“Dear Christ.” His voice rasped against her forehead. “Do your excesses know no limits, madam?”
“Not tonight,” she replied, her lips nuzzling his throat, the warm underside of his chin. “Not here, not now … unless you want there to be some boundaries such as do not do this … or do not do this …”
Varian groaned and his whole body shook as her hands stroked him. His grip tightened on her shoulders and she felt a massive shudder wrack his body as some of the pressure pulsed free, creaming her fingers with a threat and a warning.
His hands came up from her shoulders to cradle her neck. His tongue thrust fiercely between her lips to smother her mocking laughter and somewhere, somehow in the blink of an eye, the power shifted happily from her mouth to his. His lips, his tongue, ravaged her with none of the gentleness she had teased him with earlier. This was lust, heated and urgent, and she felt the effects curling between her thighs, shivering through her limbs.
Wanting more, she lifted the hem of her shirt and brought him forward so he could slide himself into the sleek warmth of her cleft. His flesh bucked and thickened beyond all conceivable thought, stretching until the veins beat against her fingers, and his mouth tore free of hers on a ragged gasp.
“Enough, damn you! Enough before I shame us both!”
For one wildly blind moment she thought he was going to push her away, but the hunger in his body was raw and pounding. It overwhelmed his every common good sense and he scooped her into his arms, carrying her across the veranda in brusque, powerful strides. He kicked aside the gauzy curtains that belled outward from his room and went straight to the bed, where he threw her on top, delaying only long enough to shed his clothes before joining her.
Juliet welcomed him eagerly into her arms. She was ready—sweet Christ she was more than ready—and she laughed for the sheer pleasure of it when he grasped two fistfuls of her shirt and tore it from neck to hem. He knelt above her a moment, his shoulders gleaming in the candlelight, his eyes dark and full of questions that had no answers.
Slowly, almost reverently, he placed his hands on her breasts, then stroked them down to her waist, to her hips, curving them around until they were between her thighs and sliding into the soft, coppery curls. He bowed his head and she writhed when she felt his mouth and tongue painting her breasts and belly with fire, but when he took his assault lower, she came arching up off the bed.
“Wh-what are you doing?”
“You said there were no boundaries, Captain.”
“No, but—”
“Or would you prefer to impose some now, such as … do not do this …” He lowered his head and touched her with the tip of his tongue, sliding lushly down one sleek fold and up another. “Or this …” The gentle lapping was replaced by a swirling invasion, a series of wet, silky thrusts that sucked the breath from her body and sent her melting helplessly back onto the bed.
Varian probed and stroked until the resistance left her thighs and he could feel the shock of discovery fluttering through her limbs. He explored every tender crease and crevice, layering pleasure upon pleasure until she was no longer fighting the extraordinary intrusion but opening herself eagerly for more.
He obliged by bringing his hands, his fingers into play and she was conscious of her own hands clutching desperately at the bedsheets. She did not know where to look, what to grasp to keep her from flying out of her body and in the end, she flung her arms above her head to catch hold of a bedpost but it was too late.
She rose off the bed in a taut arch, her body straining like a bowstring. Each ruthless thrust of his tongue caused her to cry out into the shadows, to shudder and writhe and eventually issue the frantic plea that brought him sliding forward to replace the heat of his mouth with the driving shock of his flesh.
Juliet crested before the first thrust was even complete; the second brought her hands down from the bedpost to claw frantically at his shoulders, then his hips. She could not have drawn a breath to save her life, for there was only pleasure, intense and unstoppable, great shuddering contractions of ecstasy that seemed to never end, never relent in heat or intensity.
Varian drew on every skill he possessed to resist the lure of those grasping muscles. He lifted her hips higher to change the angle of penetration and watched the silvery eyes glaze in disbelief as the shudders from yet another orgasm sent her head thrashing side to side, scattering the dark cloud of her hair across the bed. He kept her there, trembling and senseless, as long as he possibly could before his own pleasure broke in dark, rushing torrents.
