Bound by the Heart (10 page)

"I hate you," she cried weakly. "I hate
you!"

"Yes," he said, and his hands spread the
cambric open across her breasts. The almost reverent look he gave the startling
whiteness of her flesh, sent a flush of heat into her throat and cheeks, and,
oddly enough, a chilling numbness into her limbs.

"If I'd had the time, Governess," he
murmured, "I might have tried to woo you properly."

Summer gasped as his dark head bent over her. His hand
was cupped around her breast, re-shaping it to fit his palm as he offered it to
his searching lips. With warm and wet insistence, he used his mouth expertly to
mold and suckle the dusky-sweet flesh to his liking. The rolling, rasping
motions of his tongue tautened her nipples into round, hard berries, and Summer
did not know how to fight the sensations that rippled through her. She choked a
sob back in her throat and twisted her hands into the bedding, but it was not
enough, and he was not satisfied until he had her writhing beneath him.

Wade's hand traced the curve of her thighs, setting
tiny sparks of fire alight along her spine. His fingers parted the golden nest
of down and slid into the warmth so valiantly guarded there. He stroked and
teased and cajoled his way into her clinging heat and groaned against a
mouthful of flesh as he felt the slickness relent to his probing fingers.

Summer's teeth tore into her lower lip. She could not
believe, could not comprehend what he was doing or why her body was suddenly
quivering with excitement. It was shameful that his hands should be violating
her so. Shameful that her limbs should have lost their numbness under his
assault, should be spreading for him like the petals of a flower. And, dear
God, she could feel her own moisture easing his way, urging his way deeper,
faster, harder.

Wade heard the strangled whimpers and he saw the thick
sweep of her lashes tremble shut. She was still fighting him, but they were
both aware the battle had been lost. Her hips were moving with him now, greedy
to learn the rhythm of his fingers, and he cursed softly under his breath,
damning the need to break away long enough to shed his clothing.

Summer watched through a kind of misty daze as he
flung aside his garments. The candlelight was behind him, sparking off his
blue-black hair, turning the muscles of his body into gleaming bronze. His eyes
never left her, and when he joined her on the bed again, his hands betrayed the
urgency coursing through his blood.

He moved over her, into her in one smooth motion. The
first wave of pleasure crashed through her without warning and Summer cried
out, pressing her head back into the mattress to absorb the shock. It was a
sharp, white-hot sensation, rippling through her like an unexpectedly cool
breeze on a stifling afternoon. It left her stunned and breathless, mystified
beyond rational thought—even more so when a second, stronger force began gathering
within her.

She turned her face into the shadows, but he twined
his fingers into her hair, forcing her to yield to his kisses. Her hands curled
into the crisp pelt of hair on his chest, feeling the bands of muscle strain
with each powerful stroke, and she could feel the awesome, stretching hardness
demand the response she struggled to deny.

Her mouth fell open and her chest heaved for a last
breath. Her fingers splayed wide, slipping on the dampness of his skin a moment
before they held, and then she was rising against him. She was clutching the
broad shoulders and clinging helplessly to him as the ecstasy shook her.
Pleasure furrowed through her in agonizingly slow waves, again and again,
robbing her of sight and sound, driving her with a need to arch higher, to have
him push deeper, to have the shivering implosions go on and on and on . . .

She held him and cried out to him, and when it was
over, her body continued to undulate gently beneath him. Wade's own violent
completion ended on a groan. His grip eased, but he remained locked to her,
cradling her to him until the last of the faint shudders had faded away.

Then, with a tenderness he could not have explained,
Wade brushed the trailing wisps of golden hair back from her temples and
touched his lips to the residue of tears spiking her lashes.

"Forgive me," he murmured. "I know how
much you did not want to enjoy that."

Summer's eyes opened slowly, condemning him wordlessly
as she stared up into the cruel familiarity of his smile. He had made no move
to leave her. He was still seated firmly between her thighs, and, although the
threatening hardness was gone, his warmth continued to suffuse her, spreading
to the very tips of her toes.

