Lord of Devil Isle (16 page)

Deep inside her, the insanity began, spasms of bliss. Her body bucked in tandem with the contractions over which she had absolutely no control.

“Stop. Oh, stop,” she pleaded.

He showed her no mercy, driving her to a higher peak. She was dizzy and disoriented, but her insides continued to pump. Joy flooded her veins. Her limbs were no longer her own.

She felt lighter, as if she might rise from the sweatdamp sheets and float above them. Then the madness subsided and she settled back into herself.

She looked down along her body to where his dark head lay between her legs. Was she imagining it? No, her skin actually glowed a little. Then the radiance faded and her heart slowed its pounding.

But the flush of pleasure remained, wrapping her in its silken cords. She drew in deep breaths, reveling in his sharp masculine tang.

Nicholas moved up to lie beside her, his head on her pillow. He slid one long arm under her and draped the other over her, splaying his fingers possessively over her belly.

“Still think you’re not good at this?” he whispered into her ear.

Her bellyjiggled. “No, I think it’s safe to say, I’m…oh my! That was…extraordinary.” She turned her head to look at him. “You know a great deal about women, Nicholas.”

“I know a great deal about you, Eve.”

“You know,” she said as she raised herself on her elbow to look down at him, “that’s not really fair. Now that you know what I like, you’re at a distinct advantage. When do I get to learn what you like?”

His smile was dazzling. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“You’ll have to show me,” she said, feeling almost desperate to return some small measure of the pleasure he’d given her.

“To begin with, you’ve already given me much of what I want. I love to touch you.” He ran his thumb along her breastbone, then around each of her breasts. Her nipples rose once more. “And taste you.”

While he sucked, his hands continued to skim over her breasts, her ribs, the curve of her waist. Delight shimmered over her, but she planted both her hands on his chest and shoved.

“But when do I get to touch?” she asked, her gaze darting southward, while heat bloomed in her cheeks. “And taste?”

“Right now, my saucy little wench,” he said with obvious delight. He rolled onto his back and shifted her on top of him. Then he reached down to his discarded shirt on the floor and pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve. He folded his arms under his head, keeping the little cloth balled in one fist.

Eve tossed him a questioning glance.

“We’ll need it for later,” he said, “but for now, feel free to touch and taste anything you like.”

“Anything?”

He lifted a brow. “Especially anything.”

Eve swore under her breath and grinned at him. “You are quite full of yourself, aren’t you?”

One corner of his mouth twitched up. “No, just looking forward to having
you
full of myself.”

“I am, too.” She slid off him and ran a hand down his flat belly and cupped his genitals. His gut clenched and his breath hissed over his teeth.

“Did I hurt you?” She drew her hand back as if from a fire.

He caught her hand and placed it over his erect cock again. “If you did, you have permission to hurt me again.”

His grin was so broad, she felt her own mouth curling up to match it.

“I’ve heard it does hurt.” Then her smile faded. “Will it…will you hurt me?”

He ran a hand behind her nape and pulled her down for a soft kiss.

“Aye, lass, it’ll hurt,” he said after he released her. He met her gaze in silence for a few moments. “But only this once. After that, ’twill be pleasure alone that’s shared between us.”

And what of love? Shall we share that, too?
she longed to ask. This man had saved her from the sea and completely reordered his life for her and her friends. He’d quite literally swept her off her feet and endangered his ship and crew to keep her from leaving him. Wasn’t that love?

How important was it to hear the words? Wretchedly important, but she still had hope she might.

“Then let us begin again.” She leaned over, nipped his earlobe and was rewarded by the hitch in his breath. “So that’s how I’ll know if I please you.”

“How?”

She pressed her mouth to his chest and ran her tongue around his hard brown nipples, reveling in the salty taste of his skin. She felt his breath quicken.

“That,” she said. “The change in your breathing.”

“Oh, aye. How do you think I knew what to do with you? I watched and listened. You told me every step of the way whether you liked something or not with your little moans and wee kitten noises.”

“Wee kitten noises?” She ran a hand down his chest, over his flat belly and found him erect and straining. She trailed a single finger along his length and watched in fascination as his cock rose to meet her stroke. Then she grasped him firmly and he made a low groan. She arched her brows at him and slanted him a sidelong gaze. “At least, I don’t sound like a bull.”

She leaned down and gave his cock a playful lick. A small pearl of liquid formed at the tip.

“Have a care, Eve.” He sat up and caught her in his arms. “Later I’ll be able to bear more teasing, but if I let you do more of that now, you’ll have me bellowing like a bull at stud.”

