Pirate's Bride (Liberty's Ladies) (20 page)

“Aye, miss. I’ve seen quite a number of ‘em in my time.”

Bethlyn turned to him. “Do you believe the legend that when you see a shooting star it means someone has died and gone to heaven?”

Sparrow considered her for a long moment and smiled. “Nay, I’d like to think that it means someone has lost his heart to a lover. Or her heart. Whatever the case may be. I wrote a poem years back on just that thing.”

This romantic side to Sparrow surprised Bethlyn. She’d never have thought this thin, dull-appearing man possessed the soul of a poet.

“I write poetry, too. Would you recite your poem for me?” she asked and feared he might protest, but Sparrow only nodded and began in a hesitant voice.

“A shooting star I did see. Up above the stormy sea. Silver fire streaked the sky and fell to earth with a sigh. My lady love now owns my heart. Never, never shall we part.” Sparrow finished, and he bowed his head shyly.

“That was lovely,” Bethlyn told him, quite impressed, and touched the sleeve of his shirt. “What happened to your lady love?”

For a second she felt a tremor rush through him, but Sparrow composed himself. “She was much too grand for the likes of me, miss. She was a grand lady on Jamaica, a relative of the royal governor. I knew she’d never marry me, and I didn’t ask her. Things just don’t work out the way you want sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” Bethlyn mumbled, sad for his pain.

Sparrow glanced down at her. “Ain’t no reason why you can’t have things work out for you. I saw the way you been eyein’ Hawk all day, and he’s been lookin’ at you. Missy, if looks could melt, we’d all be swimming in the sea to cool off.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.” Purposely she used her haughty, icy lady’s voice which had worked so well in London whenever anyone broached the subject of her husband. Those people had been put off by it, but Sparrow wasn’t.

“Don’t play games with me or with Hawk. You’ll lose him for certain.”

“Perhaps I don’t want him.”

In the moonlight Sparrow’s teeth gleamed brightly. “Aye, you want him all right.”

The confounded blush rose to her cheeks again and she felt unbearably warm. Must she always blush so hard and give away her thoughts?

Choosing to ignore him and not wanting to speak further about Hawk, she ran her hand along the circular wheel. “Is it very difficult to guide a ship?”

“Nay, not if you learn how.”

“Could I try?”

“If you want.” Sparrow moved and allowed Bethlyn to stand between him and the wheel. He placed her hands on the smooth wood and guided her, explaining certain navigational laws to her. Nodding her understanding, she didn’t realize when he suddenly withdrew his thin hands from atop hers. Her gaze was fixed straight ahead, her hair blowing gently in the wind, and she barely registered the fact that strong, powerful bronzed hands now guided her.

“Leeway is measured by the angle of the course steered and the direction through the water. If the wind hits from the left, the ship will move to the right of the course and vice versa. Understand?”

Hawk’s voice was so gentle, so heart-stopping, that she found herself mesmerized, and she lifted her face to his. “Yes,” she whispered, but she had no idea what he’d just told her and felt no surprise to find him behind her. His presence struck her as quite natural.

He smiled at her. “You’re an apt pupil.”

His body leaned into hers, and against her own better judgment, she molded her buttocks against his thighs and listened while he rambled on about navigation and the sea. Bethlyn heard not a word, but she didn’t want him to stop speaking. She trained her eyes on his lips, aching to touch them, wanting him to kiss her. Minutes passed and still he droned on. She felt he wanted to kiss her, knew that he wanted to do more than that by the hard bulge pressed against her buttocks. Sweat must have broken out on his forehead, for she noticed some droplets running down the length of his face, not concealed by the mask.

A musky male scent enveloped her, the scent a man gives out when he wants to love the woman in his arms. Bethlyn found her body ached in the strangest place, a place she barely thought about. However, since being in Hawk’s presence the last few weeks, she found it throbbed more often. Pressing himself against her, she nearly moaned his name, so certain was she that finally he’d kiss her. The kiss didn’t come. He continued talking, but now his voice contained a husky quality, as if he ached for her, too.

