Burning Up (41 page)

Sweat sheened his skin, dark gold by the light of the gas lamp. He brushed a stray hair back from her forehead. “Tell me if it becomes too painful. I swear to God, I’ll stop.”

She could feel him, the blunt tip wedged between her slick folds. Anticipation was driving her insane. “I ache now.”

His mouth lowered to hers. “Then take me.”

The muscles in his back flexed beneath her hands. Pressure built at her entrance, followed by tearing pain. By the starry sky—it
did
hurt. Biting back a scream, she turned her head, squeezing her eyelids shut. Eben gently kissed her cheeks and her lips; his cock split her in half below. He murmured her name, sipping away the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. And still he drove deeper, until she felt as if a heated piston had been grafted inside her.

He finally stopped, his hips pinning hers and her thighs open wide, the weight of his upper body supported on his forearms. “Ivy?”

She couldn’t look at him. Only moments before, she’d begged for this. Now she just wanted him to get on with it and then get off her.

“Have you finished?”

“No.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “We’ll wait a few minutes while your bugs heal you up around me. You won’t have to go through that again.”

“Good.” The burning pain had faded. Now she was just
full
. She couldn’t decide if it was uncomfortable or not—but she definitely didn’t like this.

She could see that Eben liked it, though. His breathing was quick and shallow, the muscles in his chest and arms straining with the effort of keeping still. Beneath her hands, his nanoagents raced like fire, sparking across his nerves. His heart pounded. Experimentally, she lifted her hips.

Though she only managed to nudge him, his reaction was everything she could have hoped. He sucked in a sharp breath, his spine bowing as he jerked upward. His hands fisted beside her head. As if gratified by his response, her inner muscles clung to him when he began to withdraw.

“No, Ivy. Wait until—”

Her fingers digging into his firm ass, she hauled him back. The impact rocked Ivy to her toes, little ripples that seemed to reverberate in the slick channel hugging his length. Eben shouted in surprise and pleasure, his head falling forward, teeth clenching. A deep groan tore from him.

“I can’t, love . . . I can’t—Ah,
God
. I’m sorry. I have to—” Muscle bunched beneath her palms. He rose above her, bracing his left hand beside her shoulder and sliding his right hand between them, the tip of his middle finger brushing her clitoris. “I’ll try . . . to go slow.”

He pulled back. Ivy stiffened, preparing herself—and wishing he’d go fast. If he finished quickly, then she could . . . she could . . .
Oh, blue heavens.
He pushed into her, and though his thick length stuffed her too full, the stretch wasn’t painful, and the movement of his finger flicked little sparks into her belly, a fire building higher and higher.

She still didn’t know if she liked it. But she wanted more. Her palms smoothed up over his back. She hooked her leg over his hip, and cried out when he suddenly thrust deep.

Eben froze. “Did I hurt you? God, Ivy. I didn’t expect you to wrap your leg—”

“No.” Her back arched. She couldn’t stop moving, writhing against him. “More.
More
.”

Tension shook through his big body, sweat gathering on his skin and glistening in the lamplight. His gaze fixed on her face, he worked leisurely into her again. And again. She bit her lips to stop herself from crying out, but her moans were almost as loud. At the end of each long stroke, she stiffened and trembled until his fingers on her clit pushed her into motion again, and she twisted her hips, trying to take more. He slowly slid in to the hilt, and she was as desperate as before. Helplessly, she spread her legs wide.

“Eben, I need . . .” She didn’t know. Her chest heaved with her labored breaths.
“Please.”

With a tortured groan, he paused with his cock lodged inside her and closed his eyes, as if gathering strength. He withdrew his hand from between them and slid it beneath her hip, tilting her pelvis up.

In a low voice, he said, “Tell me if it’s too much.”

He slammed forward. Ivy gasped, tried to catch her breath, but he was already there again, deep and hard. Her hands spasmed. Afraid of hurting him, she grabbed the sheets and twisted, crying out as he pounded into her.

“This?” Letting go of her hip, he buried his fingers in her hair, as if to anchor her for each heavy stroke. “Is this what you need?”

