Dark Rider

  “Oh, I can. I’m a very charming fellow.”

  “You’re my father’s enemy,” she said flatly. “And my body should be more selective. But since it is not, then I must find a way to please both my body and my father’s needs.”

  “Then, by all means, let me—” He smiled sardonically. “The temptation to lie to you is almost irresistible. I believe I must be more virtuous than Bradford thinks, or I wouldn’t bother. If you think by playing Delilah I’ll soften toward your father, you’ll be disappointed. I’ll be more than happy to please your body, but it won’t change my intentions.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. First, you call me Lucrezia and then Delilah. I didn’t poison you, and I wouldn’t know how to go about playing Delilah. But Lani thinks—” She stopped.

  “What does Lani think?”

  She shrugged. “She thinks you’re not as hard as you’d like to be. She says you might have second thoughts about killing Papa if—”

  “If you couple with me?” he prompted.

  “I told her it wouldn’t do any good, but she thinks that you’re—” She broke off again and gestured impatiently. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks. I know you have no softness, but if I’m close to you, I’ll still find a way to use you.”

  “A challenge,” he said softly.

  “I don’t mean to challenge you. You wanted an explanation. I gave it.”

  “With your usual honesty and bluntness. I do believe I must teach you a bit of diplomacy for the sake of my self-love.”

  “I don’t care about your self-love. I don’t care anything about you.”

  He lifted a brow. “Yet you wish to give yourself to me.”

  “You keep saying that. I’ll never give myself. That’s not why I’m here.”

  “Isn’t it the same thing?”

  “Not to me,” she said. “And I don’t think it’s the same to you, either. You’d like to think I’d meekly surrender to you.”

  He slowly shook his head. “You’re wrong. I’d be very disappointed if you surrendered, and I can’t imagine your doing anything meekly.” His gaze moved down to her breasts and his smile was purely sensual. “It’s my earnest hope you’ll display no meekness whatever.”

  A tide of heat enveloped her, and she had to take a moment to steady her voice. “Then you’ll not be disappointed. I’m coming to you because it suits me to do it. After we couple, I’ll get up and walk away. It will mean nothing to me.”

  Rage momentarily crossed his face before he said lightly, “What a peculiar attitude for a woman.”

  “Only peculiar to a man. You all wish us to be meek and faithful and let you be the ones to get up and walk away. Your world is very unfair, and I won’t live by your rules.”

  “All of this is more of your Lani’s teachings, no doubt. Do you know, I believe I value your virginity more than you do. I actually felt quite guilt ridden before I overcame it.”

  She shrugged. “Because you’re a foreigner and have strange ideas.” This pose of boldness was growing more difficult by the moment. Why wouldn’t he stop talking and begin their coupling? Anything would be better than this tension. “Why are you just standing there? I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  “But I do. I find it fascinating to explore your reasoning in this matter.”

  “Why? You told me to use you as you intended to use me, and you said I’d come to your way of thinking.”

  “But not this quickly.” His gaze went to the sarong. “And not in this charmingly barbaric fashion. Now, I wonder why you chose to present yourself in this guise.”

  “It’s no guise. As I’ve said, I feel most comfortable dressed this way.”

  “It’s the way Kanoa would feel the most comfortable,” he corrected. “Not Cassandra Deville. Kanoa would dress like this. Kanoa would not hesitate to come to my bed. I’d wager you came to me like this because at the moment it’s easier pretending to be Lani’s little sister.”

  “I’m not pretending.” She had acted purely on instinct when she had donned the sarong. She had not even thought about it. “I don’t need excuses to do what I choose.”

  “Kanoa doesn’t need excuses, but what of Clara Kidman’s charge?”

  She was beginning to think he might be right and was becoming uneasy that he knew her so well. “What does any of this matter? Don’t you want me?”

  His mockery vanished. “God, yes, I want you,” he said thickly.

  She inhaled sharply. “Then stop arguing. What difference does it make? I told you why I came here.”

