The Sea Rose

by Amylynn Bright

  “Look at me,” he lifted her chin, and watched her try to focus on him. “You are a beautiful, sensual woman. I want to bed you so badly, I ache.” He grasped her hand and showed her how much he desired her. “I give you fair warning that I will continue my pursuit…”

  Roselyn looked into the pirate’s rich, black eyes, and then her gaze slid to his mouth and she watched his lips as he formed words, but she wasn’t really listening. She wanted him to kiss her again. Maybe it was the wine–it was definitely the wine–but she liked the way he looked at her. She really liked the way his kiss made her feel: both wanted and pretty. But being pretty was proud, and therefore wicked. Her father had drilled that into her head her entire life. The concept was dangerous, she knew, but the inhibitions she had were slowly drowning, and she liked feeling pretty.

  Rose put her finger across his lips and effectively silenced him. “Too much talking, not enough kissing.”

  This time she initiated the kiss.

  Roselyn placed both hands on his shoulders to steady herself as she stood on wobbly tiptoes to place her lips on his. She didn’t know how to continue since her entire resume of experience could be summed up in their one previous kiss. Fortunately, her pirate was there to guide her and his arms slid around her waist and he deepened the kiss. This time, she didn’t bolt when he pulled her close and she felt his arousal. Soon enough, Roselyn’s instincts took over and her hands roamed his skin, down his strong arms and across his broad, well-muscled back. She found the waist band on his breeches and, slowly by degrees, she pulled at his shirt until it came free and allowed her access to his skin.

  Jack was overwhelmed. Her soft hands glided up his stomach and curled into the soft hair that feathered his chest. The act nearly ended his resolve. He wanted to have her, it was true, but not because she was weakened by alcohol. This woman was a wonder and he wanted her to choose him when she had all her faculties.

  But dear God, it was all he could do to resist her temptation. She was all passion and eagerness, her hands never stopped roaming once she discovered how her body affected certain parts of him.

  “Beautiful Roselyn,” he whispered into her hair, “how is a man supposed to act like a gentleman with such passion and loveliness before him?”

  “But you’re not a gentleman, Jack. You’re a pirate,” she whispered back against his neck, while her hands found the glory that was his backside and now she caressed it lovingly.

  Jack chuckled at her easy grasp of the truth. “Ah, but alas, my sweet, I am not such a pirate that I’m a despoiler of drunken virgins who are engaged to missionary ministers.” He reached behind him with both hands and clasped her hands in his. He brought them back around to the front and held them to his lips and laid a kiss in each palm. She appeared dismayed that he had put a halt to their passion, so he kissed her lips briefly again.

  “Rose, it is nearly killing me not to take your beautiful body right now.” He looked down appreciatively. He could see all her curves through the thin cotton of her shift. “But now you need sleep.”

  She was clearly much too tired to put up any serious protest, so when he led her back to the bed and pulled down the silk covers, she climbed in and sank drowsily into the feather bed, her head on the downy pillows, and she was asleep almost instantly. He covered her and blew out the lantern near the bed. As he stepped away, her hand slipped out and grabbed his.

  “Come sleep with me,” she murmured, dreamily.

  Handsome Jack looked back at the sensual, inviting woman in his bed and his groin ached. How much could his tenuous resolve be expected to withstand?

  “Please,” she said. He was lost.

  He kicked off his boots and pulled his shirt off over his head. His pants fell into a heap on the floor, and he crawled into the bed beside her. She snuggled against him and she fell asleep with his arms around her.

  Eventually, Jack fell asleep too, but it was a long time before he could relax enough for that peace to find him.

  Chapter Eight

  Roselyn opened her eyes to the morning sun streaming through the porthole window. The pirate’s bed was warm and comfortable and she languidly stretched her arms over her head and immediately froze.

  There was someone else in the bed.

