“I will accept your word on it, I assure you.”
“George—”
“No!”
“Then I’ll come to you.”
She leaped up and ludicrously held out her glass as if it might ward him off. “Captain, I must protest.”
“So must I,” he said on his way around the desk, while she started around the other side to keep it between them. “Don’t you trust me, George?”
This was no time to be diplomatic. “No.”
His chuckle kept her from elaborating. “Smart girl. They do tell me, after all, that I’m a most reprehensible rake, but I prefer Regan’s more discerning ‘connoisseur of women.’ It has a much nicer ring to it, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re drunk.”
“My brother would take exception to that word.”
“Blast your brother and you, too!” she snapped. “This is absurd, Captain.”
She stopped moving around the desk only when he did. She’d kept her glass in hand and somehow managed not to spill a drop. She set it down now and glared at him. He looked back with a grin.
“I quite agree, George. You’re not really going to make me chase you around this thing, are you? This is the sport of doddering old fools and parlormaids.”
“If the shoe fits,” she retorted automatically, then gasped, realizing her mistake.
All traces of humor left him. “I’ll make you eat the bloody shoe this time,” he growled low just before he leaped over the desk.
Georgina was too stunned to flee, but she wouldn’t have gotten far in the mere seconds it took James to land in front of her. The next thing she knew, those big, muscular arms were wrapping around her, gathering her in to press close, closer, until she could feel every inch of his hard frame along hers. She should have been stiff, outraged, at least flattened. Instead her body seemed to sigh into his, yielding where it shouldn’t, fitting so perfectly it felt like home.
Her mind, working under delayed reaction, began gathering wits to protest, but too late. She fell victim to a leisurely kiss so enticingly sweet and sensual, it wrapped her in a spell of wonder impossible to break. It went on and on, working on her in degrees, until she couldn’t say exactly when contentment turned to burgeoning desire.
He was nibbling gently at her lips when she knew
for certain she didn’t want to be let go. Her hands twisting in his thick mane of hair told him. Her body pressing for closer contact told him. Finally she told him in the soft whisper of his name, which got her that heartwarming smile of his that could turn her to mush.
“Has prim little George actually retired for the night?” he inquired huskily.
“He’s fast asleep.”
“And here I thought I was losing my touch…in my old age.”
“Ouch.” She winced, to give him his due.
“Sorry, love,” he said, but he was grinning unrepentently just the same.
“That’s quite all right. I’m used to men who simply can’t resist a little gloating.”
“In that case, does it taste good?”
“What?”
“The shoe.”
The man was a veritable devil, to be able to make her laugh when all she wanted to do was crawl into him. “Not especially. But you do.”
“What?”
Her tongue came out to lick sensually at his lower lip. “Taste good.”
Georgina’s breath choked off, he squeezed her so tightly. “Remarks like that will get you an apology and anything else you want.”
“And if all I want is you?”
“My darling girl, that goes without question,” he assured her as he swept her into his arms to carry her to his bed.
Georgina held on tight, despite feeling weightless
in his strong arms. She simply wanted the closer contact and was reluctant to let go even long enough to allow him to remove their clothes. Had she really thought she could ignore the things this man had made her feel before, the same things she was feeling now? She’d tried to these last days, she really had. His anger had made it easier to do so. But he wasn’t angry anymore, and she was tired of trying to resist something as powerful as this. God, the feelings…
She gasped at the heat that seared her skin as his mouth settled over one of her breasts. And she was squirming before he finished with the other. She wanted him right now, but he was taking his time with her, turning her over, driving her crazy in his devotion to every inch of her, in particular the firm globes of her derriere, which he kneaded, kissed, and nipped until she thought she was going up in flames. When he finally rolled her back over, it was the finger that moved into her that was her undoing. She cried out, and his mouth came back to hers to accept this accolade to his skill. And when he entered her moments later, and treated her to a further demonstration of his experience, each thrust different, somehow more pleasurable than the one before, each with the power to draw forth another gasp if he weren’t still kissing her. Connoisseur of women? Thank God.
