by Connie Mason
He squeezed his eyes closed. His head still pounded, but it hurt more to look into her startled face.
“I think I could eat something now,” he said. Anything to get her out of the cabin for a bit.
“Of course,” she said, skittering to the chair by the door to retrieve her gown.
He kept his gaze fastened on the beams overhead while she dressed. He’d looked at her too much. And dreamt of looking at her far more.
Until they settled things between them in truth, he was done sneaking peeks at her. Done undressing her with his eyes instead of his hands. Done sharing a bunk without sharing themselves.
“I’ll be back directly,” she said as she pinned her long hair into a neat auburn twist. Then she moved the chair from the door. “Maybe you’ll feel better after a shave, too.”
She disappeared down the companionway.
No, only a good hard swive would make him feel better. And it had to be with Eve Upshall. He was either going to bed this woman or he was going to maroon himself on the first deserted isle they came to and order his crew to leave him with a single ball for his pistol.
But first, he had to crawl out of the bunk and clean off his belly.
Preferably without his head tumbling from his shoulders.
Chapter Twenty
The trouble might have been that Eve had very little experience with nursing. But honestly, Nicholas Scott was not an easy patient.
He was moody. She never knew whether he’d present her a courteous face or a snarling one.
He seemed determined to exhaust himself every day. He pushed himself further than he ought, striding the decks making sure the operation of the Susan Bell was humming along, putting his own back into whatever heavy labor presented itself, especially if she warned against it.
He was short with everyone, even Mr. Higgs. And when had Peregrine Higgs ever done anything but support him, even when he not-so-secretly disagreed with Nicholas?
And most puzzling of all, after sweet-talking her into doffing her gown and climbing into his bed, he’d insisted Eve take the bunk for her own. He had strung up a hammock for himself from the low beams of his cabin ceiling.
But he didn’t like to lounge in it when he wasn’t sleeping. So he sprawled on a blanket on the hard cabin floor this evening, one arm behind his head, the other propping his copy of The Arabian Nights on his chest. Eve sat in the chair, mending a ripped bit of lace on her petticoat, but she stole glances at him every other stitch.
He shifted uncomfortably, raising both knees.
“You may have the bunk, you know,” she said.
He tossed a scowl in her direction and rolled onto his side, laying the book on the floor before him and propping himself on one elbow, his back to the curved stern.
“Or I could move to the bunk and you may have the chair,” she suggested.
“I’m fine.” He stared at the book with absorption but she noticed he hadn’t turned a page in the last quarter hour.
“Don’t you like your book?”
“I like it fine.” He tossed her a pointed look and flipped a page noisily.
“Is your head hurting again? Maybe I should make a new poultice for—”
“My head’s fine.” He ran a hand over his head without a wince to demonstrate his recovery. “I just need a little quiet.”
She turned her lips inward for a moment. Then she tied a knot in the thread, bit it off with her teeth and jabbed the needle back into the pincushion. “Perhaps I should take a turn on deck and leave you to yourself then.”
“No!” he said with such force she flinched. He dragged a hand over his face. “No, Eve. Don’t go.”
“Then tell me what vexes you so?”
One corner of his mouth turned up and he shook his head as if in bewilderment. “You.”
Her chest ached. “Then you shouldn’t care if I leave.” She rose and made for the door.
He beat her to it.
“No, Eve, that’s not what I meant.” He gripped her by the shoulders with both hands. “Ever since I met you, you’ve turned my life upside down. And I’m about to burst out of my own skin if I don’t make love to you.”
“I see.” She blinked hard. “Because you’ve been without for some time and I’m the only available female for hundreds of miles?”
“Of course not.”
When she’d first met him, she’d suspected he was the sort to mount any woman who caught his eye, but now she saw only sincerity in his eyes. “Then why?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m not sure what to name it.” He cupped her cheek. “All I know is, I can’t stand being in the same space with you without holding you in my arms. I want to take off every stitch of your clothes and have you take off mine.” He drew his fingers down her neck and across her collarbone. Pleasure shimmered after them.
