“I don’t want you to wait.”
“But you will. Soon enough you’ll be begging me to cease my constant demands.”
“I’ll never tire of you, my lord,” she assured him in a sleep-heavy murmur that caused him to press against her with a groan. Olivia spooned against him, nuzzling her luscious derriere against his enflamed cock with a trust that left him breathless.
His stomach clenched. She’d entrusted him with her life, and he’d endangered it already.
He had to put as much distance between them as possible and at the soonest opportunity.
“Who is she, Dominique?” Pierre asked, staring after the vanishing ship.
“The Countess of Merrick. What would you wager that Phoenix has gone to ransom her for a fortune we won’t get our share of?”
“I don’t make bets with you. You always win.”
Dominique smiled. “And we’ll win this time too.”
“How so?” Pierre asked curiously.
“You’ll see, brother. You’ll see.”
Chapter Four
Sebastian stepped onto the deck and turned completely around before spotting Olivia. Sitting on a barrel at the foredeck, she looked pensively over the water. He deliberately made his steps heard so as not to startle her. He smiled as she lifted a bottle to her lips and drank from it. “Care to share, love?”
She passed him the wine. “How was your dinner with the captain?”
“I’m not certain. I was distracted.”
“Oh? With what, may I ask?”
“With visions of you, naked in bed, eating supper without me.”
“As if I would ever eat naked,” she scoffed. “And in bed no less. I, for one, do not relish crumbs on my linens.” Her mouth curved in a contented smile. “Do you never think of anything other than sex?”
“Certainly. Just this afternoon I wondered what you were doing in the West Indies.”
Her smile faded.
It was the first time either one of them had broached the subject of their pasts. There had been a silent agreement between them to live only in the moment, but they approached England far too quickly. Soon they would present themselves to the world as Lord and Lady Merrick, yet they were hardly more than intimate strangers. He knew her body in minute detail, but her past and visions for their future remained a mystery.
Olivia sighed. “My father maintains a plantation there.”
“And you prefer it to London?”
“I enjoy the freedom.”
Sebastian frowned. There was something she wasn’t telling him. “And what of the Season? You are a diamond, my love. Your popularity is assured.”
Even as he said the words, his gut clenched. Men would swarm around his wife like bees to honey, her marital status making her even more desirable. The thought of other men drooling over Olivia while he was at sea made him murderous.
She looked out over the water, avoiding his gaze. “In the past, I’ve enjoyed the Season. I simply didn’t feel up to it this year.”
There was more, he knew, but Sebastian hesitated to press her further. Their time on the ship had been idyllic, and he didn’t wish to ruin it. Harsh reality would intrude soon enough. “And now that you’ve wed, do you intend to make England your home?”
That comment brought her gaze back to his. “Of course. Your home is my home now.”
“My home is at sea.”
Olivia nodded her agreement without hesitation, causing a sharp pain in his chest.
What had he expected? That she would cry and beg for him to remain with her? Hadn’t he capitulated merely to sate his lust, with the added bonus of acquiring the wife and heirs his cursed title demanded? Simply because he’d found his desire unquenchable and his need of deeper origin than he’d realized, did not mean his wife was experiencing the same.
He placed his hand on her shoulder and absently stroked the side of her throat with his thumb. “I shall visit you often.” He felt, rather than heard, her deeply indrawn breath.
Olivia leaned into him. “How often is ‘often’ to you?”
“I should pose that question to you, sweet,” he replied, passing the decision to her, while in truth he knew he would crave her and seek her out like a thirsty man would water. “We are in this marriage together.”
She hesitated before speaking. “Should you decide to come home at least every six months, you will be able to ascertain if I am breeding or not.”
Sebastian stilled. “Breeding.” Good God. He could imagine it, picture it clearly—Olivia increasing with his child.
“You’re hurting me,” she whispered, her hand prying at his fingers on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” Dazed, he handed her the bottle and began to rub the marks left by his fingertips. “You startled me.”
“So I gathered. But it was you who said that one of my duties would be to bear your heirs.”
Duty. Not pleasure. Heirs. Not children.
Suddenly there was a distinction between them, one that irritated him and made him restless.
He reached for her hand. “I should like to retire.”
Turning, she searched his face. He could feel the air altering around them, shifting even as their relationship did. What was happening? Sebastian stood rigid under her scrutiny. What did she see in him with those dark eyes that bored right through him?
He was profoundly relieved when Olivia placed her hand in his and followed him to their bed, where heady pleasure and drugging forgetfulness awaited them.
Sebastian stared up at the ruby red velvet canopy and sighed with contentment.
Olivia’s heated breath puffed across the head of his cock. “What are you thinking?” she asked.
He glanced down to where his wife lay prone between his legs. She’d spent the last hour in studious examination of his member, tracing every vein, caressing every bit of his hard length with her hands and mouth, purring her delight like a cat with cream. She made him feel supremely masculine; a man appreciated completely by his mate, her admiration a welcome salve after a lifetime of feeling insignificant. At least in this one endeavor, that of being Olivia’s husband, he had not been found lacking. “You,” he answered. “This bed. Our marriage.”