The sheer force of his release brought him plunging forward into her body. He felt her legs twine around him like a vise and he flung his head back, pouring himself into each greedy roll of her hips until he had no more to give. A final, heaving shudder left him so utterly and immutably drained that he sank back into her arms and lay there panting, steaming in his own sweat.
Juliet fared no better. Her blood was thrumming through her veins, her heart was beating like a mad thing in her chest. Every shiver, every tremor, that raced through his big body found an echo in her own. She could feel his breath against her neck, the hairs on his chest where they lay crushed against her breasts. She felt exposed and vulnerable, lying there with a man sprawled between her open legs. Part of her wanted to push against his shoulders and shove him aside. Another part wanted to run her fingers up into his hair and turn his face so that she could taste the silky heat of his mouth again.
Varian lay there stunned. There had been nothing shy or tentative about her passion. It had been as fierce and primitive as her instinct for survival and it should not have come as any surprise that a young, vibrant creature like Juliet Dante would regard the act of engaging in intercourse any differently than she viewed her right to wield a sword or command a fighting ship.
Furthermore, as shockingly virginal as Varian himself felt at the moment, he was far from being a novice in the bedroom. At the same time, the act had never been more than a purely physical release for him. He had never, not once in all his years, felt such a resounding need to lose himself in a woman’s body, to commit himself so completely to the giving as well as the taking of pleasure.
Whether he moved first, lifting his head out of the crook of her shoulder, or she moved, squirming slightly to encourage some of his weight to shift, it was not clear. But one minute they were searching their own thoughts, and the next they were searching each other’s, their eyes locked, their breaths cooling the dampness on each other’s faces. His hair had fallen forward, throwing most of his face into shadow. Juliet’s, conversely, was spread beneath her like a tumbled cloud of dark silk, her features bathed in candlelight.
Why, he wondered, had not noticed until now the tiny raised mole at the corner of her mouth? It sat just above the curve of her lip and was the same dusky pink as her nipples. The rest of her complexion was flawless, smooth as silk, tanned a lush honey gold by the sun. Her whole body was tanned, making his seem even whiter by comparison.
Searching farther afield, he saw the swath of shiny skin on her arm where she had said she’d been burned, the countless nicks and tracings of fine white lines that could have been caused by knives or swords or a myriad other violent means.
His gaze returned to her face—a truly lovely face when it wasn’t trying so damned hard to be fierce and unapproachable. The cheekbones were high, the brow wide, the eyes large and luminous. Her mouth, when it wasn’t scowling, was lush and evocative and wreaked enough havoc on Varian’s senses to make his toes curl into the bedsheets.
“Something amuses you?” she asked warily.
He made no attempt to curb his smile. “My own misguided perceptions, perhaps.”
“Well, perhaps you could guide them elsewhere and give me ease to breathe.”
“And forfeit the advantage I have so keenly won?”
She started to wriggle out from beneath him but found her wrists suddenly caught and pinned flat to the bed, her legs effectively trapped under hi
s.
“What are you playing at now?”
“I am not playing at all, Captain. I will confess, however, that I am curious to know if this was just a simple diversion for you, or if you had some other reason for plying me with your charms.”
“Do not flatter yourself by supposing it was anything other than a brief diversion.” She released an extravagant sigh. “Faith, I did not think men needed a reason to bed a woman; I thought they simply needed the opportunity. Thus, having taken it, sir, you may now heave off me.”
“In due course … if that is what you really want.”
“What else would I want?”
The question had barely cleared her lips—in fact, the last word faltered and quivered away to nothingness as she felt his lower body press forward and pull slowly back.
He was growing hard again.