  She carefully turned her head and found Jack sleeping next to her. She gently turned her body until she was face to face with him. She didn’t remember everything from the night before, but she was fairly confident that they had not made love. However, if her father looked down on her now from heaven, then she was sure he would kill her himself. It was entirely possible that everything he’d ever said about her was true. But, her father was gone and he wasn’t in control of her life anymore. Unfortunately, soon enough it would be Rupert.

  She had taken charge of her life enough to decide to buy passage to New Providence and seek out her fiancé, but was she brave enough to scrap that plan altogether? It saddened her to know that she could never have the life she wanted with a man like Jack. Pirates did not settle down with minister’s daughters and get married. She already knew that he had a certain animosity towards the aristocracy and his family. There was no hope for the two of them off the ship. This was to be a voyage of discovery, and afterward she would tuck it away with only the tender memories to sustain her once she became a minster’s wife.

  Emboldened by that decision, Roselyn gave herself permission to be a little wanton.

  All she knew for sure was that he was easily the most attractive man she had ever seen. She still had her shift on, but he had no shirt–that she could see. Everything else was a mystery.

  She dared herself to lift the sheet and peek underneath. She glanced at his face, but he still slept, his beautiful countenance peaceful and dreamy. Slowly, carefully, she lifted the sheet by inches, alternating between looking at his face to make sure he still slept and the growing expanse of his skin. A well muscled chest gave way to a flat stomach as the sheet crept its way down. Just like his mustache, the hair on his chest looked equally soft, but she feared if she stroked his skin and hair, he would wake for sure. The sheet slipped passed his waist and the tan line that so intrigued her before became visible. She knew she should stop and she hesitated. Now or never. She closed her eyes and exhaled to prepare herself. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her eyes came open to see him staring at her.

  “Have you seen everything you wanted to?” he drawled with a randy grin.

  Her fingers dropped the sheet instantly, the silk fabric fluttered to conceal all that she’d uncovered. “I apologize,” she sputtered. Her cheeks bloomed in a bright blush.

  He raised both his hands over his head, “I won’t stop you. Go ahead, investigate at your leisure,” his voice gravelly and sexy with sleep.

  “Oh no,” she protested and shook her head. “I’m very sorry.” She rose to climb out of bed.

  He grabbed her by the waist and drew her back into the bed beside him. She watched him warily, not exactly sure if she wanted him to seduce her or not. She knew she wouldn’t have the fortitude to stop him if he kissed her again.

  “We will be pulling into Nassau today. Do you know where to find your fiancé?”

  “I have an address where I sent letters to him, but it was in my trunk,” she paused when she realized she no longer had the scrap of paper.

  “And your trunk is at the bottom of the ocean,” he finished for her. His finger strayed to her collarbone where it skimmed along the ridge there. “How will we find him?”

  “We?” she asked, “You’re going to help me?”

  “I’m certainly not going to abandon you in that town alone. Nassau is Sodom and Gomorrah reborn, and I won’t have you wandering around there with no escort.”

  She tried to ignore his wandering finger for a moment and focus on the words he’d just said. “I did just fine by myself in London on the merchant ship. You don’t owe me anything.” She made every effort to be indignant, but he was very distracting.

  “And look how wel
l you faired on your first voyage.” The finger had a mind of its own and down it went as it followed a path between her breasts.

  “Well, it’s hardly my fault that the ship sank, now is it?” Where was his finger going now? A trail of fire followed in its wake.

  “Believe me, if you fall into a bad situation in Nassau, you will be wishing you went down with that ship.” He pressed a kiss on her shoulder. Of course, one kiss led to another and then several more connected from her shoulder to the sensitive indention at the base of her throat. “I only want to insure your safety, my beautiful Rose.”

  “Did you say ‘your’ Rose?” She was nearly past the ability to speak, but his endearment caught her attention.

  “At least for this morning.” Jack slid his thigh between hers, laying half on her. “Do you trust me?” he asked her.

