Run Wild (25 page)

Instead, she clung to him, trembling as if she would shatter if he released her now.

And her touch shattered him instead
.

She was an innocent. God help him, he had never suspected how innocent until now. She had perhaps never even been kissed before. Certainly not like this. Yet she accepted him... wanted him.

Overpowering desire sank white-hot claws into his body, but he fought it. For her, he had to go slowly. Had to give her time to discover the passionate rhythms of her need for herself, even as they set him ablaze.

But it was too difficult to think of how very vulnerable and fragile she was. Too difficult to think at all. Especially when she yielded to him so completely, leaning into him as if her legs would not hold her. His arm slid around her waist and he drew her in tight. Angling his head, he urged her lips to part... and to his astonishment she opened to him.

All his hunger and longing poured forth, met and blended with hers. She was as brash and impetuous in her newfound desire as she was in every other way, holding nothing back. His tongue stroked along hers in a deft glide, exploring, claiming her satiny heat, and a moan came from deep in her throat, a sound of discovery. Of unmistakable pleasure.

It was the sound he had heard in his fantasies. A groan tore from his chest. Need exploded through him, hot and sharp like fragments from the stars overhead. As the dark water swirled around them, he could feel her shivering with need, with passion. His hand slid down her back, pressing her closer. Through the wet fabric of her gown he could feel every curve of her body—the way her nipples hardened to pearls against his chest, the softness of her belly against his rigid arousal.

Suddenly she flinched as if struck by a lash and broke the kiss. She blinked up at him, dazedly. For one instant she remained in his embrace.

Then her lips parted on a wordless sound of denial and she pulled away.

He didn’t let her go. “Samantha—”

“No,” she cried, struggling in earnest now. “No!”

He released her and she stumbled away a step, shaking. “I don’t... I...” One trembling hand came up to touch her mouth. “
No
.”

“Samantha.” He stepped toward her, unable to understand how she could change so quickly from sweet fire to cold fear in his arms.

“Stay away from me!” She rushed backward, almost falling in the water. The chain stopped her flight and she went still.

Unnaturally still.

Like a fawn facing a hunter, eyes wide.

Nicholas froze, confused by her reactions. “It’s all right.” He raised his hands in a gesture of reassurance. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

She had gone pale. “I’ve heard that before!”

“I’m not forcing anything on you,” he retorted, stung by her words. “You were melting in my arms, lady. You wanted that kiss as much as I did. You wanted—”

“No! I didn’t! I don’t want anything from you. I certainly don’t want you to... to...”

He struggled to gain control of his desire, his frustration, his temper. “Samantha, you don’t have to be afraid,” he said more gently, “I
know
this is new for you—”

“But it’s not.” Her voice had gone cold as ice. “It’s not new at all!”

Her words struck him like a fist in the gut. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t guessed the truth before—the way she pulled away every time he came near her, her fear at his slightest touch. “Someone hurt you, didn’t he?” Inexplicable anger poured through him. “Someone
made
you afraid. When you said, ‘I’ve heard that before,’ you didn’t mean from me—you meant from someone else. Who, Samantha? What happened to you?”

Trembling, she covered her face with her hands and turned away. “Just leave me alone.
Please
. Just... just...”

Go away
. She didn’t say it, but he knew that was what she wanted. Bloody hell, it should be what he wanted too. Faced with a delicate, emotional situation like this, his usual tactic was to turn on his heel and make a speedy exit.

But this time, that was impossible.

Even without the chain, something inside him made it impossible.

He couldn’t walk away from her. Couldn’t stand by and watch her hurting because of whatever some heedless bastard had done to her.

“Tell me, Samantha,” he urged quietly. Driven by some force he could not name and could not fight, he moved toward her, slowly. “Tell me.”

“
No.
” She hunched her shoulders as if she wished she could disappear. “I don’t want to talk about any of it. I’ll be all right if you’ll just leave me alone. Just—”

“Tell me.”

“No, damn you!”

