The Wayward One (The De Montforte Brothers Book 5) (34 page)

“’Tis a confession I have for ye, lass,” he said, aching to reach out and touch her but forcing himself to keep his hands to himself for the time being.

“A…confession?”

“Aye.” He leaned back against the curved hull and looked at her. “We haven’t known each other for long, but in that short time, have ye ever known me to be frightened of anythin’, Nerissa?”

“No….”

“Have ye ever known me to be worried about anythin’?”

She gave a little smile. “No.”

“Have ye ever known me to be insecure, uncertain, or lackin’ faith in meself?”

“Never.”

“Well, here’s my secret, then.” He smiled, looking a bit sheepish. “I don’t know if I can do this…and that makes me all of the above, especially frightened.”

“Do…what?”

“Come now, lass. What do ye think?”

She turned a bright, blushing pink, the color suffusing her cheeks and making him want to kiss her maidenly shyness away.

“I wasn’t aware that the…the, um, marriage act required any particular acts of strength.”

“It is what one makes it. But alas, since I’ve lost so much blood, I’m weak and faint, easily fatigued…no good to you as a husband today, tonight, maybe not for the next few nights.”

There. A slight crease between her brows, a frown. “Do you mean that we…we won’t be doing…doing
that
, today?”

“I don’t know if I can.” He sighed, looked up at her through his lashes, and let them droop. He was glad she could not see the smile he wore on his heart. Maybe she’d take up the challenge. Maybe she would not. He hoped she would. “But ye’re welcome to try, lass.”

“Would it be dangerous for you?”

“Don’t know. We could try it and see, I suppose.”

He heard her swallow, hard. A long silence ensued, before she finally asked in a little voice, “What do
you
want?”

“To make ye happy.”

She moved a little closer to him. He opened his eyes and smiled as she took his hand, her fingers warm and gentle around his own. Let her think he was that debilitated. Perhaps he was. But by letting her explore him and take the lead in this act, to plumb the limits of what he was capable of, it would give her confidence, alleviate her fear and awkwardness…and if he were honest with himself, allow him the chance to save his own pride for not being more assertive in bed on his own wedding day. The devil knew he wanted to be.
God
knew he didn’t have the strength.

Above, Morgan’s command to set the t’gallants drifted down and he felt
Tigershark
lengthening her stride like a racehorse being let out to the buckle. His eyes drifted shut once more, defying his will to keep them open. Beneath him, he could feel the long swells driving in from the open Atlantic, could feel the ship’s eagerness to get home. All was right in his world, whether or not they consummated their marriage this afternoon. All was—

His eyes opened as he felt a slight, uncertain touch at the corner of his mouth and he found himself gazing up into her steady blue ones.

“Having four brothers, I know a little about masculine pride,” she said softly. “Though very little about the marriage act, save for what I’ve gleaned from my sisters-in-law. But if you find yourself so weak, Ruaidri…maybe I can do the work.”

“Work?”

“Well—” she blushed once more “whatever it is that we’re supposed to do to consummate our marriage.”

“We don’t
have
to do anything,” he said cajolingly, secretly hoping the part of her that was a rebel would take such a challenge and run with it. “If you don’t want to.”

“What would
you
like?”

He looked up at her, his smile spreading. “I would like you to lean down,” he murmured softly, “and get right up close to me…yes, like that…and put your lips against the corner of my mouth that you just touched…and kiss me.”

She moved a little closer to him and shyly, obligingly, did as he asked, her very nearness forcing away the air that lay between them until their bodies were nearly touching. He wanted to drown in the sight of her. Her beautiful, eager face. Her guileless, pale blue eyes with the slightly down-turned corners. Her high cheekbones and full, smiling mouth, the lips so pink and pretty.

“Kiss me, Nerissa,” he said, lifting a hand to touch her arm, to run his fingers down the inside of her wrist, to draw little circles there with his fingers until a faint wash of color spread itself across her cheekbones at the teasing sensations it evoked.