  “To use me.” He repeated the words with a grimace. “For some odd reason the term bothers me.”

  “You don’t make sense. It’s the term you used to me.”

  “I know.” He unfolded his arms but still did not touch her. “But it’s difficult to think coolly at a time like this.” Suddenly he laughed harshly. “Christ, I can’t believe I’m still standing here instead of inside you on that bed.”

  He reached out and touched her upper lip with his index finger.

  She stiffened at the gentle touch as if he had struck her with a torch. Her lips felt as if they were swelling, softening, ripening at the caress. She involuntarily jerked her head back.

  “No.” He took a step closer and his finger outlined her upper lip. “No, Kanoa, let me … This is why you came here.”

  She stared up at him in helpless fascination as wave after wave of heat washed over her. “I don’t think that this is all I came for.”

  He chuckled. “You’re damn right it isn’t. But I have to start somewhere. I’ve never had a virgin before, and this seems fairly innocuous.”

  Not to her. Everything he did or said, everything about him shimmered with sensuality—the scent of him, the planes of his face, the tension of his body. She was drowning in it, and her gaze clung to his as if to a safe mooring. No safety there, only glittering promise.

  His fingers brushed the upper swell of her breast.

  She shivered, and the muscles of her stomach contracted in response.

  “You’ll take me and then get up and walk away?” he murmured.

  “Yes.”

  His fingers were at the knot of her sarong. “It will mean nothing to you?”

  She had to force the answer through dry lips. “Nothing.”

  The sarong fell to the floor. She was naked.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and threw it aside. “The hell it won’t.” He buried his hands in her hair and tilted back her head. His eyes were blazing. “I won’t be nothing to anyone, goddammit.” He pulled her into the cradle of his hips. Arousal. Stark, bold, merciless against her nakedness. “Is this nothing?” His palms cupped her buttocks, lifting her, rubbing her against him.

  Shock tingled through her. The hair of his chest was brushing against her nipples, and they were growing more sensitive and hard with every passing second.

  “Is it?” he asked again.

  She could barely remember the question. “It’s very pleasant … I think.”

  “And this?” His head bent, his tongue touched her nipple.

  She cried out, her spine arched.

  He lifted his head and he smiled. “Pleasant? I think you’ll find that too tame a word.” Then his lips closed on her breast, sucking strongly.

  Fire. Hunger. Emptiness. It seemed impossible they could exist together, but they did. She reached out, her fingers burying themselves in his hair, holding him to her. Dear heaven, even the feel of his hair between her fingers was causing a tingling heat. She wanted to scream, moan …

  He switched to her other breast, sucking, licking. His hands began to open and close on her buttocks. Pressure. Heat. Her heart was beating so hard it filled the cabin—no, it filled the world. Darkness and flame … and hunger.

  He finally lifted his head and looked down at her dazed face. “I can’t take this anymore,” he said hoarsely. “I have to be inside you.” He took her hand and pulled her toward the bunk. “Come.”

  She followed him do
cilely. In that moment she would have followed him anywhere.

  Then he was over her, parting her thighs and moving between them. His hand was on the curls surrounding her womanhood, patting, stroking. “So soft.” He tugged gently as he positioned himself. The muscles of her stomach clenched as a bolt of heat went through her. He nodded. “You like that? I’ll give you more after I—” He stopped, not moving. “Christ.” He looked down at her. “I don’t know anything about this.”

  She looked at him in bewilderment through the haze of lust he had so skillfully built around her. What on earth was he talking about? It was clear to her he knew everything about this. “You appear to be very … well versed.”

  “Not with virgins, dammit. I don’t know— It’s supposed to hurt. I should take more time.”

  More time? When every nerve in her body was on fire? “No!”

  “But I don’t want to—” He broke off when she took matters into her own hands and lunged upward. His eyes closed as her tightness closed around him. “Damnation.”

  He plunged hard and deep!

  Pain. Fullness. Joining.

