Seize the Fire (32 page)

She felt that her whole body must be fiery with shame and excitement. She wanted to close her eyes; she wanted to scramble away and hide, but she could not stop looking at him. He was breathing deeply, his lashes a dark sweep against his tanned face as he looked down at her body and watched what his hands were doing. The splendid curves of his chest and shoulders rose and fell in rhythm with the stroke of his thumbs through the curls that hid the source of sweet flame.

She pressed upward under his hands with a soft moan. He leaned forward, the opened trousers brushing her thighs and a new heat pressing where his fingers had been. His hands gripped her waist and his thighs tightened as his hips took up the rhythm his hands had begun. That mysterious silky hardness her fingers had explored touched her now with scorching intimacy. It pushed and slid against her as he moved. With every stroke that rubbed across the bright center of sensation, Olympia gave a faint, eager gasp. He stared down at her face, his lips parted in a harsh smile, his eyes gleaming with knowing mockery.

Blood rushed to her face. She tried to pull away.

He bent and trapped her between his hands. "Oh, no. Don't leave now," he murmured. "It won't prove a thing, except that you're a hypocrite. And there's really nowhere worth going, is there?"

She tried to get her breath. It was hard, with him above her, his gray eyes light, his legs spread, the trousers stretched across his thighs and revealing his rampant maleness as it touched her in an act of the most arrant sensuality. Without shame he moved, slowly arching his head back with a groan and a long, heavy push against the moist sweetness between her legs. It set sparks to the place he touched, sent fire through her spine and up to her breasts. Her thighs trembled and tried to open against the prison of his legs.

He rose suddenly, freeing her, kneeling between her legs to slide his hands beneath her knees as the fur fell away. His palms shaped the back of her thighs, lifting, skimming down to slip between her buttocks and the sealskin.

"Oh, Jesus…Princess…" He bent his head and kissed the inside of her raised knee, his hands pulling her toward him as he knelt with his folded legs spread wide beneath her hips.

Olympia felt the renewed contact of his body against the warmth that was opened wide to him. His hardness moved again across that point of hot pleasure, even closer now, more forcefully, slipping easily on the moistness that spread amid her downy curls. Her hands stretched and closed. She could not reach him; she could only moan and clutch at nothing with the agonizing stimulation of each slow stroke. It seemed their bodies were made for this, that his manhood caressed her exactly, slid and pleasured her until she would explode. His breath came harsh and fast. His shoulders and arms were trembling with strain: she felt it as she crushed her legs against him convulsively.

His head bowed. He groaned, leaning forward with a sudden, hard push. Olympia sucked in her breath when the movement brought a change, a slip and a startling new sensation as his male hardness, instead of sliding across her, pressed into her—and unexpectedly her body yielded, accepting the unfamiliar invasion, stretching and filling with a queer mixture of discomfort and relish.

"What are you doing?" she gasped weakly.

He went still, his head down and his muscles shaking. "Making…a mistake." His voice was a muffled croak.

She could feel him, frozen and tense, except for a sudden throb and shudder of his body—one and then another, just inside her. It felt peculiar…but delicious. She moved her hips in a slow, delighted squirm.

"Don't!" He gripped her legs. "Oh, Jesus. Don't—do that."

All she could see of him was the disarray of his black hair and the powerful, taut line of his shoulders. His arms were clenched around her upraised knees, his fingers pressing into her skin.

"Oh, God," he whispered without moving. "Oh, God, oh, God…"

She stirred her hips again. She couldn't help it.

He made an anguished sound. With another shudder, he pushed forward slightly, a heavy fullness inside her. She squeezed her legs against him, tilting her pelvis upward. Sensation hovered: she wanted something; she wanted what he'd given her before, and it seemed that if she would just move in the proper way, she would have it.

On the stifled moan, he mumbled, "Christ have mercy. Don't move. Don't move."

She reached for his hands on her thighs, pulling his fingers open. She drew them down, pressing them over the place his thumbs had caressed, arching to meet the exquisite pleasure of the touch.

He lifted his head. His chest rose and fell in labored pants while his eyes held hers, hot and silver.

"Please," she whispered.

