Burning Up (39 page)

Oh, hell.
Eben closed his eyes. God, what a fool he was. Under Horde rule, only one result came from a coupling between a man and a woman, and most didn’t remain together afterward. Then the child would be taken and raised in a crèche.

But Ivy would have kept her child. And when she’d come to
Vesuvius
, she’d only had eight deniers . . . all of which he’d taken.

Quietly, he told her, “I wouldn’t risk it either, Ivy. A ship is no place to raise a child, and I’m not a man who’d be content visiting the family I’ve made four or five times a year. When I return to land permanently, maybe then. Not while I’m out to sea.”

“Oh.” Confusion furrowed her brow. “You never meant to shag me?”

Eben had to laugh. Of course he had. Even now, hearing that word from her lips left him as hard as a cannon.

“I mean to, Ivy. Every night, and twice in the day. And each time, using a lambskin sheath that will catch my seed.”

Disbelief widened her eyes. “You have such a thing?”

“Yes.”

When she gave a delighted laugh, he determined to buy a crate more the next time
Vesuvius
put into port.

“And it does not fail?”

He almost lied. Then he admitted, “Yes. But only rarely, Ivy.
Very
rarely.”

Her face fell. She looked away from him, biting her bottom lip.

Her disappointment was simultaneously the most heartening and the most torturous response he’d ever witnessed. She wanted him—but she wouldn’t risk having him.

Unless Eben convinced her it wasn’t a risk at all.

Yasmeen had warned him that Ivy wouldn’t know what courting was, and he hadn’t forgotten that—but he hadn’t truly understood it, either. He’d hoped that she would accept him as a partner. But it would probably never occur to her to imagine him—or anyone—in that position, even if she began to care for him.

He touched her chin, made her meet his eyes. “If it failed, I wouldn’t leave you alone, Ivy. I’d come with you to shore. I’d see that you and the baby had everything you needed. And I’d stay with you, always.”

Surprise, hope, and doubt warred across her features. “Eben, I think . . .” She trailed off, staring at him, as if searching for an answer within. Whatever she found drooped her shoulders and softened her mouth into a sad curve. “I just don’t know.”

Though he recognized that her response indicated uncertainty rather than rejection, he had to fight the hollow ache in his chest. Determination soon filled it. She’d already come to believe he was man enough not to force her; she would come to believe he was man enough to care for her, too. Until then, he could pleasure them both without risking a child.

“Let me up, Ivy.”

She let him go—reluctantly, he was gratified to see. After lighting the gas lamp, Eben retrieved a heavy gold coin.

Her eyes widened when he placed the coin in her palm. “A sous?”

“I’ll only kiss you,” he promised, then guided her hand to the juncture of her thighs. With his fingers over hers, he tucked their hands between her legs. He watched her lips part, heard her soft gasp. “But only if I kiss you here.”

EIGHT

O
h, blue heavens.
As Ivy stared up at him, the pressure of his palm increased until her hand firmly cupped her most sensitive flesh. Wetness seeped through the thin cotton of her nightgown onto her fingers.

Need roughened Eben’s voice. “This can be my mouth, Ivy.”

And she wanted that kiss beyond measure. Heat unfurled through her belly. She dropped the sous to the mattress, reaching for him. He caught her wrist and tugged her toward the side of the bed.

“Come to the window.”

Her choppy breaths, the clank of his foot, and the creak of the ship were the only sounds in the cabin as he led her to the leather armchair. So many times, he’d come in to find her watching the stars. Had he imagined doing
this
?

At his urging, she sat, perching at the edge of the seat. Eben loomed over her, his back to the window. The glow from the lamp cast soft gold over the right side of his face, leaving the other half shadowed. Just to look at him was a pleasure—but her hands would have known him, even in the dark. They’d memorized his lean features, the breadth of his shoulders, every line and hollow of his chest and stomach, packed with muscle.

His gaze burned with intensity. “Lean back, Ivy.”

Slowly, she sank deeper into the chair. Her hands slid along the tops of her thighs, a whisper of metal over cotton. When her shoulders rested against the leather back, Eben knelt before her. His fingers caught the hem of her nightgown and began to draw it up to her knees. Ivy shivered.

