“Since the awful events of 1912, safety at sea has been paramount, and the Arundel Castle has lifeboat facilities that are second to none…”
Much later, when the ship was at sea and darkness began to fall, I murmured, “How do you know all of this?”
“I read some of it in the leaflet in my cabin. But I confess, I made some of it up.” His breath against my ear was comforting and I laughed. “Can you feel it still, Annie?”
“Always. And he doesn’t even know I’ve gone yet. When he finds out, that’s when it will be so much worse.”
∗ ∗ ∗
Finty and Rudi did not seem to have any objection to the new cabin-sharing arrangements. On the contrary, they appeared quite delighted, and we saw very little of them for the duration of the voyage.
“I will be a fallen woman,” Finty stated with gleeful unconcern, as Nicca moved her belongings into the other cabin. “I shall start dressing in black and wearing scarlet lipstick from now on. Will you mind very much, my darling?”
“I expect I shall grow accustomed to it,” Rudi told her with mock resignation.
The next day, I was not in any mood to be sociable, so Nicca maintained the pretence that I was ill. We ate in our cabin. That evening, under cover of darkness, we walked on the deck.
“You are a very good listener,” I told him appreciatively, after I had talked through the whole dreadful story for about the third time.
“I’m a captive audience,” he pointed out, looking over the deck rail into the thrashing midnight ocean. “I don’t much fancy the alternative.”
We shared the cabin again and slept in the side-by-side narrow beds. When I couldn’t sleep, when thoughts of Uther threatened to overpower my sanity, I crept into Nicca’s bed and curled up close to the reassuring warmth of his big frame. It was a tight squeeze. We both kept up the pretence that he didn’t know, that he was oblivious to my presence. Once or twice I felt the rigid column of his erection pressing into the small of my back, and curiosity sent my imagination wild. There was something profoundly soothing about the fact that he still desired me. The knowledge that what Nicca wanted from me was honest and normal assuaged some of the fears I had about myself. I didn’t feel like a monster when I was with him.
On our third night at sea, I lay awake with the length of my body pressed tight against the muscular sinews of his back and my arms about his waist. Gently, I let my hands explore the carved definition of his shoulders, tracing a path through the hair on his chest and lightly brushing his nipples. I was intrigued by the fact that my own nipples hardened at the same time. It was a moment that signalled a distinct change in our relationship. Nicca gave a soft, involuntary sigh, and the tempo of his breathing quickened. Cautiously, I danced my fingertips lower, over the hard, flat plane of his stomach. His hand snaked out instantly and grasped my wrist, holding it still.
“Stop it, Annie.”
“Why?”
“The fact that you have to ask that question is an answer in itself,” he replied.
“Don’t try to be enigmatic, Nicca. I can tell you like it.” My experiences so far might be woefully one-sided, but Uther had taught me that much at least about a man’s body.
“Go to sleep.”
I could tell he was trying to regain control of the situation. I decided to be unhelpful and curved my body more closely to the contours of his, resting my chin on his shoulder. “You don’t understand,” I whispered. “Every time I try to sleep, his voice is here, in this cabin, inside my head. Dark and persuasive. He is trying to convince me that I am wrong.”
Nicca reached for the lamp at the side of the bed, and its weak light illuminated the cabin. Leaning on one elbow, he studied my face thoughtfully. “I still don’t see how…”
“I need you to distract me, Nicca,” I pleaded. “Make him go away.”
“I could tell you a bedtime story. Is that what you are asking me?”
“You know what I’m asking you to do.” I stared longingly at the strong curve of his lips.
“Are you sure, Annie?”
“Please, Nicca.” I risked moving a little closer.
“Very well, but remember, this is your decision. Any regrets you may have later are entirely your own responsibility.” He drew me tight against his chest. I gave a triumphant smile and nestled my head into the curve of his neck. “Once upon a time…”
His voice lulled me and sleep came quickly, but the nightmare was never far away. The beating of wings kept time with my heart as the never-ending dark shape loomed closer. I cried out and tried to twist away, but strong arms held me, and a familiar voice murmured in my ear until my struggles stilled. Still caught up halfway inside my dream, I lifted my face to Nicca, seeking comfort.
