Drake, feeling suddenly, ridiculously happy, happier than he could ever remember being, stood up and strode purposefully to the edge of the spring. Below him, Payton’s eyes went round as saucers.
“W—what do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“Joining you.” Drake dipped a toe into the crystal-clear water.
Payton seemed unable to tear her gaze from the region of his body located directly below his navel. Looking down, Drake noted that his state of arousal was blatantly apparent. Too late, he remembered how dark it had been that night in his cell, when they’d first made love. Albeit unknowingly, he’d just supplied Payton with her first daylit glimpse of the nude male form.
And she did not appear the least bit enthusiastic about what she’d seen.
“Um, that’s all right,” Payton stammered, paddling away from him with alacrity. “I was just getting out—”
Drake realized rapid action was necessary. Always one to keep a cool head in a crisis, he stepped off the rocks, and plunged into the cool water.
Chapter Twenty-four
Payton, enveloped in the wave created by Drake’s enormous body entering the pool, came out of it sputtering. It wasn’t so much the water she was choking on, but the knowledge of what that water hid, now that Drake was in it. It appeared that there was a great deal more to that part of Connor Drake that she’d only felt before, but never really seen, than she’d previously thought. So much more, in fact, that it seemed retreat was probably the best strategy at this point. Before he’d even surfaced, she was heading for shore.
But she didn’t get very far. Some sort of underwater tentacle reached out and wrapped around one of her ankles, firmly stopping her in her flight.
Drake finally broke the surface, his tawny hair plastered to his head, but he didn’t let go of her ankle. In fact, he seemed to be reeling her in by it, the way a fisherman reeled in his catch. First his free hand, the one not wrapped around her ankle, encircled her knee, and then a thigh, and then, inexorably, her waist, until he was drawing her close to him with both arms. And all the while, he was smiling at her in a gentle manner that really wasn’t doing her heartstrings the least bit of good.
Payton, her pulse thundering in her ears, still had the presence of mind to stammer, “I think m-maybe you ought to rest a little longer—”
“No, thank you,” was his polite reply. “I’ve had quite enough of resting.”
And then he was kissing her. But it was not, to her surprise, , a hard, possessive kiss. No, it was gentle … like his smile.
At least, it started out gently. It wasn’t until she made the mistake—and she realized it was a mistake the moment she did it—of meeting his probing tongue with a darting, inquisitive thrust of her own, that the kiss went from gentle to wild—and in just half a heartbeat, too. One second, he’d been kissing her tenderly, and the next, his month’s growth of beard was razing the tender skin around her mouth as his lips seemed to engulf hers.
She had told herself when she’d removed his pants that morning that under no circumstance was she going to repeat what had happened on the Rebecca. That, she knew now, hadn’t been fair of her. Connor Drake was an extremely virile man, and that had been why he’d reacted the way he had when she’d thrown herself at him. True, he’d said he loved her … but he’d felt he had to say something like that, because she’d been a virgin, and she supposed he’d felt guilty …
Though it had been all her doing. She had been in love with him for most of her life, and had been actively pursuing him for the last several months. Lord, he had probably only given in to her lustful demands out of pity, or boredom, or the conviction that he was going to be put to death any minute, so why not enjoy the time he had left? He certainly couldn’t have been telling the truth when he’d said he loved her.
Or could he?
Because now … now there was no reason for him to be kissing her like this, no reason at all. He could have ignored her. He could have walked away, when he found her bathing there, and she’d never have been the wiser, not having noticed him until he’d been standing there some little while, judging from the evidence of his arousal.
Oh, bloody hell. Of course he was attracted to her. He was obviously attracted to her. And she had not thrown herself at him this time—quite the opposite, in fact. What did it matter, whether or not he’d been telling the truth when he’d said he loved her? Wasn’t his kiss convincing enough that he was … well, fond of her, anyway?
