“I do not think they’d like that any more than buying wrinkle cream. Did you really ask Thomas to try on gowns?”
She looked contrite. “I decided I would not at the last.”
“I imagine he was thankful.”
He could stay away from her no longer. He closed the distance between them and slid his arm around her waist.
She looked up at him, her eyes soft. “I must go home.”
“But I want you to stay.”
“It is impossible.”
He drew his hand up to cup the swell of her breast, and leaned to the fragrant curve of her neck. She closed her eyes. “But perhaps,” she murmured. “I could stay a little longer.”
She smelled so good. How he could have ever thought another woman would satisfy him, he did not know. Sara had been a bird made to fly away. Alexandra was made of sterner stuff, though she appeared frailer than the robust Sara. But Alexandra would keep her feet firmly on the ground, stand at his side. Sara had been a wild spirit, true to none but herself. Alexandra would remain steadfastly loyal to whatever man she chose.
Lucky man.
It had been not even a full day and night since he’d made love to her, but his body was still hungry. His hands wanted to tumble her hair, to soothe the heat of her skin, to slide over the curve of her hips. He wanted to taste her mouth and her female places and let his tongue drive her to madness once more.
His cabin was only steps away. He could grow fond of his cabin.
He slid his hands beneath her hair and slanted his mouth across hers. He could taste her anger, her frustration, but despite this her lips softened for his, returned his gentle pressure. At last, with a small sigh of surrender, she dropped her head back and closed her eyes. Her hands came up to rest on his chest, fingers curled.
So little time. Only a few weeks to know her, to explore her, to love her. And then the chaos of his life would come to a head and he and James Ardmore would meet a final time.
Too soon. He had not known what gifts life would give him. He’d never dreamed he would grow to love his daughter until every breath she took was his breath too. He never knew his heart could expand like this, never knew such feelings could find their way into the cynical, hard-bitten Grayson Finley. He only knew he wanted to tarry here a while, with Alexandra and this newfound hunger.
“Grayson, please,” she whispered.
“It is I who will be begging, love.” He pressed a kiss to the line of her hair, where fire met white. “Let me bed you again.”
She shook her head, her ringlets brushing his lips.
“I beg you,” he said.
She shook her head again, still not looking at him.
The correct thing to do when a lady rejected his advances was to swallow his pride, give an uncaring shrug, and depart. He remained in place, tracing circles on the base of her neck. “My pride is trembling, Alexandra.”
“I am confused,” she said. “You so confuse me.”
He kissed her cheek. “I want you. There is nothing confusing about that.”
The wind stirred her skirts and strands of her long hair. “I wish to marry. But you tumble me like a tavern girl and sequester me on your ship. I do not know what you want.”
He traced her cheek. What did he want? Her, he knew that. Happiness? Maggie. Time. He drew a breath. Peace.
“Do you want me, Alexandra?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Yes. If you must know the truth, I do.”
His heart leapt.
She held up her hand. “But am I to be your mistress? I cannot be. Or will I be a pirate’s lady and sail away with you? I believe your crew truly will mutiny if I do that.”
His lips twitched, but he suppressed his smile. “I told you, I am not leaving England.”
“Because of Maggie.”
Mutely, he nodded.
“Good. She does need you, Grayson. From what I gather, she did not have a proper upbringing.” She smiled, a shining light of glory. “I am pleased that you shouted at the missionaries.”
He bit back a laugh. “She told you about that?”
“Yes. And that you bought her all kinds of absurd presents. And shaved off your pirate’s whiskers for her. You are a good man, my lord, a fine gentleman. Even though my feelings toward you are extremely wrong and a bit distressing, I do see the goodness in you.”
He looked down at himself. “You do? Where?”
“Here.” She laid her palm flat against his chest. She looked suddenly puzzled and lifted her fingers away.
Grayson unbuttoned his coat. Beneath it stretched a leather bandolier that held his pistol in its holster. He shrugged off the coat, unbuckled the bandolier, and laid it and the pistol on the bench under the starboard rail. He spread his arms. “Better?”
