Page 30
Unwelcomed knots constricted her chest, making it suddenly difficult to breathe.
She would be lying if she tried to tell herself she was unaffected by his sheer animal magnetism, by the scent of sea water on his flesh, by the nearness of the berth and the thought of what his hands, his mouth, his body could do to hers.
It was a weakness she could ill afford, and one that she had to command and control lest it control her.
There was only one sure way to do so.
She set her empty glass aside and removed her green velvet short-coat.
Next, she loosened the lacing on her corset vest until it was easy to wriggle it down past her hips and kick to the floor.
With her gaze locked unwaveringly on his, she grasped the hem of her shirt and lifted it up and over her head, baring herself to the waist. The action sent her hair scattering wildly around her shoulders and where the light caught the reddish strands, it seemed to surround her head in a halo of fire.
The air between them become as charged as the moments before a lightning strike and it was Fonteyne’s turn to feel his mouth go dry and his body respond to her boldness.
There was a fierce splendor in the deliberate way her eyes issued the challenge.
She was exquisite and she was unique. She was a contrast in terms, impossible to measure against any other woman he had known.
He had seen her lift a twenty-four-pound ball of iron and feed it down the throat of a cannon without flinching at the weight, and he had seen her breathless and shivering, whimpering like a newborn kitten as he ran his tongue between her thighs.
His body remembered the sleek, pearly welcome as he thrust himself deep inside her. His flesh remembered the strength of her orgasms, and the explosive heat of his own.
He threw his glass aside, barely aware of it shattering against the boards.
A single step and she was in his arms. Their mouths slanted together in a kiss as powerful as the hungers fuelling it.
Without breaking the bond, he slid his hands to her hips, lifting her, setting her on the edge of his desk where he reached down to remove her boots then peel away her breeches.
He brushed her hair aside to reveal her breasts, naked and puckered with desire.
He leaned down to take a nipple into his mouth, his hands guiding her down so that her torso lay on top of the charts.
His lips moved to her throat, then travelled the sleek path into the valley between her breasts, teasing both before travelling lower to the taut flatness of her belly, circling there a moment before descending through the soft thatch of red curls where a single stroke of his tongue found another valley to explore.
Rose squirmed under the deliberate assault as his tongue parted, swirled, and probed.
Her hands searched for something to grab, to keep her from floating away, but found only papers and a heavy brass sextant.
His tongue grew bolder and her hands flew down to grasp fistfuls of his hair; and when he slid his arms under her thighs and lifted her legs over his shoulders, her whole body clenched and shuddered as the waves of pleasure rushed through her.
Her hips arched shamelessly to meet each thrust of his tongue; her fingers clawed and twisted, and when the urgency became almost too much to bear, she tried to speak, but only managed a harsh, guttural sound deep in her throat.
Sebastien lifted his head from between her thighs, his senses drowning in the taste of her.
He saw in her eyes what she wanted, needed, and, after one last long slow lick, he released himself from his breeches, pulled her hips forward to the edge of the desk, and breeched her body hard and fast. So fast and so deep was the joining that he had to steel himself not to climax the instant he felt the greedy, grasping little muscles spasm around his flesh.
Beneath him, Rose was lost in a welter of pleasure so intense she could not think. Her hands stayed tangled in his hair, her cries found echoes in his sharp, panted breaths.
Sebastien held back as long as he could. He felt his body tighten with a primal urgency. He drew on the last fevered shreds of strength for one final, magnificent thrust and surrendered himself to a deep, shocking release unlike anything he had experienced before.
In the throbbing silence that followed, they could feel each other’s heartbeats, feel the sticky dampness where their bodies pressed together.
His weight should have been a burden, but Rose relished it.
Her body was limp, without a shiver of substance; her legs hung limp over the edge of the desk, her arms were spread flat on the desk.
She was aware of the fact he was still very much inside her, but she made no move to dislodge him. A soft sigh escaped her lips, a deeply satisfied, saturated sound that sent a flood of warm contentment swirling through her body.
Drawing on some deep unknown reserve of strength, Rose managed to raise a hand and rest it on his upper arm. Having accomplished that much, her fingers curled and her hand slid gently back down onto the desk, the effort accompanied by a similar attempt to moisten her lips.
Sebastien lifted his head off her shoulder.
When he remained unmoving, she opened her eyes and saw that he was half-frowning, half-smiling as he looked at his own shoulder.
Rose followed his gaze to the wide black smear on his arm.
They both glanced aside to see where she had inadvertently knocked the inkwell over onto his sea chart.
A wide swath of wet black ink was splattered from one side of the Gulf to the other.
“You realize we may now end up in Cartagena rather than Barataria.”
Rose looked at her hand, covered in black ink. The reality of seeing herself splayed out like a strumpet on his desk might have made her laugh if not for the single word that brought her gaze up to his.
“We?”
He huffed out a breath. “I suspect I shall heartily come to regret it, but yes. We.”
She frowned. “Not… not because of this, I hope.”
He leaned up on his elbows and studied each facet of her face as if he might find the honest answer there.
“No. Not because of this.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. Because this should not have happened.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.” She pushed up against him and dislodge him from between her thighs. “But it will not happen again.”
Amused, he watched her stand on unsteady legs, then bend with determination to start gathering up her discarded clothes. “You are right, it probably shouldn’t have happened, but unless I misread all those begging little whispers in my ear, we both thoroughly enjoyed it.”
She straightened and stared at him with as much dignity as she could muster. “I did no such thing.”
“You did not whisper in my ear, or you did not enjoy?”
“I—" Her fists clenched around her clothes. “I have to get back to my ship.”
She actually took a step toward the door before remembering she was stark naked. Cursing softly, she dropped her boots and pulled her shirt over her head. There was still ink on her hand and it smeared the cambric and left a black streak in her hair.
Sebastien tucked himself back into his breeches and watched Rose fumbling to pull on her trousers and boots.
He wanted very much to grab her by the shoulders and stop her, hold her close, assure her that coming to him, wanting something from him and taking it with the confidence of a Valkyrie did not lessen his opinion of her.
Quite the contrary.
Before this day he had never put more energy into lovemaking than was required to ease his physical tensions and satisfy his appetites. Before this night he had never understood why the climax of the act was called the little death.
Now he knew.
“The Cygnet and Pride will be ready to sail on the morning tide,” she said.
Before he could answer, or even nod, she was out the door and vanished down the dark corridor.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
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- Page 9
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- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
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- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30 (Reading here)
- Page 31
- Page 32
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- Page 36
- Page 37
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- Page 41
- Page 42
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- Page 50
- Page 51
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- Page 53
- Page 54
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- Page 57
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- Page 59
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- Page 61
- Page 62