Lord of the Privateers (The Adventurers Quartet)

  Then, quite deliberately—with a deliberation that was statement, declaration, and challenge rolled into one—having seized their reins, she let them go.

  Let them fall.

  And there was nothing left—no restrictions, no reservations, no reason at all—to stop them from plunging into the maelstrom of a passion too-long denied.

  It erupted and swallowed them whole.

  Heated hunger rose. Need flared, far more visceral and demanding than mere desire. His arms tightened, crushing her to him. Her fingers speared through his hair, and her nails pricked his scalp like spurs. He angled his head and ravaged her mouth. Her other hand clutched his shoulder, while with her lips and tongue, she taunted and provoked, dancing in the flames they’d invoked.

  Without warning, she pivoted, pulling him away from his door.

  Trapped in the kiss, he moved with her, obligingly swinging around.

  His shoulder hit her door. Already unlatched, it swung wide.

  With them still locked in the kiss, in their ever-tightening embrace, she surged against him, and he stepped back into the cabin.

  She followed in a heated rush of feminine curves. Of demanding lips, greedy hands, and commanding, demanding desires.

  Understanding bloomed in his lust-fogged brain; she really did mean what her scorching kisses, her urgent hands, and her flagrantly blatant actions were telling him.

  She wasn’t interested in any slow, step-by-step wooing.

  Had he really thought she would be?

  The point was moot given she showed every intention of waltzing them to the bed.

  He reached back and managed to shut the door without slamming it.

  The recollection that Duncan lay sleeping in the next cabin rose through the sensual haze, but he was certain she wouldn’t have forgotten that; if she saw no reason to conduct this elsewhere, he could, he felt, safely follow her lead.

  That was the last rational thought he entertained. Her busy fingers had opened his shirt. She gripped the sides and yanked them wide, then her hands were on his skin.

  Sensation seared him, fracturing all thought.

  Passion ignited; between one heartbeat and the next, it flared into an inferno that engulfed them both.

  She pulled back from the kiss, tipping back her head on a throaty moan as her splayed hands clutched his naked skin.

  His fingers had found the laces of her gown. He hauled in a tight breath that did nothing to steady his whirling senses. Her urgency had infected him; he wrenched the laces free, then reached for the shoulders of her gown.

  She came at him again, and he dove into her mouth. With one hand, he framed her jaw and held her face immobile as he ravaged and plundered.

  She’d never been one to yield; there was nothing tame or compliant, much less submissive, in her hungry—nay, ravenous—response.

  Stripped of all civilized restraint, the kiss had transformed into a communion of hunger.

  Of need already raging and passion too hot to endure.

  He set his hands to her shoulders and pushed down the bodice of her gown.

  Through the kiss, she muttered incoherently and released him long enough to free her arms of the sleeves—then immediately fell on him, gripped his shirt and yanked and tugged, until he let her go, stepped back and shrugged out of his jacket and stripped off the shirt.

  From under heavy lids, her eyes locked on his chest; the corners of her lips kicked upward, and she uttered a distinctly feminine purr. Then she stepped to him, her hands reaching to explore.

  The intensity of her touch seared him, but he had a goal of his own before him. Her translucent chemise barely screened her breasts; the sight of the lush mounds had his mouth watering and evoked memories of the rosy peaks—and a sharp stab of desire to see if anything had changed now she’d suckled his son lanced through him.

  It was the work of a few seconds to unravel the ribbon-ties, then the shimmering fabric slid down.

  Revealing a bounty he remembered very well. He reached for her. The instant his hands closed about the firm mounds, she shuddered and stilled, her lids falling, and her lips, now lusciously swollen, parting on a shaky breath.

  He squeezed and watched passion flood her face. It was like stepping into the past, yet a past that had subtly altered.

  So much was the same, yet the changes were real.

  Her nipples were a darker shade of rose. He bent his head and took one into his mouth, and pleasure, exquisite, exploded on his tongue.

  He suckled, and her knees weakened. He locked one arm about her waist and held her to him, and with renewed devotion, pandered to her senses and his.

  Gripping his head with both hands, Isobel shuddered under an onslaught infinitely more potent than anything in her memories. His body, the heavy musculature of his chest and arms, was, her giddy senses informed her, significantly more powerful than previously—back then, when they’d been younger, not yet fully mature. Now they were both in their prime.

  In this sphere, that made a difference.

  A lot of difference.

  A lot more...everything.

  But that was what she’d wanted to know—or, at least, a part of it. She’d needed them to step into this arena to see if they still reacted to each other as they had—if the depth of desire and passion they’d once shared was still there. Still theirs to command.

  She had her answer on that score. But it wasn’t as it had been; now it was more.

  So much more.

  She dragged in a broken breath, raised her lids enough to look through her lashes and watch as he circled one damp nipple with his tongue, then licked. The long, slow rasp shot sensation to her core. She gasped, then gripped and tugged until he raised his head enough for her to duck hers and press her lips to his.

