The Pirate Lord

by Sabrina Jeffries

  It had been a long time since he’d recited his father’s favorite passage of Shakespeare, but the words were as fresh as if he’d learned them only yesterday. And if anyone knew how to use literature as a weapon, he did. His father had delighted in tormenting him with quotes about unrepentant children.

  Sara gaped at him as the other women looked from him to her in confusion. “How…I mean…where could you possibly—”

  “Never mind that. The point is, you’re telling them the tale of Lysistrata when what you should be telling them is, ‘Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper. / Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee / And for thy maintenance commits his body / To painful labour both by sea and land.’”

  Her surprise at his knowledge of Shakespeare seemed to vanish as she recognized the passage he was quoting—the scene where Katherine accepts Petruchio as her lord and master before all her father’s guests.

  Sara’s eyes glittered as she stepped from among the women and came nearer to him. “We are not your wives yet. And Shakespeare also said, ‘Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more / Men were deceivers ever / One foot on sea and one on shore / To one thing constant never.’”

  “Ah, yes, Much Ado About Nothing. But even Beatrice changes her tune in the end, doesn’t she? I believe it’s Beatrice who says, ‘Contempt, farewell! and maiden pride, adieu! / No glory lives behind the back of such./ And, Benedick, love on; I will requite thee, / Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.’”

  “She was tricked into saying that! She was forced to acknowledge him just as surely as you are forcing us!”

  “Forcing you?” he shouted. “You don’t know the meaning of force! I swear, if you—”

  He broke off when he realized that the women were staring at him with eyes round and fearful. Sara was twisting his words to make him look like a monster. And succeeding, too, confound her.

  “Out!” he roared at the women. “All of you! Get out now! I wish to speak to Miss Willis alone!”

  He didn’t have to say it twice. The women were tired, hot, and scared, and all they needed was his command to make them flee the hold in a whisper of skirts. Sara stared in woeful despair as the hold emptied. “Come back! He can’t make you leave! He has no right—”

  “Sorry, miss,” the last of the women murmured, an anxious look on her face. Then she ducked her head and shooed her children toward the ladder.

  When they were gone, she whirled on him, eyes flashing. “How dare you! You have no right to walk in here and just dismiss my pupils, you…you bully!”

  The fact that her accusation had a ring of truth to it didn’t make it any easier for him to stomach. In a few stiff strides he was beside her. “I’m tired of you calling me a bully, Sara. True, we took your ship, but since then, have you been mistreated? Have you been raped? Beaten? Locked in your cabin?”

  “No, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time! And you did force yourself on me yesterday!”

  Sara regretted her words the moment she said them. Yesterday’s kiss was supposed to have been forgotten by both of them. She, of all people, shouldn’t have mentioned it—especially in such an inflammatory manner.

  His body tensed, the scar on his cheek standing out in vivid contrast to his tanned skin. Taking two quick steps forward, he caught her about the waist before she could get away. “Is that what happened yesterday? I forced myself on you, and you suffered my kisses? Strange, but I don’t remember it like that.” His voice lowered to a rough murmur. “I remember your mouth opening beneath mine. I remember you burying your hands in my hair and clinging to my neck. That’s not how most women respond to force.”

  Furious at having her own weakness thrown in her face, she balled her hands into fists against his chest, but he jerked her against him, plastering her body against his taut thighs and lean waist. “You have no idea what force is, Sara, no idea at all. Maybe it’s time someone showed you what real force is like.”

  “No-o-o…” she whispered as he bent his head to hers, but his mouth cut off any further protest.

  His kiss was hard and relentless, his hold on her tight and unyielding. She squirmed and shoved at him, trying to free herself. With eyes glittering, he responded by setting her on top of the high trunk. Then he grabbed her wrists and twisted them behind her back, holding them with one large hand while he used the other to catch her jaw and hold her head still so he could kiss her again.

