She beat her fists against his chest, taking him by surprise. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You don’t even care that you’ve dragged us from our homes to this wretched place where there are deadly snakes and…and God knows what other monstrous beasts! You wanted something, so you took it, and you don’t care what it does to us…to me!”
She collapsed into sobs, her brush with death still too fresh. Everything that had happened over the past few days hit her with a sudden fierceness. Since he’d taken the ship, she’d scarcely had time to mourn the fact that she’d never see England or Jordan again.
But now reality struck her with a vengeance as she stood in the strange clearing with its unfamiliar plants and its dead snake. Suddenly the tears wouldn’t stop. They bubbled out of her like an overflowing soup pot. She couldn’t contain them, and at the moment didn’t even want to try.
Looking worried, Gideon held her close. At first she fought him, her anger warring with the need to be comforted, but he wouldn’t release her. He just kept muttering, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
Finally she went limp in his embrace, letting the tears come out of her in great gasping sobs. After the first storm passed, she even leaned into him, craving his strength. There was no one else to give her comfort. Although he was her adversary, he was also strong, and she needed his strength just now. She needed it very badly.
She didn’t know exactly when his comforting became something else. Maybe it was after her sobs had died off into the occasional hiccup. Or maybe it was when she saw how shaken he looked, and felt compelled to reassure him, “I-I’m all right now, truly I am,” as she brushed tears from her eyes.
But suddenly his mouth was on hers, gentle, soft, as if begging forgiveness. To her shame, she kissed him back, seeking the reassurance only he could provide. Their kisses were tender, full of mutual comfort.
He shifted her closer, his hand curving into the small of her back to flatten her against his lean, hard body as he showered soft, repentant kisses over her lips and cheeks, her closed eyelids, her tangled hair.
“I should’ve left you on the Chastity,” he whispered against her mouth. “Atlantis is all right for the others, but not for you.”
“That’s not true. It’s not right—” For any of us, she would have said, if his mouth hadn’t covered hers again.
Only this time his kiss offered more than comfort. It offered pure, hot passion, a hungry desire that quickly swept her up until she found herself responding with an eagerness that matched his own.
She couldn’t help it. Despite everything, she needed him to get her through this, to make her forget the snake. As if he understood exactly what she wanted, he shifted her in his embrace so he could touch her, caress her, stroke her. His hand covered her breast, kneading it with a restless energy that sparked fires in her loins. Her breast ached for his touch, had ached for it ever since yesterday. And that fact sparked fresh tears.
He kissed them away with slow tenderness, his breath hot on her cheeks. “Don’t cry anymore, Sara, my Sara. Please don’t cry. I don’t want to hurt you.” He backed her to a nearby tree, then pressed her against it, leaving his hands free to roam her waist and her hips. The next thing she knew, he was inching her skirt up her legs. “I only want to give you pleasure. That’s all.”
Try as she might, she couldn’t deny him. She didn’t want to. It felt right to have his hands touch her, his fingers bare her thighs, questing upward to find the part of her that craved him so intensely it frightened her. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath as he kissed her again and again with fierce need, thrusting his tongue more deeply into her mouth with each stroke. His fingers found the aching place between her legs, and his thumb rubbed the little nub nestled in her silky folds of skin, making her respond instinctively by arching against his hand with a little mew of pleasure.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he whispered against her mouth. “Let me give you pleasure. Only pleasure.”
Some part of her sensed that this was his way of making up for the snake, of making amends for all he’d done. And though her rational mind wanted to scream that it wasn’t what she wanted, her body said otherwise.
It craved this sweet losing of herself to him. It craved his touch, his body against hers. To her shame, the more he stroked her between the legs, the more wantonly she yearned for it…yearned for him.
“Yes, sweetheart,” he breathed against her cheek, “take it. It’s there for you. Let yourself take it.”
