A Most Unladylike Adventure (6 page)

‘Who is he, then?’ he made himself ask distantly, thinking how much he’d once wanted to know that very thing and now it didn’t seem to matter all that much.

‘Now, which of my discarded lovers do I despise the most?’ she mused, silently counting off on her fingers as if needing them to compile the best list.

Hugh clenched his fists against the urge to pound the old walls in a roaring frenzy because she’d used him for her own ends and he’d almost trusted her, until she proved him an idiot all over again.

‘The first one to come into your head will do,’ he said cynically, wondering exactly how many lovers she’d managed to draw in under the very noses of the
ton
.

‘Oh, well, that would be you.’

‘I’m not your lover,’ he said starkly.

‘Only because I chose a disguise that held you back, Captain Darke, you being a pirate of such peculiar honour as to never take his employer’s moll, however much he might long to. If I hadn’t hit on that particular alias, we would have been lovers by now and you know
it. Imagine it—us two being lovebirds, liars, then sworn enemies together all in one day.’

‘This is not a joke, madam.’

‘No, you’re right, it’s not,’ Louisa said desolately, stiffening her backbone and forcing herself to meet the hostility in his starkly austere gaze. There was no point defending herself against such revulsion, no reason to believe he’d ever change his bigoted, second-hand opinion of her. ‘But it’s more of a comedy than a tragedy.’

‘And if only you knew how close one can be to the other, you might stop wilfully creating havoc wherever you go,’ he muttered furiously, seeming to retreat into himself, to brood on something apparently even worse than wicked young ladies like herself.

‘Which is rich, coming from you,’ she accused and suddenly had all his attention as he glared at her with acute grey-blue eyes.

‘What else do you know?’ he demanded. As she flinched away from the steely purpose in his gaze and he stopped her retreat with a rough hand about her wrist, she doubted he knew it was tight as a trap on her soft skin.

‘What else
could
I know, Captain?’ she asked, doing her best to ice over her own eyes as efficiently as he had to stare at her as
if he’d somehow scare everything she knew about him out of her by sheer force of will.

It was his gaze that fell and not hers, although she felt a sting of something she refused to analyse and blinked it back as she watched his eyes take in the tightness of his grip on her, before he unclenched his hand from her, then stepped back as if she’d stung him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he claimed hoarsely. ‘I never meant to hurt you,’

‘I expect you say that to all your women,’ she responded bitterly, suddenly transported back to her childhood with a violent drunkard.

‘Never,’ he husked and despair and bitterness and something that might even be grief haunted his silver-shot eyes and that hard, dare-not-be tender mouth of his.

‘Whatever have they done to you?’ she whispered as she watched him fight back something terrible and felt helpless in the face of such horror and pain, despite all he’d just said and accused her of being.

‘Nothing you would understand,’ he scorned, protecting himself against any hint of pity. Perhaps it was his ordinary defence against shallow sympathy and spurious curiosity,
rather than the deeply personal slight it felt like for a moment.

‘Oh, of course not,’ she forced herself to say as carelessly as if they were discussing an obscure subject outside the selfish remit of such a vain young lady.

‘Does it still hurt?’ he asked huskily.

‘You should know by now that Miss Alstone, the Ice Diamond, is untouched by feelings of any kind, Captain,’ she lied lightly and silently dared him to take a step nearer and breach that fragile distance between them.

Ignoring her, he took that step and cradled her wrist in his large hand, the hardness and occasional roughness of his palm pulling her deeper under his sensual spell, if he did but know it, and she silently despaired of herself.

‘Yet you’re not as unbreakable as you pretend,’ he muttered as if the words were forced from that sensual, cynical mouth, before he sank his head and kissed her slightly reddened wrist and made her knees wobble with a rush of stubborn need.

Stiffening them against the too-potent appeal of a man who hated her one moment, then soothed and seduced the next, while probably still hating her, she resisted the silly urge to raise her other hand and smooth the over-long
and distinctly shaggy dark locks he wore so well into some kind of order.

‘No, I’m not yet quite unbreakable, I’m sorry,’ she answered with a wry smile meant to defuse the sensual tension suddenly so alive in the growing darkness scented with old cargoes and coffee beans.

‘Don’t be,’ he counselled as if he couldn’t help himself.

‘It’s easier,’ she replied as if she understood, when all she could currently think about was the jags of heat and longing for more that were afflicting her, even as he probably despised her more deeply than ever.

