by Anthology
She didn’t understand what he was saying. All those years where the three of them had attended dinners and parties, and he’d been in love with her? Knowing she went home with Neville and shared his bed? She and Neville had been a love match, and enjoyed each other, never making a secret of it. And Lucian had been in love with her, watching her go home with his best friend? “I don’t know what to say. You—you left me behind.”
“I didn’t wish to. I wanted to sweep you away from the moment I knew you were moving in with Angelica. But I had nothing to offer you.”
“So you turned to the life of a highwayman?”
“I had gambling debts. I lost not only Neville and you, but my home, everything.”
“And you risk it all now?”
“More than you know.” He touched her cheek, stroking his thumb across the rise.
His breath feathered across her lips. She caught her own breath at the intimacy and lifted her face a fraction. She jolted at the contact of his soft lower lip against hers.
He made a soft sound then curved his hand around the back of her head and angled his mouth over hers.
Unable to believe this was real, she trembled in his arms. Her body, dormant from months of grief and loneliness, blossomed to life. His fingers in her hair, his lips soft, the rasp of his stubble against her skin. The scent of him, musky and masculine with the hint of the night air. She moved closer, her hands on the sleeves of his coat to keep her balance as her head spun.
Lucian was kissing her. Lucian of the playful nature and the irresponsibility. Lucian of the laughing eyes and the quick smile. Lucian, whom every debutante flirted with before she found out he had no fortune. And he loved her.
His hand drifted down her back, stroking along her spine through the borrowed dress. She leaned into him, into the strength of his chest as his lips played over hers, as his tongue parted her lips, awakening a hunger she thought she’d buried forever.
She slid her hands inside his coat, down the row of buttons on his crisp white dress shirt, the one he’d worn to the ball, the one he’d danced in with Constance. He hadn’t asked her to dance. Why? She wondered what it would be like to be twirled around the floor in his arms, to look into his eyes as they danced around the floor.
Wordlessly, he asked her to a more intimate dance now. His fingers pressed at the small of her back, and through the layers of her skirts, she felt the urgency of his cock. A flood of heat swept through her, laying waste to her good sense, and she leaned into him.
He made a sound deep in his throat—surprise or approval, she didn’t know. But then he swept his hand behind her and lifted her into his arms. Startled, she wrapped hers around his neck. “Lucian?”
He didn’t respond, instead striding toward the stairs and carrying her up.
Each step made her fingers tighten. She could stop this with a word, she was certain. She knew him—he was honorable, and he said he loved her.
But she couldn’t find the word—or the will—to make him stop.
He continued through a doorway and closed the door behind them.
She presumed it was a bedroom, but the space was so dark so she couldn’t be sure. He set her on her feet with her back to him and slid his hands from her shoulders down her bare arms. He pushed her gloves downward to caress her skin, his touch light as he stroked her forearms. She started to turn to face him, but he stopped her, bracing his legs on either side of her, moving closer so that his breath was hot against her neck, but other than his fingertips on her arms, he didn’t touch her.
He tugged the gloves free one at a time and tossed them aside, and then glided his touch up to the gown’s short sleeves, pulling them down to bare her shoulders.
Lucian touched his lips to the tender skin of her shoulder, and she caught her breath, swaying at the power of the simple yet intimate caress. Her entire being centered on the way he was touching her, on the anticipation of what was to come.
But he was in no hurry. He ran his lips across the cap of her shoulder, then repeated the caress on her other arm. Every inch of her skin anticipated his touch.
He loosened her hair so it tumbled around her, cool and heavy. He swept aside the length and kissed the side of her throat, nipped the tip of her ear.
Her breasts swelled in her bodice, needing his hands, which remained on her arms. She could feel a tremor in his touch, a hitch in his breathing that told her he was as affected as she.
Finally, he moved his hand to the back of her neck, stroking downward, his arm between their bodies, until he reached the laces of her gown.
