I stared up at the ceiling, the wood blurring before my eyes. I knew he was doing it for me. He wanted to protect me from this crazy, dangerous life of his and he’d convinced himself that I could be happy with someone else, with some normal guy. Maybe he’s right. I still shuddered every time I looked at the open ocean. I’d forced myself to face caves and sharks and men like Ratcher because I had to: I wasn’t brave like him. Maybe I did belong with some guy back in Nebraska.
But I’d never met anyone else who made me feel like Rourke did and I knew I never would. It didn’t matter how unsuitable I was, how shy and scared I was compared to the Esmes and Carlas of this world. We were right together.
And there was another side to it, a side I’d only glimpsed because he hid it so well behind that gruff exterior. Whatever had happened to Edwards, it had destroyed him. He couldn’t take that happening again and his solution was to keep everyone at arm’s length. He wouldn’t let himself love again.
I had to make him see it was worth the risk or he’d be alone for the rest of his life. But I had no idea how to convince him. Trying to talk to him about it just made him close down more.
After hours of battling with it, I still didn’t know what to do. And I was too worked up to sleep. So I did what I always did: I buried myself in a book. I’d read Esme’s diary enough times that I already knew every detail but her writing was so descriptive that, every time I re-read it, I picked up something new.
I stopped on a page where she was raging about Captain Mace. He loved her but he was getting worried for her future. After almost dying in a sword fight, he’d started to push her away, much as Rourke had with me.
The crunch point had been when he had to journey to Boston: he’d be gone several months and refused to take Esme with him, saying it was too dangerous. He was even suggesting—my stomach twisted—that she didn’t wait for him. Find yourself a farmer or a carpenter, he’d told her. Some man who’ll still be here in a year. The more she’d argued with him, the more he’d raged at her, refusing to give an inch. He was trying to protect her, just like Rourke….
I leaned into the book, transfixed. The ink Esme had written in was blotched in circular patterns: she’d been crying when she wrote it. She only had one night to make him change his mind or she knew she’d lose him forever.
I turned the page. So that night, she’d crept from her bed, rode to where the Hawk was being prepared for departure and—
I stared, open-mouthed. It was exactly the sort of thing Esme would do...and it had worked.
I slammed the diary and turned on my side, staring angrily at the wall. Why can’t I be like that? It had worked for Esme because she was confident. I was a mouse.
I closed my eyes and let out a bitter sigh. Why can’t I be like that, I thought again.
Why can’t I be like that?
My eyes snapped open in fear. That’s crazy. I was as far from Esme as it was possible to be. I wasn’t beautiful or strong or...alluring. I couldn’t put myself out there like that.
Could I?
If I really wanted to convince Rourke to take a chance...didn’t I have to take a chance, too?
49
Rourke
I came awake and looked around in confusion. Everything was familiar: the deck under my back, the stars in the sky above. Everything but the sound. The sound didn’t belong in my life. It wasn’t part of my world of wind and waves and pain. It was softly feminine, hauntingly beautiful and it was calling. Calling to me.
I struggled to my feet, cursing my leg. The sound was coming from the back of the boat. I limped along the length of the deck, grateful for the light of the moon. I came to the bow and stumbled to a stop.
About twenty feet away across the water, a cluster of rocks the size of an SUV stuck up out of the water. Sitting on it was Hannah, but like I’d never seen her before.
She’d wrapped a white sheet around her, the fabric gathered in a band that crossed her breasts and wound around her hip. It just barely covered the essentials in a way that made me immediately want to rip the thing off her. Almost all of her gorgeous, naked body was on display and the moonlight made her pale skin glow. She looked like a statue celebrating the female form, her curves smooth and gleaming. Her long, golden hair fell around her shoulders, catching the light from the stars—
And she was singing.
I didn’t know the song but it was about love, and needing someone, and being together. All that stuff I’d told myself was bloody nonsense...until I heard it like this. Her singing voice was everything I loved about that quick, sun-drenched Nebraska accent taken to the next level. It was light and sweet but with a deep, aching power that reached right down inside me. It bypassed my brain and all the anger and bitterness there. It went straight past the pain. It hit me where I lived and spoke to me on an age-old level.
