He reached for her, drew her into his arms. “You’re not cold, sweetheart. And you won’t stay hollow.”
Desperation seized her and cried out for relief. “Slayde, I can’t endure this,” she said in a broken whisper. “Make the emptiness go away.”
His silver eyes darkened with suppressed emotion. “I wish to God I could.” His lips brushed her cheeks, the bridge of her nose. “I’d absorb the pain and the cold, fill every shred of emptiness, if I could. But trust me. You’re far too extraordinary, too warm and giving, to remain hollow. In time, your very nature will fill the emptiness.” A fervent pause. “Just as it’s filled mine.”
Courtney blinked, a tinge of joy seeping through the void, wrought by something more potent than the emptiness. Never had she expected Slayde to make such an admission, one that, for him, was akin to an admission that he needed her. That, combined with his declaration last week…
“Slayde,” she murmured, voicing the question that had plagued her since she’d visited his chambers. “The night before you left Pembourne, you said you loved me. Did you mean it?”
He never averted his gaze. “I meant it.”
“Then say it again. If it’s possible for my love to fill your emptiness, perhaps yours can fill mine.”
Tenderly, Slayde framed her face between his palms. “I love you,” he stated simply. “Your pain is mine.”
Tears dampened Courtney’s lashes. “Stay with me. Don’t go.”
“I won’t.”
“I need you.”
A harsh tremor ran through him. “I need you, too.”
Slowly, their gazes met…and locked. Silent seconds ticked by as the full impact of what was happening, where they now hovered, sank in.
Without a trace of doubt, Courtney reached up, untying Slayde’s cravat and shoving it away. She leaned forward, kissed the hollow at the base of his throat. “Make love to me,” she breathed.
“No.” The word vibrated against her lips, more surrender than refusal. Fervently, he battled the inevitable, tugging her away, even as his fingers tangled in her hair, tilted her face toward his. “Courtney…no,” he refuted hoarsely, his body trembling, his stare fixed on her mouth.
“Yes.” Courtney’s arms entwined about his neck. “Oh—yes.”
Slayde’s mouth was on hers before she’d finished speaking, the struggle lost beneath the powerful feelings that surged between them, commanded him to take what was already his.
Her lips parted, welcoming what was already hers.
And the world exploded.
The kiss was frantic, urgent, pain and emptiness melding, clamoring to be assuaged by something far more potent. Slayde pressed Courtney back against the pillows, devouring her mouth with an unappeasable hunger.
“I’ve dreamed of you every night, burned for you every day,” he muttered. “God, I want you more than I want to breathe.”
“I want you, too.” She was equally urgent, bringing him closer, her fists knotting in the folds of his coat and attempting to push it aside. “So much that I ache with it.”
Slayde responded to her unspoken plea without pause or question. Impatiently, he shrugged out of his coat, nearly tearing his shirt and waistcoat in his haste to remove them. Bare-chested, he brought his torso back to Courtney’s.
They both moaned at the contact, a sensation too unbearable to withstand—even through the barrier of her chemise.
“More. I need more of you.” Planting burning kisses down her neck and throat, Slayde made quick work of her undergarment, untying the ribbons and dragging it away, flinging it to the floor. “You’re so bloody beautiful,” he rasped, his lips discovering all he’d been denying himself for weeks. “God, so beautiful.”
Courtney cried out when his lips surrounded her nipple. Heat poured through her in drenching waves, singeing her blood and filling every empty niche inside her. Her hands came up to cradle Slayde’s head, to prevent him from stopping the wondrous havoc he was wreaking on her senses.
Stopping wasn’t even a remote prospect.
Slayde was lost, beyond thought or reason, drunk on Courtney’s scent and taste, the warmth of her skin, the miracle of her response. Again and again, he drew the tight peak into his mouth, circling with his tongue as if to memorize her flavor. Finally, he moved to her other breast, lavishing it with the same exquisite torture, making Courtney twist restlessly on the sheets and cry out.