“My every intention, sir.”

His laugh warmed her to her toes. They sank back down onto the blanket in a hailstorm of kisses.

“When?” Eve asked, her tone tight, as though she forced the word out through clenched teeth.

“Not yet.” Nick nuzzled between her legs, drunk on her scent, desperate to draw this first loving out, desperate to sink into her sweet flesh and find release.

“Please,” she whimpered.

No, Eve. Only a little longer. Let us drain this cup to the dregs.

“I want to be sure you’re as ready as possible,” he said. “I’ll hurt you less that way.”

“I don’t care if it hurts.” She arched herself into his mouth. He devoured her for a moment, only pulling back when he thought he detected the slightest pulse of a contraction in the soft lips of her sex.

His balls tightened in response to her need.

Without even realizing he’d moved, he found himself knocking at her gate, poised to slide into her wet velvet. His cock screamed at him.

It was time.

He pushed in with a slow stroke, stopping at the barrier of her purity. He lifted himself on his elbows and cupped her cheeks.

He lowered his mouth to hers to distract her and gave his hips a hard thrust. He swallowed her cry, and her body tensed beneath him.

“No more pain,” he promised as she molded around him in a warm, wet embrace. His balls drew up into a tense mound. He held himself motionless, willing the urgency to subside so he could revel in the joy that was Eve a little longer. Only a little. His heart pounded in his cock.

“No more pain,” she whispered.

He began to move.

She was tight and wet and the sweetest little morsel he’d ever had. She moved with him, tilting her hips to take him in all the way. He quickened his pace.

When he looked down at her, at the soft gape of her mouth, the way her brow furrowed in distress, he knew he couldn’t keep her much longer balanced between want and release. He had to let her come.

He covered her mouth with his and flicked his tongue in, loving her with his tongue and his cock in tandem. She moved beneath him, urging him in deeper with little noises of desperation that threatened to shred his control.

A little longer.
She was so warm and tight.

She turned her head away. “I can’t stop—”

He felt it start.

Nicholas arched his back, driving in as deep as he could. Her inner walls contracted around him. Bliss, sharp as a blade, sliced through him, rending him soul and marrow.

Her whole body convulsed under him. Pleasure whipped around him, through him, radiating from his groin out to his fingertips. Eve flared beneath him into a fiery glow, like a being aflame.

Then he began pulsing. He pulled out and covered his cock with the handkerchief just in time to catch the hot spurts of his seed.

Alone at the end. As usual.

Nick wouldn’t chance getting her with child. He was used to making sure his mistresses didn’t increase. It was part of the unspoken bargain. They each took pleasure and Nick made certain no one paid for it with her life in childbed.

But after all their bedplay, all their heart-stopping lovemaking, it felt like a cheat to pull out of that final joining with Eve.

For both of them, if her puzzled frown was any sign of what might be dancing in that pretty head of hers.

When her breathing slowed to normal, she sat up.

“Why did you do that?” she asked.

“Why do you think?” His tone was surlier than he intended. She had been a virgin, but a knowledgeable one in some ways. Was it possible she could be ignorant of what caused a woman to bear?

“You didn’t want to give me a child,” she said.

“No, I didn’t, and you’re welcome.”

“Get off, you oaf,” she said, shoving him out of her way and onto the floor. He landed on his bare arse with a thud. By the time he found his feet, she’d donned her chemise and was tugging on her stockings.

So much for after-play.

“What’s wrong with you?” he demanded.

“How can you ask that, you barnacle-crusted toad?” She wiggled into her gown and cinched the laces at her bodice tight. “You take my maidenhead and then you won’t chance getting me with child. What? Are you afraid I’ll force you into marriage?”

Marriage? Where had that come from?
There’d been no talk of marriage between them.

“Eve, why are you making this more complicated than it is?” What they had was extraordinary. Why muck things up with talk of marriage? He dragged a hand through his hair. “Besides, you should know by now that no one can ever
force
me into anything.”

Her slipper came flying through the air, but he caught it before it could bean him squarely on the nose.

“No, of course not,” she said. “Because you’re bloody Lord Nick, master of all you survey.”

“Damn right, I am.”

“Well, you’re not the master of me.” She grabbed the slipper from him and balanced stork-legged while she stuffed her foot into it. “And you’re well enough not to need a nurse anymore.”

She turned and started to open the door. Nick shoved it closed and held it fast with one hand above her head.