“You so confuse me.”
“I am what you see. Nothing to confuse you.”
He reached for her. She stepped away, smoothly sliding from his outstretched fingers. His hands closed on emptiness.
“For heaven’s sake, Grayson, you are a pirate.”
“Private merchantman. The charge of piracy is pending. And, if I find the French king, it will be dismissed.”
She made a noise of exasperation. “It does not matter what you call yourself. I know nothing about your world.” She waved her hands at the ship around her. “You have battles with ships and you have been sliced open and shot. I only know drawing rooms and at-homes and balls and operas. I have ladies and gentlemen coming to call—and pirate hunters do not try to murder my next-door neighbors. You—” She pointed a slim finger at him. “I do not know what to make of you. You still have not told me what you want.”
“I want to know you,” he said softly.
She shook her head, her ringlets dancing. “You want to come to my bed and make me feel all wild and strange. I want to lick your skin, and I have never in my life wanted to do something so wicked.”
He smiled slowly. “You want to taste me? I am pleased.”
She wagged her finger at him. “No, do not smile at me like that. You make me all confused inside. You make me long to say ‘Yes, please, Grayson, let us tumble on the bed as we did last night and throw caution to the wind.’ ”
Warm sensations pricked his loins. “It was not entirely on the bed.”
“Do not interrupt, please. You want to ravish me like a common tart, or a lady passenger who is no better than she ought to be.”
He stopped. “Lady passenger?”
“Yes. That is what pirates do, is it not? You enter a lady’s cabin, seduce her, and steal her jewels. While you are sinking the ship, of course.”
Mirth danced in him. “Is that what you were thinking last night?” His desires began to rampage. “Well, if you would like to play such a game, Alexandra, I am willing.”
She glared at him, but her cheeks turned a beautiful pink. “Do not be ridiculous. Besides, it is not my game. It is Mrs. Waters’s.”
He frowned, lost. “Mrs. Waters?”
“You met her in my reception room last week. Before the accident outside my house. You remember—the woman in blue with very black hair.”
His memory brought the event into focus. He remembered a large woman with a doughy face and small brown eyes, her hair unnaturally black. She had batted her lashes at him and blatantly roved a hungry gaze up and down his body. Alarm touched him. “Good lord. She thought that about me?”
“You must have done such things as a pirate.”
He lifted his hands. “Alexandra, I assure you, if I had ever attacked a passenger ship, and if I even suspected that Mrs. Waters was onboard, I would have fled in the opposite direction.”
“It makes no difference. I have behaved like a common—lady passenger. And you did steal my jewels.” She glared accusingly.
“I remember you begging me to take them.”
“I cannot imagine what you wanted with them. Maggie says you have emeralds, and you said you have opals. Why did you want my ugly diamonds?”
He smiled a little. “It is a surprise.” Indeed, he had surprised the Bond Street jeweler that afternoon when he’d strode into the shop and flung down the diamonds and the handful of opals, five perfect stones, and said, “Do something with these.” The jeweler had gaped, then the artist in him had taken over and he’d lifted an opal to peer at it through his glass. “Exquisite, my lord, most exquisite. Yes, yes, I can make quite a fine setting. Your lady will be most pleased.”
Grayson’s whole awareness at the moment had narrowed to pleasing his lady. He took up her hand and placed it on his chest. Her palm was warm through his linen shirt. “Perhaps you could be a lady passenger in the captain’s cabin,” he said, his heart beating fast and hard. “And I, the wicked pirate, could find you there.”
Her lips parted, her eyes clouding in confusion. “No, I—”
“Or on deck will do just as well. It is dark, and my crew is all below.”
“Grayson—”
She had firmly drifted from calling him “my lord” to using his given name. Good. He wanted her to know him, inside and out. The viscount was definitely on the outside.
