“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I wasn’t lonely. I had my paints.”
He muttered an oath and then fell back on the bunk, laughing helplessly. “I’m beginning to think you may win the game after all, Juliette. Dear God, your instinct is infallible.” He released her and rolled to the other side of the bunk. “Go to sleep before I strangle you.”
Jean Marc was not in the cabin when she woke the next morning. She was fully dressed by the time he strode in and threw a white lace morning robe on the bed. “Whenever you’re in the cabin, you’ll wear this.”
Juliette looked at the garment critically. “It’s lovely. My mother had a gown like this when I was a child.” She held up the sheer lace to the light. “The workmanship is quite magnificent. Where did you get it?”
“I rummaged in one of the trunks in the cargo hold. It’s probably meant to grace the mistress of a Spanish grandee, but I think it will look much better on you.” He gazed at her with narrowed eyes. “You don’t object to wearing it?”
“No. Of course, I realize you wish to weaken me by having me consent to wear this.” She tossed the robe aside. “But I think it will also weaken you. You seem to be a very passionate man, even with me.”
“Particularly with you.”
“Truly?” She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”
“One of the sublime tricks of fate.”
“Well, I can’t stay in this cabin all day and play your silly game.” She avoided his gaze as she stood up. “And neither can you. We must go on deck.”
“Oh, must we?”
“Yes.” She took up her sketchbook and pens. “Come along, I want to catch the morning light. I think we’ll put you at that huge wheel on the bridge. You’ll not be able to wreck us now that we’re so far from the shore, will you?”
“For your information, I would not wreck this vessel even if we were in the harbor. I’ve taken my turn at the wheel many times over the years.” He paused. “You intend to paint me?”
She avoided looking at him. “You promised you’d pose when you had time. Now you have the time.”
He lifted a brow. “I was planning on being quite busy on this journey.”
“But then you’d have to break your promise and I don’t think you’d do that.” She started for the door. “I believe you’re a man who keeps his promises even when it proves inconvenient.”
“Inconvenient? I ache, my dear.”
She flushed. “Well, it’s your own fault. I made no objections to our original agreement. If it was enough for you to fornicate with me instead of trying to humble me, you would be much more comfortable now.” She opened the door. “I’ll see you on the bridge.”
After the door closed behind her, he stood looking at the cobweb lace of the robe on the bed. Once more she was trying to snatch victory from defeat and her valor touched him even as it frustrated him.
He turned and slowly followed Juliette from the cabin.
She could do nothing with Jean Marc, Juliette thought with frustration. She had captured the wild carelessness of the wind lifting Jean Marc’s dark hair and molding his white shirt to his lean body, the grace of his beautiful fingers grasping the polished oak of the wheel, but his face … His face was shuttered and without expression, that same glittering mirror mocking her. She had to have more.
“You really do know how to guide this monstrous ship.” Juliette sketched the night-black sweep of hair from Jean Marc’s temple. “I thought you were only a banker.”
“There’s no ‘only’ about being a banker. It requires a good deal more skill in avoiding dangerous shoals than captaining a ship. In truth, I grew up on ships. My father had no feeling for the sea, but I did. From the time I was seven I was allowed to go on short journeys along the coast from Marseilles to Nice to Toulon.” Jean Marc looked past her shoulder out to sea. “It was never enough. I tried to persuade my father to let me go on a long voyage, but he refused.”
“Why?”
“The usual reason. A father wishes to protect his son. He loved me.”
“Did you love him?”
His face softened miraculously. “Oh, yes. I loved him.”
Her pen froze in mid-stroke. She had never seen him look so vulnerable. Her pen raced across the page, trying desperately to catch the expression before it fled. “I’d think he would let you have what you wanted if he loved you.”
“He was a gentle man and he knew the life at sea was a rough one. He didn’t understand why I wanted to do anything so barbaric as sail. When I was fourteen I took passage as a cabin boy on the Albatross.”