Our first kiss began hesitantly, with closed mouths that touched each other chastely. Then his tongue tenderly explored my mouth, parting it and tracing just inside my top lip. We broke apart at the enormity of what had just happened and stared at each other in the weak light that dawned through the porthole. We were both trembling. I only had Uther’s kisses for comparison, but there was a realness to this that had been lacking before—a feeling that all my senses were engaged, not an over-reliance on a memory of lives and loves that were long gone.
“Yes, I’m sure,” I said, answering the question his eyes were asking. When our lips met again, we were both sure. How I loved the fact that it wasn’t perfect! I loved the way our teeth clashed so that we laughed nervously and had to start again. His stubble scorching my flesh felt heavenly. The red wine and tobacco taste of his tongue was maddeningly good. The solidity of his body was there, there was nothing ephemeral about his knee between mine or his hands moving down to the small of my back to hold me even closer against him.
With fingers that were not completely steady, Nicca undid the buttons of my nightdress and slid it from one shoulder. I lay back in his arms as his lips anointed my breasts with feathery kisses. His questing hand moved under my nightdress and along the length of my thigh, massaging gently as it travelled relentlessly upward. When his fingertips found the apex at the top of my legs and, through the thin cotton of my panties, traced the cleft there, I arched my back in a combination of shock and pleasure.
“I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. Tell me if you want me to stop.” He studied my face as he lightly strafed my nipple with his thumb. Carefully, he slid my underwear down and, with that barrier gone, one long finger followed again the path he had just outlined.
“Do you like that?” he whispered huskily, and I nodded, my eyes fastened on his in the half-light. “Good.” The finger moved deeper and I bit my lip. “You can moan or call out, if you want to. Or scratch me.” He smiled. “Or bite me. Like this.” He bent his head and nipped the tip of my breast with sharp teeth, and I shuddered convulsively. His probing became more insistent and—dear God, could I actually feel his fingers inside me now?—I found myself lifting my hips to meet his movements. “I don’t think I have to ask if you like that,” he murmured with a soft laugh. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes appeared black. “But what about this?” And, still with his fingers moving rhythmically in and out of me, he began to rub his thumb across the exact spot where my body was beginning to throb unbearably.
“How did you know?” I gasped.
“Trust me,” he whispered. “I know a lot more. I can distract you for hours if you need me to.”
And suddenly, it happened. The thing I had been striving for. I’d felt it before, but now it was happening to me, not some other, distant incarnation of me. My whole body convulsed violently.
“Nicca!” I clung to him desperately as my muscles spasmed, my back curved of its own accord and I thrashed wildly. His lips returned to claim mine and the feel of his tongue, strong, insistent and so achingly real, claiming my mouth and mirroring the action of his fingers gave my body exactly what it craved, keeping the sensations spinning wildly and uncontrollably.
∗ ∗ ∗
“Is
it possible, do you think, Annie, for Uther to have somehow been invaded by an evil spirit?” Finty had persuaded me to walk on deck with her, and we paused to lean on the rail and look out at the empty expanse of ocean. A noisy game of deck quoits was taking place nearby, and a group of ship’s officers paused to salute us, their admiring looks as warm on our faces as the pre-cocktail hour sunshine. In the prevailing carnival atmosphere, Finty’s words were a bizarre question mark hanging in the salt-tinged air between us. “Can such things really happen?” Her grey eyes were the precise colour of the troubled ocean that churned in our wake.
Even though the ship was a vast tribute to the efficiency of modern engineering, out here in the Atlantic, with not a glimpse of land in sight, it felt very small and insignificant. Every passenger had his or her own tale to tell. Alongside our brightly coloured deck clothes and party dresses, we had packed up our varying troubles and heartaches and brought them on board. The Arundel Castle was a sailing anthology of short stories. Was mine the most unbelievable? Who was to know or be the judge? I could almost have dismissed Finty’s words here in this most innocuous of settings. Almost. If it was not for a pair of gold eyes—so like, yet unlike, my own—and a laughing smile that stayed constant in my mind. Or that snickering, insidious voice that whispered to me in the darkest reaches of the night that this was not over. That it had only just begun.