  His was a punishing kiss, designed to make her hate him. And she did. At that moment, she truly did. He tried to force his tongue between her teeth, but she held them tightly clenched, determined not to let him win this battle. When she realized there was no way to escape his grip, she fought him the only way she could think of: she bit his lower lip. He drew his head back with a curse, but he didn’t release her, even though she’d drawn blood.

  “That, my dear Sara, is ‘force’,” he ground out. “And you don’t like it one bit, do you?”

  She could have sworn she saw guilt in his eyes, but dismissed the notion at once. This…this brute was incapable of guilt!

  Then his gaze softened in the lantern light of the windowless hold, and his tone altered subtly to a more soothing cadence. “Not that I blame you. I don’t like it either. I don’t want you fighting me.”

  His eyes seemed to drink in every line, every shade of her face. He softened his grip on her chin, then bracketed her throat lightly with his fingers. As she held her breath, he stroked his thumb and fingers down both sides of her neck. “No,” he said, his voice growing husky. “I prefer to have you as you were yesterday…soft…lovely…yielding…”

  The words themselves were a caress, and the way he looked at her mouth, as if it were a particularly juicy morsel, made shivers dance down her spine. She fought the traitorous sensations. “You can’t have me at all.”

  “Can’t I?” A knowing smile touched his lips. He lowered his head and she braced herself for another brutal kiss. Instead, he pressed his lips to the pulse on the side of her neck.

  His lips were warm and buttery soft, nothing like they’d been a few moments ago. She tried to sit still, to pretend he wasn’t heating up her blood and making her tremble like a needle on a compass. Whole surges of feeling were taking over her body. She couldn’t seem to stop them. His mouth moved higher to tease her ear, then scattered kisses along a path to her cheek, his rough whiskers scraping her skin.

  Ignoring the desire that trickled through her defenses, she dragged in a shaky breath and kept as aloof as any woman could when a man was treating her body to a thousand delicate caresses. But when he began bestowing kisses on every part of her face except her lips, she found herself actually wanting his mouth on hers, craving his kiss there.

  And like the scoundrel he was, he seemed to know exactly what she wanted. He drew back for a moment, his gaze fastening on her trembling lips. Then he covered them with his.

  It was soft. Stealthy. Devilishly exquisite. He traced the curve of her lips with his tongue, then boldly drove it into her mouth. She told herself to fight him like the proper earl’s daughter she was. He had no business doing this to her.

  But the fight had gone out of her. He felt so strong, so male. The ship’s hold was his domain, dark and secretive and full of temptations. Even the rocking of the ship seemed to conspire with him, forcing her to lean into him to keep her balance on the trunk. He thrust his tongue into her trembling mouth with possessive strokes, and every one made her weak in the knees…and the belly and the loins. Good heavens, no one had ever made her feel this…this treacherous restlessness, this urge to respond to every kiss with an equally fervent one of her own.

  By the time his hand trailed down her neck, then her breastbone to rest on one of her breasts, there was no resistance left in her. She did nothing. Nothing at all, except to arch into his kiss like a shameless wanton.

  Gideon felt the change in her at once, especially when he released her hands, because instead of pushing him away, she slid them beneath his vest to
grip his waist. Confound her, she was amazing. Why didn’t she despise him for the cruel way he’d kissed her at first? He despised himself for it, so much that he’d kissed her again just to show her he wasn’t the monster she believe him to be.

  Now all he could think of was touching and fondling her. His body was thinking for him, and he couldn’t seem to stop it.

  Her response to him was so innocent, so untutored…so alluring. It made him want to tear off her clothes, lay her down on one of the bedrolls, and bury himself inside her. He groaned as her arms tightened about his waist. He had to control himself. He had to act with restraint, to finish his demonstration of how dramatically force differed from mutual satisfaction. Then he could put her away from him.

  But later. Much later. After he’d touched her all over, explored the body that had kept him awake hour after hour last night.

  The layers of cloth between his palm and her breast frustrated him. Without stopping to think, he tugged loose the lace modesty piece demurely filling out the neckline of her muslin gown. She tore her mouth from his, her eyes wide, uncertain. As the scrap of lace drifted to the floor, he caressed the upper swells of her breasts and waited for her maidenly resolve to kick in.

