The Lady's Guide to Escaping Cannibals
Page 8
“Well… perhaps not so formally.”
She twisted about, sitting up on her heels, leaning in so close he could almost count the freckles on her nose. “There we are then. How was she to know your intentions? Did you even ask her how she felt about you being away so much?”
“Now just a minute—” How had the conversation turned into an interrogation? “I’m not the one who bailed out. She up and left, not caring whether she broke my heart.”
“And is it?” She folded her arms.
“Is what?” Dear God, she was infuriating.
“Is it broken—your heart?” She clearly expected an answer, but he’d be damned if he’d give her one. Who did she think she was? She’d tricked him into talking about Eloisa when it was none of her business.
He gritted his teeth. “I got over it.”
She made a humph sound and leaned back again. “I can see the subject pains you, so I shan’t probe. But if you want to talk about it, you have my undivided attention—in case you were wanting the female perspective.”
Like hell he did. “I’ll manage without.”
“There’s no need to growl. I was just making conversation.”
No matter what she said, he could tell she was still thinking about it.
Barely three heartbeats passed before she picked at the scab again. “You’re clearly not an easy man to get along with, but I’d say she wasn’t the right person for you. If she had been, she’d have seen your worth.”
He pressed his lips tight together, not trusting himself to answer. Even offering some kind of sympathy she managed to insult him. He’d learnt his lesson, right enough, and he didn’t need Senhora Asquith to illuminate it any further. If he was ever to take a wife, it would be someone who asked nothing of him. Anything else would be doomed to failure.
“Now, I shan’t say another word about her. Friends I hope, and no harm done.” She beamed at him. “I’d tell you about my own life so far, but I fear it would make dull storytelling.”
Pulling over the smaller pack, she prodded for the softest spot before reclining onto her elbow, making herself comfortable. “Perhaps you’d like to know more about Sebastian though. His life truly has been interesting.”
Jorge didn’t hear all of what she said next—babbling on about some dig site on the western coast of New Guinea, shards of pottery, shells and animal bones, and bits of carved bone blade—from the discovery of which her darling Sebastian had surmised local tribespeople had been in residence for three thousand years.
Not that it wasn’t interesting. He supposed it was—and he couldn’t help a grudging respect for this brother of hers, if he was, or had been, all she said—but it was her expression while speaking of him that held Jorge’s attention: the way her eyes shone and she flushed with pride.
No one had ever looked like that while talking about him. Eloisa hadn’t much wanted to know what he got up to when he wasn’t with her, and that had suited him just fine, but it now occurred to him that she should have been curious.
What had Eloisa ever known about him?
Other than the fact that he could bring her to climax in three different ways in as many minutes, or keep her on the edge until she was begging him to send her over.
Senhora Asquith was still talking, though she looked to be getting sleepy. Through the rain, dusk had been and gone.
How relaxed she was. Filthy from perspiration and dust, as he was, but with the same self-possessed stillness about her he’d noticed on the deck of the ship—even here, lying upon the hard ground. When she wasn’t cross-examining him, she was quite soothing company—and a hell of a lot prettier than Old Tom, with that rosebud mouth and flaming hair, and those eyes that held every golden hue.
Not that he minded her chatter, nor all her questions. She, at least, was interested in hearing his answers. And there was something in her he couldn’t help but admire.
She wasn’t fearless; far from it. But she wasn’t afraid to face her fears either.
“I suppose, after telling you all this, you ought to know my name.” Stretching back her arm, she cast up her face.
Somehow, he was no longer resting with his back against the rock, but leaning towards her.
“And you ought to tell me yours.” She bit upon the fullness of her lower lip as she gazed upward. How soft her lips looked, parted as they were, inviting him to taste them.
Was that what was happening? She wanted him to kiss her?
Gently, he placed his hand upon the curve of her hip and she made no protest. If anything, she moved a little closer.
His other hand he wove into her hair, half-tumbled from its pins, curling wisps framing the soft oval of her face.
When his lips grazed hers, she sighed into his mouth. Tipping back her head, it was she who extended the tip of her tongue to meet his.
He drew back a moment, needing to be sure.
She wasn’t pulling away. Rather, she was looking at him through half-closed eyes, in the way a woman did when she was inviting a man to become more intimate.
Bringing his lips to hers again, he sampled more thoroughly, extending his tongue to stroke within her mouth, deepening the kiss. She made some small noise as he cupped her breast through the cotton of her blouse, and her hands came to his chest, but not to push him away.
Did she feel how fast his heart was beating?
It had been too long since he’d taken this pleasure—of kissing a woman, touching her.
Too long since he’d made a woman ready for lovemaking.
Was that what this English Senhora wanted?
He traced the length of her neck to the base of her throat, licking within the hollow. She tasted of salt and roses.
Bringing his leg over hers, he captured her between his thighs, reaching for the lush roundness of her behind.