His hunger goaded him on. Lifting his head, he wrenched the bedcovers away, his greedy stare feasting on the remainder of her beauty. Tenderly, he traced the bruises on her ribs, pressing soft kisses against each one. “Not even these could mar such perfection,” he murmured, his lips shifting lower, to the hollow of her abdomen, the silkiness of her thighs. His palm covered the auburn curls between her legs, warming and possessing her all at once. “You’re a miracle,” he breathed, his fingers sliding lower, slipping into the warm wetness that beckoned him. “A miracle I thought didn’t exist.”
A dark roaring pounded in Courtney’s head, and she responded instinctively and without embarrassment, opening herself to the magic of his touch, her hips lifting in silent invitation. She heard his groan, felt the heat of his breath.
And then, his mouth.
Her eyes flew open, a wild shudder rippling through her at the first stroke of his tongue against her heated flesh. She whimpered his name, her fingers clenching in his hair, her thighs parting wider with a will all their own.
His possession was absolute, more consuming than she could bear. It scorched through her, sent streaks of lightning up her legs and into her core, made her scream and arch and beg for more. She blazed beneath his every caress: his tongue, his lips, and then his fingers, gliding into her, opening a passage that ached for him to fill it.
Slayde’s heart was thundering so savagely, he feared it might explode from his chest. His breath was coming in harsh gasps, his senses filled with Courtney’s scent and taste, the incredibly tight, hot feel of her. He was a stranger to this blinding, devouring passion, never imagined it existed. At this moment, nothing and no one mattered but Courtney—Courtney and what was happening between them.
His breeches were an unendurable barrier.
Tearing himself away from her, he vaulted to his feet, shoving his breeches off, kicking them aside.
Courtney’s lashes lifted slightly, and she drank in his nudity, her cheeks flushed with newly discovered, escalating passion. “Slayde.” She opened her arms to him.
He covered her in a heartbeat, kissing her with a ferocity they both craved. “Your ribs…” he managed.
“I don’t feel them, just you,” she panted, wrapping her arms about him, exploring the muscled planes of his back. “There’s nothing but you.”
His gaze darkened to near-black. “Open for me. I need to be inside you.”
Instantly, she complied, parting her thighs until they cradled his hips. “Like this?”
“Yes,” he ground out, teeth clenched to retain a semblance of self-control. “Now wrap your legs around me. Oh…God.” A hard shudder wracked his body; sweat broke out on his brow.
“That feels so right,” she whispered, lifting her legs to hug his flanks, easing him into her tight, wet warmth.
“Courtney.” His mouth seized hers, his tongue delving deep in an overwhelming need to possess her everywhere at once. Slowly, his hips pressed forward, pausing, circling, readying her for his penetration. “Tell me if it hurts,” he commanded. “If it does…I’ll stop.” Even as he uttered the vow, he wondered if he’d be able to keep it. Already, he felt reason slipping away, lost in a roaring deluge of sensation. He was shaking, drenched in sweat, teetering on the brink of climax—and he was yet to be fully inside her.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Courtney soothed. “It feels—” She broke off, gasping as he pushed deeper, stretching and invading her as he reached the thin barrier of her, maidenhead.
Forcibly, Slayde raised his head, braced himself on his elbows. “Courtney?”
<
br /> She drew his mouth back to hers. “I love you,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”
It was too much.
With a hoarse growl of need, Slayde thrust forward, tearing the fragile membrane and burying himself to the hilt. He heard Courtney whimper, felt her tense, and his hands balled into fists, making deep indentations in the pillow as he battled for sanity. “Sweetheart?”
She didn’t answer at once and, in that instant, Slayde cursed himself a hundred times over for causing her pain. He was just about to withdraw—no matter what the cost to him—when she shifted, the tension easing from her delicate frame.
“Slayde.” She murmured his name reverently, and it was the most exquisite sound he’d ever heard. Like a precious flower, she opened to him, melted all around him, drew him deeper into her breath-taking warmth. “There’s no more pain,” she breathed. “Just…heaven.”
“Heaven is where miracles belong,” he said huskily, rocking slowly against her. “Move with me. Touch heaven in my arms.”