She didn’t have to wonder what he meant. An unfamiliar tension built inside her, like the eager anticipation she’d felt as the Chastity had left the Thames and slid into open sea. Ahead was danger…and excitement. She could feel it just beyond her grasp…beckoning, drawing her.
Every whisper of the leaves, every sliver of light dusting Gideon’s hair, every luscious tropical scent conspired to draw her on. He no longer kissed her, too intent on caressing her. His face grew strained, his eyes burned with an unholy light, yet he kept stroking and fondling her, building the tension until with unexpected quickness it exploded inside her and rocked her with wave after wave of pleasure.
A hoarse cry escaped her lips as she clutched Gideon close, quivering and shaking against him. Oh, sweet God. Sweet, sweet God. Was this what it was like between a man and a woman? This…this piercing excitement…this shattering closeness? She’d never dreamed…she’d never imagined…no one had ever told her such things could happen.
Now that she knew it could, she understood why Gideon had offered it as an appeasement, why he thought he could tempt her into his bed.
And that understanding brought the bitter tears rolling forth once more.
Chapter 14
For up and down in sea-port town they court both old and young;
They will deceive; do not believe the sailor’s flattering tongue.
—ANONYMOUS, “ADVICE TO YOUNG MAIDENS
IN CHUSING OF HUSBANDS”
Gideon didn’t know why he pulled away from her. He knew he’d given her pleasure. He’d felt her convulse around his finger, felt her shudder and tremble with the shocks of her climax. It would take very little to lift her legs and thrust into her, to bury himself in her softness as he’d ached to do ever since the day he’d first seen her.
Yet he didn’t. This fresh onslaught of tears…this he couldn’t bear. She cried like a woman who’d lost all hope, who’d looked shame in the face and seen her own likeness there. Each sob wrenched him as no woman’s sobs had ever done before. It made no sense, none at all.
Angry at himself for his reaction, he drew down her skirt and released her, muttering a soft curse as he turned and walked swiftly back to where the dead mamba lay. He stood there staring at the snake, its body frozen in an S curve on the dried leaves, but he couldn’t shut out the sounds behind him. The little gasps she made with each sob, the hiccuping breaths, beat a tattoo in his brain, wiping it clean of lustful thoughts. Only moments ago he’d been hard as iron, wanting her so badly he could feel the ache of it in the very root of his loins.
Well, he certainly wasn’t hard now. How could he be, with those sobs of hers? Sweet Jesus, he couldn’t stand them. She hadn’t cried when he’d taken her from the Chastity, and she hadn’t cried when they’d argued. To hear her cry now when she’d been so strong before just reminded him how he’d torn her from her home and family. She hated him for it. He could hear how much.
But she’d wanted him, too. She cried now over her loss, but a few minutes ago she’d wanted him.
Now her sobs were quieting, and he could hear her shifting her position, probably straightening her clothes to cover up all evidence of what they’d done. But what else could he expect from her? Miss Prim-and-Proper Reformer thought she was too good to be caught in the arms of a pirate. Damn her for that.
With another savage oath, he jerked his saber out of the ground and wiped it on some leaves. “You’d better go back to the beach. I should check the area to ma
ke sure there’s not another snake around. They sometimes travel in pairs.” Though it was true, it was really just an excuse. But he couldn’t face her right now, not when she was so upset and he felt this ridiculous guilt.
“Travel in pairs?” She sounded horrified.
Digging his fingernails into his palms, he resisted the urge to return to her side and reassure her. “Don’t worry. If you stay beside the stream, you’ll be all right. Go on. I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
A short silence followed. “Gideon, I suppose I…that is…” She paused. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“You’ve got nothing to thank me for,” he bit out, unable to forget those heart-wrenching sobs.
“But—”
“Go back to the beach, Sara.” He didn’t know which was worse—her tears or her thanks.
Almost at once he heard a telltale crunching of leaves behind him, moving quickly away from the clearing. Obviously she wasn’t staying around to repeat her thanks. And that irritated him almost as much as the thanks had.
