Heather Graham (33 page)

But he was alive, and she just wanted to touch him, hold him …

The door suddenly opened again. She sat up quickly, alert and wary.

It was Pierce. He had returned.

He stepped into the captain’s cabin, letting the door fall shut behind him with a definite click.

With the patch off his eye and his plumed cavalier’s hat gone from his head, he was very much the man she had known before. He walked across the cabin with a natural grace, well honed and physically muscled and sleek. He was darker now, his skin sun-browned to a deeper bronze. His eyes, if anything, were sharper, more a sizzling silver.

He was the same man …

And yet he was different. He had fought battles before. But he had fought open battles in which he had ridden beside his king.

Things had changed now. He had fallen victim to treachery. He had been seized by a Spaniard. Tormented by him.

He came across the room, his eyes upon her, but he did not come near her at first. He took a seat behind the desk, eased his booted feet upon it, and leaned back, watching her with his condemning gray stare. Then he smiled slowly, a smile that was chill, and sent shivers along her spine.

“Well, Rose, we are, at long last, alone and with time to share! And just imagine! There will be no one to beat upon that door, seeking my arrest!”

She controlled her temper through that, sitting as regally and as decently as she could manage with her ripped bodice. “What have you done with Captain Niemens?” she inquired icily.

He arched an ebony brow, staring at her. Then she tensed, nearly jumping, for his feet fell to the floor and he rose, approaching her swiftly. She inched back upon the bunk. His arms created bars about her as he braced himself, leaning against the wall behind her. His face. So close. She could see the burning silver in his eyes, feel the warmth of his breath, and the hair-trigger tension within him.

“Worried about the good captain?” he inquired tauntingly.

“What have you done with him?”

He pushed away from her, and began to stride across the cabin. He reminded her then of a caged cat, but he had created the boundaries of his own cage. He came to a halt then, leaning against the desk, half sitting upon the edge of it.

“You’re forgetting, my love, this is my ship. Before my, er, demise, Niemens was one of my captains. For many, many years. And it was so amazing. Captain Niemens was glad to see that I was alive, my love.”

That could easily be the truth, she thought swiftly. But what of the crew? She had heard the cannon fire, the screeching of the grappling hooks, the awful clang and clash of steel.

“What of the crew?” she whispered. “I heard the fighting.”

“Well, milady, I couldn’t announce my true identity until I was close to Niemens! I did have to seize the ship, you see, but I am pleased to tell you that I was able to convince the sailors to send the good captain quickly to a parley. I took the ship without the cost of a single life.”

She raised her chin. “Then what is your plan?”

“We are sailing to England,” he told her.

“England!”

She leapt up. She forgot the disheveled state of her clothing. She couldn’t possibly go to England, not now. She couldn’t leave Woody. She shook her head vehemently. “I cannot go to England!”

“Milady, it seems you have not realized your position here! It isn’t your choice. It is my ship. Even if it were not, I am still the man who seized it. We will sail where I choose, milady, and nowhere else!”

“You don’t understand!” she told him. She closed the distance between them. “You can’t do that, you just can’t! My father—”

“Your father!” he snapped back. “The illustrious merchant Ashcroft Woodbine! I understand that he had you headed for Bermuda, and there to snare another unwary suitor! Ah, let’s see, the man was Sir Wesley, I believe. Really, Rose! Your father was failing you. He would take down a duchess to marry a simple ‘sir’?”

She didn’t think. Yet even if she had taken the time to, she would have done the same thing, no matter how blindly stupid her actions were. She struck him. Swiftly, surely, with fire and menace.

And there was a wonderful, if brief, feeling of elation that filled her then, for her blow was quick and sure. Her hand connected loudly with his cheek. The blow left her fingerprints upon it.

Elation was quickly lost, for she saw the deep-set fury in his eyes and then found herself drawn against him, swept into his arms. Struggling fiercely, she flailed against him. “Let me down, you—pirate!” She was distressed that she couldn’t think of anything more heinous to label him. “Put me down. This instant.”

