The Pirate Lord (17 page)

“Then the two of you will marry, and I’ll fend for myself as best I can.” When he scowled, she added in solemn tones, “You know that’s the only thing to do, Petey. Do you really want to see Ann given to some man without her consent? Because that’s what Gideon will do if she doesn’t choose anyone.”

That apparently decided him. In a gruff voice that held a hint of relief, he agreed to her plan.

“Good. Now, why don’t you two go on back before someone realizes you’re both missing? And you’d better separate before you reach the beach.”

“Aren’t you comin’ with us?” Petey asked.

“In a minute. I want to explore the area a little.”

Petey looked as if he might protest, but when she cast him a mutinous glance, he shrugged and led Ann off toward the stream.

The truth was, she wasn’t ready to face Gideon again. Those pirate’s eyes of his seemed to see right through her civilized veneer, to show it for the thin protection it was. She was still reeling from his admission this morning—that he’d turned down a night with Queenie because he wanted her. She needed a few moments alone to prepare herself, to marshal her wits for the battles he forced her to fight. A few moments, little enough to ask.

She should’ve known Gideon would never allow her that.

“They make a pretty couple, don’t they?” came a
husky male voice behind her, startling her nearly out of her skin.

“What?” Whirling, she found the pesky object of her thoughts ducking beneath the low-hanging branch of a gnarled oak to enter the clearing.

Instantly her heartbeat accelerated to a panicky rhythm. How long had he been there? How much had he heard? Did he know what she and Petey were planning?

“Wh-who makes a pretty couple?” she stammered, stalling for time as she searched his face for some hint of what he’d heard.

As usual, he excelled at hiding his thoughts. “Ann Morris and Petey, of course.” He leaned back against the oak, looking irritatingly sure of himself. “I just saw them headed down the stream.”

The faintest sprinkling of sunlight through the branches limned his dark hair with golden highlights, and his trousers hung low on his hips, exposing far too much of his muscle-taut belly. If not for those trousers, he would certainly look the part of the first Adam, all well-wrought sinew and tanned skin. An image of him in a fig leaf sprang into her mind before she squelched it.

Jerking her gaze from the tempting picture he made, she focused on the break in the trees through which Ann and Petey had disappeared. Oh, how heartily she wished she’d gone with them. Then she wouldn’t be trying to lie about them to a half-naked man who stirred the most unladylike thoughts in her. “Yes, well…Ann and Petey are good friends, you know. He thinks of her as a little sister. He looks after her.”

Gideon pushed away from the oak. “The same way he looks after you?”

“Yes, of course,” she babbled, then corrected herself. “No, I mean, not the same exactly. His affection for her is more…more brotherly.”

“Brotherly?” He stepped closer, his booted feet barely
making a sound on the patchwork quilt of dead leaves and live brush on the forest floor. Skepticism laced his tone. “It’s a pity she feels so differently…less, shall we say, sisterly.”

Sara’s gaze shot to his. Bother it all, how did he know that?

At her look of surprise, he shrugged. “Ann practically worships Hargraves. Told me so herself a couple of nights ago. I even got the impression that she hoped to have him for herself.” His eyes narrowed, scanning her face. “It must be breaking her heart to see him with you.”

Sometimes Gideon was far too perceptive for his own good. She gave a dismissive shrug, though her blood pounded in her ears. She mustn’t let him guess the truth! “You obviously misunderstood Ann. Really, Gideon, she thinks of Petey as a brother. I’m sure of it.”

“Then why was it
her
he escorted down to the beach, and not you?”

She swallowed. This was becoming more and more thorny. “I…told them I wanted to be alone.” That, at least, was true. “After days cooped up on a ship with hundreds of other people, I needed some space to breathe. Surely you can understand that. With all the women demanding so much and the children always asking questions, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I mean, days and days of…” She trailed off. Good heavens, she was babbling, and whenever she started babbling, he suspected her of lying.

She shot him a quick glance, but he no longer seemed to be paying any attention to her. His gaze had shifted to a spot above her right shoulder.

“What is it?” she asked, starting to turn.