She crossed her hands on his upper thigh and rested her chin upon them. “Do you have regrets?” she asked in a steady voice, even as her expressive eyes showed her worry.
He reached down to caress her tumbled hair. “No. Come closer.”
Olivia rose to her hands and knees, her full breasts swaying as she climbed along the length of his body. She’d become quite comfortable with her nakedness over these last weeks, and he appreciated their growing familiarity.
She purred with pleasure as she draped her body over his. He reached up and pulled her hair to the side so he could nuzzle her throat unhindered.
“Sebastian.”
“Umm?”
“Tell me about your family.”
He sighed. “They are a pack of vultures, sweeting. The entire lot of them.”
“Surely there must be some members of your family whose company you enjoy.”
“I was quite fond of my brother, Edmund.”
She frowned. “What about your mother?”
He stared at the canopy again. “There is nothing I can tell you, other than she was very beautiful, and I know this only because I’ve seen her portrait. I don’t remember her at all.”
“How did she die?”
He slid his hands through her hair and cupped the back of her head. “I don’t know that she is dead. She ran off when I still an infant.”
“Oh, Sebastian.” Having caught the bitterness in his voice, hers filled with sympathy.
He choked out a laugh. “Don’t pity me, Olivia. I won’t have it. I don’t want it.”
“I won’t,” she soothed. “I know how it is to grow up without a mother. You and I are so alike, in the most unexpected of ways.” Her small hands came up to cradle his face. “Do you know why she ran away?”
/>
“Marriage to my father would do it, I would say. You’ll never have the misfortune to meet a colder or more vicious man.”
“That is something I cannot imagine.” Olivia fell silent, her fingertips drawing circles across his chest. “When was the last time you saw your father?” she asked finally.
He didn’t want to think about the marquess. Ever. “Five years ago.”
“Are you worried about seeing him again?”
Sebastian considered that for a moment. “I don’t believe so. After all, I am returning with the bride of his choosing. He should have no complaints, at least none outside the usual, which entails everything else about me.”
Olivia took a deep breath, the movement pressing her breasts more fully against his chest.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he urged when the silence stretched out.
She hesitated, then her natural forthrightness won out. “Would I have been your choice for a bride? Or did you—”
“Yes,” he interjected, deducing the nature of her query. “If I’d been of the mind to be leg-shackled, I would most definitely have selected your fetter over any other. And no. What is between you and I has nothing to do with my father. If you think on it further, love, you will see that discarding you would have served my rebellion better.”
She sighed and offered a relieved smile. “When will we arrive in London?”
“A week perhaps.”
“That’s all?” Her smile faltered, then faded completely.
Sebastian frowned. “Why so miserable, sweet?”
With a wriggle of her hips, she positioned his cock at her entrance and engulfed him easily, her passage slick with his seed.
His breath hissed out through his teeth as pleasure, searing and almost painful, coursed through his blood. “Dear God,” he groaned. It was like fucking his way into a velvet fist, every time more astonishingly rapturous than the last.
“Do you intend to leave me immediately after we return?” Olivia rose up to a seated position, taking more of him into her body until the dark honey curls of her sex tangled with his black ones and he felt the warmth of her womb cap his erection. The visual and physical combination made him swell even further inside her, stretching her until she moaned.
“W-what?” He couldn’t think.
She rose up on her knees and then slid back down along his shaft, killing him softly. “Will you leave me in London immediately?”
He caressed the satin skin of her thighs, his entire body consumed with fever. “No . . . I don’t know . . .” He gasped as she rode him again. Lightning bolted into his spine and radiated outward. “What do you want . . . me to do?”
Olivia undulated around him, over him, against him, her fingertips swirling over his flat nipples. Damn, she’d become so familiar with his body, she played it with the skill of the finest courtesan. She knew just where to touch him, where to stroke him, to turn him to putty in her hands.
“I want you to stay with me, just for a short time.” She moved again, slowly, caressing his throbbing cock with silken, drenched heat. Sebastian gritted his teeth, his back arching against his will. “There will be balls and luncheons in our honor, callers to our home. I don’t want to endure it all alone.”
She tightened her inner muscles on him and tweaked his nipples. His sac grew tight, his seed rising, heating. Bloody hell, he was ready to spend himself and she had just begun.
“Of course, love,” he groaned, willing to give her anything she asked. “There’s no rush . . . for me to depart. I’ll stay . . . as long as you . . . think is best. Just do that again . . . oh, yes . . . again . . .”
Olivia’s smile was triumphant as she rested her palms flat on his chest and began to ride him in earnest, lifting and falling in a pounding rhythm, moaning in a way that drove him insane. The part of his brain that still functioned realized she’d managed him to her liking with the use of her body, but the part of him presently being milked inside her didn’t care. She loved his cock—loved to ride it, kiss it, suck on it—and he loved to give it to her. He was mad for her, mad for her pleasure, mad for her touch.
