“I could ask you the same thing.”
“But I’m not angry. Not any longer.” It was true, she thought. Her anger had vanished the moment he held her again. She wondered at the power he had over her, wondered anew if loving him gave him that power.
“Then it’s the same for me. But I find I want you very, very much.” His mouth descended hungrily on hers.
Kenna discovered her desire matched his own and returned his kiss measure for measure. Rhys’s grip on her hair lessened as her arms slid around his neck and she pressed herself to his naked chest. She felt Rhys’s fingers on the back of her gown, loosening it enough so he could drag it over her shoulders and free her breasts. Her soft gasp rent the air as his mouth touched the aching tips of her nipples. When he would have returned his lips to hers she stopped him.
“Help me out of this dress.” The neckline of the gown was bunched about her waist and the skirt had ridden up her thighs.
“Turn around.” When she had done so Rhys fiddled with her gown, teasing her bare shoulders with kisses. “I think you can get out of it now,” he said huskily. She had better be able to because he was within seconds of tearing it off her.
Kenna scooted off the bed and stepped out of the dress, then quickly discarded her undergarments. She tumbled back onto the bed when the ship shifted beneath her feet. Rhys caught her and pulled her over him as they both fell back on the thick feather tick. Kenna laughed a trifle breathlessly, looking down into his face. “I have yet to cultivate my sea legs.”
Rhys’s palms glided along the backs of her thighs. “Graceless wench. I love your legs.” His hands cupped her buttocks and gave her a little jerk. Her thighs, slipping over him, and Kenna found herself straddling Rhys. She placed her hands on his shoulders and raised her torso, feeling his hardness pressing against her flat belly. Rhys’s arms stretched in front of him, fondling her swollen, sensitive breasts. “Ride me, Kenna.”
She required no further instructions, understanding full well what he wanted. Kenna raised herself slightly and with Rhys’s help and throaty encouragement, guided herself onto him. She bit back a small cry of wonderment as she adjusted to the feel of him deep inside her.
“It’s all right, Kenna. I want to hear you. Don’t hold anything back.” He rocked his hips once to give her the rhythm then caught his breath as she began to move.
Kenna gloried in the control she had. She teased him with her slow thrusts in much the manner he had taunted her. She ached for release yet did all that was in her power to prolong its moment. Most of all she watched his face, loving the tension and desire she brought to his mouth, his eyes, the set of his jaw. “Yes,” she said when one of his hands slipped from her breast and probed gently between her thighs. “Please,” she murmured on a thread of sound as his fingers sought and found and stroked the moist bud of her pleasure. “I want—” she began, but she could not complete the thought as a force more powerful than her will took over. Her hips moved more quickly and then it seemed as if every muscle in her body tensed in anticipation of what would follow. Kenna’s head was flung backward, her neck and back arched in an abandoned posture that was the most beautiful thing Rhys had ever seen. His fingers pressed against Kenna’s thighs as he felt the nearness of his own release. He arched into her, bringing a soft cry to her lips, then she fell forward and moved with him again until she felt the astonishing strength of his climax.
Her head rested very close to his while his hands massaged her back and buttocks, quieting her. After a few moments he turned them on their side and withdrew from her. Even his gentle movement was more than Kenna could bear. She clutched his shoulders, her fingers digging into his taut flesh as another river of sensation swelled within her.
“Rhys!” She cried out his name, panicked at the return of the sweet frisson of pleasure. She didn’t think she could bear it again, not so soon, not so unexpectedly. Kenna buried her face in his shoulder, mortified that seemingly against her will her hips were pressing hard at his thighs.
“It’s all right,” he whispered. “More than all right.” He cradled her buttocks and urged her closer until the intense, relentless pressure of their contact brought Kenna the end she sought.
“My God!” she breathed against his neck.
“Mm.” Rhys pressed a smile to her forehead and brushed a few damp tendrils of hair from her nape.
“What happened to me?”
