“It’s fine. Now just loosen me up a bit. I’m starving,” Ivory said with a laugh.
“What’s all this?” said Carbonale, entering the room. He was wearing what appeared to be the most ornate and dashing ensemble he owned. Blood-red velvet and lace was his suit of choice, and although he’d not worn his surcoat, the detailed brocade on the front of his doublet was quite impressive.
“The dress is lovely, but some of us prefer to actually swallow our food if you don’t mind,” Ivory said as she leaned over the table while Zara loosened her laces. “Ah, Zara, you’re a darling. Thank you so much. Now, bring on the food.”
Ivory took her seat again, and this time Carbonale pulled her chair and seated her. He lingered behind her a moment having smelled something magnificent, and he breathed it in several times before he took his seat. The wide skirt made it difficult for Ivory to sit comfortably in the armed chair, but after a bit of wiggling, she was tucked in well enough.
“As you can see, all of the knives have been removed from the table. Do you enjoy oysters?”
“I could eat them until I throw them up,” Ivory replied, straightening her skirt. “This gown is lovely. I’m not sure why you’re wasting it on me, though. And please, try not to feel badly for taking it back after Jack Ketch gets a hold of me.”
Carbonale swallowed hard and shook out his napkin to place it in his lap. He regained his stern composure long enough to say, “I have dozens of them.”
“Dresses or oysters?” Ivory asked spitefully.
As difficult as it was for him not to stare at her through the candlelight, he managed to focus on his meal and only glance in her direction when he was sure she was focused elsewhere. Throughout dinner, Ivory remained quiet and ate as much as two men, and then finished off nearly an entire pitcher of water before asking, “Maddox, why no rum, or even some lousy wine for that matter?”
After blotting his lips and mustache, he forced himself to make eye contact with her at last. He slapped the napkin down hard on the table and answered in exasperation, “I merely felt in your delicate condition that rum was not the best choice for your recovery. Why must you question everything I do?”
“But I’m much better now, and with all of this fine food in my belly, I’m sure a glass of rum wouldn’t kill me,” she said, leaning back and patting her stomach, but forcing her already strained bosom up until most of it spilled over the top of her dress.
Carbonale’s hand flew to his brow to block his view and quickly redirected his eyes to the bottle of rum sitting on the bar across the room. As he grew more anxious by the minute, he used the nervous energy and leapt to his feet to fulfill her request.
“Zara is a miracle worker. When she was finished with my hair, I couldn’t even find the piece you whipped off,” Ivory said with a laugh.
Carbonale was trembling, and he rubbed his damp palms down each side of his hips to dry and steady them. His mind fell backwards to sitting at her bedside, holding that piece of hair between his fingers, and the urge in his chest to lean down and kiss every strand. He breathed in deeply and stared out across the water for a moment before he filled the glasses and turned to carry them to the table.
“Thank you. If I’m to die, please don’t send me to the gallows sober, Maddox—that’s all I ask,” Ivory stated, again with a laugh, and raised her glass to him.
His jaw tightened, and he clenched his fists on his thighs. “May I ask you a serious question?”
“Well, if you have any questions, I’d say you better get them off your chest before…”
“Can you please, please stop with the remarks about dying? I told you they most likely will not hang you. Odds are, they’ll simply put you on a ship back to wherever you came from,” he stated and slammed his palm on the table.
“Oh, I doubt that. Fifty thousand pounds sounds like a hanging to me,” she said whimsically, waving the rum in the air and then pulling it to her lips.
“Now, that is quite enough. Let’s…let’s just drink in peace.”
Carbonale leapt to his feet again and walked to the window, watching as the light began to fade. Ivory downed the rum and attempted to stand to refill her glass, but struggled to release herself from the chair. She was trapped, and in more trouble trying to stand than she’d been in trying to sit. The table shook and the plates rattled as she fussed and cursed, tugging at the thick material, until the chair, as well as she and her glass, toppled over backwards onto the floor with a crash.