A short while later, Georgina found herself stretched out on one side of the bed, with James on the other side, and a sturdy chessboard between them. Whatever had possessed her to answer yes when he asked if she played the game? But now that it was started, the challenge had her wide awake, and the
promise that she could spend the morning in bed kept the play at an unhurried pace. Also, the prospect of beating James Malory had been too tempting to resist and still was, particularly since she suspected he was trying to destroy her concentration by keeping a conversation going while they played. He’d find that wouldn’t work, since she’d been taught the game with her whole family present, and her family was never quiet when they were in the same room together.
“Very good, George,” James said as she captured a pawn, opening a path to his bishop and leaving him nothing of hers to take, and his own bishop to protect.
“Well, you didn’t think this would be easy, did you?”
“I’d hoped not. So good of you not to disappoint me.” He moved his queen over a space to protect his bishop, a wasted move, and they both knew it. “Now, who did you say MacDonell is to you?”
She almost laughed at the way he’d slipped that in, probably hoping she’d answer without thinking about it. She had to give him points for cleverness, but it wasn’t necessary. There was no longer a need to pretend Mac was her brother.
“I didn’t say. Are you asking?”
“Well, we have established he’s not your brother.”
“Oh? When did we establish that?”
“Damnation, George, he’s not, is he?”
She made him wait while she made her next move, which put his queen in jeopardy. “No, he’s not. Mac is just a very good friend of the family, sort of like a beloved uncle, actually. He’s always been around, and he sort of thinks of me as the daughter he never had. Your move, James.”
“Quite so.”
Instead of blocking her last move to protect his queen, he captured one of her pawns with his knight, a move that put her own queen in danger. And since neither of them was ready to lose a queen yet, Georgina retreated for the moment, giving James the advantage of attack. He wasn’t expecting that, and so had to take a moment to study the board.
She decided two could use his strategy of distraction. “Why the interest in Mac all of a sudden? Have you spoken with him?”
“’Course I have, love. He is my bo’s’n, after all.”
Georgina went very still. It might not matter that he knew Mac wasn’t her brother, but she still didn’t want him recognizing Mac and remembering their first meeting in a tavern. That would lead to a whole set of questions that she didn’t care to answer—in particular, what she was doing there. And besides, James might get angry at what he could very well see as a double deceit, not just her disguise, but the fact that she’d met him before.
“And?” she asked carefully.
“And what, George?”
“Devil take it, James, did you rec—Ah, that is, did you say anything to him about us?”
“Us?”
“You know
exactly
what I mean, James Malory, and if you don’t answer me this minute, I’ll—I’ll bash you with this chessboard!”
He burst into laughter. “Gad, I adore this temper of yours, sweet, indeed I do. Such spit and fire in such a little package.” He reached across the board
to tweak her hair. “’Course I didn’t mention us to your friend. We spoke of the ship, nothing personal.”
And he would have said something if he’d recognized Mac, wouldn’t he? Mac would have, too. Georgina relaxed with that conclusion.
“You should have let me bash you with the board,” she said now, her humor returned. “You’re losing, after all.”
“The devil I am.” He snorted. “I’ll have your king in three more moves.
Four moves later, James found himself on the defensive, so he tried distraction again and tried to appease his curiosity at the same time. “Why are you going to Jamaica?”
Georgina grinned cheekily. “Because you are.”
Up went the single brow, just as she expected it would for such an answer. “Dare I be flattered?”
“No. Yours was just the first ship heading to this side of the world, one that wasn’t English, that is, and I was too impatient to wait for another. Had I known
you
were English—”
“We’re not going to start
that
again, are we?”
“No.” She laughed. “And what about you? Are you returning to Jamaica, or just visiting?”
“Both. It was my home for a long time, but I’ve decided to return to England for good, so I need to settle my affairs in Jamaica.”
“Oh,” she said, aware of the disappointment his answer brought her, but she hoped he didn’t detect it.
