“You geekboy, you.” Arial smiled, shuttering her eyes as he pulled the edges of her suit apart. “Besides, I’m starting to feel kind of evil myself.”
“Do tell.” He slid his gloved hands down to cover her bared breasts. “How evil are we talking?”
Arial’s smile grew into a smirk. “Evil enough to put Velveeta on the broccoli people.”
“That’s pretty evil.” Strong fingers rolled her nipples, tugging sweetly. “In fact, I think you need to be punished.”
“What have you got in mind?”
In one blurring movement, he grabbed the edges of her suit and jerked it down around her thighs, then dropped to his knees. “A spanking.” His teeth closed over one cheek in a wicked little nip.
“AHH!” Startled, she lost her balance, but he caught her and tumbled her to the floor. “No fair!”
He reared over her, a sly grin on his masked face. “Who said anything about fighting fair?”
She sniffed. “I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“Oh, I am.” Josiah lowered his head. “Very, very good.”
The kiss was slow, thorough, and so hot her toes curled in her armored boots. His tongue dipped and swirled, as his teeth raked across her lower lip, then tugged softly. By the time he lifted his head again, she was breathing hard.
So was he.
“Mmmm.” Arial smiled lazily. “You are good.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “You’re not bad yourself.”
“Trouble is, you’re also covered in leather.”
“Yeah.” He started working his way down her torso, tasting her skin, dealing out licks and tiny bites to every part of her body he paused at.
“That was a hint.” She sucked in a gasp as he discovered her nipples. “Get naked.”
Josiah raised his head, laughing. “Yes, mistress.”
He bounced to his feet with that weightless strength and started to hum a bump and grind as he shimmied out of his coat.
Arial snickered, but her laughter faded when he unzipped his suit and started working it down his broad torso. He turned his back, giving her a good look at his tightly muscled ass in the snug black armor. By the time he spun around to liberate his cock with a teasing grind of his hips, she was all but panting.
“I take it back.” She watched him unzip his boots and kick them across the room. “You are definitely not a good guy. You’re bad all the way to the boner.”
He stopped and looked at her. “That was awful.”
“Yeah, I know.” She bared her teeth. “But what do you expect? I’m evil.”
“You are that.” He pounced. Before she knew what hit her, he’d swept her off the floor, sat down on the mattress, draped her across his knee, and landed a light swat on her ass.
“Hey!”
“You had that coming.” Josiah spilled her onto the bed and grabbed her boots, tugging them and the suit the rest of the way off.
“Laugh now, geekboy. My vengeance will be terrible to behold.”
Josiah straightened to survey her sprawled, naked body. “I’m shaking.” His cock jerked once. He lifted a brow. “And do I look like a ‘boy’ anything?”
“I dunno.” She rolled onto her knees and grabbed the thick shaft. Her fingers barely closed around it. “Let me get a closer look.”
“If you insist…” He sucked in a hard breath as she engulfed him in one long swoop.
He was far more than a mouthful—smooth, salty, flavored with a hint of leather and Josiah’s own seductive scent. Arial sighed in pleasure and settled down to suckle him in earnest.
HER mouth was breathtaking. Hot, fierce, wickedly skilled, her clever little tongue painting heat over the head of his shaft and along its snaking veins. Cool fingers cuddled his balls, rolled and caressed them as he shuddered.
Arial. His sweet Arial. Insanely brave, funny, wickedly smart. And she gave one hell of a blow job.
His own personal goddess.
And there was no way in hell he could take any more of this. “Arial,” he gasped, threading his hands through her silken hair.
“Mmmm?” A snaking lick along the vein running the length of his cock.
Josiah shivered. “If you don’t back off, you’re gonna be really, really frustrated.”
“I’ll risk it.” She nibbled mercilessly on the head.
“Oh, God!” It felt like the top of his own head was about to blow off. “Arial…” He was begging now and didn’t care in the least.
She pulled reluctantly away from his cock with a pronounced popping sound, like a kid letting go of a sucker. “Oh, all right. Spoilsport.”
“Wench.”
He swooped down, grabbed her shoulders, and tossed her on the bed. Then he was on her and in her.
She was, thank God, deliciously wet—apparently teasing him had turned her on as much as it had him. He had to freeze after the first thrust, fighting desperately not to come as her delicate inner muscles milked him.
Arial coiled those exquisite legs around his back and dug one heel into his left ass cheek, a not-so-subtle hint.
“Giddyap,” she breathed.
“Neigh.” Biting his lip, he began to thrust, slowly, clawing for control.
NO matter how many times he’d taken her over the last month, the first really hard thrust never failed to make Arial’s eyes roll back in her head.
She had to blink a couple of times before she managed to focus.
He was braced in her favorite position now, arms stiff, head thrown back so that corded muscle worked all up and down his powerful neck, chest, and arms. When she looked down the line of their bodies, she could see the tight lacing brawn of his abdominal muscles, as he slid that meaty cock in and out of her hungry body.
But what she really loved to watch was his face.
With her own climax shivering closer and closer, the sight of him fighting his off never failed to drive her crazy. His eyes were tightly closed, one muscle in his jaw flexing as he bared his teeth in effort. A bead of sweat worked its way down his temple from his short hair.