“I think it’s possible.” It was an inadequate answer, and I knew it.
“If that is the case, and a spirit resides inside a person, do you think it stays there forever? No matter where that person goes?”
I was shocked at the fear in the depths of Finty’s eyes, but it matched the endless dread in my own heart. “Do you mean, will the evil inside Uther be able to follow us across the world? I would like to believe not.” I wanted to convince us both that the Jago darkness was confined to Tenebris, even though a voice in my own heart was telling me otherwise. “But it might, and I think we have to prepare ourselves for the worst.”
“If it is true, does an evil spirit seek out an evil person?” It was a thought that had already occurred to me and I didn’t want to examine it further. I didn’t want to know what the answer might tell me about myself. “Or is it that the person must be very weak to not be able to drive the spirit out again? Shouldn’t Uther—or whoever that person is—be able to control what happens inside his or her own body?” I didn’t know if Finty’s words were intended as a message for me to do battle with the Jago darkness, but that was how I interpreted them. I was the only person who could fight what was happening inside me. And I wasn’t alone in my strange campaign. As if on cue, Nicca came along the deck and I felt my shoulders straighten as though some of my burden had been lifted. His smile was irresistible and my own lips curved in response. When I looked back at Finty’s troubled face, however, I knew that, while our conversation might have strengthened my resolve, I had failed to alleviate her worries.
Chapter Ten
As the ship drew farther away from England and my mind became clearer, I turned all the determination in my nature—which was really quite an extensive force—to the task of seducing Nicca. I wanted to be free of Uther’s touch forever. Uther had made it clear that our lovemaking would have been the final impetus the Jago darkness needed to claim us both. I reasoned, therefore, that making love to someone else would be one sure way of breaking some of the links that bound me to him. I could have chosen any man, I supposed, analysing the situation objectively. It wasn’t vanity that made me think that way. I knew I was attractive. I had enough of Bouche Jago about me to turn men’s heads, and the holiday atmosphere on board the ship was conducive to illicit encounters.
So why did I want Nicca so badly? Was it because he was Uther’s brother? Was there an element of revenge in my determination that it must be him? Restlessly, I dismissed the thought. The fact that it was Nicca made it more dangerous because it meant Uther’s rage would be unwavering. No, I wanted Nicca because I was drawn to him. He was the other side of Uther, the light to Uther’s darkness.
Why had I never before noticed the laughter that always lurked just below the clear blue surface of his eyes? Or the fact that his mouth was perfectly carved, with lips that I desperately wanted to touch? My own mouth had the oddest tendency to become dry as I watched his strong hands performing the most mundane tasks and imagined them undressing me. Had my experiences at Tenebris turned me into some sort of raging nymphomaniac, I wondered. Was that the true Jago legacy? That the darkness within us made us into sex addicts? Whatever the truth might be, the most annoying aspect of the whole situation was Nicca’s stubborn refusal to oblige me.
While he skilfully and successfully “distracted” me from my dark thoughts, he refused to make love to me. “I am not going to take advantage of your innocence any further, Annie,” he insisted.
“I don’t think I am very innocent, you know,” I assured him. “I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and I would quite like to be taken advantage of by you.” He laughed and shook his head. It was an impasse from which I was determined to emerge the victor. And since I knew how much he wanted me, I remained quite hopeful about the outcome.
We had been at sea for five days when storm clouds painted the sky shades of lavender and rose, and the sea went suddenly from being too still to churning and boiling wildly against the ship’s sides. The decks were awash with water, and the crew advised all passengers to remain in our cabins. Nicca lay on his bunk, ploughing through a pile of books that he had brought up from the ship’s library. I paced the floor, looking out of the porthole at the ever-darkening skies, boredom making me even more restless than usual. Although it was midday, Nicca had to light the gas lamp so that he could continue reading. Now and then he cast an amused glance in my direction, but he said nothing.
