The Wayward One

by Danelle Harmon

  “Do it right and a woman’ll want to be ravished a whole lot more times than just once.”

  “Maybe we only have ‘once.’ We will never see each other again, after tomorrow.”

  After tomorrow. Why did those two simple words and the thought of being back with her brothers, back in her quiet, predictable, ordered world, cause her heart to feel as though someone had just speared it with a dull knife?

  After tomorrow.

  He carried her to the stern windows, stopping along the way to retrieve a bottle from a drawer in his desk and two tin mugs, both hopelessly dented. The sensation of being in such huge, powerful arms made her a little breathless, made her feel small and sheltered and deliciously protected. Holding her against himself with one hand, he put the bottle and mugs down, yanked the light canvas cushions from the stern seat and tossed them to the deck flooring. He set her down, unbuckled his sword belt and put it aside. She took off the midshipman’s jacket. A moment later they were both lying on the cushions, stretched out alongside and facing each other.

  She propped herself on one elbow, gazing into his unfairly beautiful, long-lashed eyes that made him look innocent and harmless. She had seen the rough edges that made up his character, she had sensed the restless, predatory coil just below the surface. There was nothing innocent or harmless about this man, this man she sensed was as dangerous as any of her brothers.

  Propping the side of his head in one hand, he reached out and grasped a long blonde hank of her hair, smoothing it between his fingers. “I want to make love to ye, lass.”

  “I…want you to, Ruaidri.”

  “Ye know what it entails, don’t ye?”

  She blushed but forced herself to be bold. “I know…certain things. And I’ve been…touched before.”

  “Have ye, now?” He was smiling with just one corner of his mouth.

  “Of course it was nothing more than a touch. And it might have been quite accidental, really. I’m a lady, Captain.”

  “I see. Do ladies lack the same desires that other females have?”

  “I’m not an ‘other female,’ so I don’t know.”

  “Hmph.” He let go of her hair and with one finger, traced the curve of her jaw, down to her throat, causing her to suppress a little shiver of desire. “Well, I’ve never taken a highborn English lady to me bed, but I can tell ye right now, Lady Nerissa, that ye’ve got the same parts an’ pieces as any other whether she be an Irish barmaid or an American seamstress, and I know very well how to make those parts an’ pieces work. To sing together in harmony, to bring ye such pleasure that ye’ll think ye’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  “Confident, aren’t you?”

  “Always.” He smiled, and uncorking the bottle with his teeth, splashed spirits into each of the two mugs. He raised his own. “To you, Lady Nerissa. And unforgettable memories.”

  “To…us,” she murmured, and boldly bringing her mug to her lips, tipped it up, took a sip—and felt fire raging all the way down her throat, as though she’d swallowed a razor.

  She slammed the mug down, gasping, sucking in breath that was afraid to enter the same space that that—liquid had just passed through. Tears streamed from her eyes. As she coughed and gagged, Ruaidri also sat up, pressing the mug back into her hand, laughing as he bade her to take another sip.

  “I’m not drinking that foul stuff!”

  “The second sip’ll be easier. Ye’ve already broken ground with that first swallow.”

  “What is this?”

  “Irish whiskey.” He took another swig from his own mug. “It won’t kill ye.”

  She could feel the path of fire all down the back of her throat, down her esophagus and all the way to her stomach. But she was a de Montforte. She was not going to be cowed by a bit of Irish whiskey. Resolutely, she took another sip, grimacing behind the mug itself.

  “You are correct,” she allowed, resisting the urge to cough. “The second swallow isn’t so bad. Probably because my throat is now lined with scar tissue from the first one.”

  “Puts hair on yer chest,” he said, grinning.

  “I don’t want hair on my chest.”

  “What do ye want on yer chest, Lady Nerissa?”

  Startled, she met his gaze as she was about to take another sip of the whiskey. “I—I don’t know how to answer that.”

