His Wicked Kiss (36 page)

“
Jack
.” Must she beg for him?

Her world spun like the dizzying view from the jungle’s highest treetops, and her ears reechoed with her father’s well-intended, scientific advice.
All animals take a mate on reaching reproductive age
. It seemed so cool and logical compared to the frenzy in her blood as his hardness slid deeper into her by delicious fractions of an inch. She drew herself down eagerly, seeking more of him.

“Are you ready for me, Eden?”

“Uhn.”

Jack pressed a sweet kiss into her palm, and entered her slowly, steadily. When he reached the thin membrane of her barrier, he whispered in her ear that it would only hurt for a moment, and then he burst it with a forceful thrust of his hips.

She bit back an anguished cry, for the moment of her initiation hurt. They were meant to hurt, these ancient, bloodletting rituals. This she had learned from the timeless Waroa. Such ceremonies marked a person’s entrance into a whole new phase of life.

A life with this man and all his dangerous secrets.

He was clearly determined to make the pain as small for her as possible. Except for the heaving of his chest, he remained still while she struggled to absorb the wound. He was deep inside her now: They were one.

His gentle kisses in the darkness eased her, and soon, his skillful efforts as a lover, earlier, when he had taken the time to school her in the ways of pleasure, now paid their dividends in helping her to overcome the pain.

The life she’d led, in any case, had taught her not to fear pain overmuch. Sometimes pain was a crucial part of healing, she knew, and besides, it always passed.

It passed now, moment by moment, while Jack petted her hair and stared into her eyes, offering unquestioned reassurance.

He filled her so completely that the emptiness deep inside had vanished, the hollow restless longing that had driven her from the jungle and onto this ship bound for
England
. Only now did she feel whole.

He held her tenderly, and with her eyes closed,
Eden
kissed his shoulder again and again in languid idleness; when he felt her hips relax by a few cautious degrees, he made love to her with slow, delicious eroticism. Every stroke of his pelvis brought her more keenly alive; she thrust her breasts upward into his chest. He nuzzled her brow, his breath hot against her temple. She savored the damp, humid heat of their bodies, undulating together—connected, nay, locked in lush copulation. She was shaking, no, couldn’t resist him—paying tribute, body and soul, to her dark god.

She lifted her head from his pillow and kissed him, her fingers cupping his square, scruffy jaw. He growled low as he consumed her kiss; the rhythm of their elemental dance gathered speed, releasing primal powers. His sweat and his scent were all over her; she had marked him with her blood.

Eden
heard the distant drumbeat of his pulse pounding fiercely in time with her own. She gripped his lean hips and helped herself to still more of his pulsating length, better able to enjoy him now. He yielded, taking as he gave.

“Come for me,” he ordered in a rasping whisper, and in the next moment, helplessly,
Eden
obeyed.

She clutched his big shoulders and let out fairly a scream of release even as he groaned loudly by her ear, his whole frame going rigid. Triumphant their cries, uncontrollable.

His body wept within her, her shuddering passage milking his seed, while orchids burst like fireworks and pink dolphins leaped through the sparkling cloud that had once been her mind.

Sorcerer, warrior, magic man… come to steal her away to his golden kingdom under the sea.

Buoto
. When one seduced you, you couldn’t even remember how to form the word
no
.

“Oh,
Jack
.” His name on her lips faded to naught but a mesmerized whisper—her surrender unconditional.

As her shudders of ecstasy eased, Jack withdrew from her body, panting, and collapsed in the valley between her breasts. He was spent. His limbs felt as heavy as anchors.

Closing his eyes in lingering ecstasy, he pressed languid kisses to her midriff and rubbed his face back and forth against her skin, reveling in her softness, her delicate scent.

She was so different. So extraordinarily pure. When she draped her arms weakly around his shoulders, her delicate fingers against his face took Jack to heaven.

“Oh,
Jack
, you magnificent rascal,” she purred at length, hugging his head to her bosom. She sounded spent, sated, richly satisfied, and that was reward enough for him.

“Are you all right?” he murmured.

“I think so. I didn’t die,” she added as an afterthought.

“I told you you’d survive.” With a smile, he brought her dainty hand to his lips and pressed another small kiss into her palm. As soon as he released her hand, it fell limply onto the mattress, as though she were too weak from their exertions to support her own weight.

He laughed. Resting on his elbows, he studied her, marveling all over again at her beauty—doting on her, truth be told. He was gratified that she was pleased with his performance, for he’d never deflowered a virgin before in his life.

He bent his head and kissed the vulnerable notch at the base of her throat; closing his eyes, he was overcome by a deep and sudden surge of possessive devotion. “
Eden
,” he whispered, his breath warming her skin as he made this woman a solemn vow: “I will always take care of you. I’ll always be there when you need me. I will be good to you—if you’ll have me.”

She pushed him back by his shoulders, just far enough to stare into his eyes. Her own were wide with astonished uncertainty, as though she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right.

He stared at her almost fiercely, for she must understand that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Marry me,” he commanded.

A dazzling smile broke across her face; joy beamed from her emerald eyes. Still lying beneath him, she lifted her hand to her brow and gave him a cheeky salute. “Aye-aye, Cap’n.”

He laughed, relief flooding his heart, then he wiped that saucy grin off her lips with a big, wet kiss.

“Don’t worry, Victor, I have the situation under control,” Connor asserted as he surveyed the frigate’s decks in a menacing pose. “These men won’t harm you,” he added, eyeing the cowering crew sharply. “They’re under
my
orders now.”

