Wind and the Sea

by Marsha Canham

  More than that, there was something new and disturbing in her eyes. Adrian wished he could scratch viciously at the wound on his temple, for the pain would help clear his thinking and sharpen his wits. Her eyes were playing with his body, teasing him, swallowing him into a bright green whirlpool and throwing his instincts off balance. His fingertips were tingling and he could feel the blood throbbing into his groin.

  Ignore her eyes! Strike out! Lash out! Reach for the gun, hold it to her temple, use her as a hostage to free the men on deck. It could work. It could...!

  Courtney set the goblet on the desk, lured onto more dangerous ground by the richness of the claret coursing through her veins. Her skin prickled from the heat of his eyes staring down at her, her heart pounded within her breast, and she sensed that he was daring her, challenging her...mocking her.

  She raised her hands and laid them with deliberate tenderness on his chest. The shock of contact sent a chill along her spine, and she held her breath, wondering if she was imagining the same fleeting tremors beneath her fingers. The front vee of his shirt did not quite fit together and she slid her fingers higher, teasing the coppery mat of hair that peeped through. She slid her hands lower, tracing them over the hard-surfaced flesh, over the bands of solid muscle that were almost hot to the touch. Her fingertips brushed across his nipples and despite the barrier of coarse cloth, she could feel them already tightened into hard little peaks.

  Her explorations ventured upward again, climbing slowly toward the strong pillar of his neck. Her fingers lingered on the carved hollow at the top of his breastbone before they followed the curve of the brawny shoulders and she could not help but remember how she had clawed into them and held on as her body arched and writhed beneath his.

  Her gaze rose to the squared set of his jaw, and her heart skipped erratically over several beats. His mouth had compressed to a grim line. A nerve leaped convulsively in his cheek, drawing her eyes higher, and even if his hands had not chosen that moment to bite into her shoulders, she would have gasped aloud at the naked fury blazing from his eyes. Like shards of light glittering off the blade of a sword, they slashed into her, pierced her, impaled her so that she could not have moved even if her limbs had the ability or the will to do so.

  Before she could draw a breath, her wrists had been captured, twisted down behind her back, and she was being crushed ruthlessly against the wall of his chest.

  “Is this what you want?” he snarled, and his head bent toward her.

  Courtney tried to twist back and away but his arms were like iron bands. His mouth plunged down over hers, the kiss brutal and ravaging, and she tried to turn her head to be free of it but he would not permit it. His tongue forced her resisting lips apart, taking what she refused to give willingly. It was a coarse, searing kiss, one that made her limbs weak and her blood run hot. Somewhere, somehow, she had lost control of the situation and the panic started to spread through her chest, through her belly. Her senses reeled under the assault, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she was able to wriggle an arm free, to swing it hard and catch the side of his head with a balled fist. He barely hesitated long enough to hiss a curse against her lips before he caught the flailing wrist again and twisted to the small of her back, angling it up with such cruel force, she gasped and cried out his name.

  Adrian froze. His mouth was poised to crush down over hers again, to teach her a lesson she would never forget, but something stopped him. Whether it was the fact she used his actual name for the first time, or the enormous, condemning green of her eyes, he could not have said. But he watched those eyes brim and the tears etch a glistening path down each cheek. He was still pinning her close against his body and he could feel her breasts heaving against his chest. He could feel the quaking in her arms and legs and as much as he tried desperately not to yield to it, he could feel the burning response in his own body, too powerful to deny.

  The anger drained from his expression as quickly as it had risen, and he cursed again, softly this time. Who was this woman, this pirate's daughter, this emerald-eyed beauty who could rouse him to a killing temper one minute, then touch a flame to his desires the next? And yes, by God, she was a beauty, lithe where he had thought her skinny; the boyish clothes hiding delicate curves and slender indents. Her legs were long and coltish, her breasts small but perfectly shaped to fit the palm of his hand. Her hair was fine as silk and trapped the threads of candlelight, giving depth and richness to the auburn color.

