The Game (29 page)

He saw every lovely inch of her. “You are soaking wet,” he said thickly, reaching for her gown.

Her wide eyes met his. “Stop,” she whispered, rawly.

Liam did not answer. He gripped the wet silk and slowly slid it upward on her body. Baring her long legs, the lush mound of her femininity, her curved hips. Their gazes clashed, held. Liam uncovered her breasts, and then he pulled the gown over her head and tossed it aside. A small, soft sound escaped Katherine.

Determined not to pounce upon her, not to show his barely containable eagerness, Liam turned away to take up the other towel. He faced her, his lips set in a small, encouraging smile, murmuring soothing words. Katherine’s breasts heaved, begging to be touched. Liam gently wrapped the towel around her shoulders, the cotton side against her skin, then began to rub her firm flesh dry. Just touching the muscles there swelled him even more.

“You are an incredible woman,” he murmured. He moved to stand behind her, his hands sliding the towel
down her arms. Katherine was frozen, but her breathing was heavy.

“Everything about you entices me—excites me,” he said low, kneading her strong yet slim arms.

He paused, looking down at her over her shoulder, at her voluptuous breasts. Katherine was shaking, although he knew she was no longer cold. “Your breasts are beautiful, wet and gleaming like this,” he said.

She made a slight, strangled sound.

He reversed the towel and pulled the silk side over her breasts, drying them at first briskly, then slowly. He watched the hard peaks engorge. Katherine began to sway. Liam’s hands splayed, cupped her. “I love your breasts,” he said thickly, kneading them.

“Oh, God,” she gasped as his thumbs finally grazed her nipples.

“You are shaking,” he murmured in her ear, well aware that his breath was hot and erotic. “You are so cold, Kate.” He rubbed the towel over her belly languidly. Katherine shuddered, whimpered. And as he did so, for the very first time, he allowed his phallus to brush the cleft between her buttocks. Although he wore his breeches, he was so large that the fabric was strained to the breaking point, and Katherine inhaled loudly.

“I am going to make you very, very warm,” he whispered against her neck, watching his hand on the towel as he pushed it lower and lower still. “I love looking at you, Kate.”

Katherine stood as straight as an arrow, but he heard her swallow. He pushed the silk between her thighs and rubbed it back and forth. Katherine’s trembling had become uncontrollable.

“Spread your thighs,” he ordered, “so I can dry all of you.”

Katherine moaned, obeying him.

Liam molded the silk over her sex, used it to separate and explore her folds, and finally, his own body shuddering, he thrust his thumb up against the silken towel and began to manipulate her clitoris. Katherine sagged against
him. Katherine cried out, and he felt her convulsing against his hand.

He caught her with one arm, dropping the towel and pushing her forward and down onto her stomach on the bed. His thumb found her again. She gasped, thrashing, exploding.

Still fondling her, nearly mindless now, Liam ripped open his breeches. Gripping her buttocks, he thrust the huge, bulbous tip of his penis into her. Katherine, her shudders fading, tensed. And Liam cried out, completely blinded by the tight, hot feeling of her as her muscles clamped around him.

Pausing was the most difficult act of his entire life, but he stilled. The cords on his neck standing out, sweat trickling down his face and chest, he bent and kissed her cheek. Katherine whimpered. Her bottom shifted beneath him. There was no mistaking her meaning. His cry savage, he grasped her buttocks and thrust home.

Katherine cried out as he drove himself through her virgin’s membrane. Liam could not stop again. He drove into her again and again, knowing he had never attained such pleasure before, knowing he never would again. Katherine arched beneath him. She was wet, slick now, and his frenzy grew. His hand slid beneath her, cupping her sex, and he slammed into her, thrusting home. Katherine gripped his hand, pushing his fingers into her, her nails cutting his skin, writhing beneath him, bucking beneath him. Liam thrust one last time, deeper, harder. And when his seed began to erupt, he cried her name. Not once, but many, many times.

