Between kisses, he crooned to her in Spanish, words of love and wooing she’d never heard from Antoine de Boulaine in nine years of marriage. When he backed her against the door she’d been determined to flee through, she didn’t resist.
He fell to his knees before her like a pleading suitor to suckle and tongue her nipples. Shock after delicious shock rolled through her. Her breathless cries should have mortified her. Instead she wound her fingers in his short crisp hair and pulled him closer, thankful for the solid support of the door behind her. Without it, she would certainly melt into a puddle on the floor.
She nearly did melt when his hands slid up her silk-sheathed legs and spread her thighs, exposing her damp slit to the teasing caress of open air. He stilled against her, breath swift and hot against her belly.
“Madre de Dios,” he groaned. “Do you have any notion how extraordinary you are? You smell like Heaven.”
Jayne burned with sudden awareness. Now that he’d spread her, the musky salt of desire betrayed her arousal. She tried to close her thighs, but he held her exposed. She turned her cheek into the rough wood as he looked his fill. Like all proper ladies, she depilated as a matter of course.
She prayed he could not see the pearly dew that slicked her folds. Her core felt feverish and swollen with desire. Beneath his gaze, her condition was only growing worse.
“Cristo.” His breath teased her tortured flesh. “You’re so wet for me, amante.”
She managed a breathless laugh. “Is it any wonder?”
Surely he wouldn’t...he couldn’t...
Every iota of remaining strength spilled from her limbs like water when he spread her wide and swept his tongue along her slit. The rasp of wet silk dragged across her clitoris.
She’d heard men performed such intimacies upon their lovers. No woman could move among the French court for ten years without knowing such acts occurred. But she’d always fancied the experience must be distasteful, something men paid for, nothing a woman would enjoy of her own accord.
But Calyx, of course, thought she was such a woman. He’d found her in the arms of his commanding officer. He would use her as men used women of easy virtue. Rather than dissuade him, she was melting beneath his tongue, moaning as he circled her swollen pearl, around and around, without ever quite touching her where she needed him. Her hands clenched in his hair, hips lifting in mute entreaty.
“Stop holding back,” he rasped. The brush of his lips against her sensitized flesh wrung a soft cry from her. “We both know what you want. Let go of your pride and ask for it.”
His tongue flickered across her throbbing pearl. With a sob of surrender, Jayne abandoned the last of her pride and undulated against him, wild and wanton, thrusting against his tongue in the rhythm of passion. His strong hands held her up, the soft wet sounds of friction inflaming her.
When he paused, she whispered, “Oh, don’t stop. Please, I need you to...”
“Are you ready to have me inside you, Jayne?” His tongue and lips were driving her truly mad. In another moment she would fly to pieces if he didn’t—
“Yes!” she gasped, her channel rippling in tiny spasms. If he would only ease one finger inside her, just that much, she would explode. But she knew if he felt one tenth what she did, he would never be satisfied with that.
“Do it,” she panted, rocking against his teasing tongue. “Please.”
She’d been afraid he would make her voice it, the thing she wanted him to do. But clearly he too was riding the ragged edge of restraint. He thrust to his feet, one hand tearing his codpiece free and sending it flying. In a flash, she realized he didn’t intend to remove anything else. Perhaps he’d meant to, but the sharp spur of desire was riding them too hard.
She caught a glimpse of his engorged manhood—le coq, the French called it—jutting before him. A flush of heat scorched through her.
Body of God, he was so large! She should have expected it, given his size, but nothing in her limited experience had equipped her for the sight. In wonder and amazement, she reached to touch him—an intimacy she’d never dared with Antoine or Dudley.
With a low groan, he caught her hand and pressed it to the wood beside her head, his fingers lacing through hers.
“I can’t,” he muttered. “Can’t wait. Next time I’ll be your slave, belleza, but let me...”
Next time. The meaning of his words burned through her. A faint voice of sanity clamored for her attention. There shouldn’t even be this time. The last time, the only time she’d surrendered to passion, look where that had gotten her.
But even as he spoke, he was fitting his rampant length against her. Her own body betrayed her, the sweet ache of passion throbbing between her legs, breath short and knees trembling with the force of her ardor.
