Irresistible (13 page)

For a moment he simply stared at her without speaking. Then his eyes turned as hard and dark as cast iron and his mouth grew thinner yet.

"Enough," he said. The chair scraped over the floor again as he got abruptly to his feet. "My patience is at an end. I'll play no more of these ridiculous games with you. If you know what's good for you, you'll tell me the truth."

"Stay where you are."

Her heart picked up speed until it was pounding in her chest like a runaway's galloping hooves. Her hands tightened on the pistol grip and her eyes went wide. He was tall and broad and dangerous-looking, his expression wouldn't have been out of place on the devil himself, and despite her best efforts not to allow him to do so, he was scaring her; harsh purpose seemed to emanate from him in waves.

He laughed, a nasty jeering sound, and came toward her.

"Stop right there," she warned, panicking, thrusting the pistol toward him as though to ward him off even as she started to back away. "I'll shoot. I swear I will."

Dear Lord, he wasn't going to stop. What was she going to do? Through her own folly, she found herself in the very situation she had most feared.

Her finger curled around the trigger, hesitated. Her breathing quickened. Her palms grew moist.

"Shoot then," he said, his gaze holding hers, and kept coming, taking slow stalking steps.

Backing up until her legs were pressed hard against the bunk's wooden frame, left with nowhere to go, Claire pulled back the hammer in a burst of dizzying fear and despair. She would have to shoot him….

In the last second, as he loomed terrifyingly near, instead of aiming for his chest she pointed the pistol down, in the approximate direction of his left knee. Then she gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

Chapter 11

In the end, Claire couldn't do it. She just could not pull the trigger. The idea of blowing a hole through him, even through his knee, made her go all nauseated and light-headed. Or perhaps her stomach churning reaction to the gory picture that immediately took possession of her mind was at least partly due to the heaving sea— she couldn't be sure. All she knew was that the thought of his hard male body spurting blood made her feel ill.

A hand clamped over her wrist, and the pistol was wrenched unceremoniously from her grasp.

"No!" Her eyes flew open, her fingers clenched, but her reaction was too late. The pistol was gone. She would have whirled away, out of his reach, but she could not; the bunk was behind her, its edge pressing hard into the backs of her legs, and he was in front of her, scant inches away, blocking her in, the pistol now in his possession. She had to tilt her head far back to meet his eyes. They were gray again, she saw, flinty but no longer black with anger. Still, as she stared up at him her heart raced and her throat went dry— with fear, she assured herself, refusing even to dignify any other possibility. Fear, certainly, was uppermost: The tables had turned again with a vengeance.

"What now, vixen?" he asked, far too pleasantly, echoing the question that was ricocheting through her mind. His hand left her wrist to grip her chin, warm, strong fingers holding her face up for his inspection, and he moved closer yet. He was so near now that her breasts, bare under the flimsy lawn shirt, brushed his chest, the merest butterfly contact. To her horror, she felt her nipples hardening in response. Suddenly she was as shivery inside as she had been on the outside since he had pulled her from the sea. When she moved— a compulsive reaction to such close, unwelcome contact— her bare knee brushed the smooth knit of his breeches, and she was immediately conscious of the hard-muscled leg beneath. She tried to step away, to put more distance between them, but with the bunk at her back and his hand gripping her chin, it was impossible. Frightened and embarrassed and also excruciatingly aware of her wretched body's hideously inappropriate quickening, she fought to avoid showing any of what she was feeling. To combat her weakness, she balled her suddenly weaponless hands into fists and met him stare for stony stare as he loomed over her like a conquering warrior.

"Get your hands off me." She was proud of the cool steadiness of her voice.

"You didn't pull the trigger." When Claire didn't reply but only glared at him, his mouth twisted into a sardonic smile. "Careful, if you keep on like this you'll make me think you fancy me."

Claire's eyes narrowed at that. He was making sport of her, she knew, but that remark struck just a little too close to home for her comfort.

"Unlike you, I've no taste for violence."

"Or you've enough sense to look out for your own self-interest." The sardonic element was back in his voice now.