Too overwhelmed to speak, Ivy nodded. Then his mouth covered hers, hungry, searching. Her legs wrapping him tight, she found his rhythm and met each powerful lunge. Her breasts swayed with the force of his thrusts, their stiffened tips brushing his chest in a maddening tease. Need spiraled, like a screw turning tighter and tighter with every desperate plunge. Her limbs suddenly locked, her body straining and rigid. His kiss deepened. His mouth caught her cries as she shuddered around him, her inner muscles clenching on his shaft. Then he was pumping into her again, hard and fast, gripping her backside to hold her still. He was finally letting go, Ivy realized, and she moved with him, urged him on until he shoved deep, shaking as he pulsed inside her, groaning against her lips. She clung to him, panting, sweating.

And decided that she’d liked it, after all.

Unable to sleep, Eben rose long before the end of first watch. He dressed in his breeches and shirt, and crossed the cabin as quietly as his leg would allow. After pouring brandy, he sat at the window and looked out into the dark sky.

He tried not to think of Ivy. He tried not to think about twenty days from now, when she would leave his ship. He tried not to think about how proving that he was a man of his word meant
keeping
his word . . . and that meant he had to take her home as he’d promised. He tried not to think about the risk she’d taken by accepting him into her body—not because she believed he’d care for her, but because she would be fine without him.

In the few minutes that he managed not to think of those things, he drank his brandy, and tried to think of what might persuade Ivy to call
Vesuvius
her home.

But there were places Eben didn’t dare let his mind wander, where lurking terrors might rise up and swallow him whole. And so he didn’t let himself think about how Ivy deserved so much more than his ship—and how loving her meant that he might have to let her go.

TEN

I
vy had never taken a bath with a revolver at an arm’s length away before.

Though if she were to pick at nits, she hadn’t taken that many baths before—at least, not fully submerged as she was now. A cloth and a bowl of water had always sufficed. But this was better.

With a blissful sigh, she leaned back in the steaming tub, trying to block out the noises from the tavern downstairs. Eben had assured her this Port Fallow inn had the best rooms and food, despite the rough and tumble patrons. Considering that Ivy had never stayed at an inn before, she’d had to take his word for it—and she’d have been happy sleeping in a shanty near the city wall, as long as Eben shared the dirt floor with her.

She glanced at the gun again, then at the door, solidly locked. Eben hadn’t said whether he’d worried more about the patrons or the odd chance that a zombie might make it over the wall and across Amsterdam’s old canals, but he’d been adamant about keeping the weapon with her at all times. Knowing this city, she had to agree. Though she’d only been here a few weeks before she and Netta had flown north to Fool’s Cove, she’d heard about more murders and theft than over the course of a year in London.

And within six days, she’d be in Fool’s Cove again.

A familiar ache settled in her heart—and though she sat in the bath until the water cooled, the pain still hadn’t faded. Every day, it remained for a longer time. She feared that by the time she reached home, the ache would have taken up permanent residence in her chest.

With a sigh, she left the bath. The blue dress that Netta had made for her hung in the wardrobe. Ivy didn’t know what Eben had planned for the evening, but he’d requested that she wear it. She slipped it over her head, and though it fastened in the back, a design that usually required assistance from a maid—or a friend—Ivy had no trouble bending her arms around and maneuvering the tiny hooks. She looked inside the small bag that Eben had given her before he’d left the room. . . .and had to sit on the bed when her knees went weak.

Her heart pounding, she withdrew a pair of silk stockings.
Her
silk stockings, the pair she’d left behind at a London inn, two years before. He’d kept them all this time?

And her elbow, too—but she understood that better. The flange had saved his life. Why keep these?

She fingered the satin ribbons, and hope filled her chest. He’d kept her stockings aboard
Vesuvius
for two years. Perhaps . . . perhaps he’d want her to stay, too.

But what would she
do
? Ivy didn’t want to be part of his crew. And though she’d gladly cover the blacksmith’s duties, she knew the work would occupy her only for a few hours a week—at the most—and provide no challenge at all. Within three months, she could outfit every crew member who needed one with a new and better prosthetic . . . but what then?

The room’s door clicked shut.
Eben.
Facing the wardrobe, Ivy composed herself. She would ask him if she could stay, but . . .

A shiver ran over her skin as realization set in: she hadn’t heard the door unlock and open—and she didn’t hear his distinctive tread.

