“Don’t test me,” he warned her sternly.
“I have tested you time and again,” she said softly. “You have proven yourself, sir.”
“Have I? Lady, please, my mettle is in shatters. I promise you this, if I hold you again, I’ll leave no questions in your mind as to my true nature.”
She did not reply, but continued to smile. He reached over suddenly, grasping her wine goblet. He set it down upon the table with a small clunk. She arched a brow to him.
“I think you’ve had enough. How do you feel?”
“I feel very well. I dozed in the tub merely because of its comfort, and though I did consume a great deal of brandy, I did it throughout a very long day.”
“Oh. Is that so?”
“It is.”
He watched her for a long moment, his hands folded upon the table. “You are well and sober now?”
“I am, sir.”
He stood and caught her hands, pulling her slowly up from the table and into his arms. She should resist. Something languorous stole over her with the gentle touch of the breeze. Draperies fluttered and the soft fragrance of the tropic night whirled around them. The moon had risen as the fiery colors of sunset gave way to shadow, and then darkness. Candleglow was soft, and gentle as the ethereal beams from the moon falling down upon them.
“Run!” he told her softly. “Run away, and embrace the darkness, for you enter here into greater peril.” He clutched her hand and brought it to his chest, against his heart. “Feel the beat, lady, feel the pulse. Suffer the tempest, for I have been like a man long damned. Don’t take comfort in my presence, and don’t trust in my justice or honor, for by my justice you would lie with me now, and as I have warned you, what honor a rogue possesses ever dims within my heart. Run from me now, lady. And swiftly.”
It was fair warning, and well she knew it. Her palm and fingers lay over an erratic pulse, and a wall of vibrant, living heat. They pressed so close together that a fever danced throughout her and cast her into a field of sweet confusion far greater than any spirit could bring. She wanted him. Shameful, horrid, and illicit as it might be, she wanted him. That such feelings should rage within her heart left her aware that she could be no true lady, but in the night breeze, she could not care. This world was real, and he was a beacon, shining ever more brightly to her tempest-tossed soul. Codes and society could not matter here, all that had meaning were the earth and sky, the breeze, the primal power of the man.
She parted her lips to whisper, but knew not what she would say. Rescue came for her any day now, blessed rescue to her home, to a land of safety. To a lord, a man of the peerage, the betrothed who would give her the proper place in society, a gracious home, wealth, servants, security, all that she could desire.
Her security lay here, she thought. And the wealth to be found in the arms of such a man were all the riches she might come to desire.
“Go! Go now, I warn you!” he growled to her.
She pulled away. She stared at him, thinking there were so many things that she would say to him, but none of them were things that words could convey. If she stayed, she would be damned. She turned and fled through the doorway, then paused, gasping, the tempo of her heart staccato, the very breath and soul of her in torment.
She did not think anew. She did not reason, nor pause to think that the morning light might bring regrets. She came back to the doorway and looked in once more.
He had come back to the window. He stood there, a tall and silent man, a powerful shadow in black silk shirt and breeches and boots, formidable and striking against the glow of the moon. She must have made some small sound, or else he sensed her there, that she had so swiftly returned. He came about, staring at her. She could not see his eyes, his features. She cried softly and raced toward him on her bare feet. She cast herself against him, and his arms swept around her with a staggering hunger. His lips found hers.
Captured there in the moonlight in his arms, she dared to kiss him in return. His tongue tempestuously seared her lips to plunder her mouth. She welcomed it, and daringly tasted, met, and matched his forays with her own. A sweet-honeyed surge burst forth from within her, swirling within her belly, rushing to fill her limbs. She sought to touch his hair, to tease it at his nape, to feel the power of his shoulders and arms, to come ever closer.
She gasped when his lips lifted from hers, and she stared up at him, framed as they were in the moonglow, in the windows opened to the night. He stared at her the longest time, and his ragged whisper rode hauntingly from his flesh. “You cannot run anymore,” he said.
“No,” she whispered, and her lashes did not flutter, nor did her eyes fall from his. His hands were upon her shoulders. Her lips parted in a soft gasp as he tore upon the fabric there and her gown swirled to a very soft heap of silk upon the ground. And still he stared at her, for the moonglow danced eloquently upon her body, outlining the firm fullness of her breasts and defining the dusky rouge peaks, touching shadow at the slender ribbon of her waist, glowing full on the flare of her hips. The moon seemed a master of temptation in itself, finding shadow again in the haunting juncture of her thighs.
A deep, guttural cry came from him, startling her, causing her to tremble. Then his hands were upon her again, pulling her close. She felt the fever of his mouth upon hers once more, and clung to him, stunned by this new ferocity of passion, yet willing to ride the soaring force of it. She met his lips again and again. He sought her mouth and tongue over and over, breaking away, finding her warmth once again. His hands began a bold foray upon her. As their lips met in searing fire, he stroked her shoulder and her breast, rounded her naked hip. His fingers grazed her belly and drew with startling purpose to the golden nest between her thighs.
She flinched, startled, but he drew her closer. He whispered against her lips as he explored her further. She gasped and shuddered, so weak that she fell against him as his touch surged intimately inside of her.
“I cannot, will not, let you go,” he muttered.
She did not wish to be let go. She burrowed her head against him and she was swiftly swept off her feet and carried to his massive bed. Lying there without him, she was briefly cold, but he quickly returned to cover her with his warmth. His lips seared her all anew. He touched her with shattering liquid heat in intimate places, bringing gasps to her lips as he possessed her breasts with his touch and teeth and tongue, covering her belly with the ardent sweep of his mouth. The liquid fire was outside of her, and then inside of her. Sensation came to rule the night, for each new touch was shocking and evocative beyond measure, and she was barely able to register the one before the next began.
She knew that he was a practiced lover, and that did not matter to her. Not then. She knew, too, that a woman was seldom so carefully cherished with both tempest and tenderness when initiated into the realm of senses. He was with her because he had desired her, and tonight he could let hunger rage, for he had shown her long ago that he cared for her fears, and for her soul.
He moved from her, and she realized that he hovered over her, seeking out her eyes, his own ablaze with tension. Lightly he touched her breast, keeping his eyes upon her. He drew his fingers low over her ribs against her abdomen, down to her thighs. Her lashes fluttered. “No,” he told her softly, and she lifted her gaze to his again as he invaded her more intimately. She drew her limbs together as the flame touched her features, but her body surged against his touch of its sweet desire and he laughed with sheer pleasure and triumph and his lips seized upon hers. “Moonglow,” he told her. “Thank God, lady, that you crave the light, for I hunger for the very sight of you, and would die tonight for this touch!” His lips covered hers. In tempest and abandon they traveled to her breast. To her belly, ever downward. Brazenly he touched her. She cried out loud in stunned protest, writhing against him, reaching for him to draw him against her. He left her, stripping away his garments. And then it was he who was covered in the moonlight, and she was dizzy with anticipation, warmed by the beautiful bronze glow of his shoulders, frightened by the masculine force of him.
He did not let her know fear. He teased her no longer, but fell upon her with purpose, parting her thighs to his desire, cradling her gently into his arms.
The pain was astounding, wrenching her from the web of sweet desire that had wound within her. She cried out, she bit into his shoulders, she slammed against him and shrilled away in fury, tears stinging her eyes. He ignored her, holding her. Moving, moving against her. Thrusting harder and harder and tearing into her. “Pirate, bastard, rogue!” she choked out.