“Nothing out of the extraordinary.”
“So you say. From where I am it was extraordinary indeed.”
“It is not so uncommon for a woman to reach her pleasure more than once during lovemaking.”
It would have been unfair to ask him how he knew, so Kenna held her jealous question. She didn’t think she wanted to know the answer even if he had deigned to tell her. She shivered slightly in his arms and he drew one of the blankets that had been kicked aside over them.
“Kenna,” he said after a moment when he could still feel the heat from her cheeks burning his shoulder. “I found it incredibly beautiful. More to the point, I find you incredibly beautiful.” When she didn’t say anything Rhys gave her a gentle shake, “Kenna?” Rhys laughed ruefully when he still received no response. She was sound asleep.
It took Kenna more than a few seconds to orient herself when she awoke. She was lying on the floor, tangled in a sheet and two blankets, and the ship’s roll had increased to nauseating proportions. She groped for the edge of the bed and tried to find some humor in the fact she had fallen out of it. “You really are a graceless wench,” she said aloud. The sound of her own voice was muted by the waves crashing against the hull of the ship and the shouting she could hear from the men above her. She patted the bed, searching for Rhys but knowing too well that he was gone. He must have been summoned on deck to help the others manage theCaraseain the storm. “Now is as good a time as any to earn your sea legs,” she decided, reasoning she may as well be terrified on deck as below it.
Kenna freed herself from the tangle of blankets and stood, balancing herself the way she had seen Rhys do. Still, the short walk to the wardrobe was an uphill, then downhill, battle. Kenna rifled the wardrobe until she found a pair of Rhys’s breeches and a shirt. To keep the breeches around her waist she improvised a sash from the material he bought her. She had no suitable shoes and no illusions that she could manage barefoot as many of the men did. She stuffed a pair of shoes belonging to Rhys with scraps of material and put on several pairs of woolen stockings for good measure. The shoes were still no more than an adequate fit.
As soon as she shuffled her way topside she questioned the wisdom of her actions. One of her shoulders was already bruised from banging it against the wall of the companionway and the moment she stepped on deck her hair was plastered to her head by the lashing rain. She had to squint to see more than a few yards in front of her.
“You there!” The rough voice came from behind her and Kenna nearly jumped out of her shoes. “This is no time to be standin’ around. Didn’t you hear the cap’n say we’ve got to haul in those sails?”
Kenna held up her hand to shield her eyes and glanced overhead. Some of the sails had come loose from the yardarms and were beating vainly against the wind like moths with broken wings. On deck men were struggling with the lines to haul them up but the ropes had become hopelessly tangled and the pulleys so clogged that it would require men in the rigging to finish the task. Kenna’s protest that she was not up to such work died in the wind. Her elbow was grabbed and she was pulled across the heaving deck with some force.
“Up you go, laddie,” came the order. “I’m right behind you.”
Kenna grabbed the rigging in both her hands and heaved herself up, clutching the slick ropes for dear life. Her feet slid almost immediately on the lines and she kicked off her shoes. Her toes curled on the ropes and once she felt confident of her footing she scrambled a few yards higher. As the gale force winds buffeted her and whistled past her ears,Carasealeaped on the crest of a breaking wave and listed at a sickening angle. “I am no hothouse flower. I am no hothouse flower.” She repeated the litany in her head as she continued to climb. “Kenna Canning is no hothouse flower.” Her heart thumped in her chest to the rhythm of her words. In front of her the sail flapped, trying to knock her off the ropes. Below her the deck tilted alarmingly and behind her was an endless expanse of angry ocean. Kenna drew in a deep breath and struggled on gamely. She was going to live through this, she told herself, if only to give Rhys the pleasure of killing her for her foolishness.
Several other men had joined her on the rigging and one of them took charge, yelling orders in such thunderous tones that even the shrieking wind could not silence him. “Wait for the lull! Steady on the downbeat when she shakes the wind from her sail! Heave!”