‘I know, but not necessarily better,’ he told her with a look of untold wanting and infinite sadness, before he abandoned her hand and kissed her full on the mouth once again instead, as if he couldn’t resist the temptation of it.

It was a fantasy, she told herself; cynical Louisa Alstone who didn’t believe in love or marriage, or any of the comforting illusions that got her fellow young ladies through life, and angry, disillusioned Captain Hugh Darke, who didn’t believe in anything much at all. It was impossible and they would tear each other to pieces. Yet it was such a sensuous, irresistible
seduction of her senses that she stopped thinking and blindly took whatever he had left to give. It was so luxurious, so heated and all engrossing that it felt infinitely better than anything else she’d been offered. Moaning her agreement, she opened her mouth as demandingly as he’d already taken hers and let her tongue tangle with his, so they could take up where they left off last night. At least tonight he knew she was nobody’s but his, just for now.

Acknowledging the transitory nature of anything they could be to each other, she strove to make her agreement to it even more emphatic, by letting her hands explore his strong neck muscles and up to muss his already unruly hair and run her fingers through the sensual silkiness of it. His groan of whatever it was—agreement, encouragement, or just downright approval—made her breath come short and her mouth even more desperate as he cupped her face in his strong hands and drew her closer. He shifted and the threat of losing even this harsh magic between them made her keen a protest, then ghost her hands down his neck and soothe along his throat as she silently acknowledged he’d made himself vulnerable to her in this much at least. And it was enough for her, would have to be enough.

L
ouisa felt the mighty muscles in her ungallant captain’s broad shoulders shift under her touch and it made her feel sensually powerful. To spark such an instantaneous reaction from this guarded soul made her seem very special to herself tonight. She revelled in the sense of being outside time and normal spaces, locked inside this cocoon of darkness as the spring evening closed in all round them. Then she felt the full force of the fire he’d lit in her last night streak through her and settle burning almost as bright as the sun at the centre of her being until she shook with need. Lost for words to communicate what she wanted, even if he allowed her mouth the freedom to do it, she made an incoherent sound—half-moan
and half-imperious demand—and sighed her relief into his kiss as his hands sank to knead her neat
derrière
and draw her closer to his mightily aroused manhood. She did her best not to give away her awe and that furtive heat it sparked inside her at the very feel of what she did to him, but it was hard not to just sink into his arms and beg.

Typical
, she managed to spare the time to think, as far as she could think with his mouth on hers and her body so fascinated by the proximity of his.
Typical that he is as deep in thrall to whatever it is driving us together, apparently against our wills, yet he still manages to hang on to his essential apartness while I must melt all over him like heated sealing wax
.

How could she want any man so much it blasted through her much-vaunted self-control and breached that cherished separateness of hers, especially this one? She sensed that the craving making her hands shake as she laid them against the warmth and masculinity and sheer nerve-singing fact of him was exerting just as strong a pull on him, if not even stronger, but he still had control enough not to moan with need or tremble with frustration and this bittersweetest longing. A curiosity burned within her to know more; one he
certainly wouldn’t believe she had any need of, now she’d let him think she’d managed to accrue a procession of lovers with the critical eyes of the
ton
on her, the hawk-like watch of her elder brother, even from afar, and her aunt and uncle’s very critical eyes on her as they waited for a reason to denounce her and rid themselves of a charge they never wanted for aught but the money she brought with her in the first place.

The man was undoubtedly an idiot if he believed a word of that silly implication of hers. She could only suppose it was her inner demon of curiosity and the sheer sensual excitement within her that made her claim to be something she wasn’t yet again and get away with it. He might hate her eventually if they went on, but he was the only man she’d ever met who made her want him mercilessly just by inhabiting the same space, whatever space, even this dark, comfortless, unlikely meeting place. A siren voice whispered that he wouldn’t have been so easy to fool if he hadn’t wanted to believe her and do this, so she let herself believe it for a space borrowed out of the real world. It was a chance that wouldn’t come again—an interlude apart from the real Louisa and her unlikely lover. A chance she
intended to take, then afterwards she’d somehow find a way to forget it and stick to her chosen course through life, even knowing what she’d be missing.

