She pushed on his chest, breaking the kiss. “I clearly recall you said we would not be marrying. You accused me of trying to spring the parson’s mousetrap on you.”
Deprived of her mouth, Nick kissed along her jaw and found the sensitive spot on her neck just below her ear. He wanted to rasp his beard stubble against her, mark her as his. He gently bit and suckled on the flesh just beneath her ear. “I said a lot of stupid things.”
She gasped and tilted her head back, giving him better access to her neck. “No— Oh! No argument from me.”
Nick chuckled, his lips brushing her skin. She shivered when he gently puffed warm breath against her neck. He picked up her silver chain in his teeth, exposing the skin beneath, and she let out a moan.
Dimly he realized she was burrowing her hands under his coat. Clutching at his shirt, pushing on his back, pulling them closer together.
Damn, they were both wearing too many clothes. Or the wrong kind. If she was wearing a gown he could slide his hand under her skirt, stroke her bare thigh, pull her bodice down to expose her breasts and lavish attention on them. They’d be a perfect handful each.
“Mi pequeño wren marrón,” he whispered at the base of her throat, her chin tilted back. She hummed as he kissed his way to her other ear.
He wanted to release her braid and run his fingers through the silky strands. Soon. Right now he could finally kiss her neck the way he’d wanted to when he’d brushed her hair. When they were in the privacy of his cabin, or the room at the estalagem. Where there was a real bed. Anywhere but on a bed of straw in the cargo hold. He’d fix that. Soon. But right now, he nuzzled his way under her shirt collar, kissing and nibbling toward her shoulder.
“What—Oh! Do that again!” She shuddered. “What changed your mind?”
Damned if I know. “You.” He traced the shell of her ear with his lips. Oh, he did know. He just didn’t want her to know what a jealous monster he’d discovered himself to be.
She pushed on his shoulders, and he leaned back, and they were both on one elbow again, on even footing as it were.
“Why?’
She wanted him to explain his feelings? Emotions he’d only just recognized? He was floundering on shoals. “You’re magnificent.” He stretched forward to kiss her again, but she stayed him with a hand on his shoulder.
“I have no dowry. Even with Zach buying my share of Tesoro, there probably still won’t be funds for one. You’re a viscount.” She was searching his face in the twilight, anxiety and disbelief in her voice as well as her expression.
“You know my secret. I’m a bastard.” To his surprise, saying those words aloud wasn’t nearly as painful as he expected. It was more like the memory of an ache rather than the acute throbbing agony he’d felt for years. “If Adam had not decided to acknowledge me as his son, I’d no more be the viscount than Zach’s other by-blows. You’re actually above my station. I have the audacity to ask you to marry beneath yourself.” He tried to kiss her again but she moved just out of his reach. “And you like my ship.”
The teacher was not done quizzing her student. No matter. He’d worked his hand beneath her waistcoat at the small of her back, and his palm was just one layer of homespun cotton away from her bare skin. He stroked her with his fingertips.
“Regardless of the circumstances of your conception, you’re still a Langston.”
He froze at the shock of hearing it stated so baldly, so matter-of-factly. “How did you find out?”
She pushed him, unresisting, onto his back. “For a skilled navigator and wily pirate, you can be incredibly daft.” She climbed atop him, straddling his ribcage, planted her hands in the straw on either side of his head, and leaned down to kiss his mouth. She exhaled in his ear and stayed there so her lips brushed his earlobe when she whispered. “Anyone who’s paying attention could tell.”
He had difficulty following her words, what with his blood roaring through his veins like a storm surge.
She sat up and stroked her hands up and down his forearms. “The way you speak of Adam so coldly, I think you loved him but didn’t like him much. And the way Zach keeps track of you, how he looks at you and speaks of you with such paternal love.” Though she rested most of her weight on her knees, he still felt the heat from her body on his stomach.
How many others had noticed what she had? The lady who dressed like a sailor, who hoped people on land wouldn’t notice her deception. Did other people know his secret, too?
“I am not a pirate,” he said, slowly sliding his palms from her knees up her thighs. “I have a Letter of Marque signed by the Regent himself.”
She shook her head, her braid swaying. “A privateer is just a pirate with a license.”
He couldn’t resist a sly grin. He reached the tops of her thighs and turned his hands sideways, fingers and thumbs massaging her inner and outer thighs. “The war is over. I’m an honest merchantman.” He wished he’d taken off his coat in addition to his greatcoat, as she was still rubbing her hands up and down his forearms.
“So you keep insisting.”
She hissed in a breath as he slid his hands higher. He had the point of her hip bones in his palms now, his fingers up under her waistcoat, massaging the soft skin he could reach. His control was about to snap. He’d carry her off to his cabin where they could lock the door and properly ravish each other. But she hadn’t yet said that one word he needed to hear.
“Didn’t you see the cargo I’m bringing back to England? Going to pay import duties on all of it, even.” He let go of one hip to draw lazy circles on her stomach, circling higher with each stroke of his palm. “I’m embarking on the boring life of an importer.”
“You, boring?” She leaned down, her lips brushing his ear. “I don’t think so.” She gently bit his earlobe, tugged on his earring, and sucked it into her mouth. He shuddered and his eyes rolled back in his head. While her lips held his lobe hostage, with her tongue she toyed with the ring and traced the edge of his ear.
A jolt of desire sparked down his spine to the soles of his feet, his toes curling, his body aching for release. Too bad he was the captain and couldn’t preside over his own nuptials. He’d have them married tonight.