Arial hunched up at him just to watch him gasp. Deliberately, she circled her hips, clamping down hard on the thickness buried so far within her.
“Arial!” he roared, and came.
And that was the part she loved best of all.
Her own white-hot climax took her by surprise.
THEY lay in a tangled heap, panting. Long moments ticked by before Josiah spoke. “I’ve been thinking…”
“Congratulations,” Arial groaned. “That’s more than I’m capable of at the moment.”
“Marry me.”
She jerked her head up and stared at him. He looked perfectly serious—and damn near serene. She gaped. “What?”
His dark brows lowered with a trace of annoyance. “Don’t look so stunned. I’ve told you I love you.”
She licked her dry lips. “And I love you, but…”
“But what?”
“We’ve only known each other a month.”
“Maybe, but it’s been a really busy month.” He smiled slightly. “And we knew we were falling for each other from day one. Literally.”
“But…”
Hazel eyes locked with hers, sure and calm. “You’re everything I want. Everything I’ve ever wanted. Marry me. Stay with me.”
She looked up at him, feeling the dazed smile spread across her face. “Yes. God, yes!”
As she flung her arms around him, she heard a dragon voice say, I told you he’d propose before the month was out. You owe me five bucks.
Fine. Sounding disgruntled, the tiger added, Where am I supposed to catch these “bucks”?
Shen-Lung groaned.
Are they very quick?
Idiot.
The tiger snickered.
Caught by the Tides
Diane Whiteside
CHAPTER ONE
Northern coast of France, April 1803
The full moon lit the incoming tide like a pathway t
o Avalon. The waves lapped at the beach, filling the small cove with a gentle music which the greatest harpist might have envied. Beyond the headland, the English Channel was dark and touched with silver, as empty of ships to the naked eye as any highway to Paris.
Owen Bentham might have smiled at this evidence of a very great spell, but he was too busy finding the strength to stand upright. He’d just ridden for two and a half days to reach Normandy from Strasbourg, the great French and Alsatian city on the Rhine.
Now his legs were so numb they could have sunk into the sand before he noticed, while his back had become a jolting flame spiraling through his ribs and neck. He could map every fold in his neckcloth by his sweat’s caked dirt and salt. He hadn’t changed his buckskin breeches, or the rest of his clothes. He was badly unshaven, a sight his father’s wife would have crowed over and cited as proof of his inability to be a gentleman.
But his knives were sharp, his powder dry, with all of his weapons in their places, ready for use at a moment’s notice.
He listened again, straining every sense to search for pursuers.
Another set of waves came in, spilling higher across the sand, until it washed across the tip of his boots.
Where the devil were Bonaparte’s men? He’d hidden his tracks, and he’d ridden fast. He’d chosen to be taken off near Le Havre, not Calais, making for a longer passage back to England but a more unexpected departure point.
All the time, he’d abjured the use of magick, lest its use be traced back to him. One of his great strengths as a courier was his ability to avoid magick in even the smallest details. His saddle was balanced on his shoulder, removing his few possessions from his final mount. He’d borrowed horses from other Britons whenever he could, leaving no traces of magecraft to be tracked by. Some had even ridden with him and tied him in the saddle while he slept.
The only sound was the tide singing to itself and to the land.
A muscle twitched in Owen’s jaw. As a former sergeant in His Majesty’s dragoons, he was far happier on land than aboard ship. But only the Navy could cross the Channel and carry him back to England. The French knew it, too, and would be watching for him, since it was the last place they could catch him—making that leg the most dangerous part of his journey. Still, there was no other route.
He shrugged and lifted his right hand, palm outward to the sea.
The moon struck crimson fire from his signet, sending a single beam of light dancing deep into the water.
Owen clenched his fist, turning the beam into a short pulse—once, twice, thrice. Then he held his hand open, letting the light shine uninterrupted for the count of ten.
A minute later, a cutter glided out from behind the headland, its crew rowing with the quiet precision of men who’d been trained under a cat-o’-nine-tails. Behind it, a bit of the moon’s reflection rearranged itself into a naval sloop, skimming the water under a single sail. As he’d expected, they’d been concealed by an excellent cloaking spell.
Owen surveyed the silent cove once more, while waiting for the cutter to pick him up. Surely he’d have time to take a brief nap before offering to stand watch aboard the sloop…
Trethledan Cove, the next night
EMMA Sinclair braced her back against the cliff and scrabbled for a hold among the crumbling rock. Rain crashed over her head, hungry to knock her off her feet. Lightning ripped across the sky and showed the world around her—the ravenous English Channel battering at her ancestral lands, as if it would devour all of Cornwall tonight. Below her, waves pounded over the dark, jagged rocks of Trethledan Bay, little more than a shallow beach now with the high tide coming in.
She raised her eyes to the ocean beyond, looking for the sight that had summoned her during the worst storm for ten years or more. Earlier this afternoon, when the weather had been warm and sunny, she’d watched a sloop sailing far offshore on a very unusual course. She’d even thought she’d heard cannons firing—but shrugged it off as loneliness for her long-dead naval husband.