  Roselyn looked into the well of his black eyes and saw strength of character that she wasn’t sure even he suspected he possessed. Why shouldn’t she trust him? If he’d wanted to hurt her he’d had ample opportunity the previous day and night. He hadn’t harmed her when she first came on board, or in the bathtub or, at her most vulnerable, when she was drunk and willing in his bed. Of course she trusted him.

  Go ahead, be wanton, her darker self urged. Father accused you of it enough.

  As it turned out, she was perfectly capable of making decisions for her life. Had she known all that was available to her, what the world outside her small English village offered, would she have allowed her father to betroth her to Rupert? Rupert, a man exactly the same as her father, two men cut from the same cloth. How might her life have been different if her mother had lived? Roselyn had never known her. The woman died from a bout of influenza when she was only two. Was her mother the meek and subservient woman her father tried to mold his daughter into?

  Did she trust him?

  She answered him with a searing kiss that she hoped properly conveyed her desire to continue to unfold all the mysteries her body held. Jack pulled her shift over her head and threw it to the floor. His hands and mouth branded her naked skin with passion.

  She had never felt this way. In fact, she hadn’t known these feelings were even possible. She only just realized in the last two days the wealth of experiences her father had sheltered from her. Not like any father would allow for this experience per se, but she was finding many things on this voyage to broaden her horizons.

  His hands and lips caressed her, and now was not the time to contemplate deep thoughts and what ifs. Jack was magic, the things he made her feel–no wonder her father talked of such things as wicked.

  Maybe feeling pretty is wicked, but if this is how pretty feels, then I want to be wicked. Jack made her feel pretty. Actually, Jack made her feel beautiful.

  Jack’s kisses traveled down from her throat until he found her breast and then a nipple. He drew the rosy bud in his mouth and her body responded, a most scintillating current raced down her body and pooled in the center of her being. He settled his body fully between her legs, his mouth never leaving her breast except when it traveled over to lavish attention on the other one. His hands caressed her, spread her legs wider, kneaded the muscles of her thighs. He raised himself to take her mouth once more, his tongue hot and insisting, his hands spanned her waist and roamed further down to settle on her hips.

  “Will you bloom for me, my Rose?” he whispered against her mouth.

  She had no idea what he was talking about, but he could have asked her to fly to the moon and she would have agreed. She was completely open to suggestion at this point, as long as she kept feeling this way.

  Roselyn nodded, and then gasped as his fingers found her very center. Her legs moved restlessly and her hands grasped the sheets at either side of her. Clever fingers wove their way through the curly hair at her apex, found the secret pleasure point there, and gently rubbed.

  ”Jack,” she called out, her voice husky and low. “Oh my God, Jack.”

  Roselyn knew this wasn’t the same kind of love making she was likely to get from Rupert, especially if his perfunctory kisses were any indication. Jack was a handsome man when clothed in his pirate’s garb, but when naked he was breathtaking, magnificent.

  Tension mounted in her stomach, in her womb, that she couldn’t name and didn’t know how to slake. Her hips moved, jerked when he added more pressure and, when she felt one long, masculine finger slide inside her, she let out a strangled, little scream. He withdrew his finger slowly, circling the entrance, and then slid it in again. His thumb massaging her as the pressure built inside. And almost the same instant that he slid in a second finger, the pressure burst and she screamed his name.

  Jack observed her, gratified that he had been the first to make Rose bloom. At the same time he mourned her. He knew that his release was not forthcoming. He would have to allow her husband to have that honor, and it angered and saddened him deeply. After the ship docked and they found her fiancée, there was very little likelihood that Handsome Jack would ever see her again, and the prospect made him uncharacteristically melancholy. He would have to give his beautiful Rose to some other man; some other man surely unworthy of her.

