Jennifer Horseman (37 page)

"Take off the straps, love," he said in a whisper. "Slowly."

She met his gaze again but briefly as he seemed to absorb the very last effort to resist. She closed her eyes as she crossed her arms over herself. Her thumbs slipped beneath the straps. She slowly lowered the thin strings over her arms. The brush of silk sliding over her breasts sent shuddering little shocks through her. She held still, perfectly, painfully still, as the gown fell to gather at her waist, the unveiling complete.

"A lifetime, indeed. My God, you are beautiful," he said as his hands slid under her hair and up her back, then under her arms to cup the fullness of her breasts, lightly stroking the pearly pink tips with his thumbs. Like licks of fire. She surrendered to the more primal sense and with a small gasp of pleasure she arched her back and leaned full into his hands. He rewarded the movement with deepening strokes, gently kneading the flesh until she was breathless, panting, flushed with helpless need, like the need to comply and obey, she felt it growing, blossoming in colors of dark reds deep inside herself—

"Kiss me, love. I want to taste those lips."

There could be no resistance now; she existed only for him and his pleasure, an existence she had no power now to change. She slid her arms around his neck, and turning her head slightly she timidly sought his mouth. She touched her lips to his, but pulled back just an inch, gasping before strong hands cupped the back of her head, gently guiding her back until he took her mouth in a hard, slow mating.

He tasted deliciously of pears and warmth. Like wine sliding over thirst, the sensuous press of his mouth lit and quenched fires. Shyly she returned the caress of his tongue, discovering the textures of his mouth as he savored her, deepening the kiss as his own hot desire began to claim her.

Garrett groaned, threading his fingers through her hair as the kiss became playful. A maddening tease as he broke away, only to return and break again, letting her feel the warm caress of his lips elsewhere: over her closed lids, across her forehead and cheeks, along the sensitive lines of her ears. Shivers rushed to greet each touch of his lips, running in chills down her spine. "Garrett . . . Garrett," she started to speak, but words were lost in the drowning sweetness of his kiss. Trembling, she arched toward him, easing the ache in her breasts against the hard muscles of his chest, giving herself to the slow penetrating drive of his mouth.

Taking a handful of hair, he forced her neck up at an arch, where he started a trail of fire down her neck to her breasts. His tongue slipped around a ruby peak and his mouth drew softly until, as if she was a possessed creature, a thick pleasure filled her and his name came with each breath.

A flushed sheen of perfumed moisture lined her skin like a fine silken cloth. The brilliance of her scent and taste were maddening as he sought the beckoning heat and swell of her sex. She twisted with mindless anticipation as he eased his caresses ever closer until she melted beneath the dual pleasures of a long hard kiss and the skilled strokes of his fingers.

With whispered commands and gently compelling kisses he brought her to the very edge, where no inhibitions or shyness or thoughts could intrude. She cried, trembling with a thick pulsating pleasure until at last he turned her on her back, finally releasing his own raging desire, feeling it sweep through the whole of his body.

Bracing his arms on either side of her head, he carefully kept his body from touching her. She felt flushed and feverish with a need—desperate now—to draw him into her. As she needed to draw air, she needed to feel him everywhere and all at once. The heat of his hard staff poised above her, threatening yet not; she wanted him to fill her. She opened her eyes, revealing her pained confusion, the very vulnerability of her inexperience.

"The play is mine, Juliet." He kissed her mouth once, slow and tantalizing, withdrawing to tell her. "Open yourself, love. ... I want to touch your womb."

The words scared her senselessly. Frightened and confused, she struggled to deny him this last. She tried to shake her head but the very fear pounded, throbbed with the consuming passion and hunger and need until she opened herself to him. And then she might have swooned, unaware of her nails sinking into his flesh where she clung to his neck and back as she felt the smooth, hot pressure of him slide back and forth over her sex. Waves of warm voluptuous heat washed over her, carrying her to the heightened ecstasy of a promise. "Higher love . . . higher . . ."

