“Hardly untouched,” Seth growled, touching his mouth.
“But…my father ordered…I don’t understand…I’ve been so worried!”
Seth gave a grin. “After fifteen years in a penal colony, did ye not think I’d’ve learned by now how to duck a fist?”
“But there were four of them!” Her voice was growing strident, but she could not help it. “I watched them drag you away.”
“Four is nothing,” Seth said gently. “I’ve had to fight off six in my time. But I couldn’t do it until your father was not around to see it, or he would have made sure of my departure. After I dealt with them, Harry and I sailed the Artemis up the river. We had to take it out of the docks, because you father would have checked to make sure his men had followed his orders and towed the ship out to sea.”
She resisted the urge to run to him, to tell him how scared she had been for him, how happy she was to see him, now…and how desperately she did not want to marry another man.
Seth brushed off his sleeves, looking uncomfortable, almost embarrassed by his casual clothing. She thought him incredibly appealing in his rags, the shirt showing a great deal of his chest and forearms. The pants formed to his body and his feet were bare. How wild he was compared to any other man she knew.
Silent moments passed.
Natasha could hear the pounding of her heart and wished that he would say something. Anything.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his gaze shifting over her slowly.
“I couldn’t stay away. I needed to see you, to make sure you were all right.”
“And now you have.”
There was nothing she could say to that, nothing that would counter it. Except the truth.
“I don’t want to go,” she confessed.
“Then don’t.” He was before in her two strides, pulling her up against him, kissing her with an urgency that matched her own.
She clung to him, holding onto him for dear life. When he broke the kiss, he put her at arm’s length. He was positively beautiful, this sea captain of hers.
“I like you in your sailor’s clothing,” she said.
He chuckled and pulled her close. He smelled like heaven, the fragrance both heady and arousing.
“Did your ma not tell ye it’s unsafe to be out alone at night?”
“You know as well as I do that my mother would have a fit if she knew I was here.”
“Then we’d best get you below deck before someone notices.”
She hesitated. She knew exactly what that meant. He would make love to her, here aboard his ship. Her maidenhead would be taken by a sea captain—a man who had been wronged by the people who should have loved him the most.
“I can take you home if you’d like,” Seth said softly, as if he didn’t want to startle her.
“No,” she said quickly, taking his hand.
Seth led her through a narrow doorway, onto steep stairs that led to an equally narrow hallway. He opened one of the doors leading off the hallway and she stepped through, gazing around.
The cabin was clearly his stateroom. It was a clean, relatively tidy room, but very sparse. It held only bare essentials, including a wide bed with odd, high sides, and a desk with little rails that ran around the edges. Of course, that would stop things rolling off in rough conditions.
The desk had a clutter of rolled-up papers and a lamp that hung over it from a chain on the wooden-beamed ceiling above. The lamp was turned low and there was a candlestick on the shelf above the head of the bed. The shelf also had a little rail.
At the foot of the bed was a sea chest, hand-carved and battered from use. The brass escutcheon plate gleamed in the low light. But her gaze kept drawing back to the bed. The rest of the cabin glowed with wood paneling, yet was bereft of any color or decoration. The bed, though, reflected the essence of the man beside her, covered in rich, lush fabrics in dark colors. It looked inviting and warm. And masculine. It was slightly rumpled, from where he must have been resting before she came aboard.
Excitement and fear raced along her spine. Tonight she would become a woman.
Seth unbuttoned his shirt, shrugged out of it and tossed it aside. How beautiful he was, a contrast of hard muscle and smooth olive skin that captivated her.
Sholto Piggot would not look like this man. Few could hold a candle to Seth Harrow. And for tonight, he was hers.
Natasha pulled her loose hair aside, unfastened Elisa’s coat and slid it from her shoulders. She dropped the coat over the chair behind the desk and turned to see Seth staring at her.
“Prepared, are ye?” he asked, gazing at her shift.
She bit her lip, wondering if the truth would serve her this time. It had seemed to make Vaughn angry, rather than understanding. “My mother locked me in my room and took my clothes away from me.”
Seth crossed his arms, studying her. “But you still found a way to come to me.”
She dropped her gaze to her toes. “You think me a loose woman…”
“No.” He was there, in front of her, lifting her chin. He stared into her eyes. “No, Natasha. I think of you as brave, courageous beyond belief. Stubborn and willful. And a pure delight.” His lips curved softly as he pulled her close.
A moment later her shift sagged around her, then slid to the ground to puddle about her feet. His gaze moved over her. She felt self-conscious and exposed, but then his gray eyes met and held hers. “You are breathtaking, Natasha.”
She could not help but smile at his compliment. Then he kissed her, lifting her in his arms and laying her down on his bed. He untied his pants and pushed them down his long legs.
The breath lodged in her throat, as she saw his long, thick length, aroused and rising past his navel. She had never seen a man naked, but doubted that many looked like him.
Realizing she was staring, she pulled her gaze back to his face. He smiled at her expression. “’Tis fine, Natasha. Ye can look all ye want.”
She could feel herself blushing furiously. “I’m so new to this. I want to be good for you, Seth, but I’m afraid I won’t know what to do…”
“Hush.” He slid onto the bed beside her, his eyes never leaving her face. “This is a first occasion for both of us, you know.”
