Virgin Star (41 page)

The shirt was thrown to the floor. Modesty burned through her and anticipation brought a tightening rush of chills. Pinpricks of pleasure erupted from every place their bodies touched. She held perfectly still, afraid to breathe, let alone move…

He drew a sharp breath upon seeing her beauty thus revealed: the rounded fullness of her breasts, the faint lines of her mark ignored as instead he absorbed the tempting peaks and the dramatic curve of her waist, all so seductively poised over him. He reached hands to the slender back, sliding down, watching the small gasps his touch brought. The opium had thickened his blood and slowed its pace, so that his desire, though a hot, bright fire burning in him, burned slowly…

"Shalyn," he said as his hands reached to cup the full softness of her breasts until he felt the coral-pink tips tighten. She moaned with pleasure, a pleasure returned twofold as he watched. His thumbs, just his thumbs, brushed over her breasts with small licks of fire. Tingling chills caught her breath, shivers gathered into a tightening knot that made her close her eyes and arch into his hands.

His name sounded with a bewildered expectation.

He answered as his large hands slid under her arms and he gently pulled her down until their lips touched. Lightly. Once, and once again, they shared the air as the shivering heat of his hard body against hers made her gasp. And then he was kissing her.

The kiss was unhurried and more sensual than any past. His hands slid over her slender form until his fingers spanned the voluptuous curve of her hips and he rocked her erotically over him. The boom in her heart dropped to her loins. Her gasp died in their joined mouths. Her untrained senses flooded with a fiery rush of warmth that melted into the alluring passion of this kiss.

He turned her unresisting form over and broke the kiss. He let his lips graze her closed eyes, her forehead, her lips again. "There were times I could almost imagine this softness beneath me," he whispered at his hand slid over the petal-soft skin, past her narrow waist to ride the curve of her hip before returning to massage the soft mounds of her breasts again, her soft pants guiding his movements. "Nights when I could almost imagine the feel of your breasts in my hands, the sound of your desire ..." He kissed her again, the kiss bursting into a voluptuous shot of heat through her. "And, dear Lord, how the brightness of those dreams pales alongside this reality. Shalyn ..."

She melted helplessly beneath his kiss. One kiss became two. He began teasing her with his mouth, whispering love words that penetrated her like heated caresses. Tiny quivers flew over her from head to toe in a delirium of craving and need and yearning.

Hard quakes rocked her as his lips traveled down the arch of her slim throat to her breasts where he stroked softly, then harder, then soft again. He listened to her soft surprised breaths, felt the clinging of her hands sink into his shoulders. She arched into him, feeling feverish, the tightening knot making her writhe and twist against him as if he would somehow know to bring her to ease.

"Easy, Shalyn. Here, let me show you..."

His fingers grazed her hip, the caressing circles soothing and stirring both as he circled the sweet apex. The palm of his hand slowly stroked her belly until she cried his name. He kissed her mouth. The pounding pleasure of his kisses dragged her into a sweet thickening web of pleasure. His palm moved in slow caresses there. She broke the kiss with a bewildered kind of agony as his fingers slipped between her legs. She tensed dramatically, arching her back only to have the tension burst in a rush of warmth as he stroked her. And another and another, each crest of the wave higher and hotter until—

He felt her blossoming sex, full, ripe, ready. He withdrew his hand only to wipe the sweetness of her around her breasts and her mouth. She cried softly with the play that followed, until she wanted, needed to feel all of him and all at once. Then he was kissing her, his body coming over her as he did. She felt the stroke of his sex there, his strong muscled legs nudging hers helplessly farther apart. She tried to pull away but he kissed long and hard until she felt so curiously ready to burst down there-

He slipped inside and felt the slight tear and, dear Lord, she was so small and hot and moist. Pleasure seized the whole of him, violent and intense. He closed his eyes as it rocked him, his fists curling around the pillow. "Sweet mercy, I have died."

Her small pain-filled voice cried beneath him. "Me too! Oh ..." Her fingernails curled into his flesh; she caught her half-scream, half-cry in her throat. She felt as if he had ripped her in two with something hot, searing, and far, far too large. "Seanessy, Seanessy!"

"Yes?"

"What are you doing?"

"Actually, I'm trying to work one of Kepler's equations."

"What?" She tried to comprehend this, but she couldn't think, she only knew: "Oh, Seanessy, if s not working!"

His ability to speak was a kind of marvel to him.

"No, it's not. I'm having a great deal of difficulty think—"

"You don't fit! I think you're killing me!"

"Do not die on me now!"

"Can you, oh, please, if you just shrink back to normal?"

His chest bounced against her. Which caused small little shock waves to resonate deep inside her. He brushed his lips lovingly across her damp forehead. "Now?" he questioned, the timbre of his voice husky. "When I'm inside you? Less likely than touching the moon. Shalyn ..."

He kissed her mouth. The driving pleasure of the kiss sent her into a deep swoon, the searing pain melting into shimmering shivers. She twisted. A hot slap of fire rewarded the movement.

"I will be gentle, Shalyn ..."

He moved with all the gentleness he was capable of and then some. Her breath caught, he captured her surprised "oh" in another long kiss. "Shalyn." He could only say her name. The pleasure spilled into his drugged senses. Never had he felt less control and never had he needed more. All the force of his will went into assessing her lovely face. "Oh, Shalyn. Am I still hurting you?"

Somehow she managed to shake her head. Now it was hot and shimmering and—

His hand reached down her leg to guide it over him. "Wrap your legs around me ... That's it. Oh, Shalyn ..."

"Seanessy..." She felt so feverish, "Kiss me ..."

He did and it was heaven. She lost her consciousness on the shimmering sea as he carried her higher and higher until there was nothing but him and her and the world exploding in ecstasy...