Carbonale raced across the room and found her laughing hysterically on her back, but still seated in the chair. “My goodness, is everything either a tragedy or a comedy to you?” He bent down on one knee and leaned over her, pulling the dress and the chair in opposite directions as she wiggled about trying to free herself. “For Heaven’s sake, hold still, will you? And allow me to…”
Her face was but a breath away from his as he leaned in over her. He froze, lost completely in her smile and azure eyes until his right hand betrayed him and brushed beneath her jaw, taking her chin between his ringed fingers. His traitorous left slid beneath the small of her back. An invisible force grew out from her and grabbed him, pulling him down until his lips brushed against hers—once, then again. He struggled against it and pulled back but she matched his every move, and he realized his hands weren’t able to let go.
Ivory blinked and sighed, sending the scent of her one glass of rum across his mouth and up into his nose. When he pulled back yet again, the chair fell free, causing her to fly into him as if she’d been shot from a cannon. Carbonale landed on his back with her on top of him, his left hand still holding her, with his right now tied up in her curls. His rings had somehow managed to become completely entangled in her hair.
“Well, isn’t this a spectacle?” he said against her lips whilst staring up into her eyes.
“Maddox, are we just going to lie here and breathe on each other all night?”
“Well, I suppose we could…”
Ivory reached down and thrust her hands into the mass of shiny dark curls around his face and pinched them tightly in her hands. “It seems I again have you at a disadvantage, Captain.”
“You forget we are yet attached by this unfortunate mishap, Madame Shepard.”
“Oh, I haven’t forgotten.” She released his hair and began the delicate task of untangling her own from around his rings. “There you go. You’re free,” she said, detaching his hand and pushing it down above his head.
“May I ask what you plan to do with me, Madame?” He smirked.
“I told you, you’re free. You’ve but to stand and go.” He didn’t move. She pulled at the heavy skirt to free her legs in order to stand, but his hand swiftly grabbed her by the back of her neck and held her atop him. Again, her hands flew up into his hair and held tight as she covered his mouth with hers, kissing him deeply until he stirred beneath her and kissed her back. His arms flew around her, capturing her in his embrace and rolling her onto her back on the rug. His lips wrapped around hers, again and again, forcing them apart as if he would swallow her whole.
“You now have me at a disadvantage, Captain,” she panted, as his kisses explored her face and neck, until he passed her collar bone and found the still tender pink flesh of her breasts swelling under the pressure of his weight and rising up over the top of her bodice.
“What disadvantage might that be?” he groaned as he continued to devour her, and then he glanced down and pressed his tongue into the deep crease between her compressed bosoms.
“Your lips are like moist pillows against my burned skin. I’d call that a disadvantage for me, since I am burned in many places which may require the same tender attention.” She sighed heavily over and over.
Passion had completely overtaken reason and stolen away any sense of condition or position either of them held. He wanted her in his bed, all night, so that he could tell her the truth again and again, until she was completely and eternally convinced—to the point of his own exhaustion. He c
limbed to his feet and pulled her up with one jerk of her wrist. One by one, he removed his rings and chains and tossed them onto the table. He scooped her up into his arms and flew down the hallway to his room like a ship at full mast.
“What if I tell you no? What if I say to you, now, that this is wrong, and we have to stop?” Ivory whispered, pressed into his arms as he pushed those velvet lips against hers hard and fast, stealing the words from her tongue and eating the no’s. He spun her around and tore at the laces down her back, finally freeing her, and he gripped her bare breasts as he nuzzled her neck from behind.
Carbonale lifted her again and lay her softly on his bed. He roughly removed his doublet and tossed it along with his belt to the floor. “What if I say to you that if I cannot have all of you tonight, I will come to you in your dreams and take you there? Or that I will sleep outside of your door until you come to your senses and let me in to have my way with you?” He carried on, peeling the shirt from his back, exposing his thick, chiseled chest and beyond, to where his pants now lay low on his hips. Ivory’s eyes spied the splash of soft, dark hair that grew out from the center of his body and followed it to where it rose from deep below his navel. She traced it with her fingers from its origin all the way to his sternum, while he crept like a cat onto the bed, kneeling over her.