A sudden sharp gust blew across them, cutting the summer air with the chill of the North Sea. Alexandra, in thin cotton, shivered. “Perhaps we should go in.” She gave him a sharp look. “But only because I am cold.”
He smiled and led her there.
Chapter Sixteen
Inside the warm cabin, Grayson drew her into his arms. They rocked a little together, swaying with the gentle motion of the ship.
After a time, Alexandra shifted, but her arms stayed firmly around him. “I think—” She paused. “I believe, Grayson, that I shall not allow you to bed me anymore.” She nodded. “Yes, I believe that is the correct thing to do.”
He smiled into her hair. “I would be more convinced if you were not hugging me so tightly.”
“I cannot seem to let go.”
He understood. She needed someone to hold, someone to put her arms around, someone to comfort her. He kissed the silk of her hair, let his palm stroke the soft warmth of it.
How strange the civilized world was. On board his ship or in port taverns, he had but to slip his arm about a woman’s waist, and all would understand the signal. She was his. Not to be touched. Rules were a bit different in fashionable London. There, if a woman was yours, you very carefully did not touch her, at least in public. He cared nothing for such ridiculous strictures, but she did. She lived her life by rules that made her miserable. He sensed, though, that she would be even more miserable if she broke those rules.
He skimmed his lips across hers. “If you do not wish me to bed you, then we shall do something else.”
To his delight she looked slightly disappointed. “What?”
He loosed her hold, then strolled away from her, across the small room to his bunk. “Well, my lady, let us suppose you are a pirate, and I am a passenger.”
Her lips parted.
He laid on the bunk and stretched out his arms and legs. The bed had been constructed to fit him so that he would not be flung about in stormy seas. His right leg and arm hung over the wooden side, but so be it. He half closed his eyes. “Do as you will, my lady.”
And please do not turn and run from me, leaving me lying here like a fool. She had already battered his pride into tiny pieces. She had the power to break him completely.
Slowly, slowly, her slippers whispered across the board floor. His heart began to pound. He counted the steps—five, six, seven. Through his lashes he watched her pause at the bedside. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders, damp and curled from the river-sea air. Her cool eyes riveted to him, her thick lashes shielding them as her gaze swept down his body.
Every one of his muscles tensed as that gaze roved him. He willed himself to lie still, not to leap from the bed, seize her, drag her to him.
She touched his shirt. He held his breath, certain that if he moved one fraction of an inch, she would stop, overcome by lady-like impulses, and run away.
Alexandra took hold of one drooping tape that tied his shirt and softly pulled it. The tape slithered through the knot, and the lacing parted.
Sweat pricked him, cooling his skin from the hot fires that raced through his blood. He forced himself to wait, to see what she’d do.
Gently and slowly, she pushed the loosened shirt open. She looked upon him for a long time, her gaze tracing his chest. She reached down, her fingers landing on the round bullet scar on his left shoulder. She traced it, her fingers moving over the jagged hole that, long ago, had rendered him unable to prevent the murder of Ardmore’s brother.
She whispered. “I do not wish to bed you. You understand that?”
“Yes, my lady,” he said obediently.
She looked relieved. He suppressed a laugh. She leaned down, her fragrance dancing over him, and pressed her tongue to the hollow of his throat.
“Love,” he moaned.
Her tongue brushed fire over his skin. She kissed his throat, then his chin; then she raised her head. “Your whiskers feel strange.” She touched the tip of her tongue to them again. “I like them.”
He liked that she liked them. He hadn’t shaved since early that morning, so his face must be like sandpaper. She seemed to find this fascinating.
He closed his eyes, willing himself to lie still and enjoy every moment. His shirt opened wider. Her tongue touched the cutlass scar on his right shoulder. Ardmore had given him the wound while Grayson had still been trying to recover from the gunshot. The sword cut, delivered in Ardmore’s grief and rage at his brother’s death, had laid Grayson low for weeks. He’d raved like a madman in his fever, while Oliver had nursed him as though he’d been a helpless boy. He’d sensed death’s wings beating near, but Oliver had pulled him back to life.