  If this Rupert was a husband her father had chosen for her, likely he had selected a man of similar nature, and the thought of Rose being trampled under further cruel dictates and punishments made him want to hold her forever. He wanted to protect her from the harshness of a husband like that, of a life that consisted of mashing down her spirit. But he was a pirate, his previous life of no consequence, and she a lady borne of good character. This was not a story that could end in happily ever after.

  He kissed her stomach and each hip while she lay panting and settling back to earth. He placed his head on the cradle of her stomach and her fingers found his hair.

  “Oh my God,” Roselyn whispered, “that was the most amazing thing…I don’t have words.”

  “You’re amazing, Rose.” Jack really believed it. After all the experienced women he had known, he simply couldn’t get past the amazement that this sweet, unspoiled minister’s daughter should be the one to wrap up his heart. He rose on his elbows and kissed her breasts reverently, then the hollow of her throat. She placed a hand on each side of his jaw and drew him to her mouth and kissed him deeply. A quick learner, her kiss soon escalated from sweet and gentle, to passionate and desperate.

  Jack could feel himself losing control. Unless he ended this immediately he wouldn’t be able to stop. He pulled his mouth away from hers and sat up, his rear resting on his heels, still sitting between her legs.

  Oh it would be so easy. It would be so good.

  “Rose,” was all he said before her curious fingers wrapped around his cock. “God! Rose.” He grasped her wrist. “You’re killing me.”

  “You’re very large. Probably because you’re such a big man, but it’s not like I have a point of reference.” Her eyes fixed on what she held in her hand. “What just happened, what you did to me, that wasn’t everything was it?” she asked him.

  “No.” He gritted his teeth against the sensation of her free hand sliding up his thigh. “There is much more.”

  “I want it all, Jack.”

  He wanted to give it to her and his control hung by a thread. “Are you sure? One more kiss, one more inch with that hand, and there’s no going back.”

  Roselyn sat on her knees in front of him. With her hand still gripping his rock-hard cock, she kissed him. Her mouth hot and urgent, her tongue entered his with passion that Jack could only interpret with the part of his body she held in her grasp. It was more than Jack could take. He pressed her back on the bed and tested her center with his fingers, found her even wetter than before.

  “Now, Jack,” she urged and lifted her hips, her eyes begged for him.

  He slowly entered her, her slickness and warmth begged to be plundered. Jack clenched his teeth for control until he reached the barrier and, with exquisite tenderness, he pushed through. If the pain bothered her, she didn’t give an
y sign of it.

  He withdrew and slid nearly all the way out. She clutched at his hips and made a mewling sound of protest, clearly not wanting him to go. An entirely unnecessary plea once Jack set the rhythm. He filled her and then retreated only to fill her again and again.

  “Jack? Jack!” she cried.

  Several more thrusts and Jack’s explosive climax followed hers.

  They lay in the bed, nestled together, back to front. Jack felt her steady breaths through the rise and fall of her breasts once she drifted back to sleep, her warm exhalations against his arm, her head cradled against his shoulder. This was his woman. He knew this in his gut, in his heart. But, he had just promised to see her to her fiancé. He knew that was the honorable thing to do, but he never wanted to do anything less in his life. Never before had something felt so wrong.

  If only there was a way. For the first time in his life, Jack was overcome with regret. Regret for the choices he’d made, the life he’d led. In some ill-thought-out, juvenile quest to prove his father’s assertions that he was “no good”, and to lick the wounds inflicted from a faithless lover, he had chosen a life of a Corinthian, and that fateful decision so many years ago promised to threaten everything he thought he might now come to hold dear.

  Chapter Nine

  July 27, 1718

  Roselyn stood in the circle of his arms, both of his hands on the wheel of the ship. Around them jostled a flurry of activity as the sailors prepared to bring the ship into port. The old sailor who saved her from the sinking merchant ship had blended into the pirate crew. Finally emerging when Mr. Blake called down that the ship was in sight of their destination, the lovers had spent most of the day in bed. Though much of the time was devoted to making love, they also fed each other, talked, and laughed.