The Pirate Prince (21 page)

“You took a beating for Vicar?”

The wide, powerful shoulders lifted again in a shrug. “He wouldn’t have survived it.”

“ ’Twas a very noble thing to do.”

He remained silent.

“You should not be ashamed of these scars,” she said softly, her caress mournful across his ravaged hide. “You should be proud.”

“God’s truth, you are the strangest woman I ever met,” he muttered. “If you think I bore it in stoic silence, you are mistaken. I screamed my head off and cursed that Dutch bastard with every blow. It was only hatred that kept me alive.”

“Of my father?”

“And God.”

“Do not say such a thing!” she breathed, sending up a mental prayer assuring the heavens he did not mean it.

There was a long silence as she drew her fingertips lightly down his spine. He shivered a little.

“Allegra,” he said, “I do like the way you touch me.”

Her heart suddenly pounding, she stepped closer to him, sliding both her hands around his waist to caress his bare chest and belly. She placed a whisper-soft kiss on the middle of his back, then another.

She couldn’t believe she was doing it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. She held her breath, eyes closed, as she laid her cheek against his ravaged back and explored him, every warm, hard line of his torso, the smooth, golden skin like softest kid, the massive arms. She reached up to stroke his neck and touched the velvety softness of his short black hair.

When he tilted his head back as if in surrender to her touch, she heard the soft sound that escaped his lips, heard his heart pounding inside his body. He stood obediently even when she brought her left hand down to savor with her open palm the hard, sinuous line of his lower back’s curve, flowing downward into the lean muscle of his buttock in tight, dark blue breeches. There was something about the taut power of him that was beautiful to knead and stroke.

“Do I please you?” he asked in a heated murmur.

“Oh, yes,” she breathed.

He turned around and gripped her, curling his hand around the back of her neck. When he leaned down, this time she welcomed his kiss, tasting his brandy on her tongue. He must have felt her hunger, for he crushed her against him, coaxing her lips wider apart with an onslaught of hard, driving kisses, his tongue lunging deep into her mouth.

He drove her back firmly two steps, pinning her against the hard surface of his locker, where he kissed her endlessly, running both his hands down her sides to her hips. Now when she touched him, his skin was hot. She could not believe she’d had this effect on him.

She pressed both palms against his bare chest, trying to temper his response, but he was too strong. He would not even let her turn her head to draw a breath but moved with her however she tried to escape, kept kissing her. She could feel every long, unforgiving line of his lean, powerful body pressing against her.

As the moments passed, she began to feel almost faint, not simply overpowered but on the deepest level overwhelmed, until all she knew was the taste of him and the stroking of his large, hot, trembling hand upon her neck, her shoulder, and downward over her chest, unfastening the ribbons of her gown with one hand so deftly she was astonished.

“Allegra,” he whispered as he tugged the last ribbon free. “God, I want you.”

Her knees went weak at the sound of pure male need. She kept her eyes pressed closed while her senses and her emotions rioted around a core of desperation. He clasped her buttocks, hauling her up closer against him, as if to make sure she felt the solid heft of his erection jutting against her stomach.

She wrenched her face away. “Captain, please—”

“I have a name, God damn it. Use it.”

“You said you wouldn’t force me!”

“Say my name. Say it, Allegra, or I’ll take you right here.”

“Lazar,” she choked out.

“Again.”

“No!”

He laced all his fingers through her hair with wild, sudden tenderness. “Again, Allegra. Give it to me.”

“But you’re not—”

“Please,” he whispered. Abruptly, his kiss went gentle, so soft and sweet that she shuddered at the reprieve. His thumbs traced her cheeks with feather-soft twin caresses while he held her face.

Against her own volition, his kiss made her ache with its sweetness, his tongue slowly stroking over hers, intoxicating, confusing her. She felt herself starting to crumple. He began winning her over with his poignant gentleness until she could no longer brook her own need to touch him.

He went motionless at her uncertain caress upon his chest. He drew back a small space to watch her run her hand hesitantly over the ridges of his stomach, upward through the lightly furred area between the swells of his breasts, to curl finally behind his neck.

When she looked up into his eyes, she was frightened, but she knew she wanted him.

With a pained expression, Lazar closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. He let out a long, shaky breath.

“Allegra, for the love of God,” he said quietly, “tell me who I am, because I can barely remember myself anymore.”

She went very still, her arms around his neck. Whoever he was, the despair in his voice sent cracks all the way down to the foundation of her defenses. Just for a moment, she was weak enough to want him to be, to pretend—he’d suggested it earlier himself—just to fantasize….

Her heart was pounding, and his full lips were lingering upon hers when she gave in.

“
Lazar
.”

He wrapped his arms tighter around her waist. “Oh, yes. More,” he breathed with a soft, heady groan.

“Lazar.” She tilted her head back further and reached deeper for his hungry kiss as she stroked his chest, so solid and real. So dangerous.

“Lazar,” she whispered. “Lazar.”

He lifted her softly and carried her to his berth, kissing her all the while as he rested her on her back. He lowered himself atop her, covering her with his big, powerful body, his weight deliciously crushing her. He propped himself on his elbows on either side of her head, gently framing her face with both his palms.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. He kissed her slowly, tenderly, stealing every breath she took as he parted her bodice and caressed her breasts. The way he touched her made her feel strangely fragile, melting and soft beneath his hard, gentle power.

