He stepped up into the carriage and shut the door. She’d tried to make light of her encounter with the duke, but now he saw she was close to tears. Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing too hard and too quick. It had all been too much for her.
“I warned you,” he grumbled, slumped on the opposite seat, more than a little breathless himself by then, furious with Berwick, wanting the man’s head on a plate. “No good could possibly have come by going there tonight, uninvited.”
She rounded on him, spitting out her words, eyes afire with unshed tears, “I wanted nothing from him but his notice. A smile perhaps. Is that too much to ask?”
“Yes. From him it is.”
“He’s my wretched father, whether he wants to be or not. I don’t have any choice about it either.” Her voice was hoarse. Moonbeams caught in the diamonds that hung from her ears, shattering and spinning around the carriage interior. “I’m his flesh and blood. How could he turn his back on me?”
Harry rubbed his knees, his hands anxious, not knowing what to do with her in this wildly passionate mood. She shrank into a corner, huddled there out of his reach, pulling off her gloves as if they were at fault for the pain she felt.
“He should be ashamed,” she muttered.
“He should, but he won’t be. You’ll only hurt yourself by trying to make him feel something of which he’s incapable.”
But she was too angry and hurt to listen to reason, and she was too young. She had to make her own mistakes. Another reason why he shouldn’t be there with her. When he was her age, he’d never let anyone tell him anything either, intent on finding out for himself, no matter how badly he got hurt in the process.
“You should be leading your own life,” he said finally, “not trying to become your mother.”
Her face paled in the silvery moonlight. He saw her eyes widen, two damp pools of heartache.
“You’re not her,” he added, low.
“I know I’m not,” she cried. “I never could be. She was beautiful, irresistible. Men adored her, drank champagne out of her shoes, lavished her with priceless jewels and—”
“I meant that you are your own person, entitled to your own life, Christina.”
He heard her exhale a startled breath. “Oh.”
“And you’re more beautiful than she was.”
She scowled. “How would you know?”
“The portrait.”
Ah. She must have forgotten about the portrait and why he was there. He’d almost done the same. How strange that her mother and his father, both dead, were the cause for the two of them meeting. He would never have known her otherwise.
“I suppose I shouldn’t flatter you,” he added with a dry laugh. “It might give you ideas about me.”
“Too late. And don’t tell me what ideas I should and shouldn’t have. With your reputation, Blackwood, you’re the last person who should give me advice.”
Harry rubbed his brow with his knuckles, frustrated.
“Exactly,” she added, triumphant. “I heard all about you from Rosamund Wakely tonight. The moment she had me alone, she couldn’t wait to tell me all about your countless lovers and extremely improper behavior. Twins, isn’t it lately? And both at the same time?”
His teeth hurt from grinding. “When we get back to Arundel Square, I’ll just collect my luggage and leave,” he muttered under his breath. “I’ve stayed too long as it is.”
“Very well. Abandon me too.”
Sighing, he leaned forward, hands on his knees. He was concerned for her, far more than he should be when he knew he had to leave. Watching her tonight, he’d felt himself dragged slowly under her spell and he, the man who never involved his heart in any relationship, was oddly powerless to prevent it. He had to get away before it was too late and he was lost to any good sense.
“I can’t stay, Christina. I’m not going to be your consolation prize.”
“Consolation prize?”
“Isn’t that what you want me for? To make up for whatever you think your father should have given you or done for you? I suppose you want sex with me to erase all that. You don’t want to feel anything else. You want to pretend you’re Louisa, using attention from men to make up for whatever true affection you can’t get.”
She launched herself across the carriage and slapped his face. Hard. He was stunned.
She slapped him again, the other cheek this time. Even harder.
His face was stinging, red hot. So was his temper. Apparently, she thought she could take the anger she had for her father and the world in general out on him. He grabbed her wrists, and she cursed at him, fighting with all her strength. He tasted blood in his mouth where he must have bitten his tongue.
Forget what he should do. Forget that she was too young. Forget the fact that she was using him.
The spoiled brat would pay for that.
He kissed her, angry and demanding, while the curses still formed on her tongue; while she writhed in his lap, her wrists trapped in his firm grasp. Her diamond earrings spun, hitting his cheek, cutting his skin.
He felt the slow trickle of blood down his face and still he kissed her, determined to subdue the little hellcat. They were caught in a storm, on rough, treacherous seas. She clung to him for salvation, and he let her, even when he knew she would probably drag him under.
Chapter Six
Mrs. Draycott must have heard the carriage. She opened the door as they came up the steps, Harry Blackwood dragging her by the wrist.
“Did you have a pleasant—”
“No, thank you,” he replied to the housekeeper’s inquiry before Christina could speak. “We’re going directly up to bed, Mrs. Draycott. Good evening.”
Her gloves fell from her hand. She caught the housekeeper’s startled expression, but she was still too furious, too breathless to say anything. Her thoughts galloped ahead up the stairs and into her bedroom, to what was about to happen. She knew her face must be scarlet, and she wouldn’t be surprised if her lips were swollen from his forceful kiss in the carriage. Damn him. He wouldn’t take control. This was her idea, not his.
