The Pirate Lord (26 page)

“Sara,” he warned when she pulled back from him. “Don’t do this. You don’t know what you want.”

“I do know what I want.” She slid her fingers along the bare skin of his shoulders, her eyes a luminous, dusky brown in the fading afternoon light. “I want you to make love to me. You said I’d have to be the one to ask next time. Well, I’m asking.” Her voice trembled. “Make love to me, Gideon. Please?”

That sweet little “please” nearly undid him. His blood raced hot, but he didn’t move an inch. “That’s not enough for me anymore. I want you for my wife, Sara. That’s what
I
want. And if you can’t be that—”

“I can.” She seemed surprised by her answer, but only for a moment. Then a look of resolve crossed her face. “I will. I’ll marry you and help you make Atlantis into the kind of colony it deserves to be.”

He could scarcely believe what she was saying. How many times had he dreamed of this, hoped for this? Was his mind playing tricks on him now?

“Will you marry me, Gideon Horn, dreaded pirate captain and lord of the seas?” she asked with mock solemnity, a smile tugging at her mouth.

In that instant all his control broke. His answer was to drag her into his arms and take her mouth in a kiss that he knew was too hard, too fierce. But he couldn’t help himself. She was his at last! Sara was
his
. And he
was so hungry for her, he didn’t know how in God’s name he could keep from ravishing her where she stood.

But he didn’t have to worry. Sara seemed perfectly eager to be ravished. She twined her arms about his neck, straining her slender body against him as her tongue met his stroke for stroke. Her mouth was hot and sweet, and he couldn’t get enough of it. He nipped at her lower lip, then sucked at it to soothe it.

Her small, soft breasts were crushed against his chest, making him insane to touch them. Dragging down the neck of the native blouse she wore, the one he’d bought for her, he filled his hand with her breasts, shaping and caressing them until he heard her moan.

Then he tore his mouth from her lips and kissed a path downward, reveling in the salty taste of her skin, the smooth slope of breast ending in the puckery nipple. Sucking at it hard, he felt her arch against his mouth with a little cry.

“Gideon…oh, Gideon, yes,” she whispered, firing him all the more.

Only with an effort did he keep his hands and lips off her long enough to growl, “We should go back to the ship, to your cabin—”

“No!” She dropped her hands to the buttons of his trousers, fumbling frantically to undo them. “No, let’s make love here, in our house.”

Our
house. It wasn’t a dream, after all. She was here with him—she’d promised to be his forever. He yanked loose the ties of her blouse, then shoved the flimsy thing down her arms to bare her breasts completely.

Between kisses and caresses and muttered endearments, they took much longer to undress than he wanted, but he didn’t mind when she looked at him so radiantly and gave her body to him so willingly. By the time they were naked, they stood by the bedroll he’d taken from the hold.

But he paused beside it, tamping down on his lust fiercely.

“What is it?” she whispered as he held her from him.

“I don’t want to take you like a rutting pig.” Kneeling down on the thin mattress, he took her hand and tugged her close until she was standing a few inches from him. “I want you to remember this forever.”

“What do you mean?” Her eyes went wide as his fingers parted the thick, damp curls between her legs. Trembling, she clutched at his shoulders and looked down at him warily. “What are you—” She broke off when he kissed her between the legs, right on the soft folds of skin he’d bared. A prolonged sigh slid from her lips. “Oh-h-h, Gideon…
Gideon
…”

He caressed her slowly and deeply at first, exploring every part of her with his tongue and lips and teeth. When he felt her fingers clasp his head, urging him against her, he pleasured her with everything he possessed until he thought he’d burst with the need to bury something other than his tongue inside her.

She was hot and wet, and the musky taste of her drove him wild. His hands gripped her thighs harder and harder. He wanted to be inside her very badly, but he wanted something else more…to bind her to him, to make her never regret choosing him. So he went on and on and on until he felt her jerk beneath his mouth and heard her utter a darling cry of release.

Only then did he tumble her down on the bed and enter her, his muscles straining as he drove himself deep inside her. He wanted to strike to the very soul of her so she could never, ever leave him. She would be his forever. He would see to that.