“I want to lie down beside you, Eve. I want to touch every bit of your skin.” His thumbs traced her jaw, then brushed her parted lips. “I want to know you. All of you. Not in a rush. Not afraid you’ll ask me to stop at the next moment.”
She didn’t feel like stopping him now.
“And I want you to know me,” he said in the same hushed tone people reserved for church or the grave of a loved one or some other profoundly solemn occasion.
It was no declaration of love. But neither was it a rake’s false promise. Looking into his dark eyes, she sensed no guile. He wanted her.
Eve had already realized she loved him.
Perhaps that was enough.
She didn’t trust her voice to speak. Instead she took his hand and brought it to the neatly tied bow at her waist. On cue, he tugged it free, not in a heated rush, but slowly, drawing out the torment. She took a deep breath and felt the boning in her bodice give.
“I’ll be gentle, Eve,” he said, his tone husky. “As much as I can.”
She watched his face as he loosened her laces enough for her to pull the bodice open. She slid her arms free and wiggled the bodice down over her hips until she stood before him in just her chemise, stockings and slippers.
Nick ran a finger along the lacy top of the chemise. Her nipples tightened at the nearness of his hand. He skimmed over them and placed his hand on her abdomen just south of her belly button.
Eve closed her eyes as Nick rucked up the hem of the chemise and touched her intimately. She parted her legs shoulder-width to give his hand room to delve in and find that she was already wet and slick and aching. His fingertip circled her sensitive spot, teasing and petting, whipping her into a hard little nub.
She needed this as much as he. She wanted to say a thousand things to him, but all she could do was feel.
“Hot and wanting,” he whispered. “You’re a goddess, Eve.”
No, just a woman who loves you, Nicholas. She was thinking the words so hard, it seemed inconceivable that he couldn’t hear them.
He bent his head and his mouth found her breasts, tugging at her nipples through the cotton chemise.
“Oh, yes,” she moaned and untied the ribbon at the center of her neckline. The chemise parted. He pushed it off her shoulders with one hand. The other was still busy playing a lover’s game with her mound. He took her nipple in his mouth. His lips on her bare skin were both torment and delight. She groaned with need as the chemise dropped off her arms; it would have pooled at her feet except for his hand between her legs holding it up.
He straightened to plant fevered kisses on her neck, her jaw, the corner of her mouth, her closed eyelids. She whimpered.
“Make that noise again and I’ll rip off the rest without caring if I tear the fabric. Then I’ll spread your legs and swive the very breath out of you,” he promised.
“I may hold you to that.”
He scooped her off her feet and carried her to the bunk, heedless of his head injury. He dropped her on the waiting linens and then flopped down beside her.
They melded together in a tangle of arms and legs, kissing, stroking, pushing away troublesome articles of clothing. Witho
ut breaking their kiss more often than absolutely necessary, she managed to pull his shirt over his head and tug off his breeches and trews. His skin was smooth and warm, stretched taut over hard muscles. He rocked against her thigh and she could feel the blood, pulsing strong through his primed cock.
“Wait, wait.” She came up for air from one of his soul-stirring kisses. “We were going to go slow.”
“Slow?” His chest heaved.
“Aye, slow.” She sat up. Looking down the fine length of his body to his swollen cock, she nearly forgot the rest of what she’d intended to say. She was surprised to find she was panting shallowly.
He traced a circle around one of her taut nipples, watching intently as it drew even tighter. “It’s been…” he drew a shuddering breath “…long enough for me. It’s hard to wait.” He met her gaze. “But I know you’re a virgin. I want to make this good for you, so never say Nicholas Scott doesn’t keep his promises. I’ll go slow.”
He pulled her down for another kiss. He wedged his knees between her thighs, pushing them open. She didn’t fight him.