Kiss me! her mind screamed, and wondered why he didn’t. Suddenly, with clarity, she knew. She’d forced him to promise not to touch her, to act the gentleman. Apparently Hawk intended to keep that promise, no matter the discomfort to himself or to her.

“The drift of any current is uncertain, at best,” she heard him saying. “A navigator must take special precautions to prevent…”

“You horrid, aggravating man, do be quiet and release my hands.”

“Why?” Hawk asked, growing peeved she knew by the tensing of his jawline, but he let her hands go.

Turning to face him, she lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck. “So I can do this,” she said in a silky, seductive whisper against his ear. Her lips touched his in a sweet kiss which shortly filled with fire when Hawk’s mouth responded. His arms tightened around her, pulling her against him with such ferocity she thought she’d break in two, but she didn’t mind. All conscious thought stopped for her. Bethlyn became a creature of delightful sensations, enjoying the heat of desire which coursed through her.

She knew when he picked her up, only breaking their kiss to carry her the distance to his cabin. Placing her gently on the bed, she eagerly reached for him, their only light the shimmering silver orb in the sky.

Hawk threw off his shirt, his muscles straining and bunching together when he reached for her and drew her against the hard expanse of his chest. Timidly Bethlyn ran her fingers through the springy pelt of chest hair, growing a bit bolder when she heard him groan.

He caught her hand in his, stopping her. “Are you certain about this, Beth? If not, I’ll leave you alone. I promised to act a gentleman with you.”

She thought she heard a bit of a smile in his voice, and she shook her head. “The last thing I want is a gentleman.”

“Oh, Beth, Beth, that’s the last thing I want to be with you right now.”

Expecting him to kiss her, she was a bit surprised when he bounded from the bunk and strode to the windows. She watched him pull the heavy drapes, blocking out the moonlight and encasing the room in total darkness. The reason was obvious when he joined her again and brought her hand to his face. His mask was gone.

A small sensation of hurt that he didn’t entirely trust her to keep his identity was healed when his lips captured hers. She forgot everything but the growing fire within her. With expert hands he peeled away her dress and his mouth, warm and filled with heat, moved across her shoulders to find the sensitive tip of one of her breasts.

Slowly, he suckled but his mouth grew greedy and soon devoured as much as could fill the cavity. Bethlyn moaned as a strange churning began in her loins and beat out a pulsating cadence between her thighs. Then he shifted his interest to her other breast, inflicting upon it the same sweet, mind-drugging torture as its twin. Her arms stroked his broad back, her flesh very much aware of the powerful man who pleasured her. Tiny, moaning sounds came from her throat, and she heard Hawk give a low, husky laugh before removing his mouth from her.

In the darkness he moved his face even with hers. “You liked that didn’t you, Beth?”

“Yes.”

“I bet most men don’t pleasure you too often. But I’m going to be the one to make you moan with ecstasy.”

In a haze of growing passion, Bethlyn wondered what could be more wonderful than Hawk suckling her breasts, and though she found his statement odd, too overcome to realize he still thought her a prostitute, she wanted to know how he could make her feel any more wonderful than she did already.

“Please do,” she whispered when his lips trailed across her naked flesh to kiss and nip at her breasts, her navel, and down the flat plane of her abdomen. Heedless of his tongue’s destination, she allowed him to part her legs, in fact, she willingly parted them for him.

His breath warmed the spot between her naked thighs, and for a split second she nearly closed her legs, but Hawk’s hands gently kept them at bay.

“What … what are you doing?” she panted, wondering if this was what all men did to women when they made love.

“Let me love you, Beth,” he breathed against her silken down. “I want to love you as no man ever has.”

