He grinned, and saluted. Saluted! Her?
“Welcome aboard, Mrs. Merrick.”
She had no idea what to say. “Thank you, Mr. Bobbs.”
“All right, Bobbs, you can get the hell out of here now,” Connor said, coming easily up behind her. “And make it fast. The rest of the crew are raising hell down in Bridgetown . . . you can probably find them at the Rusty Anchor.”
“Much obliged, sir,” the seaman said, and moments later he was gone—leaving Rhiannon alone, quite alone, on the gently rocking deck of the Yankee privateer schooner Kestrel with her new and impossibly handsome husband.
She looked at him.
He looked at her.
“Wait here,” he said, and leaving her there next to the shrouds that pinnacled up into the night sky, padded across the deck and down the hatch.
Rhiannon hugged her arms to herself and looked out over the water to the lights of Bridgetown. Oh, what was she supposed to do? Say? Think?
From the time she’d first seen him she had been fantasizing over this man, trying to find ways to be with him, dreaming about what it would be like to be kissed by him. To be held in his strong arms. And here she was married to him—and about to find out.
And she was afraid.
Mira’s reassurances came back to her. It’s more wonderful than anything you’ll have ever felt in your whole entire life.
“Beautiful night out there, isn’t it?”
He was back, with several blankets, two pillows and a bottle of wine.
She eyed the pillows dubiously, swallowed hard, and looked up into the night sky, where a thousand pinpricks of light marked heavens that looked so different from what she was used to back in England.
“I don’t remember seeing stars like this back home. Look how low that Cassiopeia and the Little Bear sit in the sky.”
“That’s because we’re in much more southern latitudes.”
He headed aft, looking back over his shoulder at her in invitation.
“Capt— I mean, Connor,” she said, hesitantly. “I . . . I don’t know quite how to say this, but . . . well, I’m . . . I’m a little afraid.”
He stopped, gave one slow, understanding nod, and smiled. “There’s no need to be afraid, Rhiannon. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I told you that before.”
“And that . . . that applies to . . . this, too?”
“This?”
“Well . . . you know.”
“Ah. That.”
“Yes, that.”
“Tell you what. We don’t have to do this. Or that. Or whatever it is you want to call it. How about we just sit back here in the stern together, our backs up against the transom, and share some wine while we look at the stars?”
“That sounds very romantic, Connor.”
“The moon is up. It’s a beautiful night.”
“Our wedding night.”
She looped her hand through his bent elbow and he led her aft, past the silent guns sleeping in their trucks, an open hatch, and finally, to the tiller. Kestrel moved gently up and down beneath them, and Rhiannon adjusted her balance to the motion. She could hear the soft wash of the sea against the rudder and a warm, sultry breeze whispering through the shrouds.
Did she want to do this? Or that? Or whatever it was called? Oh, dear God. She trembled in nervous anticipation.
You know he won’t force you. You know he’s a good man, bold and reckless, yes, but kind-hearted and honorable.
She watched as he spread a blanket on the deck and sat down, his back against the gunwale, his long legs stretched before him toward the tiller. He motioned for Rhiannon to join him.
She did, keeping a few inches between them while carefully arranging her skirts over her bare legs. Her nerves were tight, her skin prickling with anticipation.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said softly. “I don’t bite.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so nervous.”
“Do you have any idea what happens in the marriage bed, Rhiannon?”
“A little.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“The man puts his fist in the woman’s mitten and a baby is made.”
“What?”
She laughed. “Well, that’s what your mother told me.”
“My mother.” He shook his head, amused. “Leave it to her to come up with something like that.”
“Oh, I know they’re just euphemisms, Connor. But I adore your mother, and she was trying her best to be reassuring.”
“My family thinks the world of you,” he said at length. “And I can’t tell you how proud I was when you walked into that church this afternoon, Rhiannon. My heart was swelling so large that I thought it would burst the confines of my chest. You were beautiful. You are beautiful. You took my breath away.”
“Is this how husbands seduce their new brides? By endless flattery and compliments?”
“What?”
“Oh, never mind. I was in jest.”
“Were you? Because I was not.” He gave her a sidelong glance, then uncorked the bottle of wine. He held it slightly aloft, and looked her in the eye. “To my beautiful wife. May God bless our marriage.”
He drank from the bottle, wiped his lips with the back of one broad hand, and handed it to her.
She looked at it, smiled, and raised it to her own mouth. And then: “To my dashing husband. And, our marriage.”
Madeira. She took a long swig of it and handed it back to him.
They sat there together, Kestrel’s gentle rocking going far to soothe Rhiannon’s nerves. Connor took another drink, and handed her the bottle. She did the same.
Another.
“I feel as though we know so little about each other,” she said, as the wine gently warmed her blood. “We’ve only known each other for three weeks, and for most of that time you were away.”
“What would you like to know about me?”
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Well, since I know as little about you as you do me, how about I start?”
“All right.”
He took another drink and set the bottle down between them, leaving his hand lingering on it, his knuckles just brushing her outer thighs through the thin muslin of her gown. “Where were you born?”
