by Anne Stuart
If they lived long enough he was going to have to convince her of that fact. She could do so much better than a half-breed sailor. But he no longer cared. She was his, and he’d kill before he let her go.
“How’s it looking?” he shouted to Billy, making his voice heard over the devil’s own wind. “Think the mizzen will go?”
“Aye,” Billy shouted back. His face was covered with sheets of water, his grizzled gray hair plastered to his scalp. “The question is, where will she land? If she lands just right and the spar crashes through the sides then we’re going down.”
“No, we’re not,” Luca said. “When she starts to go you’ll jerk the wheel in the right direction and it’ll fall into the ocean. I’ve seen you do it half a dozen times. I have faith in you.”
Billy snorted, then coughed as seawater went up his nose. “Sooner or later our luck is going to run out.”
“Sooner or later,” Luca agreed. “But not today. We’ll…” His voice stopped, as he saw something emerge from the hatch he’d closed so carefully to keep more water from filling the lower decks. He blinked against the blinding rain, for a moment terrified that Maddy had ignored his orders and followed him up on deck. One good wave and she’d be overboard, and there’d be no way to save her.
But the figure was too bulky, though he couldn’t make it out. And then a gust of wind blew the rain in another direction, and for a moment he was able to focus. It was a sailor, one he didn’t recognize, and he had a struggling Maddy over his shoulder, and for the first time in his life Luca felt pure terror.
“Shite!” Billy cursed beside him. “Who the bloody hell is that?”
Everything inside him had coalesced into an icy, murderous rage. “Someone’s got Maddy.”
“Jayzus,” Billy said. “Who? And why?”
“Concentrate on steering,” Luca shouted over the noise of the storm, his voice grim. “I’ll go for her.”
He unfastened the rope he’d tied around his waist. Whoever was wrestling Maddy up onto the deck wasn’t used to storms; he went down, sliding across the deck and slamming against the side, never releasing his grip on Maddy. She was fighting him, but the man had to have a grip of iron, and as Luca tried to make his way toward them he saw the man twist Maddy’s arm behind her back in a cruel jerk that brought her to her knees. They were directly beneath the cracked mast, and he tried to shout out a warning, but the wind took his voice and whirled it away, and he watched the struggle as if from a great distance as he fought his way toward them.
The sea was a formidable enemy when she chose to be. More than once he’d lain, lashed to his bunk during storms like these, and he’d heard the voices of the drowned, a jumble of words swirling around his head. He’d seen visions, terrifying ones, beautiful ones, but right then he couldn’t be sure of what he saw. Because if he blinked it looked as if Gwendolyn’s tame friend, Rufus Brown, had Maddy in a death grip and was trying to haul her up and over the side.
She’d been right and he hadn’t believed her. But how in hell had the man gotten aboard ship, and where had he been the last two days?
Luca shouted at them, but the wind took his words and whirled them away. Who the hell was the man, and why was he trying to kill Maddy?
Luca tried to move fast, but the water running across the deck was treacherous, and he went down, landing on his knees, as he saw Brown manage to haul Maddy up. In another moment he’d have her over the side, and it wouldn’t matter that Luca would beat Brown to death with his bare hands. Maddy would be gone, taken by the other woman he loved, the sea.
He wasn’t going to reach them in time. He heard the second crack overhead, as the mizzenmast began to topple, directly toward the area of the deck where Maddy was fighting for her life. Luca managed to scramble to his feet, but they were too far away, and the wind was blowing so hard he could barely move. It was pure impulse, but impulse had saved his life before. He managed a running leap against the wind, then dropped down and slid across the length of the deck, just as the mast began to fall, the deadly spar heading directly for Maddy and Brown.
There was no controlling his momentum, and he didn’t care. He crashed into the struggling couple, the force of his impact wrenching Maddy away. The ship lurched, and he wrapped his arms around her as they slid backwards, away from Brown, who stood frozen in disbelief as the heavy mast crashed downwards, and the spar hit him squarely across the head. A moment later he was gone, with half the rail and a good portion of the mast.