“There is no way I could keep you out. You hold the key that keeps me in.”
“I would wish only for the key to your complete submission. I implore you to give me the key to all of your locked doors, Ivory Shepard.”
“I will give you all of me on one condition,” Ivory said over a long sigh.
“Say it.”
“From this night on, you can never, ever, tell me no.”
Carbonale climbed above her and kissed her tenderly, and then he leaned down and pressed his lips to her ear to breathe the words, “If I ever tell you no…kill me.”
“Kill you? Perhaps twenty four hours ago, given the strength and better judgment, I’d have slit you from gold earring to gold earring . Now, I can think of nothing but keeping you alive for my own pleasure,” Ivory whispered, as Carbonale’s hands reached roughly beneath the heavy fabric of her skirt and gripped the smooth flesh of her upper thighs. He smiled up at her in surprise.
“Do you always go without underthings?”
“I don’t see their point. Besides, you’re looking for my manhood, correct?” she gasped and was silenced by his probing tongue and the sudden thrust of an exploring finger. “Well, you’ve certainly proved my point,” she panted when his lips slid to her throat.
“What will it take to silence you for a while?” he asked, looking up at her from between her breasts while still probing her beneath her gown. His one raised eyebrow and rolling eyes signified he had no more use for words.
“I’d say you’re almost halfway…there. Don’t give up so easily, Captain.” She writhed and sighed.
“I can assure you I have not come this far to surrender. I’d kiss you into silence, but alas my dear girl, my mouth has much more land to cover, and I’ve wasted far too much time keeping you quiet when I could be making you scream,” he growled. “However, please remember while I’m busy moving forward on my quest, that what I am about to do…is your fault,” he whispered, tossing her skirt up and over her face before taking hold of her thigh and biting it, as if it were a smooth, ripe peach—but only for a taste, not to chew and swallow.
Ivory let out a gasp again, pushing the skirt below her eyes and raising her head just enough to see the top of his head. She bit her lip and watched, as he worked his way up the inside of her leg, nip by nip, tasting her. Her stare was barely broken by blinks, so as not to miss a second of his exploration of her flesh, which quivered at the thought of his next move. She struggled to remind herself where she was and why, but the strength of her attraction to Maddox overpowered her. Regardless of her circumstances, her desire for this man was unconquerable.
The skirt was like a vice around her middle and she squirmed to reach back and untie herself from the binding brocade. Finally, out of complete frustration, Maddox flipped her over, scrambled to his dresser drawer for a hidden dagger, and slit the material repeatedly, until it tore away in shreds.
“It’s a good thing you have dozens of…” Ivory twisted back to speak, but his hand covered her mouth, and he pulled his index finger to his lips with the other.
As she turned and sat up naked on the side of the bed, his huge hand still covered her mouth. She reached out for him, sliding her hands over his stomach as he sighed and stared down at her. Upon her touch, his hands pulled away and fell limp at his sides. He watched, motionless, as she gripped his hips and pulled him closer to where she sat on the edge of the bed, and glided her fingers around his waist. His pants, now but a firm tug from the floor, held back the arousal which grew from his first taste of her lips on the dining room floor. Now, so close to feeling her warm softness around him, he found his body pressed snuggly between her thighs.
A lightheaded feeling swept over him when he looked down into her eyes. His head fell back, and he glared at the golden circles of candlelight on the ceiling, searching for reality and trying to break the spell. Her hands explored beneath the material of his pants and found the two thick, round mounds of flesh below his spine, which filled each of her hands. She held on as they tensed and tightened at her touch, and she pulled him to her, covering his stomach with light, warm kisses.