“I thought you said he wouldn’t let you do it.”
“He didn’t. My father’s mistress, Charlotte d’Abois, arranged it with Paul Basteau, the captain of the Albatross. I just got on the ship one day and sailed out of the harbor.”
“But if your father refused you, would he not be angry with her?”
He didn’t answer, and for a moment she thought she’d lost him. “Charlotte ruled him. She had a strong will and she used it.” He looked hard at her. “As you do, Juliette.”
The vulnerable expression was gone, but he was still open to her. Her pen moved quickly across the sheet. “Yet she gave you what you wanted when your father refused you.”
“She gave me eighteen months on a slave ship.” His face hardened. “I was beginning to fight her and she wanted me out of the way. Basteau was the only captain she could persuade to take me.”
“A slave ship? Your company deals in slaves?”
“All shippers dealt in slaves. The slave trade was profitable and I thought nothing of it. I’d heard of the slave ships all my life, and even my father took it for granted.” His eyes glittered coldly. “However, I thought about it a good deal in those months on the Albatross. We boarded five hundred sixty-two slaves in Africa and we landed three hundred and three in Jamaica. The slavers chained them side by side, some on top of each other.” He looked blindly at the horizon. “I tried to tell Basteau to let them go, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He knew his duty. I was only a boy, and Charlotte had made it quite clear to him that slaves meant gold. The loss of two hundred and fifty-nine lives was acceptable on such a long journey.”
Juliette stared at him in horror as his gaze shifted to her face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked bitterly. “I didn’t know. I tried to help them. I tried to get better food to them. I nursed some of the sick. I even tried to help them keep clean. The stench … It did no good. They kept dying.…” He drew a deep breath. “I left the ship in Jamaica. It took me seven months to get passage back to Marseilles.”
She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t speak again and she looked down with stinging eyes at her sketch of him. The picture she had drawn was of a man she didn’t know. There was nothing hidden or cynical about this face; it held only pain, disillusionment, and an unutterable weariness. The Jean Marc she knew was a hard man, but that boy had not been hard. He had sought freedom and adventure and found only horror. “What did you do when you returned to Marseilles?”
His abstraction vanished as his gaze focused on her face and then dropped to the sketch. “You always told me you’d learn me. Is that what you’ve been doing by this probing?”
Her hand was trembling and she had to steady it as she deepened the planes of the face on the sketch. “I was curious and thought only to ask.” Then she looked up at him and shook her head impatiently. “No, I wasn’t being honest. Sometimes it helps me to get a true picture if I encourage the subject to talk. But you didn’t have to answer me. Why did you?”
“God only knows,” he said wearily. “Show me the sketch.”
She hesitated before handing it to him.
He looked at the sketch for a long time and then smiled. “Very clever.”
She had hurt him. For the first time she realized the man in that sketch needed his hard, mirrored exterior to armor him. “I could tear it up,” she offered impulsively.
 
; “Why should you do that? It’s what you wanted. People should do what they wish to do. Take what they want to take.” He returned the sketch and motioned to the helmsman to come and take the wheel. “It’s time for you to go back to the cabin.”
“Soon.”
“Now, Juliette.” His soft voice was veined with iron. “I have a desire to see that exquisite skin veiled only in the sheerest lace. Since that’s the only flesh this particular Andreas deals in these days, I wish to be obliged.” He turned away. “I’ll have a glass of wine with Simon and join you shortly.”
Juliette stared numbly at the filmy white lace robe spilled across the bunk. Jean Marc was clearly angry and wanted to subdue her. Angry … or hurt? And why couldn’t she rouse herself to feel resentment? She had battled against submission all her life, fighting small battles as well as major to show everyone she could not be conquered. Yet, if she fought Jean Marc now, it would not be because she wanted to win but because she would lose pride if she lost. She had always hated the lies and pettiness in those around her, and yet was she not behaving in a muddled and petty fashion?
