“I brought you a pot of coffee, Captain. Knew you’d need it. The miss, too, if she’s a mind. Soap, toweling. Toothpowder. Lemons, too, for both of you because, to be honest, you stink.”
Mark noticed how her eyes flared at Simpson’s last word. She looked shocked at his steward’s boldness, but nodded, knowing how true it was. Mark himself toyed with a grin. “The lady will enjoy your wares, Simpson.”
Her gaze met Mark’s with satisfaction.
He glanced at his steward who hurried to finish his tasks. “When she’s done, Simpson, I’ll put her clothes outside the door for you to carry away.” Mark spun away from her, aware what challenges could await him if he took up her offer and gave her everything she wanted from him. “Burn them.”
“Aye, Captain. Anything else, sir?”
“What of our course? The sea seems rough.”
“Mister Morris says we are due south by a hundred nautical miles, sir. A big storm last night drove us south, south east.”
“Toward the Spanish coast?”
“Aye, sir.”
Mark frowned. His navigator Morris had eight years in the merchant fleets, and a better man could not be found in Baltimore to plot a course. “So the rough seas of last night were not my imagination?”
“Aye, Captain. Not the benefits from your whisky, no.”
“Tell Morris I will talk with him after I am more myself.” Mark thanked his crewman and sent him on his way. He tore a sheet from his buck and threw it over a rafter. Not the best curtain, but it would suffice to give her some privacy. He turned to Sirena and pointed at the tub. “Get in there. The storage room for two days has done you no good.”
She sniffed, peeved at his tone and the truth.
“Use a lemon in the water if you like. Meanwhile, I,” he said and pointed to the chair and the pot of coffee, “will amuse myself.”
“Insufferable man,” she mumbled and grabbed the sheet to arrange it taut between them.
But when he sat back in his wooden chair, poured a cup of the potent brew and looked at the big white sheet hanging like a veil between them, he knew he’d have no peace. The light from the porthole shown behind her as she stripped. In silhouette, his siren was a mythical beauty come to life.
She untied the sash around her waist and wiggled to let the trousers slide to the planks. Mark narrowed his eyes, the translucent sheet too thick to give him a clear view of her creamy skin, too thin to save him from the knowledge that her body was lean. Her waist was small, her hips flared. Her thighs—
He suppressed a groan. Grunting, he picked up his tin cup and took a swallow of the coffee. Agh. Bitter damn stuff. He felt the rush of the hot liquid run through his bloodstream, and he closed his eyes at the demand of his cock to twist up deep inside her. His eyes, of their own accord, opened to view the sylph-like creature before him. Her arms went up in the air as she bent to pull off the shirt. Graceful as a swan, she tugged at the fabric. Her ribs lean. Her breasts were…. Christ. Had she bound herself? Was she mad?
He downed another swig of the coffee. But he watched in open-mouthed satisfaction as she unwound a long stream of fabric from her chest. And her breasts…. He licked his lower lip. Her generous breasts spilled free, her nipples pointed like fine diamonds.
He shifted, his cock tight and swollen against his breeches. He’d not had a woman in so long. But he had never wanted this woman in a casual romp. He had imagined himself with her for hours, days in the sunlight exploring her body, stroking her skin, tasting her wet desire between her legs. He wanted her breasts in his hands, her nipples in his mouth and his cock buried tightly inside her sweetness.
“Jesus!” He slammed his cup on the table and saw her jump. “Get in the tub!”
“Lord, you are testy!” She threw down the binding and marched to the hip bath. She stuck her toe in—and yanked it out. Teetering, she wobbled on one foot. “Oh, my God! That’s hot as hell!”
He was around the sheet in two strides, his arms full of naked lush woman before he could think.
Oh, but he could feel. She was soft skin on the outside. Firm muscle beneath. Warm all over. And as she let him hold her, she grinned up at him and wrinkled her nose. “I think your steward is correct. We do stink.”
Harrumphing, he set her securely to her feet and marched away to resume his chair. “Bathe!”
“Aye, Captain,” she crooned as once more she inserted a toe into the water.
