Maybe … just maybe, he didn’t need to. He’d just boarded a ship, sprung its mast, destroyed its cargo—the same actions he’d performed time and again in the past, out of greed. But this time, he’d done them for different reasons entirely. Not to take, but to protect.
Just as he’d taken many—
too
many—women in his arms before, with only the most dishonorable of intentions. But this was different. So different. If he could seize a ship with honor … perhaps he could do this with honor, too. Not to take, but to protect. To cherish. To love.
She sobbed against his cheek again, and he pulled back. “Hush, love,” he whispered, smoothing her hair behind her ear. He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his lips to hers in a gentle kiss. “It’s all over now.”
And it was. It was all over now. The fire was out, and the men were alive. And she was here in his arms, where she fit like she was fashioned for his embrace. Weeks of frustrated longing were finally at an end. Years of emptiness, too. It was all over now.
And Gray … Gray was finished. Done for. Completely and hopelessly lost in the softest, most tender embrace he’d ever known. He held her face in his hands, brushing light kisses over her lips. Kissing her slowly, carefully, as though he were only just learning about kissing—because he was. Not learning
how
to kiss, but learning
why
to kiss. Not in persuasion, not as a prelude to further liberties. Simply to discover the taste of her, delicate and fresh and exquisitely sweet. To tell her things he didn’t dare express in words. To tell her things he had no words to express. He kissed her for no greater pleasure than to kiss, because at that moment, kissing her felt like the greatest pleasure imaginable.
He pressed his lips to her cheeks, her brow, her eyelids, her hair, interspersing his kisses with little endearments in every language he knew. Then, eyes closed, he rested his forehead against hers and waited. Leaving the choice to her.
With a little sigh, she melted in his arms, pressing the length of her body to his. Her breasts rubbed against his chest, deliciously warm and soft.
Desire blazed through him. And suddenly, Gray was right back in the middle of an inferno.
She popped up on her toes, pressing her lips to his with a fierce urgency. An urgency he shared. The desperate energy that had fueled his race against the flames still ricocheted through his body. Gray felt it humming in his bones and pounding in his blood. And now he poured it all into kissing this woman, lashing his arms around her and lifting her body against his. Crushing her soft belly against his growing arousal.
Her lips parted beneath his, and he eagerly accepted the invitation. Their tongues tangled, tasted, teased, each of them giving and taking in return. Finally Gray broke away, sliding one hand down to cup her bottom as her fingers twined tightly into his hair.
“I’m so sorry,” he said between kisses. “For what I said that night. For leaving you earlier. I never meant—”
“I know,” she whispered, wrapping a leg over his hip and shinnying up his body. Her lips grazed his ear. “I know. Just don’t leave me again.”
“Never.” The word burst out like an oath or a prayer, and God help him, he meant it. “Never,” he repeated, looking straight in her glimmering eyes. Then he sealed the vow with a kiss, deep and desperate and true. “Oh, God,” he groaned when their lips finally parted.
She kissed him again, working her warm, slender fingers under the collar of his shirt to stroke the chilled flesh of his shoulders and back. He buried his face in her neck, inhaling the beautiful scent of her. He’d forgotten how roses smell sweetest after a rain. Trailing light kisses down to her collarbone, he began carrying her toward the bed.
“Make love to me, Gray.”
She didn’t need to ask it. They both knew what was going to happen. But Gray felt the significance of her words. He might have bedded ladies and whores the world over, but for the first time in his life, he was going to make love to a woman. And not just
a
woman.
His
woman.
And this idea that should have been so unthinkable, so frightening—to his surprise, Gray found it wildly arousing. They tumbled together onto the narrow bed, and she began pulling his shirt free of his trousers. He rose up on his knees and impatiently yanked it over his head.
He peered at her frock in the darkness.
Bloody hell
. Stripes.
Gray started to roll her over, looking for laces or hooks or some other ridiculous device contrived by the devil to thwart men.
She shook her head. “Next time.” She wriggled beneath him, drawing her skirts up to her waist. The erotic dance of her hips had him trembling with need. “Next time, we’ll go slowly. We’ll do everything you told me this morning, and more.” She gasped as he palmed her breast through the wet muslin. Her fingers hooked under the waistband of his trousers, and she looked up at him with a bold, smoldering gaze. “But I need you now, Gray.”
With a low groan, he leaned over to suck one pert nipple straight through the layers of shift and frock. She moaned and arched against him, working his buttons loose with one hand, until her fingers slid down into his smallclothes to caress the swollen head of his erection.
Oh, God
. He needed her now, too. He needed her now, and again later, and perhaps a third time that night. And tomorrow and the next day and every day after that. He was pulsing with need, straining into her touch, and as her fingers curled around him, they both gasped.
She stroked him gently, so sweetly he wanted to weep for the joy of it. He slid one hand up her thigh to find her hot and wet and grinding against his palm.
Next time
, he promised himself. Next time, he would take the time to touch her and taste her and learn her responses and watch her beauty unfurl at the peak of passion.
But she needed him now, and he needed her now, and now wasn’t a minute or even a second later. Now was
now
. Gray brushed her hand away, positioned himself at her hot, wet entrance, and thrust.
She cried out, digging her fingers into his arms so hard he nearly cried out, too.
Oh, God
. She was so tight. Too tight. Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks even as she tried to look brave. And Gray finally understood that elusive, un-nameable sweetness that always lingered about her, beneath the powder and rose water.
It was innocence.
His little siren was a virgin.
“Why—” His breath hitched in his chest as he struggled for control. “Oh, sweet, you should have told me the truth.”
“I’m telling you now.” She swallowed hard, sliding one hand up to cradle his face. “Only you, Gray. Now and always. Only you.”