Her chin quivered and she averted her head, and this
time Wade did not stop her. He observed the tightness around her mouth—a mouth
still pink and invitingly moist from his kisses—and he was aware of the
tightness returning to her body.

His gaze strayed to her breasts, rounded and smooth,
to the marble whiteness of her belly and thighs. She was hardly more than a
child herself—eighteen? Nineteen? And next to his coarse and weathered body she
seemed almost too fragile to handle him. Yet there had been nothing childlike
or fragile in her responses. It was a woman who clawed and arched to him. A
woman who cried out and moved instinctively to heighten her own pleasure . . .
and his.

Reluctantly, he eased himself from between the soft
thighs. He slid one arm beneath her shoulders, one around her waist, and felt
the instant surge of resistance as he pulled her into the curve of his body.

"What are you doing?" she gasped. "You
can't possibly—!"

"I'm going to get some sleep, Governess. And so
help me, if you keep me from it, your lovely white backside will be a
latticework of switch marks."

Summer held her breath, tensed against the heat of him
as he settled into a comfortable position. She was effectively pinned within
the circle of his arms and could break free only with a major struggle. Her
cheek was supported by his shoulder; she could feel his breath light and
feathery on her brow . . . but . . . he was surely not serious in thinking she
would sleep with him like this for the rest of the night! Not the entire night!

"Captain Wade, I must insist—"

"Blood red switch marks, madam," he warned
drowsily. "Dozens upon dozens of them."

Chapter 6

The trip
to Bounty Key took five more days. Summer tried every
tactic she knew to avoid Captain Morgan Wade, or at the least to discourage him
from seeking her company: silence, anger, insults. The latter tread so near to
the edge of his temper she soon considered the risk not worth the brief taste
of satisfaction.

In the end he took what he wanted anyway. Regardless
of how much she fought him or how hard she pleaded with him, it always ended
the same way. Utterly exhausted, she lay curled against his animal warmth and
slept the longest, deepest sleeps she ever remembered. Dreamless as well, as if
he drained her of even the smallest ability to escape.

She always woke up alone. She never felt him leave the
bed, although she always wakened moments after he had done so. Her hand would
stray to the warm mattress, and she would shiver herself deeper under the
quilt, drifting asleep again instantly yet never quite as soundly.

As she came to anticipate the often-volatile moods of
Captain Wade, she also came to know the personality of the
Chimera.
Creaks and sounds and bells
became familiar to her. She knew when seas were heavy or calm just by the
rhythm of the
Chimera's
stride. She was by no means an experienced sailor, but
even to Summer's untrained sensibilities, Wade's ship was a sleek and powerful
beauty.

Where the
Sea Vixen
had balked at heavy seas, the
Chimera
accepted the challenge of them
with a toss of her fine head. The
Vixen's
crew had been silent and morose, always under the
watchful, punishing eyes of their officers. Wade's crew, while equally busy,
sang ditties and was allowed to gossip and share a pipe while they scrubbed the
decks and mended the sails.

They drilled on the cannon every day as well. A
particularly urgent clanging of the ship's bell had them mustered and standing
at the ready within minutes. On a signal from Morgan Wade, himself stripped to
the waist and manning one of the short-snouted carronades, they ran through
endless drills of setting, loading, firing, swabbing, practicing with live shot
every other time.

Only during those times were Summer and Michael
banished from the main and gun decks. Cannon, Wade explained, were like women:
temperamental bitches no matter how many precautions were taken. Gunpowder was
unstable, the wadding often left the muzzle in a shower of flaming sparks, and
occasionally the shot itself exploded moments after being fired.

Summer did not object to the banishment. She cowered
in the aftercabin, covering her ears with her hands to block out the roar of
gunfire from two decks. She shuddered in sympathy with the
Chimera
after each thunderous volley
and began to feel that every muscle and bone in her body creaked with the same
degree of relief when it was over.