Oh, she just didn’t know. Since the moment she had discovered that unknowingly she was hurting Catherine she had not been certain of her reactions to any situation, but instinct told her there was something very wrong here.
Frowning, she slowly sat down on the bunk. It was time she stopped acting on impulse and gave some thought to her relationship with Jean Marc.
She was wearing the lace robe when he walked into the cabin. Kneeling with both legs tucked under her, the luxuriant folds of the robe flowing back from her shoulders in lacy wings, she felt a queer sensation in the pit of her stomach as he looked at her. He did lust after her.
“Exquisite,” he said, and moved toward her. “I wondered if you’d—”
“S’il vous plaît,” she said abruptly. “There, it’s done. Does it please you?”
He stopped, regarding her warily.
“Shall I say it again? S’il vous plaît, Jean Marc. If you please.” She met his gaze steadily. “Are there other words you wish me to speak? Tell me, and I’ll say them.”
“I’ll think on it.” He moved forward and sat down on the side of the bunk. His hands were trembling slightly as he parted the lacy robe. “You have lovely breasts.” He reached out to cup those breasts, weighing them in his palms. Her breasts were swelling in his hands as his thumb nails gently brushed back and forth across the aroused nipples.
“Why?” he asked abruptly.
“What difference does it make? I’ve spoken the words you wanted me—” His thumbs and forefingers plucked teasingly at her nipples and she lost track of what she was saying. Heat. A tingling ache between her thighs.
“It’s too sudden.” His head lowered and his mouth closed on her left breast.
She gasped as she felt the strong suction of his mouth pulling, drawing, his teeth gnawing on the pointed nipple. She swayed forward and grasped his shoulders, her throat arching back. Dear heaven, his mouth …
His head rose. “Why?” He didn’t wait for a reply as his lips closed hungrily on her other nipple. His hand continued to stimulate the breast he’d just abandoned, pumping, squeezing, his fingers plucking at the hard rosette.
She could see the pulse beating wildly in his temple, and his breath was coming faster, harsher.
He lifted his head again and his eyes were glazed, unseeing. “Never mind.” His voice was guttural. “Later.” He pushed her back on the bunk and stood up. He was stripping quickly, his gaze first on her swollen breasts, then on the curls surrounding her womanhood.
“Spread your legs, chérie. I want to see how lovely you are down there.”
She obeyed him dreamily. He was the one who was beautiful. All bronze masculinity and alluring textures, the dark curling hair on his chest, the powerful sinews cording his thighs, the smooth tight musculature of his buttocks.
“Yes,” he whispered, his gaze on the apex of her womanhood. “Oh, yes. You want me?”
She nodded. She couldn’t force the word past the tightness of her throat. She had never wanted anything more in her life than she wanted him to come back to her, to stop the aching between her thighs.
He was naked, boldly, magnificently aroused, and she stared at him in fascination. He stood over her, his dark eyes wild in his flushed face, his mouth heavy with sensuality. He moved her thighs farther apart and stood looking at her.
She clenched, exposed, heavy, burning.
He was breathing harshly, his muscles locked with tension—yet he stood there unmoving, his gaze fixed on her.
She started to close her thighs, but he stopped her. “No.” He got on the bed and moved between her legs. His fingers began caressing her, tugging at the short curls, massaging, petting.
Her back arched up from the bed as she gave a low cry.
“Soon,” he said softly. “Don’t be impatient. I’m trying not to hurt you.”
His finger suddenly plunged into the heart of her.
She gasped, her gaze flying to his face.
He was looking down at her, his face intent as his long, hard finger began moving rhythmically in and out of her body. “Do you feel yourself clinging to me? Dieu …” Another finger joined the first, and she bit her lips to keep from crying out. “I’m not hurting you?”
She shook her head, her eyes staring dazedly up at him.
He moved deeply, twisting, rotating, jabbing, while his other hand moved to press and pet her.
Pleasure so intense it took her breath rocked through her.