Before she could speak again, he buried his face into the velvet folds of her body, and he speared her with his tongue. She arched away from him in a panic, but his hands stroked her inner thighs, gentling her, and then his hands settled on her buttocks and pulled her closer while he feasted upon her sweetness,

Bethlyn’s mind screamed for him to stop, to never stop. Never in her life had she known such a gathering of violent and infinitely delicious feelings in one part of her being. Her body writhed and wriggled, unable to discover what to do with the building force of heat within her. She felt as if she’d been thrown into a storm of white heat, so scalding, that she only knew something horrible or wonderful was destined to happen. Before she was prepared for it, her body exploded in a tempest of silver sparks, so fantastic and intense in feeling that she cried out Hawk’s name,

When her body felt fully satiated, she realized that Hawk held her against him and he’d removed all of his clothes. She buried her face in the hair on his chest, her face burning with embarrassment and glad of the darkness. Hawk kissed the top of her head.

“I told you I’m a man of my word.”

“You are so smug,” she said, but her words were spoken with tenderness for this man who could give such pleasure to her. She lay within his arms for some moments, her eyes growing heavy with sleep.

“Beth?”

“Hmm?”

“We’re not finished yet.”

Coming awake, Bethlyn wondered what he meant. What was there to finish? She realized how naive she must seem to him when he took her hand and guided it to his hard shaft. Suddenly what Mavis had told her about mating all of those years ago registered in her brain and finally made sense.

“What do you want me to do?” she innocently asked.

 “Oh, Beth, you are so very good that I almost believe you’re a true innocent. But, sweetheart, the time for playacting is long since over. I want you, I ache to fill you with me. Open your legs for me, open them now.”

Instinctively Bethlyn opened herself to him, wanting more of the pleasure she’d recently experienced. She was a true innocent, but she wouldn’t tell him she’d never been with a man before. Probably he wouldn’t believe her and, more than anything, she wanted him with a fierceness which undid all of her staid and proper upbringing. She couldn’t bear for him to seek out someone like Della or stand for him to pleasure another woman in the same way. He’d have to discover her virginity for himself.

Leveling himself atop her, Bethlyn felt him guide his manhood into the folds of her flesh. She clasped him to her, urging him to enter her more deeply, which Hawk was only too glad to do, but a quick, sharp ache took her breath away and she bucked.

If she’d seen his face she’d have been quite aware of his shock.

“You’re a virgin.” He sounded hoarse.

“Y — yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

 “Does it matter now?”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Just having his length fill her now stirred up the desire and heat within her. She gave an involuntary wiggle which seemed to nearly drive Hawk out of his mind when he issued a lusty groan.

“No,” she told him, but her answer would have made no difference, for his shaft drove fully and deeply within her. Pulling him closer against her with her slender legs, she reveled in their complete, mindless joining. All she could feel was the heat of him as he took her to a new level of desire, and finally when he gave a particularly lusty thrust, her cries of ecstasy tumbled from her mouth. An instant later Hawk grew still and cried aloud as his seed filled her.

~ ~ ~

Hawk’s lips caressed the top of Bethlyn’s head, which rested against his chest. He knew she was asleep by her soft, easy breaths, and for a moment he longed to wake her and take them both to paradise again. Hawk resisted for two reasons. Her body would, no doubt, be sore from his lovemaking. He’d give her a day or so to recuperate before he loved her again. However, never one to take a girl’s virginity lightly, he felt moments of qualm about this turn of events. He’d have sworn she was a seasoned prostitute and much too beautiful not to have remained virginal for long. She looked about twenty to Hawk’s trained eye, and he couldn’t help but wonder why no man had seduced her before now.

She’d given herself freely, willingly, to him. Why? This question led him to the second reason for not waking her and loving her. He needed time to think. Questions rolled around his head like the ship’s wheel. Why was Beth on a ship filled with doxies, why had she allowed him to believe she was one of them? Granted, she had fought him and practically killed him to defend her honor. His chest still ached at times from the cut she’d inflicted. Beth had told him he wouldn’t have believed she wasn’t one of the women, and he grudgingly admitted to himself that she was right. He wouldn’t have believed her.