How To Please a Pirate (11 page)

“Not so sure I like calling you Jack though,”
he said as he turned with her as smoothly as if they were doing the
minuet in a ballroom. “Not with a bosom such as yours. Nothing
remotely Jack-like about you.”

“My bosom is none of your concern,” she said,
unable to keep from retort or from the tingling heat that crept up
from her bodice to spread over her neck and cheeks. “Jack is my
name. Jacquelyn, Jack, it’s evens or odds. Perhaps you should
settle on Mistress Wren, my lord. Though once I win, you’ll not
need to call me anything at all, since you will not be speaking
with me except in public.”

She launched a hail of blows that had them
both breathing hard.

“No, Jacquelyn doesn’t suit either,” he said,
ignoring her more proper suggestion as he parried her thrusts.
“Jacquelyn is far too buttoned up for your sort.”

“My sort?” She drew in a panting breath.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jacquelyn is a hard, brittle sort of name
and even though you try not to let it show, you’ve much more
softness about you than you want to admit.” He paused, the tip of
his foil waving before her like an adder poised to strike. “Has no
one ever called you Lyn?”

“Never.”

“Then I’ll be the first. Lyn.” His tone
caressed the name and a strange warmth stirred in her chest. “I
want to be the first for you. In everything.”

He moved so quickly, her eye couldn’t follow
the blur, but suddenly her small-sword was flying across the room.
It clattered to the floor and rolled to rest at the feet of one of
the suits of armor.

She stood before him defenseless, his foil
poised for the
coupe
. Her chin jutted up a notch.

“A gentleman would allow me to retrieve my
sword so we could continue.”

“No doubt a gentleman would. Unfortunately
for you, I’m a pirate.” he assured her. He closed the distance
between them and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her tight
against his hard chest. “I win.”

“There’s been no
touché
,” she
protested. “Your foil has not touched my torso.”

He pulled open her protective padded jacket,
exposing her décolletage. Her nipples hardened beneath the lace of
her bodice. Jacquelyn couldn’t bring herself to move as he lowered
his mouth. He pressed his lips to the tender skin over the slender
bone that ran from the hollow of her throat to her shoulder. She
trembled like a beech in a breeze.

“I didn’t say it had to be a foil touch.” He
let his rapier drop and splayed a possessive hand over her right
breast. “
Touché
, Lyn.”

She’d lost. Anger flare inside her. She drew
back her arm and struck him across the cheek with all her
strength.

He blinked in surprise, but didn’t release
her. Instead he grabbed both her wrists, lifted them above her head
and pinned her against the stone wall. She’d had a wicked fancy of
him doing just such a thing, but the action was less romantic and
far more frightening in real life.

And far more rousing than she would have
believed.

With her arms raised, her bodice pushed her
breasts up even more that usual. She suspected one or both of her
pebble-hard nipples peeped from behind the Brussels lace at her
neckline. The panniers that held her skirt away from her bare
thighs usually gave her a sense of freedom of movement. Now, she
felt acutely aware that, barring the stockings that were gartered
at her knees, she was naked from the waist down beneath her broad
skirt. A dull ache started at the apex of her thighs.

“Don’t your scruples give you pause before
you strike your lord?” he asked.

“No more than yours stop you from ravishing
your chatelaine.”

“So you think I’m about to ravish you?” The
fierce hunger in his face when his gaze swept down her neck to her
breasts made ravishment seem a foregone conclusion. “Good idea, but
no. When I take a woman, it’s because she wants to be taken.” He
met her eyes with a smoldering gaze. “You’re close, Lyn, but you’re
not there yet.”

“My name is Jacquelyn,” she said.

“And yet to me, you’re Lyn,” he said in an
almost tender rumble. He nuzzled her neck and stopped when his lips
neared her ear. She tried to squirm away from him, but his
one-handed grip on her wrists high over her head was firm. “Settle
yourself, girl and it will be done with all the sooner. Time for
the question.”

“Go ahead, then.” She’d almost forgotten her
forfeit was the truthful answer to this unknown question. His warm
breath sent shivers of pleasure down her neck, but she willed
herself to stand perfectly still.

