Deception (31 page)

“I did not start this quarrel.” Jared abruptly took
his boots down off her desk and got to his feet. He towered over her. “You did.”

“I did not.” Olympia refused to draw back.

“Yes, you did. I was sitting alone down here, minding my own affairs, when you came traipsing through that door a moment ago.”

“This is our wedding night,” Olympia said through her teeth. “You should have been upstairs with me. I should not have had to come down here to look for you.”

Jared flattened his hands on the desk and leaned closer. “Tell me why you agreed to marry me, Olympia.”

“You know the answer to that.” Passionate outrage swept through Olympia. “I married you because you are the only man I have ever wanted. The only man whose touch fills me with desire. The only man who understands me. The only man who does not think me odd. Jared, you have given life to my very dreams. How could I not want to marry you, you bloody pirate?”

A thundering hush settled on the room. Olympia felt as though she had just stepped off a very high bridge above a roaring, fathomless torrent.

“Ah,” Jared said softly. “Well, there is that, I suppose.” He reached for her.

And caught her just as she plummeted into the sea of passion that cascaded over them both.

The instant he touched her, Jared felt the fine rage within Olympia transform itself into an even grander passion.

You have brought my very dreams to life
.

No woman had ever said such things to him, Jared thought. No woman had ever wanted him like this.

Nothing seemed to shake Olympia’s desire for him. She had wanted him when she thought him a lowly tutor. She had wanted him after she had discovered his true identity. She had continued to want him even though she had every reason to believe that he was after the same thing
she sought, the secret of the Lightbourne diary. She was not interested in his titles or his fortune.

She wanted him.

It was more than he had ever thought to have, Jared realized. But it was not quite enough. It would never be enough. The real treasure still eluded him, although he could not name it.

Still, he had never been so close or had so much. A wise man took what he could get and counted himself fortunate.

A pirate held on to what he had seized and let the future take care of itself.

Jared hauled Olympia across the desk. He gathered her into his arms and sank back down onto the chair. She tumbled against him, warm and fragrant and vibrant with flowering desire.

“Jared.” Olympia wound her arms around his neck and crushed her mouth softly against his. A low, sensual moan escaped her lips.

Jared touched her gently rounded calf where it was exposed by the hiked-up skirts of her nightgown and wrapper. For some reason the memory of the first time he had seen her in her library, struggling to free herself from Draycott’s unwanted touch flashed into his mind.

Olympia did not want any other man’s touch, Jared thought. Only his.

Only his
.

He felt her mouth opening for him, inviting him inside where it was moist and close and dark. Jared pierced the depths, reveling in the intimacy of the drugging kiss. Olympia trembled. Her tongue touched his with the eagerness of a small, curious cat.

He tightened his fingers around her leg and then slid his hand up along her thigh. Her skin made him think of rose petals. She was so soft.

He, on the other hand, was hard and taut and
straining toward the ultimate possession. His hands trembled with the force of his need.

Jared eased his fingers between Olympia’s thighs. She gasped, tore her mouth free from his, and buried her face against his shoulder.

And then she parted her legs a little for him.

“Yes,” Jared muttered. He cupped the wet heat of her and thought he would shatter. She moved restlessly against his hand and he groaned against her mouth.

The heady scent of her desire enticed him, lured him, bound him to her with the power of a magical spell.

“Siren.”

Olympia cried out softly when he found the small pearl between her legs. Her nails became delicate claws as she clung to his shoulders. His fingers grew damp.

Jared parted the chintz wrapper and untied the collar of the prim lawn nightgown. He freed the sweet fruit of Olympia’s breasts and took a small, careful bite.

Olympia convulsed with longing. “Jared, I cannot bear it.”

She seized his face between her soft palms and kissed him with a wild, sweet passion that seemed as uncontrollable as the wind. Jared inhaled sharply when he felt the firm, lush curve of her buttocks pressing against his erect shaft.

One of Olympia’s hands was inside his shirt now, stroking him, tugging gently at the curling hair on his chest. She wriggled lower, tasting him with her tongue as she worked her way down his body.