In the heat of this particular moment there seemed nothing to hold her back from following his lead and exploring the very different, masculine, grace of his leaner hips and round to learn how his buttocks differed from her own by being sparser and more taut with muscle. Now why had she never dreamt how arousing satin-taut skin over strong male muscle and bone could feel under her fingers as she dared to send them just that bit lower and search for the sensitive join of his leg to the pared-down curve above? Evidently he liked it almost as much as she had when he drew his teasing fingers along the lusher line of her feminine curves, before raising those wickedly knowing hands to soothe and rouse and tease her breasts into begging so shamelessly for his touch she could feel it, even through the layers she’d donned for this misadventure.

Torn between memory of how little he actually liked her, however much he might want her, and the promise of a lovemaking she’d never forget in all her long and spinsterly future, she abandoned the memory
and embraced the promise and Hugh Darke. He would have delved under all those layers for buttons and access to her tightly furled nipples demanding his touch and his mouth as they remembered last night with a mind of their own. No, let him do that and she’d lose this. Let him think what he was doing for long enough to undo all the layers she was wrapped in and remember who she was, and she’d lose this one moment of enchantment among their usual disenchantment. It felt like an odd, mutual innocence at the moment and she even wondered at herself for thinking so.

She put thinking aside for later and whispered a demand for faster, a wanton command that he stopped wasting time and got on with it, as if all the worst rumours were true and she already had a pack of secret lovers and knew exactly what she was doing now. Trying not to dread that particular falsehood on his tongue, she pulled him closer to fit lush lips to his and felt need overtake reason as his kisses became even wilder and more arousing. He lifted her with one hand round her slim waist and the other beneath her buttocks until she was cradled into him like the most precious of beings, as he walked her towards those very convenient sacks of good Brazilian coffee
beans. Wondering how he found his way so unerringly in the ever-deepening darkness, she felt him hesitate, begin to think about this, about him and her again and, even as he set her down on the lowest stack of sacks, pulled him down after her, to tangle him up in kisses before he stopped this wondrous banquet of the senses.

‘I want you,’ she murmured in a breathy voice she hardly even recognised as her own. ‘Now,’ she added with an instinctive, feminine demand that he seemed quite unable to resist.

‘It’s almost too late to stop already, but are you sure?’ he managed in a husky voice she loved, because it revealed just how true his desire-rasped words were and added a layer of extra enchantment to their seduction of each other.

‘Never surer,’ she told him, stopping his mouth with quick, frantic kisses so heated and needy that he groaned into her mouth in response as she felt him bunch up her second-hand skirts and petticoats and then there was the cooling April air, first on her bare knees, then her smooth thighs and ever upwards to expose the betraying hot wetness at the apex of those thighs.

‘Hot and sweet and all mine,’ he whispered
possessively in her ear as his teasing fingers found that unmistakable welcome and explored it until she let out an emphatic, very articulate moan for more and he rubbed and caressed and melted the until-now secret place he’d found, and to think that she hadn’t even known she needed his touch there so badly until now.

‘Yours,’ she agreed recklessly as she felt pleasure almost beyond bearing pool and fight for release within her, but he removed his teasing fingers just before it became inevitable and took her word for it as he swiftly undid his breeches’ flap with one deft hand whilst holding his weight above her as he stripped his nether garments off in a fluid shove, before smoothing her willing buttocks deeper into the oddly comfortable beans at her prone back and parting her legs a little farther.

Louisa felt the nudge of his fiercely aroused member against her aching, heated core and knew this was the last chance to go back to how she’d been until now. Separate, aloof, alone. No, it didn’t sound in the least bit worth clinging on to in the face of being together, frantic and needy for each other. So she let her thighs fall either side of his narrow hips
and lay a little farther back to bid him very welcome.

‘Witch,’ he murmured and his voice was a caress, even while it sounded as driven and latently powerful as the feel of him between her legs.

‘Pirate,’ she sparked back, imagining his face intent and intense above her in the late-afternoon darkness and somehow finding it even more seductive that they could see little of each other but shadows.

‘Blissful, wonderful witch,’ he added as he surged into her in one long thrust she knew was far too powerful to let him hesitate as he beat against the shock of her virginity. ‘Devious, lying, idiotic, enchantress of a woman,’ he gasped in protest as he tore through that slender barrier and centred himself at the very heart of her as if that was where he belonged, despite himself and her one-time resolution not to have this ultimate wonder in her life, before he loomed out the night and undermined it.

‘I am now,’ she said complacently, ‘but I want more’, and shocked even herself by riding the flash and burn of pain so determinedly that the novelty and fullness and sheer wonder of him inside her threatened to set her on the road to madness if he didn’t move, do something
to assuage this burning need for more that still rode her like the most exquisite goad of half-ultimate pleasure, half-heavy, almost painful need.