Ignoring her anger, her stubbornness, her curses, he turned her toward him and drew her carefully back into his arms. He wanted to pick her up and carry her ashore, but he couldn’t. The shackles wouldn’t allow it.

So he stood there hip-deep in the muddy water, holding her close, and simply refused to let her go. But she remained stiff, unyielding, angry. Frightened.

He stroked her hair, her back. Patiently showing her what he had already told her: that he had no intention of hurting her.

Gradually she seemed to understand, to believe. She stopped fighting and relaxed against him, yielding as she had before, but in a different way this time, a way that was more than physical. Then he led her out of the water, back to their place beneath the trees. Drawing her down beside him, he sat with his back against an evergreen trunk and eased her into his arms again.

“Samantha,” he said quietly, holding her.

Still trembling, breathing hard, she shook her head against his chest, remained silent for a long time.

But then the words began to come, slowly.

“It was summer,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear her. “The most beautiful summer night. A night just like this. I was sixteen and I didn’t have a care in the world... until that night. Until we heard the voices outside, strangers.”

“Where?” he whispered.

“Home.”

That single word, so heavy with emotion, choked off her voice for a moment. Nicholas had to swallow hard past a lump in his own throat. He kept moving his hand along her back, slowly, waiting.

“We lived in Northamptonshire,” she explained softly. “In the country. My father was a baronet. My sister Jessica and I—our whole world was... perfect.” A smile touched her lips for a moment. “Mother and Jess used to play the harpsichord in the evenings after supper... and we would hold marionette shows in a puppet theater that Father built for us... and every spring we made kites to fly out in the gardens, though the four of us always seemed to end up all tangled together.”

Nicholas shut his eyes at the wistfulness and love in her voice, keeping his arms strong around her.

 “My father’s name was Sir Matthew Hibbert and my mother’s name was Mary,” she whispered, her smile fading. “And on that night... that beautiful summer night... the two of them had been to visit friends in Wellingborough. B-but on their way home, their coach was waylaid by riders. Highwaymen. Three of them, drunk, shooting off their guns. The coachman said that... that Father tried to protect Mother but...” Her voice broke. “They were both killed. Jessica and I were asleep when... the local magistrate came to tell us... our parents were dead. He asked me to... identify the bodies. They couldn’t recognize my father, be... because he’d been shot in the face.”

A shudder went through her slender frame, and Nicholas drew her closer, feeling the dampness of her tears on his chest. His throat tightened. He had witnessed horrors like that and worse in his lifetime—but for an innocent girl to see that, at such a tender age...

He wished he had words to comfort her, but could find none. So they shared the moment in silence, and he simply held her, letting her pain pour out. Pain and loss that reminded him so vividly of his own.

“Jessica and I were left all alone,” she said after a long moment. “We went to live with our only relatives, our Uncle Prescott and his wife Octavia, in London.” She wiped at her eyes, her voice shifting, becoming tense. “They took us in. Welcomed us with open arms. He told us not to worry about our inheritance, our land, our money. He took control of everything.”

“You mean he stole it from you?” Nicholas guessed.

“Jess and I were both so innocent, so trusting. We thought we would be safe with him.” She looked down at the ground. “But we had only been there a few weeks when Uncle Prescott began... doing things.”

She pulled out of his embrace, shivering, and somehow Nicholas knew not to reach for her, not to touch her. Not now. He let her spill the rest out, like poison from a wound that had festered too long and needed to heal.

“He would stand very close to me. Look at me in ways that didn’t seem right. Didn’t
feel
right. I didn’t understand at first. Even when he came to my bedroom one night.” She lifted her head, staring up into the dark sky. “I was
so
naive that it was beyond my ability to comprehend what he could possibly want. He was my
uncle
. I never guessed—”

“Samantha,” Nicholas interjected gently, “hadn’t your mother ever told you anything about men and women? Anything at all?”

She shook her head, her voice wavering. “Mother always said that when we were older, on our wedding day, she would explain everything... but she never... she never got that chance.” She wiped at her eyes again. “Uncle Prescott told me that he was concerned about me, that he wanted to tuck me in. When it became clear what he really wanted, I fought him. He kept telling me he wouldn’t hurt me.” Her voice became a whisper. “I fought him so hard that he broke my arm.”