Carbonale ground himself against her as she continued kneading and clawing at his buttocks, pulling him closer to her with each flex of her fingers. His hands, which moments before lay lifeless at his sides, were now wrapped tightly in what was left of her perfectly coiffed curls, and he jerked back her head to bend down and again press hard and deliberatly deep kisses into her mouth.
Ivory was finally silent. Despite her reputation for using and tossing men at will, she could count on one hand the true number of men she’d allowed past her waist, and less than that whose advances she’d actually welcomed. Now, surrounded by the glowing amber of candlelight and the sound of hammering waves from the beach beneath the bedroom window, her heart pounded and her breath was stolen away before his lips ever reached the ache between her thighs. “What men do this glorious thing you’ve done, and do not find themselves with some lovelorn woman on her knees, waiting for him every time he leaves her bed?” Ivory spoke breathlessly.
“I know nothing of what other men do, nor do I care.” He breathed into her stomach.
“Other men…I must be losing my mind, for there is no other alive worthy of the title,” she sighed, running her fingers through his thick hair, pulling at him at last to enter her.
Their lovemaking was equal parts lust and generous pleasure, and as much as he gave to her, in return she cared only for his gratification. She surrendered herself to his every touch and whim, as he responded in turn to each muscle that moved beneath her skin with either a rough caress or tender kiss, whichever he felt was desired in the moment. Ivory was in awe of his ability to know from second to second what she wanted, and more importantly, what she needed. All the while, he held onto the restraint which left him weaker with every twist and turn he took to pleasure her again and again, leaving his own satisfaction to the wind, until he felt her body fall completely still.
Maddox rolled off of her and lay there, trying to catch his breath. Once on his back, he lifted her as if she were no more than a feather and sat her upon his stomach. He stroked her thighs as they curled around him, and she lay down against him. “What are you weaving, Ivory Shepard? What black magic is this you are spinning?”
“I was about to ask you the same, Maddox Carbonale,” she whispered, as her eyes strayed to the shiny blade lying next to the bed on the rug; the very blade that was her namesake. Ivory lay pasted on top of him, rising and falling with his every breath. His hands slid up and over her back and held her there against him, until his breathing returned to normal. Suddenly, his head rose from the bed, and when he reache
d for his pistol on the side table, he realized he didn’t have it with him, causing Ivory to stir.
“What is it?”
“I thought I heard something on the balcony.”
“We’re alone here, aren’t we?”
“It may have just been Zara picking up. But, just in case…” he slid from beneath her, crept from the bed, and stepped to the open balcony doors. The curtains swayed in the ocean breeze as he lifted the dagger he’d used to cut her from her dress from the floor and listened quietly. Ivory leaned up on one elbow and began to rise when he waved at her to stay put. “It was just Master Green making a sweep of the house. He’s probably gone to find Sandy to take the night watch.”
“How do you know it was Green?”
“His silhouette is unmistakable. I saw him headed towards the beach. Forget about it. Now, where were we?” he asked, tossing the dagger on the side table by the doors before walking back to the bed.
Ivory pressed her hand against his chest as he leaned over her. “I want you to know that I have no expectations. The attraction between a man and woman is natural, regardless of how unnatural the situation may be.”
“Unnatural? My, such a word to use as we are in our most natural state at the moment,” Maddox chuckled.
“Although I’d find it difficult to understand if, in fact, you still intend to throw me to the wolves tomorrow, tonight something happened between us that probably shouldn’t have. Let’s not pretend it’s anything more than it is.”
Maddox stopped and fell down next to her on the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. “Far be it from me to pretend anything…Madame.”
Chapter Eight
“How hard can it be to find a woman with snow-white hair in Jamaica?” Miranda asked while Cass picked at the meal of chicken and rice that she had turned down only an hour before. They chose the Shark Skin to begin their search since most, if not all, of Carbonale’s crew patronized the pub. Asking questions was frowned upon by pirates under any circumstances, but they had to take the risk. In the pirate realm, the act of being “frowned upon” translated to risking your life.
The Blue Diamond (The Razor's Edge Book 1) Page 6