She arched against him, throwing her head back and grabbing at his arms to anchor him to her. God, she felt tight and warm, and so, so good, he thought as they fell into a wild, sensuous rhythm together. His blood pounded and he was near to exploding already, but he held back until she convulsed around him. Then he lost
all sense of where he was, spilling himself inside her with a guttural moan of pure satisfaction.

He didn’t know how long he lay there atop her, inside her. It must have been only a few seconds, but it felt like hours of drifting slowly to earth with her body locked to his, of hearing her quick, shallow breaths and feeling her sweat-slick skin undulate beneath his.

When he could manage it, he slid off to lie on his side facing her. She curled against him like a furling sail after the storm is spent, her arm folded against his chest and her legs intertwined with his. Tucking one hand under her head, she traced the whorls of hair around his flat nipples with the other.

His glance fell to the silver locket she always wore around her neck, and a sudden curiosity to know everything about her assailed him. He tapped it with his finger. “Such a pretty locket. Who gave it to you?”

“My mother.” A shy smile touched her lips. “It contains a lock of her hair. I know it probably seems silly to carry such a thing, but—”

“Not at all. You and your mother must have been very close for you to wear it all the time as you do.” He envied her that, though the ache of his own mother’s betrayal seemed to have lessened suddenly.

“I miss her a great deal. I could always rely on Mama to listen to whatever I said and give me sound advice.”

He stared past her at the rudimentary bedchamber they lay in, and suddenly wished it were somehow grander, better. “What would your mother have thought of this…of us?”

Sara dragged a finger down his chest. “Believe it or not, I think she’d have approved. Mama had a very open heart, and she was a good judge of men. When I was infatuated with Colonel Taylor, she told me from the beginning he wasn’t right for me. But I think she’d like you.”

Pleasure at her last words warred with a violent jealousy. Sara had been infatuated with someone? Some
body other than him? Tightening his arm possessively about her, he asked, “Who was Colonel Taylor?”

She ducked her head, looking suddenly uncomfortable. “A man I nearly ran away with. My family didn’t approve of him.”

“Because he wasn’t a duke or something, I suppose.”

“No. Because they could tell he was a fortune hunter. Jordan had done some research into his background and discovered he hadn’t a penny to his name. After he told my stepfather about it, my stepfather threatened to cut my portion off entirely if I didn’t break with the man.”

Gideon stiffened, thinking of his own father. “Just because the man had no money doesn’t mean he wasn’t in love with you.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” she surprised him by saying. “So I went to Colonel Taylor and offered to run away with him. I told him it didn’t matter to me if I was disinherited.” Her voice grew strained. “Apparently it mattered to him. He made it quite clear that he didn’t have the funds to keep up a wife who could not, as he put it, ‘bring anything but her fair face to the marriage.’”

Gideon heard the pain in her voice and wished with astonishing fervency that he could find Colonel Taylor and teach him a lesson or two with a cat o’ nine tails. “The man was obviously an idiot to pass up the chance to have you. Thank God your stepbrother found out the man’s true character before it was too late.”

She went very still in his arms. “Yes, thank God.” After a moment, she added in a small voice, “Gideon, what if…my brother should happen to come here? I told you before, he’s not going to rest until he finds me.”

An unreasoning alarm gripped him before he dismissed it, telling himself there was nothing to worry about. “He’ll never find Atlantis, not without a guide. Even the Cape Verdeans don’t know about this place.”

“But if he did,” she persisted. “What would you do?”

He stared into her solemn eyes. “I wouldn’t let him
take you from me, if that’s what you mean. I’d fight any man who tried to take you away.” Some of his earlier distrust reared its ugly head, and despite himself, he added bitterly, “Or are you perhaps hoping for that, hoping that the earl will rescue you?”

“No, of course not!” Guilt flashed in her eyes briefly, but it was gone so fast, he wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. She cupped his cheek, caressing the skin with her light touch. “When I said I wanted to marry you, I meant it. But I do miss my brother. I-I would like to let him know I’m all right.”

Those few words drove a stake into his heart. He released her, rolling away to lay on his back. “Yes, you English noblewomen do seem to have a great attachment for family.”