“Let me go,” she said, her voice brittle as French glass.

“Not until we’ve settled things,” he said.

She turned and leaned her back against the door, crossed her arms over her chest and glared up at him. “And just what do you think we need to settle?”

“You’ll want a stipend, I should think.”

“A stipend?”

“That’s how it’s usually done. A line of credit at the
milliner and modiste, of course. Jewelry, if you care for it. I’ve a mind to see you in a long rope of pearls.”
And nothing else.
“You might want some provision for a pension, but I’ve never been anything but generous to my mistresses.” He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her face away at the last moment, leaving him to plant his lips in her hair. “Besides, I don’t intend for you and I to have a parting.”

That should please her.

“Oh, you don’t?”

“No, Eve, I don’t.” He suspected now would be the time to speak of love, if he had any talent in that quarter, but he had ever been a man of action, not flowery sentiment. “We can draw up a contract if you like, but my word has always been good.”

“Your word,” she said softly, relaxing her stance. “You’d really give me your word?”

“Aye, my word.” He smiled down at her.

She returned his smile. And then she grasped his shoulders and rammed her knee into his unprotected groin. He bent double, cupping his genitals with both hands.

“That, Captain Scott, is
my
word.”

She was out the door before he could stop her.

The way his gut roiled, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He wallowed on the floor in agony for a few moments. Then he dragged himself back to the bunk and climbed in, drawing his knees up with a low groan.

The little minx had tried to unman him.

And he was forced to inhale her lingering scent on his pillow. Sweet, soft, opening to him like a lily to the sun.

And now she was gone.

Emptiness closed over him like a coffin lid.

He searched for anger and was strangely surprised to
find none. He was more puzzled than anything else and so hollowed out, he didn’t think he’d ever be full again.

Eve’s absence hurt him even worse than his aching balls.

Rage carried Eve as far as the door leading out of the companionway and onto the open deck. She saw only Mr. Tatem on the poop manning the wheel. While the rest of the
Susan Bell
’s crew slept, she was sure there was at least one other soul about serving as officer of the watch.

She strode to the rail and then marched forward, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and Nicholas. Even though her knee to his groin had incapacitated him, as she’d learned in Newgate it would do to any man if delivered with enough force, she knew the effects were short-lived. Eventually, his strength would return and he’d be furious.

She only hoped he took the time to throw his clothes back on before he came looking for her. She didn’t want to see his glorious naked body again.

Ever.

Liar,
her aching heart named her.

When she reached the pointed prow, she grasped the rail with both hands and stared ahead into the darkness. The deck rose and fell gently beneath her feet. She drew in a deep lungful of rain-washed air.

And smelled Nicholas on herself. There was no mistaking his sharp, masculine tang.

The clouds had fled in the wake of the storm and stars shimmered overhead, winking down at their reflections in the black water. If Nick only loved her, they’d be looking at the stars together now.

Rage gave way to despair. Eve’s chin quivered.

She broadened her stance to keep her balance as the swells came harder beneath the ship. Her inner thighs were still slick and wet. She laid her head down on the rail and let the tears come.

He only treats me as a whore because I played one.
What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t.

She’d let her body make her choices, trusting Nicholas Scott, of all people, to do right by her.

“The man wouldn’t know what’s right if it bit him on the arse,” she whispered down to the
Susan B
’s buxom figurehead.

And neither did she, evidently. But how could she deny her heart? She loved him, blast the man!

Maybe a knee to the groin wasn’t the best way to show it, but how else could she have gotten his attention?

“A stipend!” she said with disgust. As if she’d entered into a matter of commerce with him. A damned service arrangement!

Despair dissolved into shame.

He thought he could buy the use of her body on an ongoing basis, when she thought she’d offered him her heart. She put her hand to her mouth to muffle her sobs.

“Miss Upshall.” Mr. Higgs’s voice interrupted her misery. “What are you doing here?”

She straightened and swiped her eyes. “I needed a change of air.”

Eve had hoped to avoid the officer of the watch by hiding in the forwardmost part of the ship. She didn’t know many of the sailors since she’d been cooped up in Nick’s cabin for most of the voyage. On the
Molly Harper,
she and her friends had been warned not to wander about the ship alone; seamen were not known for gentlemanly
behavior and couldn’t be trusted. But as it was Mr. Higgs who found her here, she felt no trepidation at being caught on the deck alone. Higgs was comfortable as an old frock.

“You’ve been crying,” he pointed out as if she wasn’t aware of it. “Is something the matter with the captain? Is he worse?”

