Scandalous Page 6

  “I’m so sorry,” she blurted. “I did not mean to offend you.” Her heart pounded like a small, insistent drum against his chest. Her eyes were wide, and the pitying look in them was the last straw.

  He captured her mouth with his, not bothering with finesse, stabbing with his tongue as though it were a sword. Her lips were soft and cool, and they parted easily beneath his onslaught.

  Her yielding sweetness was like a dousing of cold water, and Martín closed his eyes against her startled expression and wrenched himself back, drawing a shaking hand across his mouth.

  Bloody hell! He had never come so close to doing violence to one weaker than he.

  He turned away from her, as if he could turn away from the vision she had forced him to look at: that of an illiterate brute only aping his betters with fine clothes, rich trappings, and books he could not read.

  Martín felt a light touch on his arm and whipped around.

  “I’m sorry if my question was impertinent. I was merely surprised. You must have worked very hard to achieve your position without being able to read. It is not difficult to learn, you know. Reading, that is.” Her expression was no longer pitying, but tentative and gentle. “I have taught many people to read.”

  Martín’s eyes shifted away from hers. He could not look at her and think at the same time. Was she offering to teach him to read? He bristled. Who was she to think he needed her help to do anything? He let his eyes slide back to hers, hoping to find something to fuel his anger. Instead he found those inexplicably kind eyes. It was not the desire he usually saw in women’s eyes. It was something different. It was, he realized with a shock, the same look she’d worn when she fought to save the lives of the mutineers. She viewed him as an object for her mercy, somebody she wished to save.

  He felt an unpleasant smile take possession of his face, and he gave in to his baser instincts and inclination to exploit any weakness he encountered. He planted a hand on either side of her body, his palms flat on the mahogany wood paneling, trapping her between his arms. Her eyes were no longer so sure.

  “I believe you are engaged in yet another negotiation, mademoiselle.” He didn’t wait for an answer before darting forward to nuzzle her neck. She quivered beneath him, and he felt a surge of pleasure that he could disconcert her the way she had him. “It does not seem right to commence bargaining when you have not repaid your last debt, does it?”

  Her throat moved beneath his lips as she swallowed. “I am prepared to honor the bargain I made.”

  He took her small earlobe into his mouth and rolled it between his teeth and tongue, nipping her hard, smiling against her neck at her sharp intake of breath.

  “Do you even know what bargain you made?”

  “I am not ignorant in such matters. I know what I have agreed to.” Her voice was low and breathy and made him throb.

  He chuckled at her bravado. “Oh, I doubt that, mademoiselle.” He tongued the tender flesh between her neck and collarbone before stopping over the pulse that pounded at the base of her throat. She was so fine-grained and smooth; he had a burning need to consume her. He took a mouthful of soft flesh and sucked. A gasp of pleasure made the skin vibrate beneath his mouth and he sucked harder, until he was certain he’d given her a love bite. He pulled back to examine his work. A small oval of bruised flesh rose and fell with the pulsing vein below it.

  Her hands, as soft as the wings of a moth, fluttered along the side of his body before settling at his waist. The featherlight sensation caused a hard spike of desire to shoot through him, and he pressed closer, enflamed by the way her body yielded beneath him.

  He looked from his mark to her face. Her eyes were half-closed, her lips parted, and her head rested limply against the wall. Up close he could see the pale blond hairs and freckles that dusted her skin. His fingers looked obscenely large as he explored the delicate bones of her face, tracing over her finely drawn lower lip. The rough pad of his thumb rested against the satin seam of her mouth, and her lids flickered open, her eyes wide and confused. He pressed and her lips parted. Her chest rose and fell in ragged jerks, and her eyes became almost black. Martín held his breath as he waited, wondering what she would do.

  The first touch of her tongue was so light he barely felt it, but the slight graze of her teeth as she took him into the incredible softness of her mouth made him gasp. Her eyes never left his, and the sight of her fragile pink lips stretched around him made him so hard it hurt.

