“What? What now, milady?” he demanded acidly.
And she smiled very slowly. “What manner of pirate are you, sir? I sit before you unmolested. In my jewels.” She leaned forward, fingering the emerald. “It’s worth a small fortune, Sir Silver Hawk. Of that, I am sure you are aware.”
“Perhaps, lady, I will receive a small fortune for your safe return.”
“Perhaps.” she murmured, but her smile remained. He swore softly and tossed down his serving implements. “Lady, I tell you, I am at the end of my resources. I am past being driven to mere drink, and I hunger for far more than dinner.” She picked up her fork and idly touched her food. She was scarcely hungry herself. She tasted some delicious fish, and steamed fresh carrots and potatoes and sweet toasted bananas. She could eat very little. Nor did he pay much attention to his food. He watched her, and a deep, dark tension remained with him. His brow continued to knit and a scowl played upon his lip beneath his mustache.
“He will come here?” she said. “Lord Cameron?”
“Aye.”
“He will feel safe?”
“He will know himself safe.”
She shoved about a piece of fish with her fork. He leaned toward her. “What is it, milady?” he snapped. “Who do you think you are, what sweet nobility sets you so confidently upon this golden crest of disdain you would cast down upon others? I am a pirate, yes, but you scorn a member of your own society, a man who is willing to sail a tempestuous sea for an unwilling bride?”
Her temper rose and her first impulse was to slap him. She smiled instead, holding her silver goblet, tracing its rim with her fingers. “I am my own mistress, sir, and that is all.”
He sat back, his eyes narrowing. “And what precisely does that mean, lady?”
“I—I am graced with my own mind, sir. My mother”—she hesitated just briefly, swallowing—“my mother died when I was young, and I quickly ran my father’s affairs. He sent me to school in London, and neglected to tell me about a promise given at my birth!”
“So the promise is not your concern.”
“No.”
“You do not choose to honor your father?”
“Not in this.” She set her wine down and spoke to him earnestly. “One would think, sir, that daughters were created as slaves, to be cast to the highest bidder.”
His eyes were smoke, concealing his thoughts. “Perhaps he cares for the security of your future.”
She lowered her head suddenly. “He knows so little about me.”
“About your fear of the dark?”
Her head jerked up like a marionette’s. “I don’t care to discuss any of this with you.”
“Why not? Perhaps I can help.”
“Help!”
He shrugged, sipping more wine. “He is a cousin, distant at that, proper, stoic, and all those gentlemanly things. I do know something of him. He is sailing to retrieve you. He is no ogre.”
She smiled, touching her dangling pendant. “You are the ogre, right?”
“Don’t test me,” he warned her sternly.
“I have tested you time and again,” she said softly. “You have proven yourself, sir.”
“Have I? Lady, please, my mettle is in shatters. I promise you this, if I hold you again, I’ll leave no questions in your mind as to my true nature.”
She did not reply, but continued to smile. He reached over suddenly, grasping her wine goblet. He set it down upon the table with a small clunk. She arched a brow to him.
“I think you’ve had enough. How do you feel?”
“I feel very well. I dozed in the tub merely because of its comfort, and though I did consume a great deal of brandy, I did it throughout a very long day.”
“Oh. Is that so?”
“It is.”
He watched her for a long moment, his hands folded upon the table. “You are well and sober now?”
“I am, sir.”
He stood and caught her hands, pulling her slowly up from the table and into his arms. She should resist. Something languorous stole over her with the gentle touch of the breeze. Draperies fluttered and the soft fragrance of the tropic night whirled around them. The moon had risen as the fiery colors of sunset gave way to shadow, and then darkness. Candleglow was soft, and gentle as the ethereal beams from the moon falling down upon them.
