An Improper Proposal (25 page)

Well, then he didn’t really know her, did he?

Tightening her arms around his neck, she pulled his head down so that she could kiss him again—and artfully thrust the whole of her breast against his hand as she did so. She shuddered pleasantly as his fingers caressed the soft flesh, kneading, exploring it. She might not have had enough bosom to adequately fill the fashionably low-cut bodices of the day, but it was clear that to this man, anyway, what she did have was more than sufficient.

And then it happened again, that prodding of her privates. This time, she wasn’t surprised—nor did she try to move away. Just the opposite, in fact. She pressed her pelvis down against that thick hardness, and felt a pleasurable tightening where her legs joined together. Just to make sure she hadn’t been imagining things, she pressed again, and got the same reaction—a sweet little throb. Well, not really a throb. More like a tug.

Only this time, in addition to the tug, she also elicited a reaction from Drake—a sort of groan, deep in the back of his throat. She pulled away from him at once, worried she’d hurt him. Maybe, as firm as it felt beneath her, that iron rod wasn’t meant to be bounced on quite so energetically—

But again, Drake pushed her right back down on top of him. This time when he did so, he was looking her straight in the eye. For once, Payton was able to meet his gaze without feeling that those blue eyes of his were filled with ice. In fact, he even wore a slight, crooked grin on his face. Well, if he’s grinning, Payton thought, he can’t be in too much pain.

Far from it, apparently. Because a second later, he’d unbuttoned her vest and completely parted her shirtfront, then lowered his head to stare at her bare chest. Payton, looking down, couldn’t see what was holding his interest so closely. All she saw were her breasts, which were so small and firm that they hardly ever moved on their own, not bouncing much even when she was running. Her nipples, too, she thought on the puny side, the areoles very narrow as well as a rather alarming shade of pink. Naked to the brisk sea air, they were both erect, pointing rather saucily toward the ceiling. Payton felt she ought to apologize for both their lack of size and appalling color. She had in fact opened her lips to do so when Drake did something perfectly extraordinary, and surely not at all proper: he lifted a hand, the chain descending from it clanking against the floor, until his fingers cupped her right breast, and then, bending his head, seized the hardened nipple in his mouth.

For Payton, the resulting rush of sensations was overwhelming. The heat from his mouth—the hot brush of his tongue—singed her, causing her back to arch, and a flood of moisture to dampen the gusset of her drawers. What was happening to her? The tug she’d felt between her legs had turned into a pull, and suddenly, she was pressing herself against his erection not because it felt pleasurable, but because it seemed necessary to her very sanity. He was a solid rock to which she could cling in what had become a maelstrom of desire …

Her breath caught as his month-old growth of beard razed against the tender skin of her chest as he slid his mouth from one nipple to the other. Both his hands had risen now to imprison her breasts. She clung to his shoulders, feeling him move beneath her, feeling herself begin to move with him, along the length of his enormous erection and back up again, pressing as close as she could without actually taking him inside of her.

And then one of his hands left her breasts, and moved down, to fumble with the buckle of her belt. Payton hardly noticed. Her breath was coming in short, sharp gasps. She held twin fistfuls of his shirt, still moving against him, oblivious to everything except the pull between her legs, which seemed to have taken over her entire body, and had turned into an ache, an ache only he could fill. She was using him, she knew, using him for her own selfish pleasure, and she felt guilty about that, especially because in some distant part of her mind she seemed to remember that at one time he hadn’t wanted her to touch him there …

Well, she wasn’t touching him there. Not with her hands, anyway.

And then she was exploding, like one of her brothers’ cannons. It was as if someone had lit a fuse beneath her and she had been shot up toward the night sky, where she was racing faster and faster toward the stars, until suddenly, she’d collided, in a shower of sparks and twinkling lights, into one of those stars. Her back arched, her fingernails dug into Drake’s shoulders, her thighs tightening around him like a vise. She was dimly aware that Drake’s hands had left her breasts, and were now holding onto her hips as she writhed against him.

And then she let out a cry, and collapsed against his bare chest.

