Till Dawn Tames the Night (31 page)

Oh, but she'd forgotten how cold those green eyes could be.

She stared at him. He leaned closer.

"Heed my words well, Aurora. The day I turn into a noble man is the day I will surely die."

"No," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"If I grow soft, if you make me grow soft, my enemies will have at me right there." He thumped his finger into her back.

A shiver of dread ran through her. "This Peterborough, he's not God, Vashon."

"He doesn't have to be. A cruel man is never without friends. It's a noble man who dies alone with his convictions."

"It's not true," she whispered. "If you were to become a good man, Vashon, I swear to you, you would not die alone."

"I'm not a good man, Aurora."

"I saw it in you. It was that goodness that saved me tonight.
That and only that.
You thought nothing of the Star when you stepped from the shadows. Don't deny it, Vashon! You came out to save me and only to save me!"

"God damn you!" His arm tightened brutally around her waist.

"Admit it, Vashon! Admit that you can be a noble man. Change your path!" she sobbed.

His fury was so great he almost roared. "I am what you see, Aurora! And I shall prove to you once and for all, I shall never be a good man!" He took her head in an iron-fisted grip and jammed her mouth against his. She sobbed against his lips, but even that protest was silenced when he forcefully thrust his tongue past her teeth.

His kiss was at once fiery and bitterly impersonal. It was calculated for response and degradation; she felt both with searing sharpness. Tears of rage and frustration sprang in her eyes while desire stole into her body like a thief. She hated him now, more than she'd ever hated anyone. But worse, she knew she'd also never feel so strongly about any other man again.

When he broke away, his smile was humorless as she struck out at him.

"Still think so highly of me, my dear?" he whispered, catching both her forearms in one iron grip.

"Don't do this, Vashon. Don't wrong me this way. I saved your life!"

"Keep your mouth closed unless I'm kissing you," he answered callously.

"Don't!" she cried out as he dragged her into the governor's exotic bedroom, her pleas only serving to heighten his resolve.

He pulled her roughly down on the bed with him; his tall body covered her completely. His hand slipped down her chest, removing the pins of her gown one by one as he found them. She shuddered when the apron front fell away, leaving only a thin bodice of laced linen between her and his lust.

"Think me a saint now?" He looked down at her face for a long moment, seeming to enjoy her beauty and defiance. Then his mouth lowered to the lush swell of her bosom that spilled over her low linen
underbodice
.

She threw her head back and moaned from her inability to stop him. He kissed her flesh, leaving a hot, wet trail down her skin until her clothing forced him to stop. His fingers caught in the lacings down her front and carefully, painfully, he unlaced them. She pulled on his forearm, but nothing, not God nor man, could have stopped him now. He jerked away her bodice and reveled in her generous apricot-tipped breasts while she stared at him, her eyes filled with hurt and betrayal.

"There is a noble man in you, Vashon," she said with a sob, "but you've buried him so deep he may never be seen again."

"You should never have seen him at all" was all he said before his lips covered one nipple. She clutched him and her response melted into another sob. Her hands wove into his wild long hair and she tried to pull him away, but the pain seemed to mean nothing to him. He ignored it and continued his onslaught upon her other breast until she lost her control and shuddered beneath him.

"Ah, I see you're a woman after all," he said huskily, taking power in her reaction. She jerked away, vowing to remain cold and stiff, but he only smiled and let his hard handsome mouth slide between her breasts.

Trembling, she was unsure of how much more she could take. She desperately wanted to call for help, but that was impossible. To hide from the governor's men, she'd willingly locked herself in this ornate bedchamber with this pirate. Summoning the household servants would only get them both executed. She was trapped, and looking at Vashon's terrible, impassioned face, she knew he was only too well aware of it.

He rose above her and pulled her dress from her shoulders. She moaned when he watched it slide tantalizingly to her hips. She beat him when he kissed her, but her fists could have been beating a brick wall. He didn't surrender an inch.

"Who'd have ever thought I'd have you?" he whispered against her hair, his hand filling with her breast. She pushed against him, but her palms met the worn leather of his buccaneer vest, smooth and warm, like an erotic extension of his own skin. She quickly pulled away.

"You don't like to touch me, do you, Aurora?" His hand captured the one she'd pulled back. He taunted, "Why is that, little girl? Did no one ever hug you at that Home? Did our illustrious paragon of noble intentions, Mr. Phipps, never put his arms around you and keep you warm? What a cold little place you grew up in." He took her hand and slid it up beneath his vest. His chest was as solid as a piece of steel, his muscles as warm and rippling as a Caribbean tide.

"I—I was well regarded at that Home, Vashon," she threw back at him, tears streaking down her face. "No one would have ever mistreated me like this."

The tension in his face returned. "Ah, yes. Regard. But was it love? I was loved once . . . until those who loved me were ripped from my very soul."

"Vashon!" she cried out as he left the bed. She scrambled to cover her nakedness with the scarlet satin counterpane, then, with a slow-seeping dread in her heart, she watched him undress.

She didn't look away. There was no need. All pretenses were crumbling around them; her innocence, she realized, long since sentenced to an inevitable death. Mutely she saw the worn umber-colored vest tossed to the carpet, then his boots, then his trousers. Her gaze lifted and she stared at him, frightened yet exhilarated by the beast before her.

He seemed born out of the glittering shadows of her dreams. He towered above her, his long dark hair falling down his back, his eyes gleaming as hard and brilliant as emeralds. He breathed heavily, his chest moving in a powerful rhythm. He reached for her. She scrambled back against the headboard. They paused and assessed each other, hunter to prey.