Worse than what?
she almost asked.
A kick to the head? A knife to the heart?

“No, Mr. Higgs, the captain is fine.”

Well, he would be after the swelling in his balls went down, but Higgs didn’t need to know those particulars. She blew her nose on the hanky he offered her, thankful that Peregrine Higgs was enough of a gentleman not to press any further for the reason behind her tears.

Why couldn’t she have fallen in love with someone so dependable? So steady as Higgs. Why in heaven did she have to lose her heart and her maidenhead to the bloody Lord of Devil Isle himself?

“You’re sure the captain is well?” Mr. Higgs asked.

As well as a demon in mortal form can be.

“Aye, he’s well enough. In fact, the captain is so fully recovered, he no longer requires my nursing. Is there another cabin where I may stay?” she asked. “I can no longer remain in his without damage to my reputation.”

The hammock Nick had strung up for himself kept up the illusion that her presence in his cabin was merely for the sake of his health. His crew seemed to have forgotten that he’d carried her on board under protest and kept her in his locked cabin even before the storm.

As usual, whatever
Lord Nick
did was right.

Even if she became his mistress publicly, he’d suffer no censure for it. Only Eve’s name would suffer.

It wasn’t fair, but it was as much the way of the world as the eastern sunrise.

“The
Susan Bell
isn’t equipped for passengers, miss,” Higgs said, frowning. “All the crew sleeps in hammocks strung belowdecks.”

“No officer’s quarters?” she asked hopefully.

Higgs shook his head. “We’re a trim ship with no wasted space. A cargo ship, you see.”

An idea popped into her head. “A smuggler’s ship, perhaps?”

Higgs shrugged. “On occasion, the old girl has been known to bear a few items not listed on the manifest.”

“Then you must have a smuggler’s hold,” she reasoned. Who knew a few weeks in Newgate Prison would have taught her so much about criminal activity of all sorts? “Someplace the excise men wouldn’t think to look, even if they boarded you.”

Higgs smiled. “You are too clever by half, Miss Upshall. Aye, we have a secret hold, but it’s not fit for the likes of you.”

“Let me be the judge of that, will you, Mr. Higgs?” She sniffed once more into the hanky. “May I see it?”

Higgs frowned. “I ought to ask the captain first. Not even everyone on the crew knows where the secret hold is located. The fewer who know a secret, the likelier it’ll be kept, you see.”

She tried flashing her most winning smile at him. “I can keep my own counsel, Mr. Higgs. Your secret will be safe with me.”

“All the same, that’s a decision for the captain.” Higgs straightened to military bearing and Eve wondered what sort of service Higgs had seen in the past. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll make inquiry for you.”

“No, Mr. Higgs,” she said. “Please don’t trouble him.”

“No trouble. I’m only glad you alerted me to this change in his condition so we can alter matters.”

Without another word, Higgs turned on his heel and
strode away. Taking with him her one chance to hide on board the ship.

Higgs could barely contain his fury. He’d served Nicholas Scott with a willing heart for better than ten years, but his patience was finally spent. He tolerated Nick’s eccentricities because he was the best seaman Peregrine had ever met. But since the captain had abducted Miss Upshall and put his crew and ship into needless harm, Nick had tumbled from the pedestal on which Higgs had enshrined him.

Now he’d made Miss Upshall cry.

It was time to have it out with Nick—first mate to captain.

And if that didn’t work, man to man.

When Peregrine rapped on the cabin door, the captain called out for him to enter in a voice like thunder. Higgs screwed his courage and shoved open the portal.

The captain was seated on his bunk, his long legs dangling over the side. A sheet was draped over his lap, but otherwise, he was clearly naked.

“Report, Mr. Higgs.”

“What have you been doing to Miss Upshall?” The words flew out of Peregrine’s mouth before he thought better of them.

The captain’s brows lowered in a frown. “Nothing that need concern you.”

Higgs fisted his hands at his sides. “If you’ve abused her, it concerns me.”

“If I’ve abused her?” Cap’n Scott laughed mirthlessly and shifted on the bunk with a wince. “You’ve got things backward, lad. I’m afraid the boot’s quite on the other leg.”

“Then why did I find her in tears?” Higgs straightened to his full height, which was difficult since some
of the ceiling beams were low. “And I ceased being a lad some time ago.”

The captain arched a brow at him. “Aye, so you did. Tears, hmm. What did she tell you?”