“Don’t move!” Though he gave the command in a low voice, he spoke so forcefully she obeyed at once. When his expression grew grim and he still kept his gaze fixed beyond her shoulder, a little shiver of fear skittered down her spine.

She kept her voice as low as his. “Tell me what’s going on, Gideon.”

“Listen carefully, and don’t panic.” With his eyes still on that wretched spot behind her, he slid his right hand slowly to the hilt of his saber.

“What am I not supposed to be panicking about?” she snapped. He was scaring her to death, the wretch, and probably for nothing!

His gaze shifted to her face for the briefest instant before returning to the object of his intense perusal. “There’s a black mamba in the tree behind you.” She opened her mouth, but before she could even ask the question, he added, “It’s a snake. A poisonous one.”

She paled as a horrible chill seized her. A poisonous snake? Behind her? “H-how close?”

“Close enough.” His face was expressionless, as if he didn’t wish to scare her. That in itself terrified her. Moving in infinitesimal increments, he lifted his left hand toward her. “Take my hand.” When she started to move her hand toward his, he ground out, “Slowly, Sara, slowly. Not too fast.”

Sweat beaded along her upper lip as she inched her hand upward. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees overhead, and she froze, her heart leaping into her throat.

“You’re doing fine,” Gideon said reassuringly. “Right now, he doesn’t seem too interested in us. Let’s keep it that way.”

He drew out his saber with his right hand, using the same measured movements she was using.

Her body trembled violently. “Wh-what are you going to do?”

“Chop his head off.”

Trickles of sweat dripped down the side of her face. “What if you miss?”

“You damned well better pray I don’t.”

Praying was easy; a thousand prayers were already springing to her lips.
Please, God, don’t let Gideon miss
.
Please, God, don’t let the snake get me. Oh, please, dear God, don’t let me die on this wretched island without ever seeing home
.

Suddenly Gideon’s hand met hers, and he clasped it in a tight grip.

After that, everything happened at once. With his left hand, Gideon jerked her to him, while with the right, he swung his saber in a wide arc toward the tree. As she pivoted against him, she caught a glimpse of an inky raised head seeming to come right out of the tree. There was a swish of blade against air, a flash of steel, and a horrible hiss.

Next thing she knew, the blade of the saber had severed the snake’s head cleanly from its body, and both had dropped to the ground.

With a cry, she buried her face in Gideon’s hairy chest, but not before she saw the snake’s body writhing wildly on the ground only a foot away. “Oh, my God,” she cried as she clutched at Gideon. She felt rather than saw him stab his saber into the ground. Then both of his arms enveloped her in a hug so tight she could barely breathe.

“It’s all right, sweetheart, it’s all right,” Gideon said over and over as he cradled her in his arms. “The snake’s dead. It can’t hurt you now.”

“B-but it could have,” she stammered. “It was so close…it was just there!” It wasn’t like her to panic, but she’d never even seen a poisonous snake, much less been menaced by one. Coming on top of everything else, it was just too much. “If it…if it had gotten me—”

“But it
didn’t
.” Cupping her face firmly, he lifted it until she was staring at him. “It’s all right, I promise. I wouldn’t have let it hurt you.”

She couldn’t seem to get enough breath. She sucked in air in great gasps, and still the panic closed her throat. “What…if you…hadn’t…been here,” she choked out. “What…if…”

“But I
was
here.” Her panic now seemed mirrored in
his eyes. He clutched her close, stroking her back with soothing hands. “I’ll always be here. I’ll never let anything hurt you. I promise.”

“Are…are you sure it’s dead?” She knew it was a stupid question, yet she had to ask.

“It’s dead.” He moved aside a little and gestured to the ground. “See? It’s not moving.”

She peered over his shoulder to where the scaly black rope lay limp across a blanket of leaves. A shudder rocked her body. “Is it…is it very poisonous?”

“It doesn’t matter now.”

“Curse you, Gideon, tell me the truth! Could it have killed me?”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Let’s just say I’ve never heard of anybody surviving the bite of a black mamba.”

The irony of it hit her all at once. “I should have known there’d be snakes here,” she said woefully as she clung to him. “What would the Garden of Eden be without the serpent?”

He ventured a smile. “I don’t know. Boring?”