Nicholas clenched his fists, filled with a violent urge to kill this son of a bitch.

“It threw him into a panic. He told me to explain to everyone that I had fallen—and he threatened that he would throw me and Jessica out if I breathed a word, to my aunt or to anyone.”

“So you left,” Nicholas concluded.

She shook her head. “I was sixteen,” she whispered. “I was afraid. If I’d had only myself to worry about, I wouldn’t have spent another night in that house... but I had to think about my sister. Jess was only fourteen, and she was so fragile. I knew she wouldn’t survive on the streets. And we didn’t have any money—
he
controlled every shilling of it.” She ran a hand along a tear in her skirt, over and over. “I was always the strong one. I had to protect my sister.”

Nicholas stared at her, stunned at what she had been willing to face for the love of her sister. He had always considered her gutsy, for a woman.

But he had never suspected the true depth of courage and caring she possessed.

“When my arm healed, he started again.” She sighed as if wearied by her story, by the telling of it, by the weight of her memories. “Then that winter, Jessica fell ill. I wasn’t strong enough for her this time. I couldn’t help her.” Fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. “She died, so quickly. And I was... alone.”

The way she said the last word tore through him. He knew exactly what it was to feel alone, desolate. Somehow her pain made him feel his own more vividly than he had in years. It was as if her anguish, her grief, poured through his blood, his heart.

She didn’t protest this time when he reached out and pulled her into his arms. She sagged against him, letting him hold her.

“I-I tried to slip away the next morning, but Uncle Prescott tricked me. He locked me in his library while my aunt was out, and he... he cornered me. He had me down on his desk, and he almost...” She couldn’t speak for a moment. “But I grabbed a pen-knife and used it to defend myself. I stabbed him.”

“It was self-defense,” Nicholas said adamantly. “You stabbed him in self-defense.”

“The warrant,” she said bitterly, “reads attempted murder. I was covered with blood. My uncle yelled for the servants and told everyone I had gone mad with grief, that I should be put in an asylum. He tried to have me arrested. But I managed to get away before the marshalmen came. I ran and...”

“Never stopped running,” he finished for her. He knew the rest.

She was crying again, exhausted, weary tears. The tears of a woman who had spent too many years running.

Too many years alone.

He cradled her in his arms while all the hurt flowed out of her. “Shh, angel, it’s going to be all right,” he murmured. “You’re going to be all right.”

It was little wonder that she feared a man’s touch.

The truly astonishing fact was that a lady who had endured so much at such a tender age could still believe in things like faith and goodness and human caring.

Could still feel grateful for something so simple as moonlight and a summer wind.

He closed his eyes, grimacing ruefully. Unfortunately for her, she was still too naive, in too many ways. She thought she knew the way of the world, when in truth she knew nothing. Her trust, her faith left her vulnerable to mankind’s cruelty.

While her fear, her misplaced anxiety, denied her one of mankind’s few genuine pleasures.

After a while, her crying ebbed slowly to silence. Gently catching her chin on the edge of his hand, Nicholas tilted her head up. He cupped her face in his palms and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks, drying her tears, all the while inwardly cursing himself.

He had been telling himself from the start that he didn’t care about this lady thief.

But she had come to mean something to him.

Which was impossible. He had no time for a liaison of any sort. They had no future. Not a week, not a day, not even an hour beyond the moment he got the shackles off. He had a job to do, an enemy to kill, and she was a complication he didn’t need.

But though they couldn’t share a future, he could share with her one precious gift, now, tonight. Much as she had given to him in the cave, with her soft voice, her gentle touch, bringing him warmth, light, life, he could now give to her.

What had been stolen from her by her bastard uncle could be returned.

By one wayward ex-pirate. For once, perhaps Nicholas Brogan could put someone else’s needs ahead of his own.

Give without taking.

Experience for himself what simple human caring felt like.