This time, she went so excruciatingly slowly Mark swore he wore his teeth away from the grinding he gave them. One hand to the rim of the hip bath, she bent so that her breasts swung and hung like two ripe fruits. He shut his eyes, but in his mind, he fondled their fullness and teased them with his lips, laving them, nipping them, shaping them to red hot points. As if she knew his torment, she paused, tipped her head to one side, her hair falling about her shoulders in giant swirls. She reached out, grasped one of the lemons and squeezed the juice into the tub.
His cock swelled at the sound of the tinkling juice and the knowledge that once she sank into the water, her skin—aye, her mouth and her cunt—would taste like lemons. He drew a finger across the seam of his lips, his eyes on fire now as he saw her face him and sink like Venus to the sea into the tiny tub. She reclined. The water swished. She lolled about, murmuring helpless noises of sensuous satisfaction.
“Wash!” he commanded.
“Ogre! A woman cannot enjoy her bath?”
“No!” he bellowed, knowing he sounded like a beast. And a fool.
“Ba!” She sank lower in the water, sloshing it about and sending him into a panic until he realized like a ninny that she was bending to wash her hair.
On a ripple of water, she lifted her head from the surface, settled back, then shot out a hand to grasp one of the towelings. She inhaled and sighed, her hand submerged in the water.
Mark was left to imagine all that she did with that towel. Her hand skimmed the elegant length of her arm. Did she caress the delicate spot inside her elbow? Her trim calf lifted in the air. Did she stroke the inside of her thigh? Did she wash her ankle and each toe? Did she linger at her throat? The hollow where his lips must taste. The spot where her shoulder joined her elegant neck. Did she caress the fullness of her breasts? Did she rub her nipples with the nubby cloth? Did she wash her intimate folds?
He winced, pulsing with the temptation to push the sheet aside and revel in the beauty so close at hand. But reason intruded. This woman had come here not so much for him as for her freedom from another man.
Remember that.
On a whoosh, she rose from the tub. She paused, staring straight ahead as if she could actually see his obsession through the cloth. What are you thinking, my pretty stowaway? Are you wondering if you can come tempt me now?
Wishful thinking, Stanhope.
On a little cry, she twisted to one side and grasped another towel from the edge of his bunk. Each brush of the rough Turkish cloth along her form whisked over his senses. He groped for his coffee. Gulped the rest down. Poured another cup and drank as if he were dying of thirst.
I am. For one sip of this woman. One night with her.
Absurd.
He shot to his feet. “Hurry! It’s my turn!”
From behind the curtain, she huffed and kicked her pile of clothes toward him. “For Simpson.”
“Yes.” He scooped them up into his arms. In two strides, he pulled open his door and threw her rags onto the planks. When he turned back, she stood before him, wrapped in one of the towels.
“What shall I wear?” she asked without guile, her body shining with damp iridescence, her hair, down to her elbows, a dark wet blanket.
“I have trousers. A shirt.” No bindings for your breasts. Thank God. He stiffened, his cock definitely intrigued by the idea that he might enjoy the sight of her nipples outlined beneath white cotton.
“Where are they?” she asked, her eyes traveling the room when he could not seem to take his eyes from her full, moist mouth.
He strode around her to his shelves, yanking down a loose shirt and a plain pair of yeoman’s pants he’d often don in warmer climes. As he dropped them in her arms, he frowned trying to keep up the ruse of his irritation with her. “You’ll have to wear these until we dock in Baltimore. There is nothing else…and even if I thought my crew might have more, I would not ask for fear they’d guess we have a woman abroad.”
She took them from him.. “I understand, and I’m most grateful.”
He turned on his heel. Best to stay away from her and any kindness he was tempted to show her beyond the norm. He cared for her. Too much.
He wanted her. But he didn’t.
Dejected, Sirena spun away from him and sat in his chair. Clutching the sheet around her, she shoved back the urge to shed tears. They would not help her here. Though she had used them to get her way with other men, she would not stoop so low here with Mark Stanhope. He was of finer cloth and merited her better nature.
