by Lucy Monroe
He unlocked his door and pulled Thea inside. Once he had shut the door, he motioned for her to take a seat. She didn't have many options. His cabin was sparse compared to hers. There was one small bunk, a chair, and a very small table bolted to the floor. She chose to sit on the edge of the bunk. Light filtered in through the portal and played across the too serious features of her beautiful face, highlighting the chestnut silkiness of her hair.
Her bright skirts pooled around her feet and she gripped the mattress with both hands. She bent her head as if she found something on the floor of particular interest. "I suppose you want the full story."
Hell yes. He lifted her chin with his hand and met her eyes. "Only if you want to tell it."
She sucked in a breath and then softly let it out. "When my mother was in her fourth month of pregnancy, my father insisted she accompany him to a ball. She wanted to go into confinement in the country, but appearances were important to him and some very influential members of the ton were throwing the ball. Mama loved him, so she went. She became overheated after dancing a Scottish reel and she went out into the gardens. A man who had courted her along with my father followed her out of the ballroom."
When Thea stopped talking, Drake sat down next to her and pulled her hand into his. Her fingers were like ice. "You don't have to tell me any more."
"No. I want to tell you." She looked up at him and her eyes had the depth of the sea they sailed upon.
"The man who followed Mama was a rake. He forced his attentions on her, holding her against her will and kissing her. My father came upon them. He was furious. He reviled my mother and challenged the rake to a duel." She tightened her fingers in his. "They never fought the duel. The other man came to my father and promised on his word as a gentleman that my mother had approached him. He apologized to my father and the matter was settled."
She sighed. "At least between the two men. My father never forgave my mother and refused to believe her version of the events. He is a very hard, unbending man."
Drake thought his father and hers had something in common.
"He sent my mother to live in the country until she gave birth. He stormed into the room and tore her baby from her arms and left, promising she would never see her child again."
"So she kidnapped you and ran away."
A strange expression entered her eyes at his statement, but she didn't deny it. Perhaps she did not like to think of what her mother had done as kidnapping.
"Is that why you have never returned to England?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to see your father?"
"No. I never want to see my father or have anything to do with him. He destroyed our family with his mistrust and harshness. He has no place in my heart."
Drake lowered his mouth until it was almost touching hers. "What about me? Do I have a place in your heart?"
He didn't understand the look of fear that came into her eyes. "Please, let us talk no more of this."
He wanted her to admit that she was coming to care for him, but the desperation in her voice swayed him. "Very well. There are more interesting things to do with our lips than to talk."
The kiss consumed them both. One moment they were sitting side by side on the edge of his narrow bed and the next he had her beneath him, his tongue deep in her mouth. She moaned.
He fisted his hands in her hair, and kissed her with all the uncontrollable desire that overtook him every time they touched.
She locked her arms around his back, pulling him closer until he wondered how she could breathe with his weight covering the length of her.
She tasted sweet. Like the ginger candy his grandfather's cook used to make at Christmastime. He begged the cook for more and she always warned him he'd get sick of it, but he never did. Thea was the same. He wanted her constantly, and the few stolen moments when he could actually touch and taste her only whetted his appetite for more.
The bells rang for the second watch.
He groaned and pulled his lips from hers. "Thea, we must stop. My aunt is expecting you for tea."
"I sent Melly to your aunt with my apologies. I told her I needed to prepare for arrival in port."
Since she had taken less than two hours to prepare for the entire journey, he knew her excuse was a ruse.
She smiled up at him, her eyes full of feminine mystery. "Melly is spending the next few hours with friends she has made aboard ship. Please, Drake, make love to me."
He had meant to wait until after they were wed to teach her more of passion, but all of his good intentions went up in the bonfire he saw in Thea's eyes. She was as unpredictable as the wind and he found the desire to sail her course irresistible.
* * *
Chapter 8
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The Merewethers are the kindest people. They insist that Thea and I make our home with them. Ruth adores children and has always been disappointed that she never conceived. Ashby has asked me to stay as a favor to his wife, both because Thea brings her so much joy and because he feels badly that Ruth has left all of her English friends behind to travel to this tiny island with him.
September 7, 1799
Journal of Anna Selwyn, Countess of Langley
Drake stood up and Thea's heart cracked with desolation. He was going to say no. Averting her gaze, she fought to hide her feelings of mortification at his rejection from him.
The sound of fabric sliding against fabric drew her attention. He was in the act of removing his cravat. He had begun unbuttoning his waistcoat before she realized the significance of his actions.
He was going to make love to her.
She wanted to say something, anything to break the expectant silence now filling the room. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing would come out. Her throat felt locked in rigidity as she watched the two sections of his waistcoat separate to reveal the fine lawn of his shirt.
She should be doing something. Not just sitting there like a child watching a puppet show. She pushed herself off the bed and started to undo the tapes of her gown.
"Don't."
She stopped moving at the harsh sound of his voice. She stared at him. Had she misunderstood?