She was down. Facedown on his lap, and he seemed to be fighting with the massive swirl of her petticoats. “Since the day I first met you I thought that a really sound switching would serve you extremely well. If I could just get through this tangle—”

“Don’t!” she shrieked, pushing up against him. His hands were merciless.

She bit into his thigh.

He swore violently, then wrenched her around. The dress he had partially ripped began to tear apart completely, leaving her exposed and vulnerable. His hands upon her were punishing and cruel, his eyes were alive with fire. The violence in him was frightening, and she found herself whispering for mercy despite her very best resolve.

“Please! Pierce! Please!”

The violence suddenly left him. He released her, sitting back up on the bunk, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Damn, Rose! Don’t tempt me then!”

She lay near him, panting. She tried to struggle up, inching away from him. His eyes roamed over her torn bodice, over her breasts. His voice was husky. He reached out a hand to her. “Come here, Rose.”

She shook her head, near tears, gritting her teeth.

“Come here!” he said again. “It has been a long, long time!”

“A long time,” she repeated.

“Give me your hand.”

“No!”

One of those jet brows of his went up again, a sure sign that his temper was rising. She didn’t care.

“Rose, you’re still my wife.”

“Aye, but a widow a long time now, as you’ve noted! One you mock and rage against and refuse to give quarter to! If you think that I’ll jump, milord, at your beck and call, you’ve quite another think coming. So far you have done nothing but manhandle and insult me—and my father. I’ll not come anywhere near you, I swear it!”

“You’re my wife!” he insisted, his voice harsh.

“Then perhaps you would care to apologize, and if you do so with enough humility, I may eventually decide to forgive you.”

“Forgive me!” There was surprise, as well as thunder, in his tone. Then he smiled, though the curve of the lips over his teeth wasn’t at all friendly. “My lady, I can only pray that you begin to make up to me all that you have done!”

She inched farther to her side of the bunk, her eyes warily upon him. “Milord, I tell you again—I did nothing! Try as I may, I don’t seem to be able to get that through your very thick skull. So, milord, as it stands, I shall scream blue blazes if you put so much as a finger upon me. I shall make such a horrible racket that even your pirate crew will rush in here, demanding that you release me!”

He smiled. “Oh, I don’t think so, Rose. A number of my pirate crew served with me aboard the Spaniard’s ship. Were I to strangle you and feed you bit by bit to the sharks, I don’t think that they’d interfere a whit!”

“What about Captain Niemens! And this crew!”

“I don’t give a damn,” he told her politely.

“But—”

“Captain Niemens knows that you’re my wife. Every man jack out there knows it.”

“How can you want someone who hates you?” she cried desperately.

A brow arched again. She hugged her knees to her chest, trying hard to keep her distance from him. But he leaned against her. He reached out, just his forefinger moving gently over the angle of her cheek. “Do you hate me?”

“I must!” she snapped back. “To have done all those things you accuse of me doing!”

“Prove me mistaken,” he said softly.

“Prove me guilty!” she cried.

The tender stroke of his finger stilled. “ ‘Come back to me, Pierce!’ ” he quoted from that awful night. “How clearly I remember those words. And how clearly I remember what I discovered at Huntington Manor, and what happened once I returned to you!”

“I hadn’t the least idea that Anne was dead!” she told him furiously. “I’d never have sent you there had I any suspicion! Jesu, how could I know that the authorities might be coming after you?”

“How indeed—unless you were in league with Jerome? You did meet with Jerome. You told me so.”

“You are insidious!” she whispered fiercely, afraid that her tears would fall any second. She was choking. “You can say things like that, and then think to command my emotions!”

“I think,” he said, “that it has been a long, long time!”

“A long time! Indeed! And I am much older and wiser now! I’ll not pay for sins I’ve not committed! If you lay awake nights, dreaming of revenge, take your revenge. Bring out your whips—cut me into bite-size pieces for the sharks!”

“How strange!” he said softly. “I had dreamed of just such a revenge. But something else was always there in the dreams, too!”

“And that was …?”

“Wanting you! Rose, you know me! I will have you. Come to me!”