  He put the bottle down, reached out, and took her hand, covering it with his own, dwarfing its petite bones and fine white skin with his own strong, callused fingers and the broad expanse of his palm. She looked down at that hand, noting how tanned it was against her own, the little black hairs sprouting up on its back and how it looked so sun-bronzed against the white cuffs of his shirt. It was a strong hand, a working man’s hand, nothing like the elegant, well-groomed hands of her brothers and others of the aristocracy.

  She wondered what rough, working hands like that, would feel like against her skin.

  Against—

  “So we were talking about breasts,” he reminded her.

  She flushed, because that was exactly what she was thinking about. “Chests.”

  “Chests, breasts, tits, nipples.”

  “Don’t be coarse.”

  “Take my hand, Lady Nerissa. Unfold my fingers. Stroke each one. See how strong they are against your own. See what they feel like.”

  She sat up, reached out and took his hand. It was warm and hard, everything about it suggesting strength. She spread the fingers out, examining them. Clean, but not pampered. The nails short, also clean. The nail of his forefinger was half-gone and what remained was discolored. It was not a pretty hand, not a beautiful hand, but holding it in her own warm grasp and examining the knuckles and tendons, feeling the strength and rough power in that single part of his body, did things to the pit of her belly and made the breath come a little faster in her lungs.

  She turned the hand over. Traced the creases of his palm, examined the white line of a scar in the fleshy area between his thumb and forefinger.

  Interesting, the male hand. She had grown up with four brothers and she had never known how fascinating the male hand really was.

  “Now,” he said, still keeping his hand motionless in her own, “lift my hand and put it where ye want it to be, Lady Nerissa.”

  “What?”

  “Chests, breasts, tits, nipples.”

  She blushed wildly and felt a sudden tingling in those nipples, as if they were begging for exactly what he’d just suggested. Sensation stabbed between her legs and she felt an embarrassing dampness down there.

  She moved closer to him. And still holding his hand, she tentatively placed it against her left breast.

  The sensation was immediate. If the whiskey had burned a path down her throat, the feel of Captain O’ Devir’s hand imprinting her breast, even through Midshipman Cranton’s shirt and waistcoat, was like a conflagration in comparison.

  “Hold it there,” he said, watching her face. “Hold it there until ye get brave.”

  “And this isn’t?”

  He laughed. “Nah. Brave is unbuttoning yer waistcoat.”

  “What about your hand?”

  “Put it down. Unbutton yer waistcoat, if ye dare. Then take my hand and put it where you really want it, Lady Nerissa.”

  His eyes were smiling and full of challenge but he did not move his hand, letting her take control, letting her explore at a pace that was not overwhelming. She lowered his hand to his lap and placed it over his knee. Oh, why was it suddenly so warm in here? The air struggling to get into her lungs? She unbuttoned the waistcoat…and peeled it off.

  Their gazes met, his expectant and faintly laughing, hers wide, shy, eager and nervous.

  But no, she would not be nervous. She trusted this man who could have taken full advantage of her during her stay here but hadn’t, this man who caught fish for her breakfast and needled her until she didn’t know whether to laugh or scream, this man who was about to give her a memory she would never forget. He wanted to make love t
o her. She would let him. And it was likely to be the one and only time she’d ever get to experience pleasure from a man of her own choosing, because tomorrow was coming, tomorrow would be here soon, and after that they would never see each other again.

  She pulled the shirt out from the waistband of her breeches.

  He drummed his fingers, once, against his bent knee, reminding her that his hand was there to be retrieved.

  She reached out once more and took it. Brought it to the bottom of her shirt hem, lifted it with her other hand, and placed it there. He frowned, briefly, as he felt her stays.

  “Have you been wearing this damned thing all this time?”

  She just shrugged. “It’s not as if I have my maid here to remove it for me.”

  Leaning close, he pulled free of her, unbuttoned her cuffs, pulled the shirt over her head and sat there gazing at her—the tiny waist, the boned stays pushing up to the perfect round globes of her breasts, their white, creamy crests. Pointedly, he looked down at his own hand, resting once again atop his knee and looking darkly tanned against the white breeches.