Oh, blue.
The revolver lay on a chair across the room. Ivy carefully kept her gaze from touching the weapon as she turned, hoping that the intruder wouldn’t look that way, too. Her heart racing, she glanced toward the door.

Lady Corsair stood with her back against the wall, frowning as she took in the blue gown. Her green eyes met Ivy’s. “Barker was right,” she said. “Mad Machen plans to openly court you.”

Ivy’s mouth dropped open.
That
was what this evening was about? Eben didn’t need to do that.

“You didn’t know.” The other woman’s lips pursed. “It must be a last resort. All else has failed, so he tries the old-fashioned method. And the softhearted fool will ruin himself and destroy his crew in the process. God
damm
it, Eben.”

Though Ivy bristled at the insult tossed at him, she couldn’t mistake the emotion behind Lady Corsair’s speech. The woman cared.

So did Ivy. “What would ruin him?”

“You would, Ivy Blacksmith.” A hard smile curved Lady Corsair’s lips. “On the sea, you can never show your belly or your throat, because someone will rip them out. And you are the soft spot that Mad Machen is about to show the world.”

“I see,” Ivy whispered. And she did. Too well.

Lady Corsair studied her face before swearing again. She turned for the door.

“Captain Corsair,” Ivy said, and waited until the woman glanced at her. “You sent four men from your airship to my shop in Fool’s Cove, and failed to pay for my work. I expect to be paid now.”

Black eyebrows arched in disbelief. She laughed. “You’re a cheeky one, blacksmith. But you’re not funny.”

She opened the door. Ivy said, “If you don’t pay me, I’ll head down to the tavern, and spin a story about how you generously offered to pay for your aviators’ prosthetics, and were so pleased with my work that you gave me double. But if you pay me now, I’ll only say that you fooled me, and that I haven’t been able to coax a single denier from your purse.”

Green eyes narrowing, Lady Corsair snapped the door closed and stalked across the room, fingering the handle of the knife sheathed at her thigh. Ivy’s heart careened against her chest with the woman’s every step, but she held her ground, lifting her chin to meet the woman’s gaze.

“I know it’d be easier to kill me,” Ivy said. “Except that Eben’s your soft spot, isn’t he?”

Lady Corsair’s sudden grin should have terrified her—but Ivy knew she was right. She held out her hand.

“Pay me.”

The woman’s grin became something more like a smile. She reached beneath her belt, withdrew a small leather purse, and dropped it into Ivy’s palm.

“It’s all I have with me,” she said. “But it should be enough.”

Ivy couldn’t respond. Her nanoagents had automatically measured the weight in her hand, and she knew exactly how much Lady Corsair had given.

The woman’s sharp smile widened. While Ivy stood dumb-struck, Lady Corsair cupped her hand between Ivy’s legs.

“Funny. I thought for certain the Blacksmith must have added a pair of balls.” She backed toward the door, saluting Ivy as she went. “You’ll do well to keep using those, blacksmith.”

Perhaps Lady Corsair got by using her balls. Ivy preferred her brains.

Her fingers closed over the purse. How strange, to have enough money to buy anything she wanted—and to realize what she wanted most, no amount of money could buy. Mad Machen’s reputation could only be built through stories, though action . . . and it took years.

But there must be
some
way to have him. She just had to figure it out.

I
vy was sitting on the bed, staring at the pile of gold coins on the bedspread when she heard Eben’s key in the lock. He halted halfway through the door, his gaze drinking her in.

“Look at you, Ivy.”

Even with her heart aching, he could make her smile. She smoothed her hand over the blue satin skirt. “Netta is a wonderful seamstress.”

“Perhaps,” he said, closing the door. “But Netta isn’t wearing it. And soon you won’t be, ei—” His step faltered when he saw the pile on the bed. “What is that?”

She heard the rough note in his voice, the worry. She didn’t know what would soothe it, so she told him the truth. “Fifty livre. Lady Corsair paid me for my work. Overpaid me, actually.”

He barked out a hoarse laugh at her understatement. “Why?”

She’d spent the past thirty minutes trying to understand it. “I think . . . so that I wouldn’t ruin you. So that I could go anywhere I wanted to—as long as it was away from you. She said you meant to court me, that you’d be torn apart for being soft, and that it would also destroy your crew. Is that true?”