The moment he felt the first crest of pleasure washing over her he thrust himself deep inside, forcing her tightness to accommodate his size, causing the briefest pain before he touched her womb. The sensation triggered hot spasms of pleasure bursting deep inside. She clung to him desperately as she felt herself falling into a blackness, emerging to feel waves of ecstasy over and over as his seed washed over her womb and he too, collapsed with a shocking pleasure that catapulted him from any earthly sphere. There seemed to be no end to it as he brought her back to consciousness with a warm demanding kiss that stopped his name on her lips. His desire never died, never would die with her, he knew, as he began to move inside her again, the dance of an endless passion that would carry them through the long night.

Through the night until just before dawn's gray light crept into the spacious room and he finally released his claim on her. Entwined in his arms, she felt a dark exhaustion that waited only for her heartbeat to spiral down, an exhaustion that allowed no thoughts to trespass into her consciousness as she tried to bury herself closer to the warmth of his body. From far far away he told her: "You will remember this only as a dream, Juliet. A dream spun with magic ..."

The early morning air felt still and already warm as Garrett climbed into the waiting carriage, Juliet wrapped in a velvet cloak and sound asleep in his arms. Leif sat across from him, silent until the carriage lurched forward, heading the two miles to the docks where The Raven waited to sail. The grin on Leifs face spoke well of their triumph.

"The chalking?" Garrett asked.

"A dozen or so men remain to finish the task. What's left can be taken under sail. But Garrett, the admiral will be suspicious—"

"Nay," Garrett chuckled, shaking his head incredulously. "He assumed we'd be under sail before he woke and he bid me farewell and safe winds before I quit. That was," he smiled, "if I promised to introduce Juliet to Paris this spring."

Leifs laughter joined Garrett's. As long as he lived, he vowed for the hundredth time since he joined his life to Garrett's, he would believe fate was a thing of magic. His gaze came to rest on Juliet. "And God bless the lady named Juliet." "Indeed," Garrett grinned, "forever more."

David Bartlet opened his eyes to the soft stream of morning light seeping through the draped curtains strung across the windows of the second-story resident room at London's university. The advent of consciousness began with a cursory review of the preceding day, moving on to the waiting day: breakfast, a lecture on Classical Roman architecture during the Octavian period, followed by another equally tedious lecture on the spiritual lessons of the Psalms, then an exam on the Ptolemaic design on the universe, and oh God, to just get through another day of it ...

He looked over to Tomas's bed. The covers were hardly rumpled, no doubt he hardly slept again. His gaze swept the room until he came to the small desk where Tomas sat, writing yet another letter to the authorities imploring them to do something, anything, to help his young lady. The diffuse light of the lantern told him Tomas had been at it since well before dawn. The empty cask at his side as well as the faint scent of foul spirits said he was still drinking heavily ....

David swung his legs over the bed. The poor chap! Everyone was starting to make a fuss over him, worried about his one-man crusade to capture Black Garrett and see his young lady returned, assuming of course she was still alive. The unavoidable idea was finally spoken to Tomas two days before, when the headmaster sent for Tomas's father, hoping Mr. Allen might be able to talk sense into his son's addled wits.

Their argument reached its pitch with that stern man's exasperation. "This," he shook one of the letters in his poor son's face, "is imbecilic! This mission of yours is useless! Useless, I say! In five years, the entire British naval fleet has not been able to even spot that blackguard's ship unless it is from a belly-up position as he is pillaging and raping! Do you hear me?"

Tomas remained unmoved, save for tears in his eyes. His son's grief had softened his father, but had hardly deferred his reasoning. "Dear God, just think on it, Tomas! Think of what would happen to a young lady alone and defenseless against that barbarian! And all his men! Even if, by some miracle, she is not already dead, she will sure to God wish she was."

Tomas had closed his eyes, hugging his sides tightly. "Don't you understand, Father? I have thought of it no less than a thousand times . . . it's all I can think about. I see her face . . . and I want to kill him . . . Lord, but if I could . . ."

"My God, you are young or foolish or both! I pray you never do get her back. Ah, I see that shocks you? It's because I can imagine the young lady returned to you—not the same one that left. Ruined, totally, completely ruined. Not just spiritually or emotionally either-"

Tomas interrupted with sudden anger: "There is a chance—"

"Hah! There is no chance. Perhaps a small one that she still breathes, but what has happened to her is a fact. A fact. And don't be fool enough to imagine society will pretend not to know the sordid details. You'll never be able to give her our name now—"

"But-"

"But nothing. And believe me, you'll thank me for that."