“Run!” he told her softly. “Run away, and embrace the darkness, for you enter here into greater peril.” He clutched her hand and brought it to his chest, against his heart. “Feel the beat, lady, feel the pulse. Suffer the tempest, for I have been like a man long damned. Don’t take comfort in my presence, and don’t trust in my justice or honor, for by my justice you would lie with me now, and as I have warned you, what honor a rogue possesses ever dims within my heart. Run from me now, lady. And swiftly.”
It was fair warning, and well she knew it. Her palm and fingers lay over an erratic pulse, and a wall of vibrant, living heat. They pressed so close together that a fever danced throughout her and cast her into a field of sweet confusion far greater than any spirit could bring. She wanted him. Shameful, horrid, and illicit as it might be, she wanted him. That such feelings should rage within her heart left her aware that she could be no true lady, but in the night breeze, she could not care. This world was real, and he was a beacon, shining ever more brightly to her tempest-tossed soul. Codes and society could not matter here, all that had meaning were the earth and sky, the breeze, the primal power of the man.
She parted her lips to whisper, but knew not what she would say. Rescue came for her any day now, blessed rescue to her home, to a land of safety. To a lord, a man of the peerage, the betrothed who would give her the proper place in society, a gracious home, wealth, servants, security, all that she could desire.
Her security lay here, she thought. And the wealth to be found in the arms of such a man were all the riches she might come to desire.
“Go! Go now, I warn you!” he growled to her.
She pulled away. She stared at him, thinking there were so many things that she would say to him, but none of them were things that words could convey. If she stayed, she would be damned. She turned and fled through the doorway, then paused, gasping, the tempo of her heart staccato, the very breath and soul of her in torment.
She did not think anew. She did not reason, nor pause to think that the morning light might bring regrets. She came back to the doorway and looked in once more.
He had come back to the window. He stood there, a tall and silent man, a powerful shadow in black silk shirt and breeches and boots, formidable and striking against the glow of the moon. She must have made some small sound, or else he sensed her there, that she had so swiftly returned. He came about, staring at her. She could not see his eyes, his features. She cried softly and raced toward him on her bare feet. She cast herself against him, and his arms swept around her with a staggering hunger. His lips found hers.
Captured there in the moonlight in his arms, she dared to kiss him in return. His tongue tempestuously seared her lips to plunder her mouth. She welcomed it, and daringly tasted, met, and matched his forays with her own. A sweet-honeyed surge burst forth from within her, swirling within her belly, rushing to fill her limbs. She sought to touch his hair, to tease it at his nape, to feel the power of his shoulders and arms, to come ever closer.
She gasped when his lips lifted from hers, and she stared up at him, framed as they were in the moonglow, in the windows opened to the night. He stared at her the longest time, and his ragged whisper rode hauntingly from his flesh. “You cannot run anymore,” he said.
“No,” she whispered, and her lashes did not flutter, nor did her eyes fall from his. His hands were upon her shoulders. Her lips parted in a soft gasp as he tore upon the fabric there and her gown swirled to a very soft heap of silk upon the ground. And still he stared at her, for the moonglow danced eloquently upon her body, outlining the firm fullness of her breasts and defining the dusky rouge peaks, touching shadow at the slender rib
bon of her waist, glowing full on the flare of her hips. The moon seemed a master of temptation in itself, finding shadow again in the haunting juncture of her thighs.
A deep, guttural cry came from him, startling her, causing her to tremble. Then his hands were upon her again, pulling her close. She felt the fever of his mouth upon hers once more, and clung to him, stunned by this new ferocity of passion, yet willing to ride the soaring force of it. She met his lips again and again. He sought her mouth and tongue over and over, breaking away, finding her warmth once again. His hands began a bold foray upon her. As their lips met in searing fire, he stroked her shoulder and her breast, rounded her naked hip. His fingers grazed her belly and drew with startling purpose to the golden nest between her thighs.
She flinched, startled, but he drew her closer. He whispered against her lips as he explored her further. She gasped and shuddered, so weak that she fell against him as his touch surged intimately inside of her.