Other times, such as when the
Chimera
sliced peacefully into the golden
glow at sunset, Summer walked the polished decks with reluctant awe. She sensed
a freedom of spirit on board, in the ship itself and in the very air she
breathed. Her impression of the crew being a surly and misguided lot gave way
grudgingly to admiration. They seemed to love the ship and the sea with the
same intensity as their captain, and she found herself doubting some of the
stories of their ruthlessness and cold-bloodedness with which Michael had
frightened her during the first few days.

This was not to say Wade's crew were gentlemanly and
conducted themselves with polite deportment at all times. She heard comments
filtering down from the rigging whenever she passed beneath. She saw the
glances and the open speculation; she saw the eyes move hungrily, lewdly over
her body in a way that set her flesh to crawling. It was only Morgan Wade's
absolute authority, she knew, that kept her reasonably safe.

As for Michael, he was enthralled. From dawn till dusk
he prowled the decks in Thorny's shadow, forever plaguing the crusty old sailor
with questions. He was given small tasks to perform. He was shown how to splice
and repair rigging, how to properly reef and tie off a sail, then how to climb
into the foreyards and set a headsail. His complexion darkened rapidly in the
constant sun and fresh air. He lost a great deal of his timorousness and, on
the third night out, even dared to ask if he might eat his meal in the crew's
mess rather than share the tension of the captain's cabin.

Wade overruled Summer's objection, infuriating her
further by sending down a message through a distinctly uncomfortable Mr.
Thorntree that he too preferred a change from her stiff-lipped petulance and
would be absent until his watch ended at four
a.m.

Summer was furious enough to drag a chair to the
bookcase, fetch down the key and lock and barricade the cabin door. At four
a.m
. she was still wide-awake,
listening to every sound and footfall. When the right one finally entered the
companionway, she held her breath until the door latch abruptly stopped
rattling . . . then released it on a cry as the lock splintered and the chair
shattered under the tremendous force of a boot.

On the seventh morning at sea, Summer woke, as usual,
to the sound of the ship's bell calling the crew to mess. She stretched and
yawned, then lay contentedly for a moment watching the play of sunlight
reflected on the cabin's beamed ceiling. Her gaze wandered to the desk, to the
padded leather chair, to the remains of a cigar tipping out of a tin ash cup
...
to her shirt and trousers lying in a
crumple where Wade had tossed them the night before.

The blush prickled up into her cheeks, and she rolled
onto her stomach, burying her face in the bunched-up pillow. What he did to her
body went beyond mortification. His actions were those of a depraved man. She
could only be thankful there would be no scars to show for his vileness, no
outward sign that she was changed in any way. She would be even more thankful
when and if Bennett Winfield erased all memory of Morgan Wade from her mind and
body!

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the
bed. Her hair fell in a tangle over her shoulders, and she pushed it back
angrily, casting around for the red silk ribbon that also had been rudely
removed. The brigand had actually commanded her to unplait her hair! When she
had refused, he had caught her up, had torn the ribbon loose and worked the
braid free himself, holding her by two twined fistfuls while his mouth taunted
her flesh into submission.

Yes, she would be grateful when it was over. She would
be grateful to set foot on solid land again, relieved beyond anything to see
the last of Morgan Wade.

The
Chimera
shuddered unexpectedly, throwing Summer off-balance as
she was bending down for her clothes. She fell heavily against the side of the
bed and gasped as a carved edge of the wood dug into her thigh. The pain was so
sudden and so blinding she could do little more than rub frantically at the
bruise.

And then she heard it. A grinding, crunching wail of
agony coming from somewhere within the bowels of the ship. The hair on the nape
of her neck rose in alarm, and the skin along her arms sprang instantly to
gooseflesh.

She heard no shots, but her immediate thought was that
the
Chimera
was
under attack. What else would cause the recurring jolts? What else would
produce the continuous rising howl of a beast caught in the steel jaws of a
trap?

The ship lurched, and she heard the whining rasp of
the anchor cables grinding through the capstan. The forward motion became less
pronounced, but raggedly so, ending in a series of shunts as the anchor grabbed
for a hold on the bottom.