He pulled her to him, an undecipherable emotion in his eyes. "I want to undress you."
"All right." She was trembling so much, she doubted she could finish the task herself anyway.
She waited while he removed everything but his smalls. They tented away from his body where he bulged in arousal, and she felt her first tremor of trepidation. Perhaps the snug fabric overaccentuated his endowment.
He brushed her cheek. She shifted her gaze to his face. The corner of his mouth tipped slightly, and she blushed as she realized that he had noticed her preoccupation with him.
"We are different, but you have nothing to fear."
She expelled the breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Yes." Very different. Thinking of their previous encounter, she said, "This difference intrigues me."
His expression blossomed into a full-blown smile. "It intrigues me as well."
The smile faded from his face, and his eyes took on an intensity that sent her pulse jumping. He stepped forward and slowly, oh so slowly, removed the pins from her hair. She felt the weight of it as the heavy mass fell around her shoulders and settled against her back.
He touched it, his expression reverent. "Your hair is so beautiful. I have dreamed of seeing you with it hanging loose about your tempting, naked body."
Her breath hitched in her throat. "You dreamed about me?"
"A great deal."
"Oh." Fascinating. "What else have you dreamed?"
He smiled. "I'll show you."
She shivered, but not from cold. She wanted him to show her. She also wanted to touch him. She extended her hand and trailed her fingers down his chest.
He caught her hand.
"I want you. I need to touch you."
"Not yet." He pulled her toward him until their bodies were pressed together.
She slid her hands around to caress the muscled planes of his back. The feel of his naked skin, warm under her touch, sent a tremor through her.
He leaned down and nuzzled her neck through her hair. "You smell so good, Thea. It's as if you carry your island fragrance with you." She felt his hands at work on the tapes of her gown. They came loose and his fingers slipped inside to caress her through the soft material of her shift. "You are my very own tropical temptation."
She laughed at the notion that a twenty-three-year-old spinster could be something so exotic to a man like Pierson Drake.
He pulled back slightly to meet her gaze. "It's true. You've mesmerized me with your mystery since the moment we met."
"I am quite ordinary." Unlike him. "There is nothing mysterious about me."
He shook his head and his smile beguiled her. "On the contrary. Nothing about you is ordinary. You dress like a proper English lady, but leave off your stockings and corsets."
"It's too hot in the islands to wear stockings, and corsets are bad for a woman's respiration."
He stepped back and pulled her gown down by the sleeves until she stood in her shift before him. His already lambent gaze turned hot as the steam escaping through the fissures of a volcano.
"You speak with the diction and vocabulary of a lady, yet the things that come out of your mouth are far from the typical drivel that passes for a lady's conversation."
"I merely say what is in my mind."
"Precisely." His approval warmed her to her toes. "Since you have not yet been to England, you cannot know how different you are from the typical lady of the ton."
All the while they spoke, his hot gaze devoured her and she began to shake in reaction. His hand gently cupped her breast, and she felt as if an effervescent spring had come to life in her most feminine place. Her thighs pressed together of their own volition, and her nipples stung as they hardened against the thin fabric of her shift.
He tugged it down, and she felt her skin heating all over where his gaze touched it. She should have been embarrassed to have him see her like this, but she wasn't. The soft lawn fell in a pool at her feet and she could not move.
His gaze pinned her in place. "You are glorious."
She wanted to tell him that she found his taut hardness very appealing as well, but could not make the words come out as once again her throat refused to work. Everywhere his eyes touched, she felt as if his fingers followed, and yet he had moved to stand a little distance away from her.
"You are all that I could wish for, Thea."
She stared at him, and something in her shifted. He wanted her as desperately as she wanted him—that was obvious—but there was something more. He made himself vulnerable by telling her things she could not make her mouth utter. He did not have to tell her she was glorious, but he had. She sighed. All her life, gentlemen had ignored her and she had been content for them to do so. Yet here stood the handsomest and most fascinating man she had ever met and he claimed that he wanted her.
It was a heady thought, an enticing one.
She threw herself against him. He let out a startled breath and then locked his arms around her. He kissed her until her knees grew weak with it. His hard arousal moved against her belly and she shivered with desire.
"Make love to me, Drake."
He could no more resist the need in her voice than he could stop the tide, but he wondered if she planned to call him Drake when he was buried deep inside her. Or would she finally deign to use his first name?
He swung Thea into his arms and carried her to the small bunk. What he was about to do would be irrevocable. It would change the course of her life, and his, forever. He laid her on the bed and stood above her.
"You must be certain, Thea. We can still turn back."
She met his gaze, hers unflinching. "I do not want to stop. Please, Drake."
That final plea decided him. "I don't either."
He lay down next to her on the narrow bunk. There was barely room for him, and their entire bodies touched from where the side of her breast pressed against his chest to her legs that moved restlessly against his own.