She shook her head wildly. “You accuse me of horrible things, seize the ship I’m upon, and command that we go to England! Then you think that you can command my surrender! Well, you can’t do it. And I will not go to England, I cannot go to England! And I will not be seduced or taken by you, I will not fall prey to your talents or expertise—”

“Or hunger?” he asked softly. The sudden, deep tenderness in his tone seemed to rip cruelly through her, far worse than any threatening roar or thunder. Oh, God, yes, it had been a long time. And she, too, had lain awake so very many nights, remembering, wanting him. His touch, the sound of his voice, the feel of his arms around her when she slept.

She stared at him, amazed at what he could do with his voice, his eyes. He demanded, then he invited, but it didn’t really matter what he did, because, from the beginning, he meant to have what he wanted.

And he would.

He didn’t wait for her to offer her hand, he found it. She hadn’t the chance nor the breath to do anything other then gasp out a small protest before she found herself cradled in his arms, on his lap, the two of them in the center of the bunk. Then he was staring down at her, the silver in his eyes a fire that touched and warmed her blood. She still longed desperately to fight him. But the absolute hunger and passion in his eyes touched some cord deep inside her. She wanted to cry out again. She opened her mouth, yet only a gasp came from it.

And then it was too late. His mouth crashed down upon hers. Fevered, urgent. And seductive. She fleetingly tried to keep her lips sealed to the prod of his tongue. How foolish. He breached that barrier easily. Skimmed her lips, her teeth, and played with her tongue, moved within her mouth, touching, seeking, delving, a kiss so totally erotic, it swept away reason. She knew that she couldn’t, mustn’t, respond.

But neither could she deny him. She closed her eyes and felt the ecstasy of his heat against her. Breathed in the scent of him, savored the taste of him, and the feel of his arms around her. She could not respond …

But it was so wonderfully good. She had thought him dead, and a part of her had died. He lived, and now magic was alive inside her once again. She knew so little, yet she knew that no other man could have his passion, his tension, his vital drive. No one but Pierce …

His mouth rose from hers, but his eyes seared into her own. Her lips felt damp and swollen as she stared into the silver fire of his gaze. She shook her head, denying all that she felt. Desperate. He had to believe in her.

“No, Pierce!”

His lips lowered to her throat, his fingers pressing back the torn fabric of her bodice. His lips touched her collarbone, found the pulse at her throat. His tongue trailed a burning line from that pulse to the valley between her breasts, then his hand cupped over a mound. She shifted, fighting the fire that the tender caress of her flesh aroused within her elsewhere. She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.

No …

But oh, God! It had been so very long! And he was whispering so softly against her flesh. “My love, you’ve changed …” His voice, his whisper, the hot feel of his breath against her flesh … all were so erotic! She would not give in! she promised herself. But his words were washing over her. She was adrift already in a sea of sensation. She had to stop him soon, or she would be lost.

Aching. Wanting …

A kiss fell on her breast. “You’ve changed and grown and … my God, the feel of your flesh, the taste of it, the sweetness …” His words left off. He groaned softly, his fingers lightly curling around the globe of her breast, his tongue dancing lightly over the crest, then the fullness of his mouth settling over it, bathing it, warming it, sucking upon it.

“Dear God!”

Suddenly his dark head shot up, his eyes, a thousand blades of steel, were cutting into her with dark fury and amazement. His arms, still around her, tightened punishingly, and she nearly cried out.

Yet he hadn’t meant to hurt her. Not then.

“You taste of—of milk!” he said incredulously.

She felt herself redden from her cheeks to her bare chest. She struggled to rise against him, but his fingers were threaded through her hair and he held her tightly.

“Yes, yes!” she cried. “I taste like milk! It happens when a woman has had a child!” she continued in a whisper.

She didn’t know if he was going to toss her from him, or crush her in the fury of his embrace. His face lowered against hers.

“Whose child?” he demanded fiercely.

“Oh, how dare you!” she shrieked. “I have absolutely had it! I’ll take no more insults from you, I swear it! Beat me, rape me, throw me overboard! But no more of this!”

He still stared at her. To her amazement, his touch was not half so brutal. He leaned back, as if he needed the support of the wall to remain straight.

“Mine?” It was barely a whisper, ragged and hot.