He had remained a while to admire the truly spectacular view of the harbor but when the effects of the hot bath began to wear off and his various wounds began to ache, the thought of a little nausea became a small price to pay for a soft bed and clean sheets. He had retraced his steps, only to find he was no longer alone on the veranda. Someone else was standing in the shadows at the far end. Someone dressed in a thigh-length cambric shirt with her long dark hair left unbound in the night breezes.
“And the next... ?” she said again, jolting his attention back up to her face.
Varian’s hands curled into fists by his sides. He had come perilously close last night to doing something that defied all logic; he could not afford to make the same mistake again.
“The next,” he said offhandedly, “is of course an urge to turn you over my knee and paddle you until your face turns blue.”
Juliet’s eyebrow remained arched. She studied his face for a full minute in silence before the smile trembling at the corners of her mouth broke free of her efforts to restrain it. A tilt of her head released a deep, resonating laugh which lasted so long and was so completely uninhibited, the joy of it caused Varian’s rigid expression to falter and collapse.
“Well, it is true,” he said. “And you must know you have that effect on people else you would not have perfected it over the years. Look at poor Beacom. You need only glance in his direction and he is reduced to a quivering puddle.”
“Beacom is a quivering puddle. I am surprised you tolerate his company.”
“He came with the title, unfortunately, and I have not had the heart to send him out to pasture. He has no other family, no other interests; I have even caught him polishing boots at four in the morning when he is displeased with the job the boot-boy has done.”
“You have a boot boy?”
The question was asked with the same sarcasm she had slathered on the query of sixty-five bedrooms at Harrowgate Hall.
“It is a very old castle,” he explained with a sigh. “It is also an extremely old title, and whether I like it or not, it comes with a great many responsibilities and obligations, not the least of which is to ensure the employment of the hundred or so villagers who have relied on the family for generations. It is not unlike the community you appear to have fostered here,” he added, nodding in the direction of the bay. “If not for your family, where would they be? What would they be doing now?”
“Whoring and drinking somewhere else, I expect. It would be of little concern to us or to me.”
The midnight eyes returned to scrutinize her face. “Now that you do not do well, Captain,” he said quietly. “You declare indifference, yet you care a great deal what happens to those close to you. Johnny Boy, for instance. If you worried so little about the people around you, you would not have noted a pinprick of blood on his leg in the heat of all that was going on today. Nor would you have asked Lieutenant Beck how he burned his face, or gone below each day to check on the men who were injured in the battle with the Santo Domingo.”
“‘Twould be a foolish captain who did not see to the welfare of her crew.”
“And a foolish lord who allowed his retainers to starve over a harsh winter. However, as you have taken great pains to remind me at every opportunity, I have no friends here. My title bears no weight, my position carries no influence, no authority. Having been in your company for less than three days, I can see how I might have made a comical a figure with all my arrogance and pretensions, yet I ask only for the chance to prove otherwise. Moreover, I would ask that you be tolerant of similar errors I have made in judging you.”
The offer and the way it was delivered with his hands spread in supplication, sent her head tipping to one side, as curious now as she was wary.
He had a silvery tongue, that much was a certainty. She suspected there was a good deal more to Varian St. Clare than met the eye, and not all of it was the formidable physical strength he camouflaged beneath the velvet and feathers.
To that end, she let her gaze rove down the pillar of his neck and across the impressive breadth of his shoulders. He wore only a shirt and breeches, no doublet, no starched collar. The shirt, in fact, was open midway down his chest, revealing the wealth of smooth hairs that formed a natural, dark breastplate.
“I think I have already been quite tolerant,” she murmured. “Especially after last night.”
“Last night was a mistake. My behavior was... totally inexcusable. I suppose I could blame it on the rum, yet no ... Not even that in good conscience, for I should have better control over my actions. I do have better control, by God, and the fact there was moonlight, and starlight, and you were half clad... ”
His voice trailed away as he realized the same conditions existed before him now. The moonlight was in her hair, sparkling off the dampened curls. She no longer smelled like salt water and canvas, and the collar of her shirt was loose and had slipped to one side, exposing the smooth roundness of a shoulder to the starlight.
“At any rate,” he continued, “it should not have caused me to lose all sense of propriety.”
“Are you saying you have better control over your urges tonight? If so, I am glad to hear it, for I am in no mood to fight you.”
Her voice was so soft it sent an unexpected spray of gooseflesh rippling up his arms. The infernal shirt had slipped lower and likely would have come right off her breast if the nipple had not tightened and snagged the silky fabric.
