Seduced by a Pirate (8 page)

F
OURTEEN

P
hoebe’s dress was driving Griffin mad. Well, that and her lips, dyed ruby dark from hard kisses. The gown was a bluish color, its material so frail that he could see the line of her thigh. It had no bodice to speak of, so every voluptuous inch of her was on display, waiting for his touch.

It was a dress that might well belong to a harlot in a high-class brothel. It made him wonder who she’d worn it for before him, before he shut the thought away in a dark part of his mind.

That part of her life was over. Over.

But he wanted that dress off her. And he didn’t want her to ever wear it again. That wasn’t a gown that one’s wife wore, even if she had taken a lover.

And yet . . . she had looked as startled as a virgin when he touched himself. She hadn’t been frightened in the least all those years ago. As he remembered it, she had briskly pulled up her nightgown and lain back on the bed like the embodiment of every boy’s wet dream.

“Do as you will,” she had said, or something to that effect.

Now she was just as luscious, her curls spilling over her shoulders and her nipples standing out against the frail material of her bodice, begging for his touch.

“Come here, Phoebe,” he said. He couldn’t help it: his demand came out with the tone of a pirate captain who was never disobeyed.

The little smile that curled her lips looked remarkably like mutiny. She didn’t move.

With one swift grab, he pulled her tight and rolled on top of her. She was soft and yielding, with the kind of generous curves that haunted a man’s mind, making him long to return home and grope his wife secretly behind a door.

Even his leg ceased to hurt in the face of a sensation so raw that a groan came from the back of his throat. “Damn, what you do to me,” he whispered, pulling a few stray hairpins from her curls and tossing them to the floor.

She bit her lip, a flash of white teeth making her lip even darker. He thought about those ruby-colored lips closing around his most private part, and another groan broke from his throat. “I want you so much.”

“I am your wife,” she whispered back. “You can have me. I mean, you
do
have me.”

The words burned into his heart and had him shaking from head to foot. But he couldn’t simply plunge into her.

There was still that trace of fear at the back of her eyes. Her lover had probably been a smooth and sleek Englishman. And here she was with a brute of a sailor.

He had to seduce her.

Gently.

“You are my wife,” he said, loving the sound of it, rolling them both onto their sides. “My only wife.” Her hair finally tumbled down over his fingers. He pulled her close and kissed her again. And again. They kissed and kissed, sweet and hot and unbearably sensual. He didn’t let his hands leave her hair, twisting until every finger was knotted in silk strands.

She didn’t touch him for the longest time but kept her arms locked around his neck as if she was pretending that they were both clothed. As if she hadn’t noticed that he was stark naked, trembling with the wish that she would caress him.

Finally her fingers slid to his shoulders, and then down his back. He groaned, and gasped, “Touch me.” He’d never heard that tone in his own voice before. But he shook off the thought.

“You’re so powerful,” she whispered, her feather-light touch sending streaks of heat straight to his groin. He imagined those slender fingers straying below his waist, and grew impossibly harder.

“I will be gentle,” he stated, a vow and a promise.

“It’s all right,” she whispered back. He was drinking up the husky edge in her voice and hardly heard what she said. “I know it will hurt and I don’t mind.”

“Hurt?” He frowned at her. “I’m large but not monstrous.” But her fingers were skimming the curve of his ass, and he was spending all his brainpower curbing himself so he didn’t lunge on her like a wild beast.

“Would you mind very much if I ripped your gown?” he asked, trying for a polite air. He really hated that gown and all it implied.

“Not at all. I greatly dislike this gown.”

He frowned. “You do?”

“It’s not proper,” she said, the corners of her lips turned down. “You may destroy it.” She wasn’t agreeing: she was commanding.

Without another word, he put both his hands on her bodice and ripped it straight down the middle.

She was exquisite . . .

And totally naked.

“No corset,” he said, once he recovered enough so that he could breathe. “No chemise? Has English fashion changed so much while I was gone?”

“No,” she admitted. “Not at all. I thought I’d die of embarrassment when your father walked into the drawing room. I was convinced he could see how shamefully I was attired.”

Another pulse of that unwelcome wish that his wife wasn’t quite so experienced, that she didn’t know to leave off her undergarments when greeting a man. He pushed it down, away.