Biting her lip, she poured herself coffee and downed half the cup. The taste thrilled her, warmed her and reminded her that she had not eaten in two days. Her gaze fell upon the bowl of stew cooling on the tray. Potatoes, carrots and mutton studded the broth. She picked up the pewter spoon and told herself to go slowly, not devour the meal. The first taste was soft, fragrant heaven and she tucked in for another bite.
“Don’t eat too quickly,” he warned, and she swiveled to see that he had not left her for his bath but had stood to one side of the sheet to watch her. “You’ll throw it up. Drink a bit more. That will help.”
She nodded at his kindness. “Thank you.”
This time he did turn away to disappear behind the sheet. But as he raised the cup to her mouth, she saw that he did not completely vanish from her sight. She arched a brow. My turn to enjoy your looks, Captain.
In relief, he stood facing the tub. Then, he turned his head toward her.
Challenging me to be as bold as you? She inhaled, oh so delighted that he knew she watched him. Her lips tipped upward in a wicked smile.
As he unbuttoned his shirt, she sipped her coffee. “This is very good,” she said without thinking and admired the flaring lines of his rippling arms.
She saw him freeze.
“My cook,” he told her, “was a gunner in your Navy until he joined us two years ago.”
“Then he is one of the sailors our Navy wants to impress again into our service?”
“He is,” Mark said as he stepped out his breeches.
“I’m surprised your father was able to buy his freedom.”
“The earl of Stanhope is a remarkable man. Able to grow, change and admit his faults. I will never say another word against him as long as I live,” he told her as she noted the interesting protrusion from Mark’s loins. His shaft was long and thick and standing very tall.
She sat forward, the sheet not showing her anything new this close, but her heart wishing it would. Want me, do you, Mark?
He lifted a long leg and climbed in the tub. He turned, faced forward, and she mourned the loss of the sight that proved he desired her.
She fell back in the chair and gazed into the dark depths of her coffee. Starving for sustenance of a kind she could not have, she picked up her spoon and took a bite of the stew. The warmth filled her with gratitude for Mark’s care, but made her all the more bereft. She took another bite, questioning her own boldness to desert her home and all she knew. She had come so far, risked so much, hoping she could escape the confines of her life. She had pinned her hopes on her own resourcefulness. And she had gotten as far as his storage vaults. She rubbed a hand over her forehead. Sick with tension at what she’d accomplished, she worried about what she hadn’t achieved. She hadn’t won him over to her viewpoint. She’d been a fool to think a man like Mark Stanhope, bold and brave as he was, would simply aid her because he desired her.
She scoffed at her naivete. She had been deluded by the desire she saw on his face. It was one thing to want a woman, but quite another to help her change her life.
She dropped the spoon, caught up the sheet to her chest. She would not cry. Not now. Not here.
She clamped a hand over her mouth, a sob wrenching her. Swiping at her tears, she doubled over in her chair. How could she have been so foolish?
“Oh, Christ, Sirena, don’t cry.” Strong arms drew her up, wrapped her into a warm, wet body. “Don’t please.”
She scarcely knew how she stood on her feet, but she nuzzled her face into the smooth warmth of his shoulder, shuddering. “Mark, I did not come here to make you do anything you do not wish to do.”
He pushed her hair back and lifted her face up to his. “I wish to make you happy, help you.”
“I am no harpy. No woman to bend a man to her will. That’s not why I’m here.”
“I know.” He enfolded her, his lips on her forehead. “I know you wish to be free. All men, all women should be. Must be. Your coming to me to gain that is not a problem for me, Sirena. This in you makes me proud of you, for you. Look at me. This is true.”
As he brushed tears from her cheeks, she stared at him . “I came here now not merely because I knew you were in Dover and leaving England. Your presence here was no convenience for me, Mark.”
He stilled, no breath escaping him. “Why then?”
“I came because I had to know, had to learn if you cared for me at all.”
“Could one meeting become so bright a lure?” he asked, in his voice a measure of surprise.
“For me it was.”