  He swooped down and replaced his thumb with his mouth, capturing her lips, stroking and caressing into her silken mouth while he held her head motionless for his penetration. He flicked and probed and teased until he’d lured her tongue into his mouth. Once she was inside him, he wrapped his lips around her and sucked until she shivered beneath him, her hips pushing into his as her hands clutched at his chest.

  He pulled away, and she made a small sound and grasped his robe, as if to pull him back.

  Martín smiled. It seemed he’d been mistaken about her; perhaps she was not the helpless innocent he’d believed. The realization aroused him even more; he had not wanted a virgin. He scooped her into his arms, momentarily thrown off-balance by the scarce weight of her. She was tall but delicate like spun glass. He held her against his chest while plundering her mouth. When she was as pliable as a reed he laid her across the velvet and silk bed.

  He stood back and pulled off his robe and tunic. Her already flushed skin darkened even more as her eyes roamed his torso and fastened on the erection his silk trousers could not hide. Martín smiled at her wide-eyed look and parted lips and took her hand, kissing each finger and then her palm before placing it on the front of his trousers.

  Her hand tightened as if in reflex.

  Martín groaned, reveling in her touch for a moment before gritting his teeth and gently removing her hand. “Too much of that and I won’t be any good to you, mademoiselle.” He lowered himself onto the bed, straddling her body, her slim hips warm between his knees.

  Her eyes grew even bigger, and her body trembled.

  “Shh,” he murmured, stretching over her, their bodies barely touching. He lowered his hips against her taut stomach and kissed her brow, breathing in the scent of clean, aroused woman. Her hands came up to rest on his sides, and he stroked himself against the silk barrier that separated their bodies. He froze, the sensation so erotic he feared he would spend if he continued. He laid a trail of kisses from her jaw to the mark he’d left on her throat, propping himself up with one arm while untying her robe with his free hand. He tongued and nibbled, his fingers slowly teasing the folds of silk apart until he could feel smooth, hot skin.

  When he’d finished, he sat back on his heels and stared at what he’d unwrapped.

  “Mon Dieu.” His eyes flickered from her body to her face.

  She watched him, her expression unreadable.

  Martín swallowed hard at the sight of her small, pink-tipped mounds, a stab of desire almost doubling him over. She looked like a painting he’d watched men looting from a palace in Alexandria. The massive panel had depicted a tall, slim woman—some ancient empress, no doubt—garbed in a thigh-length skirt and magnificent headdress, a serpent encircling her naked torso. He could still recall the look of contempt on that starkly beautiful face as her captors toted her away from her past, away from her home, and off to some foreign land. This skinny missionary’s daughter possessed the same body as some bygone Egyptian queen. She was delicate, sleek, and strangely potent.

  Martín stroked his hands up her slender ribcage until he held a perfect breast in each hand. She hissed in a breath and arched against him, pushing herself into his palms, the thin skin of her breasts so sensitive she cried out when he grazed their stiff peaks.

  His mouth flooded with want, and he leaned lower to take a taut bud between his lips.

  “Captain!”

  The woman screamed, and Martín almost fell off the bed.

  “Captain?” Daniels called again, pounding on the door so h
ard it shuddered in the frame.

  “Merde!” Martín snatched up his discarded robe and handed it to the wide-eyed woman before stalking to the door and almost tearing it from its hinges.

  “The ship better be on fire, Daniels,” he yelled, his voice still hoarse with arousal.

  Daniels took a step back, his mouth ajar, and his eyes anywhere but on Martín’s obscenely tented silk trousers.

  “Speak, you fool!”

  “It seems that the, er, the Dutch mutineer is, um, well, he’s gone, sir.”

  Chapter Six

  For a moment Martín was too shocked to speak. “How long?”

  Daniels shrugged, his face a study in shame, mortification, and misery.

  Martín swore in three different languages. “Get every man on deck. If de Heeckeren gets to the other ship and frees the crew, there will be hell to pay.”

  Daniels scurried off, and Martín slammed the door and turned around, his eyes settling on the woman he had just been preparing to bed and now wanted to strangle.