“’Twill be all right,” he said as he positioned himself. Just the tip of him entered her.
She throbbed, a deep, low drumbeat between her legs, but she narrowly resisted the urge to squirm down and take him in. She felt so empty, so longing to be filled.
He drew a ragged breath. “Now, listen. This is very, very important. Whatever you do, Eve, don’t move till I tell you. Can you do that?”
He raised himself on his elbows to look down at her, his face taut with need.
“Why do I have to be still?” She pulled him down and peppered his face with kisses. When she reached his ear, she suckled his lobe.
Nicholas groaned. His eyes rolled back in his head and his balls tightened. He had to regain control over himself. He bit his lip. He didn’t want to spill his seed all over her like a callow youth. Her hands fluttered over his back like a pair of butterflies.
Eve, oh, Evie.
Her name wove through his brain like a half-remembered song. He wasn’t able to find the end of it and it kept repeating in rhythm with his impending release. He tried recalculating the last reading from the sextant in his head to distract himself.
He buried his nose in her hair and clutched her tight. There’d be one chance, only one, to earn her trust. He raised himself on his elbows to look down at her again.
His cock strained toward her. Her warmth, her wetness, the pliant womanliness of her sent blood surging through him. Her body would raise the dead, he decided.
“I’m not doing this very well, am I?” she said softly.
She must have sensed him drawing away to regain control.
“I think you’re wonderful.”
He bent to kiss her again, but she turned her head. Her mouth formed a hard line across her face, her lips turned inward as if to hide from him.
“In Newgate Prison, I was witness to plenty of carnal acts. It was always as fast as the women could make it, because they couldn’t bear for it to go on a moment longer than necessary,” she said softly, trembling a little beneath him. “The women gave themselves to anyone who’d offer them a bit of food.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I was only there a few weeks. I guess I wasn’t hungry enough,” she said. “I didn’t want my first time to be part of some…trade. I want it to be…a gift.”
“A treasured gift. It is my honor to be your first.” And last, he promised himself. “If you’ll let me, I’ll pleasure you before I take my own satisfaction. My gift to you.”
A smile lifted one corner of her mouth and he dipped to kiss her there, at the juncture of moist intimacy and smooth skin.
“I’m willing to let you try,” she said, her gaze darting away, suddenly shy. “You saw me in the bath. I’m no good at this. What if I…just can’t?”
“Then it will be my fault,” he said.
He took her mouth, delving and seeking. She opened to him, accepting his exploration, playing her tongue against his in a warm, wet joust.
She moaned into his mouth.
He pulled back. “Like that, do you?”
“Come back here.” She reached up and pulled his head down for another kiss.
He slipped a hand between them and found her breast. She was so soft, so “kneadable,” all except her hard little nipple. He had to taste it again. She made mewling sounds that tugged at his cock.
Then he kissed his way up her throat, pausing to suck at the point of her pulse. She was so sweet, he could savor the smooth skin of her neck for hours, but he moved on, past her thin clavicle, back to the soft mounds of her breasts. He drew circles with his lips. He feathered his warm breath across them. By the time he finally took her tight little bud in his mouth, she was writhing beneath him.
He sucked. He set his teeth around her taut nipple and bit down just enough to make her whimper. Her fingers twined in his hair, kneading his scalp, heedless of the barely healed gash and receding lump.
“What should I…what do you want…me to do?” she asked raggedly.
He came up for air, surfacing like a pearl diver, dragging in a sweet lungful of her arousal.
“I don’t want you to do anything,” he said as he eased down and nuzzled her navel. “I just want you to feel.”
She raised her arms above her head in a gesture of surrender, one forearm draped across her eyes, her artless way of shielding herself from him. Later, he didn’t intend to let her hide, but this time, it might be easier for her. With a smile, he worked his way down and laid his head on one of her thighs.