“But what about—”
She silenced him with a finger to his lips, then trailed the touch slowly down his chin, down the center of his chest. “There’s never been anyone else. Only you.”
Gray shook his head, uncertain what to believe. Her words were some sort of miracle, and so were her thighs cradling his hips, and her hair fanned out like a shining halo around her head. A fierce, primal joy flooded his chest, to know that she was his, and his alone.
His to possess; his to pleasure.
He shifted his weight on his hands, and as he did, he sank another inch into her. They both winced.
His to hurt.
“Sweetheart, I can’t bear to hurt you.”
“It’s all right,” she said through quivering lips. “Honestly, it feels better already.”
He knew she was lying. He rocked his hips backward with every intention of withdrawing, but she hooked her legs over his.
“No,” she gasped, her body tightening around his in every way imaginable. “You can’t leave me. You promised.”
He groaned as the exquisite friction pulled him back in. Gritting his teeth to restrain himself, he sank into her slowly. Her eyes grew wide, but she gave him a brave nod of encouragement.
“Yes,” she breathed as he finally buried himself to the hilt and they were completely, perfectly joined. The feel of her surrounding him, holding him— it was like nothing he’d ever dreamed. He squeezed his eyes shut and rocked again slowly. Back and forth, he gently pistoned his hips, grinding against her. Until she said it again, this time releasing the word in an erotic sigh. “Oh,
yes
.”
It took every ounce of willpower Gray possessed not to lose control that instant and simply drive into her again and again. But she’d trusted him to make love to her, not rut with her. She’d trusted him to be her only one. Now and always. So he kept up the slow, steady rocking of his hips. Feeling her body caress his with each small, measured thrust.
She shut her eyes, and her head rolled back against the pillow. “Oh, Gray,” she moaned, arching into his subtle thrusts now with tiny tilts of her hips. He bent to suckle her breast again, licking the soft peak through the rough, wet fabric.
She clutched his shoulders. He froze, panting above her. His hands fisted in the bed linens as he grappled for control.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m all right.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, a teasing note in her voice. She caressed his shoulders. Her fingers trailed down his chest, and she pressed her thumbs against his nipples.
Gray let out a hoarse groan. “I can’t …” His voice trailed off as she craned her neck and kissed his chest. The sweep of her tongue against his neck pushed his restraint to its limit. “Sweet, stop. I want to make this good for you.”
“It is good.” Her teeth grazed his collarbone. “
You are
good for me.” Her head fell back against the pillow, and she met his eyes. “There’s no pain anymore.”
This time, he believed her. He had to believe her, because his control was in shreds, and nothing but faith remained.
He drove into her now, thrust after blissful, unrestrained thrust. And when she cried out and clung to his neck, he knew it was with pleasure, not pain. Her core convulsed around him, pulling him toward release in waves of raw, mindless need. Then she cupped his face in her hands and blessed him with a single, sweet kiss.
And in the end, it was that kiss that proved his undoing. With a hoarse cry against her lips, he shuddered and collapsed, pumping his release into her. The last tremors of pleasure were still rippling through him, and already he wanted her again. Again, now, always, only.
He settled the length of his body over hers, guarding her between his arms. His rough, gasping breath precluded speech, but they needed no words. There
were
no words for the transcendent, floating happiness suffusing his limbs and filling his heart. Only kisses. Kiss after deep, heartfelt, unhurried kiss.
It was some time before Gray’s awareness shifted from the wondrous taste of her soft, generous mouth to the strange, angular object pressing into his belly.
He propped himself up on one elbow and slid a hand up her hip, past the glorious Tropic where they remained joined even now, up over her belly to the notch between her ribs. His hand closed around a small, cloth-covered bundle strapped to her torso with bands of cloth. He frowned, feeling the solid object with his fingers, trying to learn its shape.
Money, he realized. It had to be money. He spanned his fingers over it, testing its size. Bloody hell. It was a great deal of money.
“Gray, I can explain.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“I’m waiting.”
Sophia tensed at the sudden edge in his voice. Surely he couldn’t be angry. Not after the pleasure they’d found, the connection they still shared.
“Gray,” she murmured, stretching her neck to kiss him wherever she could reach. His hard chest, his powerful shoulders bracketing hers. She wanted to thank him, to bless him for the gift he’d given her. Such tenderness, and such pleasure.
Her mother, her sister, her married friends—in the weeks leading up to her wedding, there had been no shortage of women warning Sophia that her first experience in the marital bed would be painful, awkward, and blessedly quick. The ladies had varying opinions on whether the activity would improve with time, but predictions of an unpleasant wedding night were universal.
None of them, she thought with a secret smile, had met Gray. The power in his strong body, the passion he aroused in her, all tempered by such patience, the innate tenderness he hid so carefully from the world. There had been pain, yes. But the pain had been chased away by indescribable pleasure, intense and overwhelming, beyond anything she’d ever imagined.
And Sophia’s imagination was vast.
Embers of desire still smoldered under her skin, on her lips, between her legs. She tightened around him, wanting to preserve this moment forever. Lacing her fingers behind his neck, she attempted to pull him down for a kiss.
He wouldn’t budge. “I’m waiting,” he repeated tersely. “Explain.”
She stroked the hair back from his face. “I promise I’ll tell you everything. But for now … please, just hold me.”
He swore, his coarse tone scraping against her nakedness. “I don’t even know who I’m holding.”
He released her abruptly, and Sophia gasped as he withdrew from her body. Somehow it hurt more than when he’d entered her. He rolled away, leaving her uncovered. Damp with rainwater, sweat, and tears. Cold.