When she sang about love, I understood.
I’m dreaming, I thought. I had to be. Hannah wouldn’t do this. She’d flushed when I overheard her singing in the shower. But I didn’t much care. If this was a dream, it was the best one I’d ever had.
The bay was utterly silent apart from her voice: it was as if all the wildlife had stopped to listen. Her voice was drawing me in across the water. I took an instinctive step forward and the movement must have caught her eye because she turned her head. She didn’t stop singing, just locked eyes with me, willing me on.
I was a sailor, being lured by a siren. The wind had dropped away to nothing and there wasn’t so much as a ripple on the water. The reflection of the moon on the surface looked so solid, I swore I could walk straight across it to her. I am bewitched.
I climbed up onto the rail. I knew that my leg must be hurting but I couldn’t seem to feel it at all. I didn’t question whether I should go. Just like when I’d kissed her, this had gone beyond choice, beyond any argument I could make to fight it.
I dropped into the water, dark ripples splitting the moon in front of me. I swam towards her with slow strokes, not wanting to break the spell. She watched me approach, her song never ceasing.
I clambered up onto the rock and moved towards her. The draw of her was incredible, a current I couldn’t possibly fight. It had always been this strong, ever since the day I met her on the beach. She’d just found a way to cut through what was holding me back.
Still she sang and, as I drew within a few feet, the effect was even more intense. Hearing that voice, watching those blush-pink lips move and her almost-naked chest rise and fall as she sang of how her heart ached for me…something inside me opened, something that had been sealed shut for a long time.
She looked up at me, defiant. I’d tried so hard to protect her, to push her where she’d be safe. But she wouldn’t be pushed. I’d finally met someone as stubborn as me. And there was fear in her eyes, too. This wasn’t a dream. This was the shy, bookish woman I’d fallen for and doing this scared the hell out of her. But she was being as brave in this as she’d been in everything else. She was being brave for me.
I felt it inside, then: the deep, cold pain I always bury between the hot, simple pain of my leg. I didn’t want to face that. Couldn’t face that. But I was leaning down over her, now, her mouth so close to mine that I could feel the vibrations of her song on my lips. If I didn’t stop hiding from the past, I couldn’t have her.
And I had to have this woman.
I let out a long, low growl that contained every ounce of anger and pain that had built up over the last two years.
And then I just bloody kissed her.
50
Hannah
He brought his mouth down on mine and the song died in my throat, the last vibrations playing against his lips. He was soft at first, reverent, tasting me as if for the first time. Then hard and savage, kissing me as if he couldn’t get enough of me.
It was different to when he’d pounced on me next to the chest of coins. That had been an explosion, the pressure building up and up until we couldn’t hold back any more. This was dee
per, stronger, a wave that had been growing since we’d first met. It was now tall as a skyscraper and it wasn’t stopping. Not ever.
He pressed me back against the cool rock, my breasts pillowing against the hard slabs of his pecs. I twisted my hips to one side, flattening myself against the rocks so that he could get closer, needing all of him in contact with me. He molded himself to me, groaning in need, until his whole upper body was tight to mine. He was only wearing a pair of shorts and I could feel the warmth of him throbbing into me, skin to skin. He buried his hands in my hair as he kissed me, open-mouthed but slow and deep.
His hands slid slowly down: my cheeks, my shoulders, and then right down my body. One slid beneath the sheet that covered my groin. The edge of it pushed between my thighs and I opened a little, gasping against his lips.
My head rocked back as two fingers began to rub slowly back and forth over my soft folds, his thick wrist keeping my legs open even when the pleasure made me try to close them. His other hand tugged at the top of the sheet. It fell away from my breast and then he was cupping me there, his thumb teasing my nipple to aching hardness, his fingers rolling and squeezing with just the right kind of roughness. He broke the kiss for a second and I heard him just sigh, as if I was the best thing he’d ever touched. “God, Hannah, you’re perfect.”
