He’d had her bring a work dress for the trip home. Unlike their leisurely float down to Annapolis, the return trip was upstream. An ill wind would mean manning the oars, and he wasn’t certain he could do it without tearing something loose. Fortune smiled, however, and the hot June wind stayed with them, and he managed to get them home without asking for anything more than a drink from the gourds that they had refilled before leaving.
Along the way, Beth sat with her treasures: a new silk dress, underpinnings, and documents, hugging the precious bundle to her heart while the Captain worked the sail and manned the till. Somewhere along the way he took up singing chanteys chosen specifically to make her blush, at which point he started talking salty as well and calling her “Red Beth,” sometimes corrupting it even further to “Red Bess.”
He called her his pi-rette.
The Captain found another piece of himself, and Beth smiled when it slipped into place with the others that she’d already anchored in with light and love.
Red Beth held her bundle until it grew too hot to hang onto it, then set it down to quench her thirst with a drink of sweet water. Alternating sips with him, she wet kerchiefs over the side of the boat to drape around their necks and help them to keep cooler. By the time they reached his dock on the Patuxent River, her dress was soaked with sweat and river water. If there had been any way to do it, she’d have stripped the thing off and taken a dive.
That evening, Ian filled the bathtub for her. The night was sultry, and he was tired from the trip, but he hauled water, two pails at a time, to the copper water heater, built a fire, and brought it to a simmer. When he deemed it hot enough, he filled the large metal tub, adding cool well water to bring it to the perfect temperature.
He refused to let her help when he made the bath, fetching what else they would need before he undressed her. Once she was as naked as a newborn, he held out his hand to steady her while she stepped in, smiling when she sank to her chin and sighed with purest pleasure.
He stripped down to his breeches and bathed her, starting with her sun-pinked face. With a soapy sponge and gentle pressure, he cleaned the ring of dirt from her neck, scrubbed her back, and paid particular attention to detail when he washed her front. He had her lift each leg so he could wash her feet and ran the sponge up between them. She’d sweated through her hair, and he loosed it. With her wild red curls undulating in the water, she looked like a siren come from the sea.
He washed her hair—no easy task, that. He wasn’t sure how she managed to run a comb through it, thick and untamed as it was. He finally gave up and let her have at it, content to watch as the tangles cleared and the strokes came longer and she closed her eyes and blissfully sighed.
When it was his turn, he didn’t warm the water but stepped out of his breeches and straight into the bath. He thought Beth might get dressed, but she tucked her toweling around her like a statue from antiquity and knelt beside the tub. She fished for the sponge and found something else.
Ah, Red. See what you do to me?
He hadn’t yet loved the blushes out of her. Color rose to high tide in her sun-pinked cheeks.
He drew her head down, and he kissed her.
Softly.
He hadn’t shaved since early morn, and his shadow would be harsh on that fair skin of hers.
Slowly.
He sipped her lips and swallowed her moans when he pulled her towel and it fell away, freeing her breasts to his touch. He claimed one and cupped the other, taking her nipple in his mouth and suckling. When he caught the tip between his teeth and flicked it with his tongue, she put her hands on the side of the tub and leaned over him.
Yes. Oh, yes.
“Red,” he whispered, shaping her breasts with his hands, exploring their curves and valleys, finding the peaks with his mouth and fingers. She would have climbed in then and there if he hadn’t stopped her.
“Wait,” he said. “Let me get clean before I go getting us dirty again.”
She stayed naked while she bathed him. She helped him wash his hair, which had grown well past his shoulders. Although he kept it laced back or tied in a queue, it was long enough and thick enough, he had a tangle or two of his own. When everything else was clean, he had Beth hand him the mirror and his razor, and he shaved again just for her.
He would empty the tub in the morning while she fetched Sophie from the woods. For tonight, for now, all he wanted was to take her to bed and make love to her and have it last more than a blooded stallion’s minute.