But he pulled her up the stairs so fast she stepped on the hem of her gown and ripped it.
Below in the hall, still holding the front door open, the housekeeper called up plaintively, “Miss Christina, should I—”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Draycott,” she yelled back, salvaging a gush of breath he hadn’t yet stolen from her. “Mr. Blackwood and I have something to discuss.”
He tossed her ahead of him into the room and then followed with one long stride, slamming the door behind him and bolting it. “Get on the bed.” As he came toward her, he was already stripping off his clothes.
“I thought you didn’t want to be bothered,” she cried, heart racing, blood churning. “Aren’t I too young and insignificant?”
“I never said you were insignificant.” He flung his shirt across the room and it hit her cheval mirror, hooking over the carved wood frame. “Get on the bed.”
“Don’t make commands to me.”
“Isn’t this what you wanted me for?” He was unfastening his evening trousers. In the dim, amber light of the gas lamp, she could see a thin film of sweat on his torso. His face was drawn hard, the rugged lines sharper, more pronounced. A bright slash of blood marked his cheek from the cut of her diamond earring. She thought she heard his teeth grinding. He moved toward her, his fingers still working over the front of his trousers, fumbling in their haste.
“Don’t you have riding boots older than me?” she challenged.
He grabbed her around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and flung her across the bed. In the next battle cry he was down, over her, his trousers around his thighs, his hands tearing at her gown, hooks popping open, stitches snapped. She grabbed his hair and wrenched it roughly, taking out all her frustrations on him. He sank his teeth into her bare shoulder and she squealed, gasping, cursing. He pushed his knees between her legs, holding them apart and she tensed.<
br />
Perhaps she should tell him this was her first time.
It was a transient thought, cloudy and ill-formed. Soon destroyed by other, louder, needier demands. She held his shoulders, digging her nails in, leaving crescent marks in his flesh. He grunted, his mouth closing fiercely over hers, tongue plunging between her lips.
It was hot, hard, sweaty. Even feral.
She hadn’t imagined it quite like this. She slid up the bed on her back, trying to gain some control, but he followed her, his weight on her, his teeth grazing the side of her neck, hands straining, wrenching her corset apart, sliding her chemise down. Then she felt the thick planes of his chest against her nipples, followed by his rough fingertips playing over her. She cried out when his mouth took the same path, his tongue flicking savagely at her roused swollen nipples until they pulsed with wildfire.
He reached under her, hands spread over the cheeks of her bottom, his hips settling between her thighs as he prepared to enter her.
“Open your eyes,” he growled. “I want you to know it’s me tonight and no one else; not one of your other men.”
She opened her eyes and stared up into his fathomless dark gaze. “I think I’d know the difference,” she replied, churlish. “They’re all more gentle than you.” Her nipples were throbbing and wet like her lips. His trembling fingers were surely bruising the tender flesh of her buttocks.
“That must be why you want me this badly then. Are they boring you?”
The broad head of his organ pushed at her threshold and she braced, arching her back. Oh yes, she wanted him. Anticipation shivered along her spine and manifested in a low purr at the back of her throat. She was dripping wet as a sticky, hot July afternoon. Closing her legs as far as she could, she felt his iron-hard length nestled between her inner thighs and marveled again at his size, briefly pondering logistics. Well, she’d have to leave that up to him. He knew what he was doing. She didn’t.
“They’re not fulfilling your needs, clearly,” he grunted, spreading his hard thighs between hers, forcing her legs wider apart. “Or you wouldn’t have gone out of your way to rouse my temper tonight and get me so hot and bothered that I can barely see straight.”
“Shut up and get on with it, for pity’s sake. I don’t need another lecture, you wretched old bugger.”
“I see. You asked for it. Spoiled brat.”
She held her breath. He thrust mercilessly, not knowing he had a complete novice keening under him, apparently thinking her only a willful and bossy madam. Unaware that, until this night, she’d had only theory, never practice.
His trousers were around his knees and he still wore his shoes. She was partially undressed, from the waist up and the waist down. It wasn’t at all how she’d imagined her awakening to womanhood. Somehow, however, she wouldn’t change a thing about it. This is what she needed to take away the hurt of her father’s rejection. It had to be savage, tempestuous.
She had a lot of anger to use up.
The sharp pain was over in a few startled breaths. A girl who cried over paper cuts, she wasn’t generally quick to feel soothed, but tonight pleasure, more exquisite than any she’d ever known, soon replaced the burning spasms. The pain had to be felt before she could experience all the wondrous delights he was so well equipped to show her.
Harry Blackwood had been the perfect choice.
* * * *
Somewhere, far in the back of his mind, all storm warnings and superstitious fears were exiled, shut away. There was nothing else for it but to board her racing ship. He was wild with desire, and it seemed as if they’d been drifting, rudderless, to this point ever since she put her slender, elegant hand to his unshaven face earlier that day and caressed his stubble.
She thought she could tease and out-sail him. He would prove her wrong.
He thrust hard and felt the softness under him part, a warm sea of gentle waves through which he, a ruthless pirate captain, would plow his ship without clemency. He would take her prisoner. He was coming aboard.
