Declan allowed his eyes to continue raking over her as he shed his own clothing. Stripped down to his breeches, he joined her on the bed.
“You should be naked, too,” she said. “It’s only fair.”
“I will be soon enough,” he promised, his hands once more roaming over her skin. It felt like satin beneath his callused palm. She did not seem to mind the rough texture. Instead, she arched into his touch, eager for it. Moving his hand from her hip, over her belly and then down to the thatch of dark curls that concealed her sex, each movement was slow and deliberate. But while Kitty might be an innocent, she was no shy, timid thing. She parted her thighs and welcomed his touch.
“You, Kitty Wyverne, are full of surprises,” he mused.
Kitty did not have a witty rejoinder for him. The sensation of his finger sweeping inside her, touching her so intimately, had robbed her of thought and breath. She could only feel. Her body was burning and he was both the cause and the cure.
Every stroke of his skilled fingers, every heady, drugging kiss that he lavished upon her, left her reeling. She could do nothing but twine her fingers in the bedclothes as her lips parted on a soft cry.
When he knelt between her parted thighs, Kitty closed her eyes and braced herself. She had heard from her friends who had heard from their maids or various other sources that a woman’s first time was always painful. She didn’t care. She wanted it done so that she could eagerly greet the pleasures on the horizon.
What he did then was not at all what she’d prepared for. He was not joining their bodies with that mysterious part of him that she still had not seen. Instead, he was kissing her thighs, licking and nipping at them as he moved ever upwards. Surely he did not mean to—
The world simply stopped. She felt nothing but the heat of his mouth on her. His tongue swept over her flesh in such a way that the pleasure of it left her seeing stars. Her back arched, her hips lifted toward his questing mouth of their own volition, as if begging him to do so again. He did not disappoint.
Kitty was panting and breathless, her whole body drawn taut as a not entirely unfamiliar tension coiled inside her. There had been times, when reading her salacious novels, that she’d been so overwhelmed by the ravishments they hinted at with their vague and flowery prose, that she’d touched herself. Those attempts to find pleasure had been furtive, hurried and dismal failures. But not this. Declan drove her to the very edge.
Kitty hovered there, his mouth gentle and insistent upon her, and then she looked at him. Their gazes locked. The intimacy of that, of staring deeply into his eyes as he pleasured her in such a decadent way, was too much. The tension inside her gave way to a sensation that was beyond description. Her body quaked with pleasure and she uttered his name on a soft, keening cry that sounded not at all like her.
He rose to his knees then, but made no move to vacate his position between her parted thighs. Kitty marveled at the play of his muscles with each movement, at the obvious power of his physique even as he was so gentle with her. Then his hands moved to fall of his breeches. She watched, enrapt, as he freed the buttons. Lustful and with insatiable curiosity, she wanted to see him, to know every part of him.
As the cloth parted, she had her first glimpse and the only thought that entered her mind was that artists’ fig leafs were clearly inadequate. She hadn’t expected that he would be so large.
“I want to see you,” she said.
His breath hissed out between his teeth. “Kitty, you will be the death of me.”
“I’ve only ever seen artist depictions of the male nude and I think perhaps they were not entirely accurate,” she said.
Declan rose to his knees then, looming over her. Kitty sat up and very tentatively reached out with one hand to touch him. He groaned.
“Does it hurt?”
“In the best possible way,” he replied. “I’ll make you a deal, Kitty… if you lie back and let me finish what we’ve started here, I promise to let you touch and explore to your heart’s content afterward.”
“I won’t say I’m dreading this part, because that isn’t really it at all. But I’ve been told that this is the part I may like the least,” she confessed.
His lips curved in a gentle smile. “I think your source may be a bit ill-informed. It may hurt for a moment… I won’t lie to you. But it will only be a moment and what comes after is infinitely better.”
“Well, then I suppose we should proceed,” she capitulated and lay back on the bunk once more.