She caught her breath when he began to tug. She tried not to think about the ease with which he loosened them, only about the way his fingertips stroked her skin as he bared it.
The borrowed dress sagged from her body then dropped to the floor, and he lifted her off her feet again, only to set her down outside of the circle of pooled fabric, this time facing him. Her eyes had become accustomed to the dark, and moonlight filtered in through a large window, making the loathed lavender dress and the cream-colored bedding glow.
He curved his hand around her jaw, angling her head up for another kiss, at the same time tucking her hair back over her shoulder, out of his way as he ran his hand down the slope of her breast still covered by her corset. She gasped into his mouth as the heat of his hand permeated the thin fabric, and she pushed her breast into his touch. He took his time, concentrating on her mouth, kissing, nipping, stroking her lower lip with his tongue before diving deeper. Only then, when his mouth was sealed against hers, did he take her nipple in his fingers and pluck gently.
Her entire body sagged as heat raced between her legs, swelling the flesh there until she was almost reduced to begging for his touch to ease the ache.
Then he broke the kiss and bent his head, nuzzling aside the fabric of her corset and chemise to take the tip of her breast into his mouth, hot and deep, sucking and drawing and—
A climax swept over her, making her cry out as her body bowed over his arm, as her fingers dug into his hair, holding his head to her, not willing to release him, to end the sensation.
He broke her hold to look up at her, eyes bright. “Was that—?”
She nodded, her head flopping on her neck since her muscles had turned to water.
He grinned and straightened, lifting her once more and carrying her toward the bed.
“Will you always be carrying me about to get me where you want me?” she demanded.
He rose over her on the mattress. “Perhaps.”
“You could simply ask. I might say yes.”
His nostrils flared, and he opened his mouth, like he was going to ask her something, but then he lowered his mouth to hers.
This time, his kiss was decidedly more passionate—his tongue sweeping into her mouth, his hands bracing him over her. His knees trapped her chemise, pinning her legs to the bed. She wriggled beneath him, trying to free himself, her struggle seeming to excite him for his breathing came faster, hotter, harder.
“Lucian.” She reached between them and tried to pull the fabric free before he understood.
He rolled to the side and pushed the skirt to her hips, his fingers stroking along the skin he bared.
At the caress, her entire body sparked, and she lifted her body toward him.
Again, he pulled her underneath him, his breeches rasping against her inner thighs. Wondering why she was undressed and he wasn’t, she slid one leg along the outside of his. He broke the kiss to trail his lips down her jaw, down her throat, over the curve of her breast where it swelled above her corset.
She bowed off the bed, urging his mouth lower, needing the heat of his mouth.
He turned his head to her other breast, then nudged aside the fabric to pull her nipple into his mouth. He stroked his tongue against it before drawing it deep.
Her entire body tightened. That she was so eager after her first climax shocked her. She opened her legs and rubbed her sex against his cock, hard in his breeches,
needing to ease the ache, needing him inside her.
Her corset made breathing difficult. She twisted, reaching for the laces.
Again, he sensed her need and flipped her over. She heard a rasp, and the garment fell loose. When she turned over, she saw Lucian tossing a knife onto the table beside the bed. She gave a soft whimper of longing as he grabbed the corset and tossed it across the room, the hooks clattering against the window.
Then he turned and ripped the chemise from her torso. He rocked back on his heels to look and smoothed his palm down the center of her body, from throat to sex, stroking his fingers through the curls to find her, slick and ready. Gliding his fingers over her wet petals, he circled the nub of pleasure before dipping inside her, one finger sliding deep, and then a second.
He watched her face, and she tried to hold his gaze, until she couldn’t deal with the intimacy and let her lids slide closed, giving herself over to the sensations as his rough fingers hooked inside her.
Still, the sensation wasn’t enough. She wanted him inside her. Lazily, she glanced at his crotch and reached for the buttons of his breeches.
But he pushed her hand away.
“Lucian.”