Jared felt her start to slide out of his lap. He held her more tightly so that she would not slip to the floor. And then he realized she was trying to unfasten his breeches.

He sucked in his breath and swiftly performed the task for her. And then he was free. He heard Olympia’s
soft exclamation as he thrust himself into her fingers. She touched him with feminine awe.

“I love the feel of you,” Olympia whispered. Her fingers tightened softly around him. “So fierce and proud and powerful.”

Her words and her touch nearly sent Jared over an invisible edge. It was as if all the breath had suddenly been squeezed out of him. He closed his eyes and waged a violent battle to avoid spilling his seed into her gentle hands.

It was the first time she had touched him so intimately and he was not certain he would ever recover from the experience.

He was not certain that he even wished to recover.

Jared felt Olympia slide all the way down onto the floor. And then she was kneeling in front of him, cradled between his thighs. He lifted his lashes and looked down at her.

She was gazing intently at his throbbing manhood.

“Olympia?”

She did not seem to hear him. Her fingers touched him with increasing wonder. “You are so magnificent, Jared. So exciting. Like a mighty hero from an ancient legend.”

“Bloody hell,” Jared whispered. “You make me feel like one.” His hands clenched very tightly in her hair. He was barely aware of her lace cap falling to the floor.

Olympia threaded her fingers through the dark, curling hair of his groin. She turned her head and kissed the inside of his thigh.

“Enough.”
Jared knew he could not stand any more of the sensual torment.

He got out of the chair and sprawled on the carpet. With a low, hoarse exclamation he pulled Olympia down on top of him.

“Jared? I do not understand.” Olympia braced herself
against his bare chest. She looked down at him with earnest confusion mingled with shimmering excitement.

Jared tugged her legs alongside his hips so that she straddled him. “’Tis a common custom among the inhabitants of several—” Jared broke off and ground his teeth together to keep from exploding. The moist, warm opening of her body was lodged against the broad tip of his shaft. “Among the, ah, inhabitants of certain foreign lands.”

Olympia blinked and then her slow smile filled with a wise, womanly comprehension. She lowered herself cautiously until he was firmly lodged at the very entrance of her feminine passage. “Which lands would those be, Mr. Chillhurst? You know I am ever eager to learn new facts.”

Jared looked up at her, saw the delightfully wicked, thoroughly sensual laughter in her eyes and grinned. “Remind me to make a list for you later, Miss Wingfield.”

“If it would not be too much trouble.”

“Not at all. I’m a tutor, if you recall. And I am very good at making lists.”

He locked his hands around her hips and thrust himself upward with a swift, sure movement that took Olympia by surprise.

“Jared.”
Her eyes widened with amazement and then narrowed again with heightened desire. “A most interesting custom.”

“I thought you would find it quite fascinating.” Jared traced the curve of her thighs with his hands. “I certainly do.”

He could barely get the words out. His entire body was responding to the siren’s song. He was rigid with desire, desperate with it. Olympia was snug and hot and wet. She wrapped herself around him, enveloped him, made him a part of her.

For these few minutes while he was lodged deep within her, Jared knew he was not alone. He was with the one other person in the world who could touch his very soul. The one who could rescue him from his lonely island.

“My lovely siren. My wife.”

Olympia cried out. She shivered and her body tightened unbearably around Jared.

Then she was singing her high, sweet, siren’s song, the song she sang only for him. He thrust himself into her one last time and abandoned himself to the wild, uncharted seas.

  “Fireworks,” Jared mumbled.

Olympia stirred. She was lying on top of Jared’s hard, damp body, her legs tangled with his, her hair flowing across his chest in a red wave.

“What did you say?” Olympia asked politely.

“Making love to you tonight was like being in the middle of a display of fireworks.” Jared gathered a fistful of her hair in his powerful hand and studied it in the candlelight. He smiled slowly. “You are a siren of many talents. You can seduce me even as you argue with me.”