A flush went through me, rebounding and turning to liquid heat when it hit my groin. I was grinding my hips, now, his hand trapped between them as he rubbed at me. The pleasure was spiraling higher and higher, making me thrash and shudder. I had to respond, had to let it out.
I slid my palms along his shoulders, marveling at the width of them, the power. Then the hard globes of his biceps and the deep contours of his back. I stroked my fingers down his chest, then over the shark bite scar that arched across his abs: vicious tooth marks on smooth, sculpted valleys. I hated the fact it had hurt him. But there was some primitive, cavewoman part of me that went weak at the sight of them, and at the thought of the shark’s jawbone on the boat: the idea that he’d slain the beast.
The hand between my thighs pushed under my ass and he stood, hooking his other arm under my shoulders. I clung to his shoulders as he lifted me into the air and deftly unwound the rest of the sheet, leaving me naked. He took a step back, to the edge of the rocks and then….
I cried out as he jumped. A second later, we hit the water together: still warm from the sun but blissfully cool against our heated bodies. We went under, already kissing, then surfaced, the water dripping down our faces. He opened the button on his shorts and kicked them free and then we were naked against each other.
We twisted together in the water, arms wrapped around each other, kissing long and deep. He took control, using those powerful legs, and muscled ass to push us through the water. I was in his world, a woman from the land carried off by a man of the sea, and all I had to do was cling on.
One moment, he’d launch us up out of the water, kissing my breasts as we rose, making me arch my back and cry out before we splashed down again. The next, he’d let us gently sink beneath the surface and corkscrew down, our bodies entwined, kissing me to give me the air I needed. When I tired, he’d turn me so that we were floating on our backs with him half-underneath me. I’d gaze up at the night sky, my head on his chest, as his hands worked my body until I shouted my release up to the stars.
It was the most relaxed in the water I’d ever been: there was no fear at all, not now, not with his arms around me. I closed my eyes and lost track of which way was up and down, or whether we were on the surface or beneath. He brought me to panting, shuddering climax again and again and then, when my limbs were limp and shaky from pleasure, he swam us over to the beach. He laid me down in the surf, finding the exact point where the waves would lap over my breasts but come no higher.
He kissed me—God, I’d never, ever grow tired of the way he kissed, firm and decisive and in control and with that edge of raw heat, like I made him not quite able to control himself. Then he slid down the length of my body and used his shoulders to spread my thighs. I’d closed my eyes and I didn’t realize what we were going to do until the first touch of his tongue. My eyes flew open and I arched my back, crying out in shock and delight. The waves struck the soles of my feet and washed over my legs as he kissed his way down each sensitive lip. The warm haze of pleasure suddenly deepened and focused, throbbing up through my body from my groin. My ass began to grind into the wet sand in slow circles.
His palms swept over my wet skin, rising until they captured my breasts. He began to squeeze at me, strumming my nipples with his thumbs in time with his expert tongue. The pleasure tightened and built and my fingers dug into the sand. Another wave swept over us, the warm water soaking him and splashing and foaming over my breasts, making me suck air in through my teeth as the bubbles burst against my skin.
He was using his upper lip to stroke at my clit, now, while he teased me open with his tongue and flicked and circled inside me. The rhythm was insistent, pushing me closer and closer to— I buried my hands in his hair, curling my fingers into his dark locks. My chest was heaving beneath his hands, breasts pressed hard into his palms as I arched my back. The pleasure rushing inwards, concentrating and heating, making me buck and tense beneath him….
I came just as another wave engulfed us, my cry rising into the treetops and echoing around the island’s rock walls. He stayed there, his face pressed to me, as I rode it out, arching and trembling. Only when the wave retreated and I lay still did he move up my body and settle himself between my thighs. His body shone from the water and every hard muscle was outlined by the moonlight.