He laid on top of her, most of his weight resting on one forearm as he touched her once more between her thighs. Kitty shivered at that. It wasn’t that she was tender, precisely, but that following their earlier activities, she was very attuned to even the slightest touch.
He kissed her, his lips covering hers and Kitty closed her eyes just as she felt him begun to push inside of her. It wasn’t unpleasant at all. Different, certainly, impossibly intimate and so very strange, but not unpleasant. Then he moved deeper and she felt a stinging burn. Before she could cry out or protest, it was gone.
He broke away from the kiss and stared down at her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Oh, are we finished?”
He grinned. “No. Not even remotely.”
Before Kitty could ask what that meant, he flexed his hips, surging more deeply inside her. Her eyes widened. “Oh, my. I think you’re right. I think I will like this part very much.”
He repeated the motion and pressed a kiss just below her ear. Then he bit her there, his teeth scarping over that tender skin even as he withdrew and thrust inside her once more. “I thought you might.”
Words seemed beyond her reach at that moment. So Kitty simply wrapped her arms about him as she hitched her knees higher on his lean hips. It was all the encouragement he needed. He thrust into her again, withdrawing slowly. It was rather like a dance, Kitty thought. There was a rhythm to it and she began to anticipate what he would do and when. Tensing her muscles in expectation only heightened the pleasure, and if his answering groan was an indication, he rather enjoyed it also.
She could feel it building inside her again, that same tension from before that had erupted into such intense pleasure. But it was different. There was an urgency in her now, perhaps because she knew where it led. It seemed Declan felt the same as his pace increased. He drove more deeply inside her and Kitty saw stars.
His dipped his head to her breast, his mouth closing over the taut peak of her nipple as he surged inside her. At that, Kitty was lost. The wave of pleasure overtook her entirely, almost as if she were drowning in it. She felt Declan’s body tense against hers, his muscles so taut it seemed a wonder they didn’t snap. Then she felt the rush of heat and knew that he’d found his own release.
In the aftermath, neither of them moved. They simply lay there in his small bunk, arms and legs entangled, their bodies locked together as the rolling of the ship rocked them to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Kitty awoke to find the cabin shrouded in darkness. But she couldn’t possibly have slept that long. Night could not have fallen so soon. She became aware of two things. The first, Declan was not in the bed with her but crouched over the trunk at the end of it. Second, the ship was no longer rocking gently but was pitching and rolling with an intensity that was instantly alarming.
“What’s happening?”
“Storm,” he said tersely as he rose and tossed some items to her. “And a bad one. Put those on.”
Kitty looked at the clothing. It was a pair of breeches and a shirt. “I can’t wear this! It’s indecent?”
“We’re a mile from shore, Kitty. If this ship goes down, even in a storm, I might be able to swim us to shore… but not if I’m fighting the water and a voluminous gown.”
Her jaw dropped. “Is it that bad?”
He didn’t look at her. His gaze drifted toward the large mullioned window and the black sky beyond. “Yes.”
Kitty reached for her stays and put them on, the
n quickly donned the shirt and pants. They were too large, but not so terribly that they wouldn’t stay on her. “What now?”
“Now, we break out of this cabin.”
He removed a small leather satchel from inside the trunk and moved toward the door. But it wasn’t lock-picking tools. It was tools. From the bag, he withdrew a hammer and a chisel which he promptly set against the door’s hinges.
Within minutes, they were free. The door simply fell inwards.
“We could have left this cabin anytime,” she pointed out. “We were never truly locked in at all!”
“The cabin? No. But we are still on a ship where half the men want me dead and the other half think you’re the key to landing a fortune. If we’d walked out of this cabin under any circumstances other than threat of death, they’d have put a pistol ball in me for certain.”
Kitty couldn’t refute that. “And they won’t now?”
“If this storm is as bad as I think, then we’re the least of their worries at the moment. I’m a terrible pirate, Kitty, but I’m a damned good sailor. I know the sea… and this is no squall to blow up and be done with.”