“It’s about what happened in the garden—”

“I suppose you want to know why I ran
away.”

“No, I already know the answer to that.” He
pulled back to look her square in the eye while his free hand
traced the edge of her neckline, stopping when his fingers brushed
an exposed nipple. He drew deliberate slow circles around her
sensitive areola with his thumb. “You were afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” The ache between her
legs throbbed steadily.

“Perhaps you should be, but I hope not,” he
said. “But in the garden, you weren’t afraid of me. You were afraid
of yourself.”

Her snort of derision made her breasts jiggle
and his eyes flared at their movement. She silently cursed herself
for making things worse. He slid his hand down her bodice and came
back out cupping her breast in his hot palm. He lowered his mouth
to her taut nipple and teased it with his tongue.

Jacquelyn gasped. The lust in her groin shot
from an ache to white-hot pangs. She caught herself arching her
back, the better to present her needy breast to his mouth. She bit
her lip to keep from pleading with him to suckle her and be done
with it. Anything to stop the torment.

The question.
He had a question for
her. It might be her salvation.

“What did you want to know?” she managed to
ask as she ground her teeth. “Your question . . .”

That brought his head back up and she nearly
cried out at the sharp longing in her nipples. If she didn’t feel
his mouth on them again, tugging and demanding soon, she might go
mad.

At least he pacified her breast with his
hand, flicking the taut flesh as he leaned in to touch the side of
her nose with his. His eyes were closed and his mouth was so close
to hers, his breath feathered across her lower lip.

“I need to know why,” he said, his tone
ragged. “After I let you go, why did
you
kiss
me
in
the garden?”

Because I’m insane. Because I’ve inherited
my mother’s lack of judgment about men. Because . . .
A dozen
answers sprang to her mind, all of them perfectly plausible. But
only one of them true.

“Because I couldn’t bear not to.”

She felt his cheek lift in a smile. “Do you
think you could bear to do it again?” he whispered.

“That makes two questions, my lord.”

“Who’s counting?” When he drew back and
lifted a brow at her, she knew she was lost.

She raised herself on tiptoe, found his mouth
and slanted hers across it. For a moment, he seemed content to let
her set the pace and she embarked on a leisurely exploration of his
lips. But when she slid her tongue into his open mouth, the kiss
changed.

Command of their carnal odyssey shifted to
him and he took possession of her mouth as if by right. To her
surprise, Jacquelyn didn’t mind. She surrendered to his plundering
tongue, gasping for breath when he released her mouth to trail his
lips over her jaw, down her neck and straight as a plumline back to
her aching nipples.

Far from stilling the need, his mouth at her
breast made her want all the more. Outlandish things. Wicked,
indecent things. Things her mother had told her about. She never
dreamed she’d actually want a man to do them to her, but now they
suddenly sprang into her mind. A second heartbeat pounded between
her legs and she felt a spurt of moist warmth.

She groaned. She could no more control the
helpless little noises of distress coming from her throat than she
could stop the torrent of wanting that washed over the rest of
her.

“Ah, Lyn, that’s it, lass. Sing for me.”

He released her wrists so he could palm both
her breasts. She was free, but passion rooted her to the spot where
her spine pressed against the cold stone. Instead, she buried her
fingers in his hair, kneading his scalp, whispering urgent
encouragement in disjointed sounds. It was no language known to
man, but he seemed to understand her perfectly.

He yanked the front of her skirt up. Cool air
breezed over her heated flesh as he draped the yards of fabric on
the wire and horsehair shelf of her panniers.

Gabriel stepped back and looked down at her
triangle of coppery brown curls. She stopped breathing.

“You’re beautiful,” he said with reverence.
Then he cupped her sex with his whole hand.

She whimpered with longing as he spread her
swollen folds and drew a fingertip along her delicate inner lips.
When he dropped to his knees before her, she swayed unsteadily.
Only his arms around her hips and his hands on her buttocks kept
her upright as his mouth claimed her secrets.

Had he somehow climbed inside her mind and
seen her most wicked fancies?