My hands slid from his hair to his stubbled cheeks and we gazed into each other’s eyes as he slowly entered me. I could see that same raw lust I’d seen the first day I met him but the anger was gone, replaced by a deep, intense yearning. He’d stopped fighting it.
I felt my eyes widen as he filled me and I could see his eyes gleam in response, excited by my pleasure. The rest of the world seemed to disappear and it became a feedback loop: the deeper he moved, the more I bit my lip and narrowed my eyes in delight. The more I did that, the more turned on he became and the deeper he sank. My hands slid to his shoulders, then ran down his back to his ass as he finally buried himself to the hilt.
He rocked rather than thrust, grinding against me in just the right spot. Each contact made the pleasure spiral and tighten inside me, until I was panting and desperate. His lips went to my neck, nudging my wet hair out of the way so that he could drive me crazy with hot kisses all the way from my jaw to my collar bone.
For long minutes he stayed slow, as if relishing me. But when the pleasure made me helplessly circle my hips, he growled and began to thrust, his palms slamming into the sand either side of my head to support him. I gasped and grabbed onto his wrists, wrapping my sand-covered fingers around their thickness and squeezing tight.
He began to pound me, filling me in hard, silken strokes that made the pleasure coil like a clock spring, tighter and tighter, building to the point where it would have to release. My heels dug furrows in the sand as I drew my knees up. Wave after wave broke over our lower bodies, the spray misting on my face. I could feel myself rushing towards my peak....
The water receded for a second. I clung to his wrists, gasping and squirming under him as he thrust, drawing circles in the sand with my ass. My fingers climbed his forearms, digging into the sculpted muscle. “W—Will!” I hissed.
He slammed into me again, hilting himself. His lips sent a hot Scottish burr right into my ear. “Hannah….”
And the climax rocketed through me just as another wave hit us. I felt myself spasm around him, my back arching and my nipples grazing his chest. He growled, pressed tight against me...and I felt the explosion of heat as he came.
We stayed like that for a long time, the waves lapping at our bodies. He nuzzled gently at my neck, his dark hair gleaming in the moonlight. The sand was soft, the water was warm and neither of us wanted to move
.
Eventually, though, he helped me up and we swam naked back to the Fortune’s Hope. He threw some towels down on the deck and lay down on his back. I lay down beside him and half on him, and discovered that his chest made the best pillow in the world. With the deck slowly rocking under us and the stars above, it was incredibly restful.
Everything felt different, now. The barrier that had stood between us was gone.
For a while, he just gazed up at the stars. Then he lowered his head, staring intently at the prow of the boat. I didn’t pick up on the significance of that, at first.
I shifted against him. The night was warm but the heat of his body was addictive and I wanted to put as much of me in contact with him as possible. I found a new, even more comfortable place for my cheek, nestled against the curve of his pec. I pressed my chest against him and wrapped an arm around him, a hot little thrill going through me as my damp breast kissed his body. I hooked one leg over his, entwining us. And realized that my toes were brushing his injured leg. I looked down at it and heard his head move: he was looking, too.
“Does it hurt all the time?” I asked. It was the first time I’d dared to ask.
He silently nodded. “In the water, it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “On land it does. Worse, the further I walk.”
“What’s....?” I tried to think of a tactful way of asking and couldn’t. “What’s wrong with it?”
He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. “Pirates,” he said at last.
For a second, I thought he was joking. But no: he was staring up at the stars, his face stony. I pressed myself closer and waited.
“Seven years ago, off the coast of Somalia,” he said. “It’s mostly under control now but back then pirates were hitting a ship every few days, taking hostages, and demanding ransoms. I was captaining a Navy frigate at the time and they sent us in to bring some order back to the area. But the whole thing was a mess. The civil war had been sending things all to hell for years—people were desperate, just trying to scratch a living. The pirates had started off trying to protect their fishing grounds and a lot of the fishermen still supported them even when they were just doing it for the money.” He shook his head. “You were never sure who was on your side.”
Captain Rourke Page 22