  His hands slid up her arms to cradle her neck. His thumbs brushed across her cheeks to capture the diamond-like sparkle of tears she had vowed never to show him again. He bowed his mouth to the shiny rivulets, then moved lower, smothering the gasp that tried ineffectually to halt him, then gently claimed and held the stunned, quivering lips beneath his.

  Courtney’s despairing whimper was lost to a kiss that was tender and sensual and evocative; all of the things she had never experienced before. She pressed her body deeper into his, furrowing into his embrace, pressing her breasts against his chest to wage a war—softness against hardness, passion against pride. She felt the tension in his body, the power in his arms as they tightened around her. Her fingers clawed into the flexing muscles of his shoulders, her lips parted beneath his and her tongue met his in a wild dance of thrust and counterthrust. The coarse rasp of his unshaven chin scored her flesh, causing shudders to quake throughout her body. There was violence drumming in his chest, violence that she could feel and taste, and it sent her emotions whirling and clashing within her.

  Adrian’s fingers raked into her hair, dislodging the combs, and scattering them across the floor. He forced her head back, arching her neck at a painful angle while his mouth blazed a scorching trail of caresses down along the curve of her throat. Her bodice, barely clinging to her breasts, forfeited its hold and released the dusky pink nipples to greedy fingers and a demanding mouth. His tongue flicked repeatedly over and around the painfully swollen crowns; his lips skirted the creamy white softness and returned again and again to the stinging peaks, swirling and suckling until there were fresh tears streaking into her temples. Courtney’s knees buckled, but he did not attempt to support her or to stop her from slipping to the floor. Instead, he sank down to his knees beside her, his mouth still fastened hungrily to her flesh, still feasting on the ripe bounty like a man possessed.

  Her ragged cries sent his hands on a fiery mission and in a few brief strokes, the muslin gown and silk shimmy were tossed into the shadows like wind-blown clouds. The rough growth of stubble drifted lower, onto the smooth plain of her belly. She was dizzyingly aware of the hot, swirling patterns his tongue was leaving in its wake, and she writhed in breathless anticipation as she felt the searching, stroking fingers slide between her thighs. The combined assault flooded her senses with a physical yearning so intense, so mindlessly urgent it frightened her.

  Adrian felt it; he spread her limbs, bracing her as his lips descended inch by aggressive inch. Courtney gasped as she realized where his course would eventually take him, and she tried to twist away, to bar his passage. But Adrian’s hands were firm on her thighs, and the first shocking incursion of his tongue was met with a groan—one that came from somewhere beyond her darkest fantasies. She began to thrash as the warm, wet insistence probed and plundered unmercifully. The waves of pleasure came hotter and faster; became searing jolts of ecstasy that stole the breath from her lungs and all thought of modesty from her mind. Her lips fell slack and her eyes turned luminous. Her brow dampened and her nails scored the bronzed shoulders with dozens of tiny scratches.

  Adrian’s mouth lifted from her body, and her harsh groan of disappointment sent him kneeling above her. His chest was shiny with sweat, his muscles corded sensuously as his hands skimmed up to the satiny smoothness of her breasts, then down again, to the soft thatch at the junction of her thighs. The dark green eyes locked on his, and her lower lip curled between her teeth. She could feel his anger and his passion; she could see the agony of
desire that burned in his eyes. Her hands clenched into fists and rode lightly on his shoulders, her fingers flexed spasmodically as she acknowledged his skillful manipulations. Cries trembled into her throat, and she knew she had to choke them back...but how...how?

  Through a blur of numbing pleasure she watched him strip away his clothes. She saw her own hands tearing frantically at the barriers that kept them apart, and when he rose above her again, she stared at his body: a gleaming statue in the candlelight, magnificently bold in its readiness.

  She closed her eyes as the forest of coppery hairs brushed against her breasts, setting her body on fire, sending her mouth on a desperate search for his.

  “No,” he hissed, and his hands were twining in her hair again, forcing her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Not until I hear you say it.”

