Linna : Historical Romance (The Brocade Collection, Book 5) (18 page)

He was burning
. How did that happen?

Linna mopped at his brow before wiping along both sides of his face
. The cloth warmed quicker than before. She dipped it rapidly, not wringing it out properly before swishing it atop more of him. He groaned and stiffened as the water splashed him.
He should complain
, she thought, as her chemise got sprinkled liberally, too.

The chest rising and falling beside her,
startled her trailing fingertips. Linna told herself she had to be in contact with him in order to finish. It was too dark to find him otherwise. She slid the cloth across his chest and onto his abdomen, amazed that the muscles seemed to be bunching and moving with each movement of her fingers.

She dipped the rag again, holding onto him with her left hand the entire
time.

Cord groaned
again. Linna shushed him. Her left hand had reached his right side, but she had to lean against him. Her chemise clung to the dampness she’d just put in place on his stomach.

She finished his left side and sat
to dip the rag again. She ran her left hand along his waist. She was flushing brightly enough for ten washings at where she needed to go next.

Her body was the one on fire now.

Linna moved her hand along his upper thigh, gasping as she came into contact with his arousal. Cord’s groan was longer and more protracted this time. Despite everything, she bumped her hand against him again, pushed him to one side, and was intrigued when he swayed right back upright. Linna left off her ministrations on his arm and shifted closer. She brought her right hand to join her left, enwrapping his shaft, not stopping to think. Her motions might as well have been gifted from years of practice as she ran her hands over him, feeling every ridge, every bump, every nuance.

The groan this time didn’t come from him, it came from her
. She couldn’t stop it. Her mouth was open to snag each breath, her knees were pinching together over and over, her breasts were heavy with longing, and her most private area was in an agony of want. Desire.

Lust.

“Yes,” Cord whispered.

Linna froze in place
, her eyes wide. She released him and hung her head.
Dearest God, what am I doing?
She deserved better than to take advantage of a sick man on his sickbed, especially
this
man. Sweet heaven, he didn’t even want her. He’d had to be paid!

She set her teeth and dipped her rag again
. She was no better than that Simons, she told herself...ambushing an ill man!

This time,
she used quick, efficient motions as she ran the cloth along his thigh and over his knee, following her left hand’s guidance. Cord groaned again, the sound deeper. Fuller. She set her shoulders. The chemise felt like it was strangling skin as she reached to rinse his other leg. Wet material tormented every nerve ending, causing her to writhe and pulse against it. She hovered at his feet, perched atop his thighs, and leaned forward, pressing her forehead into an ankle. She couldn’t do what her body wanted. It was unthinkable. Detestable. Wrong. Nothing she tried worked. He was too close. Too warm. All she had to do was reach behind her…

This
was excruciating.

She had to finish
and get move from him. That was the only way. She had to complete her ministrations and get as far away from him as she could. She had to.

“
Oh, Lord. Help me.”

She whispered it against the space her head was pressed to, then turned her face into him
. God wasn’t helping her. Nobody was. Linna pursed her lips and kissed the inside of Cord’s ankle. He jumped slightly. She shouldn’t do this. She couldn’t. She mustn’t.

She wasn’t a fancy woman
. She didn’t have lusts. Passions.
Oh. Why was nothing working?
Linna didn’t know how to stop this. She’d never felt such desire. Need. Craving.

She licked at him
. He tasted salty…very pleasant. Her tongue experienced and reported every bit of it. Linna pressed her bosom into his thighs as she lapped at him, scraping her nipples against the hardness of thigh muscles. It wasn’t enough, though. She realized it even as he said her name along with a plea.

“Linna...please
? Linna....”

Perhaps he was
n’t fully conscious, but he was begging her. Didn’t that make it all right?

“Linna...please?”

She swiveled neatly, the motion sending her chemise to her waist, all so she could shove her loins into his knee. This was driving her crazy. It was doing worse for him if the noises gurgling from his throat were any indicator.

She’d thought his thrashing earlier had been strong
. There was no comparison to his movements now. He was nearly rolling over each time he tossed. Linna was hard put to hold on. The storm raging outside couldn’t measure against the tempest she was experiencing. She couldn’t even halt the cries. Linna shuddered through a space of ecstasy with her eyes so tightly shut, lightning speared through them.

When the evidence of his need came into contact with her cheek, not only was she ready, but Cord arched up in such a taut bow, she had to put her hand on his abdomen to force him back down
. She no longer cared if it was a ravishment or villainous or evil. She only knew need. She needed to feel his hard length inside of her, and she needed it now.