Still she said nothing to stop him, making only those noises which combined surprise with encouragement. He wanted her to touch him. Taking her hand from his chest, he brought it to the front of his breeches—guiding her to the ridge of his arousal. She was tentative, stroking only with her fingertips through the cloth, but her touch made him breathe harder.
A sudden, flaring rush of desire threatened to overpower him.
What had begun with a kiss was hurtling towards another destination. He wanted all her softness for himself, suckling and tonguing until she arched and begged for him. He wanted to move inside her, burying his passion within her warmth.
“Take this off.” He fumbled with the buttons of her shirt and she nodded, helping him push it from her shoulders.
As he brushed aside her locket and pulled the ribbon of her camisole, she whispered, “Your name? Tell me, before we…before…”
She stopped speaking as he took her breast deep into his mouth, suckling and caressing with his tongue, grazing with his teeth.
He gave her his name, making the word hum against the silken flesh, branding her with the speaking of it.
His name upon her body.
“Jorge,” she repeated. On her lips, it was a breathless entreaty.
“You want this?” His voice was ragged. If she said no, he didn’t know what he’d do.
“I want you.” Her chest rose and fell with each breath. “You, yes.”
It was all he needed to hear.
He unbuckled her belt and, lifting her hips, pushed down the breeches. A tug on the tie of her undergarment and those too were drawn away, uncovering the paleness of her lower belly, and a glimpse of auburn fur.
Roughly, he pulled off her boots and socks and cast away the breeches altogether.
She was already parting her legs to him, inviting him to see her, touch her.
Hungrily, he kissed upwards to her inner thigh—so soft and pale, then brought his mouth to her sex. He sought her out, pushing deep then drawing back to circle her tenderness, making her writhe.
All of this was his, now, in this moment. His kisses made it so, and she was helpless to have it any other way.
As he drew off his own breeches, her eyes stayed upon him and, when he lay down, she took his hardness in her hand; those delicate fingers—encompassing, caressing, making him groan. It was she who guided him, rubbing him within the place he’d made wet for her, opening to him.
She shifted her hips, whimpering as the tip of him entered her but pulling his shirt upward to touch his bare back.
He moved deeper and her eyes widened.
Though he wanted to root himself in her, he held back. Good, hard sex was what he needed, but she was tight. If he thrust in the way he wanted to, he might hurt her.
So much he knew of her intimate flesh, but not yet her name.
“Tell me yours; your name.”
“Bath—sheba.” She drew breath sharply as he pushed forward, but he took her mouth again, needing her kiss as much as he needed the warmth of her sex.
He moved slowly, rocking his hips, murmuring, “Bathsheba. Bathsheba.”
As the wave of release tore through his body, he cried her name loudly, but another’s voice echoed through his mind.
He was diving through an ocean of dark water, dragging up what was lost.
When he resurfaced, she lay still in his arms, breathing softly. They lay curled in the darkness, the lantern light long extinguished, and he remembered.
Chapter Ten
Sometime in the night, it had ceased raining.
It wasn’t yet dawn, but she didn’t need light to know where she was, and whom she was with.
She could feel him, pressed to her back, with his hand resting in the cradle of her waist.
She knew what she’d done.
What they’d done.
Between her legs, she was still wet—her slickness and his. A little sore, too, but not enough that, if he woke and wanted her, she’d refuse him.
Far from it.
If she turned and coaxed him now, they might begin again.
Did she want him to?
Yes. Oh, yes.
She knew it was brazen, but she wanted to wrap her legs around him and take him inside her again. It had felt so good. She’d wanted not just his kiss but all of him—his hardness and his gentle caresses. She’d wanted him to belong to her, even if it was for just a short time.
And, though she’d conjured a great deal as she’d lain in her cabin bed, she’d never anticipated it being so…
Satisfying? Intense? Joyful?
All those things.
What had The Lady’s Guide said? Something about not having regrets and making sure you tasted life—rather than staying only where you felt safe.
Well, she’d certainly done that.
She might not be a true explorer, like her father and Sebastian, but she was discovering things about herself she never could have imagined; parts of herself that had been sleeping, waiting for the right man to awaken them.
She’d let her impulse guide her, her feelings rather than her thoughts, and what a revelation it had been. Their bodies had given one another pleasure, but there had been more to what they’d shared. The nakedness of the act, raw and animalistic as it was, had revealed a side of the captain she would never otherwise have glimpsed.
And she’d seen the same in his eyes, she was sure.
It was impossible to put it into words, but something had changed between them.
He woke to the tumble of her hair tickling his cheek.
How long had it been since he’d slept like that? He couldn’t recall.
“I’ve been watching you.” Smiling, she trailed her fingers down his shirt to the thatch of tight hair around his cock. “Do you always wake up like this?”
Tentatively, she touched his erection, and the muscles behind his balls clenched.
Clearly, she didn’t regret what had passed between them. Were it the case, she’d be dressed already and pretending none of it had happened. Instead, she was initiating another seduction, and looking like the cat that got the cream.
He wasn’t at full girth but, if she carried on fondling him like that, he would be.