  When it didn’t, when she just sat there staring at him like a startled doe, he slid his hand inside her bodice to cup the soft weight of one breast. He had to touch her. He’d go mad if he didn’t.

  That brought a response. “You shouldn’t…touch me…like that,” she breathed, though her nipple tightened into a sweet little pebble beneath his hand.

  “No, I shouldn’t.” He flattened his palm against her breast and kneaded it with slow, deft strokes. “But you want me to, don’t you? You want me to.” He’d make her admit she wanted him if it was the last thing he did. Never again would she accuse him of forcing her.

  She turned her face away, but didn’t stop him. “I don’t…I mean, I…I don’t want…I…I…”

  He took her mouth again, silencing her as he buried his tongue in the sweet, hot warmth of her mouth the way he wanted to bury himself in another part of her. When he had her clinging to him, he reached behind to unhook her bodice enough so he could inch the sleeves of it off her shoulders. Impatiently he tugged loose the ties of her chemise, then drew the muslin down to bare her breasts.

  Although she moaned low in her throat and jerked beneath his kiss, she didn’t pull away. By God, she was sweet, the sweetest woman he’d ever tasted. As he stabbed his tongue restlessly between her luscious lips, he filled his hands with her breasts, his blood beating a fierce tattoo through his veins.

  Her woman’s flesh was soft, so very soft and yielding. And he was hard as iron. When had a woman ever made him this hard?

  As she clung to him, he dragged his lips from hers, but only to kiss his way down to one satin-skinned breast. Her eyes widened in shock when he took it in his mouth and sucked hard on the nipple. But she didn’t fight him. No, she arched into him, her fingers digging into the bare skin of his shoulders. Her fingernails would leave marks there later, but he didn’t care. He wanted her. Here. Now.

  Warning bells sounded in his head. He ignored them. The scent of her, the salty taste of her skin, drove him to distraction. He could have resisted her if she’d been the cold English lady he’d expected. But she was a fiery warrior queen who recited Lysistrata to rouse her troops. A woman like that he couldn’t resist. He wanted her. She wanted him. What else mattered?

  “Gideon! Oh, good heavens!” she breathed as he lavished attention on first one breast, then the other, wanting to devour them.

  “Aye, it’s heaven,” he muttered against her breast. “You’re heaven, sweetheart.” She was an angel, this Englishwoman, whom he craved with every beat of his lecherous American heart. He would have her. He ought to have her. She belonged with him. And she wanted him. No matter what she said, her body belied her. She wanted him.

  He made these excuses to himself as he kissed her again, this time with a hunger that even the pleasures of her mouth couldn’t assuage. He wanted more. He had to have more. In a fever of need, he bunched her skirt up in his hands, drawing it up along her slender calves and past her bent knees.

  Sweeping his hands beneath the muslin and over her pale, smooth skin, he fit himself into the vee of her parted thighs. She would belong to him and no one else. No one should have her but him.

  He would show her how much she wanted him. He would bring her to realize it, so she could never thrust him away again. And with that jumbled thought, he slid his hand between her legs.

  Chapter 11

  We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.

  —LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU LETTER, 13 JANUARY 1759

  The feel of Gideon’s fingers on her most private place jolted Sara out of her half-dream. “No,” she whispered as she jerked her mouth from his. “No, you mustn’t!”

  His hand cupped her, giving instant relief to the sweet tension he’d built in her body. “Ah, but I must,” he whispered. His gaze was dark, knowing, as if he realized exactly what she was feeling. “You want me to. Let me touch you, Sara. Let me show you how it could be between us.” He rubbed her in a most interesting way, making her feel fluid and hot, like the sun-warmed tropical sea.

  “Yes,” she breathed, despite her reservations. She closed her eyes to shut out the knowledge shining in his face, the knowledge of her weakness. An almost irresistible urge to give in to his deft hands possessed her, coupled with a strange urge to touch him, to run her hands over his body and do to him what he was doing to her.

