Sea of Desire (31 page)

He gave the paneled door a cursory knock
before fitting the brass key into the hole. She had lit a candle
and was standing by the window. The window she’d managed to open.
Neither of those things surprised him. Jared had regretted locking
her in the moment he did it. But his choices had been few.

She looked up when he entered and shut the
door, her expression defiant. “I shan’t go anywhere with you. This
is my home and I intend to stay here. You allude to some danger,
but I don’t think... What are you—” Merideth didn’t even get a
chance to finish her question before his mouth molded to hers. Her
gasp allowed his tongue inside and he thrust it deep, filling her
completely.

His body pressed her back, till she was
pressed between the wall and him. She could feel his hardness
against her stomach as he continued to make love to her mouth...
sipping, biting, sucking her lower lip between his teeth until she
could do naught but make small whimpering noises of surrender.

When his lips left hers, Merideth sucked in
air, all thoughts of protest driven from her mind.

“I want you with me,” Jared said as his
fingers skimmed the lace edging of her bodice. A flick of his wrist
and one breast was free, its extended nipple rucked and begging for
his touch. And touch it he did, first with the pad of his thumb,
then the tip of his wet tongue.

Merideth’s knees gave way, and if not for the
strength of his body pressing her into the solid wall, she would
have melted into a puddle on the threadbare rug.

Moist heat surrounded her breast and Merideth
arched forward, silently begging for more. He heard. He answered.
As Merideth fingered the rough silk of his hair, cradling his head
to her chest, he fought his way through layers of petticoats.

Without preamble he cupped her mound,
stroking between the folds with his finger. Like a spark to dry
tinder her body convulsed. Her eyes glazed and the only sound
coming from her slack lips was the litany of his name.

“My God, you’re so hot and wet.” Jared tore
at the front of his breeches. He buried his face in the curve of
her shoulder, deep in the softness of her sweet-smelling hair as
his first thrust joined them.

Their united sigh of contentment soon gave
way to heavy rasps of breathing. Breathing that came as fast and
hard as the push of their flesh to come together. Jared’s hands
skimmed down her body, down the skin-warmed silk covering her ribs.
Sorting through her skirts to find the soft fullness of her
buttocks was impossible, so Jared grasped handfuls of silk and
lace, lifting her up and around him. She clung to his shoulders,
and their lips met in an erotic kiss.

And all the while he filled her, each
soul-consuming plunge deeper than the last. When she began to
quiver, Jared’s own release exploded. It rocked through him and
seemed to last forever.

When he could think again, Jared lowered her
slippered feet to the floor. Her eyes were closed, but she opened
them slowly when her skirts slipped down around her legs. Her
expression was one of disbelief. Jared was certain it matched his
own.

Dropping his head, he rested his forehead
against hers, his hands flat against the watered-silk wall. “I’m
not leaving without you,” he said, his voice low and husky. He
thought he heard her sigh... or sob, he wasn’t sure which, but she
said nothing to his pronouncement.

Jared left her against the wall, and after
rearranging his breeches he moved to her chifforobe. She’d packed
nothing, and so for the second time in his life Jared found himself
assembling an array of women’s clothing. The glance he spared her
showed that she’d settled onto the window seat and was leaning
against the deep casement. She looked as drained and debauched as
he felt.

He found a small trunk that looked as if it
had seldom been used, and stuffed several gowns and petticoats
inside before closing the lid and hefting it onto his shoulder.
When he crossed the room and reached for her hand, Merideth seemed
to pull herself from her lethargy.

“I can’t just go with you,” she said in a
tone that Jared knew she thought was sensible. But he ignored both
the tone and the sense behind it.

“You can and you are. Now, I still have a
shoulder free if you’d like me to toss you over it.”

In the end she didn’t require such drastic
measures. But even though she followed behind him, carrying the
candle to light their way, Merideth continued to expound on the
reasons she must stay. All for naught. For like his pirate
ancestor, he gave her no choice.

