Page 37

Dante felt every word ripple across the nape of his neck.

Her voice was low, quivering with the effort to sound calm and detached, but laced with enough tension to send tendrils of shock coursing down his spine.

Desire pooled hot and heavy in his loins, and he reclaimed some of the distance he had put between them.

He sank his fingers into the tousled pelt of her hair and drew her forward.

He tilted her face up to his and for a long moment just held her that way, their mouths a breathless gasp apart, waiting until he could count the heartbeats in her eyes before he kissed her.

It was a savage, relentless kiss, one that invaded her mouth, filled it, and molded it to his own with a fierce passion.

His lips were merciless, his tongue ravaging, but instead of frightening her or shocking her, it brought her crushing into his arms. It sent her hands curling up and around his broad shoulders, it brought her body straining eagerly against his, riding the hardness of his thighs with an urgency that sent one of his hands down to cradle her bottom and pull her roughly against him.

He lifted her away from the awkward canting of the gallery windows and propped her on the oak rail, wedging himself boldly between her thighs, nearly gasping himself as their two heated centers came together.

Beau’s hands pushed into the thick, shaggy mane of his hair and kept his mouth fastened to hers even as he began to search out the bindings of her shirt.

Impatience made his efforts clumsy and he tore the garment down the front seam; tore it and tugged it free of her belt with a throaty growl as he dispensed with yet another hidden knife.

Belt, shirt, and knife were cast into the inky blackness of the sea twenty feet below, the splash lost among the other night sounds .

His eyes, glowing like pewter in the moonlight, registered their surprise and their pleasure.

Her breasts were small but perfectly shaped to fill the cup of his hand, lush enough to draw a groan of appreciation from his throat as he bowed his head and drew the puckered flesh into his mouth.

The stunning intimacy was too much to bear in silence and a strained plea came from her throat, begging him not to stop but to pull her deeper into the heat and wetness.

Partially supported by the rail, partially supported by the enormous bulge of his erection, she flung her head back and let the moonlight bathe her bare shoulders, let it silver the rippling power of his broad back and show her where his mouth worked so skillfully, so determinedly to turn her into a shivering, shuddering mass of pleasure.

His hands, clamped rigidly around her waist, began to tremble with the force of his own aroused passions, and with another smothered oath Dante lifted her into his arms again, snarling a soft threat into her mouth that kept her limbs wrapped tightly around his waist. He carried her inside the cabin and directly to the bed, each step increasing the friction and the urgency between them.

A moment, no more, was all he wasted tearing aside the last flimsy barriers of their clothing before she was lying naked beneath him.

He was poised between her thighs, hard and thick and pulsing with eagerness, and then he was inside her, breeching the last of her doubts with the swift, invasive heat of his body.

Her lips parted around a gasp—a gasp that was startled into a soundless cry of disbelief and awe as he filled her, filled her, filled her so full and taut and deep, she had no time to brace herself as the first wave of pleasure swept through her, shattering all perceptions of pleasure that had gone before.

He thrust again and again, and the heat was so fierce, the sensations so shockingly explicit, she clutched at the rigid muscles of his arms. But they were still slick with oil and her hands skidded down to his hips, holding him fast, arching feverishly into one rich torrent of pleasure after another.

Dante’s body echoed her every spasm. She was supple and hot, unbelievably sleek and greedy, pulling him deeper and deeper into the tightening fist of her sex.

He was not surprised to find he had awakened a fiery passion within her; he was surprised by the intensity of the heat pouring into his own loins, by the helpless urgency fueling his every thrust. The taunts, the challenges, the game of cat and mouse he had played, had been deliberate.

He had played it because he was a man and he had gone without a woman too long, and he had played it only for the pleasure of stalking something wild and untamable and bringing it to ground beneath him.

He had not expected to want more than a swift, perfunctory release.

He had not expected to feel more. And yet he did.

He was trembling like a loose sheet of canvas; his bound and reinforced edges were unraveling, fraying more and more with each startled cry that broke from her lips.

An ache he had not felt in too many years to recall began to govern each stroke, each gust of ragged air torn from his throat.