From this vantage point, he could scan the hills and valleys of the kingdom of Eve. From the trembling point of her upthrust chin to the rose-tipped peaks of her breasts, the indentations of her ribs and the shallow goblet of her navel, she was all that was lovely. And farther down, the tender skin of her inner thigh, the curling hairs, the hidden folds and glistening entrance to her deepest secrets, her little nub, erect and quivering, were all waiting for him.
This was the kingdom he intended to rule, the throne he must mount and keep. Not to subjugate her, but to serve her. To serve her well. To reveal her to herself in ways she’d not yet discovered.
It was time.
“Not yet.”
Eve clenched her teeth and fisted the sheets. After all her worries about whether or not she was even capable, he’d told her not to let herself come.
Easy for him to say. She wasn’t tormenting him beyond bearing.
“Almost, Eve. Only a little longer.”
She was trying, but he was making things damn difficult. Her pubic hairs swayed in the hot breeze of his breath. His fingers had driven her to aching fury and now she supposed he thought this was a respite.
Then another sensation tickled along her thigh. His tongue. Warm. Wet. Just a little rough. He teased the crease of skin at her joint.
He took one of her throbbing folds between his lips. Then the tip of his tongue slid into her cleft, slippery and slick, in slow deliberate strokes, tormenting her with her own need. He circled her little nub of pleasure.
Her breath caught. She forced herself to inhale.
Both his hands cupped her bottom and he lifted her to his mouth. She didn’t resist.
His lips closed over her and he suckled, ever so gently.
Ache. Throb. Want.
“Not yet,” came his muffled voice.
She was hollow as a gourd. Longing stretched her out on its rack.
His tongue probed into her, a soft wet invasion. He pressed his teeth against her spot and suddenly, Eve unraveled.
Deep inside her, the insanity began, spasms of bliss. Her body bucked in tandem with the contractions over which she had absolutely no control.
“Stop. Oh, stop,” she pleaded.
He showed her no mercy, driving her to a higher peak. She was dizzy and disoriented, but her insides continued to pump. Joy flooded her veins. Her limbs were no longer her own.
She
felt lighter, as if she might rise from the sweatdamp sheets and float above them. Then the madness subsided and she settled back into herself.
She looked down along her body to where his dark head lay between her legs. Was she imagining it? No, her skin actually glowed a little. Then the radiance faded and her heart slowed its pounding.
But the flush of pleasure remained, wrapping her in its silken cords. She drew in deep breaths, reveling in his sharp masculine tang.
Nicholas moved up to lie beside her, his head on her pillow. He slid one long arm under her and draped the other over her, splaying his fingers possessively over her belly.
“Still think you’re not good at this?” he whispered into her ear.
Her bellyjiggled. “No, I think it’s safe to say, I’m…oh my! That was…extraordinary.” She turned her head to look at him. “You know a great deal about women, Nicholas.”
“I know a great deal about you, Eve.”
“You know,” she said as she raised herself on her elbow to look down at him, “that’s not really fair. Now that you know what I like, you’re at a distinct advantage. When do I get to learn what you like?”
His smile was dazzling. “I thought you’d never ask.”
Chapter Twenty-one
“You’ll have to show me,” she said, feeling almost desperate to return some small measure of the pleasure he’d given her.
“To begin with, you’ve already given me much of what I want. I love to touch you.” He ran his thumb along her breastbone, then around each of her breasts. Her nipples rose once more. “And taste you.”
While he sucked, his hands continued to skim over her breasts, her ribs, the curve of her waist. Delight shimmered over her, but she planted both her hands on his chest and shoved.
“But when do I get to touch?” she asked, her gaze darting southward, while heat bloomed in her cheeks. “And taste?”
“Right now, my saucy little wench,” he said with obvious delight. He rolled onto his back and shifted her on top of him. Then he reached down to his discarded shirt on the floor and pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve. He folded his arms under his head, keeping the little cloth balled in one fist.