“God have mercy!” she gasped, clutching his shoulder with her free hand. “Wait.”
“Can’t,” he said with equal certainty and thrust inside her.
Chapter Six
In bedsport, too, Calyx thought of himself as lucky. How many men could truthfully claim they’d enjoyed the charms of beautiful women on four continents?
But the mysterious, maddening, passionate beauty coming gorgeously apart in his arms put all the rest to shame.
He’d meant to make this night a slow seduction, worthy of a French countess with an infamous name. Meant to lay her on his bed and peel away her elegant garments, layer by layer. Meant to savor the erotic vision of her creamy limbs, wearing nothing but silk stockings and cherry-red garters.
In short, he’d meant to drive her slowly mad until the web of her secrets unraveled and he uncovered the true reason she’d charmed her way aboard his galleon and into his cabin.
Now, as he backed his lady of secrets against his closed door and sheathed his cock in her wet heat, interrogation was the last thing on his mind.
Clad in her glittering armor of crimson and gold, with ebony hair piled high and a starburst of counterfeit rubies dazzling against her magnificent bosom, she’d blazed across the deck of the Arcángel like a meteor, larger than life. Now, as she twined her sleek limbs around him and trembled in his arms, he realized she was petite—trim and supple with the sinuous curves of a woman who enjoyed a vigorous lifestyle.
She was as voluptuous as a siren, her tiny waist flaring to lush hips and gorgeous breasts. Through the glossy ribbons of her tumbled hair peeked pert nipples, flushed a dusky rose with arousal.
Beneath his hardened sailor’s hands, her skin was ivory velvet, glistening with the fine film of exertion, glowing gently as though lit from within. The music of her throaty voice gasping his name was driving him insane by inches.
And the slick heat of her gripping his cock, as the fine tremors of impending climax rippled through her, was surely going to kill him.
“Jayne,” he groaned, gripping her ripe bottom with both hands to lift her. “Belleza...mi amante...”
The new angle gave him better access, let him sink a mind-shattering inch deeper into her incredible heat. Her legs tightened around his hips, heels digging into his backside as she rode him, every bit as hot and eager for it as he. Her head was flung back, eyes closed and lips parted, her cries rising higher with every stroke. His own hoarse cries mingled with hers, the wet rhythmic slap of flesh on flesh quickening to frenzy.
Dios! She was so close. Gritting his teeth, he fought to hold out. Let her find her pleasure before he exploded—
Her climax crashed over him like a hurricane. Even through his padded doublet, her fierce nails clawed him. Her channel tightened around him, milking him as violent spasms of pleasure surged through her. He could have sworn the sea shifted and the deck tilted beneath his feet.
But he couldn’t have stopped now, even if the galleon sank beneath him. His own convulsive climax tore through him like a typhoon. A shout of pleasure roared from his throat. For a timeless moment, he went blind and deaf.
Before the burning darkness of orgasm descended, her gaze locked with his. The
breath snared in his throat.
Her eyes swirled like tropical seas after a storm, azure and gold and silver—pools of light, incandescent and uncanny. No mortal creature under Heaven had eyes like that.
As the storm swept over them, her glowing skin brightened. A pure white light poured through her, lightening the cabin bright as midday. Por Dios, she was blinding him! Then the sharp, excruciating ecstasy of climax rolled his eyes back in his head.
Whatever this was, Calyx was powerless to resist. His back arched in spasms of pleasure as his burning seed spurted into her.
* * *
When he returned to his senses, Calyx was sprawled face down across his bunk. Still wearing his boots, for Christ’s sake, and the full rig of his festive gear—except for one crucial accessory. His blasted codpiece was God knew where.
For a heartbeat he was convinced he’d woken alone. Disappointment bit into him.
Then he glimpsed the tangled mane of sable hair flung across his pillow like a fallen banner, his brawny arm thrown across a woman’s slim waist. Shifting his heavy limbs, he levered his head up.
Entwined in the dappled gold-and-black of leopard fur lay Jayne Boleyn, one arm tossed overhead in the oblivion of sleep.