“And me as well.”
“I asked about you. Your sisters-in-law. Your father’s friends. They spoke as highly of you as I imagined they would.”
He brushed her hair back from her face. His mouth curved down in sadness. “I learned about you from the same people. I told myself to want you was a fantasy. It still is.”
She slid up in his arms, her mouth an angel’s breath away from his. “But now I am here.”
His blue eyes turned dark as stormy seas. “Proximity does not make seduction fair.”
“Much in life is not fair. To tie me to a man I could never love was not fair. To impress you in the service of a country not your own is not fair. Often, what is fair and right is what we do for ourselves.”
He shook his head, his eyes bright with pride in her. “You are bold.”
“I must be. Do not question what I feel for you.”
“Sirena—“
“Let me not question, Mark,” she pleaded on a whisper. “Let me know.”
He cupped her chin, his gaze tormented. “If I do that now, there will be no turning back.”
“I do not wish to return to anything or anyone I knew before.”
“You know not what you ask. My desire for you is living, breathing thing. And honor would demand that we remain together. I have not the right to promise you what I do not have.”
“You mean land? Money? A title?”
“They were what you were brought up to value.”
“And what were you brought up to value, Mark Stanhope?”
He inhaled and stared at the beams. “Resourcefulness. Ambition.”
“Freedom?”
“That too.” He smiled down at her.
“Let me have that too. With you. Here.”
He threaded his fingers through her hair and drew back to look at her. “I do not wish to ruin you.”
“I fear I am already ruined for any other man.”
He trembled as he crushed her close. He swooped down and claimed her mouth with his own. Once. Twice. A breathless third time. Brushing, tasting, caressing hers, he made her cry out for what she had known in her heart was true from the first night she’d seen him across the ballroom.
“Mark,” she rose on her toes, the sheet around her dropping to the floorboards, the touch of his skin on hers a fire to her soul. “Darling Mark, this is what I came for.”
“These past weeks, this,” he growled as he inserted one strong thigh between her two, “i
s what I have dreamed of.”
Chapter Three
She squeezed his leg with her thighs, and inside her loins, she felt a gush of hot, wet desire. “I want you in no way that’s demure.”
His lips spoke on hers as one hand supported her beneath her nape. “I want you in all ways that are wicked.”
She smiled, kissed him fast and hard, then rubbed her breasts against his marvelous broad chest. “Teach me to be wicked.”
“You need little instruction, minx.” Growling, he bent her over his arm and put his open mouth to her throat. There, just beneath her chin, he nibbled and licked. “My fondest desire these past few weeks has been to see you naked.”
She swooned, in heaven at his words. “And here I thought you were indifferent.”
His tongue blazed a trail of liquid fire down her chest as he took one of her breasts into his hot, fierce mouth. There, he sucked on her with such swift force, she gasped. He pulled away, his sapphire blue eyes ferocious as he peered down at her and tweaked her nipple. “Does this feel like indifference?”
Fighting for breath, she hung on to him for sanity in a reeling world and shook her head. “More like—” Dare she name it? “Obsession.”
“I will show you its meaning,” he vowed and swirled a hand down her ribs to splay his fingers against her quivering stomach and into the wealth of her nether hair where he stopped. “I will leave none of you untasted, untouched. Look at me, Sirena.”
The sight of him impassioned and captivated melted her.
“Stop me now, if you will not give me every piece of you.”
“Show me your obsession that I might show you mine.”
With a cry of triumph, he swept her into his arms and took two strides to his bunk. There, he gently laid her down and braced above her, took her mouth with his own demanding one. His lips met hers one way, then slanted another. She met him kiss for kiss, gasp for gasp.
He pulled away, smiling down at her. “Christ, you’re eager.”
“I have waited weeks,” she teased, her hands tangled in his soft brown hair.
“Wait no more.” He grinned, straddled her, then let his gaze travel her naked body until his expression stilled, his eyes darkened and his hands lifted both her breasts. “Just feel.”
The Stanhope Challenge - Regency Quartet - Four Regency Romances Page 30