Beth caught his hand and drew him upstairs, never doubting the wrong or right of it. Her mother might frown, and the others might suspect what went on when she stayed the night, but it was her choice to be with him, come what may.
The Captain pulled back the covers and lifted her onto the bed, settling her in its center and following her down, turning her so that he could lie on his side and look at her.
Beautiful, darlin’ girl.
Ian pushed the wet, wild curls away from Beth’s cheeks and kissed her. He kissed her face, her white swan neck, her beautiful pomegranate breasts. He kissed the tender flesh of her elbows, the gentle swell of her pagan belly, and the soft red fleece below. In the harbor of her thighs, he found her pearl, circled it, plucked it with his lips and with his tongue, finally opening his mouth and closing over it and binding her to him with sweet, searing suction.
“Not yet,” he whispered, when desperation seized her and she tunneled her fingers in his hair, writhing beneath his touch and begging him for release between increasingly staccato breaths.
He lifted his head to look at her. Jaysus, she was beautiful. So beautiful, she took his breath away. She smelled of water and fire and earth; his own sacred circle was as close as her two arms. He thought of the night he’d watched her beneath the full moon, after they’d stood like voyeurs in an empty stall while Zephyr covered the chestnut mare, and he’d felt something that he hadn’t since Jamaica, and he had finally, finally been able to lie with her, even though the first time was a stallion’s minute. He’d followed her to the oak woods at midnight and had watched her work her magick, not knowing what it was, exactly, that she did, only that she’d never hurt him with it.
“Not yet,” he prayed, when he parted her legs and moved between them. Reaching down, he stroked her with himself and parted her nether lips, breaching the opening with years of practiced ease. A tremor ran through him; he rose above her on arms that still weren’t up to full strength, and he rocked his hips, pushing just inside but going no further, like he was a stranger in a strange land, a storm-tossed traveler knocking on the door and praying for a Christmas miracle.
Damned if he didn’t get one.
Thank you, Jaysus.
He sought the shelter of her woman’s body and found it in one long, slow, glorious thrust. He found it again, and again, and again, and she went still beneath him, breathless, when she realized that this time, this time, he wasn’t going to finish just yet.
This time, he would show her how it should be done.
She smiled at him then, and blew out softly; she ran her fingers through his still-damp hair, then painted his chest with her palms. She found his male breasts and spread her hands, exploring, giving careful consideration to their differences. He showed her another, withdrawing the heavy length of his tumescence, gathering himself to give it to her harder, pushing his erection so deep into her soft honeyed warmth, it felt like he’d died and gone to heaven.
Dear God.
He didn’t know if it was his thought, or hers, or theirs when he did it again, almost pulling out, only to come fully into her again, and again, for a minute, then two, then minutes beyond measure. His whole body was taut with arousal; the blood coursed hot in his veins. He hissed between his teeth when she bit his nipple, then laved it with her tongue, begging his forgiveness only to turn her head and do the same thing on the other side.
Vixen.
He growled and swore he’d showed her what it bought her, testing hi
m like that. He ordered her to dare do it again, and when she did, he hooked his elbows under her knees and rode her hard and fast and deep. He took her like he was a white stag under a Buck Moon, pounding through an enchanted oak forest on one continent and onto a distant Highland moor that smelled of heather yet reeked of magick just the same. He moved over and in her like he was a tall ship and she was the ocean and while he could not stay a part of her, he would never be complete without the sea. He rode her like he would ride the wind, and she hung on for dear life, clinging to his hips, willing to go with him anywhere.
He took her to paradise.
Chapter Eleven
Ian kissed Beth one last time, and rolled onto his back beside her. The night was sultry to begin with, and they’d made his bedroom ten degrees hotter.
“Oh, my,” was all she could say, for the longest time.
“Aye,” he murmured, thinking he should be fair wasted, with the day he had, but it was too hot to sleep and his mind refused to be quiet. He had loved her, finally loved her like he’d wanted to. Not all night. Not yet. Still, he recognized his performance as the milestone achievement it had been.