‘You’ll get it, but only if you stay still for a while,’ he gritted, holding himself motionless with a mighty effort as he fought the primitive urge to slam into her until he’d climaxed and emptied himself into her as relentlessly as the beat of life itself.

Even then she flexed internal muscles around him experimentally, as if she hadn’t even known she had them until now and threatened to enchant as well as unman him. Minx she undoubtedly was, but vixen as well? Somehow he doubted it as he felt her adjust about him with an almost trusting innocence, a giving in her usually steely composure and armour of humour that touched him a bit too deeply for comfort. Letting his awesome arousal overcome a need for something more than even this most sensual of couplings, he dared let himself move at last and let out a long groan of satisfaction as he felt her strive to match her rhythm to his.

Now, in the moment, he knew she was his as no other woman ever had been. He was her only lover, the only man who had ever moved
inside her like this, striving against the beat and demand of outrageous desire in his head and heart to take her slowly, to ride her to the sweetest of oblivion. For now, all he needed to do was to make this wonderful for her, then it would be wondrous for him as well. He let her feel his desperately rigid manhood stretch and fill her and blocked out the silken marvel of her fitting him as if she was made for him alone. Not since he was a hasty boy with his first eager, just a little bit more experienced girl had he needed to fight his body quite so hard for mastery. Not with his mistresses and certainly not with his wife, but then, Ariadne hadn’t been virgin any more than any of his other lovers had been, until now. Louisa Alstone was the first woman who’d ever allowed him to be first and he must guard himself against the privilege and wonder of that marvel, when he was rational again. For now he luxuriated in it as he felt her move with him, begin to breathe more deeply, to clench even more exquisitely about his manhood and, at last, he knew she was ready for more.

Breathing hard to keep that more from releasing him before time into his own selfish pleasure, he occupied himself with meeting her deepest of blue eyes in the darkness, although
he could see only the quick shine of them in this almost-blackness as she opened her eyes in wonder and lure at the feel of him moving within her. Next time he’d make sure they had their eyes to add to the other four senses, so they could drive each other even more insane with how they were together. He blotted out the thought that there would be no next time by stroking harder and deeper into her as he felt her begin to spasm, felt the bow of her body even before he heard a deep heavy breath fill her straining lungs as she let it out, on a long wondering moan of delight. At last he could slip his tethers and he plunged headlong into the greatest, most satisfying completion he’d ever experienced.

Hugh felt his whole being spasm in ecstasy as she plunged into the unknown, then flew under him and their individual peaks of utter delight were as dangerous as they were giving. As he drifted into absolute release, complete satisfaction for what felt like the first time in his life, a part of him exulted and worshipped her, even as another woke up and groaned in disbelief. At their destination for a lovely, peaceful moment it felt generous, shared, too much to let go. Then let go he did and finally descended from absolute delight into almost
complete horror when he realised exactly what he’d done by taking up her invitation to seduce her so eagerly, then failing to draw out of her before he climaxed and damned them both for a pair of over-lusty fools.

Coming back to her workaday self at last, Louisa allowed herself a delighted little wriggle and let herself be pleased he was still inside her, even after she knew that he’d experienced the ultimate release with her. He sank against her pleasured torso for a sweet moment and she let her arms come up to grasp him, then fall to her sides as he groaned as if in agony. Horrified that he wasn’t as warmly delighted with life and his lover as she was with her only one, she suddenly felt chilled and all too distant again. He regretted what they’d just done and she wanted to cry so badly she had to clench her fists until she felt her nails bite into her tender palms. She’d grown too soft for this sort of disappointment; she fought not to expect anything of him other than what she’d already had and did her best to reassemble the Ice Diamond, before he could voice his misgivings. Suddenly she hated that brilliant, heartless creature with a passion even he might not be able to match, but it was
an old familiar shield from a hurtful world and, at the moment, all she had.

‘Thank you,’ she made herself say, as if the most significant-seeming minutes of her life so far didn’t matter all that much after all.

‘Thank you?’ the contrary monster echoed as if she’d spat poison at him.

‘Yes. I shall never marry, you see, so you relieved me of a burden of curiosity I had no wish to carry for the rest of my life.’

‘How useful of me,’ he replied as if the words nauseated him.

‘Yes,’ she made herself say blandly, ‘it was, very useful.’