  He straightened, and she flung herself against him. Her aching breasts pressed flush to his hot skin—and for one instant, their hands gripping blindly, their mouths merged, their senses swirling, they both stilled...teetering.

  The dam burst and swept them away.

  Tossed them into a tumultuous sea of aching needs and piercing wants that utterly consumed them.

  Nothing mattered but getting her hands on more of his skin. Than filling her reeling senses with him.

  He came at her with equal fervor, as driven, as desperate, as she.

  Boots hit the floor. Clothes flew.

  Somehow, they made it to the bed and fell across the silk coverlet in a wild tangle of naked limbs and grasping hands. Of skins so heated, they burned.

  So hot, they branded each other with their passion, snared each other with their desires and needs.

  He liked to stretch the moments out; so did she.

  They tried.

  They fought.

  He to hold her back enough to taste her skin, to devour her and feed both their hungers.

  She to relearn the contours of his body, to explore, caress, and drive him wild.

  But in precipitating this exchange, she’d let some genie out of a bottle, and it wasn’t going to release its grip on them until they’d sated it.

  They were both breathing hard, their breaths coming in ragged pants, their skins slick with desire, their bodies tortured with wanting, when he finally broke, tossed her on her back, and covered her.

  Then he was inside her.

  They froze. Caught by a moment of exquisite sensation they’d both forgotten held such power.

  She raised her lids and looked into his eyes. Saw all she felt—every emotion roiling inside her—reflected back at her. The yearning, the never-ceasing longing—the sense of loss and of wasted time and of confusion that it had all gone wrong and they’d lost their way.

  They’d found it again—found each other again.

  Now they ha
d to hold on.

  He withdrew—muscles in his arms flickering as he tried to control the pace—then he thrust in again, deeper, burying himself inside her.

  She let her lids fall and felt her lips curve—felt her body unfurl and take him in and hold him.

  The feel of him inside her, so hard, so real, filling her and completing her and making them one again sent heat laced with joy flushing down every vein.

  With an ease born of their past, they fell into a rhythm as old as time, as ancient as the sea. They rode from crest to crest, the landscape of intimacy unfolding before them as memories surged, and they adjusted here, shifted there, and built on what they knew.

  She wrapped her legs about his hips and tilted hers to take him deeper.

  He pushed back on his elbows, altering the angle of his thrusts, the better to pleasure her.

  They gave, they took, they clung and surrendered, and journeyed ever on.

  Until they reached the ultimate peak and she flew.

  A starburst of pleasure, more intense than she recalled, flared, burned bright, and shattered her. Her nerves unraveled, her senses imploded, and she lost touch with the world as she soared.

  He joined her in that second, thrusting deep and muffling his roar in the pillows by her shoulder.

  Ecstasy claimed her. Claimed them. Rocked, shattered, and remade them.

  Linked and fused them anew. Forged them once again.

  Then flung them, hearts thundering, breaths sawing, into the void. Into an oblivion that had never felt so deep, so profound.

  So blissful.

  They sank slowly, tension flowing from their limbs.

  Subtle awareness seeping into their hearts.

  Royd sensed the silent reality and accepted it. He’d always known it might come to this. This reforging of a link that, now, would be too strong to ever be broken, to ever be put aside.

  So be it. If he was irrevocably linked to her, then likewise, she would be irrevocably linked to him.

  She’d softened beneath him, around him. Long minutes passed before he could summon the strength or the will to ease from the haven of her body and lift from her.

  She murmured and reached for him—calming the primitive male inside, wordlessly reassuring him that releasing her didn’t mean she would pull back from him again.

  Unsettled by that unexpected glimpse into his own psyche, he wrestled the covers from beneath them, then slumped beside her and drew the sheets and silken counterpane over their cooling limbs.

  And was rewarded when, all but asleep, she turned and snuggled against him, until he closed his arms about her and settled her with her head on his chest and her body tucked along the length of his. One of her legs strayed across his thigh, and she sighed, then the last vestige of tension left her, and she tumbled into sleep.

  He tipped his head to look past the tousled mane of her hair. For long moments, he let his gaze caress her face, drinking in the flushed beauty of her satiation.

  Eventually, he righted his head, settled it on the pillows, closed his eyes, and followed her into slumber.

  * * *

  She woke to darkness and the sound of the ship’s bell. For several minutes, she lay unmoving, taking mental stock.

  Royd lay sunk in the bed beneath her; judging by the rhythm with which his chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, he was still asleep.

  Which gave her a chance to think. At least, about them. While lying naked together with his arms wrapped about her, she wouldn’t trust herself to think worth a damn about anything else, thinking about them—about what was taking shape between them—that, she could manage.

  Her wits circled, almost wary, but eventually settled to the task. Had she achieved her objective? Had the issue she’d identified been sufficiently addressed?

  Gradually, the answer solidified in her brain.

  They hadn’t clarified all she needed clarified. They might have exorcised the past enough to put it behind them, but she hadn’t sufficiently exercised her passions of today to feel confident of where they now were. The interlude had been too driven, too fiery, too impossible to control to allow her to explore where she—the woman she was today, with today’s wants and needs—stood with him, the man he’d grown to be.