“Wales.”
“I already know you have an older sister, of course. Gwyneth. And another sister, Morganna, yes? Tell me about your parents.”
“They died a long time ago. I don’t remember them well . . . Gwyneth raised Morganna and me.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
She thought of his eyes. “Green.”
“What do you like to do for enjoyment?”
“Read. And imagine myself to be the heroine in the novels that I most enjoy.”
“What’s the one thing you want to do before you die?”
“That’s an odd question.”
“So it is. I’m sorry. I say whatever comes into my head, and half the time what comes into it surprises even me.”
“Well . . . I guess I would like to finish learning how to swim.”
“We can make that happen.”
“And I hope I do you proud as the captain’s lady.”
His hand left the bottle and settled upon her kneecap. “You do me proud already, Rhiannon.”
She could think of nothing but his hand, resting there on her knee. How warm it felt. How large it was. And how it was making the skin tingle all around it.
“I can learn to swim, but I don’t think I’ll ever dare to go aloft, Connor.”
“We all have our limits.”
“I doubt that the word limits is one that could ever be applied to you, sir!”
He laughed. “Lots of people are afraid of heights.”
“I’m ashamed of my fear. Especially when I see how freely you live your life. You leap from the rigging and swim in the moonlight and laugh in the face of terrible storms. Your little nephew idolizes you. You
r crew, I think, would follow you to the ends of the earth and back. I see you climbing aloft and going so high up that it makes my stomach feel funny just watching you. I would never, not in a million years, dare to do that, and yet there’s a tiny part of me that wishes that I did. That I could.”
He nodded slowly, and his thumb caressed the inside of her knee.
“You have lived a rather sheltered life, haven’t you, Rhiannon?”
“Well, in comparison to you, I suppose I have. This is my first real adventure, you know.”
“And here you got more than you bargained for.”
Oh, his hand there on her thigh was making her feel very strange indeed.
Rhiannon shivered, suddenly.
“Are you cold?”
“No.”
Suddenly shy. Nervous. Unsure. But not cold.
Even so, he shook out one of the blankets that he’d set on the deck and placed it over her legs, and then stuffed a pillow behind them, cushioning their backs against the curve of the gunwale. The pillow was small, too small for a back as broad as her new husband’s, and he was gallantly giving most of the space to her. Growing bolder from the wine, Rhiannon shifted her weight, and leaned against his shoulder instead.
“Ahh,” he said, and pulling his arm free from between their bodies, curved it around her shoulder to draw her close. The weight of his arm was delicious, and she fit against him as though she’d been made to. And he smelled good. Clean, fresh, untamed. Salt wind and shaving soap.
She snuggled a little closer.
This was nice. Very nice.
“I wish I knew the names of all those stars,” she said, resting her cheekbone against his shoulder and turning her gaze skyward. Beyond his handsome profile, the tall spire of the mainmast and the cross-hatched shrouds that supported it made black silhouettes against the vastness of the night sky. “Do you know their names?”
“It’s a mariner’s duty to know them.”
“Connor?”
“Yes, Rhiannon?”
“Will you kiss me?”
He gave a little laugh, pulled his hand free from behind her shoulders, and turning his body slightly so that he was looking down at her, put his fingers beneath her chin.
“I would love to kiss you.”
How beautiful his eyes, crinkling at the corners with laughter, were in the starlight. How long his lashes were, how handsome the cut of his cheek, jaw and chin. He spread his fingers, gently pushed them along one side of her jawbone, and coaxed her to lift her chin.
His mouth was very close.
Rhiannon shut her eyes as he gently touched his lips to hers, his hand still alongside her jaw, his fingers now threading into her hair and holding her head steady. She twisted a bit and pushed herself closer to him, one hand coming up to palm his chest and explore the hard muscles beneath his waistcoat. Of their own accord, her fingers began to unbutton the garment and soon it lay open, only his fine lawn shirt separating her questing hand from the bareness of his chest. The pressure of his mouth against her own grew harder and more insistent, igniting a vortex of sensation between her legs that both thrilled and frightened her, and she felt her breath beginning to come hard as her body responded to him.
Slowly, they each pulled back, neither one ready to break the kiss, his hand still cradling her jaw and cupping the side of her head.
“Oh, my,” Rhiannon said, a little breathlessly.
“That wasn’t so scary, now, was it?”
“No. No, it was . . . quite nice.”
He just smiled, and drew her close yet again.
Their lips met a second time, his growing more insistent, and she felt his breath coming hot against her cheek now as his tongue slipped out to circle her lips, to push inside her mouth and touch and taste her own. She pressed closer to him, feeling odd sensations moving through that private place between her thighs, through her breasts and along the nerve endings of her skin, and needing something she didn’t understand.
And then, as though he could somehow know just what it was she wanted, his hand cupped her breast and his thumb roved gently over the nipple.
Rhiannon gasped into his mouth, suddenly unsure.
