Untamed (6 page)

“Trystan,” she sighed urgently, mashing her lips inexpertly against his. His deep throaty chuckle felt like a steamy midsummer fog rolling along her skin. “Please, do no tease me. Kiss me harder,” she demanded. “And touch my breasts like you did before.”

Instead of touching her breasts, he touched her ankle. And then the soft spot behind her knee. And then her even softer inner thigh.

“Heavens,” she cried, opening eagerly to him.

Every fiery sensation he induced, every consciousness of intense pleasure he invoked startled and amazed her. Desarae knew things—she had read many things that a well-bred, well-brought up young lady should not have read—should not have known, but she could never have fully imagined the achingly wild rapture that she was feeling now. When Trystan’s fingers parted the moist core of her she cried out and flung back her head. His lips found the beating pulse at her throat while his touch stroked her to an intense pitch of aching need. She wanted something. She knew what it was and she wanted it right now but her tormentor kept it just out of reach.

“Trystan,” she panted. She arched her back and felt his teeth through her bodice, biting carefully down on her taut nipple. “Oh. Oh. I feel like I’m coming apart.”

“Soon,” he promised.

Desarae thrust against his hand, silently begging him to complete this feral craving. His thumb pressed against her and his fingers slowly pushed into her. She pulsed around him and cried out in sudden and overwhelming ecstasy.

Chapter Four

T
hough acutely uncomfortable, Trystan merely held onto Desarae while she recovered. Never before had Trystan beheld an action quite as beautiful as her abandoned natural passion. It appeared to him that no one had ever told her that maidens were to behave demurely. Truly, Baron Wensley had raised Desarae in a singular fashion. Again he pondered how such an untamed woman would fit into the world of the
ton
. She belonged there by birth, but her uncle had done her no favors in his child-rearing methods. Trystan had seen little evidence that she was even minutely equipped for the life her grandfather claimed to want for her.

She would fit better into his world, he mused. The idea cooled his ardor and made him think furious, almost forbidden thoughts. His mother and sisters could take her in hand and teach Desarae how to live among other people. They would love her just like…His mind stuttered to a halt and refused to listen to his singing heart.

“First things first,” he whispered.

“Hmm?” Desarae murmured. “What did you say?”

“How do you feel?” Trystan asked, shifting her so that he could see her lovely features. Her eyes were still heavy with half-spent desire.

“Delicious.” Her lips curled into a succulent grin and she leaned forward to give him a kiss. He accepted her soft lips but did not permit the kiss to deepen. “Trystan,” she protested. “You have not found any release. Let me pleasure you.”

“Trust me, luv,” he replied with a deep-throated chuckle. “I found great pleasure in your passionate response to my touch.”

“It cannot be the same,” she argued, pushing her hand down between them so that her palm pressed against the pulsating hard length of him.

Trystan smothered a curse and pulled her hand away. He kissed her palm and gave her an admonitory look. “How do you know these things?”

“After Uncle died,” Desarae explained, scooting backwards on his lap so that her bottom no longer crushed him, “I read his journals. He began writing them on his grand tour, which he embarked upon when he was only seventeen. He wrote often and quite explicitly.”

“I doubt he meant his writings for the eyes of his innocent young niece,” was Trystan’s sardonic reply. He smoothed her hair back from her face.

Desarae shrugged. “I found them locked in several trunks hidden under his bed. If he did not want anyone to read them he should have burnt them.”

“I can hardly argue with that logic,” he murmured dryly. “Your extensive reading certainly explains a few things.”

Desarae’s heart flipped oddly in her breast when she looked into her captain’s smouldering blue eyes. Her limbs felt wonderfully relaxed though her skin tingled and her face felt flushed. She wanted to touch him all over and rub herself against him. Before she could succumb to this desire, Athena trotted into the room and gave a yip of excitement.

“What is it, girl?” Trystan asked, lifting Desarae off his lap. He stood too, pleased that his nap had restored some of his strength.

“It is the fog,” Desarae explained, waving to the window. While they had been otherwise engaged a thick fog had rolled in. They could not see beyond the leading edge of the terrace. “Athena always finds it most confusing. Jim will not set off in this, so we are secure for tonight.”