She, on the other hand, was all soft and buttery inside. She had thought that was the end of it, for none of her four lovers, not even her exquisite Frenchman, had done more than grunt and roll away when they were finished—and they had not had half the number of reasons to toss her aside as Varian St. Clare. She had been rude, mocking, and outright belligerent with him since the moment he had wakened on board the Iron Rose. She had further deceived him by letting him believe she was taking him to see her father when in truth, he was scarcely more than a hostage against whatever use her father might make of him. In truth, when she had kissed him out on the balcony, she had fully expected him to reject her artless attempt at seduction.
He had not only answered it, but with a single flick of his tongue he had turned the tables, and if it was possible to believe what she was seeing in the smoldering depths of his eyes, he was turning them again, offering her the choice of whether to stop or go forward.
It would be different in the morning, she had no doubt, for he would once again assume the mantle of king’s envoy and she would again be the daughter of the Pirate Wolf. But morning was hours away and she had other things to ponder now … like how limbs that had been deadweights only moments ago were drawing themselves up and hooking around his waist, how a body that had seemed completely drained of initiative was now tingling everywhere, gathering strength from each slow, heated thrust of his flesh.
He released her wrists, pausing long enough to remove the torn halves of her shirt, and when he bowed a determined mouth to her breast again, it was with a boldly ominous “En garde, Captain.”
She curled her lip between her teeth and had to bite down hard to smother the groan of utterly decadent pleasure as he rolled her onto her belly and pushed his arms between her thighs to spread them. She stretched up to grasp the bedpost and let her lips fall slack while the promised friction of all that heat stretched up and began to move inside her again.
Chapter Twelve
“Heave, damn you! Put your weight behind it!”
Exasperated, Juliet vaulted over the deck rail and joined the men who were in the process of winching a heavy thirty-two-pounder on board the Iron Rose. An inspection of the guns had revealed a hairline crack in one of the barrels, a flaw that could prove fatal if the cannon overheated and blew apart. The crew had disassembled the gun carriage and slung ropes around the barrel to hoist it out of the cradle and drop it over the side.
Juliet wrapped her gloved hands around the cable and added her weight to that of the men heaving and straining to lift the brass culverin into its wooden cradle. The effort left her winded after only a few moments and she found herself sweating and gritting her teeth to keep her feet from skidding out beneath her. Though she refused to think about it, she knew full well why her energy reserves were depleted. She knew it every time she walked or sat or ran her tongue across lips that felt so puffed and tender she imagined every man on board the Rose was snickering out of the corners of their mouths.
She still wasn’t entirely sure herself what had happened last night, how she had ended up in Varian St. Clare’s bed. She had been restless, too full of herself—and wine—after her triumphant return to the cay, and all that coltish energy had somehow been converted to lust. Now, in the harsh light of day, every scrap of wind that pushed her shirt against her skin had her nipples peaking like small beacons. Every time her hair swept her neck or cheek she imagined it was his lips searching, nuzzling, whispering against her ear.
The tenderness between her thighs was a constant reminder. She ached in places she had not known she could ache. When she glanced up—innocently or otherwise—toward the big stone house on the hill, all she could see was the bed they had shared, the splash of his dark hair on the pillow, the sprawl of his naked body on the bed. That would, in turn, make her remember how he had looked last night with the candlelight gilding his shoulders, his muscles bunching and flexing as he arched above her, his every sinew straining with intent.
She should never have touched him. It had been a foolish, reckless, careless impulse and she was no better off for having burned half the night away in his arms. This was no time to be distracted by a handsome face, an incredibly inventive mouth, or a dangerously seductive body. Dear God, he had only needed to trace a fingertip along her hip to bring her crawling over his thighs.
Worse, she had crept out of the bed like a thief before dawn. She had come on board the Iron Rose and worked alongside the men, hoping that pure physical exhaustion would erase any more foolish thoughts she might have.