“Take what I have to give you, Julia,” he said, and slid down her body, following the same path his palm had taken, until he spread her thighs, his thumbs parting the lips of her sex, and he lowered his mouth.
The flick of his tongue against that hard little pearl at the top of her sex shot a sizzling sensation through her, and she tried to slam her thighs together, the pleasure stunning and terrifying. “Lucian!”
“Let me. Julia. Let me give you this.” He held her thighs open, and let his breath blow warm against her inner thighs, then over her damp curls. Her stomach tightened, her sex flooded with desire, and she tilted her hips in invitation.
Again, he touched his tongue to her. She closed her fingers over his shoulders, intent on pushing him away, but when he continued the caress, her fingers found their way into his hair, holding him to her. His tongue alternately lapped and pressed against her, until she was lifting off the bed against him, grinding her hips into his mouth.
The climax rocked through her body, and the next thing she knew, he’d stripped off his shirt, peeled down his pants, and pressed his cock against her opening. He was hard, hot, and heavy as he eased forward, his body shaking.
She understood what that meant and hooked her legs around his naked hips, his firm buttocks, and brought him inside.
Both of them gasped, she at the pinch as he stretched her, as he filled her, as his groin pressed into her sex. He was so deep inside her, she arched her back, as if that could give him more room. His breathing was heavy as he braced himself above and looked down at her.
And then he began to move, the drag of his cock inside her sparking arousal all over again, the wet sound of him leaving her body only to return with more force, the collision of his hips with her swollen flesh. She tightened her legs around him, beneath his buttocks, and slid her hands from shoulders to thigh, following the play of muscles, settling her touch over the bunch and thrust of his ass.
He took her face in one hand and guided her to him, kissing her for a long moment. “I’ve wanted to be inside you since I first met you,” he murmured, before rising to drive into her again and again, each push harder, rocking her on the mattress.
His words sent a sense of power through her, and she pushed at his shoulder until he understood and rolled onto his back, carrying her with him, almost sliding free, grabbing her ass just in time to anchor himself. She adjusted her hips as she straddled his, bringing him deep again. His nostrils flared as he stroked her breasts, her waist, her hips and thighs. She allowed the caresses before she began to move, her thighs protesting the motion she hadn’t indulged in for too long, but the wonder on Lucian’s face was worth the sting.
Each thrust made him tense, and he gripped her hips, rising to meet her, until they lost the rhythm in their desperation for completion. She rolled her hips once more, and he shouted and stilled beneath her, so she felt his seed pumping into her with a violence she couldn’t have predicted.
Moments later, he sat up, his body still pulsing, and captured her nipple in his mouth, pulling on it as he slid his hand between her thighs to caress her center of pleasure. After two climaxes, she was surprised to respond, her whole body becoming tight, focused, until he stroked one thumb upward, sending her tumbling into another vortex of sensation.
She slid off of him and tumbled to the mattress beside him. He stared at the ceiling for a moment as he struggled for breath.
“I can’t believe I finally have you in my bed.” He turned his head toward her, and his smile flashed in the moonlight. “Now that I have you here, I may never let you out.”
Dreamily, she reached across the bed, across the rumpled sheets and stroked his skin, slick with sweat. “Lucian, I can’t stay.”
He rolled onto his elbow and looked downward. “You don’t understand, Julia. I mean to marry you. Will you have me?”
Her brain whirled. He loved her, he wanted her, he wanted to marry her? How was a woman to insert reason when a man literally swept her off of her feet? But she had to try. “Lucian. I can’t—you don’t—we need time.”
“We’ve had time. I can give you my heart. Will you take it, Julia? Will you take me? Body and soul?”
“And what about your nightly activities?” She waved toward the window. “What of them? You’d have me be the wife of a highwayman?”
He chuckled and drew her against him. “Oh, I have a very definite plan about that.”
* * *
Six months later
“Stand and deliver!”