As her body spasmed around him and she cried out his name, Sebastian found he didn’t mind being managed at all. He clutched her hips in his hands, holding her still while he thrust upward into her, prolonging her pleasure. Only when her head fell forward in exhaustion did he allow his own release, spurting his seed in endless bursts against her womb, his body wracked with a pleasure so piercing it robbed him of all thoughts but one: she wanted to keep him with her.
“What in hell are you doing?” Olivia cried as she stepped into the cabin.
The knife in her husband’s hand clattered into the bowl of water on the vanity, creating a fine mess. Sebastian stood in front of her cherry-framed mirror, naked from the waist up and impossibly gorgeous. As always, her heart skipped a beat just looking at him.
In the last few weeks, he’d shared daily living with her in every way a man would share his life with his wife. He’d observed her in the bath, watched her eat, and assisted her toilette. In return, she’d become fascinated with watching his masculine ablutions. She relished brushing his hair and mending tears in his clothing. She adored taking care of him and giving him the affection he’d gone so long without. Sebastian absorbed every drop with an awed appreciation that tugged at her heart.
“Damnation,” he groused, brushing the splattered water off his torso with a towel. “You are like to scare the wits from me, woman!”
“I’ll be scaring more than your wits if I ever find you attempting that again!”
He took a deep, slow breath. Olivia set her arms akimbo and tapped her foot indignantly.
“You said it was unfashionably long,” he explained, still holding his hair in his hand.
“So it is.”
“Well, we’re docking in a few hours.”
“I’m aware of that.” And she hated it, hated that soon they would lose the wondrous intimacy of their long sea voyage and endless days of pleasure in their bed. Within hours, she would be simpering and smiling at the vultures of Society, the very ones who had picked her flesh to the bone only a year ago. And she would have to share her darling husband with them, a man who bore wounds that still festered. The thought made her stomach turn.
“Therefore I’m cutting it,” he said curtly.
“No, you are not.”
His blue eyes met hers, capped with a frown. “Make sense, Olivia, and hurry up about it!”
She released her breath and stepped toward him, not stopping until her body was pressed against his. She wrapped her arms around his lean waist. “I like your hair the way it is.”
Disbelief etched his handsome features.
“I like running my fingers through it when you are sitting down and I’m standing at your shoulder. I like seeing strands of it left on my pillow. I like it swaying around my shoulders when you are thrusting deep inside of me.” With gentle fingers, she pried his hair from his tense grasp and rubbed her face in it.
“I was cutting it for you,” he said hoarsely.
“Keep it for me,” she whispered, meeting his intense gaze. “When we stand in crowded ballrooms, I will see your queue and know that you are mine. I will be reminded of how wild you are, how you struggle against the bonds that hold you, and I will think to myself, ‘He chose the bonds that bound him to me.’ And I will be happy.”
Her hands stroked up the rippled expanse of his torso and came to rest over his heart. It beat beneath her palm in a panicked rhythm.
“God, Olivia,” he breathed in a strangled whisper. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
Stepping backward, she grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the bed. “We have a few hours left. Why don’t you show me?”
Sebastian looked out over the smelly, sooty mess that was the London wharf and, despite his best efforts, felt his stomach tie up in knots. He’d fled England the day after Edmund died and had never returned, had never wanted t
o, still didn’t.
He sighed, taking comfort in Olivia. He would not be alone in this. His wife was thoroughly consummate in the social arts.
“Good God!” she cried from behind him.
Frowning, he spun on his heel. “What is it, love?”
Olivia stood just outside the stairway, resplendent in a blue silk damask gown with lace-edged bodice and sleeves. A shiver of awareness flowed through him, bright and insistent.
Her hand was pressed to her heart. “You . . . good grief . . .” She shook her head slowly. “Damn, you stopped my heart for a moment.”
“Don’t swear,” he admonished with a roll of his eyes.
His wife had spent far too many days at sea with foul-mouthed sailors, which was understandable considering her father’s trade. While he admonished her regularly, in truth he found her colorful speech rather charming. The small foible made her seem less perfect and more real, more his. After all, he was a man of overwhelmingly numerous faults.
He waited patiently for her to explain the cause of her distress. Then Sebastian noted the feminine appreciation that lit her eyes and the smile that curved her lush mouth. In fact, now that he was paying attention, he had to admit she looked completely besotted. With him. He grinned. “I take it you approve of my attire.”
Olivia glided toward him, all graceful elegance and luscious woman. “You look quite dashing. Magnificent, actually.”
She pressed herself against him, heedless of the sailors who swarmed the deck and the pedestrians who moved along the crowded wharf. Her hands slid along the lapels of his fine wool coat, down the intricately embroidered silk of his waistcoat, over the bulge of his cock in his snug breeches, and around to the curve of his ass. Thankfully, her wandering touch was hidden from view by his long coat.
“You, my gorgeous pirate, polish up beautifully.” With a firm grip on his hips, she tugged herself toward him, smiling wickedly. “Your cock is hard. Do you never tire of bedsport, Captain Phoenix?”
Cupping the curve of her neck, he pressed an ardent kiss to her forehead. “Impossible with a wife as lusty as mine.”