And afterward, when the convulsions finally ceased, he found himself standing beside the bed, looking down at Katherine, who lay flat on her belly, and he saw his palms gripping her buttocks, which were red and welted, and he saw the blood on her thighs, and he stared—unable to believe what he had done.

Katherine felt him slip from her. She screwed her eyes tightly closed, still unable to breathe. Come back, her mind said desperately. Liam—come back!

But he moved away from her. She felt him standing over her, staring down at her. Katherine inhaled, hoping to steady her ragged breathing, gripping the covers of the bed, trying to control the red-hot fever in her body. But she throbbed without relief. Perhaps if she did not move, if she lay still and open and wet, he would return to her, impale her yet again.

But he did not.

She swallowed, dry. It had happened so quickly. His huge, heated entry, her explosion, his explosion. She needed to feel him again. Not once or twice, but thrusting endlessly, deeply…oh, God, she did.

Katherine choked on her moan. She rolled into a ball. On her side, she finally looked up at him.

How magnificent he was. He stood fully clothed, his lean jaw hard and tight, his gray gaze wild, his blond hair damp and disheveled, staring down at her as if he had never seen her before. Katherine grew uneasy. She sat up, pulling a pillow forward to cover her nakedness. She stared back, into his stormy eyes.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked harshly.

For one heartbeat, Katherine could not understand why he was asking such an absurd question. She had been weeping with her pleasure. And never had she dreamed he would feel so good inside of her.

“Did I hurt you?” he repeated. His right temple throbbed visibly.

This time Katherine understood. Her pulse was finally beginning to subside. But not the ache between her thighs—for just looking at him made it worse. She inhaled, hugging the pillow hard. Realizing that it was done. Finally, it was done. He had taken her virtue, and somehow, it was a relief. Had she not been secretly anticipating this very moment for a long time?

Katherine grew still. Her pulse picked up its beat. She did not care for the loss of her virtue, but…’twas the last thing of value she possessed.

And she was married to John Hawke.

Katherine froze. Not too many hours ago, she had stood beside John, exchanging vows. Yet now, she sat naked on
the pirate’s bed, her body pulsing with uncontrollable passion, feverish for another man.

In her mind she could see Hawke now, manacled to their wedding bed, his expression furious.

Sickening dismay beginning to wash over her, drowning her, Katherine shifted slightly and looked down at the coverlet. At the blood. At her blood.

She had lost her virtue. She was another man’s wife—but Liam had taken her virtue. And she had given it willingly. Wished to give it to him yet again.

“Katherine?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped to his. What she had done was unbelievable. “Get away from me!” she cried.

He flinched. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Katherine.”

She skidded backward on her rump, away from him, until her back hit the bed’s headboard, still hugging the pillow. “Oh, God! Get away from me!”

“I am sorry,” he said, agonized. “I didn’t mean…I lost control…I am sorry.”

Katherine did not hear him. Her mind was in a daze. But she managed to comprehend the final truth. She had lost far more than her virtue. She had lost her dreams—every single last one of them.

Whitehall

Q
ueen Elizabeth had turned white.

John Hawke stood before her, flushed with rage, his hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword. Although fully dressed in his crimson uniform, somehow he appeared disheveled. “I beg you, Your Majesty, to aid me in recovering my bride,” he said.

Slowly Elizabeth rose from her throne. Her stunned gaze met Cecil’s. “I cannot believe this tale.”

Cecil moved to Hawke and put a hand on the man’s trembling shoulder. “Your anger will lead you astray.”

Hawke’s smile was menacing. “You are wrong, my lord. It will lead me exactly where I wish to go, and aid me in killing the pirate bastard when I find him.”

Elizabeth turned away from both men, her pulse thundering in her ears. Jealousy consumed her. She had thought to keep them apart. But even now, her golden pirate spent himself on the Irish girl. Defying her and her will.

Hanging was too good for him.

She trembled with rage, facing Cecil. “I demand he be brought to me to answer for his insolence!”

