His eyes closed as she touched one finger to the bridge of his nose. With deliberate slowness, she traced the uneven, bronzed slope with her fingertip. His breathing grew husky. At last she broke the contact. He kept his eyes closed.
She ran a thumb across his left eyebrow, then drew a bold line from his temple to his cheekbone. His skin was softer than she’d expected, and oddly cool beneath her fingertips. She dragged her fingers down into the rough growth of beard along his jaw, flattening her hand to let the bristles rasp against the sensitive skin of her palm.
He drew a ragged breath that verged on a groan, but his eyes remained shut. He held perfectly still.
Something hot and hungry surged through Sophia’s veins. Desire, mingled with the heady thrill of power. She traced the contours of his brow, skimmed over the soft, vulnerable curves of his eyelids. His lashes, long and curved as a child’s, trembled under her touch, and a sweet pang of tenderness swelled in her heart. She followed the circumference of his face, running one fingertip down to the cleft of his chin, then climbing the thin scar slanting to the corner of his mouth. He exhaled roughly, and Sophia felt the heat of his breath swirling through her blood. Emboldened, she slid her thumb along the ridge of his lower lip.
His hand shot up to capture hers, holding it pressed against his cheek. He looked up at her mournfully, his hair mussed and his breathing labored.
Oh, yes. Fluster accomplished.
“Gray.” She leaned closer, the damp fabric of her shift tangling around her thighs.
He tensed. “Don’t do this. I’ll only hurt you.”
“I’m not an innocent, Gray. I know what you want. Can’t you tell I want it, too?” She leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I could show you colors. Colors like you’ve never dreamed. The cool blue of my eyes …” She blew gently over his neck and watched the tendon there go rigid. “The golden silk of this hair …” She wound a stray lock around her finger and brushed it over his cheek.
“Sweetheart …”
Sophia hovered above him, bringing her lips within an inch of his. “I could teach you the taste of perfect, luscious, rose-petal pink.”
He shook his head, almost imperceptibly. “I said I wouldn’t pursue you.”
“Is that so? Well, as it happens, I’m tired of being pursued. I’m rather enjoying taking the other role.”
“Sweet, believe me, I’m not worth pursuing. And if I …” He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again. “If I let this happen, I never will be. I gave my word, and for once I want to keep it. I’m a scoundrel, by trade and vocation, and I’m all wrong for a girl like you.”
“A girl like me? But I’m already ruined.”
“Ruined? Because you’ve known pleasure? There’s nothing about you that’s ruined. You’re young and beautiful and full of dreams. You’re exquisite.” He touched her face. “Perfect.”
Tears pricked at her eyes. Such sweet words. How she wished she deserved them.
His fingers caught a stray lock of her hair. “This tutor who attempted to ruin you, he was clearly an amateur. But sweet … to my shame, I’ve had a great deal of practice. I’m trying to go respectable. I’m trying to be a better man.”
“You’re trying to be someone you’re not. And it’s making you miserable.” She pressed her free hand to his other cheek, framing his face between her palms. “You do have the face of a scoundrel …”
“You see me clearly, then.”
“But what of the man beneath? There’s so much more to you, I know it. I
feel
it. A passion for life. Such strength …” Hooking her fingers under his collar, she slid her palm toward his muscled shoulder. “And this heart.” Her fingers strayed lower over his chest, grazing the border of his scar.
He winced. With a low growl, he pulled her hands away. “Sweetheart, I …” He released a gruff sigh, and his face shuttered. “I can’t.”
“I see.” Sophia sat up, feeling the sting of defeat.
“I’m sorry.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “You can’t imagine how sorry.”
“You
should
be sorry.” She put a hand on either arm of his chair and balanced above him. If he bent his head, it would rest on the waiting pillows of her breasts. He looked quite aware of that fact. “Very … very … sorry.”
Sophia returned to her chair with a playful flounce, hoping to conceal the manner in which her thighs still quivered and her heart ached. “All right, then,” she said lightly, taking up her palette and coating her brush with paint. “I will finish my painting. You may go back to your book.”