“That you’re well enough so she no longer needs to remain in your cabin to tend you.” Privately, Higgs thought the captain’s color was a little off. He looked ready to cast up his accounts, but surely Miss Upshall knew best. After all, she’d been right to keep Higgs from attempting that trepanation. “She wishes to see if the secret hold will do for her during the remainder of the voyage.”

“And how in thunder did she learn about that hold?” he bellowed.

Higgs swallowed hard. Captain Scott had intimidated better men than he. But none as determined to champion a lady’s cause as Peregrine Higgs.

“She guessed we might have done a bit of smuggling over the years,” he admitted. “And I confirmed that we had such a spot. All she wants is a bit of privacy. It seems a simple enough request. If you’d seen her weeping…”

“Are you daft, man? Women use tears like the Royal Navy uses nine pounders.” Nicholas dragged a hand over his face. “They soften you up and then when you least expect it, it’s ‘prepare to be boarded.’ And let me tell you, Higgs, brigands and privateers may parley, but women give no quarter.”

“Permission to speak freely, sir.”

“What the devil have you been doing?” the captain asked with indignation. Then he shrugged and waved a hand. “Permission granted.”

“I’ve sailed under your colors for more seasons than I can remember and I’ve always supported you.” Higgs set his face. Now that he’d started, he couldn’t stop. “But you’ve gone too far this time.”

The captain narrowed his eyes. “Explain yourself.”

“When you rescued the women overboard the
Molly Harper,
every man jack of us was proud to serve under you. When you took the ladies into your home and treated them with proper respect, we saw you for what we all believed you truly are, sir, a gentleman at heart.”

“You, of all people, should know better than that, Higgs.” The captain’s eyes flashed a warning, but Higgs pressed on.

“Then you brought Miss Upshall on board against her will. You put to sea and sailed ahead of a storm when any prudent seaman would have stayed in port,” Higgs said. “To say your judgment has been cloudy of late is to be charitable indeed.”

“Is that all?”

“No. I’ll not have you bringing Miss Upshall to tears again,” Higgs said, squaring his shoulders.

“You’ll not have it?” The captain rose, still clutching the sheet around his middle. “Blast it all, Higgs, what right have you to interfere? Never say you fancy her!”

“No, nothing like that,” Higgs said. His heart was still in the keeping of the delicious Miss Sally Munroe, whether that lady knew it or not. “But it’s not only my right to interfere. It’s my duty.”

“Your duty?”

“Miss Upshall is not like Magdalen Frith and the others, sir. She is a lady. I mean to see she is treated like one. She deserves the privacy of her own cabin on board.”

“What if I say she’ll remain with me anyway?”

Higgs shifted his weight. “Then sir, I would have to challenge you, though it gives me no pleasure to do so.”

Nicholas Scott threw his head back and laughed, though there was no joy in the sound. Then he sank back onto the bunk.

“So, it’s come to this. I swear, that woman’s worse than a nor’easter. Who’d have thought anything could drive a wedge between you and me?”

Higgs knew what he meant. When Higgs first went to sea as cabin boy, Nicholas Scott took him under his wing. He was like the older brother Higgs never had. He didn’t let Higgs’s speech impediment keep him from promotion, and gradually Higgs lost the stammer completely each time they set sail. Everything Peregrine knew about the sea, the captain had taught him. He devoutly believed there was no greater sailing man on the seven seas than Nicholas Scott.

But Peregrine had no desire to learn what the captain knew about women. When a petticoat was involved, Nicholas Scott sowed nothing but grief all around. His disastrous marriage had been tempestuous, at best. His riotous affairs were like skimming a vessel over a shallow shoal. Eventually the bottom of the hull would always be ripped out.

And Higgs wanted to spare Miss Upshall, if he could. At least until he could make sure she was with the captain of her own accord. After that, he could wash his hands of the situation with a clear conscience.

“Very well, Higgs,” the captain said wearily. “Miss Upshall will have her private quarters. Where is she?”

“I left her near the bowsprit.”

“Go back and make sure she stays there, till I come for her.”

“Aye, Cap’n.” Higgs straightened smartly and turned to the door. He stopped with his hand on the knob. “There’s one more thing, sir.”

“What is it?”

“At the end of this voyage, I’m resigning as your first officer.” Higgs didn’t dare tear his gaze from the brass
doorknob. “It gives me no pleasure to do it, but I think it for the best.”

“A man must make his own decisions,” the captain said slowly. “Do as you will.”

Higgs closed the door behind him softly. The captain had finally called him a man.