“If he has already set off before the fog came in, will he return to town or push on?”

Desarae slipped her hand into Trystan’s. They squeezed each other’s hands. “He will return to the town. It is too dangerous to try and find the isle in fog this thick.”

Trystan had to trust her knowledge of Jim’s behavior. “Do I smell food?”

“Oh, my chowder!”

Trystan followed her racing feet into the kitchen where the air was redolent with the heavenly aroma of salt cod chowder. Fortunately the meal had not spoiled. He collected soup bowls from the Welsh dresser and placed them on the table while Desarae lifted the cast-iron kettle off the coals and onto the hearth. He handed her the bowls for filling while she chattered away about the food. She collected hot soda bread from within the bread oven to the right of the open fire.

“Do you not bless the food?” Desarae asked, seating herself on the bench across the kitchen table from Trystan. She watched him lower his spoon.

“I should not have sat before you, either,” Trystan revealed. “I beg your pardon. My mother raised me to know better.”

“I also have been taught that courtesy. I often forget,” she admitted. “Jim and I live very informally, but he would be most displeased to discover that I have treated a guest with so little politeness.” Desarae looked guilty for but a moment and then grinned at him secretively. “We shan’t tell him that we ate in the kitchen either.”

“I promise not to tattle.” Trystan’s worried spirit responded to her playfulness. With mock solemnity he folded his hands around his bowl and bowed his head. “However, God sees all so we had best pray.”

“It is my turn tonight,” she said, clasping her hands together and leaning them against her chest. “Unless you would like the honor?”

“Proceed,” he murmured, fascinated to hear her blessing.

“If you are sure?” she asked and then continued when he nodded. “Dear Father, we thank Thee for this food and for the great blessing of Captain Trystan’s presence. Please, be so good as to return Jim safely. Also, Father, if it be Thy will, safeguard the
Lady May
from disaster and keep her crew from harm. As to my cruel grandfather,” she paused and Trystan peeked at her. Desarae’s frown of concentration had deepened into a scowl. “Thou canst keep him. I do not want him!”

“Desarae . . .” warned Trystan dryly.

“In Jesus name, amen,” she rushed.

Before Trystan responded with his own amen, Desarae picked up her spoon and began to carefully eat the hot chowder. Trystan did not immediately follow her example. “What is it?” She blushed beneath his raised eyebrow but refused to repent. Instead, she mumbled: “God understands.”

He chuckled. “Perhaps.”

When they completed their meal, Desarae fed Athena and went outside to milk Artemis. Trystan watched her altercation with the recalcitrant goat. A few chickens boldly hung about the paddock scratching in the dirt, keeping a look-out for the goat who would most vociferously object to their invasion of her domain. When Artemis settled and the milking began in earnest, he asked: “Do you have a signal lantern?”

“We do.” Desarae turned her head and looked up at him. “Who do you wish to signal?”

“My ship in the harbor.” When she frowned in confusion he remembered his subterfuge. “Assuming it has not floundered, of course.”

“Ah. You may find it on the shelf in the back porch. I believe there is oil in it already, but you will want to be certain of it.”

Trystan found the lantern. The brass box-type lantern was of a fair size and had a round glass lens on one side only. He shook it gently and heard the oil slosh around in the well at the bottom. He set the lantern on the table, opened it, and trimmed the wick.

“Found it then?” Desarae asked, coming up behind him.

“As you see,” he murmured, feeling guilty about not telling her about his ship. The fog had given him a reprieve, a moment out of time in which to experience this luscious, vibrant, untamed woman. He intended to take that moment and the devil be hanged. Trystan reached for a cloth lying on the table and polished the lens.

“I will put this milk in the dairy.”

When she turned away, Trystan flicked the cloth at her bottom. She jumped and gave an irrepressible gurgle of mirth.

“Stop that!” Desarae’s eyes danced with merriment spiced with warning as she backed away from her tormenter. “I am carrying a pail of milk.”

Trystan’s deep laughter filled her soul with light and brilliance. She felt giddy with happiness. Joy caught at her heart and that normally reliable organ skipped and thumped and felt three times its normal size. Her worries shrank to the size of a walnut. “Behave.”