“Stop that, Gideon.” She moved over and laid her head on his chest. “Stop comparing me to your mother. I’m not going to leave you, not if I can help it. All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t hurt for me to send a letter to my brother, putting his mind at ease and telling him I’m happily married to—”

“A pirate? That should make him very happy.”

“A
former
pirate.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “At least you’re not a fortune hunter. You won’t even let me go home, much less lay a claim to my portion.”

Guilt struck him with a vengeance. “Don’t even talk about going home. You know you can’t; there’d be questions. They’d try to make you reveal where we are.” When she looked insulted, he added hastily, “I’m not saying you would, but if you didn’t, they might try to keep you there until you did. And if you couldn’t get back here, I couldn’t go after you. They’d hang me.”

She paled. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Then she brightened. “Perhaps we could go to England together, in disguise or something. Haven’t you ever wanted to see the country where you were born? To find your family—”

“Never. Not after what they did to me and my father.”

“And that’s another thing…aren’t you just a bit curious to find out if your father gave you the whole truth? What if there’s another side to the story? What if your mother left because he was beating her or something awful—”

“Leaving me behind to be beaten instead?” he growled. “That’s worse than what he told me.”

That seemed to unsettle her. “Well, yes, but it could’ve been something else—”

“No. I saw that letter from her.” Grasping her chin, he tipped it up until she was looking at him. “Why all the questions about them? And why all this talk about going to England if you’re so pleased to be marrying me?”

A forced smile touched her lips. “I’m sorry, Gideon. I just can’t help worrying about my brother and what he must be suffering right now. It’s not that I want to leave you. But I do want to reassure him.”

He stared at her. A deep, hollow fear of losing her crept through him like a nasty poison. If he forbade her to communicate with her family, she’d grow to hate him for it. This wasn’t need that would go away.

On the other hand, if he let her send a letter, would that be enough for her?

“If I tell him I’m safe,” she persisted, “perhaps he won’t try to find me.”

“I don’t know about that. If I were your brother, I wouldn’t rest until I found you and skewered the randy lad who took advantage of you.”

She paled, pressing her fingers to his lips. “Don’t say that. I won’t let anyone skewer you, especially not my brother.”

The sudden fear in her eyes eased his worries some. “All right. You can send a letter to your brother. I suppose that wouldn’t hurt anything.”

She threw her arms around him, snuggling close.
“Thank you, Gideon. Thank you so much.”

Feeling generous, he smiled down at her head with its cloud of tousled red hair and stroked it fondly. “I suppose the other women may write letters to their families if they wish, too.”

Her head shot up to reveal an expression of pure pleasure. “Oh, Gideon, that would mean so much to them! Most of them have no one, of course, but some would like to contact their families, I’m sure.”

“I’ll have one of the men mail the letters from Sao Nicolau when they go to fetch the minister this week.”

“The minister?”

He dropped a kiss on her freckled nose. “Yes. I can’t very well perform the wedding ceremony for myself, can I? There’s an Anglican minister living on Sao Nicolau who might be willing to come here for a few days. And some of the other women might prefer to be married by a churchman as well.”

“I don’t know about that.” She traced a finger along a scar on his chest. “I daresay half of them have never darkened the door of a church.”

“Why, Miss Willis,” he teased, “don’t tell me you’re actually admitting that not
all
of your precious, beleaguered convict women are lily-white maidens.”

A stormy frown darkened her brow as she stabbed one finger at his chest. “You, sir, have no room to criticize anyone for not being lily-white. Plundering ships and kidnapping women and—”

He muffled her lecture with a kiss, tugging her over until she was sprawled gloriously across him. Only a few seconds passed before she answered his kiss, her mouth opening sweetly to the thrusts of his tongue.

Yes, he thought as he grew hard again and felt her legs parting eagerly. This was the way to handle Sara—kiss her until she forgot what she was angry about. Make love to her until she forgot about all those blasted
convict women and England and her stepbrother.

Especially her stepbrother. Because he had a nagging fear that he hadn’t put an end to talk of that blasted English earl.