Page 44

She was sleek and slippery, and he stroked deep into the heated folds of her flesh, groaning when he felt how hot she was, how tight, how soft and wet and quick she was to respond to the intrusion.

The first shivering volley of pleasure was starting to tighten all the grasping little muscles even as her hands clutched at his shoulders and her head shook side to side in denial.

Spasms drenched her with more heat and it was not enough, suddenly, just to hear her crying out his name in disbelieving whispers.

He withdrew his fingers and made a similarly accommodating gap in his own clothing, then, with her body still quivering with shock, with pleasure, he hooked her legs over his thighs and lifted her onto his lap.

“You’re mad,” she gasped. “We’ll both fall.”

“Not if you hold on,” he snarled savagely, “and trust me.”

Beau spared a glance for the deck, still thirty feet below, and then she spared nothing, for the solid shaft of his flesh was furrowing up inside her, so hard and thick and unyielding, she had no choice but to lock her arms around his shoulders and trust his madness.

Both of his hands were braced on the mast now, his feet were hooked through lines of rigging.

Every muscle and sinew in his arms and across his back stiffened as he pushed up into her clinging heat and a primitive sound broke from his throat.

The ship took a frisky leap through a deep trough and one of his feet slipped, leaving him scrambling a moment to balance himself and his precious burden on a yardarm no wider around than a tree trunk.

“Wait,” he commanded desperately. “Wait. Hold yourself there, or I swear— ”

Beau was panting lightly against his neck, her body paralyzed, not from fear but from the almost inconceivable depth of his penetration.

“You might be right,” he admitted raggedly. “This is mad. I can’t move. I can’t … do anything. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You are not hurting me,” she assured him on the outward escape of another breath. “And you don’t have to move. You don’t have to do anything at all.”

To prove it, she arched her back and let the ship’s motion press her hips forward, swallowing him to the hilt. They both groaned, then groaned again when the Egret rocked back and the pressure eased.

“Don’t … do that again,” he warned softly. “Or I will explode.”

“I … can’t help it,” she cried, half laughing, half sobbing, as the Egret plunged again.

The rocking motion, less pronounced on deck, was magnified by the weight and pull of the sails, by the rush of the wind, and the vibrations that shook the stem of the mast. Each giddy swoop brought him deeper and deeper inside her until it seemed he might touch her heart.

Dante’s arms were shaking, his teeth were clenched tight enough to make his jaw ache, but there was nothing he could do.

His body tensed and his flesh reared, and his pleasure did indeed explode with a stunning lack of finesse.

Beau felt the throb of each scalding burst and bit down hard on his shoulder to keep from crying out, to keep from screaming as the waves of ecstasy began to sweep through her with an equally fierce and unrelenting mercilessness.

“It occurs to me,” he said some time later, his voice hoarse and muffled against her throat, “we might both need rescuing. ”

Beau shuddered softly and burrowed closer to the massive bulk of his chest. The conflagrant waves of heat had passed but not the pleasure. If anything it remained steady and threatening, sending small spirals of warm thrills along her spine and through her limbs.

“We should try standing up,” he suggested gently.

She opened her eyes and debated the question from the point of if she wanted to stand up.

“I don’t think I can,” she whispered. “I don’t even think I can move.”

Dante risked unclamping a hand from the mast ring and found her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

Her eyes were glazed and heavy-lidded. Her mouth was deliciously puffed and moist but he refrained from kissing her, suspecting if he did, they might never find the strength to untangle themselves and climb safely down the rigging.

Even now the motion of the Egret was working its mischief again, making him aware of the sleek, molten friction where their bodies were still joined.

“We’ll make a pretty sight when the watch changes.”

Beau frowned and leaned forward, silencing his common sense with her lips. His tongue was too gallant to refuse her invitation and she welcomed him into her mouth with a languid sigh, running all ten fingers up into his hair and refusing to let him go until he’d been properly rebuked.

He groaned but still he eased her reluctantly away.

She resisted half-heartedly for another moment, then let him lift her off his thighs and settle her back on the yardarm.

They were both embarrassingly wet, although he seemed to regard the evidence of their expended passions with somewhat less mortification than she.

“Mon petit corsaire féroce” he mused.

“What?”

“My fierce little corsair. Only you could have inspired me to such desperate measures.”

“So you admit it. You are mad.” She glanced at the belling sail below them. “On a yardarm, for pity’s sake. We could have both ended up in the sea.” She looked to her rumpled and torn clothing and sighed. “It would not hurt to learn a little restraint.”

“Me?” His dark brows shot up. “I have been showing remarkable restraint this past week. You cannot know the number of times I have been tempted to haul you out of your miserable hammock again and— by the way, you never thanked me.”

“For what?”

“For letting you enjoy a good night’s sleep … alone … in your own bed.”

Distracted momentarily by the shape of his mouth and the intriguing way he used it to fashion words, she gazed up into his eyes and wondered if she should feel cheated or guilty.

“So … why did you do it?”

“For one thing, you were dead tired. For another … I did not intend to force something on you that you didn’t really want. I foolishly thought—like the arrogant bastard you believe me to be—I would wait until you came to me.”

'I did not come to you tonight,” she pointed out quietly.

“Not by design, no. But neither did you push me away. Or refuse me my madness. And after tonight, whether I come to you or you come to me, it will make little difference in the end.”

A gust of wind caused Beau to turn her head and look out over the vastness of the sea.

It defied all logic to be straddling a yardarm thirty feet above the gundeck of a moving ship, her thighs slick, her body runny and warm, her sex pouting, quivering for more.

It defied every shred of common sense and judgment to even let there be an ‘after tonight’ …

yet what could she do? Where could she go to hide from him?

The Egret was a small ship and she was an even smaller fool.

“Surely you know … this cannot possibly last beyond the first step we take on English soil.”

There was a very noticeable hesitation before he said, “England is more than two weeks away. We could grow quite bored with each other in that time—gallery balconies and swaying yards aside.”

She rested her head against the mast, feeling suddenly trapped in the narrow space between his outstretched arms. “And if we become bored with each other before then?”

He shrugged blithely. “Then it’s you to your solitary hammock and me to my solitary bed.”

“And on to a civil parting on the quayside in Plymouth?” she added dryly.

“It will be so civil, mam’selle, the angels will weep.

” He laughed at her expression and pulled himself up so that he was standing on the yardarm.

He adjusted his clothes, then reached a hand down to help her to her feet, and on an impulse drew her against his chest, holding her there long enough for her to feel the hardness rising in his body again.

“But for now, ma petite , and for the next two weeks, we’ll make them weep over other things, shall we?”