Seize the Fire (38 page)

"Nonsense. Retired officer, and with your record of service! It's perfectly in order. I counted you both into the provisions in Buenos Aires."

"Foresight," Sheridan said warmly.

Fitzhugh let out a long breath. "I'm just glad there was need of it. When your man—what the devil's his name? Mistafa?—after he came to me, I don't mind saying I was in a rare taking over his story. When I contemplate what might have happened…" His hand tightened around the handle of the locker. "I saw that those villains got their just punishment, anyway. It was a pleasure, I'll tell you, to watch them squirm at the end of a noose." He smiled grimly. "It was a damned good show, too. That Yankee captain had a fine trick with a rope—fixed it so that they'd not break their necks when they dropped. There was a pair of them didn't stop twitching for half an hour." He shook his head with relish. "But they deserved to suffer. Fiends! Dear God, that Miss Drake should be in such peril! I was praying. I could think of nothing else. I haven't slept for dread."

Sheridan looked down at his drink, tracing his finger around the rim.

"I'm sure she told you," Fitzhugh said shyly, "she was with us for most of her voyage."

"I'm in your debt."

"No. It was a pleasure. Her company was—a joy to me." He blinked at Sheridan earnestly and then dropped his eyes. "I admire your sister greatly, Captain Sir Sheridan. Very greatly."

Sheridan regarded his sherry, slowly swirling the golden liquid around the sides of the glass. He let the silence lengthen.

Fitzhugh moistened his lips. Sheridan thought he would stumble and stutter, but the young captain pulled himself up and leveled his gaze. "I request your permission to pay her my addresses, sir. I think you will find my family is a worthy one—we're the Surrey Fitzhughs; my elder brother holds the barony of Barsham, and my mother was a Bentinck. I've an independence of eighteen thousand per annum. My brother manages that for me, since I've been occupied with my career." Biting his lower lip, he waved his hand and then cleared his throat. "You may imagine that there is a reasonable accumulation of capital with which to set up house. I've had little use for it till now."

Sheridan thought of the crystal and silver and the white linen tablecloth, the good sherry and the damask curtains that adorned the captain's stateroom. "Haven't you?" he asked mildly.

Fitzhugh looked anxious. "Perhaps you don't think my income adequate to support her as she deserves. There's my officer's pay, too, and always hope of prize money, of course—though I should be dishonest to say I depend upon it, what with the present peace. But I—" He drew a breath. "I believe I could make her happy, sir. She has…given me reason to hope."

"Has she!" Sheridan smiled. His teeth grated together. "She had not mentioned it to me."

That set him back, the condescending brat. Sheridan watched expressionlessly as the young officer's face blazed red. A mere eighteen thousand a year…how could the man live? Poor chap, he probably couldn't even buy London Bridge if he wanted it.

The captain took a quick gulp of his drink. "I suppose—she could not have thought she would see me again."

Sheridan controlled his urge to deliver another snide setdown. The fair flower of the Sussex Fitzhughs could go hang, damn his eyes—but there was no percentage saying so yet.

No, there was nothing for it but to play the game. And Olympia would have to play it, too. If she told the lovestruck puppy to take the damper he deserved at this early date, things could get deucedly uncomfortable before they reached port.

"I'd like to speak to her about it. You understand." Sheridan put a hand on Fitzhugh's shoulder and squeezed—playing the stalwart elder brother. "But you're a good man, Fitzhugh. A good man."

Then he raised his glass in a silent toast and drank, watching Fitzhugh over the rim as the younger man's freckled face broke into a tremulous grin.

A good man, Just don't get your hopes up, you virtuous little sap.

Olympia peeped around the door in answer to Sheridan's knock, the lamplight behind her shining in a glow around her loosened hair and silhouetting her body through the flannel night rail. Sheridan took one appalled glance at her, cast swift looks up and down the corridor and pushed her back, stepping inside. He locked the door hastily.

"Jesus, what are you doing, answering the door looking like this? Do you know how many men are aboard this ship? By God, you're not even buttoned!"

She pulled the slipping gown up onto her shoulder. "The buttons are in the back. I can't reach them." She caught his hand in both of hers. "Sheridan, I'm go glad you've come. I wanted to say I was sorry." She kissed the back of his palm and cradled it against her cheek. "I've been so wrong—I've been such a fool! How could you let me do it?"

