The Pirate Prince (25 page)

She squared her shoulders, shaken to see fear in the eyes of her protector, a man who until this moment had seemed to her an invulnerable warrior. Hands trembling slightly, she poured water into the glass for him from the earthen jar, then went to his side and sat down on the edge of the bed.

He didn’t move or respond or even take his arm from over his eyes. She could see the tension in every line of his body, all his self-control straining to hold his desperation in check.

She offered the glass.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I have water for you, Captain.”

His voice was a low growl layered with years of anger. “My name is Lazar.”

She let out a patient exhale and studied the bulkhead. “Will Your Royal Highness condescend to take some water?”

“Go to hell.”

She grinned with relief to find he had his fight back.

“So,” she drawled a moment later, “now I know what it takes to scare you. Domenic failed. My father failed. My father’s soldiers failed. Goliath failed. I certainly failed. The Genovese navy failed.” She ticked them off on her fingers, then looked down at him. “I guess
you
are the only thing you are afraid of.”

“Not the only thing.”

“There, there, dear, we all have bad dreams. Drinking doesn’t help matters,” she added, poking him in the arm just to defy him and take his mind off the nightmare.

“Lecture me and I’ll put a gag in your mouth.”

“Ohhh, what’s wrong?” she teased him, caressing his flat belly through his soft lawn shirt. “Are you embarrassed, my dear?” she asked in a parody of that bland, regal courtesy he used whenever he chose to be condescending.

“Wench.”

“Pardon me?”

“Wench. Saucy, common little cock-tease wench.”

She lifted the glass and poured the water on his head.

He sat up sputtering, water running down his face and chest. He stared at her in disbelief.

She smiled innocently.

“You like to live dangerously, don’t you, Miss Monteverdi?”

He licked the water off his lips.

She wanted to lick it, too.

A gleam came into his dark eyes a second before he grabbed her and hurled her down onto the rumpled bed, romping atop her on all fours, tickling her until she shrieked for mercy. He bit her shoulder, then moved closer, nuzzling her neck. She pushed halfheartedly against his chest, delighted that she had succeeded in distracting him.

“You smell of sherry,” she protested.

“I taste of it, too.” He kissed her. “You taste of cherries. I like cherries,” he murmured.

She slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily.

He started laughing drunkenly after a moment, breaking their kiss. “The room is spinning. I’m still foxed.” He collapsed on her, all fourteen-odd stone of him.

“Isn’t that wonderful!” she exclaimed, shoving him back so she could breathe. “You’re on duty in five minutes. Maybe you’ll sink the ship.”

“Who cares? I don’t give a damn. I just want you,” he said in a low, hearty voice, grinning with debauchery as he moved between her thighs and lifted her knee to hug his hip.

“I thought you were vexed with me,” she confided with a bit of a sulk as she ran her fingers through his short, soft hair. “You avoided me the whole day.”

“Nonsense. I never hold a grudge.”

“No?” She cocked her head at him on the pillow, fighting laughter. “Aren’t you the man with the terrible vendetta? The one who burned down the city?”

He narrowed his eyes and scowled down at her. “We can indulge your taste for argument later. For now, we’re going to do what I like for a change.” He lowered his head. “Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered.

Instantly she turned red. “No!”

“Shh, come. Just for a moment. You’ll like it. Since the first minute I saw you, I’ve dreamed of feeling these long, gorgeous legs around me.”

“You’re joking!”

“Oh, no, I’m not. You remember when I pulled you into the pond at the waterfall? I could see everything.”

“No,” she breathed, wide-eyed.

“Wet white silk,” he whispered. “A sight I’ll never forget.”

She stared up at him, stared at the banked desire under his long-lashed eyes, the fullness of his lips, wet with her kiss. He was stroking her thigh, gently bringing her other knee up against his side. She reached up and kissed him again, doing as he asked, sliding her ankles behind his muscled thighs.

“Mmm, what a good little pupil you are, my virgin,” he murmured, pressing against her in a way that made her shiver.

She drifted with a faint smile, shamelessly enjoying the feel of him between her legs. It seemed natural, effortless, to writhe slightly against that perfect fit. After all, Aunt Isabelle had said coyness was for provincials. Allegra was finally beginning to grasp what that meant.

“I had morals before I met you, you know,” she told him dreamily as he nibbled her earlobe. “You could turn me into a wanton woman.”

“I already have.”

She made a sound of indignation and brought her legs down again from his body.

“Hey!” He scowled down at her.

She held him at bay with a speculative expression. “Tell me your dream.”

His roguish expression darkened, and she saw that the darkness had been there all along, just beneath the surface. No, he was not ready to tell her yet, she saw. She lifted her fingertips and caressed his cheek.

“Was there a monster?” she asked softly, just a bit playfully, refusing to let that darkness take him away from her again.

He nodded.

“Did it try to eat you?”

When his earnest look of loss turned into a rueful half smile, she caught herself thinking,
I could fall in love with you so easily
.

“Talk to me,” she murmured. “What ails you, Lazar? I want to help you. I won’t judge you.”

“I can’t, Allegra,” he said, gazing down at her with a silent plea of distress in his chocolate-brown eyes. The look could have conquered hearts of stone.

She stroked his cheek slowly, studying him.

“I can’t,” he said again.