Beth knew it, too. She purred and turned on her side and put one small hand over the Captain’s heart. His chest hair was drenched with sweat, and his body was like a living flame.
“Reminds me of Tortuga,” he murmured. “Worst heat I’ve ever seen and nothing to take my mind off it.”
“It is hot,” she allowed, feeling the need for another bath.
The next day’s heat was even worse, and Jannet Gordon’s lemonade could only do so much to make it better. Beth stood it as long as she could, then begged the Captain to take her swimming.
“Please?” she paused from fanning them both as they lounged on the cool wood floor of the library. “I ken the perfect place. It’s far tae walk it, but we can ride and be there in no time. Of course, it’s trespassing on the neighbors….”
The Captain angled his head, intrigued by the idea. Whether it was the trespassing, or cooling off in the water, or getting her naked to do it, didn’t matter. He said yes.
They had Theo to saddle an older gelding that would behave himself around the pretty dapple gray mare the Captain had chosen for Beth, after hearing of her fondness for that color pattern. They skirted the pasture and headed for the Patuxent, riding until they came to a small stream that emptied into it, then followed it to its source.
It felt like an enchanted glen, except without Herne or an urisk or anything else of that ilk. In a small clearing in the woods, a spring poured from a rock outcropping into an inviting pool below. It was large enough to swim short laps across, but not deep enough to dive, and had a submerged rock ledge that would let Beth sit with water to her neck and soak. She’d discovered it one day when Sophie was but a kit and had decided to lead her a merry chase past the woods she knew were Herne’s. If there was another nature spirit that ruled this part of the country, she’d never sensed it, but she’d clearly felt the deva of the spring those first few times that she’d visited.
They tethered the horses by a patch of grass where they could graze, then Beth took the Captain’s hand and led him to the water.
“It’s nae over deep,” she said. “Can ye swim?”
He actually looked embarrassed. “Some,” he admitted. “Enough to keep my head clear of the water, but not enough to help anyone else, in trouble or no. When we jumped ship to get free of Stede Bonnet, it was Justin who had to see to Christiana, else she’d have drowned.”
Another piece, she thought, and patched it in with the rest.
Determined to turn his mind toward happier thoughts, she said, “I find that romantic. I believe it might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. It’s like their own fairy tale, like he saved her so that she could grow up tae be his wife. Imagine the story tae tell their bairns.”
The Captain’s mouth curved in a curious smile. “They have stories, all right,” he said. “While she was yet playing the boy, he caught her stealing a bottle of Madeira and threatened to pull down her breeks and spank her. She grabbed his knife to defend herself. Justin still wears her scar on his cheek. When I first learned of their…attachment, I confess, I had a hard time with it. Justin and I didn’t know each other before we were taken, but we were instant best friends after we laid the others low and shared the lash. For years, we sailed and drank and whored together. To think of him with my daughter, well, it was damned awkward at best. But I could see she loved him, and there was nothing to be done about it but let her have her way.”
“A wise man,” she said, and reached for her laces.
Ian was a wise man, too. He didn’t want to think of Justin and Christiana. He wanted to think about cool water on a hot day, and sharing it with a Scottish beekeeper with wild red curls and eyes the color of Aruba with a bit of mischief in them.
The clothes came off and she stepped in, bidding him follow behind her.
Beth kept him well clear of the deep part of the pool and took him to her special spot—a place where she’d spent enough hours to imbue it with an energy shaped by dreams and visions. If he wasn’t sensitive enough to feel it, that was all right. It was enough that he’d agreed to come. He’d know soon enough the healing powers of the waters here.
He already had an erection. It was automatic with him now: when her clothes came off, his knob came up. He was careful how he used it, though. It was only a matter of time before he’d want to see if it would stand up for an all-night session, but so far he had placed her needs above his own and let her have enough sleep that she could function, even if it meant working with a delicious soreness between her legs after a night of his lovemaking.
