Taming Charlotte

by Linda Lael Miller

  Her heart somersaulted, then seemed to spin dizzily with hope. He hadn’t left her after all.

  Patrick took in her wispy golden robe, with its splendid embroidery, and the thick plait of honey blond hair draped over her right shoulder. Alev had woven ribbons and strands of pearls through the braid, and she’d lined Charlotte’s eyes with kohl and painted her lips, too.

  The captain let out a long breath, then his quicksilver grin reappeared, and his indigo gaze sparkled with mischievous amusement. He took her hand, turned it, and kissed the palm lightly, and she hoped he didn’t feel her responding shiver of pleasure.

  “You’re still here,” she said, regretting the words the moment she’d uttered them.

  Khalif interrupted the encounter then—Charlotte had quite forgotten his presence, magnificent though he was—and said, “You may attend the captain in his quarters, Charlotte. A servant will come for you when it is time to return to the harem.”

  The cavalier manner in which Khalif had spoken irritated Charlotte, but she was too anxious to question Patrick to protest.

  Patrick turned and started toward the doorway through which he’d entered, and Charlotte scrambled to keep pace with him.

  “You’d better walk behind me,” he warned in a whisper, his eyes twinkling, “if you don’t want a long lecture on etiquette after your return to the harem.”

  Charlotte flushed with indignation and annoyance, but she fell back a few steps all the same.

  Patrick finally paused in front of a door, high and arched like all the others, and gripped the knob. He watched Charlotte with both humor and uneasiness when she swept past him, nose high, shoulders rigid with dignity.

  The room was dominated by an enormous round couch, upholstered in dark blue velvet, and there were large, brightly colored pillows scattered across the tile floor. On a small table in one corner, a brazier burned, filling the air with a smoky aroma of jasmine. A tray of food awaited on the wide stone ledge under the single window.

  Patrick gestured toward a nest of cushions piled on the floor. “Sit down,” he said gruffly, and even though Charlotte couldn’t tell whether he’d issued an invitation or an order, she sat.

  Her knees had gone a little weak. “When are we leaving?”

  Patrick carried the tray to where Charlotte waited and set it down before her.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” he said.

  Although Charlotte was troubled by something in his manner, she was also ravenously hungry. She consumed her share of rice, fried eggplant, and pastries filled with a mixture of cheese and spinach.

  When the gnawing in her middle had been eased, Charlotte sat up very straight and said, “One of the women in the harem said you were lying when you promised to take me with you.”

  Patrick looked away for a moment, then shifted his inky gaze resolutely back to her face. “I was telling the truth,” he said quietly, “but I wonder if you’re going to believe that after tonight.”

  The fine food made a tempest in Charlotte’s stomach, and she felt the color drain from her face. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

  Patrick made no further pretense of eating. “You’ll be safer here, at least for the next few weeks. After I’ve completed my business in Spain and Turkey—”

  “What business?” Charlotte demanded, starting to rise awkwardly from the pillows. “Have you procured another virgin, Captain? Someone to sell into slavery, the way you sold me to Khalif?”

  Patrick’s eyes narrowed, and suddenly he was standing very near, towering over her, immovable, like some monument chiseled from marble. “Good God, Charlotte, you can’t possibly believe I’d do such a thing!”

  “Why shouldn’t I believe it?” Charlotte cried, outraged and afraid. Until now, she’d managed to maintain her composure, for the most part, but she was rapidly losing ground. “You’re breaking your promise! You’re leaving me here, just as Alev said you would!”

  He shook his head, and his eyes reflected an anger equal to or greater than Charlotte’s own. “You were originally kidnapped at the order of a pirate called Raheem,” he said, but Charlotte barely registered the words because she was swamped in panic. “Khalif thinks he’ll try to get you back.”

  “You could protect me!” Charlotte realized, to her humiliation, that she was almost pleading, but she couldn’t help herself.

  “No,” Patrick said gravely, after swallowing visibly. “I have things to do, in places you cannot go. I would have to leave you alone often, and I will not do that.”