Calyx scrubbed a hand roughly over his face. At least she hadn’t vanished into the night—his elusive lady of secrets. Yet her presence caused problems he could no longer afford to ignore.
Among the piles of parchment and astrological instruments scattered across his desk, stubby candles guttered in pools of melting wax. Through the porthole window, the milky light of dawn leaked in. In the dim light, Jayne glowed with the subtle radiance of ocean pearls.
He saw nothing to suggest she was anything more than she claimed to be. No unearthly luminescence poured through her skin.
He must be losing his mind if he thought her...what? A sea siren? A fallen angel like Lilith or Onoskelis of Bible lore, sworn to man’s corruption and fashioned for sin?
Even in slumber, that paradoxical aura of innocence still clung to her. A faint blush stained her cheeks, like a virgin who dreamed of passion. The lush bow of her mouth was gently swollen with kisses.
Despite the quandary he faced, a grin of masculine satisfaction curled his lips. Whatever else she might be, the Comtesse de Boulaine looked like a woman who’d been well tumbled. And she gave as good as she’d gotten. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d lost control between a woman’s thighs so utterly that he abandoned all restraint and spent himself inside her, rash and reckless as a cabin boy with his first doxy.
Self-control was one of the first lessons he’d learned. If his unknown sire—curse the man to hell—had shown such restraint, his mother would never have borne the shame of a bastard in her belly. Then Rodrigo de Zamorra would not have turned against his English wife.
His mother might still be alive.
For that matter, Rodrigo himself might still be alive. Because if the Conde hadn’t murdered his wife, Calyx would have let his miserable life run its natural course.
Since then, Calyx had perfected the practice of spilling his seed on a woman’s belly—messy and unsatisfying though it was. He preferred it to the distasteful Oriental practice of sheathing his cock in a sleeve of oiled silk—or worse, lamb intestine.
Yet he’d poured himself into Jayne Boleyn’s willing heat and damned the consequences.
Calyx groaned and rolled onto his back to gaze at the rough beams overhead. Surely she was woman of the world enough to plan for their encounter. He knew women who inserted a bit of sea sponge soaked in vinegar to prevent conception. Granted, that required planning. Had Jayne intended their encounter to end the way it had?
She’d been waiting in his cabin. She must have meant to seduce him—unless she hadn’t meant to be discovered at all.
If not, what the bloody hell was she up to?
Frowning, he rolled to his feet, leaving Jayne lost in slumber, a tangle of exotic fur and sleek limbs. Impatiently he shrugged out of doublet and ruff, trunk hose and high boots. Swiftly he assumed his own familiar garb of leather breeches, black leather jerkin and crisp linen shirt. He buckled his saber and cutlass around his hips, scrubbed a hand through his short hair and dashed cold water over his face.
Most men would have whiskers to deal with, but not him. He’d never grown so much as a pale stubble. His natural father must have been a freak of nature as well as a bastard.
Bad blood. Undimmed by the passage of years, Rodrigo’s words whispered in his ear. He must have been a monster or the Devil himself, the vagabond who charmed his way past my caballeros into your mother’s bed.
“Ancient history, muchacho,” he muttered, locking gazes with his grim reflection in the mirror he’d acquired when he captured this ship. In the tall oval glass, his dark eyes scowled back at him, sliding over the smooth jaw and wheat-pale hair no Spaniard had ever grown.
None of that matters now. He’s long dead, whoever he is.
Against his throat, the gleam of silver caught his gaze. As it often did, the strange metal seemed to glow, bringing out the name inscribed in Hebrew sigils against the flat surface.
Michael the Archangel.
He slid the ornate key on its heavy chain out of sight beneath his shirt. His natural father had given that key to his mother. She’d sworn to keep it safe, and so she had. Calyx found it after her death, locked in a casket for safekeeping with his boyhood treasures.
He’d decided the Archangel had been his natural father’s patron saint. His own fascination with angel lore had sprung from that minor mystery.
But the important part was this. Calyx had sworn never to pass on his bad blood to any child of his.