The moon, momentarily freed from the blanket
of clouds, cast silvery shadows across Banistar Hall as Merideth
glanced back. The walls looked tall and imposing... imprisoning.
Daniel, the captain, and Merideth were making their way across the
garden, walking single file along the overgrown paths, when she
stopped. Expecting a terse order to hurry along from the captain,
who was behind her, Merideth was surprised when he too paused.

“You’ll return,” Jared said, though he wasn’t
sure he wasn’t promising something he couldn’t deliver.

Merideth stood perfectly still a moment
longer, the wind swirling ribbons of hair in her face. She was
staring... remembering. With a sigh she tilted her head toward
Jared. “I’m not certain I wish to,” she said before resuming the
trek toward the cliff.

They climbed down in the same order as their
assent. Jared went first, followed by Merideth, then Daniel. There
were no near-accidents. Once, close to the bottom, Merideth’s leg
brushed against a root. She sucked in her breath, expecting the
same feeling of tree limbs snarling about to entangle her legs. But
it didn’t happen. And the more she thought about the snaring from
before, the more it bewildered her.

By the time Daniel reached the rocky beach,
Jared had settled Merideth in the longboat. The inky sea was
choppy, with crowns of frothy white skimming the swells. ‘Twas a
foreshadowing of a storm brewing to the east... a storm that sent
the wind whipping through Merideth’s hair and fluttering her
skirts.

A fast-moving squall... on them before they
knew what was happening. What had begun as a simple trip from
Land’s End to the
Carolina
, became a race against time.

“Keep it straight,” Merideth heard the
captain yell above the thud of waves splashing against the sides.
Lightning raged across the sky, etching the captain in bold relief,
his muscles straining against the wind-plastered shirt.

Then the rain began, a deluge of
skin-prickling pellets that immediately soaked the three occupants
of the longboat. They were almost to the
Carolina
. Merideth
could make out the skeletal stand of its mast through the sheets of
falling water.

She clutched the seat, digging her fingers
into the splintery wood, holding on as the small boat rocked and
heaved into the next trough of sea. Salt water sloshed in the
bottom of the boat and Merideth no longer tried to raise her
slippers above the wet. It was simply too deep.

“Get the bucket!” At first Merideth didn’t
realize this growled order was meant for her. But with the next
flash of lightning she could see the captain shouting her way.

“I don’t know...” The wind carried the
remainder of her words toward land, but Jared apparently knew what
she meant, for he yelled for her to search the bottom of the
boat.

Slipping down on hands and knees, Merideth
braced herself against the ribs and felt about till her hand closed
around a rope handle. “I found it!”

“Bail!” came his snapped command as he bent
his back into the next swollen wave.

She made little progress against the steady
stream of water that splashed over the hull, but at least her
efforts kept her too busy to think. Merideth supposed she should be
thankful for that. She was so frightened. Surrounded by open air
and still she was frightened.

Were they moving toward the
Carolina
?
Merideth couldn’t tell. Over the angry rumble of the sea she could
hear the captain yelling at Daniel. It wasn’t until a web of
lightning seared the sky that she saw the hull of the schooner
looming beside them.

Then there were more shouts, this time from
above. Merideth glanced up, protecting her eyes from the rain with
the curve of her hand. Lights bobbed overhead spilling murky
circles of yellow on the ochre-sided ship.

“A rope. They’ve thrown over a rope.” His
voice faded as he maneuvered the longboat around toward the
Carolina
’s hull. “Grab hold, Merideth.”

But the words were barely out of his mouth
before the boat tilted and Daniel lunged toward the dangling hemp.
Balancing himself, he twisted the rope around his waist, knotting
it frantically, then giving a yank. The crew above lifted, and he
used his shoes to keep him from banging against the hull.

By sheer luck, the next rope fell nearly in
Merideth’s lap. She clutched at it just as a wave smashed the
longboat against the hull.

“Hell and damnation,” she heard the captain
yell above the splintering sound. “Wrap it around your waist,” he
ordered, “while I try to keep this thing still.”

“Still” was obviously a relative word, for
they were bobbing all over the place, one minute cracking against
the
Carolina
, the next pulling away.