  Charlotte felt tears sting her eyes. She raised her fists to pound Patrick’s broad chest in helpless fury; he caught her wrists in his hands and stayed the blows with the merest contraction of muscle.

  “Liar!” Charlotte sobbed, completely overwhelmed. “I hate you—how could you do this—?”

  Patrick silenced her with a gentle shake, still gripping her wrists. “I could never hurt you,” he said, in a raspy whisper.

  “You’re lying!” Charlotte insisted. “Why should I believe a devil, a white slaver, a pirate—”

  “This is why,” Patrick answered brusquely. Then he hauled her against him, tilted her head back by plunging his fingers into the hair beneath her braid, and kissed her.

  Charlotte struggled for a moment, then sagged in temporary defeat as he touched her lips with his tongue, made them open for him. Their tongues battled, writhed together like lovers, and battled again. Charlotte couldn’t breathe, didn’t care if she never drew a breath again as long as the kiss didn’t have to end. Her nipples pulsed against the fabric of her robe and the hardness of Patrick’s chest, and there was a hot, melting sensation in her depths that promised some primal upheaval.

  Patrick lowered her skillfully to the pillows, never breaking the kiss, until she lay supine and gasping beside him. “This is the reason, Charlotte,” he reiterated, cupping one of her breasts with his hand and then teasing the hidden nipple with his fingertips. “I couldn’t give you to any other man, because I want you for myself.”

  Charlotte’s senses, so long attuned to this man by means of her fantasies, would not be denied by anything so mundane as logic. She wanted to give herself, even needed to give herself, to Patrick, be he pirate, rescuer, or avenging angel.

  She trembled and gave a soft cry as he bent his head to kiss the pulse point at the base of her throat.

  After an interval of almost excruciating pleasure, during which Charlotte untied the black ribbon that held back Patrick’s hair and then entwined her fingers in the richness of it, he met her eyes again.

  “I want to look at you, Charlotte,” he said gravely. “Will you let me do that?”

  She was lost, already adrift on a whirl of emotion and physical wanting, and she nodded.

  Gently Patrick removed her robe, and she lay before him on the soft pillows, bare and vulnerable and feeling truly beautiful for the first time in her life.

  At first he did not touch her, but he set her afire by letting his eyes travel slowly over her length. Then he caressed a curve here, kissed a hollow there, and Charlotte uttered a series of soft, jerky sighs.

  When he simultaneously closed his lips around the peak of one of her breasts and laid his hand on the mound of moist curls between her legs, she arched her back and moaned.

  Patrick’s chuckle vibrated against her breast, but he continued to draw on her nipple, to tease it with the edge of his teeth, to lave it unmercifully with his tongue. In the meantime, he burrowed through the silken tangle to boldly touch the nubbin of flesh pulsing there.

  Charlotte spread her legs, unable to stop herself, and her hips began to undulate under Patrick’s hand, obeying him, letting him set their rhythm. He enjoyed her other breast as though it were a ripe fruit, then trailed kisses down over her quivering belly.

  “While you wait for me, Charlotte,” he murmured, “remember this. Remember that I taught you pleasure.”

  She felt the tiny curtain part between his fingers, and then he took the revea
led treasure into his mouth, with the same brazen greed he had shown at both her nipples. She made a sound that was half moan and half shout, and felt her eyes roll back as Patrick lifted her legs over his shoulders and continued to suckle.

  She began to babble in a delirium of pleasure, clutching the velvet pillows, then Patrick’s shoulders, then his rich hair. Her heels dug into his back, seeking purchase, and she rolled her pelvis forward against his mouth.

  Finally the sensations gathered into a single wild crescendo, and with a savage cry of surrender and triumph, Charlotte gave everything she had, everything she was, to Patrick.

  She was dazed afterwards, and fully expected him to mount her and achieve satisfaction for himself, but instead he simply held her close against his side and stroked her with one gentle hand. At first she was touched at his unselfishness and restraint, but then another thought went through her mind like a shock.

  Perhaps he simply wanted her to remain untarnished, so that Khalif would still desire her.

  She stiffened, and he immediately subdued her with firm tenderness. “Trust me, Charlotte,” he said, after a long time had passed. “Please. Just trust me.”