In the next second, he came to a sharp halt. When he heard her cry out, he knew this was unchartered territory. He braced up on his arms above her, his heart thumping rapidly, still in rapacious pirate speed. The wench had tricked him.
But her eyes opened and they were bright with passion, not dimmed by fear or pain. There was no sign of the tears she’d shed earlier. She was flushed, her lips parted and wet, waiting for him. Pressing herself up on her elbows, she challenged him again with her crude, unladylike demands. With her soft hair falling loose over her bare shoulders, the neat, sophisticated arrangement already a distant memory in his mind, she was winsomely disheveled, a fighting temptress of the high seas. She dared him to sail after her, to chase her down. He could almost smell the cannon fire and the saltwater in her hair.
Meeting her halfway, he lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her with more gentleness now, forcing himself to go slower.
The woman should have told him she was a virgin. He cursed his own lecherous failings, but she wrapped her legs around his and drew him further in, pulling him down, sheathing him deeper yet.
Her tongue lapped at his cheek, licking away the smear of blood, and then he heard her laugh, felt it shiver through her, little tremors massaging his cock as she moved sinuously beneath him. Did she just purr like a kitten, or did that sound come from him? He pressed up into her another minute distance and she gasped, still moving, working herself on him with a skill no novice should possess. It was maddening because he wanted to take his time and she was making it impossible. Ah yes, she’d mentioned something about wanting things on her own terms.
Beginning her climax already, she slid her hands down to his buttocks and squeezed.
Grunting, he withdrew a little. “In a hurry to get somewhere, hellcat?”
Her eyes flew open and her hands tightened on his straining muscles, trying to force him back in. She was too beautiful, too bossy, too wayward. Too stubborn.
Suddenly she spanked him hard and his body reacted instinctually, hips swaying forward, spearing her on his throbbing cock. He swore.
“Give me what I want, Blackwood,” she whispered, taunting him, writhing.
His backside was stinging.
“You’re altogether too free with your hands, madam,” he grunted. Reaching for her wrists again, he forced them up over her head. In response, she arched her body, pushing her hips up just as he thrust forward again.
It was cataclysmic penetration, his sword buried to the hilt in her hot, snug sheath.
Pirate Captain became enslaved to his captive.
He pounded into her, shuddering wildly as those primitive sensations and needs took over completely, leaving no vestige of gentlemanly concern for what she should have told him or what he should never have done.
* * * *
Christina opened her eyes and found that her world had, indeed, changed. Because he was in it now. His long form stretched out beside her on the bed, propped up on one elbow, watching her. Inside, her body still trembled. She suspected she might be sore later, but she wasn’t yet. She was exhilarated. Rather than feel sated, she was over-brimming with desire. Perhaps he was an addictive vice. She took him in slowly, head to toe, and saw that he’d pulled his trousers up but left them unfastened. Was he about to leave her?
“You might at least have removed your shoes,” she remarked coolly.
He considered her face. “You might at least have told me you were a virgin.”
“There wasn’t time.”
He scratched his chin slowly. “Same for my shoes, then.”
Sitting up, she pulled open the last hooks of her gown and wriggled out of it, tossing her torn, frilly petticoats to the carpet. Now she wore only her pearl choker and her earrings. He lay there, watching her.
“Take your shoes off now, then,” she exclaimed. “Or aren’t you staying?”
“I’m not sure that I should.”
She knelt on the bed beside him. “Did I wear you out already,
old man?”
His eyes narrowed, but she knew he was admiring her naked body. Her skin sizzled from every sly brush of his wicked perusal. She raised her hands to her hair, pulling out the last few pins. “I think you’ve bossed me about enough for one night,” he murmured.
“Stop sulking. You enjoyed it.” Her hair tumbled down her back.
“Yes,” he replied with that straightforward honesty she’d come to expect from him already. “I certainly did.” One large hand crept hesitantly across the sheet and found her thigh. His fingers splayed around it. It was almost as if he tried not to touch her, but couldn’t resist. “Did you?”
She nodded, not quite knowing the words to describe what she felt and afraid she’d sound immature.
“No regrets then?” he pushed.
“I chose you to be my first. I didn’t make my choice lightly.”
His hand tightened around her thigh, eyes darkening until they were almost black. Something she said had angered him. “You’ve only just met me,” he muttered.
“Isn’t that odd? I feel as if I’ve known you for years.” She’d actually begun to consider the possibility of reincarnation. Nothing else could explain this sensation of warm familiarity.
The light in the room seemed to dim and flicker, then brighten again.
Suddenly, he was the best looking man she’d ever seen and the idea of him leaving her bed was intolerable.
“Christina,” he moaned, as she boldly pushed him onto his back and wrenched his trousers down. “What are you doing to me?”
Keeping you enraptured, she thought mischievously, climbing astride his chest, eager to try out all the things she’d read about in her mother’s diary. It was merely a matter of what to do first, because she planned on working her way down the list tonight. “You are staying the whole night?” she murmured, sultry heat mellowing her voice, turning a command into a question at the very last syllable.
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