“I had no idea,” he promised her, “and neither did the viscount. Believe me, I was looking.” Phoebe’s breasts were voluptuous and plump, overflowing his hands like a gift from the gods. He ran a hand down the curve of her hips, the length of her legs. She lay before him, naked, flawless, a sweet expanse of perfect skin and sultry curves waiting to be caressed.

“You’re perfect, Poppy,” he breathed. And then heard what he had just said.

She scowled. “My name is not Poppy. I know you’ve been with other women, but you have to remember my name.”

“I’ll never be with another woman again,” he said, cupping her face in his hands and bringing his nose close enough to touch hers. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life in this bed.”

“No Poppies?”

“Never. Could I call
you
Poppy sometimes?”

“No?”

“Not even when I want to make those beautiful eyes stormy?”

“No.” She was an uncompromising woman. He made a mental note to call her Poppy on regular occasions. Obviously, it was his role in life to make certain that his wife laughed.

“No going to sea?”

“Never again without you. I’d like to show you Paris sometime.” Tired of talking, he took her mouth, one hand curving under her bottom, pulling her hard against his crotch.

They kissed until he realized that he was in danger of losing control, pinning his wife down and having his way with her.

“You’re bad for me,” he murmured, leaving her mouth and kissing his way down her throat.

She had to clear her throat to answer. “Why?”

“First you made me impotent. Now you’re threatening to turn me into a six-second miracle.”

“A what?”

“A misfiring pistol,” he said, a laugh rumbling in his throat. For all he was ravaged by lust at the mere sight of her, he actually had an iron grip over himself. He would not lose control until he had wiped out the memory of Colin’s father, so that his wife never thought of the man—whoever he was—again.

He’d reached her breast, so he licked and nuzzled and suckled until she was begging him wordlessly, her arms trying to pull him closer, her legs clenching together. “Please,” she kept begging. And then commanding, “Now, Griffin!”

There was no reason to obey her, not this time, so he kept on going, down past the curve of her stomach. He glanced up to see a horrified expression on his wife’s face.

That just made him grin. Apparently, there was something
he
could teach her in the bedroom. He was skilled . . . she was a woman . . . the outcome was inevitable. And she was wildly responsive, after she got over her initial qualms.

In fact, it was a mere moment before she screamed, her body twisting up before she fell into a surprised, limp heap. He didn’t stop. He was reveling in the pure carnality of her lusciousness, in her sleek, wet beauty. So he bent his head and started over with a wantonly sensual kiss, one that broke every rule and demanded utter surrender.

Phoebe surrendered, oh so sweetly. He let the pirate side of him enjoy holding her down, pleasuring her even as she tried to pull him up.

He kept going until her breath was coming in little sobs, her body bucking against his, her eyes glazed.

Then he brought his hand into play, and with just a rough caress and a twist of his fingers, her whole sweet little body tightened around his fingers and she screamed again, falling apart.

It was time.

He came up and over her, pausing for a moment to enjoy the sweet triumph of knowing every luscious inch of her was suffused in pleasure. Her skin stretched like the finest silk over her bones, sweet and creamy, without even a freckle.

Or, more to the point, the faintest stretch mark.

He frowned.

His wife’s skin was unmarked, except a trail caused by kisses that must have been rougher than he thought. “Phoebe!” he growled.

She opened those beautiful blue eyes.

Perhaps they would always be able to read each other’s thoughts. A little smile instantly curled his wife’s lips. “There’s something I keep meaning to tell you,” she whispered, her voice a husky, sensual invitation. No virgin could . . .

“Damnation!”

F
IFTEEN

P
hoebe could have laughed at the astonishment on Griffin’s face, but her heart was too full. “It’s good news, isn’t it?” she asked. “From your point of view, that is?”

“Good,” he repeated. He looked as if she’d struck him over the head with a big rock.

She nodded.

He spread his hands across her stomach. She instinctively tensed her muscles to try to draw it flat. She had a curve there. The truth was that she had curves everywhere.

“You didn’t sleep with another man.” His voice was raw with an emotion she couldn’t quite recognize. Relief? “You aren’t accustomed to eating dinner without underclothes.”

“What? No!”

“You never wore that blue gown for lover?”

“Absolutely not!” She felt a little indignant at the very idea. “You think I have a
wardrobe
just to satisfy my illicit desires? My maid took off its underskirt because she wanted to make sure you found me desirous.”