  “I’m sure the serpent said much the same thing to Eve,” Charlotte replied, embarrassed that her voice still sounded shaky and breathless. Good grief, she’d never guessed that men could cause such cataclysmic pleasure, even in her wildest imaginings.

  Patrick laughed and swatted her bottom. “You’re probably right,” he conceded. “Now, let’s get you back in your clothes before the servants see you.”

  Charlotte snatched up her robe, mortified at the idea. Suppose someone had come in while she was bucking under Patrick’s mouth like a wanton? Or heard her carrying on as he drove her from one glorious pinnacle to another?

  Raising himself on one elbow, still fully clothed, his hair loose like an Indian’s, he grinned at her. “Why are you blushing, Charlotte?” he teased. “Could it be because you liked what I did to you?”

  She glared at him, infuriated that she couldn’t deny his assertion. To do that would have been plain foolish, after the way she’d gasped and sobbed and pleaded with him for more, and more still. “Your arrogance doesn’t become you, Mr. Trevarren,” she said.

  She was kneeling, about to rise to her feet, when Patrick reached beneath her robe and claimed the place where he had taken such liberties before. He slipped his middle finger unerringly inside her, while rotating his palm slowly against the flowering rosebud he had so thoroughly mastered earlier.

  Charlotte groaned and let her head fall back, and Patrick chuckled again.

  “Oh, goddess,” he breathed, still working his wicked magic, “perhaps my arrogance is unbecoming, but your passion makes you even more beautiful.”

  He teased her a little longer, then withdrew, cupping that same hand under her chin. “Think of me as you lie on your couch tonight,” he said, and then he kissed her eyelids and her mouth and the rounded tops of her breasts.

  Charlotte was still disoriented, and wildly disappointed that he’d aroused her a second time and then left her unsatisfied. She was startled when he suddenly clapped his hands to summon a servant, then hoisted her unceremoniously to her feet.

  “Why, Patrick?” she whispered. “Why did you make me want you all over again, then turn away?”

  He smiled at her and touched the tip of her nose with one finger as a male servant hurried in. “I told you before,” he answered, his voice low. “I want you to think of me, tonight and every night, until I come back for you.”

  Patrick spoke to the servant in deft dialect, then gave Charlotte’s elbow a slight squeeze.

  “Behave yourself while I’m gone,” he ordered sternly.

  Charlotte drew a deep breath, in order to keep herself from crying. “I won’t promise you anything,” she said, with a toss of her head, and then she followed the servant out of Patrick’s apartments and into the hallway.

  They hadn’t turned more than one corner when another man appeared, wearing snug-fitting black breeches and an expensive silk shirt. He looked like Khalif, but was much smaller and thinner through the face.

  “Who is this?” he asked, with disquieting delight, stepping between Charlotte and the servant, who stopped and waited uneasily. “Has my brother found yet another jewel to adorn his couch?”

  Charlotte stepped back when he reached for her shoulders. “I don’t know who you are,” she said, operating solely on bravado, “but you’d better not touch me.”

  “I am Ahmed,” the man said accommodatingly, his jet-colored eyes dancing with lust and mockery. “The sultan, may Allah continue to bless him, is my half brother.”

  Charlotte saw the servant slip away and prayed she hadn’t been abandoned. “Please let me pass. I’m supposed to go directly back to the harem. I’ll—I’ll be in trouble with the sultana valide. “

  Ahmed folded his arms, but other than that, he didn’t move. “Yes,” he said. “That withered old nanny goat will probably have Rashad bare your delectable little bottom and blister you in front of the whole harem, as an example, but I promise the memory of the pleasure I will give you will sustain you through even that.”

  Both fear and fury swelled in Charlotte’s bosom, tangled in her throat. She stepped back, red-faced and trembling, her hands clenched at her sides. His suggestion so stunned and angered her that she could not have offered a response even if one had occurred to her.

  “Enough, Ahmed. Leave the woman alone.”

  Ahmed tensed at the sound of the other voice, while Charlotte used all her strength to keep from sagging ingloriously against the wall in relief.