"That, too," she said, relieved to hear so neat an explanation for her failure to shoot him. If she hadn't been so befuddled by his nearness, she would have thought of that herself. It was, after all, perfectly true. "As you pointed out earlier, if my choice is between dealing with you and dealing with the ship's crew, I choose you."

"Very flattering of you."

His thumb moved in what felt almost like a caress over the underside of her chin. His gaze slid down to her mouth, where it lingered. Watching him stare at her lips, Claire realized that her pulse was racing again— and this time the reaction had absolutely nothing to do with fear. It struck her that his lean, harsh features were attractive in a way that had nothing to do with mere handsomeness. A way she couldn't quite describe— or didn't care to describe, other than acknowledging to herself that it had something to do with the fact that he was so very male. She was burningly aware of his closeness, of her breasts brushing his chest, of her knees brushing his legs. Suddenly she was warm all over, warmer than she had been all night, warmer than she could ever remember being.

"I wouldn't be too flattered." It required an effort, but her voice was tart in an attempt to camouflage the effect he was having on her. "That's rather like choosing between a nest of vipers and a single one. The only difference is the quantity of the poison."

His eyes rose to meet hers. "Sometimes, in just the right amount and under just the right conditions, poison can have a very beneficial effect on its recipient."

There was a gleam in the now silvery depths that caused her breathing to falter. It ignited a kind of quickening deep inside her body that both shamed and excited her. She could not, would not, let herself be attracted to him, she thought, horrified to realize that her toes were now curling in their nice warm stockings from a cause far different from cold. But her wayward body wasn't listening.

Letting her lids drop, she tried to pull her chin from his hold, suddenly panicked at the thought that he might be able to read what she was feeling in her eyes. He already thought her a doxy; she didn't want to prove it for him.

"Let me go."

"Not quite yet."

He was smiling faintly, she saw with a quick upward flicker of her lashes. Had he sensed the effect he was having on her? The thought was unbearably mortifying. Add the notion that his knowledge was responsible for his smile, and her humiliation was complete.

"You dared too much, my girl, and now there's the piper to pay." It was no longer even a smile; rather, it was just the faintest curve of his lips. As her gaze touched on that long, chiseled mouth, she found herself wondering how it would feel against her own.

Her heart pounded against her ribs.

"I said let me go!" Horrified at herself, she tried to mentally stamp out the errant images as if they were tongues of flame snaking out from a roaring meadow fire. But it was already too late. Their gazes met. He shook his head at her almost teasingly, and his thumb recommenced its gentle caress of the soft underside of her chin. Claire felt that touch all the way down to her already curling toes. Her lips parted quite unconsciously. His eyes blazed suddenly, and he bent his head.

She panicked as she realized that he meant to kiss her. She was breathing as fast as if she'd been running for miles, and both hands rose, helplessly, to curl around the strong wrist that imprisoned her chin. She tried again to free herself, but the effort was halfhearted at best and he held her fast without effort. Then, with the best will in the world to dodge or fight or scream or something, she found herself paralyzed by her own burgeoning desire. To her horror, she realized that she wanted him to kiss her. She stood perfectly still— except, if she was honest with herself, for a sudden, fierce quivering that she prayed was only internal— as he touched his lips to hers.

Her eyes closed, and she gave a little gasp. His lips were firm and warm, moving over hers with a soft intensity that made her senses go haywire. His tongue stroked her lips, then slid inside her mouth, and the quivering that had started deep in her belly raced like wildfire down her thighs and up to her breasts, causing an aching, pulsing feeling that was like nothing she had ever known. He tasted faintly of brandy, and suddenly she loved the taste. She loved the way his tongue ran over her teeth, the way it filled her mouth before being teasingly withdrawn, the way it stroked her tongue. She loved everything about what he was doing to her.

David had never kissed her like this. No one had ever kissed her like this. She'd had no idea that there were kisses like this anywhere in the world. Suddenly realizing that she had stumbled across by merest chance what her body had been craving for years, Claire felt like the plainest of wallflowers who had suddenly been asked to dance.