Kitty shuddered as she followed him toward the deck. The slashing of the wind and the hard pelting rain were immediate. But it was the roaring angry sea that terrified her. She’d never seen such waves. Men were running frantically to and fro, attempting to secure sails and tie down anything that was mobile on the deck.
Declan took a bit of heavy rope and wrapped it three times about her wrist before placing the end in her hand. “Stay here, hold fast to that unless it looks like she’s about to go over. If so, let go and swim as hard as you can.”
“I can’t swim. Not at all,” she admitted.
“Then just don’t fight the water. Let it carry you,” he said.
A loud crack rent the air and the ship’s mast, still burdened by sails not secured, began to tip. “Oh, God. We’re going to die here.” Kitty uttered the words without panic. It was simply a factual assessment of the situation.
“No, we will not,” he said. “We’re closer to land than I thought. There’s a peninsula right there that the wind is driving us toward.”
Peering through the rain, she could see the dark hulking shape of it in the distance, but it still seemed impossibly far. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try and save as many of these worthless, ungrateful bastards as I can.”
Kitty watched him walk away, bracing his legs and swaying with the ship as he made his way toward the listing mast. He called out to other men and they fell in line behind him. Three of them fought with the sail. They heaved and hauled until, at last, the heavy canvas began to give. Even so, the pitching and careening of the ship never let up. They were slammed by waves so fierce, Kitty thought her arm might well be pulled out of socket by the rope she was secured with.
It might have been hours or only minutes. It was impossible to gauge time under such circumstances. Dragging her gaze from Declan as he and the men with him wrestled to secure the sails and lessen the impact of the raging wind on the ship, Kitty looked toward the spit of land he’d pointed to earlier. It was closer than it had been. Much closer. And in the distance, she could see something more than just the land. She could see large rocks jutting up out of the water. The waves crashed and broke against them ominously.
“Declan!” She screamed his name, but the wind only carried it away. Over and over, she shouted for him to no avail. But Mr. O’Hurley, coming from the aft of the ship, heard her. He rushed forward and began clanging a bell loudly. At the helm, Haggerty’s head whipped around to glare at him.
O’Hurley then rushed toward her, but the man never made it. A large wave broke against them, swamping the deck with water. It swept her feet out from under her. Only the heavy rope looped about her wrist and the death grip she had on it kept her on the ship. When she struggled to her feet in the aftermath, O’Hurley was gone.
Kitty screamed his name, the sound of it piercing even through the howling wind. She felt Declan’s presence beside her. Somehow, he’d clambered down from the mast and the rigging and had made his way to her despite the bucking motion of the ship as the angry sea battered it.
“Mr. O’Hurley—” she began.
“I know,” he shouted back. “Haggerty just gave order to drop anchor.”
Kitty’s eyes widened. She knew nothing about sailing, but even in her untrained opinion that was a terrible idea. “We’ll capsize!”
“Precisely. And we’re not waiting for that. Come on!”
Kitty allowed him to unwind the rope from her arm and lead her toward the railing. There was a longboat just below them. Three other men rushed over with them. “He’s mad, Captain Kelly! To drop anchor in this will see us all at the bottom of the sea!”
Kitty’s head whipped around and she glared at him. “Then perhaps you should have shown better judgement before consenting to a mutiny!”
The man ducked his head, clearly abashed by the well-deserved set down.
“There’s time enough for that later,” Declan said. “We need to get this boat into the water before it’s too late.”
At that moment, Haggerty abandoned his position at the helm and came at them, pistol drawn and murder in his eyes. “You’ll not get away from me, Kelly… not with her. This ship may go down, but she’s the instrument to purchase another!”
“Haggerty, give the order to abandon ship. Lower the longboats and let everyone make for shore,” Declan said. “You can get in this boat with us and we’ll proceed as planned. No one else needs to die here today!”
“I won’t be trusting you again!” Haggerty snapped. Without any further warning, he raised the pistol and fired.
Kitty felt the movement of the air as the pistol ball moved past her. She saw Declan jerk and then he was falling, tumbling over the side and into the boat below.