“I already have.”
Groaning softly, Slayde cupped her face, holding her gaze as he withdrew partway, then thrust back inside her—deeper this time—before beginning a heart-stopping rhythm that took their breath, their souls, creating a bottomless yearning that gnawed harder with each escalating stroke.
“Slayde…” Courtney’s eyes widened as her body responded on its own, undulating frantically as it sought relief from the welcome agony Slayde was lavishing upon it.
“Yes,” he whispered, quickening his thrusts, feeling her inner muscles tighten around him, clenching him in a way that made the climax he’d been fighting to suppress ignite in his loins. Warning bells sounded—and were silenced, drowned out by the roaring in his head, the shards of heat that streaked through him in scalding, relentless waves. “Courtney,” he rasped, taking her to the pinnacle with him, teetering at its excruciating edge. “Look at me. Let me watch your face when it happens.”
“Oh…God.” She arched wildly, her nails digging into his back, her body unraveling in a series of frenzied spasms that clasped at Slayde’s length, gripping him again and again—plummeting him into sensual oblivion.
“Courtney!” He shouted her name, lunging into her with all the urgency in his soul, erupting in a scorching, bottomless release, his seed exploding from his body, flooding hers.
They collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs, Slayde’s head dropping into the crook of Courtney’s shoulder, his entire being dazed from the magnitude of what had just occurred. He dragged air into his lungs, realizing—with whatever fragments of sanity he possessed—that his weight was too much for her—certainly too much for her ribs.
Summoning a modicum of strength, he shifted, only to feel the wetness of his seed inside her, a tangible reminder of his unprecedented loss of control—and its potential results.
He rolled away, gritting his teeth, all too aware of the dark cloud of guilt and trepidation that loomed ahead, poised and ready to engulf him, render its punishing aftermath.
But, God help him, that dark cloud hadn’t been enough. No curse, no vow, no iron will had managed to tear him away, to stop him from pouring his entire being into hers.
“Slayde?” Courtney moved beside him, a sleepy question in her voice.
“I’m here.” He reached for her, enfolded her against him, cradling her gently in his arms.
“Mmm.” She snuggled closer, already half asleep. “It was a miracle, wasn’t it?”
Slayde swallowed, pressing his lips into her hair. “Yes, sweetheart. A miracle—and more.”
“I love you.” With that, she slept.
Wide awake, he held her, staring across the room and watching the one tiny window as it transformed night to dawn, berating himself all the while.
What in God’s name had he done? What had he been thinking? The answer to the latter was obvious: he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been wanting, feeling, and—the biggest miracle of all—needing.
And, in the process, taken something from Courtney he had no right to take.
If Arthur Johnston were alive, he’d call Slayde out in a heartbeat, defend his daughter’s honor—and with every right.
The irony was that, were Slayde anything but a Huntley, no defense would be necessary. He loved this woman and, by the very miracle that brought them together, he’d give his soul to escort her down the aisle, place a ring on her finger and, before God and man, claim her as his.
Thereby condemning her to what—a lifetime of solitude and imprisonment?
And if he relinquished her? his heart argued back. What would he be condemning her to then? A lifetime of loneliness and despair? Unthinkable. He’d known both those emotions for years, and he’d never subject Courtney to either. Her glowing heart would be extinguished, her spirit crushed.
Which left—what?
Courtney was a woman who could love but once. Slayde knew that as surely as he knew the timeless certainty of his own feelings. She could never give herself to another man—physically or legally—not after what they’d just shared; not even before, having blessed Slayde with the one-time gift of her heart.
And her old life was gone—her father murdered, her home destroyed. So what could the world offer that would strengthen Slayde’s conviction to set her free, obliterate the urgent voice that commanded he bind her to him forever, make her his wife and the black diamond be damned?
“Papa!”
Slayde jolted from his musings with a start, all his attention focused on Courtney, who was now struggling to free herself, shoving at his chest as if he were the obstacle that stood between her and her father. “No…let me go…Papa!”