  Her teeth sank into her lower lip as sensation after sensation stormed through her. She felt so stretched, she was sure she could take no more. Yet, as the pain subsided, she was beginning to feel again that throbbing emptiness that had to be satisfied.

  He was frozen within her, every muscle of his body knotted and strained. “Shall I move?” he asked in a low voice.

  She would die if he didn’t. “Yes.”

  “Thank God!” Some of the tension left him, but he was still braced as if on the rack. He moved stiffly, the first few thrusts slow, easy. “I’ll try to—” he whispered. “It’s no good. I’m sorry. I can’t do—”

  He exploded, thrusting short, long, fast, frantic.

  She clutched his shoulders, desperately holding on to him as that emptiness grew and the hunger sharpened. She tried to help him, thrusting upward, instinctively clenching around him to keep him inside her when he left her.

  “No, don’t do that,” he gasped. “I can’t—”

  She had to do it. She had to have all of him. Her head thrashed wildly from side to side on the pillow. She could feel the wetness on her cheeks, and she realized tears were streaming from her eyes. Lani had said this unbearable hunger was supposed to end. Why didn’t it? Why was it growing and changing, making a slave of her body until she could only move mindlessly to the rhythm Jared set?

  “Please, make it—” She didn’t know what she wanted to ask of him. Make the torment stop. Make it go on forever. Belonging. Every stroke was drawing them closer. Jared. Possession. Darkness. Hunger. Faster, harder, Jared’s breath was a harsh sob above her.

  Or was she the one who was sobbing? It didn’t matter, they were one.

  “Now!” he said through his teeth, plunging to the heart of her.

  She screamed as the dark hunger exploded, splintered into a brilliance like nothing she’d ever known.

  Jared collapsed on top of her. “Dear God.”

  It seemed they lay joined together a long time, but Jared’s breath was still harsh and uneven when he leaned forward and his lips brushed her closed lids. “I think it’s safe to assume you found me ‘pleasant.’ You’re definitely more Kanoa than prim Cassandra.”

  His voice was a velvet reverberation in the darkness, Cassie thought dreamily, as lazily seductive as a summer breeze. This was beautiful, but she wanted it to start again. Soon he would touch her, stroke her, and the flames would start.

  She opened her eyes. He was only a heartbeat away, looking down at her, his eyes so blue and clear she felt as if she were looking into forever. She wanted it to be forever. She wanted to float on and on in this special place until there were no more tomorrows. “Ku’aihelani,” she murmured.

  “I beg your pardon?” He kissed the tip of her nose. “I don’t believe I know that word.”

  “It’s not a word, it’s a place. It’s where—” She broke off as she came fully awake. This was not forever. This was no Ku’aihelani. What was she thinking? “Never mind.”

  “But I do mind. I’m a very curious man.” He tugged at the lobe of her ear with his teeth, pressing just hard enough to send a tiny tingling through her. “I want to know about this Ku’aihelani. I want to know everything about you.”

  So that he could possess her mind as he had her body. Panic shot through her as the memory of that joining surged back. Dear God, what had possessed her? She knew the answer. He had possessed her, and dominated her and made her forget everything except what he had wanted her to feel.

  She pushed him away with all her strength, catching him unawares. She jumped out of bed, looking around wildly for her sarong.

  “Where the devil are you going?” Jared raised himself on one elbow. “Come back to bed.”

  “Why?” She picked up the sarong from the floor and jerkily wrapped it around her hips. “It’s over. I’m going back to my cabin.”

  “It’s not over. We’ve barely started.”

  She whirled on him. “It’s over. I chose to come here. I choose to leave. You have nothing to do with it.”

  His lips tightened. “I beg to disagree. I had considerable to do with it ten minutes ago. I’m reluctant to be cast aside so arbitrarily.”

  “I told you that I’d walk away. I told you coupling with you would mean nothing to me.” She brushed her hair back from her face with a shaking hand. “Nothing at all.”

  His gaze narrowed on her face. “Then why are you running away?”