He pulled back just the merest fraction, brushing kisses against her cheek, down the sensitive side of her neck, his teeth gently nibbling at her ear lobe and his thumb, oh, his thumb, brushing over her nipple, over and over again until she thought that part of her was surely on fire.
“Frightened yet, dearest?”
“Only of these sensations I don’t recognize.”
“They are nothing to fear.”
“What . . . what are they?”
“They are what your body does to prepare itself for love,” he murmured, against the hollow of her collarbone. “I have them too.”
“Do you?”
He pulled back then, and caressed her cheek with the rough pad of his thumb. It was impossible not to trust him, not to fall in love with him, when he smiled at her like that. “I would be less than honest if I were to say otherwise.”
“But your body is . . . different than mine.”
Hard where mine is soft. Hairy where mine is smooth. Strong where mine is delicate.
He gently took her hand and guided it to his crotch. “Touch me,” he said quietly.
Fascinated, she stretched her fingers toward his pantaloons. Beneath the warm fabric his flesh was hard and bulging, like it had been that night after their swimming lesson. And after the kiss at Sir Graham’s house.
“See?” he said, gently.
“But why. . . .”
“You really are an innocent, aren’t you?”
She blushed. “I hope that’s not a disappointment to you.”
“It’s a delight. You’re a wonderful gift that has never been opened by anyone else, never been sullied by another, and all mine to enjoy.”
“But, this part of you. . . . Why is it like this sometimes, but not others?”
“Well, when a man desires a woman, nature makes it such that his . . . his, um . . . oh, hell. That is to say, his—”
She smiled, enjoying his uncharacteristic discomfort and thinking about fists and mittens. “Really, Connor. You’re a sailor. Just say it.”
“His cock responds to her in a way that makes it possible for the man to impregnate the woman. It . . . changes.”
“You’re going to make me pregnant tonight?”
“Do you not want children?”
“Of course I do! Lots of them!”
“Just because we do this—”
“You mean that—”
“Doesn’t mean it will result in a child.”
“But you’re saying it might.”
“Yes, it might.”
“I see. May I touch your . . . cock, Connor?” She took a deep breath. “Can I see it?”
He reached down and unbuttoned his pantaloons, and then lay back against the curve of the gunwale, watching her with a little smile.
Shyly, Rhiannon reached out, pulled down the flap front, and touched the warm flesh that was suddenly revealed to her gaze in the starlight shining down from above. She rather wished she’d asked Mira to tell her more, because how could men possess something of this size and keep it safely contained behind fabric, buckskin, leather or silk? Fascinated, she ran her forefinger over the length of this strange part of him, finding it both soft to the touch but hard as rock beneath the velvety skin, warm and rigid and strangely exciting. As she explored the soft, bulbous tip with her fingers, the whole organ seemed to grow even bigger.
Her new husband gave a soft groan, and she saw that he had tilted his head back against the gunwale, his eyes half closed.
“Do you mind that I’m touching you?”
“No, I quite enjoy it,” he said, then sucked in his breath as her fingers circled and squeezed the tip, and then wandered down to explore his testicles in their bed of soft auburn hair.
“Does this hurt, when I do this?”
“No, Rhiannon. B
ut for now, I think you should stop.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to make this last. To make it special for you.”
“What about making it special for you?”
“It will be.”
“It’s going to hurt me, isn’t it?”
“Who told you that?”
“I read it in a book that Alannah gave me last night. That it’s very unpleasant for the woman, and the best thing you can do if you’re a woman is just close your eyes and look at cracks in the ceiling until the awful moment is past.”
“Awful moment? Rhiannon, if this is the education you’ve received through reading books, I think you should pursue other hobbies. You’ve been woefully misled.”
“I know . . . your mother set me straight. She said it’s more wonderful than anything I’ll ever feel in my whole entire life.” She swallowed, hard. “But she also said it would hurt. The first time, at least.”
Catching her wrist, he gently guided it away from himself. Then he leaned close, his handsome face blotting out the stars above. “Dearest, the first time it may indeed hurt for just a little bit. But it won’t for long, and I give you my word—indeed, my promise—that you’ll soon forget you ever felt any pain.”
“You promise, Connor?” she said in a little voice.
“My promise.” He reached up and traced her lower lip with his finger. “But you must trust me.”
“I . . . trust you.”
And then he began to kiss her once more, brushing gentle, feathery kisses along her jaw, nibbling at the corner of her mouth, licking at the seam of her lips until she finally opened to him with a little moan and began to boldly kiss him back.
He tasted of wine. She felt his hand in her hair, the thick tresses falling down around her shoulders as one by one, he loosened the pins and allowed her glorious mane to tumble down her back. One of his arms went around her, supporting her, and her world swam as he carefully eased her down upon the blanket. He turned onto his side, propped his head against his hand, and grinned down at her as he spread her hair out on the pillow, running his fingers out over each thick, lustrous hank.
“Comfortable?” he asked softly.
Her eyes very wide, her body throbbing in ways that were making her want to squirm, she nodded up at him.
Lord Of The Sea Page 16