The ship began to roll and I staggered slightly, trying to maintain my balance. “Sit down, Annie, before you fall down,” Nicca warned.
“I like watching the storm,” I said over my shoulder, ignoring his advice. Lightning ripped the heavens apart and it was hard now to distinguish between the dark grey of the sky and the endless roiling sea. Drops of rain slid one by one down the glass, each seeming to form a letter in its wake. I watched in fascination as each appeared to cover the last. Frowning, I tried to make sense of their tempestuous message. Nicca rose and came to stand behind me, bracing his hands on the wall at either side of me so that he could look over my shoulder. Instantly, I forgot the view from the porthole and focussed instead on the more interesting prospect of his nearness. I wasn’t afraid of what nature could do. The storms we saw in the mountains were wilder than this and more demanding. The storms I knew were yet to come in my own life were likely to make this tempest look like a squall. I stumbled again and Nicca caught hold of me. The gaslight crashed to the floor, plunging us into semidarkness.
“We could die in this storm,” I whispered unconvincingly, leaning back against him.
“We must hope not.” His breath touched my cheek in the darkness, and he held me with my hips pressed against his muscular thighs to keep me steady as the ship gave another wild lurch.
“I don’t want to die a virgin, Nicca.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he drew a ragged breath in. “You have no idea what you are asking of me, Annie.”
“Oh, but I do. Anyway, you can’t refuse my dying wish,” I said plaintively.
“Don’t do this to me,” he murmured, but his voice tailed off as I slid an experimental hand behind me and down over the interestingly large bulge in the front of his trousers. Then neither of us could speak at all as he swung me round to face him. His groan of surrender was followed by a kiss that scorched every inch of me. The wayward spark that started somewhere low in my belly quickly burst into a red-hot flame. I matched his kiss hungrily as a husky purr burgeoned deep in my throat. The storm raging outside was nothing compared to the wildness that consumed us then. Tearing at each other’s clothing, we stumbled across the cabin. I
fell onto the edge of the bed, remaining in a sitting position while Nicca stood. Impatiently, I fumbled with his zipper.
“Oh, goodheid,” I murmured as his erection sprang free from the restraining material.
“Don’t be afraid, Annie.” Nicca’s voice was shaky. “We don’t have to do this.”
I knelt on the bed and wound my arms around him, pressing my body to the contours of his, exulting in the feel of that naked, iron-hard length pulsing against the thin barrier of my blouse. “It was an appreciative comment. A sign of how very impressed I am.” I whispered against his lips.
We melted onto the bed, our bodies moving together in a rhythm that signalled our intent. Our tongues met and clashed and tasted and demanded. His kiss became something else entirely as his hands tugged at my clothing until one breast was bared and his fingers could claim my nipple.
Instinctively and impatiently, I ground myself harder against him. Nicca made a soft, animal sound as he broke the kiss and moved his mouth to my breast. His tongue rasped as he licked and circled over and over while one large hand determinedly raised my skirts. His leg was hard between my thighs and he raised his knee higher, pressing it into the apex between my legs, making me gasp and then squirm.
“I never knew knees could be this exciting,” I murmured as we flung various bits of clothing to the four corners of the cabin. With the barrier of our garments finally gone, I strained against him as we continued to kiss, hotter and harder.
The corners of those endless blue eyes crinkled. “I have very talented elbows, as well. One of these days I’ll show you what I can do with them,” he whispered. The knee returned to part my thighs and was accompanied now by fingers that already knew how to play my body well. It was too much, and I exploded into instant, frenzied pleasure, calling his name as my head thrashed from side to side on the pillow.
Raising himself above me, Nicca positioned the tip of his cock at the opening of my swollen lips and gently rubbed it back and forth, intensifying the sensation of my climax. Very slowly, he pushed himself into me an inch and then stopped, studying my face through eyes that were half-closed with desire.
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