  “I’m not running away.”

  “I think you are.” He held out his hand in invitation—naked, powerful, infinitely sexual. “Prove it,” he said softly. “Stay. I’ve only begun to show you the way of it. Pleasure has many faces.”

  And his was the most alluring she had ever known. She took a half step forward before she realized what she was doing. She moistened her lips. “I’ll come again … when it pleases me.”

  “Now.” There was steel beneath the velvet.

  She glared at him. “Only when it pleases me. I set the pace.”

  “The devil you will.” He swung his legs to the floor. “You forget where you are. I can do what I will with you.” He moved across the cabin. “Get back into that—” He broke off as he saw her face. “By God, I believe you’re afraid.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Did I hurt you?” He touched her cheek with infinite gentleness. “I know I was rough, but I didn’t think I—”

  “You didn’t hurt me.” His touch was causing her to tremble again. She wanted to lean forward against him, she wanted to reach out and—

  She took a step back. “Why should I fear you?”

  “I don’t know.” He studied her for a moment before adding roughly, “But, then, I never know what you’re thinking. I keep forgetting what a child you are. Christ, maybe this is how all virgins respond after—” He turned away from her. “Get the hell out of here.”

  She stood unmoving, surprised by the sudden reversal.

  “Leave,” he said harshly. “Before I change my mind. You may have had enough of me, but I’m not so easily satisfied.”

  Neither was she, she realized in despair. She turned toward the door.

  “Wait!” He snatched up his shirt from the floor and crossed back toward her. “Put this on.”

  She shook her head. She needed to be completely removed from him. She wanted nothing of his to remind her of that feeling of possession.

  “Damn heathen shamelessness,” he muttered. He forced her arms into the shirt. “There are seamen on duty out there.”

  “I know. I saw them when I came to you.”

  “And they saw you, no doubt.” He started to button the shirt. “I don’t want you to come to me like this again. At least wear a cloak.”

  “It’s too warm for a cloak.” The shirt smelled of him, and the soft linen was like a caress against her breasts, his caress. “And I don’t want this. Take it of
f.”

  “If I do, I won’t let you out of here until morning,” he said grimly. “By God, I’m not letting any other man see you naked. You’re so fond of being the one to choose. I warn you, make the right choice now.”

  She opened her lips to argue and then changed her mind. She wanted only to get away from him. “It’s not worth discussing.” She opened the door. “Good night.”

  “I doubt it,” he muttered. “I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

  She tensed, not looking at him. “I’m not sure— I may not decide to come to you tomorrow night.”

  “Then I’ll come to you.”

  “No! I choose.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. I’m willing to let you go tonight, but I’m no tame pup waiting for you to pick me up and play with me.” He shook his head. “Poor Cassie, things aren’t working out the way you expected, are they? Well, they aren’t working out the way I thought, either. I hoped I’d be able to take you and then forget you. But it seems it’s going to take more than one night.” His tone laden with determination, he repeated, “I’ll see you tomorrow night. I’ll give you until midnight to come to me.”

  “I won’t be here.” The door slammed behind her.

  Free. But she didn’t feel free. His scent was on the shirt, on her skin, and she felt as if his hands were still on her body. She moved quickly down the deck toward her cabin. Once she was alone, she would scrub her skin until no hint of his touch remained.

  But the memory would remain, the memory of the way he looked, the way he felt within her.… Sweet Mary, she was beginning to tremble again. Lani had never told her that she would feel like this afterward. If coupling meant nothing, why did she feel as if a tight chain bound her to Danemount even when she was no longer with him? She had the odd feeling that if either of them moved too far away from the other, the chain would tear them apart.

  Imagination. She had lost her virginity this night, and perhaps she had paid more heed to Clara’s words than she had realized. Clara had said a woman must come chaste to her husband’s bed and cling only to him, or she would burn in hell. Well, Cassie had burned tonight. She had burned and trembled and cried out as he took and took and took.…