“I will gladly bring him to you,” Hawke said.

Elizabeth regained some of her senses. She stared at Cecil. “Does O’Neill dabble in treason? Or is he moved by animal lust?” She became breathless, fearing the worst.

“’Tis too soon to tell,” Cecil said calmly.

Then Elizabeth thought of the girl. Her anger doubled, tripled. “She enticed him, she did, just as she has enticed Robin and Tom,” she spit. “And to think that I took her into my court, rising her up far beyond what she was due. This is her fault as much as his! Perhaps they even planned this deceit together!”

“Your Majesty,” Hawke interjected, “Katherine was no willing participant in her abduction. I was there, I saw her every action. She was distraught, nay, stunned, by the pirate’s actions.”

Cecil stepped forward as well. He spoke softly. “Mayhap you judge her too harshly, Your Majesty. ’Tis likely she is an innocent victim yet again, and but a pawn of the powerful pirate.”

“I think not,” Elizabeth said sharply. “I know not! Nor do I know why you defend her, William, unless she has seduced you, too!”

Cecil said nothing.

The Queen turned to Hawke. “I married her to you so you might control her,” she snapped, now furious with him.

Hawke bent his head in obeisance.

Elizabeth faced Cecil. “Now what!?” she demanded. “Now what will we do?”

“There is naught we can do,” Cecil said calmly.

“Naught do do?” Elizabeth cried.

Hawke rushed forward. “Undoubtedly he has taken her to his island home far to the north. Your Majesty, I beg you, give me just three ships and one hundred troops and I will not just storm his island, I will destroy it—and him.”

Elizabeth was ready to agree. How she wanted to agree. But some innate caution stopped her—or was it affection for the amoral rogue? For she imagined beautiful Liam O’Neill skewered by Hawke’s sword and she hesitated. Then her good sense told her that Hawke could not defeat Liam O’Neill in a fight. Not hand to hand, not in a full battle. Anger filled her again. She doubted Hawke could even capture him.

However, no man was as powerful as a man moved by
vengeance. If anyone could capture the damned pirate, ’twas John Hawke. She said sharply, “Is it not said that the island is completely defensible?”

Cecil nodded. “Those are the reports.”

Hawke snapped, “No place, and no man, is completely defensible.”

Cecil laid his palm on Hawke’s broad back. “There is no sense in storming that fortress for the sake of a woman, John. It cannot be taken, not without great loss and expense to us.”

Hawke was incredulous. “Good God!” he shouted. “Even now that bastard is using her—hurting her!”

Elizabeth turned away, thinking of the reports she’d had of Katherine. She had been more than eager the few times she had been espied in O’Neill’s embrace. Elizabeth could imagine her now, with him, clutching his broad back, accepting his wet, lusty kiss. Accepting all of him.

“I am sorry,” Cecil told Hawke.

Hawke rushed to confront his queen. He got down on one knee. “Your Majesty, I beg this boon of you. I must go after him! And if you do not wish to help me free Katherine, think on the fact that I will bring you Liam O’Neill’s traitorous head!”

Elizabeth looked into his burning eyes. “I am also sorry, John,” she said softly. “But Lord Burghley is right. I can not sacrifice men and ships for one woman—no matter how I wish to have that rascal’s head.” She did not add that she did not have the money to pay for such a venture, not unless she took it from far more pressing matters.

Hawke rose, his face set in an expression of angry disbelief. Without another word, without waiting for permission to leave, he turned on his heel and strode from the room. Elizabeth stared after him, sighing. Then she cursed Liam O’Neill. And finally, facing Cecil, tears appeared in her eyes. “How could he do this to me?”

Cecil took her hand. “My dear Elizabeth, the pirate knows he cannot have you. He is a man. Men must spend their lust somewhere and you surely know it. He is very fond of you, Bess.”

“Bah!” Elizabeth said, but she prayed Cecil was right. “What do you think he will do next?” The question burned. “Will he try to marry her?”