“I cannot, will not, let you go,” he muttered.
She did not wish to be let go. She burrowed her head against him and she was swiftly swept off her feet and carried to his massive bed. Lying there without him, she was briefly cold, but he quickly returned to cover her with his warmth. His lips seared her all anew. He touched her with shattering liquid heat in intimate places, bringing gasps to her lips as he possessed her breasts with his touch and teeth and tongue, covering her belly with the ardent sweep of his mouth. The liquid fire was outside of her, and then inside of her. Sensation came to rule the night, for each new touch was shocking and evocative beyond measure, and she was barely able to register the one before the next began.
She knew that he was a practiced lover, and that did not matter to her. Not then. She knew, too, that a woman was seldom so carefully cherished with both tempest and tenderness when initiated into the realm of senses. He was with her because he had desired her, and tonight he could let hunger rage, for he had shown her long ago that he cared for her fears, and for her soul.
He moved from her, and she realized that he hovered over her, seeking out her eyes, his own ablaze with tension. Lightly he touched her breast, keeping his eyes upon her. He drew his fingers low over her ribs against her abdomen, down to her thighs. Her lashes fluttered. “No,” he told her softly, and she lifted her gaze to his again as he invaded her more intimately. She drew her limbs together as the flame touched her features, but her body surged against his touch of its sweet desire and he laughed with sheer pleasure and triumph and his lips seized upon hers. “Moonglow,” he told her. “Thank God, lady, that you crave the light, for I hunger for the very sight of you, and would die tonight for this touch!” His lips covered hers. In tempest and abandon they traveled to her breast. To her belly, ever downward. Brazenly he touched her. She cried out loud in stunned protest, writhing against him, reaching for him to draw him against her. He left her, stripping away his garments. And then it was he who was covered in the moonlight, and she was dizzy with anticipation, warmed by the beautiful bronze glow of his shoulders, frightened by the masculine force of him.
He did not let her know fear. He teased her no longer, but fell upon her with purpose, parting her thighs to his desire, cradling her gently into his arms.
The pain was astounding, wrenching her from the web of sweet desire that had wound within her. She cried out, she bit into his shoulders, she slammed against him and shrilled away in fury, tears stinging her eyes. He ignored her, holding her. Moving, moving against her. Thrusting harder and harder and tearing into her. “Pirate, bastard, rogue!” she choked out.
“Sea slime,” he responded with a tender understanding, and she nearly laughed, and then the sweetness overrode the pain and she was astounded anew at herself. She had never known a hunger so great; she had never wanted so desperately. Her form shifted and writhed and arched on his own. She stroked his flesh and felt the constriction and heave of his muscle, and the ever-greater fury of his force. She swirled with it, she soared, she reached. Then it seemed as if the entire world exploded deep inside of her and that nothing had ever been so rapturous in her life. She was wrapped in clouds, cocooned among moonglow and stars, seared by the sun. Darkness nearly claimed her, the breath left her. She died, she thought. She touched the sun, and so she died.
She did not die. She closed her eyes perhaps, passed out, perhaps. But she did not die. She shuddered again and again and hot rapture tore through her. She opened her eyes to discover that she had not even left the earth, but lay within the bed still, drenched and slick, entwined with the Hawk. He lay atop her still, and quietly within her. He had not ravished or raped her or used violence against her in any way. She had come to him.
He pulled away from her, coming up on an elbow, smoothing the tangle of her hair away from her face. She wished suddenly that she did not so strenuously fear the dark, for she would have liked to hide her face in the shadows then.
“Regrets?” he asked her.
“No.” Well, perhaps one, for now that ecstasy had quietly given way, she was sore and amazed at her own lack not only of virtue, but of anything resembling restraint.
“I warned you,” he reminded her.
She nodded uneasily. She turned against him, burrowing against his chest. “Please, leave it be.”