“You? But surely, you’ve had…I mean…you must have…” She fell into confused silence and Seth’s grin became a low chuckle.
“I’ll not abuse ye poor soul, Natasha. There have been women aplenty in my life. But never one like you.”
“You mean…virgin, don’t you?”
“Aye, maidenhood is part of it.”
“And what is the other part?”
“We’ll leave that for another time,” Seth murmured, leaning forward to kiss her. His lips were soft, warm and gentle, coaxing open her own.
She remembered the shock and Seth’s strong erotic reaction when she had responded to his kiss before and she thrust her tongue forward, to meet his own.
“Mmm…” He lifted his head from hers. “Who taught you to do that?”
“You did. I mean, you did it to me, so I thought…”
“Ye need to stop thinking, lass.” He pushed at her shoulder, so that she was forced to lay with her back flat against the sheet. “You need to stop thinking and start feeling instead.” He threw his thigh over her hip and straddled her.
She caught and held her breath as he rose before her. He looked strong, the muscles of his chest and arms were bulging, the flesh tanned and glowing in the dull light. “Ye can’t enjoy yourself if ye are worried about what you’re doing.”
“I can’t help it,” she confessed. “How can I ensure you…enjoy yourself, if I don’t worry about it?”
Seth leaned forward to kiss her mouth, quickly and with little passion. His hair swung forward to caress her cheek. “Then let’s get that out of the way, shall we?” he said, the proper English gentry accent back. “Natasha, may I say what a wonderful time I’ve had this evening? It was most enjoyable.”
She started
to giggle and realized that she sounded like a schoolgirl. So she tried to suppress the giggle, which only made it come harder.
Seth grinned, too. “Ye don’t like my accent?” he complained, with mock severity.
“I like it fine. Any way. All ways. Sometimes you sound like every other lord in the country and sometimes you sound very Irish. Sometimes, like when I first came aboard, you didn’t sound anything like either of them. It’s an accent I haven’t heard before.”
“Australian. What you were hearing was an Australian accent. It’s a mongrel, made up of the accents of every poor bastard that’s ever set foot there and that’s a mash of countries from around the world, including the lower-class English and poor Irish.”
He grabbed her wrists where they lay on her torso and picked them up. “Is there an accent you prefer?” he asked. “Whatever you want, will be my pleasure.”
“Just be yourself, Seth,” she said quietly. “Don’t ‘put on’ an accent for me. Not for me.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then lifted her wrist so that he could kiss her loosely curled fingers. “I will,” he said softly. Then his smile returned, along with a devilish glint in his eyes, as he lowered her arms so that they were stretched over her head. “Take hold of the rail there,” he said quietly. She felt for and found the narrow bed head rail he spoke of and curled her hands around it.
“Now, you’re not to let go, ye hear?”
“Why? What are you going to do?” she asked, alarmed.
“I’m going to teach ye to feel instead of think. So your hands must stay on that rail, no matter what. Agreed?”
“Agreed…I think.”
“Yes, or no…or I pack ye up and send ye on your way. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” She swallowed on a throat gone very dry. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Oh, this and that,” Seth growled. He brushed the hair from her face and ran his thumb over her lips. “What I want you to do is concentrate on what my hands are doing. That’s all.”
“Just your hands?”
He grinned. “For now.” His hands caressed her cheeks. “Feel that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Focus, ‘Tasha, my love, focus.”
Her heart jumped at the endearment and she stared up at him, but he seemed oblivious to her sudden leap of excitement. Instead, his hands moved down to her throat, tracing the line there. “Feel what I’m doing,” he told her. “Close your eyes.”
She stared at him, unable to comply and close her eyes. It would leave her far too vulnerable in a situation where she didn’t know what would happen next.
Seth’s hands paused. “Close them…or I could blindfold you, instead, if you like.”
Obediently, she closed them. Immediately, she became aware of the soft touch of the sheet at her back, the heat where Seth’s thighs pushed against her hips and the soft brush of his testicles against her pelvis. The scent of him—it emanated from the sheets, the pillow and from Seth himself—wreathed her mind in a giddy, intoxicating tendrils. Her heart picked up speed.
His hands brushed over her collarbones, making her jump. “See now, you’re feeling and not thinking,” Seth said, his voice a murmur.
“Yes,” Natasha said and her voice was hoarse.
The soft fingertips slid around the sides of her breasts and for a moment she was disappointed. She had thought that he would touch them next. But his hands were stroking along her hips and belly and she gave a low sound as her belly rippled with pleasure.
The fingertips swept over the hollow next to her hipbone and she found her back was arching in response, lifting her hips off the bed.
“God, yes,” Seth said and his voice was also husky. “Listen to your body, Natasha. Listen to what it’s doing, what it’s telling ye.” His weight shifted off her hips, and his hands on her ankles separated her legs, spreading them wide. It opened her up, and she could feel cooler air at the juncture of her thighs. She had grown moist and slippery there as she did sometimes when reading her novels. This, then, was part of making love. A normal thing.