He bent forward and she caught the scent of warm flesh and lemon. “Open your mouth. You have such a sweet tongue.…”
He kissed her deeply, his tongue moving wildly as his fingers pursued their own wild rhythm. “I … can’t wait any longer,” he said between his teeth. She could feel the hard roundness of his manhood pressing into her. His eyes closed tightly, his cheeks hollowing as if he were in pain. “You’re so tight. I can’t …”
He plunged forward.
Pain, sharp and lightning-swift, lanced through her and then was gone. His fullness stretched her, filling the emptiness, and yet she wasn’t satisfied. His chest was moving in and out with the force of his breathing, but he was lying huge and immobile within her body. He shifted and Juliette’s nails dug into his shoulders. The sensation was odd, a hot, hard club filling her and yet not filling her, joining her to Jean Marc.
“Are you … all right?” His voice was low and thick and she could feel it vibrate through even that most intimate part of her.
“Yes, it’s most—” She broke off as he started to move.
He plunged and thrust. Short, long, gentle, hard, not letting her become accustomed to any stroke before he changed the tempo.
Her head thrashed back and forth on the pillow as she felt a terrible tension building.
“Jean Marc, it’s not—”
“Hush. Soon, ma petite,” Jean Marc muttered. He reached around and cupped her buttocks in his palms, lifting her up to his every thrust. He plunged deep, deeper, driving to the quick.
“Look at us,” he urged thickly. “Watch us together.”
She didn’t know what he meant until he cradled her head in his palm and lifted it so that she could see him driving in and out of her body, drawing almost out and then plunging back, again and again.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming. It was as if watching him multiplied the sensation tenfold. His gaze darkly intent, nostrils flaring, he looked down at their joining. He held her head steady so that she could continue to watch and with the other hand closed her around himself, petting, playing, squeezing while his thrusting hips grew more forceful with every movement.
The tears were running down Juliette’s cheeks as she clutched desperately at his shoulders. “Jean Marc, I can’t bear …”
The tension flared and then broke and she surged upward convulsively.
Jean Marc cried out and clutched her to him.
 
; Her breasts were lifting and falling as she tried to get her breath. She was shaking uncontrollably, weak, dizzy with pleasure, a heavy languor attacking every limb.
“Juliette …” Jean Marc’s lips were on her own, his tongue warm and lazy, sweet, soft, all violence gone. Yet he was not gone. She felt him within her, still joined. He pulled back, his hands moving across her belly, stroking, pressing, soothing, possessing. “I was rougher than I meant to be. You have no pain?”
She was aware of a faint aching sensation, but she didn’t want to lose his delicious fullness so she shook her head.
He was leaving her anyway, she realized with disappointment.
He moved off her and beside her, lying on his back with his arm beneath his head, his breath still coming harsh and quick, his black hair tousled.
He looked tough, overpoweringly male, and yet at the same time oddly boyish, Juliette thought. This was another kind of vulnerability than the one she had sketched on the bridge. She had a sudden desire to hold him close, smooth his hair, and stroke him tenderly.
“Why?” His lids had lifted and he was gazing at her with the same wariness he had shown when he had come into the cabin.
Juliette felt a pang of sadness. He was no longer vulnerable but armored again. “Because I suddenly realized I was being very foolish. Words don’t really matter, but you were making them matter to me. You were making me play this silly game with you even though I didn’t want to do it.” She met his gaze composedly. “So I decided to put an end to it. You can’t fight me if I won’t fight back.”
He gazed at her for a long time before his eyes closed once more. “Mother of God, you’ve done it again.”
She raised herself on one elbow to look down at him. “What have I done?”
“I said you had an instinct for the game.”
She frowned. “But I told you that—”
“I know what you told me. You’re going to make me battle with shadows.”
“I’m not battling at all. I find I very much like what you did to me. It would be very stupid of me to deny myself pleasure just to oblige you.” She continued politely. “Now, may I touch you?”