He touched her gently, letting her lie against him. She suddenly imagined that love was a grand and magical thing, for it was, perhaps, even more wonderful to lie against him so, to feel the ripple of his muscles and his soft touch upon her as he held her close. This seemed an even greater intimacy.
As did his easy stroke. He did not touch her then to enflame her, but just to idly feel her flesh and soothe her. He rested his bearded chin atop her head and sighed deeply.
“What shall you do now?” he asked her.
She shook her head against him, not knowing what he meant.
“Well, my love, you go to your betrothed. What shall you tell him?”
“The truth.”
“The truth?”
Angry, Skye pushed away. “Tonight … this is not the truth. The truth has always been there, as you have been so quick to tell me! I will not marry him. I will not honor some silly pact made between his father and mine. He does not wish to marry me, either!”
“But he comes for you.”
“What is this!” she charged him, pulling away, suddenly longing for her clothing and eager to be far, far away from him. Something terribly momentous had happened in her life. He had taken from her all that a woman had of her own to truly give, not so much the physical side of innocence, but the very heart of it, too. “Is your cousin your best friend that you must care for his concerns so deeply?”
“We are not friends at all. We are enemies. We respect one another and leave room for negotiation, but he would slay me in the open waters, and I would slay him in turn.”
“Then leave me at peace! I shall deal with my own life.” She tried to pull away in a sudden fury. He leaped atop her, smiling his buccaneer’s leering smile, and pinning her beneath him. “Get off!” she insisted, flailing against him.
“No, lady, I cannot! And I gave fair warning. Forget the future, and answer to the sweet whispers of the night!”
“Nay—”
But her protest meant nothing. His lips seared hers, his body burned against her. She felt the hard swell of his sex and she gasped and strained to free herself, but he sank into her, filling her, and making her one with him. Tempest could not rise so swiftly again! she thought, and yet it did. Soaring, sweet, thundering, savage, it rose like a summer storm, brought her to a sweet and shattering climax, and cast her down softly and incredibly to earth once again. He gave her no quarter and no mercy, now that he possessed her. Still holding her, still entwined with her, he rose above her.
“Say the word, and I will rescue you from the trap of your betrothal. I will say that my hostage is not for sale, but my property and mine alone, now and forever.”
She gasped, stunned by the ferocity of his words.
“I—I cannot!” she cried. She could not! She had discovered ecstasy here, and perhaps she had discovered a man of startling temper and curious honor upon the savage seas, but she could not stay here! Her mind would work but little then, but she knew that she could not be his mistress. She could not stay here.
“So you would marry Lord Cameron!”
“No! Yes, I mean that I could not stay here!” She could not, ever. Not while her father lived. As angry as she might become with him for charting her life, she adored him. He was all that she had in the world. All who really loved her, who needed her. Just as she needed him, and his love.
His eyes were fierce, they were silver, they probed her, they went past her nakedness and tore into her soul. “You little hypocrite!” he told her. “You deny the man, but you would have his position! You would dine at the governor’s mansion and walk the streets in splendor. You cannot manage without your silks and velvets and jewels—”
“How dare you judge me!” she screamed, tearing at his chest. Suddenly she longed to escape him with such a fever she could scarce bear it. “It is not Lord Cameron! I tell you that I will not marry him—”
“You will not?” he taunted.
“I do not owe you an explanation!”
He wrenched back, still angry, and she wondered at the force of his explosion. He fell down beside her and she quickly sat up, searching for her gown to wrap around her nakedness. His eyes were scathing, telling her that she was a fool to cover herself from his eyes, ever again. She was furious with him, and furious with herself. Holding the covers tightly, she determined to get away from him. She leaped to her feet. He rose, too, not coming after her, just watching her with his feet firm upon the floor, his arms crossed over his chest.
“And where are you going now, milady? I told you that you could not run any longer.”
“I am going back to my own bed.”
“Ah, but it is my bed, too, milady!”