His hands were sliding up the inside of her calves, stroking and fluttering, climbing slowly higher and higher. She realized that if he continued on his path, his fingers would soon be at that hot, moist spot that was now throbbing in anticipation.
A hot blush flooded her face as she recalled that Seth had already acquainted himself with that part of her anatomy. Her whole body leapt with pleasure when she recalled the hot explosion of excitement his tongue had sent through her.
She now knew that was not all of it. There was more and Seth was about to show her. His hands were sliding along her thighs, caressing the skin, stroking it, sending little ripples of excitement through her. She realized she was making panting sounds, little moans and whimpers.
“Tell me what you want, Natasha.”
“I don’t know,” she managed to say. She licked her lips.
“Yes, you do. What is your body telling you? Feel it.”
She let herself sink into the pool of pleasure his hands were creating, feeling the ripples and spasms shivering through her, listening for the growing sense of what she wanted. It was an ache of incompletion. She felt it, felt the shape of it.
“Tell me,” Seth coaxed. “My breasts,” she said, feeling her cheeks heat again. “I want…” But she could not finish the thought, because she wasn’t sure what she wanted. Just that her breasts ached to be touched…somehow.
“Ah…” She heard him move on the bed, felt his weight shift. “Like this?” he asked and his fingers lightly stroked her breasts.
It was wonderful and pleasure raced through her at his touch, but it wasn’t quite right. “No, not quite,” she said, frowning.
“Then, this is what you mean.” His fingertips slid over her nipples, tugging at them and she gave a hard groan of pleasure as the thrill of his touch seemed to arrow right down to the spot between her thighs, where he had pleasured her that night.
“The groan of a woman,” he murmured and he seemed absurdly pleased at the guttural sound she had made. “Then, you would like this much better…”
She held her breath, waiting. Then felt the incredible touch of something warm and moist all around one nipple. When hard edges closed around it and tugged, she realized with a flare of passion that he was using his teeth and tongue and mouth on her breast.
As he transferred his attention to the other breast, she gasped aloud at the exquisite tremors sweeping through her body and her eyes opened involuntarily. “Oh my!” she gasped.
Seth looked up at her. His own eyes were sleepy, half-closed. And his manhood seemed to be thicker, harder, longer, almost pulsing with its own heartbeat.
Natasha heard her breath coming in little pants and as she stared down at Seth’s cock, she finally put the pattern together. “Inside me,” she said, her voice guttural and thick with excitement. “I want you inside me.”
Seth’s smile was slow, one of a gourmand taking his time. “In a while,” he assured her. He brought his mouth back to her breast and this time she watched him lapping at it, his tongue making the flesh gleam in the lamplight.
She let her head roll back on the pillow, groaning aloud her pleasure. His tongue slid further down, deserting her breast. Quickly, he trailed down her abdomen, until his lips hovered over her mound.
He settled himself between her legs and Natasha could feel her thighs fall apart to accommodate him, even as her face flushed hot again. But before she could protest at this most intimate caress, Seth bent his head to her flesh and she felt his tongue slide against her, lapping at the little nub of flesh that she had discovered for herself in the bath.
But she had never pursued the rubbing to the point where Seth had brought her—had not known such an explosion of the senses was even possible. As his tongue made her writhe and wriggle on the mattress, she realized that it might be possible for her own fingers to do the same…
And then her thoughts scattered i
nto incoherent fragments as the excitement swelled and beat at her with heady pulses, building and swelling and building, until suddenly, her whole body locked and held still at the apex of such incredible delight. It shuddered through her, pulse after pulse, taking her breath and her heartbeat with it.
Until finally, her energy drained and she fell back upon the bed, her body tingling and nerves zapping white fire.
Seth moved to lay beside her and kiss her forehead. “That’s feeling, lass,” he said, his voice low and hoarse.
He tugged her hands free of the railing and massaged her palms, where her fingernails had dug into the flesh.
“But what about you?” she asked.
He brought her hand down to his engorged cock and wrapped it around the thick shaft.
“We’re not finished yet,” he assured her. Guiding her hand, he showed her how to stroke him, the gentle up and down movement, making sure her palm bumped over the edges of the crown, his soft brogue instructing her as she experimented.
She was astonished at the heat and rigidness of his shaft and how at the same time it felt velvety soft against her hand. She was caught by delight at the way her touch made Seth groan and the pace of his breathing increased.
Then he caught her hand, and pulled it away. “Enough,” he gasped. His eyes were darkened, the centers of them dilated.
His own hand he brought sliding along her thigh, leaving sizzling flesh in its wake, until his fingers slipped between the folds of flesh, into the heat and moisture there. Natasha squirmed against his hand, all the nerves there still sensitive and alert.
He smiled at her reaction and stroked again, making her hips tilt. She gasped as his fingers buried themselves inside her and knew that this was the place where his cock would go.
“Hurry,” she said, suddenly aching for that moment. He settled himself between her legs again, only this time, his hips lay against hers and he propped himself up on his elbows. He looked into her eyes. “We can’t hurry. Not this time.”
She could feel him pushing at her entrance and instinctively spread her legs further, bringing her knees up against his hips.
Dangerous Beauty Page 19