Yet neither his father nor the chaplain, nor the headmaster himself could persuade Tomas to give up hope, yet alone negate his love for the young lady. Ah, what a mess! All the chaps had assumed Juliet was a product of Tomas's mind, a fanciful thought arising from inclinations that none of them had an outlet for besides imagination. No one thought Juliet really existed, not when he said she was too beautiful to be believed, and that she loved him madly. Not even when he said it was she who wrote his treatises lately. Who would have thought Tomas could seduce a young lady—a beautiful one at that—into loving him?

David stood up, moving to the desk where Tomas wrote at a furious pace. "Well, ole chap," he placed a friendly arm on his friend's shoulder. "I see you're playing the chivalrous knight yet again—"

"Stop it, David," Tomas said, with nary an interruption of the flow of his quill across the page. "I've no patience for your baiting."

David's face fell, though he shrugged. "Very well, then let's say we head for the commons and wash our stomachs with that wretched tea and toast."

"I'm not hungry."

David paused before righting the empty cask. "Christ Almighty, if this were water you'd be full to bursting. Like any aging drunkard, your breath and skin reeks of wine."

"Unlike any aging drunkard, I have good reason to drown myself in spirits."

"At least say you'll go to the lectures?"

Tomas still did not stop. "I'll just copy the erudite wisdom of your notes. I'm not going anywhere but to Fansworth Hall for the posting."

"Look, Tomas-"

"I'm not in the mood for speeches, either. Do me the favor and leave me be."

Seeing it was hopeless, David got up. Tomas was as good as lost. As lost as poor Juliet herself. He only hoped his friend discovered the fact before it was too late.

As the door shut behind David, Tomas buried his face in his hands, and as it sometimes happened, he gave in to tears. Why, he asked again and again. Oh God, why did this have to happen to me? Why did Black Garrett pick Juliet to abduct out of all the women in the world? Did he just happen to stop in Bristol that day and find her beauty too captivating to resist?

Fate could not be so terrible, he told himself again as he closed his eyes, remembering that terrible day, remembering how the man Garrett spoke to her. As if he knew her ... Yet how could that be possible? How could Juliet have met the famous pirate Black Garrett before? If by some terrible situation she had met him, surely she would have told him of the encounter, wouldn't she have? Yet he remembered Juliet acted as if she knew him too, as if she had known he had come to do her harm.

God, what had happened? It was strange, too, when he and his father went to the militia to inform them of the attack and Juliet's abduction. "Yes, yes," the tired night sergeant said, rubbing his eyes. "We are aware of the situation. The pirate's ship sailed in during the night. ... He took Master Stoddard too, you know. You didn't know? Yes, yes right from his carriage on the way to town, in plain sight. No hope for that bastard, that's for sure. . . . No, I mean Master Stoddard, no hope for him. He'll be dead as a goose on Michaelmas. Word has revenge as the motive." The sergeant refused to listen to his father's accusations. "I assure you, sir, we did not do anything about the situation because we did not know about it until the ship was but a speck on the horizon. . . . The girl? Tb be perfectly frank, you may as well count the poor girl dead too, or as good as dead. You must see the hopelessness of a young lady put in those circumstances. . . ."

Tomas wiped his bloodshot eyes and rose to dress. He would never accept the hopelessness of it. He felt certain Juliet was alive, that had she actually died he would have sensed it. Perhaps he was losing his mind after all. ...

The late morning air felt chilly and Tomas tightened the folds of his coat as he made his way across the lawns to Farnsworth Hall for the posting. If only he got a reply, a pledge from the Admiralty to renew their effort to capture the famous pirate Black Garrett! He had written dozens of letters to anyone he thought might be able to help: militia and naval officers, members of Parliament, various influential lords, and the court itself, imploring them to do something, anything to stop that man-beast. A beast who swept into his life and snatched an innocent girl from his arms to an unholy graveyard or worse.