She found him and
held him in place. Cord was still groaning, although it came in little panting breaths. He hadn’t loosened any of his frame. She didn’t want him to. She wanted to feel every bit of the hardness that was Cord Larket against every bit of her.

Linna climbed, gripp
ed her knees to both sides of his hips, and she slid onto him, releasing a gush of sensation. Cord wasn’t weak. And he wasn’t lax. He was more than eager. Willing. Linna didn’t question it. She rocked atop him, gaining in tempo, but felt the exact moment when he bucked his hips in response. She was attune to her own experience. The sensations. She was alive with them. She tossed her head back to gain breath. Send cries out. Grip tighter. Feel more. Experience harder. She rose with him, thrashing into him over and over, and careening through a vortex of wonder so many times, that she almost missed his release.

Cord
slammed into her again and again, lifting her. Dropping with her. Lifting. Dropping. Again and again. Linna clung. Shivered. Gyrated. And enjoyed. And when he reached his own paradise, everything about him went taut, while a deep, almost agonized cry emitted from his throat, filling the room with the low tones. It was guttural. Masculine. Passionate. Enthralling. Linna didn’t think it through. She bent forward to reach his neck, and latched onto his skin. And sucked. Hard. And experienced every heavy thud of his heartbeat that way.

This couldn’t be wrong
. It was amazing. Awe-inspiring. Massive. Everything felt exactly right. Exactly. Linna shushed her mind. Tomorrow was soon enough for regrets. She had just ravished a man at the height of his illness. Even if she had the right, she shouldn’t have done it.

She continued sucking on his neck, keeping him exactly where she wanted
– buried deep. She didn’t care if she marked him. She didn’t care about anything. She’d worry about all of it tomorrow. Everything could just wait until then.

Cord
finished his palpitations and dropped, his chest and abdomen twitching randomly where they touched. Linna unlocked her mouth and lapped at the spot, tasting heaven, even as she knew she had to stop. Move away. Distance herself. Oh! But it had been wonderful. Fulfilling. Her entire body feel sated. Soft. Serene. If only…

If only he hadn’t been paid to bed her
. If only he were different. If only he’d been who he said he was. Then everything would be different. She wouldn’t have to hide her desire for him. Or what she’d just done. Linna lifted her head and looked toward where his head should be. Nothing but darkness met her gaze. And then she felt and heard his breathing. Evenly and deeply. As if he slept.

Maybe he
hadn’t gained full awareness. He didn’t act as if anything had happened. That was a good sign. Perhaps he’d think it a fever-induced dream. She smiled while moving her eyebrows up and down before disengaging, separating them. She rolled to kneel on the floor beside him, pulled her chemise hem back down to her knees where it belonged, and then she considered her options. She hadn’t many. He was so warm, and he had the quilt. It didn’t take long to induce herself to snuggle back against him.

Well.

Her ministrations had been unorthodox, but they seemed to have worked. Cord wasn’t remotely hot anymore. Linna settled into space beside him and pulled the quilt atop them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Morning came too soon, she decided, as sunlight touched on her exposed foot. With morning, came too much of everything else. Linna groaned as time and place returned. She barely kept from awakening the giant at her side. She rolled from the safe, secure haven he’d created for her within the shelter of his frame and immediately felt the chill being away from him caused.

Has the fever returned
? She dropped to kiss his forehead. Her flush, should he awaken was followed by her amazement that she’d remembered that small bit of nursing knowledge from somewhere. Someone, at some time, had told her the best way to gauge a temperature was to touch your lips to it.

It must be true, for Cord’s brow was the same temperature as her lips
. His eyes were just as gray-green as always, too. Linna’s gaze skittered away as he caught her, teetering on her hands and knees, with her lips bare inches from him.

“Good morn to you, too,” he whispered, before lifting his head, preparatory to touching his lips to hers.

Linna barely avoided the kiss and swayed back on her haunches. “I was testing your fever,” she told the floor.

“Very good methods you have, too
. You have my heartfelt gratitude.” 

Linna dared another glance but couldn’t hold it
. He was too all-knowing smug, too gloriously muscled, and altogether too handsome, to bandy light words. Her throat felt tight, her heart heavy, and her eyes filled with tears despite everything she tried. She couldn’t face him. Not yet. Not until she had her emotions under control. She should have known she was no match for the gorgeous man who’d shoved his way into her life and completely upended it. She should have known and run in the other direction.

She didn’t want to feel anything for him - especially this soft emotion that she desperately hop
ed wasn’t love. It just couldn’t be. Linna Daniels didn’t know the meaning of the word! She’d been accused of that oft enough. It should be true. What a fool she’d been. She was very afraid that not only did she know the meaning, she’d caught a full-fledged case of it. All of which was too raw, too strange, and too fragile to address. Linna didn’t dare look at him.