He gave her a look that burned her like dragon-fire. Then his dark lashes lowered and he began to move, pushing into her just a little, until the stretch almost became pain, then withdrawing again with a luscious slide of his thumbs against the moist and aching focus of sensation—thrusting again, and again, always only just to the point of hurting, until the faint pain began to seem like pleasure and the dragon's fire blazed through her body.

She moaned and twisted under his hands, trying to draw him closer, deeper. But he would not come. He turned his face away toward the wall, sliding his fingers across the melting center of ecstasy until she could no longer think of what to do but answer with an arch that brought the pain closer, mingling with elation. She could not breathe for the singing excitement, the queer flooding anxiousness. She was quivering, twitching; unable to stop the growing sounds of frenzy in her throat.

She gasped his name as he leaned over her with a move of his fingers that sent the universe whirling apart. Her body jerked ecstatically. In the moment of explosion he pulled back and dragged her into his arms, driving them both down full-length onto the furs.

He held her hard, one arm crushed around her buttocks, his stiff male shape pressed against her abdomen. His teeth scored her shoulder as he thrust his hips against her with a rough, frantic motion. A shudder racked him, a hard throb at her belly. "God!" His cry was hoarse and smothered in her hair and her throat. "Oh, God." He clutched her tighter and shuddered again, his whole body rigid, pressed against her as if he were dying.

His shoulders trembled. For a long moment he held her enveloped, moaning deep in his throat, her cheek pressed awkwardly against his heaving chest.

She pulled back her head, seeking air. Something warm and wet slid between their bodies. He sucked in a huge breath and relaxed his hold. A sound escaped him, a whimper like a child's.

Her limbs felt weak and watery. She slipped from his arms, panting, and looked up at him in amazement. With one finger, she touched the wetness on her body and then on his.

He caught her hand and rolled, resting half on top of her, his face buried in her hair. "Well," he muttered, "you're technically still a virgin, at any rate. And don't ever think, damn you," he added, breathing heat on her shoulder, "that I'm not a hero."

That afternoon she found the penguin he'd been hiding.

She was collecting nettles to boil, as much because it was an excuse to stay away from him as because she thought they would make a decent soup. Lost in thoughts that brought color to her face and sinking agitation to her stomach, she had wandered out of the tussocks and so far up onto the hump of the island that she could see the rocky beach on the other side. The clouds moved, casting sullen shadows on the shore and burnishing the sea to the color of gleaming lead.

A gathering of rooks circled and swooped far down the windy slope. Beneath them she recognized Sheridan: a dark splotch inside a gray circle. She almost turned and ran like a scared rabbit before he could see her. But he had to be faced; she had nowhere to hide, and night would come soon enough, forcing them together in the little hut. She watched him from the hill, nervous at first, then with growing concern when he didn't move at all.

Carefully stashing her nettles in the windbreak of a lone tussock, she pulled her cloak around her and started quickly down the hill. She called to him twice, but the cold wind was against her, whisking her voice into nothing. Drawing closer, she slowed, realizing the gray ring was a rock wall. Sheridan squatted down in the middle of it, his back to her.

Olympia ducked a wheeling rook and stopped silently a few yards away, wrapping her cloak close in the tearing wind. He did not see her, absorbed in the task of prying limpets out of their conical shells. In front of him a plump, downy ball of silver feathers hopped crazily about, stretching up as tall as his knee on its short legs. Its beak gaped eagerly, dipping and rising as it uttered shrill cries. When Sheridan wasn't quick enough with a limpet, the baby penguin lowered its head and ran around in a drunken circle, waving one flipper and displaying a bandage on the other, composed of a piece of linen and one of Olympia's extra garters that had gone missing three days ago.

A rook made a dive for Sheridan's head. He swiped at it with his sharpened oar handle and a curse, throwing one arm out for balance as he ducked and stumbled. His handful of limpets scattered, the rooks swooped in and the inflated balloon of feathers hopped around his legs, nipping at his knees and complaining.

"Ugly brutes." Sheridan stood up, still facing away from her, kicking out at a pair of rooks that went after the waddling silver fuzzball. "Leave the poor chap alone, can't you?"

The rooks settled for fighting over the limpets, but the baby penguin continued to gaze up at Sheridan, waving its good wing with pathetic cries.

