The Pirate and the Pagan (54 page)

Ruark scowled blackly and jerked his head in a signal for her to leave.

“You needn’t mee-maw at me, Lord Helford. I’m not so obtuse I don’t know when lovers want to be alone. I’ll just take myself upstairs now,” she said, winking broadly.

“Bloody woman—why the hell did I fetch her?” he muttered, and Summer buried her head against his throat to stifle her laughter. He sat her down and fed her. Tonight even eating was a sensual experience for them. Each time he put a morsel of food into her mouth she either licked his fingers, bit his fingers, or sucked his fingers. After each sip of wine he gave her, he touched his mouth to hers. Each of them savored the tantalizing arousal.

When they finished the food, they began a slow game of chess. Each knew they played two games at one time and the game of seduction was infinitely more absorbing. When he took a pawn, he also took the liberty of taking off a stocking. When she took his rook, she slowly removed his shirt.

He pulled the cushions from the love seat to make a nest for them on the floor. She agreed to join him, but only if they kept the board between them. He distracted her by playing with her bare toes, then running a fingertip across her bare sole. “Tickling is against the rules,” she purred.

“I always break the rules,” he warned as his strong fingers encircled her bare ankle and inched up her leg. The wine and the fire and the teasing heightened the sensual tension between them and one by one the barriers began to fall. Imperceptibly they drew closer to each other until his fingers were trailing the neckline of her gown and dipping into the deep cleft between her breasts.

Her own hands had begun to roam pleasurably over the rippling muscles of his shoulders and back. Then her hand slid down below the waistband of his breeches and her finger traced the cleft between his hard buttocks. She thought she had totally distracted him into moving his king into a vulnerable position and quickly moved her queen to take advantage of him. “Check,” he said triumphantly, “and mate,” he added, pushing her down onto the cushions and opening her gown to the waist. Her ripe breasts thrust upward into his waiting hands and he lifted them one at a time to receive a reverent kiss. The game was forgotten in the heat of the moment. In the game they now played, there would be no losers, they would each win their heart’s desire. When she made a pretense of clinging to her garments, he lured her into allowing him to remove them completely by whispering, “We only have till dawn!” He was entranced by the way the flickering firelight played over her satin skin, turning it to golden flame on her swelling breasts and belly, and darkest vermilion in the valley between luscious globes, and the much deeper, more intimate valley between her thighs. His fingers traced every curve, his eyes devoured her as she writhed seductively for him, opening and closing her legs like a tempting pagan goddess who would lure him to the very limit of his virility.

Ruark knew that foreplay for a woman was every bit as pleasurable as the consummation. When his shaft could swell and lengthen no further because of the confines of his
tight
breeches, he
slipped them off and closed his eyes at the pleasurable sensation he experienced as his shaft filled until he was rigid. He gently rolled her onto her stomach and straddled her back, then he lowered himself until his face was buried in the silken, scented mass of her hair. His throbbing member pulsed against her back and his hands slipped beneath her to capture her sensitive breasts and brush his thumbs across her taut nipples.

Summer was determined not to moan and reveal her great need to be filled, but when Ruark whispered, “Tell me what it feels like when I’m deep inside you,” a small moan escaped her throat and he smiled triumphantly into the semidarkness. He climbed off her and gathered her into his lap so he could enjoy her mouth. His lips touched hers tentatively as if pleading, begging, then they became firm and gave her the hard kisses her senses craved at this moment. They they changed again, stopped giving and started taking until his mouth was scalding her in its fierce demands. As he became totally aggressive, she became totally submissive—all soft and womanly and willing—ready and eager to obey his body’s demands.

He watched her face through half-closed eyes and knew she was the loveliest woman who would ever come into his life. She attracted him like a lodestone and he was intimately aware of how deeply she was aroused by him. Together they were physically perfect. Their mating was like an erotic ballet, a dance of love they could draw out for hours of titillating bliss. How could she keep reminding him of the annulment when all he wanted to do was bind her to him forever?

He shifted her in his lap, lifting one bottom cheek to allow his erection to slide along the cleft between her legs. She moved back and forth upon him, teasing and tantalizing him to the point where he was now moaning deep in his throat. “Summer,” he whispered urgently, “I can’t live without you. When it’s official that we’re no longer married, will you be my mistress?”

She became still as death. She stopped moving, stopped breathing; she could have sworn that her heart stopped beating. With the pride of a Siamese cat she arched her body away from his and stood to face him. This wasn’t the first time he had done this to her, and it was like another slap in the face. “I’m not good enough to be Lady Helford, but you don’t want to lose me because I make such a damned good whore!”

“You’re the one who wants the annulment,” he ground out.

“You have never been more right,” she hissed. “Get out and don’t bother to come back!”

“I’ll leave after I get what I came for,” he growled.

“If you think I would allow you to make love to me now, you are mad!” she cried.

“Yes, mad … madder than I’ve been in my entire life. You’re nothing but a cockteaser to lead me on this far and then stop cold. What the hell do you think I am, some sort of machine? I’m flesh and blood, Summer. I’m a man!” Slowly, determinedly, he began to stalk her across the room. She moved quickly, managing to elude him each time he cornered her. At first she ran and repeatedly turned to look over her shoulder, but he always managed to gain on her. Now she dared not take her eyes from him. He was like a stealthy animal, circling his prey, sure of his victory. She backed away, hating him in that moment, yet incredibly she was still aware that he had the most superb male torso in all England.