Without warning he lifted his head, breaking off the kiss. Claire clutched at his wrist in protest, barely aware that her nails were digging into his flesh. Her eyes fluttered open. Her lips were still parted, still damp from his kiss. Dear God, she wanted more.

His gaze flicked over her face, touching on her mouth, her cheeks, which she knew must be flushed, and at last met her dazzled gaze.

"Sophy, my sweet dove, you could try kissing me back."

Sophy. The name brought her back to reality like a brick between the eyes. He was treating her like the veriest trollop, she realized, because a trollop was just exactly what he thought her. Ancient, doddering Lord Archer's mistress, to be precise. And there was no escaping it— she was behaving like a trollop. Humiliation washed over her in waves, nearly as burningly intense as just seconds before her desire for him had been. Realizing how he had insulted her, her humiliation turned in the space of a heartbeat to blazing anger.

"I should have shot you," Claire said, embracing the anger as the least dangerous of the myriad sensations at war inside her and using it to meet his gaze full on.

He laughed. Then he pinched her chin in an almost avuncular fashion and, to her mixed regret and relief, released it. His gaze shifted. One-handed, he brought the pistol up, pointed it almost casually at the foot of the bunk, and, even as Claire gasped in horror, pulled the trigger.

Instead of the explosion she instinctively braced for, there was a metallic click.

He pulled the trigger again, and then again.

Click. Click.

Her gaze flew to his, the kiss for the moment forgotten. There was mockery in his eyes.

"It wasn't loaded!"

"It was not," he agreed. His movements almost lazy now, he tossed the pistol onto the bunk and set both hands on either side of her waist.

Claire was trying to make sense of what had just happened. As the ramifications became clear, her eyes widened and a strong sense of ill-usage seized her.

"You knew it wasn't loaded!"

"I knew it from the time I unloaded it soon after I joined you in this cabin. I left the pistol behind in the boat when I jumped in after you, but still it managed to get wet, as I discovered when I checked it. I mean to clean it and let it dry. I hope it is not quite ruined."

"You could have taken it from me at any time."

"I could have."

"Then why— why…?" Words failed her. She glared at him.

"You were having so much fun," he said with a maddening smile that made her long to hit him. "You will have to forgive me if I admit that it was somewhat entertaining, to say the least, to watch you hold the beast at bay."

"You are an utter swine."

Claire was furious, angrier than she could ever remember being in her life, so angry that she no longer cared who was holding whom prisoner. Pushing his hands away, she whisked herself sideways and away from him in a neat move fueled by rage. This time he didn't even try to stop her. Head held high, back as stiff as if she'd swallowed a poker, Claire stalked as far as the table and turned to face him, leaning back against it and grasping the narrow edge with both hands.

If anything, that maddening smile was more pronounced now as he looked her over, slowly and deliberately, from head to toe. She was suddenly uncomfortably aware of how extremely improper her attire was. The lawn of which the shirt was made was so fine as to be almost diaphanous, especially given its loose fit and the illuminating effects of the lantern. Glancing down at herself defensively, Claire realized that she could see the soft teardrop shape of her breasts moving beneath the thin cloth as she breathed. Her nipples were unmistakable: small hard pebbles that jutted against the lawn. In the face of that humiliation, the fact that the shirt ended several inches above her knees, and the stockings ended just below them, leaving her knees and a fair amount of thigh totally bare, was shorn of some of its impact. Snapping her arms across her breasts, shaking her hair forward as well, she managed to provide at least minimal coverage for her most salient parts. But the fact remained that she was just one gossamer layer of cloth away from being naked.

He was not, of course, gentlemanly enough not to look. But then, he was no gentleman, Claire reminded herself. He subjected her to a slow, thorough perusal, and by the time his gaze returned to meet hers, she was glaring at him fiercely. He made her a mocking little bow.

"Most charming," he said.

Claire's lips tightened.

"I would appreciate it if you would throw me a blanket." Her voice was stiff with dignity. She glanced significantly beyond him at the bunk.