Jacquelyn was drowning in a sea of sensation
with only a pirate to throw her a lifeline. She nearly wept with
relief when he stood and unbuttoned the front of his bulging
breeches.

He kissed her again while he hooked his
elbows under her knees and lifted her, spreading her wide to
receive him. She pressed down on his shoulders to help him. Just
the tip of him slid between her throbbing folds.

To her dismay, he stopped.

“I want you so bad, it’s like a sickness but
I have to be certain,” he said, his voice hoarse with passion.
“You’re a maiden and once done, this is a thing that cannot be
undone. Do you want me, Lyn?”

“Yes, oh, yes,” she almost sobbed.

He kissed her again as he lowered her, his
shaft gently invading her moist flesh. When he reached her
maidenhead, he paused for a blink and she moaned softly. Then he
rammed himself home and pain shrieked through her.

He held her perfectly still. Then the pain
sizzled away and she felt his full length embedded in her, hot and
hard and throbbing with its own rhythm, his heartbeat in tandem
with hers. One salty tear streaked her cheek.

“Now, there’ll be only pleasure between you
and me,” he assured her as he kissed away the tear. “No more pain,
I promise.”

“I believe you,” she whispered.

Slowly, he began to move and the world faded
around her.

Until the door behind him swung open and
Father Eustace burst in.

“Gabriel, lad, you must come right away.
We’ve royal compan— Oh!”

“By Thunder,” Gabriel roared over his
shoulder, trying to shield Jacquelyn from his uncle’s view. “Does
no one ever knock in this cursed place?”

Eustace’s eyes widened as he realized he’d
interrupted Gabriel and Jacquelyn in the very act. The priest
whirled around, faced the door and banged his knuckles on the
worm-marked oak.

“Your pardon, nephew.” The set of his uncle’s
shoulders told Gabriel that Eustace was upset by the scene he’d
interrupted but his voice was commendably even. “But Sir Cecil
Oddbody is on your doorstep waiting to be announced.”

“Who the hell is he?” Gabriel’s tone was
decidedly less even.

Though he was still inside her, Gabriel
straightened his arms and let Jacquelyn slide her legs down so her
feet rested tiptoe on the floor again.

“One of the king’s counselors. Unless memory
fails me, Oddbody is the courtier whose signature is on that pardon
you’re so proud of,” Uncle Eustace said. “Shall I tell him you’ll
meet him in the solar directly or that you’re too busy defiling
Mistress Wren to attend him at present?”

“I’ll be along in a moment,” Gabriel
said.

“I hardly think—”

“I said, I’ll be there. Now begone!”

“The lord of a castle wields great power. But
power is seductive. It consumes all who use it. Be careful yours
does not consume you, Gabriel.” Eustace slammed the door behind
him.

Gabe twisted back to Jacquelyn to find her
stuffing her breasts back into her bodice, her cheeks flaming. The
moment was definitely lost. He felt himself wither and slip from
inside her.

“Lyn, I didn’t want it to be this way.”

She smoothed her skirt back down without
meeting his eyes. Her lips trembled in a mirthless smile and if he
hadn’t known how strong-minded she was, he might have feared for
her senses. There was certainly nothing to smile about.

He reached for her. “I’m sorry if—”

“No need, my lord.” She held up a forbidding
hand, careful to keep her eyes downcast. “Now if you will excuse
me, your duties take you elsewhere. As do mine.”

She tried to push past him, but he grabbed
her arm.

“We’re not finished with this,” he warned.
“Not by a long stretch.”

“On the contrary,” she said, her tone
brittle. “Your goal is achieved. You have added my maidenhead to
your collection. But take heart, my lord. No doubt a new trophy
will arise on your horizon presently.”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was my own fault. I should
have known a pirate would not stop until he’d—”

“I did stop.”

“Yes, you did,” she admitted. “But only when
you were certain I was incapable of it. Now, Lord Drake, if you
will release me, I will see to your guest’s refreshment.”

“Lyn—”

“Kindly refer to me as Mistress Wren, if you
please.”

Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but
there was fire behind them. He found her fury strangely comforting.
Familiar, at any rate.