“Absurd.”

She scowled at him.

“As if any red-blooded man in the world could resist you. Now I wish I hadn’t ripped the gown.” There was laughter in his voice again, but relief, too. Relief and joy and a bedrock strain of desire. “Or rather, I wish I’d jumped off that boat and swum back to shore and tried again. Or that I’d remembered I was married and been faithful to you.”

She snorted. “Under English law we aren’t yet married, you know. Not until the marriage is consummated. My father told me, the moment I confessed that you were gone.”

“You lied?”

“I lied.”

He cupped her face in his hands and dropped a kiss on her lips. “Thank you.” And: “I don’t deserve you.”

“No, you don’t,” she whispered back. “Remember that.”

“The children?”

“My cousin died when Alastair was born. Her husband asked me to care for them. He left for the Bermudas and died of a fever only two months later.”

“Worthless sod,” Griffin growled, picturing Colin’s father under his foot. “He should have stayed with his children.”

But Phoebe was smiling at him, and the thought slipped out of his head. “They call me Mama. Still, I tell them about their mother, and we visit her grave now and then.”

Despite all the emotion, his body was urgently making its demands known. He’d had a cock-stand for hours, and he couldn’t wait much longer.

“You’ll be a wonderful father for them,” she said.

The three little ones had already stepped into his heart, that scrappy bravery they showed ten times as dear now he knew they were orphans. “We’ll adopt them.”

“We already did.” Phoebe had the lazy smile of a well-satisfied woman playing around her lips, but he was still in the grip of a ravening hunger.

Strands of hair fell over her voluptuous curves, playing hide-and-seek with a pink nibble. He clasped her breasts with a possessive joy that he had never felt before. “Phoebe,” he murmured, bending to lap that nipple. “Could we discuss the children later?”

A tiny gasp, and then: “Yes.”

It was a long night. Griffin worked his way down his wife’s body again, making certain that she understood that every splendid inch of her was
his,
had been kissed and claimed. In turn, he threw himself on his back and let her touch him everywhere.

“Virgin curiosity,” he grumbled, his muscles shaking as he fought to keep control as her fingers glazed his most sensitive parts.

“Exactly,” she said. But the gleam in her eye seemed more suited to a pirate queen than a virgin, even as she decided that touch needed to be supplemented by taste. His self-control was on the frailest of threads . . .

Still, she was a
virgin
.

Finally he rolled over, plundered her mouth as he braced himself above her. Her eyes weren’t glazed any longer: they were clear, desirous, and passionate. “Yes,” she sobbed, “please.”

“I love you,” he said, looking down at the strong, funny, utterly adorable woman whom fate had given him fourteen years ago.

“What?” she asked, sounding dazed.

“I love you,” he said, feeling the rightness of it through his chest, and his heart.

“Oh, good,” she said. Then she bent her knees and arched up toward him. “Let’s discuss it later.” There was naked longing in her voice.

Griffin knew at that moment that he would never experience anything so wonderful again in his life. “This might hurt.”

“I know,” she said, “just do it. Please!” Her fingers were clenched on his forearms.

He thrust into the sweetest, tightest, heaven-sent . . .

There were no words.

By some miracle, he managed to hang on to his control enough to pause. “Phoebe,” he growled, “are you all right?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Pain?” He dropped a tender kiss on her mouth.

She wiggled and he sucked in a breath. “No.”

“No pain?”

She wiggled again. “It’s just that I want . . .”

He withdrew in one smooth movement.

“
More,
” she said, her voice husky, craving. “More. I want more of that.”

He gave her more. At some point he realized that he had been wrong: he hadn’t had the best experience of his life already, because surely that came later that night, when Phoebe woke from a nap.

She crawled on top of him and he woke to find a delectable, fragrant woman sinking onto his very willing self.

At which point his very own pirate queen leaned over and whispered, “I love you too, Sir Griffin Barry. My husband.”

Surely that was the best moment . . . but then there was the next morning in the courtyard, when Phoebe described herself as insatiable, beckoned to him like a “crazed widow” (her term), and pushed him up against the wall. They barely made it into the dairy, and all the time he was pounding into her, smothering her cries with his kisses, he could hear Nanny McGillycuddy calling.