Early morning sex. There was something he hadn’t indulged in a while—at least not with company.
Long, hot and slow.
It would be so easy.
Take those glorious breasts into his mouth again, flip her over, then push inside.
So why was he still lying there, not doing anything about it?
He knew damn well why.
Because however pleasurable it had been, it shouldn’t have happened.
She was a wealthy widow of gentle breeding—albeit one who appeared to have recently rediscovered her libido. He’d heard of it happening. People behaving strangely after a near-death experience—losing their inhibitions in the relief to still be alive.
He’d have expected her to come to her senses by now, having slept it off, but she was clearly still in the midst of whatever altered mental state it was.
And what if she were fertile?
Goddamit!
He hadn’t been expecting this. Hadn’t come prepared.
There was the other matter, too, of the man he’d pulled from the water. He’d spoken her name: Bathsheba.
There was no denying it now, however much he wanted to. It was her brother Jorge had saved.
Her brother who’d died.
Her brother he’d slipped back over the edge of the boat, sending the body to its watery grave.
To give her what she was asking for, however tempting, would be wrong. He’d enough sins on his shoulders without adding this to his ledger.
As to how she’d feel towards him once she knew the depth of his deceit…
Jerking her hand away, he sat up.
“I don’t think you should do that.”
Turning away, he found his breeches and pulled them on. Even as he did so, he was aware of her brother’s ring, pushed deep into the inner pocket, alongside the map.
“But—” She hadn’t moved, still sitting on the oilskin in nothing but her camisole, the pale roses of her nipples pushed against the flimsy fabric.
She knelt up, reaching for him, so that the camisole rode up, revealing her soft lower belly and the fur at the apex of her thighs.
Despite his good intentions, his cock leapt.
It took all his strength to turn away.
Gathering up her clothes, he passed them to her. “We can loop around to the bottom of the waterfall. There’s bound to be somewhere you can bathe. You’ll want that, I’m assuming, after—”
With flushing cheeks, she immediately covered herself with her hands. Nevertheless, he noticed a small smear of blood upon one thigh. She hadn’t been a virgin, he was certain; she’d known overly much for that. In which case, the blood was his fault. Despite his care, he’d been too rough, or simply too big for her.
“I understand. I’m—” Her eyes were downcast. “Not as clean as I should be.”
Jorge clenched his fists. If he could have punched himself in the jaw, he would have.
“You’re not dirty—no more than I am.” He sighed.
“Perhaps we’ll find some sign of Sebastian by the water…the tracks of his boots…or something…” Her voice trailed off.
With all the rain, even she must be aware they’d find nothing of that nature. “We’ll see.”
He began packing their belongings. Quietly, she nodded, drawing on her clothes. Jorge had never, in all his life, felt such a blackguard.
The rain being over, there was a resurgence of heat, moisture rising lazily from the soil—a tropical haze with no breeze to offer relief.
He led her downward, leaving the cliffs to enter the tree line and, immediately, they were hemmed in, the vegetation thick on all sides, and the canopy closing above, leaving visible only the smallest chinks of sky. Even the screeching bir
ds seemed distant.
Crouching, Jorge surveyed the lower levels of undergrowth. He’d vouch that someone had been this way before them—though some months back. The tree ferns and bamboo took longer than that to recover, and there was still evidence of a slashing blade.
However, even following the same path, hacking through thorn vines with his cutlass, their progress was slow. It would likely take all the morning just to reach the base of the waterfall.
Around them, the jungle was humming—the high-pitched buzz of insects punctuated by the croak and rustle of creatures unseen.
They dragged onward and, behind him, Bathsheba walked as if in a trance. She’d looked radiant when she’d woken him; so happy. Now, she was pale, her eyes darting away whenever he passed her the drinking flask.
He was no expert in understanding a woman’s mind but he knew she’d withdrawn from him. She was ashamed maybe, of letting her impulses run away from her. Or angry with him. He’d rejected her; hurt her feelings.
Whatever she was feeling, she’d get over it.
It was for the best if they pretended last night never happened. Better for her and for him. When she came to her senses, she’d thank him for it.
At last, Jorge smelt the air change—more dank, with a tang of silt, overlaid with floral scents. They were close.
When the vista opened, it took him by surprise. Behind him, Bathsheba gasped and exclaimed.
They were some twenty feet above the chain of pools into which the waterfall fed. Here was a different jungle, the chasm sides thick with banyan trees and orchids, hibiscus and frangipani—red, purple and yellow, their fragrance sickly sweet.
And the sky was visible again—the sun blazing in a haze of blue.
“How beautiful it is.” Bathsheba stepped forward. Smiling for the first time in several hours, she pressed her face to speckled lilies pushing through the ferns, breathing deeply then coughing.
“Don’t do that.” Jorge spoke sharply.
“Don’t smell the flowers?” She rubbed at her nose. “It’s only pollen.”
“You don’t know what’s in there. You can’t see.”