“How...do you feel?” she mumbled
.

He stretched beneath the quilt, drawing her glance, before he put both hands behind his head and lay back to look at the ceiling
. “Why?” he asked.

“What do you mean, why?” she put her best sarcasm into the question and wasn’t surprised when he slid his gaze to her
. She quickly moved to look at the cabin wall behind him.

“Why do you care?”

Why do I care
?
Wouldn’t he like to know
! She shrugged very carefully. “You’ve been ill and I’ve been nursing you. That’s why.”

“That what you call it?” he paused after the low-tone words before continuing
. “Nursing?”

Linna blushed, then felt it recede
. She was probably as pale as she felt. The opposite side of the cabin blurred for a moment. “You—you had a fever...all night last. And yesterday. You were barely conscious. I took care of you.”

“
Oh. I’ll bet you did,” he replied.

Linna felt her stomach sink
. It wasn’t pleasant. She opened her mouth to answer him with anything that came to mind, but nothing did, so she shut her lips and twisted the lace at her chemise hem.

“I’ve never been ill,” he whispered, more to the ceiling than to her
.

“You already said that.”

“When?”

“The first night, I think
. When that Simons was first ejected.”

“You had him ejected
? That’s interesting.”

He was probably looking toward her, and her legs were getting stiff from perching on her heels
. Linna wondered at her next course. She couldn’t stay crouched at his side, in little more than her underclothes. It was conducive to things she didn’t dare think of. Especially with as little as he was wearing. And with as well as he was doing it.

She knew he was watching her, and that heightened everything
. There wasn’t any place on him it was safe to look. And nothing in the room to focus on. She was trying to deny the effects of being in such close proximity to this man, and it just wasn’t possible. It had something to do with that physique, those perfectly chiseled features, his straight black-brown hair, perfect lips, absorbing gray-green eyes. It wasn’t entirely her fault that she....

“So, how did he take it?” he asked.

“Who?”  She wasn’t pretending confusion. Her entire being was in that state.

“Simons
. You ejected him, remember?”

“Oh
. I didn’t eject anyone,” she informed him. “The captain did.”

He sighed hugely and she watched the quilt slip
. “Captain Watkins doesn’t even know where this part of his ship is, and I seriously doubt he’d put out the effort to check on a lowly seaman. Try again.”

“Are you inferring...something?”

“I already told you, I never infer. It’s a waste of breath. Captain Watkins is a sot and a lady’s worse nightmare...or not. I guess it depends on what a lady is looking for.”

“I’m telling you he was here,” Linna told the wall beyond him.

“Wasn’t. I’d have remembered. Fletch was here, though. Is that who you mean?”

“Fletch...
? As in...?” 
Oh no! That really was Rex Fletcher?
She was going to faint. Linna held her hands to her cheeks to hide. She’d actually stood next to the man who’d ruined her life and treated him with respect and dignity? Worse yet, she’d spent the previous day in his cabin, unburdening herself to him for three solid hours, figuring prominently on what a horrid creature he was...and he’d said nothing?

“Rex Fletcher owns this ship, darlin’
. Actually, he owns several of them. If he chooses to wear a captain’s uniform and parade as one, I suppose he has his reasons. Since you were all het-up to go and make trouble for me, I’m pretty sure I know what he listened to from you. It’s almost laughable, if I felt up to that sort of thing right now.”

“I hate you.”  The tears that rose to her eyes scalded before they slipped out
. She’d never felt so stupid or naive or ill-used.

“Sure you do
. You proved it last night, too.”

Linna was so grateful she had her hands over her face, she
could have cried again for that luxury. He couldn’t see the reaction.
He knows? Oh, dear God.
The possibility was so horrid, she felt new tears prickling at her eyes. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t the type that cried.

Linna shoved the heels of her hands to her eyes and held them there until the torrent was under control
. He was fishing. He didn’t know. He hadn’t been aware. He wasn’t awake. He wasn’t. He didn’t know of her lack of self-control, he didn’t know of her feelings, he didn’t know anything. As close to hovering between wakefulness and unconsciousness as he had been, he’d couldn’t possibly recall it, except perhaps as a dream. She shuddered in a breath, released it, and took another.

She told herself he
couldn’t remember anything. And she’d never admit to it. Never.

She pulled her hands away from her face, put on her most innocent expression and looked toward him
. “Nothing happened last night,” she said, moving her lips to make the words through her teeth.