Then this storm had arrived, so hard and fast it had to have been built by a mage, and she couldn’t sleep.
The wind caught her cloak’s deep hood, whipping it back off her face. But she saw it again, as she’d seen it from her bedroom—a small bright spark of red, glimmering on the beach. A naval mage-light, which her husband had said meant someone living needed rescue.
Emma let go of the cliff and started scrambling down. In ten minutes or less, high tide would cover the sand, and anyone there would drown. She had to lead the mage to the hidden path before he drowned.
A stone turned under her half-boot, sending her sliding a good yard down the steep trail. Her heart stopped for a moment, and she gulped, almost inhaling salt spray from the crashing waves. She closed her eyes for a moment, forcing calm back into her veins.
There was, after all, no one else to do this. Emma’s usual companion, Aunt Mary, was visiting Lydia, overseeing Emma’s sister’s first lying-in. She’d given all the servants leave to attend the great fair at Whitmore Hall—everyone except Nurse and Jem Keverne, Nurse’s husband. And Grandfather, for all that he’d been a great general with the knighthood and honors to prove it, was well past eighty and very close to joining his beloved Deborah on the other side of Death’s door.
The storm had come so quickly that the Gwythias had covered the bridge below the Morthol castle before any of the servants could return, thus isolating the four of them at Trethledan House. Grandfather, Nurse, and Keverne were sound asleep now, exhausted by age. She was the only one who hadn’t completely collapsed after tending the animals.
Emma pushed her foot forward and took off again, not allowing herself to think of everyone who’d met their deaths on these cliffs.
She leaped onto the sand, searching for that red glimmer. Water roiled across the flat expanse, marked by greedy leaps of white foam.
Was that lump too rounded to be a rock?
Lightning shot across the sky, its trail laced with wickedly green phosphorescence. Another bolt crashed into the headland, sending a great mass of rock and boulders into the greedy ocean.
Emma swayed, almost falling to her knees. The wind clutched at her stout boat cloak, trying to rip it away from her body. But the deep folds, originally designed and made for the Royal Navy, stayed close.
Hunched over, fighting for every step, she staggered to the unknown form and stooped down.
It was a man, most definitely a man, and a large example of the species, at that. Brilliant red light glowed at his right shoulder, like a single candle. His chest was barely moving, and he had several days’ growth of beard, obscuring his features. He wore riding clothes—buckskin coat and breeches, knee boots, white shirt. Crimson pulsed sluggishly out of his side, tinting the water in the fitful light. The ocean washed over and around him, ripping and tearing at the sand under him, as if hungry to suck him back into the Channel’s maelstrom.
A ruby shone in the heavy gold signet on his right hand. It was a gryphon’s ring, the mark of a King’s Messenger. For him to be here, in a brutal storm and clearly close to death, meant an act of war—or treason—had been committed.
Emma growled, deep and low. Bonaparte’s fleet had killed her husband at the Battle of the Nile five years ago. It might be 1803, England and France might be technically at peace, thanks to that idiotic Treaty of Amiens—but she would not abandon this castaway and let the French tyrant destroy anyone else, no matter what it cost her.
She gripped him under his shoulders, set her feet, and tugged.
Nothing happened.
She took a very deep breath and tried again, pouring her entire strength into it, until every muscle in her back screamed and her legs nearly crumpled under her.
He didn’t stir an inch. But the ocean washed completely over his chest, leaving only his nose and mouth free.
Emma gasped for air, glaring at the seas in frustration.
If she had just a little bit of help, she could haul him over to the path and up
it, just far enough to be out of the tide’s reach.
How on earth could she move him? There wasn’t time to run for help.
If only he weighed less. She could have carried a young boy.
Well, there was the old country charm that Nurse had taught her to make burdens lighter. She was no mage, certainly not enough to light the candle which would have gained her entrance into a competition for mage school. But she could work some of the truly ancient charms, like the one to make a bushel of apples feel light as a feather on the long walk back from the west orchard.
Another wave raced forward.
Emma gulped. She clasped the man’s face in her hands and quickly said the charm, using Cornish as she’d been taught. Then she caught his shoulders again and heaved.
He came free easily, gliding across the sands like a swan, until he almost knocked her down. The red light at his shoulder blinked twice and went out, as if thanking her for beginning his rescue.
The charm had never worked so well before—but she’d no time to think about that.
She stepped backward, glancing over her shoulder to judge where she was going.
The ocean followed them, lashing and frothing at him. The water was alive with sand and gravel, slipping under her feet like quicksand. Rocks moved in it, tumbling at the edges of waves, always aimed at the two of them. Her hand slipped out from under him once, but she quickly grabbed him, biting her lip.
If she’d doubted before this was a mage-built storm, she didn’t now, not when the ocean was clearly trying to catch them both.
She was chilled to the bone, colder than the wind and waves could account for, even with saltwater and sand slipping into her boots.
She had to take him up the path before the tide came in, but there wasn’t time enough to drag him.
What other options did she have?
She could try another charm—the one she’d overheard Nurse using when her husband had drunk one too many pints. Supposedly it made anyone who was unconscious walk as lightly and easily as a small puppet.
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