“Not without you.” Merideth clutched the
slick hemp and crawled toward the bow of the longboat.

“... hurry... up. Tie it!”

“I said... not going without you.” Merideth
fell to her knees as a swell swamped over them.

He barely hesitated before pulling in the
oars and grabbing the rope. The longboat seemed caught in a vortex,
spinning uncontrollably. For one hideous moment as he lashed the
rope around his waist, Merideth saw herself being left on the sea
to drown when the longboat sank.

Before she could voice her fear, he stood,
lurching to the side, and circled her body with his arms. “Hold on
tight, your Ladyship,” he yelled as he gave the rope a yank.

Merideth wrapped her arms around his neck as
they were lifted, swaying with the yaw of the ship and the fickle
wind. She tried to strengthen her grip, linking her legs with his,
and her wet skirts tangled with his feet. They were suspended in
air, surrounded by water. It poured from the heavens and surged
beneath them, ready to swallow them up.

Her sob was born of fear and involuntary... a
mere extension of her rasping breath.

“Hang on, Merry—” His last word was
punctuated by a grunt of pain as they banged into the side of the
ship.

The impact jarred her arms loose from their
grip around Jared’s neck. If not for his bruising hold on her
waist, she might have fallen. But she didn’t, and within moments
she felt herself being lifted. Members of the crew had hauled them
close enough to grab them.

It didn’t matter that strong hands were
pulling her over the rail to the safety of the deck; Merideth found
it difficult to give up her regained hold on the captain. When they
were both standing on the wave-swept deck and being bundled in
blankets, she wanted to sink into his arms.

But there was much to do. Merideth was
hustled below deck by Tim, who took her straight to the captain’s
cabin. Where Jared Blackstone went, she didn’t know. The storm
raged the rest of the night, finally blowing itself out as the
first tinges of pewter softened the line between sea and sky.

She’d spent a fitful night, tossing and
turning near as much as the ship. But with the onset of calm,
Merideth fell into a deep sleep. Something, a sound or presence,
awoke her and she blinked open her eyes to see the captain
silhouetted in the open doorway. The light from the passageway
outlined his body as surely as the wet clothes he still wore.

He looked tired and bedraggled, a soldier
who’d fought the storm and won. But a victor not without wounds. He
stepped into the cabin, his feet bare on the wooden deck, his broad
shoulders slumped. And Merideth pushed to sitting. She held the
blanket to her chin with one hand as she propped herself up with
the other.

“Do you mind if I shut the door?” he asked,
his voice low and scratchy.

Merideth shook her head. Strands of golden
curls, tangled from drying without benefit of brushing, fell across
her cheek. She’d kept the door open last night, for she couldn’t
stand the thought of being closed in with the tempest raging. But
now, with the captain in the room with her, the fear was as
fleeting as a wisp of smoke fading in the breeze.

His eyelids drooped, the thick tangle of
lashes forming a crescent that partially hid the dark shadows of
fatigue staining the skin beneath his eyes. “Do you mind if I...?”
His words trailed off, but it was obvious by the tilt of his head
that the bed was what he desired. His hair was loose from its
ribbon, still damp, and dark and sleek as a raven’s wing in the
sun.

“Oh, of course.” Merideth scooted to the
bottom of the bunk, pulling the wool blanket with her. She planned
to slide off the end, but he sat down on the bed, catching the
blanket beneath his body.

“You needn’t leave There’s room for us
both.”

Perhaps so, for the bunk was large, obviously
made to suit his size, but...

“If it’s your virtue you fear for, you
needn’t. I’m too tired to take advantage of even you.”

Not sure if she’d heard a tinge of sarcasm in
his words or not, Merideth sat still a moment longer. After all,
her “virtue,” what there’d been of it, had been welted a deathblow
against the wall in her bedroom.

But she still had her pride.

He may have demonstrated more than once that
he could make her forget all else with just the touch of his lips,
the subtle caress of his fingertips. A small voice inside her
warned that sharing a bed with him voluntarily was something else
again.