her eyes screwed shut. She began to move against him, but not hard enough. He pushed his hips up, but she shoved at his shoulders, as though to remind him of his place.
The fog had cleared from his mind. His limbs were all his own once more, and he couldn’t let her torment him any longer. Couldn’t endure more of her teasing torture. Could not, by his nature, let her have everything her own way.
He drifted his arms over her skin as she began to move, and then he rolled, above her in an instant. Her eyes flew open in surprise with a sudden, unexpected vulnerability. He didn’t care. He could take the agony of pleasure no longer. He cared only that he was in her, pushing forward as far as he could, harder now as she gripped him and he became desperate for release. She moaned and twisted under him, but he pinned her to the floor with his thrusts, delighted in every shudder of her body, every gasp and cry, every clench of her around his cock. Her nails scored lines along his backside as she sought to pull him in farther, and they only drove him on. Sweat pooled at the small of his back, dripped from his face to mingle with hers. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she moaned and murmured under him, urged him on, her hands splayed and searching, as though gripping for something they couldn’t find.
Her body rose to meet his, and she pressed itself against him as every muscle seemed to clasp him to her. She cried out, once, twice, and her spasms rippled along his cock. With one last desperate thrust and a shout of his own, he came, the rush of it feeling strong enough to pull him inside out.
Catherine lay dazed under him, his shuddering breath sweet and warm on her neck. The muscles in her legs twitched involuntarily, and swirls of light spun in her vision. She hadn’t meant for it to be like that. She never meant for that, any time. It was always her in control, her leading them by their cock for her own satisfaction. But dear sweet God, when he’d thrust into her like that, full of raw, animal want, she’d thought her heart might burst, such was the strength of the spasms that had ripped through her.
She wanted nothing more than to lie there, to have him drive into her with all that intensity, to make her scream until she was hoarse. She couldn’t have that. Couldn’t let any man have such power over her. With shaking hands, she pushed him away, scrambled onto wobbling legs, angry at herself for letting him do that to her, and angrier with him for doing it. She grabbed for the swords, hers and his, and held the blades toward him.
He propped himself up, looking bewildered and angry now. “What in God’s name—”
“Shut up!” Her voice shook, and she gritted her teeth to try to regain some control over herself and the situation. The plan. Yes, the plan. She had to forget him, forget the way he looked at her, the way the lamplight shone on his sweating skin. Forget the way just a touch had made her quiver, or that she didn’t want to let this one go. She had to stick to the plan or she was lost. She thrust her blade closer toward him. “Get your breeches on.”
He stared at her as though she was mad. Maybe she was right now, coasting along the edge of sanity. This was too close for comfort. He was too close, too close to what she thought she’d had when she married. He said nothing more, just grabbed his breeches and dragged them on, glowering at her the whole while.
When he was done, she did what she should have done earlier, before she’d let those broad shoulders and brown eyes she could drown in blind her to what she was meant to be doing. Don’t lose control. With a practised move, she slipped behind him and smacked him on just the right spot on the back of his head with the hilt of the sword. He slumped to the floor, unconscious, and she stepped over him to find her clothes. When she was dressed, she dried her eyes and pulled herself together.
She’d taken an unconscionable risk, a stupid one. She never let the men she robb
ed see her when she raided the ships. She couldn’t have them know who it was behind this latest bout of piracy. This time, letting Ambury see her, telling him her name, had all been part of the plan. Bedding him had not, but he’d stood on the deck like a young god, reminding her of her husband Jeremiah in the early days, before it had all gone so wrong. Before he’d found out what she was. Paul was fair where Jeremiah had been dark, but there was that same animal vitality to them both, the same bold lines to the face, the same sense of sureness about them. It had been too long since she’d felt another’s skin against her own, a heartbeat next to hers.
She’d taken a few lovers since Jeremiah died, but not like this one. They’d been easy to control, and maybe that was why she despised them so much. She’d taken them, used them for her own gratification and thrown them out as soon as she was done. No risk there, no danger of the affair ending up like it had with Jeremiah. She shuddered and pulled her thoughts to the task in hand.