Summer pulled on her clothes with hands that were
ice-cold and fumbled in their haste. She stumbled out the cabin door and ran
down the companionway and up the ladder to the deck. She found Michael standing
just outside the hatchway, looking pale and fearful as he tried to follow the
confusion on the deck.

"What is it?" Summer asked. "What has
happened?"

"I don't know. We struck something coming around
into the channel. There was an awful crunching noise, and then everything just
sort of went berserk."

"Where is Captain Wade?"

Michael shook his head. "Below somewhere. He and
Mr. Monday dashed down to see where the trouble was."

"Well, thank God it's nothing serious. You have
no idea the things I was imagining. I could have sworn we were under
attack." She paused and thought about the absurdity a moment. "You
say we hit something?"

"More like we were pushed into it. Thorny said
the captain was worried about the currents."

She smiled wryly. "With all of his boasting and
bragging about what a fine ship he has and how grown men quake at the very
sight of him, he seems to have difficulty just getting from one place to
another."

Michael turned and looked at her strangely.
"Thorny said the patch we took on at S aint Martin was a poor one. It
isn't the captain's fault if it didn't hold."

Summer glared at her brother, shocked to hear him
defending the privateer. But he was no longer looking at her. He was staring
past her shoulder toward the fore hatchway. Morgan Wade was emerging, his
clothes streaming water, his face grim and unreadable. Mr. Monday was a pace
behind, and together they thundered along the quarter rail to the bow, barely
hesitating long enough to shout a blur of orders before they hurled themselves
through the entry port and dove into the sea.

Summer and Michael ran to the rail, joining a handful
of jabbering sailors. Both men had already vanished beneath the surface of the
water, leaving only a disturbance of spreading rings to mark their entrance.
The water was clear for a fathom or more before it gave way to an inky
blackness, but the curve of the hull prevented anyone from seeing what was
happening. There was no sign of either Wade or his chief mate, and so much time
seemed to lapse that Summer's heart began drowning out the sounds of the
anxious voices around her. She gripped the rail tightly and curled her lower
lip between her teeth, biting down until the flesh was colorless.

She felt Michael clutch her arm, and with a gasp saw
the two strong arms reaching for the surface, followed by the dark head and
brawny shoulders. Wade hung in the water for several moments swallowing deep
lungfuls of air, then jacknifed under again, passing Mr. Monday.

The pair went up and down several more times before
Summer could relax with some degree of certainty that they knew what they were
doing. She looked away from the water for the first time and was surprised to
see land on either side of the
Chimera.
They were anchored in a channel that divided two small
islands similar in shape and appearance and sitting no more than six hundred
yards apart. They were jagged cones of rock encircled by dense brush and wide
snow white beaches. The descent into the channel was gradual from each
shoreline; the water was pale blue for a hundred or so yards of sandbars, then
dropped off suddenly to dark bottomless blue.

A burst of water and a roared command drew Summer's
attention over the side again. Wade was treading water and shouting at some of
the crewmen, who responded at once and threw him a length of thick cable and an
iron bar. This time, as he disappeared below, Summer could estimate how deep he
went by the amount of rope being pulled after him. Whatever the excitement was
about, it was well below the waterline.

She heard more spluttering, but it came from behind
her on the deck. Mr. Thorntree was being led coughing and swearing to a seat on
one of the gun carriages. Michael forgot Captain Wade at once and ran to
Thorny's side, stunned not only by the variety of oaths erupting from the
corner of the thin lips but by the quantity of blood spreading across his
soaked shirt-sleeve.

"Thorny, what is it? What's happened!"

"Bah! Bluddy patch give way," Thorny said,
gulping eagerly from the pannikin of rum thrust into his hands. "Currents
'ere 'r strong, an' them damned Frenchies only 'ad raw timber ter give us—so
they said. Like as n'owt the patch tore off comin' 'round the reef. Whatever it
is, she's takin' on water like a bluddy sieve."

"Your arm!" Michael cried, watching the
mingling blood and water fall in a steady pat—pat—pat on the deck.