Her firm decision never to make love with him again crumbled into dust the second his lips touched hers. For one thing, she couldn’t very well push him away: his strong arms around her were all that kept her afloat. And for another thing, the feel of his naked body as he pressed it against hers was unlike anything she had ever known: the way his chest hair teased her nipples as it brushed up against them; the cool hardness of the thigh he insinuated between hers, brushing once—as if by accident, and then again, proving it was no accident at all—the soft, pulsing mound between her legs. Her hands were on his broad shoulders, shoulders that just the night before had glowed hotly red, but which had already turned to a deep bronze. She could feel the muscles beneath that tanned skin contract as his arms tightened around her. It seemed as if he couldn’t kiss her deeply enough, or press his body close enough to hers.
Why hadn’t anyone told her how good it felt, having a man’s skin against one’s own? Mei-Ling had never mentioned it. Georgiana had never said a word. Why hadn’t she ever tried this before? She ought to have ripped Drake’s clothes off that night, back on the Rebecca. But she’d been too overwhelmed by other sensations to think of it …
Then Drake’s lips left hers. Gripping her naked bottom—almost the way he had that night in the garden, so long ago—he lifted her from the water, holding her slick and dripping high above him, until his mouth was level with her breasts. And then he pressed those lips that had so firmly entrapped her to one hardened nipple.
She groaned. She couldn’t help it, the contrast between the cool water and the heat of his tongue was so delicious. And her groan seemed to do something to him. He tore his lips from her breast and lowered her in his arms until he could smother her mouth in quick, greedy kisses. Suddenly, the hard male thigh that had been brushing against her, lightly as a silverfish, pressed quite emphatically between her legs. And like the wanton thing she knew she was, Payton responded by moving against it in an imitation of the love act.
The next thing she knew, he’d lifted her out of the water again. Only this time, instead of his hands, she felt something cool and hard beneath her buttocks. Looking down, she saw that he’d placed her on a natural shelf formed by one of the flat boulders that surrounded the pool. Payton couldn’t think what he meant by it until she realized he was standing between her thighs, in water shallow enough that she was given an unimpeded view of the part of him she’d touched without the least temerity when it had been safely clothed; that organ which, because she lacked it, she’d blamed for any number of disappointments in her life, most recently the loss of the Constant.
Only now she had to say a little prayer of thanks that she had been born a female. Because otherwise, there would have been no reason for Drake to open her gently, as he did then, with his fingers, while at the same time invading her mouth with lips and tongue, an assault on so many fronts that Payton was helpless to put up any resistance whatsoever. She could only let out a little murmur of appreciation, and spread her legs even farther apart …
That seemed to be invitation enough for Drake to replace those fingers with something a good deal larger.
And then she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t even think, because his lips were on her neck again, his hands on her hips, and he was moving, slowly, out of her, when he’d only just gotten in, and it felt so good, having him there, so where was he going?
She moved her hips, pulling him greedily back inside. She felt him suck in his breath.
And then he said her name, in a voice tha
t was halfway between a growl and a groan, and his mouth was crushing hers, his hands clenching her buttocks, while his hips moved with frantic urgency between her legs. She could understand the urgency, because she felt it, too. Her entire being was focused upon Drake, on his ragged breathing, the coarseness of the stubble on his chin as it raked her mouth and throat, and above all, on the force behind each thrust, as he plunged so deeply within her.
Her climax, when it came, was nothing like the ones that she’d experienced before, back in Drake’s cell. It seemed to her as if one moment, every nerve ending within her was taut with frustration, and the next, she was drowning in a lava flow—yes, a lava flow, even though the volcano on San Rafael was long dead. She was burning up in a sea of fire and light, wave after wave of liquid gold pouring over her. Though she didn’t know it, the cry she let out was as much a sob as a scream, and hearing it, Drake lost all semblance of self-control. He gave one final thrust, driving himself as deeply into her as he could, no longer conscious of whether or not he hurt her, seeking only release.