He stood, still as death, his hand gripping the governor's gilt bedpost. Her gaze fell lower this time and her fear exploded when she saw his manhood still swaying from his previous movement. But what terrified her even more was the dragon. Though she couldn't see the tattoo on his back, she finally saw the tail. It swept across his hip and wrapped twice around his iron-hard thigh before its spade tip disappeared in his groin. It hugged him
,,
it possessed him completely, and it was now going to take her too.

She leaped off the bed and made a wild run for the door, her hands over her bare chest, the skirt of her gown trailing behind her, still clinging seductively to her hips. She thought he might try to grab her, but he didn't even need to expel that much effort. His foot stomped her trailing skirt, and she was thrust backward into his arms. He growled out a laugh and pulled her out of her gown. She cried and scratched and clawed, to no avail; he threw her down on the bed and subdued her like a shrewish wife.

"Vashon, I beg of you!" she panted before he eased himself on top of her.

"No more talk," he said, his hand making a studied slide down her breast.

"My God, I beg you! I'm a virgin!" she sobbed.

"Then like a festering wound, best to rip the bandages off quick."

"No!" she cried.

"Yes," he whispered.

She beat him but her efforts were futile. For as much as she flailed, as much as she twisted, there was no way to keep him from doing his worst. He pinned her down and his hand parted her thighs, caressing the creamy skin between them, his thumb brushing against the soft brown hair of her sex.

The shock of his touch nearly killed her, but it also summoned what little fight she had left. She'd meant to slap him, but in the flickering candlelight of the bedchamber, her gaze caught the glint of his earring. Her finger looped through it almost before the idea occurred to her. Immediately he stopped, suspended above her on corded arms.

"You stop this madness! This evil!" she panted.

"Go ahead. Rip it out, Aurora. It's happened before."

She looked up at him, her aqua eyes filled with fury and hesitation. He was being a monster. She couldn't let him continue. But could she hurt him like that? Rip the earring right through his ear? She looked at him, her full, pliant chest pressing against the granite of his as she caught her breath.

When her gaze moved to his ear, she saw a thick scar marred his earlobe. He'd lost that earring before. New tears pooled in her eyes. She could only think of one instance where another could get this close to Vashon to do such a deed.

"Was it another woman then?" she blurted out. "Did you get her this angry?" Her voice quavered. "Did she go as unwillingly as I?"

His eyes almost dared her to pull it.
" 'Twas
a beggar in the
Casbah
. I was only fifteen. He wanted the silver and came upon me in the darkness."

A long moment passed while she stared at her finger looped through his earring. "What did you do to him?"

"Let's just say he found he didn't need the silver after all."

She met his gaze. She didn't want to know any more.

"Go
on,
pull it so we may continue."

His harsh words frightened her more than anything had before it. She stilled her trembling hand,
then
gave a slight tug, not enough to inflict any damage. Her gaze caught his and she saw the planes of his face harden as he readied himself for the pain. Physical pain was just another facet of his black-and-white world. He'd take his pain to get his pleasure. It was as simple as that. But as she looked deep into his green eyes, she saw just a glimpse of how pain had shaped him. He'd been just fifteen and the world around him had been willing to see him bleed for a tiny bit of silver. She began to realize just how hard he'd had to fight to survive and how masterfully his cruel world had taught him.

Now it was her turn to teach him.

To hurt him was her only chance for escape. But with soul-crushing defeat, she knew she wouldn't, and the reason for it was more painful than what she'd been about to do.

With a heart-wrenching sob, she released her finger. He was obviously surprised by her surrender. He grabbed her but she wouldn't look at him. She turned away, her tears streaming down her cheeks like rivers. Softly, bitterly, she cried into the counterpane.

"Aurora—!"

"I can't hurt you!" she confessed, sobbing against his hand. "I can't hurt you," she cried like a curse over and over again.

"Aurora! Look at me!" he commanded, his every muscle growing taut from anger. But she refused, her tears still flowing, her chest heaving with her wretched newfound emotion.

"Aurora!" There was fury in his voice, yet something else, something almost like panic. "You listen to me. I won't feel for you, you tight-laced bitch! Do you hear me? I won't feel for you!" He brutally shook her, but she would not cease her crying. She held the counterpane with her hands and waited for his sexual onslaught. She almost didn't care. Her entire world had been shaken tonight. Even being kidnapped couldn't compare with this awful feeling, a feeling she knew she would rather die than admit.

"Aurora," he whispered, breathing nearly as hard as she.

She tossed her head back and forth, unwilling to meet his eyes, afraid of what her own might reveal. But finally he clamped her head between his flat palms and she was forced to look up at him. When she did, it seemed the entire island stilled.

He stared at her as if it were for the first time, as if they had no past at all. She couldn't look away, for though his hold was gentle, his eyes, his very being, had her completely captured. Her lips trembled; she was unsure of what was to come next. Slowly, hesitantly, his hand reached out and he touched her face.

"Vashon, don't . . ." she whispered as his finger traced her lips, bruised from his kisses. His thumb crossed her brow while her eyes chastised him through thick sienna lashes now spiked with moisture. He seemed almost to be trying to confirm that she was real as his fingers slid over her cheeks, tracing the path of her tears. Finally he believed it. He pulled back and stared at the tears glistening on his fingertips, and that was when she saw him—the man she so desperately sought. She found him in the slightest glimmer of remorse in Vashon's eyes.

"He's there," she said in an aching, quiet voice.

Angered, he pulled her further beneath him. She tried to caress his cheek but he pinned down her hands so that she couldn't touch him.

"Deny it. Yet he exists," she stated softly, her eyes brilliant from emotion.

"No," he rasped and grabbed her to him for a brutal kiss.

When she saw the magnitude of his rage, she thought he might hurt her after all, yet when the moment of his kiss arrived, his head lowered, not to her lips, but to her shoulder and he lay there, completely still, as if forcing himself to reconsider his course of action.