Cecil regarded her. “Unfortunately the Pope will not recognize Katherine’s marriage to Hawke, as it is outside the Catholic faith, and it would be easy for O’Neill to marry her in the papist fashion.”

Elizabeth paled even as she clenched her fists. “And the Pope would undoubtedly marry them himself,” she cried, “just to thwart me!”

“At the very least, he would give them his blessing,” Cecil agreed. Last year the queen had been excommunicated; it had been the Pope’s means of supporting the Catholic faction in Scotland. “Liam, though, is firmly Protestant.”

“His father was Catholic. That rogue could switch his faith easily enough, if he thinks to gain from such a maneuver.” Elizabeth paced, wide-eyed. “If he marries her, dear God, then that is proof of his conspiracy with FitzGerald, all the proof we need.” She wheeled to face Cecil. “I will not allow John Hawke to divorce her, even if Liam weds her himself!”

William inclined his head.

“So what do we do?” the queen asked.

“We wait,” Cecil said. “We wait and see.” But Cecil already knew what not to expect. O’Neill was far too clever to move so swiftly, to tip his hand. What Cecil did
not
know was what
to
expect.

Hawke ignored the stares he received as he strode through the palace. Some pitying, others snide. A few men, jealous of his growing influence and power, snickered at him openly. Hawke ignored them too, for otherwise he might very well skewer someone, so angry was he. And his queen would then throw
him
in the Tower.

“Sir John?”

Hawke missed a stride. His heart skipped a beat. Against his will, his steps slowed.

“Sir John?” she called again.

He stopped, tensing, to face the petite form of the lady
Juliet. And then, seeing her, he forgot his own anguish and anger. She had been crying. Her lovely complexion was blotched from her weeping, her eyes and nose were red. “Lady Stratheclyde,” he said, bowing abruptly.

She pressed a wadded-up kerchief to her nose, and when she spoke, her words came in a rush. “I just want you to know that I am sorry, so sorry.”

He stared at her.

“And…I am so worried about Katherine!” Tears spilled down Juliet’s cheeks.

Hawke felt a strangely tender urge to touch her, hold her, but he ignored it. “Your concern is admirable,” he said rather harshly.

“What will happen now?”

Hawke stared at her, but this time it was not Juliet he saw, but his beautiful bride—in the arms of Liam O’Neill. And every time he saw them in his mind’s eye, together and entwined, it was not a rape he saw. God’s blood! O’Neill was a handsome rogue, with a rogue’s reputation. Despite the fact that he was Shane O’Neill’s son, Hawke knew he was no rapist. Hawke shook. Even now, undoubtedly, they were in bed. But was Katherine resisting him? He might never know. There was always the possibility that she could succeed in thwarting him.

“My lord?” Juliet said uncertainly.

Hawke jerked his attention back to her. Despite her recent tears, he could not help but remark how utterly lovely she was. “Nothing will happen now,” he said bluntly. “Her majesty has denied me troops and ships, and I have not the means to storm the damned island where he lives without her aid.”

Juliet gasped.

Hawke half bowed again. “Thank you for your concern,” he said, turning from her. But she touched his hand, halting him in his tracks. Hawke was acutely aware of her touch. Slowly he faced her.

“If it makes you feel better,” she said, blushing now, although he knew not why, “I am certain O’Neill will never hurt her. He may be a pirate, but he is also a gentle
man. I have heard about his father. He is not a man like that. Not at all.”

Hawke’s expression did not change. “If he will not hurt her, then why are you so worried about her?”

Juliet’s color increased, and she could not meet his gaze. Nor could she answer.

And dismay filled him. Juliet was Katherine’s friend. What did she hide? Hawke did not have to be a wizard to guess. For he had heard the gossip too. The gossip about O’Neill and Katherine. Perhaps Katherine had confessed to Juliet some small thing about him—about them. No, O’Neill would not hurt her. Despair finally claimed him. And even if Katherine tried to remain faithful to him, O’Neill would woo her until he won her.