Haggerty turned the gun then, aiming it directly at her. “I’ll shoot you, as well, if I have to.”
Kitty looked at the spent pistol in his hand. “Not with that gun.” With far more grace and dexterity than she should have possessed, she turned and heaved herself over the side of the ship and into the waiting boat below. It was still several feet above the raging waves. But Declan, bleeding from an injury they had no time for her to assess, pulled a pair of knives from his boot and passed one to her.
“On the count of three,” he said.
Kitty pressed the blade against the rope. When he reached three, all but shouting over the wind, she began to saw through the rope. The boat fell, crashing onto the surface of the water below with a splash. Her heart pounded in her chest as she gripped the sides of the small boat with a fierceness that left her knuckles white. “Should we set the oars?”
“No,” Declan replied. “The wind and the waves will send us where we need to go. Just hold on. If we take on water, bail it out as quickly as you can.”
“What will you do?”
He didn’t answer. Kitty looked up at him and noted that his face was inordinately pale and his eyes were closed. He’d lost consciousness. If they were to be rescued at all, it was entirely up to her. It was terror unlike anything Kitty had ever known in her life. Every crashing wave, every pitch and rock of that small boat, took them closer to land. But if the boat capsized, they would both die because she couldn’t swim.
Declan awoke sputtering, a face full of sand and seagrass. He sat up quickly, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. Kitty lay a few yards away, her face pale through the wet and tangled strands of her dark hair. Ignoring his own weakness, Declan struggled to his feet and crossed the distance between them. Cupping her face, alarmed at her pallor and the terrible chill of her skin, he shouted her name. After an interminable moment, her lashes fluttered and she stared up at him.
“I didn’t think we’d make it,” she said weakly.
“Where’s the longboat?”
“It broke apart on the rocks,” she said.
Declan glanced behi
nd them and saw the remnants of a few boards trapped between boulders. She’d dragged the two of them up the beach and away from the rocks and the crashing waves. “Sweet lord, Kitty! How on earth did you manage?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she answered as she struggled to sit up. “You are, incidentally, much heavier than you look.”
Declan leaned forward and kissed her, tasting the saltiness of the seawater on her lips and the sweetness that was simply her. “I promise to never lose consciousness again when you’ll have to cart my worthless hide around.”
“The Sweet Colleen is gone,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. My uncle has been through half a dozen ships in his life and they all bore the name the Sweet Colleen. It’s not the ship, Kitty, it’s the brotherhood. Piracy, on my mother’s side of the family at any rate, is a long-standing tradition. I’ve no doubt that another ship bearing that name will be launched, but I’ll not be at the helm of it,” he said.
“What will you do then?”
“I’ll be your husband, if you’ll have me,” he offered. “But first, we have to get to Bodmin.”
She blinked at him in confusion. “You don’t have to marry me now, Declan. All the men who were so insistent upon it have met a bitter end in those dark waters.”
“Kitty, I am choosing to marry you because I wish to. It was never because of what anyone else wanted… and if you think for a moment I’d let you go after what we shared, you’re utterly mad.”
“You mean because I’m ruined now?”
He shook his head, despite the fact that it made him dizzy to do so. “No, Kitty. Because without you, I’m ruined. You’re the most infuriating, maddening woman I’ve ever met in all of my life, and I cannot begin to imagine how boring and dreadful my life would be without you in it. So marry me, Kitty, and save me from the terrible ennui that will surely be the death of me otherwise.”
Chapter Eleven
It had been two long and grueling days since they’d washed ashore in Swansea. After walking for miles in their wet, sea-ravaged clothing, they’d managed to locate a friend of Declan’s in the Welsh city. He’d provided the funds needed to get them to Cornwall. From there, they’d traveled to Declan’s small estate and had gathered what they needed from there. Finally, tired, hungry, her body aching from exhaustion, they’d reached Bodmin.
The Pirate’s Bluestocking Page 6