She shouldn’t have assumed he’d be staying in Jamaica just because Mac had said the vessel was out of the West Indies. Jamaica, at least, had been an acceptable place she could come back to. England she
never wanted to see again. Of course, this voyage wasn’t over, and yet—Georgina shook herself mentally. What was she thinking? That there might be a future for her with this man? She knew how impossible that was, that her family would never accept him. And she wasn’t even sure what
she
felt for him, other than passion.
“So you won’t be in the islands long?” she concluded.
“Not long a’tall. The chap on a neighboring plantation there has been after me to sell him mine for some time. I likely could have handled the matter through correspondence.”
Then they’d never have met a second time, she thought. “I’m glad you decided to see to it personally.”
“So am I, dear girl. And your own destination?”
“Home, of course. New England.”
“Not immediately, I hope.”
She shrugged, leaving him to draw his own conclusion. It depended on him, but she wasn’t brazen enough to say so. Actually, it also depended on how soon a Skylark vessel would be in port, but there was no reason to tell him that. That was something she didn’t want to think about yet. And to get his own mind off it, she put him in checkmate.
“Bloody hell,” he said, looking at what she’d just done. “Very clever, George, to distract me into losing.”
“Me!? With you asking all the questions? I like that,” she huffed. “Just like a man to find excuses for getting beat by a woman.”
He chuckled and lifted her across to his side of the
bed. “I said nothing about questions, you darling girl. It’s this luscious body of yours that’s been the distraction, for which I don’t mind losing a’tall.”
“I’m wearing my shirt,” she protested.
“But nothing else.”
“You should talk, with this skimpy robe,” she said, fingering the silky material.
“Was it distracting?”
“I refuse to answer that.”
He feigned amazement. “By God, don’t tell me you’re finally at a loss for words. I was beginning to think I was losing my touch.”
“To render people speechless with your drollery?”
“Quite so. And as long as I’ve got you speechless, love…”
She meant to tell him that he wasn’t as merciless with his wit as he liked to think, at least not all the time, but she got distracted again.
I
t was difficult to keep up the pretense of being Georgie MacDonell, cabin boy, when Georgina was with James outside of his cabin. And more and more as the days passed and they neared the West Indies, he wanted her with him on deck, by his side, or just nearby where he could keep an eye on her. What was most difficult, she’d found, was keeping what she was feeling out of her expression, and especially out of her eyes, which would fill either with tenderness or passion whenever she looked at James.
Yes, it was difficult, but she was managing, at least she thought she was managing. She had to wonder sometimes, though, if some of his crew didn’t know or suspect, when they’d smile or nod at her in passing, or give her a good-day greeting, these men who had previously barely noticed her. Even the cantankerous Artie, and the grouchy Frenchman, Henry, were more courteous to her now. Of course, time breeds familiarity, and she’d been on the ship almost a month now. That the crew should have gotten used to her in that amount of time was to be expected, she supposed. And the only reason she was hoping that her pretense was still working was for Mac’s sake…well, actually for her own sake, since she knew exactly what kind of reaction she’d get from him if he knew she’d accepted James Malory as her lover. He’d
fly through the roof, as James would say, and with reason. She still sometimes doubted that it was true herself.
But it was true. James was her lover now, in every sense of the word except one—he didn’t actually love her. But he did want her. There was no doubt of that. And she did want him. She hadn’t even tried to deny it again after that second time she’d succumbed to his gentle persuasion. She’d told herself in plain terms that a man like this only happened once in a girl’s lifetime, if even that. So why, for God’s sake, couldn’t she enjoy him while she had this chance to? They’d be parting soon enough, at journey’s end, he to settle his affairs in the islands, and she to return home on the first Skylark ship to put in to Jamaica. But she’d be going home to what? Just existing again, as she’d been doing for the last six years, just living day by day, without excitement, without a man in her life, just memories of one. At least this time, of this man, her memories would be the stuff of dreams and fantasies.