Luca and Maddy had ended up against the pilothouse, and he held her, ducking his own head against the blowing rain. He’d heard the man’s scream as he went overboard, and while the sound had brought him a vicious satisfaction he hoped Maddy hadn’t heard it. It was the kind of sound that could haunt your dreams the first time you heard it.
He didn’t dare move. With the railing gone it would be far too easy for the two of them to be swept after Brown, and he wasn’t going to risk it. Every now and then the wind shifted and he could see Billy at the helm, fighting with everything he had inside him. The ship wasn’t listing, and he could only hope the mast and spar had taken no more than the railing and a stowaway intent on murder, but he wasn’t taking any chances. If there were a hole in the side the sailors would be doing their damnedest to bail and to patch it, but in this kind of storm it would be a lost cause. Right then there was nothing he could do but hold onto Maddy and wait to see if they survived.
The battle was endless. With her wet body plastered up against his, they slowly began to warm each other as they huddled against the rain. It was too chaotic to try to speak, and indeed, he didn’t have the words right then. All he could do was hold her shaking body and try to shield her. And ignore the fact that, in the face of death, he was getting hard simply by being close to her.
He ducked his head down beside her, his mouth against her temple. He pushed the rain-matted hair away and whispered against the wet salt of her skin. “I’m not going to let you die.”
She’d been coughing on and off. She must have swallowed some seawater at some point during her struggle, and he could barely make out the raw scratchiness of her voice. “You and what army?”
And he laughed. In the face of death he laughed, holding the woman he loved, the woman who never gave up without a fight. He hugged her close, folding her against him, and her hands were gripping his wet shirt, her head was buried against his shoulder, and he could feel her lips against him. Warm lips against his water-soaked skin. It was enough.
He barely noticed when the storm began to ebb. The rain was softer now, the rise and fall of the ship less violent, and the howl of the wind began to quiet. He didn’t want to move from their protected spot on the hard deck; he didn’t want to do anything but hold her.
“Storm’s over, boy-o.” Billy loomed overhead, and he turned to look at him, silhouetted against the angry sky, water still sluicing over him. “We made it through.”
Maddy moved in his arms, her grip on his shirt loosening, but he held her tightly. “Who’s got the helm?”
“Jeffries, who else? Only man I trust. Get up now. The girl needs dry clothes, and we’re in sight of land.”
He couldn’t hesitate any longer. He released her, and sure enough she immediately scuttled away, sitting a fair distance from him, her face pale but determined. He resisted the need to haul her back, pulling himself up. The pitch and sway of the ship was definitely steadier. “Where are we?”
“Somewhere off the south coast of England or I miss my guess,” Billy said. “The storm blew us all the way back. I’d been aiming for Normandy.”
He reached down to her, but she ignored him, and he wondered if she was in shock. He leaned down and scooped her up, and she had the sense not to battle him in the still impressive wind.
She was shivering, and he was damned cold himself. He turned to look at Billy. “You need me?”
Billy shook his head. “It’ll be easy enough to limp into port, even with one mast gone. Go warm up the lass
before she turns into an icicle and I’ll let you know when we dock.”
“Any idea where along the coast?”
“I’m heading straight for the London docks. Best shipbuilders south of Liverpool there, and this fine lady is going to need some repairs. Who the hell was it who went over the side?”
“Gwendolyn’s friend. Maddy was right after all,” he said briefly, starting toward the hatch, Maddy tucked tightly in his arms.
Billy whistled. “Now that’s a dangerously jealous woman.”
Luca managed a laugh. He still couldn’t believe how close he’d come to losing her. “I doubt that’s why. I’m not worth killing over. Right now I’ve got better things to do than worry about a danger that’s ended up at the bottom of the ocean.”
