Page 10 of The Pirate’s Stolen Bride (Cavalier Cove)

CHAPTER TEN

LOVE SHACK

R émy was not going to rip Miss Turner’s clothing off and take her on the cold ground in an abandoned shack. But the temptation was there.

He teased her deliberately, holding back, keeping his kiss soft, and tormenting them both. If she wanted him as badly as he wanted her—and he prayed she did—Harriet was going to have to say it.

She dragged him closer with a needy moan that echoed down his spine and straight into his cock, snapping his control like a twig.

Rémy skimmed his palms down her back, under her bottom, and hoisted her up. She squirmed, her thighs trapped by her skirt and petticoat. He seized the opportunity to taste the tender skin of her throat. She tasted like wealth. Soft and protected like a hothouse flower.

She felt like every luxury he’d ever craved and been denied. Wartime deprivation had left him wanting more than mere survival. Once he figured out that he could get the things he wanted through smuggling, he’d never looked back.

Harriet might be his greatest heist of all time. She was his Helen. She might be his destruction, but right now, she was his .

His to devour.

To consume.

To adore with every part of him.

He kissed his way past the hollow of her throat and found the fichu in his way. With an impatient growl, he tore it away with his teeth. Harriet’s startled laughter ended in a gasp as he nudged the top of her bodice down.

“You are not going back to your uncle.”

“No,” she panted, clutching him.

“You’re staying with me.” What was he saying? His home was a smuggler’s ship. He was wanted for sinking one of the Waterguard’s boats—even though that had been his cousin Thierry’s doing, not his—and she was promised to an earl. Her uncle was a duke. Lord Montague would have enough wealth and power to hunt him to the ends of the earth. Unless…

There was only one solution.

“You’ll marry me,” he gritted out. If he couldn’t keep her, he would have to find the strength to stop touching her—an impossible task. His heart slammed against his sternum as he waited for her answer. If she refused him…

“Yes, Rémy. I’ll marry you,” she answered breathlessly.

“Good girl.”

She made as if to smack him for his insolence. Rémy caught her wrist and pinned her to the wall, her hands beside her head, and sucked her nipple deep into his mouth. Once he was certain she wouldn’t try to knee him, he released her wrists and shoved her skirt up. She wore nothing beneath her chemise. The sight of her curls at the apex of the sweetest thighs he’d ever witnessed was a lightning bolt to his brain.

He would hang for this. But she was worth the risk.

Rémy pressed gentle kisses on each thigh. She trembled like a frightened filly. She was a virgin. He had no business being within a hundred miles of her. He’d never been with a virgin before. He preferred women who knew what they wanted, even if they didn’t always ask for it outright.

Fascinated, he parted her center with one fingertip, reveling in the slick shine. An excellent start. He wanted her so wet for him that she’d experience only pleasure, not pain. He nudged her legs farther apart. Then he bent his head and gently licked that sensitive nub.

She hissed through clenched teeth. Her hips tipped forward, granting him better access.

“Very good, chérie. Just like that.” He palmed her delectable bottom and licked.

Harriet’s eyes fluttered open long enough to follow the shape of a passing traveler barely visible from their hiding spot in the abandoned shack.

She could not be caught with her breasts hanging out and a man beneath her skirts, kissing her quim. Nor could she do anything other than gasp for breath and clutch the stones. The fear of being found only heightened the pleasure arcing through her body.

There was no good reason for even the most intrepid traveler to be out in this weather. She ought to be more concerned, but the instant the man was out of view, she forgot all about him.

She forgot her own name.

Rémy licked a stripe up her center. Her knees went weak. She pressed her back against the wall to remain upright, but she felt herself slipping helplessly down. He pulled one leg toward his shoulder, and belatedly, she yanked her skirts up to expose the shocking sight of him kneeling between her thighs.

Worshiping you like a goddess, a naughty little voice whispered in the back of her mind.

Maybe Harriet wanted to be a goddess. At least to someone, once in her life. In the back of her mind, she knew this couldn’t last. Nothing good ever did.

But when Rémy rose to his feet and loomed over her with one hand buried between her thighs and the other braced above her head, she lost any shred of willpower to resist. She wanted him.

She could have him.

“Tell me you like this, chérie.”

“Call me by my name,” she insisted breathlessly.