  She’d remained relaxed in his embrace, staring unseeing across his chest into the softly shadowed room.

  Moonlight and starlight glimmered and shimmered; dawn seemed hours away.

  And the object of her thoughts lay beneath her, and the key to the knowledge she sought lay in her hands.

  And her mouth.

  Silently, she eased up, sliding sinuously from his loose hold to lean on one braced arm and survey her battlefield. She plotted her course, her plan of attack.

  Then she put it into action.

  Royd woke to the sensation of silken tresses sliding across his chest. At first, his sleep-fuddled brain assumed she was simply shifting her head, then he registered the warm, open-mouthed kisses she was pressing to his skin, and his nerves leapt and tightened.

  Then she shifted and straddled his thighs, and her lips trailed lower.

  Eyes still closed, he shifted to lie fully on his back beneath her. He realized he was smiling as he wondered how far she would go...

  They’d never ventured in this direction before, so he doubted she’d go much farther.

  Two minutes proved him wrong.

  When she closed her long fingers about his erection—already rock-hard—he sucked in a breath. His sharply tensing muscles had his spine arching, stretching.

  The caressing slide of her hair over his abdomen gave him an instant’s warning before he felt her warm, wet tongue stroke—slowly—from root to tip.

  Then, delicately, she swirled her tongue about his broad head and gently blew across the hypersensitive surface...

  Of their own volition, his hands reached for her, but before his fingers tangled in her hair, she parted her lips and took him in. She enveloped his erection in the heated darkness of her mouth and sucked.

  His hands spasmed; his fingers gripped her head—only to discover that he was helpless to do anything other than hold her to him.

  While she toyed with his libido and ripped every last shred of resistance from him.

  Isobel gloried in the sense of power that ministering to him, holding him a sensual captive as far as he allowed, gave her.

  She’d waited to do this for eight long years. Even back then, she’d known of the act, but the girl she’d been then hadn’t had the courage to try it—to press for the chance.

  But the woman she now was knew what she wanted, and she hadn’t been prepared to wait any longer.

  His erection was too large for her to take completely into her mouth; fully engorged, it was thicker than her wrist, a rod as solid as iron with the flexibility of steel and corded with huge pulsing veins, the whole gloved in peach silk—a tactile contradiction that had always amused her. Instead of attempting the impossible, she drew back repeatedly to lick, to lave—lured by the complex taste of him. If wildness had a taste...and the tangy saltiness reminded her of the sea. The lingering musk of their earlier engagement added another note to the symphony.

  Yet the physicality of the act was the true lure—the drag of her tongue over the finest, most delicate, most sensitive skin on his big body, the feel of his fingers gripping her head, the restless shift of his limbs as she drew him deep and sucked, and his muscles tensed and tightened.

  To her mind, the moment embodied the confirmation that what had been was their past, and this—him and her together in this bed—was their now. Where they now were. Who they now were.

  They would go on from here.

  This was about establishing their current position in this sphere, on this plane, before they set any compass for the future
. With increasing assurance, increasing abandon, she gave herself over to defining their coordinates.

  Royd had closed his eyes—tight; he didn’t need to see what she was doing to feel the blatantly sexual tug all the way to his marrow. He was fast nearing the point of losing his mind and losing all hope of staving off release, yet he couldn’t make himself stop her. The pleasure she was lavishing on him was simply too great.

  Suck by lick, she reduced him to chest-heaving, teeth-gritted, near-mindless desperation as he clung by his fingertips to control...then she released him.

  Cool air washed over his burning flesh. He slitted open his eyes; she’d raised her head to examine the results of her handiwork. As he watched, she tipped her head, studying...

  He hauled in a massive breath, surged half upright, and seized her, then he rolled and came up on his knees. Smiling in triumph, in keen anticipation, he tossed her back on the bed, her head on the pillows. Before she could react, he closed his hands about her thighs, spread her legs wide, then looked into her startled face.

  He smiled.

  Then he slid down the bed, bent his head, and settled to return the pleasure she’d pressed on him—with interest.

  Despite the raging of his cock, he was not of a mind to rush. He took his time savoring her as he never had before; this, too, had been one of those experiences that, eight years ago, he’d left for later.

  Later hadn’t come then, but the opportunity was here now, and he seized it with reckless abandon.

  And pleasured them both by reducing her to arching, sobbing, utterly witless abandon, too.

  Her honey flowed freely, as tart as apples in the first flush of summer; it lured him like ambrosia, a nectar to which he could easily grow addicted.

  One addiction he would readily claim.

  And her responses—the shrieks she fought to smother, the way she bucked under his hands—only fed his determination to prolong this and push her as far as he could.

  His shoulders wedged between her thighs, his palms cruising their silken outer curves, he lapped at her softness and listened to her breathless gasps, then raised his gaze and surveyed the rosy flush of desire that now tinted her alabaster skin.