An ecstasy that lasted long afterward as he held and kissed her, lovingly washed her feverish skin and said, "Again, Shalyn, I would have you again ..." An ecstasy that lasted through their first moonlit night as lovers. Dawn crept into the sea-rocked room when he finally relinquished his claim on her, and only because he was certain he could not push her over the thin line separating her from this heaven a single time more. He gathered her small and unresisting form against his length and lovingly stroked her hair as he brushed her forehead with kisses and watched the dark eyes close. "Shalyn ..."

She nuzzled closer against his warmth, her love-soaked body sinking into a sweet saturation so deep and blissful as to be another kind of heaven.

"I love you, Shalyn."

She opened her eyes. "Madly?" she asked.

He smiled at this. "Aye ..."

The declaration was a sweet echo of her own blissful rapture and she closed her eyes again. "I love you too."

"I'm afraid."

She tried to open her eyes to hear this. "Afraid?"

He gently aligned their hips, taking her limp hand in his to let her feel the part of him that was anything but. "I want you again ..."

Her sweet smile would live in his mind forever. "Yes ... Again, Seanessy. Love me again ..."

Yet she promptly fell asleep. Or almost. For he continued, "That's exactly what I was afraid of ..." He kissed the soft pliancy of her lips again and sighed. 'It’s a big problem for me. It just doesn't go away, this desire for you. The more I have you, the more I want you." His voice changed with sudden anger. "I knew you were trouble, Shalyn, the moment I first saw you. Here's a pretty package of trouble, I thought." He swore softly. "And I was so right. So right. I knew this would happen, that you would push me right to the provincial point of utter contemptible conventionality. Me! You led me right to the place I never imagined I would trespass. Yet here I am, thinking, wanting, dear Lord, I do. I really do, Shalyn. I want to marry you."

"If you just let me sleep, I'll think about it."

"Don't think too long. We will be in Malacca before too long. I'll give this duke two weeks at most. We could make arrangements with the bishop there. I know the fellow. Unpleasant and pompous, but greedy as all get out. I could promise a large pound note to the church if he's quick about it. Of course, Butcher is a captain in his own right and we are at sea. I could have him do it. I could have you back in bed within an hour ...."

That thought made him smile, a smile that disappeared as he abruptly grasped what she had said. "What the devil do you mean—you'll think about it?"

Shalyn offered no answer. For she at last was very soundly asleep. Asleep with a lingering smile playing on her lips.

The sun crested the zenith when she woke. Outside the emerald-green peak of the Isle of Blue Caverns rose in the distance and Prescott called out, "Land ho," from atop the lookout. Shalyn did not hear, and wouldn't have cared if she did hear. She woke to a different sensation altogether.

She felt toasty warm encompassed in his heat. An arousing virile scent penetrated her sleepy senses like a tonic. She stiffened, feeling the brush of his breathing just beneath her ear. His chest pressed against her back and his arm crossed over her stomach, keeping her close as they slept, while that part of him cradled her buttocks. He was hard and hot-

She released her breath in a languid sigh, relaxing against the delicious feel of his huge warm body against her, and as she did, a tingling sensual awareness erupted through her. A not unpleasant soreness brought a tide of warm sensual memories flooding through her, warming her blood by degrees. Oh, Lord, oh, Seanessy...

He shifted slightly, his firm lips caressing her ear as his hand moved to her bare breasts. He cupped the soft swell and lightly teased the peaks until her nipples tightened. She drew a sharp breath, released in a rush of shivers. Her entire consciousness centered on the love play of his hand there, and she twisted seductively.

A husky chuckle sounded as he slowly caressed the sensitive peaks. Sensations stirred, heating her blood. Skilled fingers continued to stroke and tease the anxious tips. Her loins stirred with heat and she arched her back, snuggling closer to his hard shaft. A husky groan sounded. His other arm came under her so that one hand continued to massage her breast while the other drew heated shivering lines up and down her flattened stomach.

A gush of warmth rushed between her legs and she cried softly as that hand traveled lower still over the softness of her belly. Sensations grew in need and spread through her until she twisted and writhed and expelled a breath with the sound of his name.

He answered her with another husky groan. His lips came to her neck as his hand slid over her sex, gently stroking the moist recess of her most feminine part, boldly slipping in and out. Warm rushes of pleasure alternated with hot chills, leading her to the edge of a high steep cliff, keeping her there.

"Oh, please—" She did not have to ask twice. He joined her to him, sending her sailing over the cliff and then up to a certain heaven ...

Seanessy felt her heartbeat spin slowly down, and the lovely dark eyes closed again. Still he could not stop kissing her. His heart filled with strange heady sensations, so joyful and pleasant, and new to him, making him question first his sanity and then the pallor of his first thirty-three years without it. .. "Shalyn..."

He gradually became aware of the shifting ocean beneath the ship, the pounding of his men's footsteps

overhead, the frantic flap of sails as the topsails were furled. The ship had slowed. They must be approaching the island. This he wanted to see. He kissed her sleeping face again and when she didn't wake, he gently disentangled their bodies.

The sun shone brightly. Gentle waves washed the side of the ship. It was quiet. What the devil? Seanessy's gaze swept the deck and the sails. Half the men hung silently from masts, staring at something off at sea.. He stepped to the rail.

They sailed through brown murky water less than a mile offshore. Fire had ravished this whole side of the island, destroying the verdant jungle. Not even the stumps of trees remained. Streams of mud ran into the water. A small mountain range made up the rest of the island, this covered in the lush green jungle spring from rich soil and four months of the steady deluge of monsoon rains. Within two months these rains would wash this whole side of the island away.