Dr. Farraday’s spectacles had been smashed in the mutiny, leaving him half blind and helpless, but he could still hear clearly enough, and he flinched at the thump of the dead first mate’s skull dropping against the planks.

Next came the dull, rough scraping of the corpses being dragged across the deck, then four loud splashes in succession, as the drunkard captain, the cruel first mate, and two other hated officers were hurled, lifeless, into the deep.

Victor doubted there was anyone to mourn them.
God help us
.

The churning undercurrent of vicious brutality aboard the death ship had exploded into blood and chaos in the blackness of the night before. The conspirators had slain their hated officers at
midnight
, but then Connor had overmastered the mutineers.

Now the morning sun revealed the damage and restored a shred of sanity, but the acrid smell of gunsmoke still hung upon the air, along with the metallic scent of blood and the rank body odor of too many unwashed men crowded together. Victor’s nostrils protested at the vile stench. The smell of death and guilt—and fear.

Though the evil captain and his cronies were dead, along with the dangerous cutthroats who’d concocted the mutiny, now there was only one man on board who reigned supreme. Squinting to see more clearly, Victor turned and looked again at his towering assistant.

Connor stood nearby with his bloodied fists planted on his waist and a brooding expression on his face. While screeching frigate birds wheeled around the masts, five more bodies were dropped into the cold
Atlantic
: the rough trio who had organized the mutiny and two others who had gotten in the way.

Connor had killed them all.

It had all begun, of course, in self-defense.

Caught up in their bloodlust, the mutineers had sought to continue their rampage; after killing the officers, they had come after the captain’s two guests, Connor and him. Victor still shuddered at the memory of the moment the three loathsome men had burst into their stateroom.

Perhaps it was fortunate that the darkness had been building in Connor all the while; with his preternatural senses, he seemed almost to have expected the attack.

Victor, for his part, had not. Slammed against the wall, he had caught only a glimpse of the horror, trying to see through the spiderweb cracks of his spectacles’ less damaged lens.

One terrifying glimpse had been enough.

He had seen the ringleader slash at Connor with a knife and miss; Connor then ripped the man’s throat out. In short order, three mangled bodies had littered the room, and with his loaded rifle in his hands, Connor had gone stalking out to restore order on deck. By the gyrating flames of the ship’s lanterns, he had found the drunk and leaderless crew fighting amongst themselves.

He had only needed to shoot two of them to get the attention of the rest. After that, taking control of the ship had been easy, and Victor was glad that Connor had done it—but he could not get the image of the mauled sailor out of his mind.

It had been years since Victor had seen that bestial fury come ripping out of Connor, not since that terrible day in the jungle when the young Indian warrior had gone after
Eden
.

He tried not to think about it much.

The violence she had witnessed in the course of Connor’s “rescue” had traumatized his daughter nearly more than the Waroa lad’s advances. It had been very badly done.

Afterward, Victor had subjected Connor to a furious interrogation, but had ultimately given his assistant the benefit of the doubt. Connor had sworn the level of force he had used had been necessary, given the purse of deadly curare that the young warrior had worn dangling from the leather cord around his waist.

A mere scratch even with the milder poison could have paralyzed Eden long enough for the Indian to have done whatever he pleased to her; the stronger sort could have killed her outright. Connor had apologized if it seemed he had gotten carried away, but he vowed he could not tolerate any shadow of harm coming to the girl he had come to think of as his own sweet, young sister. Pleading with Victor not to send him away, he had sworn that such violence was a singular event, a onetime aberration, and would never, on his honor, happen again.

Not wishing to contemplate what might have happened if Connor
hadn’t
come in answer to his daughter’s screams, Dr. Farraday had taken the Australian at his word and, since his resilient girl had seemed more or less all right in the end, he had let the matter flow into the past.

But last night, in the bloody chaos of the mutiny, the beast within the man had reemerged, and after having been suppressed for so many years, it now showed no sign of any willingness to withdraw again into its hiding place inside Connor’s savage heart.

When the final corpse fell into the sea with a careless splash, there was an uneasy silence, but then one of the lowly sailors took a small step forward and addressed their new captain in the humblest of tones: “Uh, Mr. O’Keefe, sir, w-where do we go now?”

The Australian drew himself out of his brooding. “North-northeast.”

“North?” one of the others blurted out, a swarthy, piratical fellow with a gold hoop earring and a handkerchief tied around his neck. “Why not south?” He glanced at his mates as though he hoped for the others to back up his suggestion. “There’s plum prizes to be taken off the trade in the
West Indies
shipping lanes. We’ll be rich!”

“Aye!” a few started until Connor slammed the man who had spoken out of turn against the mainmast.

His hand was locked around the would-be pirate’s throat; and squinting, Victor could make out several inches of air between the man’s dangling toes and the planks of the deck as Connor held him aloft. The sailor’s legs kicked and he grabbed Connor’s wrist, to no avail, choking for air as he tried to free himself from the Australian’s viselike grip.

“We are going to
England
,” Connor ordered slowly. “Are you men or animals? Money isn’t everything.” He dropped the man abruptly, his point made. The sailor knelt forward on the deck, gasping and rubbing his bruised throat. “Now,” Connor addressed the others, “if there are no further questions?”

The men cringed, but Victor could only stare at his friend, appalled. This brute was a stranger.

“Don’t look at me that way,” Connor whispered at him under his breath. “At least you’re alive.” He turned away once more and addressed the cowering crew in a loud bark: “Now that we’ve cleared away the filth, let’s set this ship on a proper course!”

“Aye, sir!”

They scrambled at once to take up their usual posts, as though relieved that at least someone had taken control. Perhaps brutality was all they understood: the law of the jungle.