She kept her attention focused on the canvas before her. In her peripheral vision, however, she could see that Gray’s book remained closed on the table. She could hear his breathing, slow and thick. Even in this hot house of a cabin, she could feel his radiant male heat burning through her thin muslin gown and chemise.
The task of appearing unaffected by this open lust grew increasingly difficult. After a few minutes, her arm ached from clutching the palette so tightly. Sophia laid both palette and paintbrush on the table and began to knead the spot where her neck met her shoulder, massaging the sore knot of muscle there. The tendrils of hair against her neck were damp with perspiration.
“Touch yourself for me.”
Sophia froze. Her heart stopped beating. Surely she hadn’t heard what she thought she’d—
“You heard me.” His chair slid around the table to rest beside hers. “I promised I wouldn’t touch you. So touch yourself for me.”
Her pulse roared back to life, and the pounding rhythm of her heart echoed in dull, forceful beats at the apex of her thighs. Sophia shut her eyes. The suggestion was shocking and thrilling and altogether unspeakable. Impossible. She had to think of a response. A scathing set-down to dash cold water over his ardor. Over hers. She had to douse this wild passion coursing through her veins.
But there was no cold water. Only hot, liquid desire beading on her forehead, trickling down between her breasts. She’d begun this game of bluffing. She could hardly back down now, when losing the game meant losing
him
.
As if they moved of their own accord, her fingers left the crest of her shoulder and slowly wandered down the lace-edged slope of her neckline.
“
Yes
.” The soft hiss of the word slid over her skin like a caress. “Yes. Touch them for me.”
Her nipples puckered instantly, drawing to hard peaks against her chemise. She hesitated, eyes still tightly shut. Her breath heaved in her chest, lifting the top of her breast against her fingers with each inhalation.
“Yes, sweet. Touch them for me. Five-and-twenty days we’ve been on this ship. Four-and-twenty nights I’ve dreamt of cupping those breasts in my hands. I’m aching to hold them, to feel them firm and round and soft under my fingers. God, they’re so soft, aren’t they, sweetheart? Just like your hands, your wrists, your lips. You’re so soft, soft as petals all over.”
The deep baritone of his voice rumbled through her, each word setting off a tremor in her core. Sophia bit her bottom lip to keep it from quivering. Curling her fingers around the fabric of her dress and chemise, she dragged them over her shoulder and slowly down, until the neckline would stretch no further. She dipped her fingers under the fabric and lifted her breast, liberating the damp, heavy globe from her bodice. Hot air swirled over her nipple. She shivered, imagining it to be his breath.
He was silent for a moment that stretched into an age. Sophia kept her eyes clamped shut, dying a slow, quiet death of exposure and shame. What on earth was she doing, exposing her breast to this man? So wanton, so loose. He’d known she would do it. He’d encouraged her just to tease. To regain the upper hand. If she opened her eyes, he’d be smirking at her. Mocking her.
“Dear God,” he finally breathed. “You are so beautiful. So perfect. Smooth and fair and creamy and round. And sweet, oh sweet. It’s as though I can taste you. Touch your nipple for me.”
Hardly believing what she was doing, Sophia dragged her thumb over the straining peak. White light burst through the darkness behind her eyelids.
“Yes,” he groaned. “Do it again.”
She obeyed.
“Again. God, I want to lick you there. I want to run my tongue around and around and then pull you into my mouth and suckle you hard. Tug on it, sweet. Yes, just like that. I want to lose myself in that softness and feel your arms around me while I suckle you until you moan.”
Sophia rolled her nipple between her thumb and forefinger, imagining his strong, rough hands on her. His lips and tongue caressing her, sucking her. Her breath rushed out in a long, low sigh.
“Yes, louder. Moan for me. Let me hear you.”
Moaning, Sophia cupped her other breast through the fabric of her dress, teasing the taut, hidden bud.
“I want to touch you. All of you. I want to see and stroke every perfect, beautiful inch of you. Your breasts. Your navel. The backs of your knees. Every last toe. I want to taste you all over. Lick that powder you use right off of your skin. I want to know every secret, hidden part of you. I want to know how it is that you smell like a damned rosebush in the middle of the ocean.”