  “S-say it?” She gasped, bewildered. “I do not underst—”

  His fists tightened, cutting the protest short. “I did not rape you that night, did I? You took what I had to offer as selfishly, as willingly as I took what I needed from you. I want to hear you say it, Irish. Say you wanted me then and you want me now.”

  “N-no. No...”

  “Yes,” he whispered savagely, and his body thrust into hers without warning, the fierce joy of it driving her arms up and around his broad shoulders. His mouth descended to attack her pride, his tongue ravishing her, demanding more than she imagined it was possible to give. And below, the stretching, thrusting power of him drove deeper, faster; his passion grew and spread and stroked into her with a determined ferocity. There was no way to deny the hunger in his body, or the helpless, shameless way she welcomed each violent surge of pleasure.

  “Say it,” he commanded on a gasp. His hands plunged beneath her buttocks, yet they delayed in lifting her against him, delayed until the ache within her was whipped to a feverish crescendo.

  “Yes,” she cried softly. “Yes...please!"

  "Say it!"

  "Y-you did not rape me!"

  It was enough. He expelled his breath and lifted her hips. Their mouths locked together; his hands guided her as the frenzied motion of their bodies peaked and crested and soared simultaneously into a raging eruption of ecstasy. Courtney twined her long legs around him, crying out as he filled her. Not a single nerve ending escaped the wildfire of sweeping passion. She was totally inundated, hopelessly shattered and fragmented by the awesome reality that it was not merely flesh and blood she was responding to, but the man himself. He proved it over and over, bringing her to orgasm again and again until she had nothing left to give. Nothing but tears and whimpers and soft, breathless pleas.

  They collapsed in a breathless tumble of arms and legs, their skin slippery with each other’s sweat, their pulses racing, their bodies still clenched and clinging as if neither wanted to be the first to let go. Courtney felt as if they must have become fused together in the heat of their consummation. She held him tightly; she ran her hands along the sleek muscles of his back, savouring the languid motion of his body as he coaxed the last of the tiny spasms free, knowing he was as reluctant to leave the soft, wet haven as she was to release him.

  Adrian pressed a final, tender kiss into the damp nest of curls below her ear and gently, reluctantly eased himself from between her thighs. He rolled beside her and without a word, gathered her determinedly close in his arms. She went without protest, her body feeling as though every bone and muscle had melted.

  The realization of what he had done struck Adrian like a physical blow. His men were suffering, dying in the worst misery imaginable; they were facing an uncertain future of chains and slavery. He should have followed his first impulse and wrapped his hands around the slender throat—to squeeze it, not caress it. He should have wrested the gun from her and used it the way Seagram had used a match and powder keg to bargain for freedom. But he had done neither. Instead of fighting her, he had capitulated to the one mouth, the one body that defied him to go against his sense of duty, of honor, against all obligations to home, to family, to country. Instead of bargaining for his men, he had forced Courtney Farrow into making an admission that made him ache inside.

  And the rewards for such a victory? None but a few moments of splendid oblivion. What had he changed by having her admit she wanted him? What had he accomplished by surrendering to her surrender? Nothing. Nothing the cold voice of reason could not erase in a moment.

  Courtney’s head was cradled in the curve of his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest as if it had always belonged there. She could hear his heart thundering within the chamber of muscle and sinew; she could almost hear his mind churning with thoughts that surely had to be an echo of her own. She was alternately cold, then very warm. She blushed furiously one moment, blanched the next, felt a need to speak volumes at one turn of thought, fell helplessly shy of courage the next. What could she say? That she felt like a woman for the first time in her life? That she wanted to feel like a woman, with a woman’s weaknesses, a woman’s need to feel the strength and comfort of a man's arms around her?

  How could she, when she knew what he was thinking. What he must be thinking of a woman who had enticed him into an act which he had tried so desperately to avoid? Whores did that. Women like Miranda Gold did that to men like Garrett Shaw and did not think twice of their perfidy. Yet, despite the animal passion he released in her, Courtney did not feel like a whore. She felt warm and soft in Ballantine’s arms. Comfortable in her vulnerability. Safe.

