Page 23 of The Pirate and the Pagan
He smiled down at her ruefully. “And I’ve already pledged your safety to her, haven’t I?”
“I shall come to visit you,” she offered.
“Promise me?” he asked solemnly.
As she looked up into his face his fingers reached up and took the violet combs from her hair. It tumbled down over his hands in a silken mass and his mouth took hers in a long, lingering kiss. A shock rippled through her body as the teasing dalliance of his tongue prepared her for bolder play. He was holding her much too close as his lips turned forceful and his tongue thrust demandingly into her soft mouth. She stiffened and pulled back but not before her insides had felt like molten silver sliding downward into her limbs from the onslaught of his probing tongue. She had had no idea that being in a man’s arms could produce this liquid heat that made a woman long to be ravished, plundered, conquered. Just once in a lifetime every woman should be kissed by a dangerous man.
When she managed to pull away from him, she looked so vulnerable and trapped that he felt a moment of shame. “I shouldn’t have given you that kiss. I was taking advantage of you,” he admitted. His thoughts belied his words. He was glad he had kissed her. He wanted to kiss her so thoroughly there would be no breath left in her body. He was aware for the first time of a stunning weakness in his body at the contact with her. She threatened to make him lose control.
His words echoed over and over in her brain. “I shouldn’t have given you that kiss.” Surely he didn’t regret it? She could have sworn he had been as shaken by the shock of their touching mouths as she had been. She would find out. “If you shouldn’t have given it to me, I must give it back to you,” she said simply. She went up on tiptoe, slipped her arms about his neck, and fitted her soft mouth to his.
He was totally unprepared for the effect it had on him. When she lifted her mouth and fitted it to his, she demonstrated an innocent sensuality, if such a contradictory thing were possible, which heightened his pleasure so that desire ran like wildfire from his mouth, through his heart, and straight to the tip of his shaft. The taste she allowed him set up a craving for more. She had the power to throw him off balance by luring him, then forbidding him, then luring him again. Her unusual, exotic beauty seemed to have a mystical power over him, and her sweet inexperience was like an aphrodisiac, attracting him a thousand times more than the artifices of his most experienced past lovers.
This child-woman had walked into his life and enchanted him. Conflicting emotions besieged him as he held her captive in his arms. He wanted to ravish her, to make love to her until she screamed with passion, yet he felt a fierce protectiveness toward her. He also knew a need to own her body and soul. This possessive desire was entirely new to him. He would make her his mistress despite the fact that she was a lady. He would simply have to school himself to go slowly so that he didn’t frighten her, didn’t destroy the magic which flowed so devastatingly between them.
She closed her eyes and melted against him. The pure physical thrill of his masculinity made her nipples ruche with pleasure and a strange hot prickling tingle began between her legs. When she lifted her trembling mouth from his, she said huskily, “I think it best if Mr. Cully takes me home when we make land tonight.”
“You will come? You promised,” he commanded.
“Good night, Ruark,” she said softly.
“Summer’s promise,” he murmured after she had departed.
Spider’s eyes widened in amazement as he circled round his sister, taking in the luxurious velvet cloak trimmed with fox fur. What he saw made him uncomfortable; he feared that after London, Cat would never be the same again.
“I have so much to tell, but first of all you’d better know that I was too late, Father had already died of his wound before I arrived.” She noticed her young brother’s eyes were glassy with tears. She didn’t think it could be sorrow which caused them, as their father had always been particularly brutal to Spencer. Perhaps it was relief or more likely regret for what might have been, could have been … should have been.
“Auntie Lil was very kind to me; I liked her excessively. Father unfortunately left us a wonderful legacy … he mortgaged Roseland to the hilt and I’ve to come up with twenty thousand pounds in a month or it will likely be sold out from under us.”
“Rancid old bastard,” spat Spider, clenching his fists with impotence.
“He had a bill of sale on him for Ebony, too. They haven’t been to collect him yet, have they?” she asked anxiously.
He shook his head quickly to reassure her, but his heart had sunk. He’d been dying to tell her of the smuggling deals he’d arranged to earn them some money, but in the face of a twenty-thousand-pound debt it amounted to no more than pissing in the sea. “What the hell are we going to do?” he asked her.
“I have another piece of news. Lord Helford has returned to Helford Hall. I sailed home on his ship. I think he’s quite taken with me, so all I have to do is get him to propose before the mortgage is due and we’ll save Roseland.”
“Propose to you or proposition you?” he asked bluntly, his eyes blazing.
“It doesn’t matter which,” she said quickly. “I won’t let you sacrifice yourself to that fat, old swine,” he said flatly.
“Spider, he isn’t fat and he isn’t old….” Her voice trailed off; she wasn’t as convinced about the swine part. In her experience all men were capable of being vile. “There’s just a tiny fly in the ointment … the King has appointed him high commissioner and magistrate to eradicate smuggling.”
Spider dropped onto a kitchen chair like a bag of sand. “Christ, girl, are you insane? I’ve fifty barrels of brandy coming in tomorrow night.”
A look of panic crossed her face. “What about that tobacco?”
“I sold it yesterday, thank God. But what about the brandy?”
“What time is the tide?” she questioned.
“Early … just at moonrise … a few minutes after nine … it should be safely stowed by ten.”
“I’ll keep him busy,” she promised.
“Will you keep all his nights busy?” He sneered.
“Spider, it’s not like that; he thinks I’m a lady.”