Overhead the ship’s bell clanged once, signaling the start of the morning watch. Bare feet thudded against the boards, mingled with the good-natured grumbling of men roused from their hammocks after a late night. Diego would be readying to sail, waking the soldiers and sailors who slept above, slung in hammocks across the gun deck. The familiar rhythms of shipboard life sent a frisson of excitement crackling down his spine.
Time to get Jayne Boleyn off his ship.
If she was going.
Perhaps the reason for his ambivalence was that she seemed so bloody eager to see the back of him. And she still hadn’t explained her presence in his cabin worth a damn. He knew he hadn’t left his door unlocked with drunken strangers roaming his decks at will.
He prowled to the brilliant swath of gold-slashed crimson cloth blazing against the floorboards. The haunting sweetness of moonflowers rose from her abandoned gown as he searched it, sliding perfunctory fingers over the seams to find any hidden pockets. The fabric had been turned—a common practice for women whose limited purses demanded they stretch last season’s wardrobe to its practical limits.
Counterfeit rubies and a twice-turned gown. Perhaps the Comtesse de Boulaine shouldn’t have been quite so impulsive when she donated her widow’s fortune to the Spanish cause.
His hasty rummage through her skirts and petticoats turned up nothing. Quelling a sneaking sense of embarrassment for pawing through her things, he caught up her girdle. A filigreed mirror and her opulent fan swung from the pretty chain.
As he recalled how the lady deployed her plumed accessory, both as defensive armor and a tool for flirtation, a grin tugged at his lips. He shook the fan open—a pretty confection of plumes and crimson ribbons, surprisingly heavy for such a trinket. As his fingers slid down the ivory handle, the thing came apart in his hand, revealing the narrow blade of a hidden stiletto.
Calyx pursed his lips in a silent whistle. So the lady wasn’t entirely defenseless. His estimation of her rose. As he turned the slender blade to admire it, a glittering object smaller than his little finger went spinning to the floor.
Recognition shafted through him. A fist clenched in his gut. Swiftly he retrieved the hooked needle of a lock pick, the tool of the professional thief.
Found my door unlocked indeed. His jaw knotted.
/> Simmering, he shot a narrow glance toward his bunk, where Lady Jayne slumbered on. She’d rolled onto her stomach, the leopard pelt twined around her hips. The supple line of her spine, sinuous as an acrobat with hidden strength, gleamed like alabaster in the pearly dawn. A dark cloud of hair now obscured her face. Even in slumber, she concealed herself.
Professional thief and pickpocket, was she? If so, she’d hardly be the first he’d tumbled. But she hadn’t filched anything, not that he could find.
Pocketing the telltale pick, he strode to his overflowing desk and scanned its cluttered expanse. He’d cast Philip’s stars before the party, because the King’s stars were also Spain’s. While his natal chart was well aspected, reflecting a generally successful life, his planetary transits for the current solar year were disastrous.
The spectacular failure of Philip’s holy Enterprise shouted from his horoscope. And Calyx couldn’t breathe a word of it, or be branded a traitor and stripped of his command. He could only prepare, as best he might, to sail his ship and his crew through the coming tempest.
Restless and twitching with growing unease, he sifted through columns of mathematical calculations. There lay his map of the English coast, starred discreetly with the X’s that marked the coordinates for his rendezvous with Lord Thomas Knyvett. Depending on the seas and the flow of battle, Calyx must make at least one of them.
As for Knyvett, the High Sheriff of Norfolk, he’d vowed to cover all three.
For the dozenth time, Calyx wondered if the man could be trusted. They’d never met, after all, and a man could promise anything through his intermediaries. If he missed the rendezvous, they’d likely meet on the field of battle, when the Armada landed.
Overhead, an outburst of angry voices erupted—a flood of insults followed by the clash of steel. Calyx cursed softly and strode for the door.
With some three hundred men packed cheek by jowl on a galleon that barely displaced five hundred tonelada, tensions between his sea-weathered crew and the tercio of block-headed, land-loving infantry soldiers she transported were already running high. And that stiff-necked idiot who commanded the tercio was making a bad situation worse.
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