His mouth had been open to continue the lecture. He closed it.

She moved into his arms, pressing her cheek to his shoulder. "Forgive me." Her hold tightened around him, her breasts soft and provocative against his chest. "I don't know how that miserable little man ever made me believe you could be a thief! Sheridan…can you forgive me? I should have known you didn't do it. I should have known long ago."

He put his hand on her hip, feeling the tantalizing curve of bare skin beneath the flannel. With his lips pressed to her hair, he stood there calculating wildly, trying to decide how to handle this development. He'd never expected
her
to fall for that shaky tale he'd concocted—he'd been relieved just to have her go along with it in front of the others.

She wriggled her hip beneath his hand, pressing closer. He breathed in the fresh, scent of her clean hair. Really, truth was such an abominably awkward inconvenience. There was no telling how she'd react if he blurted out a confession now in answer to her optimistic misapprehension. It seemed she'd finally forgiven him on the island, but they'd never actually talked about it. And things were different now. They were no longer alone and dependent on one another, and there was that nodcock Fitzhugh, too, the devil take him. If she wished, she'd have someone else to turn to for aid and comfort and…

A fierce wave of jealousy rose in him. The image of Fitzhugh touching her—God, the man wanted to marry her, to have the right to tumble her anytime he pleased, and he wouldn't have to drive himself to desperation forestalling the natural consequences, either.

It didn't bear thinking about. Sheridan buried his mouth against her hair and said, "Of course I forgive you."

She gave a little sigh and relaxed against him. Then, just as he was lowering his head to nibble insinuatingly at her ear, she pulled away. "You won't punish Mustafa? I think—I believe he really did mean well, odd as it seems."

"It'd be a miracle in our time if he did." Sheridan caught her back. Pushing his fingers into her loosened hair, he kissed the tender skin beneath her earlobe. "I know how to deal with Mustafa," he murmured. "But give me a respite from the gruesome thought, if you please. He's already been weeping ail over my borrowed boots."

She bent her head with a tiny smile, resting her forehead against him and toying with the buttons on his waistcoat.

Sheridan's breathing quickened. His hands slipped down; he grasped the gown in his fists, gathering it upward. While she stood in the lamplight, he sank slowly to his knees, pulling her toward him to kiss the valley between her breasts through the soft fabric.

Olympia clasped his head with a soft moan of welcome and relief. She moved insinuatingly beneath his hands. It felt so good, so familiar and wonderful to have him come to her like this—in intimacy and passion. It made the world seem right again, washing away her uneasiness at those earlier moments of constraint. He sat back on his heels and shaped her legs downward, slid his fingers beneath the hem and touched her slippered feet. His face was on a level with the warm cleft between her thighs as he circled her ankles with his hands.

She responded with a surge of excitement, leaning back against the smooth bulkhead. He pushed the gown upward, a slow slide, kissing the inner skin of her thighs as the soft fabric revealed it.

"Flowers," he murmured huskily; "you smell like flowers."

She gave a faint, shaky laugh. "That must be a change."

"Sweet princess." He brushed his face against her, buried it in the contours of her body with a deep inhalation. "You always smell like heaven to me."

She drew in a sharp breath as his tongue searched and found the source that sent cascades of sensation flooding through her. She arched her head back, pressing it against the hard wall of mahogany.

"Sheridan," she gasped, curling her fingers in his thick hair.

He made a wordless sound in answer and slid his hands upward on her naked skin, cupping her buttocks, pulling her harder against his mouth. The teasing, arousing rhythm of his tongue made her writhe with exquisite torment. She bit her lip, trying to stifle the sounds that hung in her throat, trying to keep the breathless cries to moans, here where she might be heard.

He brought her to the edge of explosion, caressed and kissed her until her trembling fingers pulled at his hair. She found his shoulders and tugged upward, breathing in short fervent sighs, pleading for more.

He rose, lifting the gown over her head and pushing her back against the wooden wall in one swift motion. His kiss raked her mouth, tasting of her own excitement. He shaped her breasts, lifting, so that her nipples rubbed against the fabric of his dove-gray coat. The sensation of roughness against the tender, swollen nubs made her close her eyes and open her lips, but he subdued her cry of pleasure with his mouth, plunging his tongue deep as he pressed his arousal against her.