He cradled her head against his shoulder, listening to her unsteady breathing, although it was almost drowned out by the roar of the waves through which the
Rebecca
was plowing. Beneath him, he could hear the creak of the ill-made ship as the wood protested against the strain the captain was putting it under, forcing it to travel at such excessive speeds. Above him, he heard the cry of the midwatchman, and the violent flap of a torn seam in a topsail. And against him, he felt her heartbeat go from racing to a slow, even rhythm against his chest.

She was so small that even with her full body weight resting on him, she seemed light as a child. He had to remind himself that she was a fully mature woman—probably nineteen years old by now, if they’d truly been aboard this wretched vessel as many days as his hatch marks on the wall indicated. Nineteen was certainly not ancient, but it wasn’t anything to sneeze at, either.

Of course, Payton Dixon might have been nineteen, but she was also a virgin. That made her seem younger than any other woman he’d ever been with … in spite of the fact that she’d assaulted him in a manner that hardly suggested any sort of virginal modesty. What kind of virgin was she, he couldn’t help asking himself, that she was capable of an assault like that?

Which was exactly how he felt. Like he’d been the victim of an assault. Oh, he’d started it. He was more than aware that he was the one who’d started it, with that first burning kiss. And it wasn’t, as if he minded what that kiss had brought about. At least, not very much. No man would mind being assaulted in that way, not by a young and pretty girl. He certainly wasn’t complaining …

Though it might have been nice if he, like Payton, had found some relief. He was still rock-hard, and starting to ache a little. Even through the double layer of their clothing, he could feel the moist heat emanating from between her legs. The temptation to loosen her trousers, tuck her beneath him, and rut upon her with wild abandon was a strong one.

Fortunately, despite the weeks he’d spent chained to this damned wall—and despite his earlier behavior, which he already regretted, and deeply—he was still aware that he was a gentleman. Dimly aware of it, but aware, all the same. And so he shifted her limp body a little—to relieve some of the pressure on his erection—and simply held her, trying hard to think of things other than what it would be like to make love to Payton Dixon.

Which was easier said than done. It had been an entirely new experience to him, being with a woman whose sole motivation was pleasuring herself; every other woman he’d ever been with had had his pleasure foremost in mind, not her own. Well, he’d generally paid them, and very well, for the courtesy.

But even the women he had not hired—the native girls, curious about the white men who’d arrived on the tall ships—had never straddled him and ridden him as if he were a stallion.

And she was a virgin. That was the worst part. She was a virgin. He ought to have been the one showing her how love between two people was properly made. But she hadn’t given him the chance. After he’d started kissing her, she’d attacked him with so much ingenuous sensuality that he’d hardly had a chance to catch his breath, let alone gain the upper hand. Who would have thought that there was that much sensuality packed into the compact little body resting so comfortably against him?

He ought to have known. It had been there all along, after all, in the way he’d occasionally caught her looking at him, her eyes disappearing behind a veil of thick brown lashes as soon a s he glanced in her direction. In the way she’d made it her habit to sit near him at mealtimes—never directly beside him, but close enough to overhear his conversations, and put in a saucy remark of her own. In the way she always chose to stand by him … not too close. Never too close, lest one of her brothers should be watching … but close enough so that occasionally, when he’d turn around, he’d nearly step on her.

How long had Payton Dixon been watching him, measuring him sizing him up for her own? And how long had he stumbled around in complete ignorance of it, of her, never having the slightest clue that everything he’d ever been looking for in a woman was standing right there beside him? It wasn’t until that kiss in the garden the night before his wedding that he’d realized its existence, this incredible sensuality with which the Honorable Miss Payton Dixon was fairly brimming over. Discovering it the night before he was to marry someone else had very nearly driven him mad. How could he, even for the best of all reasons, have married a Becky Whitby, knowing there was a Payton Dixon in the world?