He wanted to feel her wrapping herself around him, he wanted to see her flushed with passion, racked with pleasure.

He wanted to take her to the highest peaks of ecstasy and beyond, and he wanted to share that ecstasy with her, soak himself in it, drown himself in it.

His heart thundered in his chest, his blood pounded in his veins, and he could hear her name whispered over and over on his lips.

He could feel his body gathering in upon itself, channeling all the heat, the power, the feverish hunger, into nothing more noble than the savage rise and fall of his hips.

As Beau arched up beneath him, he threw his head back and braced himself on outstretched arms, stiffening, shuddering in the throes of an orgasm so bright and brilliant, it was all he could do to keep from roaring his pleasure out loud.

As it was, he was helpless to hold the smallest part of himself back as he spent himself in a white-hot and seemingly endless climax within her.

Beau was melting. Trembling. Quivering like a silk pennant on a shiver of wind.

Dante’s solid presence was still inside her, thudding against dewy folds of flesh that had gone slack and buttery with shock.

Her hands were still grasped to his hips and her legs were locked tightly around his.

His breath was warm against her throat, his body was heavy and damp and, where it was wedged between her thighs, as reluctant as she was to relinquish the gentle rocking motions that were bringing them slowly back to reality.

A final satiated groan brought him to a languid halt. He was all chest and arms and rock-hard thighs and he must have felt her trying to shift slightly beneath him, for he lifted his head out of the crook of her shoulder and thoughtfully transferred some of his weight onto his elbows.

Sometime between being outside and coming inside, the candle had died and there was only moonlight bathing their features. His face was a mixture of pale light and shadow, mostly the latter because of his hair, which had become as wild and tangled as her own.

“Well,” he murmured, and then just “Well,” again.

Beau searched for something equally profound to say, but her tongue seemed to have become too clumsy to do more than keep company with her teeth.

Her hair was spread across the bedding, and her legs—one was wedged against the cabin wall and the other had nowhere to go but off the side of the bed—felt chafed and tenderly abused along the inner thighs.

A movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she turned her head slightly—with Dante following the motion—to see a pair of hose snagged on the corner of the chart table where he had tossed them.

Reading the consternation in her eyes, Dante bent his head down and nibbled gently at the corners of her mouth. “You will have to forgive me, mam’selle, if I was a tad overeager. It has been a long time and my … manners … may have been somewhat lacking.”

“You tore my shirt,” she said, frowning. “And threw it overboard.”

“It was worth the price of a replacement,” he murmured, running his lips along her chin and down the supple length of her throat.

“A belt and a knife as well.”

“I’ll buy you a dozen more. For that matter, you are a wealthy young woman now, you can afford to buy your own and to throw them overboard after each time you wear them.”

Beau let her senses track the progress of his mouth as he nuzzled her temple, her cheek, the tight, damp curls that lay below her ear.

A smile curved her lips and for one mad, irrational moment, she wanted to thank him, for he had done his best and she had survived, emerged with all of her faculties intact.

She could breathe, think, react, reason. She could regain control again.

The moment passed and the smile became an open-mouthed sigh. His lips were around her breast, grazing impudently on her nipple.

“Are you not … the least bit sleepy, Captain?” she asked dreamily .

“Truthfully?” He paused and warmed her skin with a slow roll of his tongue. “No. Are you?”

Beau contemplated her answer while she watched his mouth take a meandering course from one pinkened nipple to the other. If anything, she felt remarkably exhilarated, even though seconds ago she could have sworn every muscle and bone in her body had melted away to nothing.

His tongue made a final, wet revolution before his dark head came up and he gazed thoughtfully at the lushness of her mouth.

“Because if you are—” his hands twined around the silky ribbons of her hair and the heat of his body pressed forward, stretching and swelling within her— “I am afraid you are going to have to tolerate my ill manners again. And possibly again after that.”

Beau’s great golden eyes shimmered up at him. Her hands skimmed lightly around the strong column of his neck and threaded themselves with equal conviction into the glossy black mane. “Father would say good manners are required only at the Queen’s table.”

“Your father is a wise man.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I know.”