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. He groaned. “Oh, sweet. If you knew what you do to me. I’m aching for you.”
It occurred to Sophia that he might be touching himself, too. Perhaps it ought to have shocked her, that thought. Instead, it drove her to a new peak of excitement. She slid down in her chair, her legs falling apart slightly. Between her thighs, she felt achy and hot. Drenched with sweat and desire.
“Lift your skirts,” came the hoarse command. “Let me see you. I have to see you.”
Lost in a dark haze of passion, Sophia was past thinking, past shame. Her hands slid from her breasts to the tops of her thighs. She fisted her hands in the thin muslin and slowly hitched the fabric up, baring her ankles. Then her calves.
“More. Higher.”
She obeyed, rucking the muslin up over her knees, smoothing one palm against her sensitive inner thigh.
“Oh, sweet Heaven. Look at you. No stockings, no garters. No drawers, either? Tell me there are no drawers.”
She arched her spine slightly, her head lolling against the back of the chair. She skimmed her hand higher to bare the smooth expanse of her thigh.
He released a ragged sigh. “No drawers, either. I’ll never take you back to England now. This is how I want you, always. Here, in the tropical heat—no petticoats, no stockings, no drawers. Ready for me at any time. And you are ready for me, aren’t you, sweet? You’re so hot and wet. God, how I want to taste you. You’re delicious, even from here.”
Sophia’s heart was pounding so hard, she feared it would explode. Her head spun, dizzy with heat. Her mouth fell open. She was panting. She felt shameless and sensual and more boldly feminine than she’d ever felt in her life.
“Touch yourself for me.” His voice took on a new urgency, grew rough and demanding. “You know the place, I know you do. Touch yourself for me.”
His voice held her in such thrall, she was powerless to disobey, even if she’d wanted to. But she didn’t want to. She wanted to do everything he told her. She wanted to be here, always, in this sultry tropical fog of desire, and let him do what ever he would with her. Her fingers brushed over the damp nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs, parting the slick folds of her sex to find that swollen, sensitive bit of flesh.
“Oh yes, sweet. Do it for me. I want to taste you there. I want to be in you, feel you tight and clasping around me. I want you moaning for me. Under me. On top of me. I want to have you in every way known to man, and then invent a dozen more. Touch it for me. Imagine it’s me there, touching you. In you.”
The climax broke through her in a crashing wave. She arched up off the chair, her breath caught in a strangled cry. Plea sure jolted through her again and again, until she went limp in its aftermath, shuddering.
A blissful peace washed over her first.
Followed by awareness.
Then shame.
Oh, God. What had she just done? With shaking hands, she pushed her skirt back down over her knees. She brought one hand to her still-naked breast and the other to her eyes, squeezing them shut tight. But not tight enough. Hot tears leaked through her trembling lashes.
“Oh no, sweet. No.”
He whispered so tenderly, but the sound of his voice only served as a cruel reminder that he was
there
. He had
seen
. The tears came harder, spilling down her cheeks.
“No, sweet, don’t cry.” His voice was low and close to her ear. “Are you— ” He paused. “Are you thinking of him?”
She shook her head no.
“Then why do you cry? Surely you’re not embarrassed?”
Sophia sobbed against her hand.
“Oh, sweet. Please don’t. Don’t cry, or I’ll cry with you. You’re the most lovely, most perfect thing I’ve ever seen in all my life, and I could weep for the sheer beauty of you.” Rough fingers smoothed the hair from her brow. “Don’t ever be ashamed, not with me.”
He tugged her hand away from her face. She kept her eyes shut tight as he kissed her fingertips, one by one, then turned her hand over to plant a heartrendingly tender kiss upon her palm.
Sophia opened her eyes. The ceiling flashed bright above her at first, through a blurry haze of tears. She blinked and sniffed. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable. The burdensome disguise she’d been wearing the entire voyage—wearing her entire life, it seemed—had been stripped away. No more deceptions, no more fantasies. This was all that remained: a weary, wanton, lonely girl with one hand clasped to her naked breast and the other pressed against his lips.