“Cold?”

A breathless laugh escaped her.
Hardly.
She was burning up from the inside. Cheeks flushed, she felt faint perspiration across her brow, but it didn’t soothe the heat building beneath her skin.

She caught the hint of his smile before he bent his head. Her toes curled against the deck. She trembled again when his lips brushed her right knee.

“I need to spread you open for my mouth. But I won’t force you.”

Oh.
Beneath her hands, her thighs were clenched together, as if she was uncertain. She wasn’t—and Ivy wanted to be bold. She wanted Eben to know she didn’t fear him. Gathering her courage, she let her legs fall apart and opened for him until her knees hooked over the arms of the chair. She hiked her nightgown hem to her waist.

Eben froze, his dark stare fixed on her exposed flesh. Her name came out strangled. “Ivy.”

Her courage almost failed. “This isn’t what you meant?”

“It is. More than I . . .
God
. You’re already wet for me.” He suddenly palmed the underside of her thighs as if to hold her open to his hungry gaze. His thumbs stroked the sensitive tendons of her inner thighs. “Do you know what I plan to do now, Ivy?”

He would put his mouth on her. She couldn’t imagine any further, but the very thought set her body quivering in anticipation. Her fingers bunched in her nightgown.

“You’ll kiss me.”

“Yes.” His right fingers smoothed into the crease of her thigh and followed it up to her hip. Gasping, Ivy rocked toward him. His hand flattened over her lower belly, holding her in place as his thumb slid through red curls. Gently, he began to circle the slick bud at the apex of her sex. “I’ll kiss these pretty pink lips, Ivy. And I’ll spread them with my tongue and lick inside you, tasting you all over.”

Ivy couldn’t form a coherent reply. Only panting breaths as his thumb stroked harder, the tip wet now, slippery over her flesh. The maddening circles were both bliss and torment, wringing a moan from deep in her throat.

“Then I’ll suck on your clit until you come for me.” His voice roughened in response to another tortured moan. “But I’ll tell you what I won’t do—look at me, Ivy.”

Her fingers clenching on the arms of the chair, her thighs trembling, she lifted her gaze. Need had hardened his face, his eyelids heavy as he watched her. His left hand rose, tugging down the neckline of her gown, baring her right breast and tightly budded nipple. Yearning for his touch, she arched into his palm.

He drew his hand away, pinning her right knee against the chair arm. “I won’t suckle your sweet tits.” His thumb circled faster. “I won’t lick every inch of your skin. I won’t push your thighs together and guide my cock through your wet slit, pumping my shaft across your clit, making you scream for me to come inside you. I won’t fuck you with my fingers and my tongue until you’re riding my hand and my mouth. And you won’t be touching me, either.”

“Eben, please.” She didn’t know what she wanted. Only that she wanted all of that, and that the tension winding tighter and tighter inside her needed to break. Helplessly, she rolled her hips against his hand. “Please.
Please
.”

“Not until you return to
Vesuvius
.”

His words barely penetrated the fever clouding her mind. Until she returned . . . ?

The shadows on his face deepened. “I won’t be with you as you begin building the kraken, Ivy. So I want you to wait for me. Just three weeks. Then I’ll join you at Trahaearn’s estate—and I’ll give you everything you want while you finish your work there, and again on your way back home.”

Back home.
And before that, almost a month without him. A sharp pain speared through her chest, stealing her breath.

When she didn’t reply, his expression darkened. “You’ll wait for me.” Not a request now, but a harsh command. His thumb stroked harder. Long fingers pushed between her slick folds to press against her opening. Ivy turned her face into her shoulder, gasping.
“You’ll wait.”

“Damn you, Mad Machen. Yes!” she burst out. “Now kiss me like you promis—”

He swooped down. Ivy’s demand melted into a moan as his hot mouth covered her, tongue sliding over swollen flesh. She cried out, her back arching, her shoulders jammed against the seat back.

“You taste . . . so good.” His voice was a growl between licks that ravaged her senses. His fingers tightened on her thighs. “Won’t . . . let you go.”

Ivy didn’t want him to. She reached for him, burying her fingers in his thick hair. His stiffened tongue delved through her folds. His big hands wedged beneath her bottom, lifting her for a deeper kiss.