  She pushed herself slowly up out of his arms, staring around the cabin in absolute horror. Muslin and silk, breeches, stockings, combs and pins were scattered across the floor as if a storm had blown through the cabin.

  With a shiver of panic, she snatched up the silk shimmy and clutched it over her nakedness while she collected the rest of her clothes. Suddenly foolish and frivolous, the clothes seemed to be mocking her even more than the cool gray eyes that followed her every move.

  “You had best get dressed, Yankee,” she murmured, keeping her face averted. “The guard will be returning at any moment.”

  “Courtney...”

  “Did you hear what I said?” She whirled on him angrily. “Do you have any idea what would happen—to both of us—if we were found like this?”

  Adrian reached out a hand to her, but she jumped up and began stuffing the gown and underpinnings into the sea chest with careless haste. She pulled her shirt over her head and was reaching for her breeches when she saw Ballantine's frown.

  “He has probably spread the word throughout the ship that you were dressed for dinner,” Adrian said quietly.

  “What?”

  “The guard,” he reminded her. “He was nearly as shocked as I was when he saw you. Shaw is no doubt expecting a refined beauty to dine with him this evening.”

  “A pox on what he expects,” she declared with false bravado.

  “Nevertheless, if Shaw is the kind of man I think he is—" Adrian stood and finished fastening his breeches— “you will only be giving him reason to speculate on what changed your mind.”

  Courtney glanced at the locked door, and her skin paled noticeably. She looked back at the open sea chest, at the brimming hillock of silk and muslin. A single tear spiked on her lashes as she raised huge, dark eyes to Ballantine.

  “I don't think I can,” she whispered.

  “Of course you can,” he said gently, and had to fight the urge to take her in his arms again. His voice toughened and he bent over the trunk. “I will even help you, although I am damned if I know why I should. If I was unable to keep my hands off you, neither will he.”

  Courtney looked up, startled, but Adrian steadfastly ignored the fear in her eyes as he lifted her arms and pulled the shirt up and over her head again. He dropped the silken shimmy in its place quickly, trying not to notice how his stubble had left her breasts mottled and pink.

  “Courtney—”

  “That is the second time you have called me that,” she said, interrupting him.

&nbs
p; “It is your name, is it not?”

  “Yes, but perhaps you should not use it so freely.”

  He sighed and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We have just spent the better part of an hour doing things usually reserved for people who are on a first-name basis. How much freer does it have to be?”

  “I...” Her strength failed her and she lowered her chin in dismay. “I just think...” Her voice faltered and she tried again. “What happened was wrong. You know that yourself. It was...wrong.”

  “Right or wrong, it happened.”

  “But it does not change anything. It cannot possibly change anything.”

  Adrian took a deep breath before he tucked a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up to his.

  “No,” he whispered. “It does not change anything.”

  It just changes everything, he thought to himself.

  A bit of color dawned in her cheeks, and she looked into his eyes without commenting, without moving. Adrian smiled gently and brushed the backs of his fingers down her neck. “Now finish getting dressed while I pick up the rest of these things. And be sure you put this where it belongs.”

  'This' was a length of frothy, delicate lace that he had plucked up from a pile of linens on the floor.

  “What is it?” she asked, mystified.

  “I believe they call it a tucking piece, my charming innocent. It goes...there—" his eyes dipped to the swell of her bosom— “to keep certain things from falling out at the dinner table.”

  Courtney blushed furiously and turned abruptly to the mirror. The tucking piece did indeed make a difference. She did not feel quite so naked, or quite so apt to spill out of the muslin bodice if she leaned forward. When she was fully dressed she took the brush to her hair again and attempted to repeat her earlier efforts with the combs and fillets. Once again, her hands faltered, and she leaned toward the reflection, her fingertips lightly tracing the shape of her mouth.