She rotated her hips, answering the hard, masculine message. Her fingers searched eagerly between them, touched and pressed and outlined the shape of him while he groaned against her mouth. She could feel the deep vibration in his chest against her breasts. She teased at the buttons on his breeches, releasing them one by one, slowly—so slowly that he finally pushed her hand away and reached for the last one himself.

"Damned civilization," he muttered. "Who thought up all these clothes?"

Olympia swayed and tilted her head back in his arms. She was smiling, stimulated by the new sensation of being naked against his full dress. "I like them," she whispered huskily. "I think you look handsome…and elegant…and…so…so…tantalizing…"

His long eyelashes lowered on a gleam. "Do you, now?" He kissed her chin, tasting it with his tongue. His shaft throbbed against her, heat against heat. "I won't bother to take 'em off, then."

"Good," she murmured. "Good."

His low laugh blended with a kiss at the curve of her throat, his teeth closing lightly on her skin. He lifted her to him, pressing her back against the wall. Olympia knew what he intended. She arched in his embrace, slipping her legs open and closing them again on hot stiff maleness and sensation.

His luxurious sound of pleasure seemed to soak into her soul, igniting a tumult of desire. He didn't enter her, but began to move, cupping her buttocks, sliding between her thighs on skin moistened by anticipation, stimulating showers of wild sparks that fountained upward through her whole body. She clutched at him, breathing faster. His face was bent to her shoulder; his mouth open against her skin, the touch of him all heat and fire as he pushed her to the cool varnished wood.

She flexed into the thrusts that slid between her thighs, her urgency exploding. Her back curved, her neck arched, trembling against the desire to open her legs and be penetrated. This was what he had taught her—for her own protection, to prevent the disaster of conception on the island—but each time it became harder and harder for her to remember reason with his body moving on hers, his hands pulling her hungrily against him with every stroke.

In a haze of passion, she relaxed the tight clasp of her thighs and tilted her hips, bringing his next thrust with sweet, blunt pressure against her waiting entrance.

"Sheridan," she whimpered. "Sheridan, please—take me." She swallowed a gasp. "I want all of you."

His fingers pressed into her buttocks. "Princess—" His voice was a rasp, muffled in her hair.

"I want you inside me—I don't care…I don't care what happens." She tried to turn her head, brushing her lips to his hair and neck. The salty male taste of sweat burned on her tongue. "Please." She squeezed her thighs, arching against him. "It doesn't matter; what difference will it make? We can marry. Now. Tomorrow. We can tell them all the truth. Oh, God…please…"

"Don't!" The word came between harsh pants. "I can't think now; don't ask me to think."

She raised one knee, sliding it up the long muscular tightness of his thigh beneath the doeskin breeches. The move placed her so that his coming thrust would fill her. With a little moan of pleasure, she pushed forward—asking—inviting…demanding that he impale her.

His hands froze. "No." He made a vehement groan as he stopped the drive of his hips. For a long moment he held her suspended, pressed against the wall, while he drew in short, sharp breaths and his shoulders trembled. He shook his head fiercely.

She stirred in his hold, creating a voluptuous pressure on the swollen intrusion, the part of him that said "Yes" instead. She wriggled, trying to draw him further, reveling in the feel of him, full and hard. He could bring her to final ecstasy in his own way, she knew that, but she wanted more. She wanted them joined, she wanted to have him deep within her, the ultimate invasion that would make her wholly and only his.

"Please," she whispered, drawing her fingers down the hot, damp skin behind his ear. "Sheridan, please…"

He moved suddenly, violently, not pushing into her but propelling her away from him into the wall. "Curse you!" He slammed his open palms against the wood on either side of her head. "What are you trying to do to me? It's too risky—you know why—God Almighty, do you think I don't
want
…" He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. The pulse in his throat beat hard and fast. "No." He swallowed. "No."

She kissed his forearm where it was braced beside her. "Please," she whispered again, touching him, using her fingers to coax and caress in ways that she knew would take him to the edge of endurance. As he shuddered, straining, she slid her hands around his hips to pull him back and murmured, "It would feel so good…you know how good."