Nerissa lowered her head, and slowly put her lips against the corner of his mouth.

For her, it was a mystery solved, a heady answer to tender exploration and quiet yearning. She nuzzled his skin, found it slightly rough despite the fact that his servant had come in to shave him earlier. He still tasted of the wine they’d shared after the binding words had been spoken and everyone had drunk a toast to the new Captain and Mrs. O’ Devir. She could smell his shaving soap and clean hair and skin, freshly washed in the same copper tub that she had used earlier. She could feel the warmth of his big, broad hand still gripping her wrist. The scent of him—all tough male, sensuality and desire despite his words protesting he didn’t have the strength—caused a little flutter of sensation deep between her legs. More sensation in her nipples and in the pit of her belly. Emboldened, she pressed her lips to his and guided by instinct, let her tongue slip out to lightly touch the corner of his mouth, to taste it, to trace the shape and texture of his lip until he made a noise of satisfaction deep in his throat.

“Ah, love,” he murmured, and releasing her wrist, reached both hands up to thread his fingers through her hair, loosening the pins that held up the heavy tresses, grazing the side of her neck with a warm, raspy thumb, and finally, cupping the back of her head to hold her gently down against him.

She angled her head, adjusting her position so that she was kissing him fully now, his lips hard against hers, his tongue coming out to find her own, to push against it, to taste her as she was tasting him. She heard a moan come from her own throat, felt the pressure against the back of her head holding her in place and urging her on. She lowered herself further, her nipples just grazing his chest. Though there was plenty of fabric between them, the sensation was like lightning striking her there, and she heard her breathing becoming heavier as his fingers drifted through her hair, pulling it down and around her shoulders, following it out to its ends until the back of his wrist just grazed her nipples through the fabric.

“Do you want me, Nerissa?”

“I want you, Ruaidri.”

“Tonight, you will take the lead, and your body will tell you what to do. Tonight, you will do with me what you will, explore me at your own speed and comfort level, and if I survive it—” here, he smiled up at her in a slightly cajoling way—“I promise you that the next time you’ll have more man than you can handle, Sunshine.”

“What if that ‘next time’ is later on this evening?”

“Minx,” he murmured, still pulling gently on her hair.

“Tell me what to do, Ruaidri. I think I know…but I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Ye won’t hurt me. Just…don’t expect much from me.”

“Is that a challenge to yourself, or to me?”

“Both, I think. Unbutton my waistcoat, lass. Don’t be shy.”

She kicked off her shoes, drew her legs up, and sidled closer to him, her hair hanging down around her face and just brushing the buttons of the garment he’d asked her to loosen. He was not fragile, she told herself. Weak from loss of blood, bruised, battered and most fortunate to be alive…but definitely not fragile.

Her fingers fumbled as she found the top button of his clean white waistcoat, pushed it through the hole, then moved down to the next one…the next…and the next. Her knuckles brushed the fine linen shirt just beneath, her gaze lingered at the skin at his throat, tanned and masculine and showing a few wiry strands of black hair. Unconsciously, she licked her lip, wondering how warm that bit of skin would be against her mouth. What it would smell like. What it would taste like. Another button, now, and she could feel the hard strength of his breastbone against her fingertips, the heart beating strongly just beneath.

Images of him lying on the deck in a pool of blood suddenly assailed her. Hadley’s triumph. Andrew’s empathy. She, running to the rail to vomit, shattered by the horror of what she had seen. He had come so close to dying. Indeed, she had thought him dead. Everyone had. But no, that heart was still beating and for a moment, she opened her hand, flattened her palm against his breastbone, and just absorbed its beat up through her skin, her hand, her wrist, letting its energy go all the way to her own heart.

She didn’t realize her eyes were leaking tears until his voice brought her back to the present.

“Nerissa.”

Startled, her gaze flashed to his, found him quietly watching her.