Thank God he’d lived so that he might lie on his bunk while a most beautiful lady tasted him.
She let her tongue trace the path of the old injury. She glided over his ribs down to the hard muscles of his stomach that had ached for months until he’d rebuilt their strength. Down farther to stop, barricaded, at his waistband.
His fingers moved of their own accord to the buttons of his breeches. “Let me assist you, lady.”
Her head came up. “No, I don’t want—”
Buttons popped under his shaking fingers. He forced himself to stop, to stretch his hands once again to his sides. He willed his desire to stay inside, out of sight, where it could not hurt anyone. “Do as you will,” he murmured, his voice cracking.
She knelt over him for a long time. Her eyes were dark, pupils widened, her red-brown hair fanning like a cape over her yellow-clad shoulders. And then, sweet girl, she very carefully drew the flap of his breeches aside to expose his hipbone and the end of the scar.
She dipped her head to him and took up where she’d left off. Her tongue moved from his abdomen to his hip, to the knotted white skin where the cut ended. Air touched him, cold, where she licked him. He shifted his weight, trying to still his arousal. It would escape his control and take her of its own accord if he did not contain it.
She lingered for a moment, her face hovering over his hip, her warm curls tangling across his stomach. He wanted to hold her, gather him to her, encourage her to continue.
But if he did, she might fly away like a frightened bird. Do not hold on, Sara had told him. Let go, and see what would be.
He knew somehow that losing this woman would be entirely different from the regret he’d felt when Sara had left him. Alexandra had already changed him. She’d touched him deeply in the short while he’d known her, and that change would not be easily forgotten.
Alexandra peered at the pale skin that showed in the square of his opened breeches. Slowly, timidly, she pulled the flap all the way back.
His arousal sprang out and landed heavily on his abdomen. Large, stiff, and not very happy, it lay there waiting for him to do something. He balled his fists.
She stared at it for a long time, her head bent so
he could not see her eyes. Her lips moved slightly, as if she were speaking, but no sound emerged. Moments slid by. The candle in the lantern above flickered, sputtered in melted wax, and flickered again.
Ever so lightly, she licked the tip of him. He gasped and squeezed his eyes closed.
Her warmth moved. “Does that hurt you?”
He took several breaths, trying to slow his heartbeat to only a frantic pace. “No, love. Quite the opposite.”
And please, please, please do it again.
What she did was kiss it. The light cushion of her lips pressed daintily to the tip. He clenched his fists so hard his nails drove into his palms. And still he willed himself to lie still, to say nothing. Any quip or teasing word might frighten her away, and then she’d go and so would this incredible feeling.
She delicately touched him with her tongue. Then she kissed him again. She grew bolder, playing a little, never giving him more than the briefest touch. She obviously had no idea how to pleasure a man, knew nothing of the studied methods of courtesans. She did not know how to take a man into her mouth, how to draw the maximum of pleasure from him.
And he did not care. What she did was more erotic than anything he’d ever felt before. She had already driven him closer to madness than any of Sara’s sexual games ever had. The tickle of Alexandra’s long hair, the sweet perfume of her, her light touch sent him into spirals of ecstasy. He pressed his hand to his face and stifled another groan.
What are you doing to me Alexandra Alastair?
He needed to be inside her right now. Inside and happy. But folds of fabric hid her, and he would never be able to fling aside the gown and pull her on top of him in time.
It was too late. He dragged in a breath, then groaned aloud. His seed spilled, scalding hot, onto his skin.
He opened his eyes in time to see her spring away in surprise. She came to rest at his feet, sitting back on her knees, her eyes wide. “What happened?”
“You happened,” he said between his teeth.
He groped in his pocket for a handkerchief, half embarrassed, yet flushed with joy. He wiped up the mess, then closed up his breeches again. “My sweet, you cannot be so beautiful and then touch a man so and expect nothing to happen.”