Billy gave a meaningful look to the woman in his arms. “I’d say you do, boy-o. It should be smooth sailing from here on.” As if in answer the ship gave a lurch, and Billy called an expressively obscene insult over his shoulder to the man at the helm.
Luca didn’t answer. It was never going to be smooth sailing with the contrary woman in his arms. He was just going to have to figure out how to deal with her. Because he was damned if he was letting her go.
Maddy was so cold. Her mind refused to work—she couldn’t make sense of what she’d seen, what had happened to her. That man… his scream… No, she couldn’t think about that. All she could do was shake uncontrollably.
Luca carried her back to the cabin, and she could hear the water sloshing around his feet. He set her down in the middle of it, the water almost to her ankles, and her bare feet curled in protest, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. She stood there, swaying, watching him as he went to the porthole and slammed it shut again, locking it. The endless, horrible rocking of the ship had lessened, back almost to its normal, gentle movement, and she should have been shocked at how swiftly the storm had passed, how it had gone from certain death to almost calm. But she couldn’t think.
Luca came to stand in front of her. “You’re freezing,” he said.
She wanted to come up with something clever, but her teeth were chattering too much. She didn’t even want to look at him, so she closed her eyes, starting when she felt his hands on her. “You need to get out of these wet clothes,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t fight me on this.”
As if she could. She trembled as he stripped the clothes from her, dropping them in the water at their feet, and when she was naked he picked her up and carried her to the berth. The ropes were still here, and he yanked them away, tossing them aside before setting her down on the mattress. It was still damp from the sea spray, and she shuddered against him.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, and somehow managed to rip the sheet off while he released her against the slightly itchy mattress. “Hold on.”
Hold on for what, she thought. For icicles to drip from my eyes? Damn, those were tears! There was no reason to cry.
She closed her eyes, clamping her jaw shut so her teeth wouldn’t rattle out of her head. In the distance she could hear the slap of more cloth hitting the water, and then he was on the bed with all six feet whatever of him, and there was nothing but his hot, silken skin against her, wrapped around her, his heat flowing into her.
Fighting him was out of the question, and she didn’t want to. She wanted to sink into him, lose herself in him, and she slid her arms around him, pulling him closer.
He was hard. Of course he was. And as her shaking slowed to intermittent shivers she knew she was wet between her legs. Of course she was. She needed him, any way she could have him, for as long as she could have him. She needed him right now.
He must have felt when everything changed. He’d had her plastered up against him, his heat radiating into her, and he was rubbing her back, soothing her, when she began to relax, no longer rigid with cold, but melting, flowing, and without thinking she rubbed her face against his shoulder, an instinctive caress, as she tried to move her hips closer to his.
If he hesitated for even a moment she wasn’t aware of it. His hand on her back slid up to cup her neck, pulling her back so that he could look down into her eyes. His deep, implacable black ones, that she could never read, looked into hers for an answer she didn’t know how to give.
But he could read her better than she could read him, because he put his mouth against hers, soft and coaxing, breathing warmth and the taste of the sea into her. The sea that had killed a man, that had almost killed her. The sea that he loved.
And she kissed him back, loving the sea because he loved it, sliding down beneath him, accepting the ocean, accepting everything.
He ran his hand down her leg, then pulled her knee up over his hip. They were lying facing each other, but he made no effort to push her onto her back, he simply arranged her so that that he could slip his fingers between her legs, to that damp, secret place that sent spirals of warmth throughout her. He moved his mouth to the side of her face, kissing her lightly on her abraded cheekbone, and then she could feel his kiss against the tenderness in her jaw where he’d hit her. He kissed her throat, his tongue dancing across the swiftly hammering pulse at the base of her neck, and then he pulled each hand in front of him, kissing her injured wrists before setting them back around him.
But that wasn’t good enough. Because she was no longer cold, she was a blazing coil of need, and she reached between them, sliding her hand down his chest, past the tight nipples she wanted inexplicably to put her mouth against. She moved her hand farther, down, down, to capture the iron-hard erection. He’d been hard when they’d been fighting death out there on the storm-lashed deck. And as she lay tight in his arms everything had boiled down to one essential thing, the one thing that mattered to her. Luca.