It came, washing over him in torrents, powerful spasms of relief, and he roared his pleasure with such force that he startled the same flock of parrots she’d alarmed earlier, with her scream. He collapsed against her, and for a moment all Payton was conscious of was the pounding rhythm of his racing heart, the heavy weight of his body against hers, and the soft breeze that had begun to blow in from the sea, cooling her fevered skin.
And then she realized, with something akin to awe, that this—this, right now, right this moment—was what she had always wanted, what she’d been waiting for her entire life, it seemed. To have Connor Drake in her arms, his heart beating against her own … she had never asked for anything more than that, not once.
She felt it appropriate to utter a quick prayer of thanks. She hoped it wasn’t sacrilegious to pray naked. But since the Lord had made her that way she didn’t suppose He’d mind too much.
Chapter Twenty-five
“You can’t just wade up to one and heave the knife through it, he said, as they lay up their and heave the knife through it,” he said, as they lay on their stomachs, looking down into the pool. “You’ve got to wait until it comes to you.” Drake was trying to impress upon her the subtleties of spearing fish.
Payton took a bite out of the banana she held. “Drake,” she said. “Why do I have to know this?”
“In case something should happen to me.” He turned his head to look at her. Since she was lying so close to him that their hips touched, he didn’t have to turn his head far, and when he did, their noses nearly collided. He leaned back a little. It was important that he made her understand.
“They’re going to look for us, Payton. If I know the Frenchman, he’ll spend his every waking moment combing the area, until he finds us. That’s why it’s important for you to know how to take care of yourself.”
She turned those eyes upon him, those eyes that were sometimes green and sometimes gold, and sometimes, like now, the deepest, most impenetrable mahogany.
“I know how to take care of myself,” she informed him—mildly enough, for her. “Besides, you make it sound as if you think that if they found us, they’d only take you, and let me alone.”
“If we plan this out right, that’s exactly what will happen. I’ve hidden the longboat, so there’s no chance of them spotting it from the shoals. And if we stick to making fires at night, and deep enough inland, we’ve got a good chance. But just in case they stumble upon us anyway, I’ll distract them, and you hide.”
She laughed, a happy, burbling sound. It sounded familiar, and he realized that the spring, bubbling up from the earth, made much the same sort of sound. “Where?” Payton wanted to know. “Where am I going to hide, for heaven’s sake? We’re on an island, Drake, in case you didn’t notice.”
He pointed to the top of the rocks, where the water arced out, sounding like her laughter. “You could climb up there,” he said. “And lie down flat. They wouldn’t think to look there.”
Payton followed his gaze. “Well,” she said. “I could. But I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not going to sit up there and watch them kill you.” She turned her attention back to the pool beneath them. “Oh, there’s one, Drake.”
She meant to distract him, he knew. She was good at that, at changing the subject when it happened to displease her. But then he looked, and saw that she hadn’t been lying. A great gray fish of some sort was peering up at them from the mossy depths. It looked plump and defenseless and eminently edible.
“Right,” he said, hefting the spear. “Now pay attention, Payton. The point is not to let the fish know you’re there. Then … wham! Straight through the eyes.” He demonstrated the technique, using the ivory-handled dagger, which he’d tied to the end of a long stick. “You see? You want to throw from the shoulder, not the elbow. Now you try. See if you can get him.”
“Drake,” Payton said, still looking at the fish, and not at him, “what was it that you did that got the Frenchman so angry at you?”
He lowered his spear. “You don’t know?”
She shrugged. “No. Every time I ask, Ross just says it’s a long story.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, he’s right. It’s a very long, very boring story.”
And he couldn’t believe his luck that none of her brothers had told it to her. It was a bit demoralizing, he was discovering, being with a woman who knew absolutely everything there was to know about him … or at least thought she did. He did not need her to know that he’d frequented brothels. That had been a long time ago. He was a changed man. She had seen to that.