He forced himself into complete stillness. He wanted to savor the feel of her naked body against his. She belonged to him, and when they finally came together, she would know it.
She said his name in impatient demand. He smiled. "Yes?"
He thought to tease her a little, to heighten the tension. She forestalled him by pulling his head down for a passionate kiss. He gave in to the emotion pulsing through him and kissed her back with all his pent-up desire made huge by wanting. Thea moved her hands over him with reckless abandon. She touched him everywhere, and everywhere she touched felt like it was on fire. Her body moved restlessly against his.
He cupped her breast, delighting in the weight of the soft flesh against his palm. He squeezed. He pushed and pulled, almost drunk with the feel of her under his hand. She moaned, arching her back in a silent plea for more. He knew what she needed even if she did not. Bending his head, he opened his mouth over her already distended nipple.
She nearly came off the bed. "Drake."
He stopped suckling and looked up. Her eyes were wide and dark with need in her flushed face. "Pierson."
"What?" Her head tossed from side to side in frantic movement.
"We are making love, Thea. Call me Pierson."
"Pierson," she gasped, grabbing his head with frantic fingers and pressing his face into her breast. "Don't stop."
He smiled against the generous flesh. "Aye, aye, Little Captain."
She started to say something, but it turned into another long-drawn-out moan when he closed his mouth over her nipple once again. She rocked her hips and he could not resist sliding his hand down her rib cage, over the smooth skin of her belly, and into the nest of curls at her most feminine place.
She arched toward his hand even as she protested, "Surely you aren't supposed to touch me there."
He nearly strangled on a laugh. "Surely, I am."
"But, I thought…" Whatever she thought went unsaid as he dipped his fingers into the tight, wet passage.
She groaned. He slid his finger out and back in, loving the feel of her moist channel. This with Thea was something so unlike matings he had experienced before. Never had he felt this desire to please, this sense of oneness with a woman. He ached to bury himself inside her, but it had to be right. He would make this first time perfect for her, and then she would understand that she belonged to him.
"I didn't know it would be like this."
He smiled at the wonder in her voice. Exploring with his thumb, he found the small button he sought and rubbed it experimentally as he continued the movement of his finger sliding in and out of her rapidly swelling flesh.
Unbelievable pleasure spiraled through Thea as Drake's hand and mouth inflicted exquisite torture upon her body. She rocked her hips in a mindless attempt to assuage the burning ache he stoked with each thrust of his finger. "Please. Don't. Stop."
"Never."
He increased his tempo until she felt her entire body straining toward release. Remembering her other experiences in his arms, she could not credit how much more intense the sensation when his fingers touched her body skin to skin.
Suddenly her thoughts fragmented until only one remained. She wanted to feel him inside her. "Pierson."
"What, love?"
"You must finish it. I cannot stand this torment."
He kissed her breast and then stood. She watched in wonder as he pulled off his smalls to reveal his swollen manhood. If his finger had filled her so completely, how was he ever going to fit? She licked her lips. "Um, do you think perhaps there is a small problem with the disparity in our sizes?"
He rejoined her on the bed, this time kneeling between her legs, pushing them apart. She felt at once vulnerable and powerful because she knew that she and she alone was responsible for the look of naked need on his face.
"We will fit, but it will h
urt at first, Thea. I know of no way to avoid the pain."
The genuine concern in his voice assuaged her fears as nothing else could have. "Tell me what to do."
He leaned down and she felt his hardness brush against her as his lips covered her own. He kissed her softly and then with increasing passion until she could not help straining against him.
"Yes, that's right, Thea, show me how much you want me."
He fit himself against the entrance to her and pressed forward. It did hurt. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
He stopped. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his breathing was labored. "Are you okay?"
She nodded, feeling anything but, although she found herself comforted by the genuine care in his tone.
He took a deep breath and expelled it before brushing her cheek with his hand. "It will get better."
Leaning up until he was almost sitting, he tucked his thumb into her nest of curls and gently rubbed her just above where their bodies joined. She relaxed as pleasure overtook the pain once again. He slipped inside some more and stopped when he met the barrier.
He continued his ministrations with his thumb as his other hand again found her breast. He played with her nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger until she thought she would go mad with the wanting.
"Pierson," she panted his name desperately. "I can't stand this. It is too much."
She felt the precipice and knew that this time she would not be alone in going over.
Her body tensed as she arched up toward him, pressing him farther into her passage. She felt the pain, but could not give it proper notice as the pleasure threatened to swamp all her senses. She gripped his thighs, needing to feel the solid strength of his muscles beneath her fingers as her mind splintered into a thousand fragmented sensations.
She convulsed and he thrust into her fully. The pain was instantly swallowed up in pleasure as he withdrew and thrust again. As he filled her completely, she fell over the precipice, knowing that when she came to land, he would be there to catch her. She wanted to scream her pleasure, but he leaned forward and locked his lips on hers, thrusting his tongue into the interior of her mouth.