Everything she did irritated him. He groaned. No, not everything. Not the way she responded to his lovemaking, her sweet little mouth clinging to his…warm, generous, inviting.
His unruly body grew hard again, making him scowl. She wasn’t going to do this to him, confound her! He had too much else to handle on the island without worrying about one infuriating lady of the realm.
Letting loose a number of foul curses, he thrashed about in the surrounding brush with his saber, relieved not to scare up any more mambas. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been quite truthful with Sara about snakes on the island. He and his men had tangled with quite a few since they’d been here.
Returning to the snake, he gave the blasted thing a good kick. If not for it, Sara wouldn’t be so set against Atlantis. He sighed as he sheathed his saber. No, that wasn’t entirely true. She’d been set against it from the beginning. The snake had only sealed her hatred.
He stared across the little clearing at the glossy, sun-washed leaves of a banana tree and the fruit that hung heavy from its middle like a jeweled chain about the belly of a sheik. Wild jasmine scented the air, the warm, pleasing air that lacked the damp chill of his native Yorktown. By God, how he loved it. If only he could make her see it as he did.
He snorted. Of course—make a rich English gentle-woman with a titled family appreciate the unspoiled beauty of Atlantis. It would never happen. Ladies of the realm did not sport on wild beaches with great abandon. They looked down their noses at dirty pirates. They did whatever they could to get themselves back to their cold, bloodless England. If anybody knew that, he did. Wellborn English were never what they seemed.
Glancing down at his belt, he stared at his mother’s brooch. How he hated all those blasted nobles! They thought they deserved the privileges they enjoyed. They thought they owned the world. Thanks to them, he’d been left to the mercy of a cruel man who had no sense of how to treat a child. Or anyone, for that matter.
That’s why years later, when the War of 1812 had begun, Gideon had been more than eager to do his part for his country. He’d seen how English navy ships would take American sailors right off American ships, claiming they were English deserters. He’d nearly been taken once himself. And he knew all too well what cruel people the English were.
But he’d shown them all. He’d put all of them in their places.
Until Sara. He raked his hand through his hair. What had she done to him? She’d almost made him forget who she was and what she represented. She was passionate, not at all what he’d expected of an English lady.
But he mustn’t let her passionate nature fool him. Once her passions cooled and her prim English upbringing resurfaced, she’d turn on him. That’s what always happened.
He mustn’t give her the chance. Whirling on his heel, he started toward the beach. No, he definitely wouldn’t give her the chance. Oh, he’d make love to her, all right. He’d have her in his bed. But that was as far as he’d let it go. He wouldn’t let her ruin his life, the way his mother had ruined his father’s.
Who’s ruining whose life? a little voice inside him said. Sara had an earl for a stepbrother and a position in society until you took it away from her.
Gritting his teeth, he came up along the stream and began to navigate his way down to the beach. All right, so he’d taken that from her. He hadn’t had a choice. What should he have done, left her on that ship to lead her brother after them?
That’s just an excuse, that long-buried little voice repeated. You didn’t have to take her, and you know it.
He stopped short, staring blindly ahead of him. His conscience hadn’t bothered him in a long time. The day his father had died cursing his mother, Gideon had decided that a conscience was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Obviously his mother had never listened to hers. And his father hadn’t heeded his when he was strapping the tar out of a seven-year-old child. Gideon had figured he was better off without a conscience, too.
Why did the confounded thing have to pester him now? And over a woman, no less, an English noblewoman.
It was Sara’s tears that had done it to him, he thought sourly as he continued down the stream. That’s what it was. And women used tears to get what they wanted. His mother had probably done the same thing, and he’d be better off if he reminded himself of that once in a while.
“Cap’n!” came a call from the beach below, jolting him out of his uncomfortable thoughts. He looked down to see Barnaby and Silas waiting for him. Barnaby furiously smoked a cheroot, and Silas mumbled to himself as he clumped back and forth, drawing little furrows in the sand with his peg leg.