“And you really think he’ll try to come after us?” she asked. “The Frenchman, I mean.”
“Probably. That’s why the next time you build a fire, it’d be best not to do it on the beach.”
She looked up at him sourly. “I only built a fire there because I thought you were cold, and you were too heavy for me to move, you bloody oaf.”
It occurred to Drake that most women who claimed to be in love did not refer to the object of their affections as a bloody oaf. But their relationship was still very new, so he thought he’d let it pass.
“I’m not criticizing you,” Drake said. “What you did was very brave.” He reached down and swept a curl of russet hair from her eyes. “And very foolish.”
“I know,” she said happily. “Look what it got me. I’m ruined.”
She could not have said it in more delighted tones, but still, it bothered him to hear her say it at all. Oh, there was no doubting she was contented as could be. Dressed in nothing more than her newly laundered shirt, her bare feet swinging loosely behind her, she was the very picture of a well-loved, well-fed woman. Still, he could not help feeling that he had failed her, and in more than one way. He could remember nothing of her daring rescue of him. She had told him that he’d been semiconscious for part of it. He could not recall even a single moment of it. That was unforgivable. He ought to have been at least lucid enough to urge her to leave him behind. He ought to have ordered her to make her break for freedom without being burdened by a large and only partially conscious beast who, to pay her back for her unselfishness, was only going to ravage her like some kind of animal every time she turned around.
How could he help it, though? He hadn’t wanted it to be like this—he’d wanted to do things properly, to court her, to woo her …
Instead, it seemed as if he couldn’t even look at her without having to control an overpowering urge to throw himself on top of her.
“Drake,” she said, dropping a hand down to the water to stir it a little, frightening away the fish he’d been hoping to spear for supper. For someone who’d been so bloodthirsty a few nights before, she seemed strangely pacifistic now. She wouldn’t let him kill any of the parrots, depriving them of the possibility of roasted poultry. She even protested when he offered to slit the throat of a turtle that had crawled by, declaring s
he hadn’t any taste at all for eggs. If she thought that after a month on mash and water, he was going to be content to live on bananas and love …
Well, maybe she was right.
“What?” he asked, beginning to feel as lazy as she did. It had been no small feat, moving that longboat into the undergrowth. The thing had to have weighed several hundred pounds, at least.
“Do you suppose Becky Whitby will go back to England and claim to be your widow anyway? Even though they don’t know for certain you’re dead?”
Becky Whitby? Who cared about Becky Whitby! There were so many more important things they needed to discuss! Like what they were going to name their children, for instance.
“I don’t know. She’s welcome to try. I imagine that by now, your family must have every ship in His Majesty’s navy out looking for you. If they get to the Rebecca before the Rebecca gets to England, all bets are off.”
She glanced at him. “Do you think they’d know to look for us here?” she asked, and there was just the tiniest trace of worry in her tone. “My brothers, I mean.”
Drake nodded. “If they have any reason at all to believe we’re still alive, they’ll find us, Payton. Don’t worry.”
She smiled at him reassuringly. “Oh, I’m not worried,” she said.
It was odd, but he had a feeling that she really wasn’t—not about being found, anyway. Could it be that she was as delighted as he was by the way the fates had thrown them together? Or was she simply so confident—so blindly, so childishly confident—in his abilities that she could not imagine anything but that they would be rescued? The thought staggered him a little. He was used to commanding, used to issuing orders and having them followed. But he had never, to his knowledge, inspired that kind of confidence in any of his men. It made even less sense that Payton would feel that way about him, when she had been the one who’d rescued them, she had been the one who’d brought them here, to safety.
He didn’t feel as if he could go on basking in the adoring light in her eyes much longer. It wasn’t her fault. He wasn’t blaming her. But he couldn’t help half-wishing that the Frenchman would find them, and that he could take out some of his frustrations on the pirate’s handsome face.
An Improper Proposal Page 27