“Right.”  He lifted his eyebrows
.

A light ringing sound filtered through her ears
. Linna ignored it. “Are you arguing with me?”

“I’m agreeing with you, lady
. If you choose to tell stories, who am I do dispute them?”

“Nothing happened.”

“If it was nothing, it was nice. That’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“What does that mean?”

He shrugged and sat up farther, leaning on his arms. Linna was afraid of the expression on her face as the quilt dropped into his lap. She knew it was there though, and that he saw. His smile showed it. She narrowed her eyes. The slit of sunlight carving over his shoulder only molded more of him with shadows.

“Why don’t I
just state the obvious then. You desire me. And I definitely desire you.”

“I do not!” she interjected.

He pulled his knees up and rested his elbows on them, lifting the quilt near his ankles and offering her a very good view, if she glanced that way. She didn’t. His movement placed him dangerously close to her. Linna didn’t have enough control of her own reaction. She couldn’t fault him for knowing it as her mouth dropped open.

“
Let me repeat it. You desire me. I desire you.”  He reached out and used his index finger on her chin to push her mouth back together. Linna actually watched him and couldn’t find one iota of protest. “I’m hampered in pursuit of this mutual desire by our bargain. You aren’t.”

“Bargain?” she whispered.

He moved his finger away with a trace of reluctance. Linna couldn’t move her gaze, her body, anything.

“I’m not allowed to touch you
. Do you know how that feels?”

She shook her head.

“I think you’re the most sensual woman I’ve ever met, and I’ve met plenty. You make my blood feel like it’s boiling unless I find a way to appease it. I want to bury myself as deeply as I can in you, any time I can, as many times as I can. It’s as natural as breathing. I don’t bother denying it. You shouldn’t either.”

The ringing in her ears subsid
ed. Linna wondered if it was because of his words or how hard she was listening. He wasn’t speaking in a lover-like tone, although the words held that quality and more. He was talking more as if he hated what he was saying.

“You’re also incredibly beautiful
. More so than your portrait, although I wouldn’t have believed it. The sun right now, for instance, it’s making your skin a pink-pearly sort of color and shadowing just a bit into where that damned shift is holding to you. Right...here.”

He moved to dip a forefinger into her cleavage but stopped just shy of touching her
. She was held by his gaze but could see the twitch of his shoulder and right arm as he just held his hand there, close enough she could feel his heat but not touching. Linna couldn’t believe how much she wanted him to. Her entire body seemed poised for him, like the morning glories opened for the sun, only it wasn’t happening.

“
But…see there? I’m not going to touch you. No matter how I want to, I can’t do it. Only you can. That’s the bargain I made. It’s the bargain I’ll keep, as a gentleman. I only wish I was as barbaric as you imply. Do you see what I mean now?”

She gulped and nodded slightly.

“Release me, Linna.”

She shook her head slightly and watched the hardening of his lips and the brown of his eyes enlarge just before he narrowed them.

“Please?” he whispered.

Linna swayed backwards on legs that had lost their feeling from sitting on them so long
. He moved onto his hands and knees in order to follow her. The blanket fell away, but she only saw it with a peripheral view. She couldn’t move her eyes from his. He crawled closer and she fell, bruising her rump and her elbows as she landed.

“I’m begging you, Linna love
. Please? It’ll feel so good. I promise.”

His voice was as hypnotic as the rest of him as he hovered over her
. His breath against her throat was telling her everything he was going to do to her, if she would just say the words.

“I
—” she began, only to lose the intention at the feel of his heated breath below her ear.

“Say it, love
. Say the words. Release me from the bargain. Please?”

Linna actually welcomed the sting of returning sensation to her calves, gifting her sanity back just when she needed it most
. It certainly wasn’t the feel of his chest on her palms when she reached up to hold him from her.

“I can’t,” she managed to choke out, as what could only be his tongue slid along the edge of her jaw and down her neck.

“Just say yes then. It’ll mean the same. Say it, Linna, say it. Please? Release me...release us.”

He hadn’t raised his voice, he’d actually lowered it
. The husky timbre was infiltrating her consciousness and making her as wanton as she’d felt last night.

“I...can’t,” she repeated.

“Why not? Tell me why.”

He’d reached the other side of her jaw and was feathering every nerve ending
with an eroticism only he wielded. Linna suspected if it hadn’t been for the needle-like ache in her limbs, she’d have been answering with exactly what he wanted.
Face it, Linna
, she admitted to herself,
just bloody face it
! She would have been the one begging.

“Why not, love
? Why?”

“B-because...you took gold.” she stammered.