Hurrying his steps, Gideon was beside them at once. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“The men are grumbling,” Barnaby said. “You know how you told them they were to sleep on board the ship until the weddings? Well, now that they’re back on the island, they don’t want to sleep shipboard. They want to take up residence in their homes again.”
Gideon shrugged. “Then we’ll keep the women on the ship. I don’t see the problem.”
Barnaby and Silas exchanged glances. Then Silas scratched his beard. “That won’t work neither. The women don’t want to stay aboard ship any more than the men.”
“I don’t care what they want,” Gideon growled. “It’s either stay on the ship or choose their husbands. Since they’re not ready to choose, they’ll have to stay on board until their week is up.” And he certainly didn’t want to rush the choice of husbands, or he’d be pushing Sara right into the arms of that blasted English sailor.
Not that he wanted to marry her himself, mind you. But he didn’t want her marrying anybody else just yet, either.
Silas scowled, looking as if he didn’t like Gideon’s answer. “But them women, well, they’ve been on board a ship for weeks. It ain’t healthy for them. Anybody can see that.” He paused to look off over the sea. “Now, you take that little Molly, the one that’s gonna have a baby. She don’t need to be sleepin’ on no bedroll when there’s comfy beds here. It’s like Louisa says, the women deserve a little…” He trailed off when he caught both Gideon and Barnaby gawking at him. “What’re you two lubbers starin’ at?”
“When in the bloody hell did you ever care about making a pregnant woman comfortable?” Barnaby asked, taking the words right out of Gideon’s mouth. “And when did you stop calling Louisa ‘that woman’? Don’t tell me Miss Yarrow has softened your shriveled heart.”
Red color crept up Silas’s neck until his bearded face looked a mottled crimson and brown. “She ain’t done no such thing. Just because she’s got a little sense in her oncet in a while—” He broke off when Gideon and Barnaby burst into laughter. Turning away from them, he began to stride purposefully down the beach. “Aw, to hell with you both. It ain’t none of your business what a man chooses to think of a woman. And it ain’t like I…”
He passed out of hearing, his mumbling drowned out by the surf.
“I don’
t believe it,” Gideon said. “Silas Drummond, captivated by a woman?”
“I wouldn’t say captivated. I think it’s more like flummoxed. No woman has ever stood up to him before. They’re usually terrified of him…or disgusted by his wooden leg and his inability to give them satisfaction in bed. But ever since Louisa started fighting with him, he’s been a different man. This morning, I even caught him dabbing bay rum behind his ears.”
“How the mighty have fallen.” Gideon knew one thing. He would never act like such a fool over Sara. Never. He glanced at Barnaby. “You’re not in danger of losing your head, too, are you?”
“You should know better. I like women, to be sure, but they’ve got their place.” He grinned. “Preferably, in my bed.”
Gideon would once have shared Barnaby’s opinion. Now he found it slightly unsavory, and that disturbed him. “Well, I see you won’t be bothering me about a wife for some time. Not as long as Queenie is giving you what you want for free.”
“True, true. But I assure you the other men are going to make your life hell until they get their wives, especially if you insist that they sleep on board the ship.”
“That doesn’t leave me much choice, does it? I’ve got to figure out a way to convince the women to stay on the Satyr—for a while, anyway.” Sara, at least, would be more than glad to sleep in her cabin, especially after her encounter with that confounded snake.
The snake.
A sudden grin broke over his face. “Look, Barnaby, call the men and women together in front of my hut. I think I can convince our prospective wives that they don’t want to sleep alone in our island dwellings.” Turning back to the stream, he began to retrace his steps.
“Where are you going?”
“You’ll see. Just gather everybody together. I won’t be long.”
Half an hour later, Gideon stood on the beach before the entire company with the noon sun beating down, a canvas bag in his fist. They all looked disgruntled, both with him and with each other. The women and men were divided, the men standing near the brush line and the women clumped together by the ocean. His men wouldn’t look at him, but their faces were set mutinously.
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