Boring
? She stared at him incredulously. Had he just said…after what had nearly happened…but then, this was Gideon.

She beat her fists against his chest, taking him by surprise. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You don’t even care that you’ve dragged us from our homes to this wretched place where there are deadly snakes and…and God knows what other monstrous beasts! You wanted something, so you took it, and you don’t care what it does to us…to me!”

She collapsed into sobs, her brush with death still too fresh. Everything that had happened over the past few days hit her with a sudden fierceness. Since he’d taken the ship, she’d scarcely had time to mourn the fact that she’d never see England or Jordan again.

But now reality struck her with a vengeance as she stood in the strange clearing with its unfamiliar plants and its dead snake. Suddenly the tears wouldn’t stop.
They bubbled out of her like an overflowing soup pot. She couldn’t contain them, and at the moment didn’t even want to try.

Looking worried, Gideon held her close. At first she fought him, her anger warring with the need to be comforted, but he wouldn’t release her. He just kept muttering, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

Finally she went limp in his embrace, letting the tears come out of her in great gasping sobs. After the first storm passed, she even leaned into him, craving his strength. There was no one else to give her comfort. Although he was her adversary, he was also strong, and she needed his strength just now. She needed it very badly.

She didn’t know exactly when his comforting became something else. Maybe it was after her sobs had died off into the occasional hiccup. Or maybe it was when she saw how shaken he looked, and felt compelled to reassure him, “I-I’m all right now, truly I am,” as she brushed tears from her eyes.

But suddenly his mouth was on hers, gentle, soft, as if begging forgiveness. To her shame, she kissed him back, seeking the reassurance only he could provide. Their kisses were tender, full of mutual comfort.

He shifted her closer, his hand curving into the small of her back to flatten her against his lean, hard body as he showered soft, repentant kisses over her lips and cheeks, her closed eyelids, her tangled hair.

“I should’ve left you on the
Chastity
,” he whispered against her mouth. “Atlantis is all right for the others, but not for you.”

“That’s not true. It’s not right—”
For any of us
, she would have said, if his mouth hadn’t covered hers again.

Only this time his kiss offered more than comfort. It offered pure, hot passion, a hungry desire that quickly swept her up until she found herself responding with an eagerness that matched his own.

She couldn’t help it. Despite everything, she needed him to get her through this, to make her forget the snake. As if he understood exactly what she wanted, he shifted her in his embrace so he could touch her, caress her, stroke her. His hand covered her breast, kneading it with a restless energy that sparked fires in her loins. Her breast ached for his touch, had ached for it ever since yesterday. And that fact sparked fresh tears.

He kissed them away with slow tenderness, his breath hot on her cheeks. “Don’t cry anymore, Sara, my Sara. Please don’t cry. I don’t want to hurt you.” He backed her to a nearby tree, then pressed her against it, leaving his hands free to roam her waist and her hips. The next thing she knew, he was inching her skirt up her legs. “I only want to give you pleasure. That’s all.”

Try as she might, she couldn’t deny him. She didn’t want to. It felt right to have his hands touch her, his fingers bare her thighs, questing upward to find the part of her that craved him so intensely it frightened her. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath as he kissed her again and again with fierce need, thrusting his tongue more deeply into her mouth with each stroke. His fingers found the aching place between her legs, and his thumb rubbed the little nub nestled in her silky folds of skin, making her respond instinctively by arching against his hand with a little mew of pleasure.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he whispered against her mouth. “Let me give you pleasure. Only pleasure.”

Some part of her sensed that this was his way of making up for the snake, of making amends for all he’d done. And though her rational mind wanted to scream that it wasn’t what she wanted, her body said otherwise.

It craved this sweet losing of herself to him. It craved his touch, his body against hers. To her shame, the more he stroked her between the legs, the more wantonly she yearned for it…yearned for him.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he breathed against her cheek, “take it. It’s there for you. Let yourself take it.”

She didn’t have to wonder what he meant. An unfamiliar tension built inside her, like the eager anticipation she’d felt as the
Chastity
had left the Thames and slid into open sea. Ahead was danger…and excitement. She could feel it just beyond her grasp…beckoning, drawing her.