“It’s all right. It’s all right, Lazar.” She paused, running her hand back through his hair. “My Lazar.”

He closed his eyes, holding perfectly still at her use of his name.

She leaned up and kissed his lips lingeringly. “Lazar,” she whispered between kisses, “Lazar, my rescuer. My wild, lost, pirate-prince Lazar.” She wrapped her legs around him as before.

Fiercely he kissed her, linking his fingers through hers on the mattress.

Well, she surely hoped he wasn’t the prince, she thought, almost giddy as he moved downward over her body, kissing as he went. Allegra didn’t think Princess Nicolette would much have appreciated what she was presently doing with
her
fiancé.

Lazar fixed her with a stormy gaze as he kissed her bared knee. She watched him inch her skirts upward; she was a bit nervous, but not nearly as nervous as perhaps she should have been.

Higher he went, grazing along the pale, tender skin on the inside of her thigh. Higher crept her hemline.

Lazar bent his head.

She let out a shocked, wide-eyed gasp, then her eyes drifted closed in astonished ecstasy.

Oh, she knew she should have stopped him—it was indecent, what he was doing—but it felt sinfully good. Soon she was too weak with longing to mind propriety as he drank of her, lapping intently, crouched between her thighs like a thirsty lion at the banks of a slow-moving river.

Moments passed. Only when she gasped for air did she realize she’d been holding her breath at the pleasure and decadence of his gift.

Someone pounded at the door to remind him of his watch, but he ignored it, holding her down with a gentle, insistent press of his left hand against her belly. At the interruption, she glanced down and became instantly fascinated, watching him. His expression of erotic devotion was almost too beautiful to gaze upon.

She closed her eyes and drifted back with a soft, soul-deep moan as she gave herself over to his will, accepting his hunger to assuage her body’s need, this aching need he had found by patiently peeling away all her protests, refusals, denials, to the core of her—loneliness and longing for love.

God, he was a gentleman, she thought oddly, just before the mind-melting sweetness of sensation overcame her.

She arched endlessly for the stroke of his tongue, caressing his hair, grasping and twisting handfuls of the sheet as she writhed in bliss, her moans lifting toward the screams he liked.

Oh, she could love him. She was that great a fool.
And what of it?
she thought defiantly, then all thought dissolved.

There was anguish in her cry of reaching need. He had taught her only yesterday how to seek the climax, how to wait for it, lure it near and catch it, and when she did, she gasped his name again and again—if that was his name—clutching his muscled shoulders in ecstasy until her fingers’ grip went limp.

Now it was she who lay there, half concealing her face with one arm thrown over her brow. He was a dark silhouette in the dim cabin as he rose over her. She was almost angry at him, now that she knew the sort of danger she was in.

“Why won’t you let me hate you?” she asked wearily when she’d caught her breath.

“Because you are my lover.”

“No, I’m not. I am your prisoner.”

“You need me, Allegra. You know it, and I know it. And it’s altogether possible that I need you, too.”

“You are still foxed.”

“No.”

“Then it is some new scheme, some plot you’ve hatched for revenge—”

“No. I am done with that.”

She crossed both forearms over her brow, feeling cornered. “Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you just rape me and get it over with?”

“I would never do that,” he said as he took off his shirt and toweled his face with it.

“Why not?”

“Because.” He paused in the dark, his back to her. “I know how it feels.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I beg your pardon,” Allegra said, coming up onto her elbows.

Several minutes passed, and still the room was silent.

Lazar listened to the water’s small splash in the basin as he rinsed her sweetness from his face, her elixir from his fingertips. He listened to the dark lullaby of the sea and the pounding of his own heart.

“Lazar?” she asked softly from the bed, brushing her skirts down as she sat up. “What does that mean?”

He put on a fresh shirt, then walked slowly to the lantern fixed to his desk and lit it. He stared at Allegra for a moment as the flame grew, musing, incredulous to think he had ever judged her less than stunning. She had the beauty of pure water, clean air, warm sun—essential things—and he knew now he needed her as much.

He also knew he was deceiving himself. The sooner Miss Monteverdi understood that her besotted captor was a suicide waiting to happen, the better.

Best to kill his futile hope now.

He walked over to the bed and sat down beside her. She stared at him wide-eyed, her irises the warm brown of cinnamon sticks.

She was incredible, he thought. How sweet she looked, with her lips swollen from his kisses, her chestnut hair pushed forward over one shoulder. He wanted to kiss every one of her buttery freckles.

He didn’t. He lowered his head, pushed up his sleeves. Turning both loose fists palm upward on his lap, he showed her his wrists, and he waited.

Her long hair swung down in a silky curtain as she examined them. He watched her steadily, waiting for her to condemn him, reject him. She would have noticed the scars sooner or later, after all. He didn’t expect her to accept him with these scars, after both her parents had taken their own lives. It was too much to ask of anyone.

She remained silent. He braced himself for the barrage. She gently pulled his right hand onto her lap. He didn’t fight her. She laid her fingertips on his wrist, following the old white gash, the healed-over break in the thick blue vein he’d once slashed with the sharp edge of a broken plate in the bad place.

Moments passed, and he began wanting to believe she might not yell at him.

Still, he waited. Her fingers stroked his wrist slowly, tenderly, as if the old scar were mere chalk dust that could be brushed away, instead of the jagged mark of the thunderbolt branded on his soul.