“Courtney.” Slayde shook her, first gently, then more firmly until her eyes snapped open. “Sweetheart, wake up.”
“Slayde?” She looked totally disoriented, her entire body trembling with memory.
“Shhh, yes.” He caressed her back until the trembling stopped. “ ’Twas only a dream.”
“A dream,” she repeated, sagging weakly against him. “It seemed so real.”
“It always does.” Slayde’s jaw set. How well he remembered those hellish nights following his parents’ murders: awakening in an icy sweat, reliving those inescapable moments of discovery again and again.
Drawing a shuddering breath, Courtney leaned back, searched Slayde’s face. “Was it like this for you?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“The very worst thing possible: submerged it. Somehow I believed that by burying the memories, I could make them vanish. I was a fool. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized pain can be shed only by sharing it.”
She smiled faintly through her fear. “You really have changed.”
His thumbs caressed her cheeks. “I owe that to you.”
“And to Aurora,” Courtney amended. “She’s been attempting to coax you out of solitude for years.”
“Perhaps I wasn’t listening.”
“Perhaps you should. Your sister understands you better than you think. She’s not a child anymore, Slayde. She’s a woman—a very special woman. Isn’t it time that you got to know her?”
Tenderness surged anew. “Another gift, my beautiful miracle?”
“No, my lord. Merely a suggestion.”
“Very well. Suggestion taken. But in return, you must accept one from me.” He framed her face between his palms, his gaze holding hers. “Tell me about your dream—and the memories you saw when you stared into the waters. They were one and the same, weren’t they?”
Courtney’s lips trembled. “Yes.”
“Tell me.”
“ ’Twas mostly what I’ve already told you,” she whispered. “I was beside Papa at the helm. I heard someone shout. When I turned, Armon and his pirates were boarding our ship. Two or three of them dashed below to overtake whichever members of our crew were on the berth deck. Armon and two others leapt onto the quarter-deck. One held me, while Armon and the other seized Papa, b
ound and gagged him, then shoved him at Lexley, who was being held at gunpoint, and ordered him to tie a weight to Papa’s leg and thrust him from the Isobel.” Courtney began to tremble again. “I remember Lexley’s stricken expression as he complied. Dear God, how I wanted to spare him and save Papa. I tried. I fought and kicked, but those monsters dragged me below and locked me in my cabin. I was on the stairway when I heard Papa’s scream.” Tears slid down her cheeks. “Yesterday, when we reached that spot in the Channel and I gazed into the water, I could actually feel his terror. ’Twas agonizing, almost as if I were living through it with him.”
“You were.” Slayde gathered her against him, warming the chill from her soul. “You still are,” he added softly, stroking her hair, even as his mind began to race.
Something about her recounting troubled him, struck a note of discord. He frowned, wondering what it could be and why he hadn’t perceived it the first time she relayed the specifics to him. Probably because he’d been preoccupied with Aurora’s safety, hearing only those things that could provide a clue as to his sister’s whereabouts. But now…
Silently, he reviewed Courtney’s story, beginning with Armon’s seizure of the Isobel and culminating in Johnston’s horrible demise, his screams as he fell to his death…
Screams?
Slayde tensed. If the man was securely bound and gagged, how could he scream? Whimper, yes. Choke out a cry, perhaps. But scream? Hardly.
Had Johnston somehow managed to loosen his gag? Or, more plausibly, had Lexley found the opportunity to loosen it for him? And, if so, could the first mate also have loosened the bonds and the sack of grain about Johnston’s leg? Was it actually possible that Lexley had found ample time to try to save his captain’s life?
Caution warned Slayde that his premise was far too obscure and unlikely to risk upsetting Courtney with. Moreover, even if his notion had merit, even if Lexley had aided Johnston, severed all his bonds when no one was looking, the currents would still have hauled Courtney’s father out to sea. Survival was virtually impossible.
Virtually.
But what if, by some stroke of luck, Courtney’s earlier premonitions were right? What if Arthur Johnston was alive? What if, futility be damned, there was a filament of a chance that Courtney could have her old life back?