The rope slipped through her gloves and she scrambled for a fresh purchase. The cannon weighed upward of two tons and the strain caused the metal cleats to scream in protest. The scream ended with a loud snap as the bolt broke and Juliet felt the cable spring back and go slack in her hands. The men on the line fell backward in a heap as the barrel came crashing down. It landed crosswise on the carriage and split the wooden truncheon into kindling before bouncing off and slamming to the deck. One of the mates who had been guiding the barrel toward the rail was standing in its path, and his foot was crushed to pulp on impact.
The gun pitched forward and pushed the bones in his lower leg up through the knee, breaking the skin and spraying blood across the deck. Two crewmen rushed to brace the barrel with staves to prevent it rolling farther onto their shipmate, while several more tried to pull the injured man free. The sickening shreds of flesh that hung off his ankle were quickly bound in canvas and he was carried, howling, below to the surgery.
Juliet sat gasping on the deck. It had happened so fast she’d had no time to react. She had fallen with the others, and while there was no reason to assign blame to anything other than a weakened bolt on the winch, she was angry at herself, angry at all the men who stood around scratching their heads and peering up at the pulley as if it was to blame for human carelessness.
“By the devil’s caul, did no one think to inspect the bolts before we started hauling guns around?” She pushed to her feet and smacked the sawdust off the seat of her breeches.
“The winch was checked,” Nathan said calmly. “It looked sound enough. The bolt just snapped, is all.”
“Just snapped?” She whirled on him. “A good man has lost his foot, possibly his leg and that’s all you can say? It just snapped.”
Nathan shoved the brim of his cap back off his forehead, and ignoring the fact that she was captain, he snatched her around the arm and dragged her out of earshot of the rest of the crew. “What would ye rather hear? That someone climbed up there, sawed through the metal, an’ stood to one side eatin’ a plantain while they waited for the bolt to split an’ slam down on one of his mates? Pin my eyelids to the mast if it would make ye feel better, but it were an accident, plain an’ simple. Be thankful it weren’t yer leg that were crushed, though it couldn’t hardly put ye in any better of a mood if it were.”
“My mood is just fine, thank you.”
“Aye, for a harridan. Ye’ve been barkin’ an’ snarlin’ the whole blessed morning long an’ the men are thinkin’ they should just bare their backs an’ take a dozen licks o’ the cat now so ye can vent yer spleen all at
the one time and be done with it. Ye’re not doing anyone any good here, lass. Havin’ ye bray an’ stomp around won’t get the work done any faster. Go ashore an’ if ye’re needed, I’ll send one of the lads to fetch ye. An’ whup!” He held a finger up to forestall whatever retort was about to burst from her lips. “If ye don’t leave of yer own accord, I’ll heave ye over the side myself an’ let ye swim ashore.”
They glared one another down for another full minute before Juliet dredged up a fearsome oath and stormed to the gangway. She swung a leg over the side and descended to one of the many boats bobbing in the water below. A harsh bark set eight oars in the water simultaneously and within a few strokes, they were flying across the bay.
Mounting the first horse she found tied beside the dock, she kicked a wet boot into its flank and galloped all the way up the slope to the house. Knowing she was in no fit mood to encounter any of her family, she followed the lower veranda around to the stairs at the rear. She took them two and three at a time and, without looking to the left or the right, walked straight to the double french doors of Varian St. Clare’s room. She thrust them open and stood a moment on the threshold, her blood pounding fiercely in her temples.
Varian came awake with a start. He sat bolt upright, his dark hair spiked over his ears and spilling forward over his brow. The noise, the sound … whatever had wakened him was gone and could not be readily identified. He was alone—that much was confirmed when he glanced quickly around and searched the room. There was nothing, not even an indent in the bedding to show there had been another body beside him during the night.
He ran a hand through his hair and frowned. The frown turned into a wince as he brushed the injury on his cheek—an injury that, oddly enough, had not troubled him overmuch during the night. None of his aches or bruises had intruded, though now, in daylight, he felt like he had been hauled beneath the keel of a ship encrusted with six months’ worth of barnacles.
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