Maybe it would work out. Maybe she could use this. How could Ambury possibly report she was a pirate? He couldn’t—the Kittiwake had gone missing and Lady Harcourt with it, her first step out of Barbados and her old life. She had all his crew to say that pirates had attacked it before they’d arrived. Just where had he been when the pirates returned? Drunk, or rather drugged to look drunk, and naked, ruining the reputation of the respectable Lady Harcourt, that was where. She doubted very much he’d say anything about that part. Because if the truth came out… Oh yes, she had a hold over him now, and that was what she’d been working toward for weeks with Matthew. A hold over one of the navy men.
She bent down and patted his cheek. Bless him, he was going to make her so much money. The door opened softly behind her and Fulton sidled in.
“Well?” she asked.
“All out cold, Captain. Won’t take long to get ’em in the longboats.”
The plan had worked well, by the sound of it; a plan she was proud of. Have a few men pretend to be merchant crewmen while the rest secreted themselves under the sails, playing dead. Offer a tot of drugged rum to every sailor and, when it had taken effect, dowse the lights so they were blinded. Most of them would never know what hit them. All they would know was the Kittiwake and Newquay had been attacked. With the men playing merchants apparently defending, and telling their version of events on the longboats, the navy men would think pirates had returned under cover of darkness to take their prize.
“Make sure you search them all thoroughly. I’ll take care of the lieutenant here. And next time, knock.” Fulton smiled slyly, and she glared at him. “Go on, get on with it. Have everyone ready to sail as soon as we can, and put a couple of our lads in the longboat, just to make sure this one doesn’t spill his guts. Make sure they tell him they know where he was when the attack came. They can be as loud and as coarse as they like in their surmising what he was up to in here for so long. Send them along to fetch him.”
“Aye, Captain.” Fulton smirked lewdly and sidled out of the door. He was a sly one, for sure, and she always had to keep a close eye on him.
She looked at Paul. For some of the officers, the embarrassment of being left half naked to row for home was worse than the theft of their ship. The last lot had made it to Bridgetown in the longboats, and to see them pitch up bare-chested, flabby and fish-belly white except where the sun had burned them had been one of her few real joys in her role as Cecily Harper. All her fun came in her other life as Catherine Harcourt, captain of the Wicked Lady, in outwitting the gentlemen of the Navy and the merchantmen. It was a life she’d been born into and one she’d made a mistake in leaving when she’d fallen in love with a respectable man.
Well, that was over now, for good or ill, and she’d not make the same mistake twice.
Chapter Three
The catcalls and laughter as the longboats landed in Bridgetown stung Paul almost worse than the sunburn from sailing three days out in the open with none of them dressed in anything more than breeches.
Paul stepped out of the longboat and onto the jetty, sure his face was redder than his smarting back. Ratings hurried down with clothes and salve for the burns, but there was nothing to soothe his wounded pride or his livid anger. Matthew came down too, his lips twisted with the effort of not grinning. Paul scowled at him and snatched the shirt.
Matthew glanced at Paul’s back and raised his eyebrows. “You got the lash as well?”
“No.” Paul shrugged on the shirt hurriedly to cover the nail lines Catherine had left. He still couldn’t grasp what exactly had happened, or who’d knocked him out. She’d drugged him, tempted him, taken him in and then pushed him away. He would have sworn it was her who’d knocked him out, but the crew was adamant they’d been set upon by pirates, though they’d seen no faces in the dark and seemed hazy about the details. A couple of the Kittiwake’s crew had survived on the boats too, and they swore blind the captain of the pirates had got him.
He didn’t know whether to be angry at himself for not being more alert, angry at Catherine, or worried that she’d been taken by pirates—a fate worse than death for a woman. Though maybe she’d teach them a thing or two. Or maybe, and this was a thought he tried to bury but which kept crawling from its grave to haunt him, maybe she was a pirate. He tried to tell himself not to be ridiculous, but the thought wouldn’t go away.