His leer promised nothing and it fell short of reassuring her. The dairy’s cool air caressed her hot cheeks. How long the captain would stay on the isle she could not know. How long she wanted him to stay was…forever. Nonetheless, she was not so innocent or so sheltered that she could fool herself into believing he would stay with her beyond the arrival of his ship—assuming it arrived. Now that she knew her hated grandfather was coming to try and take her away from here the isle no longer felt safe.

“It is safe for tonight, though,” she whispered and a smile swept across her face.

Desarae found her guest by searching through the house. At first she anticipated only pleasure in the hunt. But, after she had combed the ground floor and did not find him, an anxious flutter in her breast caused her to hold her breath while she explored the upper floor. And, when she could not find him still, she raced to the steps that led up to the attics, Athena at her heels. Desarae’s heart pounded and a sob caught in her throat. Sudden and overwhelming loneliness crushed her spirit and almost paralyzed her before the attic door. What if he was not there? What if she had imagined him? She forced herself to fling open the door. The attic stood empty of his presence. However, she could see the open trap door that led to the widow’s walk.

She clung weakly to the roof ladder for several moments, recovering her breath and her composure before climbing silently to the roof, leaving Athena to await their return at the ladder’s foot. Trystan stood on the small widow’s walk, his fists on his hips, staring out into the early evening fog. Along with the gathering night, the fog obscured all land marks. The lit lantern rested on the deck.

“I cannot see a damned thing.”

“Look down.”

Trystan frowned at her. “You look pale. What is wrong?”

Desarae shrugged and clasped her hands to her stomach. “I could not find you,” was her reply. “I thought I may have imagined you.”

Trystan reached her in two steps and drew her almost savagely into his arms. His lips stole her breath away as his urgent kiss proved wordlessly that he existed. When he eased back, they were both gasping for air. Trystan tugged her back into a fierce hug.

“I love the feel of you,” Desarae confessed, her words muffled against his shoulder.

“As soon as I send this signal, I am going to keep my promise,” he stated clearly. “Let there be no misunderstandings between us, luv, I want you as I have never wanted another woman.”

“Good.”

Desarae pulled out of his arms and pointed to their feet where a compass had been painted onto the wood deck. It was three feet in diameter and at various points certain landmarks had been inscribed. ‘Harbor’ was written in black above the W sign.

“Brilliant.” Trystan lifted up the lantern and held it pointed in the right direction. He proceeded to send a message to his crew.

“What is your message?”

“Merely that I live. They will come when the fog has lifted and it is safe.”

“Tomorrow, then,” she murmured, placing her hand upon the small of his back. She traced the shape of his muscles with her palm. “If they have reached safety.”

“Yes.”

“Come,” she whispered, taking his hand in one of her strong ones. “I can bear the suspense no longer.”

His voice fell to a husky murmur. “Lead on.”

When they reached her bedchamber and Desarae would have pulled him to her bed, Trystan paused to look around. Every available wall surface was adorned with sketches, paintings, and drawings. There were drawings depicting island wildlife. There were preliminary sketches for planned and completed sculptures. There were paintings of the sea and of her uncle and of the dark-skinned servant, Jim. A captivatingly detailed portrait of an old sailor hung in pride of place above the fireplace.

“Dear Lord, luv,” Trystan whispered, his tone hushed. “Is this all your own work?”

“Yes,” she said. “With the exception of Sailor Bert. My uncle painted him.”

“They are magnificent,” he praised, looking more closely at a pencil drawing of a field mouse cowering beside an old fencepost. Artimus the goat glared down at the trespasser.

“Will my dastardly grandfather permit me the freedom for my art, do you think?”

Trystan’s shoulders slump.

“Unlikely?”

“Most accomplished ladies of the
ton
do sketches and watercolours,” Trystan temporized. He moved along to examine a drawing of two entwined nude figures captured in the throes of passion. Below the figures the title was inscribed as: ‘Cassandra and Agamemnon’. “But nothing like this,” he admitted. The next drawing of a nude clearly showed a portrait of the artist and his breath caught in his throat.