“There’s a ledge here,” she told him. “Feel it?”
The Captain was close enough, it should have been right against his leg.
“Aye.” He sounded unsure, as if he still was afraid he might slip in over his head.
She took his hand and kissed it.
“Do ye trust me?” she asked him.
“Of course.”
Ian answered without hesitation, but the question gave him pause. He’d steered clear of relationships with women since a press gang had stolen his life and left Marie Delacorte alone and unprotected. The longest running liaison he’d had was with the whore who’d helped land him in prison.
“Then come,” she said, and drew him just a little ways more, where the stone made a natural seat, and the smooth rock face formed a backrest behind them.
The water came up to her neck when she sat; being taller, it lapped at his shoulders. But there were enough trees to shade them and the water was cool and if he could figure out who owned it, as soon as he could afford it, he was going to make them an offer too good to refuse.
“I thought ye’d like it.” She closed her eyes and tipped back her head. Her neck arched in perfect symmetry. With her loosened hair floating behind her, she could have been a wood nymph, or an undine, or a mermaid come from the sea. “On hot days, it is heaven.”
“Heaven,” he agreed. Ian knew what it felt like—a fair wind and a woman’s arms—but now, in this moment, he knew what heaven looked like: Beth Gordon, her lips curved in ecstasy, her eyes closed in bliss, her siren’s hair floating around her creamy white shoulders in a sacred spring-fed pool.
He didn’t speak the words, but their truth echoed in his head and in his heart. Beth opened her eyes, and looked at him. Her lips curved in a tremulous smile. “Oh, Captain,” she whispered as if he’d stolen her breath. “I was wrong. That is the most romantic thing I hae ever heard!”
The next thing he knew, she was climbing in his lap, and he did not dissuade. She kissed him and swung one leg around in the water to straddle him; she tilted her hips and pressed herself against the base of his cock. He’d been hard for her since before their clothes came off, but here, he didn’t have to worry about getting her wet enough to be able to fit all of himself inside her. She took him in one hand and parted herse
lf with the other and guided him into her cleft and beyond. The water helped her slide right down on him.
Heaven. She put her hands around his neck and felt the muscled curves where it met his shoulders. She traced their width and found the blue dot on his biceps that would have been a tattoo if it hadn’t hurt so damn much. When he’d had second thoughts and they wouldn’t stop, he had tried to push his way clear and knives had come out and he’d come closer to dying over a damn tattoo than he had anything, until he was shot.
She kissed his dot, and the stab wounds it had earned him, and her hand found the pink puckered scar where the pistol’s lead ball had struck. He’d pushed his daughter clear of it, at least. It would have killed her, if he hadn’t moved and taken the bullet for her.
“Stories,” Beth said. “What stories she will hae to tell her bairns. Ye saved her, more than once. Do ye ken how special ye are?”
He shook his head. “I’m not,” he said. “I haven’t done anything that anyone else wouldn’t have done, given the circumstances.”
She begged to differ and slid her hands across the expanse of his shoulders, pressing herself down further onto him, gripping him like a tight, wet glove.
“Ye are special,” she said, insisting it was so. “Ye trusted me when ye kent I was a witch. And that, dear Captain, is something.”
He could not argue. He did trust her. Even though she was a witch.
She lifted herself and came back down, in a long, slow slide buffered by the water’s buoyancy. It was markedly different, a gentler joining than he was used to, but if she liked it, he could probably do this all day.
She dipped her head and nipped his bottom lip.
“Vixen.”
He grasped her hips and pulled her hard against him and when her breath caught and her eyes started to glaze, he took it from there.
He bent his head and sucked her tits while he fucked her straddling him, but half-floating wasn’t enough, and he sat her on the edge of the rock seat to thrust in harder, deeper. When that wasn’t enough, he took her to the edge of the pool and laid her in the soft green grass.
Ride the Wind: Touch the Wind Book Two Page 10