Luca. Who didn’t love her, and certainly didn’t need her. Except for this way, and in this moment of heat and desire it would have to be enough. Her hand slid along his length, fingers delicate, tracing each vein, and desires so shocking she could scarcely believe them shot through her.
“Lie back,” she said, an order in a barely audible rasp of a voice. But he heard her—she had the illogical sense that he would always hear her, and he lay back on the mattress, watching her.
She moved to her knees, looking down at him in the shadowy light that had followed the storm. Even in the dusk he was beautiful, golden, muscled, perfect. And so hard for her. Waiting for her. She hesitated, unaccountably shy, and he lifted his hand to brush it against her lips. “Do anything you want,” he said. “I’m yours.”
She wanted to weep with his lie, but she didn’t. Right then he might believe it. Right then maybe he did belong to her. She leaned over him and carefully ran her tongue across one beaded nipple.
He jumped, making an inaudible sound, and she looked up at him. “Again,” he whispered, and she found she could still smile. She moved down and ran her tongue over him, then sucked the flat nub into her mouth as he had done to her, and he moaned in pleasure, and she felt his cock twitch in her gentle, soothing hand.
She moved to his other nipple, doing the same, but this time she let her teeth graze him, and his hips came up off the mattress. How strangely blissful, she thought. What else would she like to do?
She moved down, tasting the salt of the ocean on his skin, pressing her face against the thin line of hair reaching down from his belly. And then she put her mouth on him, tentatively, delicately, letting her tongue dance across the top of his cock before she enveloped it, sinking down and letting his hardness slide into her mouth.
She heard his muttered curse words, odd, because he seemed to like it. He put gentle hands on her head, cupping it, and showed her what to do, moving up and down on his erection, letting her tongue dance against it, sucking at it, accepting it completely. She wasn’t doing this for him, she was doing it for her. It brought her an intense pleasure she hadn’t imagined, and her hands grasped the base of it, as she took more of him into her hungry mouth.
And then he pulled her away. For a moment she fought hi
m, until he covered her mouth with his, filling her with his tongue, his taste, as he rolled her beneath him. He was between her legs, the head of his mouth-damp cock pressed against her, and he slid in the first few inches easily, before she remembered to brace herself. “More,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please. More.”
He pushed all the way in, and a spasm of pure delight tightened her body around him, and he seemed to swell inside her. “Hurry,” she whispered in clawing desperation, fighting for release.
“No. I want to savor this.” His answering thrusts, slow and steady, made her want to scream in frustration. But he couldn’t control her body, any more than she could, and he’d only thrust a half-dozen times before she climaxed, her body clenching down on his, her skin prickling in an endless contraction that left her breathless and panting. For some reason she expected him to follow, as he had last time. He’d held still inside her as her pleasure washed over her again, but the moment she’d fallen back he began thrusting again, at the same, steady rhythm, and she felt so full, so possessed, that another wave washed over her, tightening everything, and he held still once more.
When she fell back again, panting, he kissed her breathless mouth. “I can keep this up for hours.”
“Why?” she gasped.
His laugh touched strange places inside her. “Because there’s no where else I’d rather be. I want to stay inside you forever, I want to make you come so hard you can’t even think, I want to forget where I end and you begin. I want everything from you, Maddy Rose. Everything.”
Oh, God, she thought, as he slid his hands up to cover her breasts, his thumbs brushing across her nipples and he continued to… to… what was that word the stable hands had used when they thought she couldn’t hear them? Fuck. Such a dirty, nasty, erotic little word. That was what he was doing to her. And she wanted more.
His hands on her breasts set off another paroxysm of pleasure, and this time when he moved again he was faster, his breathing a little more shallow. And then, to her shock and despair, he pulled out of her completely.