“Harriet. Tell me you want this.” He circled her entrance lightly, a silken, teasing touch that did nothing to assuage the needy throb deep in her core. She clenched around emptiness. He dropped his forehead to hers. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll give you anything you desire.”

The wily pirate was closing off her escape routes. She knew this, yet she couldn’t bring herself to care. He was a good man, at his core. A better man than the one she was promised to.

“Please,” she begged, though it was beneath her. She didn’t know how to express what she wanted. Her most fervid imaginings had been hazy daydreams.

“Like this?” He teased her entrance. She nodded, rubbing her forehead against his. His breath steamed her cheek.

“Inside,” she whispered, and felt his body tense. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, clinging to him for balance while he pushed two fingers into her. There was no pain, only an odd stretching sensation. After a beat of initial resistance, pleasure began to coil deep in her core.

Yes. This was what she needed. She rocked her hips in time with his rhythmic thrusts. The hard ridge of his cock dug into her hip.

“Come for me, chérie. I can feel how close you are. Don’t hold back. Give me everything.”

She let instinct take over and dove over the cliff into a wave of pleasure. It was akin to drowning, but instead of terror and aching lungs, her body tightened to the cusp of breaking. Her back bent, her thighs locked, and her mouth fell open, helpless against the tide.

When the waves began to subside, she pushed his hand away and leaned against the cold stone wall, trembling with aftershocks. Rémy smoothed her hair back and kissed her cheek. Then her lips.

“If that’s what it’s like with only your fingers, what is the full experience like?” she mumbled.

“You must wait to find out.”

Startled, she snapped her gaze to his. “Why?”

She didn’t want to wait. She wanted to keep going.

“You are a proper lady who deserves a bed at a bare minimum.”

She looked down at her exposed breasts. The back of her dress gaped open. The ribbon gathering the neckline of her chemise hung untied and tangled in her stays, which were pushed down far enough for her nipples to pucker in the cool air.

A proper lady, her foot.

“I don’t require one for this.”

“I do.” He quirked one brow.

“Do you?” She squeezed the fascinating ridge tenting his trousers. “Here I thought you lived freely, taking what you wanted, when you wanted it. A bed seems disappointingly ordinary, old man.”

He huffed a laugh and brushed a kiss against her temple. “Minx. I am twenty-seven.”

Harriet interpreted this as permission to continue unfastening his shirt and trousers. Inside, she found him to be quite a handful. Rémy squeezed his eyes closed and wrapped his hand around hers, showing her how to stroke him.

His cock was surprisingly smooth and startlingly hot to the touch. The blazing fire had warmed the tumbledown shack.

She glided her hand down his shaft, tightening her grip when he reacted with a moan and closed eyes. He breathed into the crook of her neck.

Emboldened, she swirled her thumb over the head. He released her hand and slapped the wall beside her head. Fascinating.

“C’est tellement bon,” he muttered, lapsing into his native tongue. That feels so good. Harriet knew enough French to understand, but if she hadn’t, she still would have known from the way his whole body tensed at her touch.

An answering need rose within her, a surge of excitement at acquiring this new skill. There was so much to learn about sex and love—things she would never have experienced had she gone to her wedding night an untouched virgin. She had no doubt that Lucarran would have wanted her to remain ignorant of her own body’s needs. He would be offended by the notion that she had them at all.

But she wasn’t going to marry him. She was going to marry a man she’d only met a few days ago, despite having spent most of that time unconscious.

Harriet banished the shadow of doubt that tried to creep in to the farthest reaches of her mind.

“Stop doing that,” Rémy ordered. She froze.

“Did I hurt you?”

His sensual lips twisted in a grimace. “No. I meant, keep doing what you were doing, but stop thinking . It’s written all over your face. Too much thinking leads to regrets. Next thing you know, you’ll be?—”

She cut him off by sliding down the wall and dropping to her knees. He’d kissed her this way, and even the most sheltered lady in London couldn’t avoid learning about the more common sexual activities.

Still, his cock was intimidating this close to her face.

“There will be no regrets,” she insisted. She was done living her life by the rules. She would forge a new path. Chart her own course.

Rémy put his back to the wall and looked down at her with challenge in his blue eyes.

“Are you going to follow through, Miss Turner, or simply tease me?”

Boldly, she pulled him into her mouth and sucked.