She was not sure when she became aware of it, but there was something unbearably right about the feel of him lying between her legs, a growing search for something he had that made her body undulate beneath him with a will of its own. She heard herself groan aloud.

“That’s right, honey,” he whispered. “Feel it. What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want.”

His movements answered hers completely, the symmetry of it shocking, yet rich with bliss. Each pressing contact of him riding her rising hips back down again filled her with a sense of joy that became increasingly barbaric. Each time, sweet anguish. Each time,
why him? why now?
until it didn’t matter anymore. She ran her hands down his sides, clutching his lean hips, guiding him precisely against her in a rhythm that rolled faster with each heartbeat. He gave her willingly, generously what her body asked.

When her very mind seemed burned with the flames of her desire, he lifted back, sliding her skirts’ flounces up past her knee, over her thigh. She dragged her eyelids open and looked up at him. He was staring down at her with an expression in his eyes she could not fathom, a dark tenderness. Closing his eyes, he lowered his head to kiss her for a moment, then it was just like her laudanum dream. He paused, panting, eyes closed. Then he stroked her, once.

She was amazed by her own teeming wetness. She could feel it on his fingertips. She looked up at him dazedly, took in his subtle expression of pleasure, the concentration on his chiseled face, then she closed her eyes with a groan when his finger dipped slowly inside her.

He lowered his head and kissed her lips softly as he slipped two fingers together inside her, so gently, while the pad of his thumb stroked her most delicate center. He began to move, luscious, deliberate. She caressed the flexing muscles of his arm, for a moment only lying there, letting him use his expertise to touch her as he willed, drifting with pleasure as he lowered his head, nibbling along her neck toward her earlobe.

“Feels good, hm,
chérie
?” he whispered.

She was too bedazzled by the sensations he was giving her to answer, but his low, velvet laugh told her he knew. He whispered to her like the voice of fantasy itself until she began arching hungrily for him once more with his every stroke, rising to meet his touch.

“Don’t fight it, sweetheart. That’s right. Let it take you.”

She clung to his shoulder as her ragged breathing turned to gasps.

Now he was silent, swept away as she was, every particle of his attention focused on giving her increasing pleasure. He lowered his head and kissed her breast, licking the nipple slowly with the tip of his tongue.

He opened his eyes and gazed boldly into hers. His skin was flushed to sun-warmed copper; his lips were full and pliant with kissing. He gave her a half smile like a satyr before dipping his head to flick his tongue over her hardened crest again.

Hand between her thighs, he extended his little finger deftly to caress her deep in the cleft of her backside, and she gasped at the unexpected shock of pleasure while he took her breast into his mouth, suckling hungrily, consumed with passion.

“Yes, oh, yes,” she breathed urgently, arching her head back against the pillow. “It is sublime.”

Something was building.

She clamped his head to her breast while she rode his touch in an ever-wilder frenzy. His fierce kiss became painful on her breast, so she drew him up again to her mouth. She knew he possessed her completely when she heard his voice at her ear, a deep, soft whisper of command. She would have done anything he asked.

“Scream for me,
chérie
.”

But she could only give a gasping cry, as if she were in pain. “
Lazar
.”

He let out a trembling breath. “I want you so much.” He almost stopped, and she could not bear it. She clutched his shoulders, moaning.

“Oh, Lazar, oh, please.”

At his answering groan of helpless need, the first wave of pleasure rose to drown her, sweeping over her, wave after wave. She held him tight, her arms around his neck, as she convulsed around his soaked hand. It was the most vulnerable moment of her life, and he did not fail her. Cries of bliss tore free from her throat, but something deeper than joy welled as tears behind her closed eyes, slid down her cheeks.

He caught them on his lips, and still her body pulled for him, desperate, writhing with demand, until she had milked his fingers of every drop of pleasure in them.

She lay there, unable to move, so deep was her relief, her sense of wholeness, healing. Gently he moved his hand away, and she could feel at once the swollenness of her own flesh. She marveled at her galloping breath, her racing pulse, the warm, slightly bruised ache of satisfaction between her thighs.

Eyes shut tight, his big body shaking, Lazar wrapped his arms around her and held her, murmuring to her that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. It seemed a lie, but she could not entirely disbelieve him. There was something in the way he said it.

She kissed his cheek, feeling enervated but complete somehow, and strangely, blissfully close to him.

“Oh, Lazar,” she sighed, too spent even to shake her head.

He said nothing, laying his head on her chest. She raked her fingers through his short, soft, jet-black hair and caressed his back, closing her eyes to face the unreasonable knowledge that at this moment she felt closer to him than she ever had to anyone, this scarred stranger with tragedy behind all the sparkle in his eyes, this outlaw who could see he was a born hero if he would only try.

He had such sweetness in him.

Holding him, she wondered if it was already too late for her.
You have me
, he’d said earlier, and it appeared she did—for the moment—but oh, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut tight, it terrified her. The edge she feared was racing up entirely too fast. She prayed, as if heaven could stop the sliding of her heart into his sea,
Please, God, not him. Anyone but him. He is too dangerous for me
.

He was a pirate and a rake.

He would die young, well before he wised up and pondered the revolutionary notion of loving one woman. If that calamity ever befell him, she was quite certain he would not choose her, his enemy’s plain, prudent, tediously moral daughter.

He was a criminal. He had destroyed her life. They said he was evil incarnate, this wild, irresistible rogue who was weaving himself into her fantasies, and somehow she’d been falling from the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

Whoever he was.

CHAPTER ELEVEN