Blue, blue, blue.
Almost sobbing with pleasure, Ivy heard his answering groan. Her hips swiveled of their own accord, and his mouth moved with her, lapping at her clitoris before suckling the tender bud between his lips. His tongue flicked as he drew on her, and Ivy’s muscles suddenly locked as she strained toward that shattering precipice. Eben didn’t stop, each lick painful now, too much, too intense. Then he suckled again and she broke, crying out as she bucked against his mouth.

His tongue softened. He gently licked her as she came down, then pressed a kiss to her quivering belly. He lifted his head and his gaze ran over her, from her flushed sex to her perspiring face.

“My God, Ivy. You’re beautiful.”

Did he truly think so? He looked at her as if he did—he was the
only
person who’d ever looked at her like that. She blinked away the stinging in her eyes. “You’re suffering from a loss of blood to your brain, Eben.”

“So I am.” He laughed and dropped another kiss to the inside of her knee. Lifting her still-shaking legs from the arms of the chair, he helped Ivy to her feet. She swayed against him, her belly bumping into his engorged shaft. Eben groaned, closing his eyes. “I’m a fool for saying that you can’t touch me until I return. Will you ease me then?”

She wanted to now. “Yes.”

“Sweet Ivy.” His big hands cupped her jaw, thumbs sweeping over her cheekbones. “I also said I’d only kiss you one time in return for the sous. But if I break my promise and kiss your lips before we sleep, will you forgive me?”

“I won’t forgive you if you
don’t
kiss me.”

Eben grinned as he lowered his head, and she was breathless by the time he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed.

W
hen the eighth bell of first watch rang, Ivy opened her eyes. Eben lay quiet beside her, his erection against her hip. Before he could speak, she covered his mouth with a kiss—then took him in hand and stroked until he came, awakening all of
Vesuvius
by shouting her name.

NINE

Six Weeks Later . . .

A
utumn had already come to Anglesey; yellow and orange warmed the low, rolling hills in the distance. Eben had thought that the sight of the island’s shores would lessen the frustration and dread that had built with every passing day, but when Anglesey appeared on the northern horizon, he was struck by the devastating certainty that Ivy had already gone.

Between weather and repairs that had forced him into dry dock, he’d been delayed too damn long.

Ivy might have worked on the kraken for three weeks, as she’d promised. But he’d forced that promise from her, just as he’d forced her to fix the machine—and why would she have remained in Anglesey for God knew how many months to repair a monster?

She didn’t have reason to stay. Although she’d wanted him, she doubted he could take care of her. The damned irony was that by giving her a sous—hoping to show her that he could provide for a family, that he would be generous—he’d offered her an escape route. That much money could take her halfway around the world.

So he’d just have to find her again.

Dread hardening into determination, Eben handed the telescope over to Barker and braced his hands on the quarterdeck’s balustrade.

“Captain!”

The shout came from the crow’s nest, where Teppers pointed over the port bow. Eben narrowed his eyes against the sun. The water’s calm surface had been disturbed by a small eruption, as if a pocket of air had broken underneath. A few moments later, there was another, almost one hundred yards closer to
Vesuvius
.

He glanced at Barker, holding the telescope to his eye. “Anything?”

Barker shook his head.

Another shout came from the bosun’s mate, at the starboard rail amidships. “Captain!”

Eben had only a second to glimpse the enormous dark form just below the surface, a rounded body plated with interlocking iron segments. Another pocket erupted fifty feet from
Vesuvius
’s side, disturbing the water—when it faded to a ripple the creature beneath had gone.

Barker looked to him with wide eyes. “Would Ivy have had time enough to rebuild it?”

“No.” And thank God, because otherwise she might have been in the sea with the real thing. “Hold steady on course. Ready the axes.”

And pray that they could sail on past it. If the tentacles got hold of them, their only option was to chop away until the kraken let go.

A film of sweat popped out on the quartermaster’s brow. Barker nodded and shouted to the crew, “Man the axe stations, and look sharp! Keep your eyes out—”

Terrified shouts sounded from the poop deck. Eben pivoted to look aft. His blood froze.