Still, in the moments when he dared to envision a future that included Payton—and those moments were rare and far between, since, looked as he was in the hold of an enemy ship, he did not suppose he had much of future, with or without Payton, or any other woman, for that matter—he had never imagined their first time together quite this way. When he let himself picture making love to her at all, the deed was always conducted in the large, satin-sheeted bed in the captain’s cabin on the
Constant
, with moonlight spilling in through the casement windows, and the gentle lap of ocean waves the only accompaniment. He had certainly never imagined making love to her in the stinking hold of this pirate ship, to the sound of clanking metal links; nor that when the moment finally came, either of them would remain fully clothed for very long …

As if she’d read his thoughts, Payton raised her head just then, and said, “I don’t think I did that right.”

He tried not to smile, since she seemed quite serious. His attempt was not quite successful.

“Well,” he replied. His voice was a little wobbly, thanks to the discomfort in his breeches. He cleared his throat. “That would be a matter of opinion, I suppose.”

“My guess is that I should have waited until we’d taken our pants off.”

“That’s generally how the thing is done.”

“I couldn’t wait, though,” she informed him. And then, with a slight movement of her hips, and a quick downward glance at the place where the front of his trousers bulged with the evidence of his arousal, she said brightly, “But it’s not too late, is it? I mean, you had the self-control to wait. Why don’t we—”

Well, what had he expected? There was very little the Honorable Miss Dixon did not take in stride. It could be assumed that sexual transgressions like the one they’d just shared shocked her no more than anything else. Her fingers were actually on his belt when he reached out and took hold of her wrist. “Payton,” he said.

The stricken expression that came over her face when she looked up to meet his gaze was heartbreaking to see. “Oh,” she said, drawing her hand away as if his belt buckle had grown very hot of a sudden. “I’m sorry. Only I thought—you see, I thought maybe you wanted to.” Again the quick glance at the front of his trousers. Then, she said, very quickly, “But that’s all right, really.”

“Payton.” He didn’t release her wrist, although she was pulling on it, and trying to roll off him, at the same time. He wouldn’t let her. “Listen to me.”

“No, it’s all right, really. I know I get carried away sometimes. Don’t pay any mind to me. I’ll just be going now—”

Only a quick flexing of his muscles kept her from escaping. Her catlike agility was startling, but he possessed the superior strength, despite the cumbersome chains round his wrists. In a moment, he had her pinned beneath him, exactly where he’d fantasized about having her. Only now it was to keep her from leaving, not to deflower her.

“No,” he growled. “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve listened to me.”

She seemed too astonished to reply. Encouraged by this rare silence on her part, he went on.

“Listen, Payton,” he said. “That wasn’t how it ought to have been—”

“I know.” Her voice was filled with self-loathing. “I did it all wrong. Just like in the garden.”

He let go of one of her wrists long enough to reach up to stroke some of her thick, short curls away from her eyes. “No. No, honey, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just that this isn’t exactly how I wanted it—our first time—to be …”

The despair he’d seen in her hazel eyes fled, and was replaced by something he could not put a name to. “You thought about it before?” she asked eagerly. “You thought about you and me doing that?”

He had to clear his throat again. Really, he was not at all used to having these sorts of brutally frank conversations. But then, when Payton was involved, it was virtually impossible to have anything else. “About making love with you? Yes, of course I’ve thought about it. And this isn’t—”

“Really?” She’d begun to squirm beneath him in a manner that was entirely too provocative for his peace of his mind. “When?”

“When what?”

“When did you start thinking about making love with me?”

“When did I—” He broke off and shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. What I’m trying to tell you, Payton, is that what you and I just did, that wasn’t how I—”

“It matters to me.”

If he hadn’t known her better, he might have suspected her of pouting. But Payton Dixon never pouted. Threw punches, maybe, but never pouted.

“I never even knew you liked me,” she went on, “let alone thought about making love with me.”

“If you’d let me finish,” he said, between gritted teeth, “I’ll tell you about it.” He wasn’t gritting his teeth out of impatience, but because it was damned uncomfortable, having her squirming beneath him like that, when he was still so hard. Well, hell, what could anyone expect? It had been months since he’d last had a woman. And he’d never had one like this, who’d sat perched astride him with such insouciance, not caring a whit that her breasts were quite bare. Even now, he could feel her nipples, hardened into little pink pebbles from the ocean breeze that seeped in around them, pressing against his thickly matted chest hair.