"Well," he said to it, "I'm bloody hungry, too, y'know."

The penguin shrilled and flapped. It looked like a furry, excited bladder, toddling up and down in frustration. Olympia put her hand over her mouth.

"All right." Sheridan shoved his oar at the quarreling rooks, scattering them for an instant. He grabbed for some stray limpet shells, sweeping them up and snatching back just in time to avoid the ravaging stroke of a rook's powerful beak. "Christ! If I lose a hand for this—" He muttered grimly to himself, prying a limpet out and bending to let the penguin gobble it off the tip of his knife. "Ah—keep your distance, you feathered football; I need that toe. Bugger you! You little—" He stepped back from an enthusiastic onslaught of silver fluff. "Bite my knee, and I'll muster you into the royal service. Then it's the stewpot and be damned. Her Highness ain't sentimental about making a fellow into cannon fodder for a righteous cause, I assure you." The penguin squeaked and flapped. Sheridan held out another limpet. "Not impressed, hmm? You should be. She's the terror of the upland geese. A desperate cutthroat. She'd have you plucked and roasted before you could say mackerel."

"I wouldn't," Olympia said indignantly.

Sheridan jerked upright. He turned. The rooks scattered, then fluttered in again and renewed their bickering over the limpets. The penguin shuffled between Sheridan's legs and sat down.

His face turned a deep red. "What are you doing here?"

Stifling a smile, she watched the penguin preen its silver fluff. "I saw you from the hill. I thought you might be hurt."

"I'm not."

"No." She tilted her head. "I see that."

He was positively crimson. Olympia observed him with interest. She'd never seen Sheridan Drake embarrassed.

"I found it," he said with a touch of belligerence. "The rest of the flock's all left. These damned rooks try to tear it apart whenever it comes out of that crevice in the rocks." He slashed at the big, gull-like birds with his oar. They dispersed for an instant, then fell to pecking and feuding again.

The penguin tilted back its head, looked up at him and uttered a long cooing shrill of admiration.

"A hero again," she said.

"I suppose I just can't help myself," he said tartly. "I do try to be a cad."

Olympia looked at his tall, windblown figure in the frayed peacoat. He stood with the oar planted as if it were a lance: a tattered knight with a huddle of silver feathers that nestled in absolute trust on the top of one boot.

"Sometimes," she said softly, "I don't think you try very hard."

Sheridan glanced down. The penguin shifted and settled, blinking round black eyes and then closing them with a sigh of contentment.

"Don't I?" he asked. "Then I'm sure I'll live to regret it." He stabbed at the rooks with a sour grunt. "I always do."

A week later Olympia sat back on her knees, panting, and watched Sheridan as he attacked the icy ground with a broken barrel hoop. They worked in the howling wind not far from the hut, Sheridan digging and Olympia pushing the loosened sand and rock up out of the trench with the tin pail.

The pit was to house their signal fire, which would not stay lit in the increasing winter gales. Sheridan straightened for a moment, wiping the sweat from his face with one arm. Olympia looked quickly away, hoping he hadn't caught her staring at his body. The way she felt was still too new, even after a week of his intimate touch; his lessons in the spark and fire between a man and a woman, in the pleasures her body was made for, were too amazing, too raw and throbbing—like a new wound that was passion instead of pain.

But he didn't even look at her. He was watching the crowd of rooks that sat staring from the sidelines, just out of rock-throwing range, their dark feathers ruffled by the freezing wind.

The arrival of a baby penguin in camp had brought no particular hardships beyond an excess of the big, quarrelsome birds and the neccessity to collect a few extra limpets every day. The rooks loitered around the hut, always alert to steal scraps, but the penguin seemed to draw them in more enthusiastically greedy numbers. A door of canvas kept them out of the hut itself, where the penguin was penned, but the rooks sensed possible prey.

"Bastards," Sheridan muttered, and flung a rock, dispersing the feathered band for an instant before he went back to digging. As he moved in the downstroke, his elbow caught for the fifth time on the handle of his knife, which protruded from its sheath on a sealskin strip hung around his neck and arm. He cursed and threw down the barrel hoop.