  As he continued to rotate his palm with unerring ac curacy over the place that ached for his touch, she splayed her fingers over his muscle-bound ribs and further in, over his chest, matting down the crisp, tight hairs with her questing hands. His skin, like rumpled velvet, seemed to jump beneath her fingers. Dragging in a harsh breath, he moved one of her hands lower, past his wide belt to cup the hard ridge in his breeches.

  Her eyes flew open. His expression no longer looked knowing, but stark, raw, and needy as only a man could look needy. He made a guttural sound in his throat as he thrust his hips against her hand. At the same time he flattened the heel of his palm against her, and a wave of pleasure hit her at once, so intense she nearly jumped off the trunk.

  “Oh, my Lord,” she whispered. Every part of her shook and quivered. Every part of her craved more. Not conscious of what she did, she undulated against his hand, seeking a repeat of the pleasure.

  His eyes glittered. “That’s it, sweetheart. Let yourself enjoy it.” He parted her curls with his fingers, then slid one inside a passage that had somehow grown wet and slick, allowing him easy access. “Sweet Jesus, you feel good, so good.” With an almost animal growl, he crushed her mouth under his once more.

  Faintly, Sara heard a noise from somewhere above them, the grating of wood against wood, but she thrust the sound from her mind. Then a voice called down from above, “Cap’n? Cap’n, you down there?”

  Gideon tore his mouth from hers and jerked his hand back, a curse rumbling from his lips. “Yes, Silas, I’m here. I’ll be with you presently.”

  Shame washed over Sara in buckets as she came out of her sensual fog. Good heavens, her hand was on his breeches! And he’d been touching her with an intimacy only allowed a husband!

  As she snatched her hand away, the sound of descending footsteps echoed down to them. “I’ve got to talk to you,” Silas said, his words punctuated by the clumping sound of his wooden leg on the steps. “It’s about that woman Louisa—”

  “If you come any nearer, Silas,” Gideon barked, “I’ll have you keelhauled, I swear I will!”

  The clumping noises halted abruptly. Sara frantically dragged down her skirts, but when she tried to scoot off the trunk, Gideon wouldn’t let her. With firm hands he held her thighs still.

  His gaze locked with hers as he called back up to Silas, “Go to my cabin. I’ll meet you there sho
rtly. I’ve got something else to attend to first.”

  Her heart pounded in time to the sounds of Silas clumping back up the steps. She was the “something else,” and if she let herself be “attended to,” she could count on his casting her aside with easy nonchalance once he was done with her.

  Well, she wouldn’t let that happen. Not with this man, this unscrupulous pirate. The hatch door slammed closed above and Gideon bent to kiss her again, but this time she was prepared. Bracing her hands against his chest, she turned her face away. “No,” she whispered. “No more.”

  His breath came hot and heavy against her ear as his arm crept back around her waist. “Why not?”

  For a moment her mind was blank. What reason could she give that would make any sense to him? If she protested that they weren’t married, he would simply put an end to that objection by marrying her, and that would be disastrous.

  Then she remembered Petey’s plan. “Because I’ve already promised myself to another.”

  His body went still against hers. An oppressive silence fell over them both, punctuated only by the distant clanging of the watch bell. But he didn’t move away, and at first she feared he hadn’t heard her.

  “I said—” she began.

  “I heard you.” He drew back, his face taut with suspicion. “What do you mean, ‘another’? Someone in England?”

  She considered inventing a fiancé in London. But that would have no weight with him, would it? “No. Another sailor. I…I’ve agreed to marry one of your crew.”

  His expression hardened until it looked chiseled from the same oak that formed his formidable ship. “You’re joking.”

  She shook her head furiously. “Peter Hargraves asked me to…to be his wife last night. And I agreed.”

  A stunned expression spread over his face before anger replaced it. Planting his hands on either side of her hips, he bent his head until his face was inches from hers. “He’s not one of my crew. Is that why you accepted his proposal—because he’s not one of my men? Or do you claim to have some feeling for him?”