From astride her own mount, Julia watched her dashing new husband approach the same carriage he’d removed her from. She tugged at her mask as he prodded her brother-in-law from the safety of the conveyance and onto the road, forcing him to kneel with his hands behind his head. Julia could hear his sniveling as he pled for his life.
Lucian ignored him and motioned the gun for the other occupants of the carriage to disembark. Not one of them her sister-in-law, Julia noted, not as shocked as she should be. Lucian swiftly divested the two women of their jewels, and he leveled his gun at Joseph’s head once more, drawing back the hammer of the gun.
Joseph sobbed in earnest now, but Lucian was in no mood to show mercy. He swung the pistol against the side of the man’s head so that he crumpled in the dirt. Then Lucian swung up onto his mount and motioned to her.
Together, they wheeled their horses in the other direction and galloped away, capes flowing behind.
Plunder
Delilah Night
“Ye’re keeping an eye out for pirates?” Captain Marcus, her father’s right-hand man and current captain of the Maya, leaned against the Maya’s gunwale. A tic pulsed beside his good eye.
Brianna Northerly heard the comment from her honorary second father and felt her face redden with anger. But she pulled on the lessons she’d learned in that infernal finishing school she’d escaped and counted slowly to ten.
At school, Bree had been an outcast. While the other girls obsessed over finding a husband, Bree knew she was already promised to her great love, the ocean. Spending her formative years on the Maya, the crown jewel in her father’s fleet of merchant ships, made her a sailor to her very core.
When Bree was rescued by her father’s right-hand man Marcus from Mrs. Lingstrom’s stifling tutelage days ago, she’d thought her dreams of returning to the sea were coming true. Instead, she was living out her worst nightmare.
Drawing a deep breath, she gave Marcus a sour look and gestured to the cumbersome dress swathing her body. “Watching for pirates is about all I can do in this get-up. I can’t even climb to the crow’s nest. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a pair of breeches—”
The grizzled sailor rolled his eyes at her seventh request for trousers that day. “Lass, yer father made it clear that ye’re to b
e dressing and acting like a lady. I’ll already catch hell for ye shearing off yer hair short as a boy’s.”
“It got in the way. Just like this blasted dress.”
“No. Ye’re a lady now. Act like it. God knows ye need all the practice ye can get to convince anyone of that fact.”
“You’re a traitorous piece of chum,” she snapped waspishly. “You’re following my father’s orders like a brainless dog on a leash, content to lick your own balls rather than show your spine.”
Marcus laughed. “Three years at a school to learn a girl’s manners and ye’ve still got a sailor’s mouth.” He clapped her on the back and moved on.
Clenching her jaw, she turned back to the water and thought, Damned pirates.
After her mother died in childbirth, Bree had grown up a ship’s brat. By sixteen, she’d been certain it was only a matter of time until her father made her an officer, and eventually, captain of the Maya.
Then the pirates came. The ship had been attacked near Anguilla. They hadn’t been boarded, but the threat had been close enough. Still, the damage had been done. Someone—and wouldn’t she like to know who—convinced Papa that she was the greatest plunder the ship had to offer. He’d begun spouting nonsense about him managing ships from the land and her making a “proper marriage.”
Three years she’d suffered at boarding school in America.
Embroidery. Mending sails or the occasional piece of clothing was worthy of her time, but stitching decorative roses on pieces of silk?
Penmanship. She could read and write just fine, but the teacher wanted her to draw letters so precious and curlicued they were near illegible.
She’d sent Papa countless letters, begging to come home. He finally sends Marcus to fetch me, only to tell me I’m to be married to the owner of a sugar plantation? A landlubber!
No matter. She’d figure out how to sail these sorry straits, and still come out without so much as a rigging out of place—or a ring on her finger. Somehow.
Late that afternoon Brianna was watching clouds form on the horizon. They would need all hands on deck if a storm blew in. Her hands were better than most when to the task was tying ropes in the rain.