  She reached out and took it, placing it against the pushed-up swell of one breast and pressing it there. His palm was deliciously warm against the pale white flesh, his large hand and rough fingers all but encompassing the creamy swell, and she felt that moist heat deep in the junction of her thighs growing wetter.

  I want you to touch me, Ruaidri.

  Could he read minds, too? His eyes had darkened beneath their bold black brows, the color becoming almost luminous; he looked at his hand there on the swell of her breast and thumbed the high swell once, twice, until Nerissa shuddered.

  “You must think me terribly shameful,” she said quietly, closing her eyes.

  “No. What I see is a woman who deserves more than she’s been given. A woman determined to show the world in her own way that she can make somethin’ out of adversity.” He got up, went around behind her and kneeling, his breath warm against the nape of her neck, unlaced her stays with a deftness that even Hannah, her maid, would have been hard-pressed to match. Moments later, she was sitting on the deck flooring in nothing but Cranton’s breeches and the gaping undergarment, letting in cool air, letting in wicked thoughts and desires that could and would not be ignored.

  He returned to his spot on the cushions, sat down, and, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, once again let his hand dangle suggestively over his knee. He drummed his fingers once against his kneecap, reminding her of where she wanted them, reminding her that he knew where she wanted them.

  “A beautiful, passionate, kind-hearted woman,” he added. “But not shameful.”

  She met his gaze, then quietly shrugged out of the gaping corset before dropping it to the decking.

  “Once we do this, there’s no goin’ back,” he said.

  “There was no going back from the time you picked me up off that floor back in London, Ruaidri O’ Devir. We might as well follow this course to its end.”

  She took his hand and again placed it over her breast. Their gazes met. His mouth turned up at one corner and he finally began to stroke the neckline of her chemise, savoring the softness of her skin, his rough, calloused thumb rubbing her nipple through the thin, gauzy material until a whimper rose deep in the back of her throat.

  “I like that, Ruaidri,” she whispered.

  “I know. I like it too.” She leaned into his touch and shut her eyes against the exquisite sensations as he drew small circles with fingers, flicking his thumb back and forth over the nipple until it grew engorged beneath the fabric and sent lightning bolts of sensation radiating out from her nether areas. “I like watchin’ the pleasure on yer face. Watchin’ the wonder in yer eyes as you experience this for what I’m assumin’ is the first time.”

  “Yes…it is the first time.”

  And will probably be the last.

  He moved closer to her, sliding his hand now up beneath the chemise. She moaned as it found her breast, the calloused fingers scratchy, erotic and warm, her nipple swelling hard as he caught it between thumb and forefinger and gently rolled it back and forth, around and around until she began to gasp.

  “I didn’t know this could feel so good,” she breathed, catching her bottom lip between her teeth and biting down to contain the building pleasure-pain between her legs.

  “’Twill feel a lot better before we finish.” And with that, he gently forced her backwards and down, down upon the thin cushion with the weight of his body as he pressed up against her, with the force of his kiss as his lips met hers, with the firmer, more commanding, more demanding touch of his fingers flicking over her nipple, tweaking it, until she was pressing hungry lips against her own and arching upwards into his touch.

  He tasted of Irish whiskey, his tongue warm and demanding, thrusting hard against her own and filling her mouth. She opened her own mouth wide, unable to get enough of him, her body working into a frenzy and her breath hot against his stubbled cheek as his hand moved to her other breast and began to work that one, too. She drove her hand into his hair, holding his head to hers and trying to find an anchor, her body blind with need. Hot breaths, mingling. Hot mouths, grinding. The world beyond them went away. And then, just when she thought she might die, he tore his mouth from hers and began raining kisses down her neck, down into the hollow of her throat where her collarbones met, down along the neckline of her chemise. She opened feverish eyes, saw his wild black curls filling her view, tipped her head back on a silent moan as his mouth moved closer and closer to the tightly budded, blushing nipple.

  “Ruaidri,” she whispered, not knowing what she wanted, or how to get there.