“I have no wish to fight with you either,” he said.
“Well then,” she mused, “what shall we do instead?”
If there was still a moment when he might have reclaimed his senses enough to beg her pardon for the interruption and walk away ... it was lost when she took a step away from the rail, rose up on the tips of her toes and pressed her mouth over his. Her lips were soft and the kiss fleeting, but when it ended, he felt as though he had been struck by a bolt of lightning. The first bolt was followed by another as she slid a hand up and circled it round his neck, dragging his mouth down into another longer, bolder caress.
When it ended, he studied the hard sparkle in her eyes and felt more than just the tiny hairs across his nape begin to stand on end.
“May I ask why you did that?”
“Why did you kiss me last night? And if you say again it was a horrible mistake and you’ll regret it to the end of your days... be warned that your days will end here and now, and in a most unpleasant fashion.”
His jaw slackened a moment, then clamped tightly shut again. “I expect the answer you are looking for is that I kissed you because I wanted to.”
“And why did you stop?”
“Really, Captain, I—”
Juliet laughed softly and stood back. “Does your hand still pain you?”
“I... I beg your pardon?”
“Your hand. Let me see it.”
He drew a wary breath and slid both hands out of sight, clasping them behind his back. “The burns are much improved, thank you. The thumb is still bruised, but I can move it without screaming.”
Juliet smiled and reached out, grasping his wrists and drawing them forward. She had remarked once before that his hands were big and capable, too strong to have spent idle hours sitting at card tables or playing at dice. The fingers were long and tapered, blunt at the tips with enough calluses to suggest he did not always remember to shield them in kid gloves. They were the hands of a swordsman, with wrists like iron. Angling them into the light now she could see the redness from the rope burn was almost gone on the one palm and if one had not been there to hear the thumb pop from the socket, the faint swelling would hardly tell the tale.
She brought the injured hand forward and placed it over her breast. She heard him take another sharp bite of air, heard it catch in his throat, but he did not jerk away. Not a finger twitched, not a hair bristled, and any other time she might have laughed out loud to see the shocked rigor on his face.
Any other time she might not have been feeling so damn
ed unsettled and at odds. She was back in the bosom of her family, her ships were safe in the harbor, she was being lauded as a hero. Her belly was full of good food, her skin tingled from a hot soak and a lusty scrub ... and yet she had not been able to eat, drink, or wash away this feeling of restlessness. A bug had landed on her arm earlier and she had nearly stabbed herself, for pity’s sake. Now, just the sensation of having his hand on her breast was setting every square inch of her flesh on fire, warming her to the demon that was already coursing through her blood.
At the same time she became disturbingly aware of the heady scent of his skin, the broad expanse of his chest only inches away. The beating of his heart was tangible against her fingertips and, lured by the open shirt, she coaxed the linen slowly aside and rested her hand on his warm skin. He was all muscle, hard and sculpted, and when her fingertips started roving, she felt a shiver race through his flesh.
“You managed to avoid answering my question,” she murmured.
“I... scarcely remember what you asked.” His voice was hoarse, forcing an indifference that broadened her smile and sent her hand searching farther afield. The hairs tickled her palm and she combed her fingertips through the springing curls until she found his nipple. A slow, speculative circle traced around the sensitive flesh had the tiny nub stiffening into a hard little peak.
“I asked if you had better control over your urges tonight.”
The question set the blood pounding through his temples, stinging through his veins even as her hands moved lower, sliding further beneath his shirt to explore the bands of muscle that quickened across his ribs and belly. Appalled by his utter inability to deter her, he watched as she leaned forward and touched him with the tip of her tongue, then followed the same path her fingers had taken to his breast. When her mouth closed over his nipple, she sampled it like one might taste an offering of some exotic delicacy. Her teeth gently caught the skin, pulling the dark disc inside the heat of her mouth where she continued to torment it with her tongue.
His body turned to iron. His hands came up and gripped her arms, but still he did not push her away. There were tremors in his fingers, tremors in his throat as each breath came harsher than the one before.
Intrigued, Juliet took more of him into her mouth. At the same time, she started to gently ease the tails of his shirt free of his breeches. When the cambric hung over his hips in loose folds, she searched for the fastenings at his waist, releasing one button, then the next. She did not wait for the cloth to part completely before she slid her hands beneath and what she found there caused her own breath to falter in her throat, for he filled her two hands and still strained upward for more.
“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 thrusting 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 strained 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 s
hove 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, it 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, the next they were searching each others, their eyes locked, their breaths cooling the dampness on each other’s faces. His hair was 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.
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