  Khalif stepped from the shadows to stand at his brother’s side, regarding Charlotte with a bemused expression. He spoke not to her, but to the servant who had surely summoned him, and the other man gestured for Charlotte to follow.

  She started to obey, but Ahmed reached out and grasped her upper arm hard.

  “Let me take her for just this one night, Khalif,” he pleaded furiously. “You have so many women, you will not miss her.”

  Khalif removed his brother’s fingers from Charlotte’s arm. “Go,” he told her gently.

  Charlotte hurried away, staying close behind the servant. She didn’t look back once, not even when she heard Khalif’s and Ahmed’s voices raised in anger.

  When they reached the entry to the harem, the servant drew back, eyes lowered respectfully, and the eunuch came forward to collect her. He cupped her elbow lightly in his hand and said, “Be very quiet. The sultana valide will not be pleased if she thinks you’ve been wandering through the palace at this late hour.”

  Once again, Charlotte was taken by surprise, for she had not expected the eunuch to speak English, let alone be kind. She wanted to explain that Khalif himself had summoned her, and then sent her to Captain Trevarren’s quarters, but she didn’t dare attract that vengeful old lady’s attention by speaking. She went crimson from hairline to toenails, just thinking about the scandalous things she’d let Patrick do to her on those soft cushions.

  Rashad escorted her past innumerable couches, where the sultan’s women slept, until they reached one in the corner, beneath a moonlit window.

  “This is your place to rest,” Rashad said. And then he moved away into the darkness, making no more sound than a soft spring wind ruffling new grass.

  Charlotte unfolded a silky, shawl-like covering lying across the foot of the long, low couch, and stretched out, using the shawl as a blanket. She fell into an immediate sleep, though she had fully expected to lie awake half the night, remembering.

  Instead, she relived her initiation into womanhood in her dreams, dancing with Patrick’s tongue, feeling the release of some warm fluid deep within when he satisfied her. It was still dark when she awakened with a start, sitting bolt upright on the couch, breathing as hard as if she’d been running.

  The soft, desperate sounds of passion she had heard in her dreams continued in the fragrant stillness. The noise cul
minated in a series of sighs that seemed to catch on one another, and Charlotte’s cheeks burned as she realized what was happening.

  She closed her eyes tightly and fell back on the couch, wondering how she could have lived twenty-three years and learned so little about the world in all that time.

  Within three days, the Enchantress dropped anchor off the coast of Spain. Patrick was in the worst mood he could remember. Under other circumstances, he would have gone straight to his favorite brothel and satisfied all the yearnings Charlotte had so innocently aroused in him, but for some reason, his conscience wouldn’t allow that.

  Thus, he suffered, and so did everyone else who came within the broad range of his temper.

  He sold the spices and silks he’d brought from Riz, and bought shipments of lace and wine to carry to Turkey. He could think of nothing and no one but Charlotte, and how badly he needed to bury himself in her and end the terrible tension of wanting her so much. Because of his preoccupation with a young woman who refused him her last name and yet rode his mouth in ecstasy, Patrick was not as careful as he should have been.

  He’d had words with Cochran, the first mate, when his friend told him his nature had turned foul and he ought to take himself upstairs and let a whore work it out of him. Patrick had been furious, and he’d sent the others, Cochran included, summarily back to the ship.

  He was jumped from behind as he left the shoddy waterfront tavern at a late hour, his loins still aching, his mind distracted by frustration. He felt the blade of a knife brush against his throat and turned sober between that moment and the one that followed.

  Patrick brought one bootheel down hard on the instep of his attacker, making the other man scream in pain, but there were others, and they seemed to come at him from every direction. He had clutched one by the shirt collar and drawn his fist back for the kind of punch that loosens a man’s teeth when he recognized his own cook.

  “Damnation, Cap’n!” the man bellowed. “It’s them you’re supposed to fight! We’re on your side!”

  His friends had disobeyed his orders and stayed, then, he thought, turning his full attention to the battle at hand. He sensed Cochran and the others around him, saw only strangers through the red haze of fury that shifted and shimmered in front of his eyes.