  But he knew. He knew, because he pulled down the gaping neckline, freed her breast and pushed it up to his mouth and a moment later she felt his wet tongue swirling around the engorged nipple, sucking it deep into his mouth, sucking, sucking harder, until she began to whimper uncontrollably. She pressed her lips against his shoulder, catching the fabric of his shirt between her teeth as a frenzied sob of pressure built and built between her legs.

  “Do ye want me, Nerissa?”

  She could not do more than moan, to push her face against his shoulder as his hand left her breast and roved downwards, over the frayed edge of her chemise, to the button closure of her breeches. A quick tug and they were parted, her hot sex bare to his thrusting fingers, which quickly became soaked in the moisture of her desire.

  He drew back, looking at her, his fingers stilling as he brought her right to the very edge of the precipice and held her there.

  And then he eased her back down to the cushions, slid both hands under her hips to catch the breeches and pulled them down, down, down from her buttocks until she lay bare from the waist down beneath him, her womanhood wet and hot with want for him.

  He reached out and parted her with one hand. She raised herself on her elbows and lay quivering beneath him.

  “You,” he said softly, as he gazed down at her pale ivory curls, “are beautiful.”

  Flushed and damp, she could only look up at him, her lips bruised from when she had bitten them only moments before.

  “And ye’ll remember this afternoon forever, Nerissa.” She saw his throat move as he swallowed. “We both will.”

  And with that, he coaxed her back down so that she lay on her back, one breast still free from the chemise and wet from his mouth; he pinched the nipple, gently rubbed it with his hard, raspy fingers, and kissed it…once…twice…three times before he drew up the cropped bottom of her chemise to expose her belly and there, began to brush kisses down her abdomen.

  Nerissa tensed, knowing he would find her slick moisture, wondering if it would put him off, but no, that rough warm palm was pressing hard against her hip, his thumb caressing the faint hollow of her pelvis, now moving closer to her wet center and oh, oh dear God above, now pressing between the wet petals, rubbing up and down the slit and smearing her own moisture from top to bottom.

  She bucked upwar
d, sobbing, her hips squirming beneath his touch, her legs instinctively longing to clamp around his hand. She opened her eyes only to find the cabin spinning behind his dark head, a shaft of light coming in through the stern windows touching the edge of his shoulder. His mouth drifted further down, into the hollow between her ribcage and hips, wet kisses, hot kisses. She felt his lips brushing into her wet curls now, and all the while his thumb was still down there moving back and forth, back and forth, in a slow, languorous stroke.

  He raised his head then, and looked directly into her eyes with an intensity that brooked no argument.

  “I’m goin’ to taste ye, Nerissa,” he said.

  She had no voice, and could do nothing but nod weakly.

  He moved lower, found her grasping hand with his own and locked fingers with her, pushing the hand out to her side, locking it there, letting her squeeze his hand and crush his fingers as his mouth moved through her curls, nuzzled warmly into her cleft, and he began to lick her with the point of his tongue. He parted her between thumb and forefinger, exposing her to the cool air, and in the next delicious moment he had covered her with his mouth, sealed her with his lips, invaded her deepest recesses with his tongue while she writhed on the cushion beneath him, her fingers clenched around his as release began to build.

  “Come for me, Nerissa,” he murmured, against her warm slit. “Let go.”

  “I don’t know… I can’t… I—ohhhhh….”

  His tongue had found and stabbed into some hidden part of her that his fingers had exposed like the pit of a forbidden fruit, the seat of her pleasure, the spot from which all sensation radiated. He began to lick it, to flick at that stiffly engorged bud with his tongue, to pinch it with his fingers until and with a sobbing scream, Nerissa bucked up and off the deck, climaxing against him over and over again in vicious, desperate waves as he sucked and mouthed her without stopping.

  The violent spasms washed over her…one…two…three, with receding aftershocks that left her drained of energy and shaken by their very force. The captain lay there for a moment, his head resting on her hip bone, his own breath laboring to get in and out of his lungs and blowing hot against her abdomen. Tentatively, she reached out and stroked his thick, wiry curls, the hard, wide span of his shoulders, knowing there should be more, wondering why he had not availed himself.