Whichever it was, he’d been a damn fool, and lost the Newquay for his stupidity. He’d be lucky if the admiral let him have a dinghy after this. In fact, he’d probably be lucky not to be hanged if his commanders found out just how he’d come to lose his ship.
“Believe me, you aren’t the first to be tricked and sent on his way like this, and I doubt you’ll be the last. Though the victims don’t usually end up with lash marks.”
Matthew’s face was alight with curiosity, but he was too well-mannered to probe any further on the matter, for which Paul was grateful. He wanted only to forget he’d ever met Catherine Harcourt, if that was her real name, but he wasn’t sure it would be possible.
Every hour of snatched rest he’d managed since they’d woken on the longboats was littered with tortured, sweating dreams of her. He wanted to forget her and he wanted to find her, wanted her in his bed to torment him. Wanted to make her like the rest, to make her clinging and desperate so he could feel the same contempt he did for other women and he wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” Matthew clapped him on the shoulder, and Paul had to hide a wince of pain. “The admiral’s going to want to know what in hell happened.”
“I wish I could tell him. I hardly know myself.”
Matthew took him to his quarters to smarten up and to find a uniform that fit, even if the rank on the arm was wrong. It would have to do for now, because the admiral was waiting.
Admiral Wagstaff looked at him with a stern eye as Paul and Matthew entered his office. Several of the other captains were there with him, eager to hear what had happened, or to gloat over his misfortune.
Wagstaff was older than Paul by twenty years or so, a grizzled man with a hard face forever parched by the sea, though his countenance belied his generous nature. However, there was still the matter of the loss of one of the navy’s frigates, and Paul had no doubt he wouldn’t be generous about that.
“Here, my boy,” Wagstaff said as he handed Paul a tot of brandy. “I dare say you could do with it. I could do with one myself. That’s the third of our ships gone in six months. Three! Not lost in battle—stolen. I know at least one’s made its way into pirate hands, because the Swansea was fired on last week with our own bloody guns!” Wagstaff paced behind his desk before he threw himself into his chair with an irritated sigh. “Go on then, Lieutenant. How did they get you?”
Paul told them of the ruined carrack, the crew and the bodies in their shrouds.
“That’s a new tactic. What was the name of the ship?” Wagstaff barked.
“The Kittiwake, out of Plymouth. I recognised the name—it was
in port here when I arrived.”
“Kittiwake, Kittiwake—Oh yes, one of the Harcourt ships, sailed the day before you for St. Vincent. So you knew she wasn’t a pirate.”
“But she’d met some, by the looks of it. Two masts gone. Still afire on the foredeck. The crew said they’d managed to see them off with a lucky shot below the waterline, and the pirate ship had cut and run.”
“But you knew they’d be back.”
“I thought it likely, but it was dusk, and there was nothing much we could do until daybreak. Too tricky trying to get up a jury mast in the dark, and she’d still probably have needed towing. I set a double watch, and the men were all alert for trouble.”
“And they snuck up on you in the dark. And where were you when this happened?”
Paul couldn’t look at him when he answered. He had to be careful here. He should have been on deck, or at least have come on deck at the first sign of trouble. Those two crewmembers of the Kittiwake had quietly but crudely, and correctly, surmised what he’d really been doing. They’d sworn to believe him when he denied it, but their grins said otherwise. “I was informing their passenger of the measures we’d taken.”
Wagstaff raised his eyebrows and sat bolt upright. “Passenger? Wait, wasn’t it the Kittiwake that Catherine Harcourt was sailing on?”
“That was her, yes.”
“Good God! And she wasn’t with you when you came to?”
“No. I can only assume they took her.” Maybe they had. Maybe his guesses were all off the mark and she was prisoner on some pirate ship somewhere. It didn’t bear thinking about. If that were true, he’d not rest till he found her. If she were a pirate, he’d still not rest, but the end of the chase would be very different.