Ruark moved slowly, blocking her escape, and suddenly she knew without a doubt that like the game of chess they’d played, he would check and mate. They tumbled to the carpet, but he was careful to cushion her fall with his body. He carried her back to the cushions and stood towering above her. His voice was rough with desire. “Darling, I’m not going to force you, but I am going to make love to you.” He went on his knees before her and she flew at him, biting, scratching, clawing, then taking fistfuls of hair and finally pounding at his chest with tight fists. He waited passively until she had exhausted herself. Then he spread her thighs apart and delicately traced the folds there with one fingertip. “You are slippery for me,” he said softly, then he deliberately licked his finger and slid it up inside her.

She was breathless from her exertions and hoped angrily he would not think he was arousing her. Her luscious breasts rose and fell with each deep breath she drew and she resented the pleasure he was receiving from simply looking at her nudity. His strong thumb unerringly found the little bud of her womanhood and stroked it relentlessly. She would not give him the satisfaction of a reaction, although it sent shock waves pulsing deep within. She lay limp and totally passive, sending him a message that he could do anything to her and she would receive no pleasure from it.

Very gently he took her legs and placed one on each of his shoulders then he dipped his head until his mouth took possession of her secret place. He began to suck gently, and though she willed it
otherwise, she climaxed more strongly than she had since their honeymoon. Swiftly he lowered her from his insatiable mouth and impaled her deeply with his marble-hard weapon. He didn’t kiss her but held his mouth barely an inch from hers to feel every sigh, every delicious intake of breath, and his eyes caressed hers with love.

She was stubbornly determined not to let on that she was building to climax and Ruark scythed in and out, in and out, determinedly holding back until he brought her fulfillment. It seemed to go on forever, but Ruark knew he was fast reaching the peak of his endurance and would plunge over the abyss at any moment. His muscles strained tautly, his brain was on fire, his breathing became harsh and ragged, yet still he held himself under control. If he couldn’t master this woman, he didn’t deserve her. Then he felt it. Her sheath began to spasm, squeezing the sensitive head of his shaft, contracting tightly upon him, over and over until he lost control. Not by word, sound, or gesture did she let him know that she had come completely. With a smug little look of triumph she said, “I felt nothing.”

He allowed her her small deception. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, that I couldn’t satisfy you.”

“I’m not your sweetheart! I never want to see you again!”

“As you wish … but you will always be my sweetheart.” His lips brushed hers in a heartbreakingly tender kiss. Then he arose and quietly dressed himself.

A
fter a week of frosty mornings the number of plague victims dropped dramatically to under five hundred. Spencer recovered quickly and knew the first thing he must do was go to Bruckner Hall in Oxford to tell the dreadful news about Edwin.

Mrs. Bishop now turned all her motherly attention upon Summer, feeding her until she felt like a goose being fattened for Christmas. Then one morning Lil Richwood returned from Southampton and the house was turned into a beehive of activity by all the servants. There was trouble in the kitchens with the pecking order because Mrs. Bishop was determined that she owned Summer body and soul and no one was allowed to trespass on her private domain. Summer’s peace was shattered and she wondered why Auntie Lil needed a dozen people to run her household when she had been perfectly content with just Mrs. Bishop.

She did, however, enjoy Lil’s company and listened eagerly to all her outrageous stories. Apparently her dearest friend’s husband, Lord Worthing, had chased her until she slowed down long enough to let him catch her. With sparkling eyes she told Summer, “I don’t think it will be long before he invents business in London and shows up at Cockspur Street.”

Lil prophesied, “Mark my words, we are in for the most outrageous
season London has enjoyed since Charles’s restoration. The court has absolutely stagnated in Salisbury and like a pack of wild beasts is ready to be let loose from its cage.” Within a month all the theaters reopened and shopkeepers didn’t know what to do with the profits they were making since London had gone on a buying spree. New businesses flourished. Moneylenders, gambling houses, and brothels were in competition to take over empty buildings.

The small house on Cockspur Street was bulging at the seams and Summer decided it was high time she took a small house of her own. Rents were climbing every week and she decided to pay Solomon Storm a visit to see if her finances were healthy enough to allow her to acquire a place of her own.

Summer had ignored the many invitations she’d received for balls, masquerades, and parties, feeling most virtuous in leading a secluded life until after the birth of her child. She thought she looked ungainly, and even though Lady Richwood swore she looked no such thing, she certainly felt ungainly now that she was in the late months of her pregnancy.

Solomon Storm provided her with a comfortable chair and insisted she put her feet up on a footstool when he saw her condition. She explained what she wanted and Solomon pursed his lips and made steeples out of his fingers as he explained to her that the fashionable districts were now beyond the means of most citizens. “Westminster, St. James, and Mayfair are bringing astronomical sums. I’m afraid you’ll have to ask your husband to make you a present of a house again.”

“Mr. Storm … Solomon … Lord Helford never made me a present of a house. As a matter of fact he’s no longer my husband. I’ve reverted to using my own name of St. Catherine since our marriage is annulled.”

Solomon Storm looked most concerned. “How can he possibly get the marriage annulled when you are so obviously enceinte—if you will forgive my indelicacy—-my lady?”

“It’s a mutual agreement,” she insisted. “It was my own decision,”

“Then let me say it is a terrible decision. In my business I need to know the law and my son is an attorney. I don’t know what went wrong in your marriage, my lady, and I have no desire to know, but Lord Helford is legally responsible for any issue of the marriage whether it is his or not, as so often is the case in these
times.” He cleared his throat delicately. “If the marriage is to be put aside, at least you should wait until after the child is born. Then it will be Lord Helford’s legal heir and, if it proves to be a male issue, will inherit his title as well as his property.”

“Oh, I couldn’t do a mercenary thing like that. He already thinks I married him for his money. I’m quite sure Ruark Helford will do the right thing by his son—or daughter—without my blackmailing him into it.”