“Nerissa,” he repeated, looking up to her. “Why do ye cry? We don’t have to do this if ye aren’t ready… I’d never force ye, y’know.”

The tears ran harder and again she saw the blood beneath his leg, mixed with seawater and rolling back and forth with the motion of the ship, and she could not speak.

“I’m sorry I’m not the man ye might’ve chosen…sorry I’m just a sailor, sorry ye didn’t have the grand weddin’ ye deserved—”

“I’m crying,” she choked out, “because I keep thinking of you lying in your own blood, and how I’d thought this heart I feel beneath my hand had stopped…and that you were dead.”

His gaze softened. “Don’t think about it,” he said, reaching up to thumb away her tears. “I’m very much alive. Weak as a kitten, I’m afraid, but ’twill take far more than an English musketball to do me in.”

She gave a jerky little nod without speaking, and his hand drifted down to anchor hers against his breastbone. Against his heart. For a long moment they just stayed like that, she trying to get her sobs under control, he quietly covering her hand with his own.

“The best way to forget things we wish we’d never seen is to make new memories,” he said quietly. “We have our weddin’ night
—
or rather, afternoon—and the rest of our lives to make those memories.” He gazed up into her eyes, willing her to hear what he was saying, to forget the dreadful things that she had seen. “Now, love, since ye’re so concerned about my heart, lean down and kiss me again but keep your hand there, and feel it beat harder, feel it beat stronger…feel it beat just for you and you alone.”

She leaned over him, found his lips with her own and, with her hair falling down around their faces like a canopy of ivory silk, kissed him. The weight of her body pressed her hand down further against his chest and as she lost herself in the kiss, as his tongue plunged into the honeyed recesses of her mouth, she did indeed feel his heartbeat begin to thud, thud, thud against her palm.

She broke the kiss, breathing hard.

“Finish undoin’ me, Nerissa,” he said softly. “Ye’ve got a lot more buttons to go before you get me out of this waistcoat.”

She nodded, her fingers fumbling, undoing the button just beneath his heart, the one at the apex of his ribs, the ones that trailed down his belly, the ones that were close, very close, to the waistband of his breeches. She paused, staring at her fingers. The front of his breeches. The white fabric was curved and hard, bulging with the part of himself that made him a man—and that would soon make her a woman. What did it look like? Feel like? What would his response be if she were to touch it?

There. The last button of his waistcoat was undone. He sat up in the bed and she helped him out of it, allowing him to lean into her own strength as she eased him back to the cot. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but lord, he was heavy. Solid. Full of muscle. He looked up at her and smiled, his eyes going foggy for a moment.

“This is madness,” she said, worried.

“’Twill be fun.”

“You just lost what little color you had left.”

“I’ll get it back. I’m lyin’ down again, aren’t I?”

Indeed he was, his hair black against the pillow, the wild, spiral-curling mane spread out beneath him and giving him the look of some Celtic savage.

“Are you sure this won’t kill you?”

“If it does, mine will be the most envied death in the history of Mankind. Now take off yer clothes, Nerissa. Slowly. I want to watch yer fingers push the buttons through their holes and think about them touchin’ me.”

She obliged him, trembling in anticipation as she shed the midshipman’s jacket. The waistcoat beneath. She pulled the long, loose shirt free of the breeches into which she’d tucked it and sat beside him, shyly biting her lip.

“If I had the strength,” he said, his gaze roving appreciatively over her form and lingering on her breasts through the light linen shirt, “I would not be asking ye to do yer own undressin’, lass. But I’m enjoyin’ watchin’ ye, I am, all the same.”

He looked down at himself for emphasis. Nerissa followed his gaze and tried not to stare. She had thought him full and bulging before. Now….

She swallowed hard, her skin suddenly prickling with heat.

“And if I had the strength, I’d shed me own clothes as well,” he added. “But today, that task is yers.”

She nodded. “So I should take your shirt off next, I imagine?”