Olympia chuckled. “No offense, my lord, but you are remarkably easy to seduce.”

His smile vanished. “Only by you.”

She was vaguely startled by his sudden mood shift this time. Probably because she herself was feeling so relaxed and content. She met his single-eyed gaze and once again she had the sensation that some inner veil had been momentarily pulled aside. She found herself peering past the calm facade he presented
to
the world into the tempestuous depths of his passionate soul.

“I am pleased to hear that, Jared, because it is the
same with me,” she said gently. “You are the only man I have ever wanted in this fashion.”

“We are well and truly wed now,” he said very quietly, as though sealing an invisible pact. “There is no going back for either of us.”

“I understand. That is what I was trying to tell you earlier.”

“Ah, yes. Your little lecture on how we are stuck with each other and must make the best of the situation.”

She flushed beneath his mockery. “I was only trying to put a practical face on the matter.”

“Leave the practical and the mundane to me,” he said. “I am very good at handling that sort of thing.”

Olympia frowned, “ft is very odd, is it not?”

“What?”

“That you are so very clever with practical matters when it is obvious that you are a man of strong emotions. Your powers of self-restraint are most impressive, my lord.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I do try to control myself for the most part.”

She smiled approvingly. “Yes, you do. And you are successful a great deal of the time. Jared?”

“Hmm?”

She touched the black band that secured his velvet eye patch. “You have never told me how you lost the sight in your eye.”

“It is not a very edifying tale.”

“Nevertheless, I would like to hear it. I want to know everything about you.”

Jared laced his fingers through her hair. “I have two cousins, Charles and William, who have spent a great portion of their lives living up to the family reputation.”

“What do you mean?”

“They are likable enough, but they are reckless,
rash, and a damn nuisance for the most part. When they were fourteen and sixteen, respectively, they decided to engage in the free-trade. They fell in with a smuggler who was doing business with the French.”

“What happened?”

“I learned of their plans on the very night they were to begin plying their new trade. My father and uncle were in Italy on some hare-brained venture. My aunt came to me. She begged me to see to it that Charles and William did not get hurt.”

“How old were you?”

“Nineteen.”

“So you … Did something go wrong that night?” Olympia asked uneasily.

Jared’s mouth curved in disgust. “Of course something went wrong. Things usually go wrong when any of my family hatch one of their idiotic plans. In this particular instance the problem was the captain of the vessel which had brought the smuggled goods across the channel.”

“What did he do?”

“After my cousins had unloaded the ship and gotten the goods safely stowed ashore, the captain decided he no longer required their assistance. Nor did he wish to split the profits with two young boys. He decided to take possession of the goods and leave no witnesses.”

Olympia stared in horror at Jared’s sightless eye. “He tried to kill them?”

“I arrived just as he was about to shoot Charles. My cousins had no weapons. I had brought along my father’s dagger.” Jared paused. “Fortunately, he had taught me how to use it. Unfortunately, the ship’s captain had had more experience than I in knife fighting. He took my eye with his first lunge.”

“Good lord,” Olympia whispered. “It must have been a very near thing. You could have been killed.”

Jared lifted his gaze from her hair to her face. He gave her a strange smile. “But, as you see, I was not. And neither were my cousins. All’s well that ends well, siren.”

Olympia hugged him fiercely. “You must not take such chances ever again, Jared.”

“I assure you, I have no particular liking for such situations,” Jared muttered. “I certainly do not seek them out.”

Olympia held him closely. “Jared, whenever I think of what that night cost you—”

“Do not think of it.” Jared framed her face with his hands. “Do you comprehend me? Do not think of it and do not raise the subject again.”

“But, Jared—”

“Olympia, it is finished. It was finished fifteen years ago. This is the first time I have spoken of the matter to anyone since the night it happened. I do not wish to speak of it again.”

She touched his hard jaw with gentle understanding. “He died, didn’t he? You were forced to kill that man who tried to murder you and your cousins. That is why you do not wish to speak of what happened that night.”