Katherine was awakened by the sound of a sharp knocking upon her door. She sat up, groggy, not having been able to sleep until well past midnight. Her mind cleared and she looked at the bed in which she had slept alone. It was her second night on the pirate ship—and she had not seen her captor since their one, single passionate encounter soon after they had first boarded.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and straightened her clothes, which she had slept in. Ultimately she had been forced to wear a dress which she had found in one of the trunks in his cabin; undoubtedly it had belonged to one of his mistresses. She had donned a gold silk with a leaf design and encrusted with tiny glass beads. Katherine glanced at her reflection as she passed the looking glass. Miraculously, she did not look tired. Although her hair was unbound and her head uncoiffed, in fact, she looked quite elegant, even beautiful.

Katherine opened the door, well aware that she would not find Liam on the other side, for he would hardly condescend to knock. The ship boy, Guy, greeted her. “The captain says you can come up on deck, my lady.”

Katherine glanced over her shoulder toward the porthole, and saw dusky light bathing the dark ocean. “It is but dawn,” she said.

“Aye, not even, but we are putting into Earic Island,” Guy said solemnly. “Will you come up?”

Katherine stared at Guy. “Earic Island?”

“’Tis the captain’s home.”

But she had already guessed that, yet the confirmation made her heart sink. As she followed the boy out of the cabin, she tried to fathom why he dwelled in a place named Earic Island. Certainly he had not coined the name. For “Earic” was the Gaelic term for blood money—the money a murderer paid to the family of the man he had killed. Blood money was an ancient practice—one that condoned murder and legitimized it.

It was a cool morning, and she had no cloak. Shivering slightly now, she paused on deck. She saw Liam instantly: He stood on the forecastle, gazing out toward the rising, bloodred sun. He was cloakless, wearing naught but his linen shirt and his breeches and his thigh-high boots. He was bathed in the warm, glowing sunrise. The orange light turned his hair a fiery shade of gold. His profile was spectacular. It took her breath away.

Katherine wanted to ignore the ache rising so rapidly within her.

She looked away from him, miserable, despairing. Since he had left the cabin—and her—the first night, she had not been able to do anything other than to think of him and his body and his touch. Her thoughts were shameless; she was shameless.

But he did not want her as much as she wanted him. Otherwise he would have come to her last night—or even sooner, during the day.

Katherine closed her eyes briefly, flooded with deeper despair. She had no choice now but to recognize fully the extent of her passion for him, a man she despised, a man she could never respect, a man who had chosen murder and robbery for his trade. She could not resist him, and worse, she wanted him, passionately. And now she was his prisoner. He would use her when the urge took him, and she would enjoy it, even though she was married to another man. He would use her when he chose, as he
chose, and her defiance would be a sham, a facade. Until he tired of her and freed her.

But then, of course, she would have nowhere to go. No man would want a pirate’s whore. Hawke would divorce her. There would be no other marriage for her. No marriage, no children. Katherine supposed that she would be able to join her father in his prison in Southwark. Or would he reject her, too?

Katherine bit her lip, thinking about how, once, Liam had asked her to be his wife. Yet somehow it had come to this, instead, with her his whore, his toy.

“This is where I live,” Liam said from behind her.

Katherine jumped, not having heard him approach. She found herself ensnared in his dark, brooding gray gaze. With difficulty she looked away, but not before she had noticed the growth of beard on his jaw, and the full, chiseled set of his mouth.

Acutely aware of how close he stood beside her, aware that, if she shifted slightly, her skirts would brush his thigh, Katherine clasped her hands together, to keep them from shaking. “Earic Island. Guy told me.” She was careful not to look at him, but she found it hard to breathe normally. Memories of the other night haunted her. “I hope you did not choose the island’s name?”

“I did.”

She started, her gaze flying to his. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Is it not obvious? My living comes from spilling blood—yet I have never paid a single penny of blood money to anyone.”