  “Your damned de Heeckeren has escaped the brig,” he shouted, yanking open his wardrobe and pulling out a pair of breeches. He didn’t bother to turn away as he stepped out of his silk trousers and pulled on his oldest buckskins, tucking his still rigid cock behind the fall.

  She sat bolt upright, apparently speechless, whether at the sight of his naked body or the surprising news, Martín could not have said.

  He snatched up a battered leather jerkin before pulling on his boots and grabbing his still-holstered weapons from the hook on which Jenkins had hung them earlier in the day.

  Martín pointed a finger at her. “You stay here.” He didn’t wait for an answer and strode from the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

  The deck was ablaze with a dozen torches, and Salier, the loudest man onboard, was yelling across to the Dutch ship.

  Martín snatched up his glass and opened it, peering through the darkness. Of course it would be a night with almost no moon. He cursed.

  Salier continued to yell while Martín gave the order to bring them closer. He kept his eyes fastened on the dim ship. Only because he was staring so intently did he see the small flare of light.

  “Incoming!” he yelled, just before the blast of a cannon filled the night and the dull whoosh of a large ball of iron cut through air. The ball landed in the water mere feet from their bow.

  “Prime and load numbers four, six, seven, and nine.” He snapped the glass closed and felt for his pistols while he moved toward a torch. He checked one gun and handed the other to Jenkins, who’d materialized beside him, disheveled but awake and aware. Martín heard the clatter of feet behind him and turned to find the Englishwoman, breathless, wearing only his dressing gown.

  Martín’s mouth opened at the sight, but he didn’t have any words available.

  “What has happened?” she demanded.

  “Go back down below, now.”

  “You cannot mean to fire on their ship?”

  Martín thought his head might explode before his cannons did. He turned away from the infuriating woman, afraid he might do her bodily harm.

  “Daniels,” he shouted at the top of his lungs.

  “Captain Bouchard,” Sarah shouted behind him, her voice almost as loud as his. He ignored her. A hand gripped his arm, and Martín whirled around.

  “Assez!” he bellowed, his entire body shaking. “You will go below deck with Daniels or I will have you bound and gagged and thrown into the hold. Do you hear me?”

  She planted her fists on her slim hips. “There are innocent people on that ship. You cannot fire on them. If you will stop and think a minute, you will agree. You wanted to save those people, Captain, not kill them.”

  Daniels appeared and laid a hand on her shoulder.

  She brushed Daniels’s hand away and took a step toward Martín. “Captain?”

  Martín’s eyes threatened to bulge out of his head at her chastising tone. He gave her a look that should have reduced her to a smoking pile of rubble before turning to Daniels.

  “Get her out of my sight or I will.” He turned away, ignoring the sounds of a scuffle from behind him; Daniels could manage one skinny woman on his own.

  “Captain!” The word was like the crack from a pistol. The faces of the men in front of Martín were almost laughable; to a man, they stared in open-mouthed horror at something behind him. Martín did not want to turn, but his body acted without consulting him.

  The woman was ten feet away, pointing Martín’s own pistol at him.

  He let out a string of vile curse words and looked at Jenkins, who stood empty-handed with a terrified expression on his face. Martín shook his head. “I will deal with you later, Jenkins.”

  “If you fire those cannons, I shall shoot you, Captain Bouchard.” Her voice was loud enough to be heard on the other ship.

  Martín did not hesitate before striding toward her.

  “I’m warning you, Captain.” Her voice was louder, but less assured.

  “Mademoiselle, you will have to shoot me before I take orders from you or anyone else while standing on the deck of my own ship.” He closed the distance between them in a few long strides, only stopping when the barrel of the gun touched his chest, the metal tip against bare skin where his jerkin gaped open. He watched with genuine interest as she looked from his face to the end of the pistol and back again. The moment seemed to stretch forever. Her mouth twitched; her nostrils quivered. If she fired at such close range it would be the end for him. He smiled. Would she?

  Her entire body shuddered, and she closed her eyes.

  Martín took the pistol from her limp fingers and handed it to Jenkins with a withering glare that made the small man flinch. Daniels came forward and led the unresisting woman away, murmuring to her as he guided her below deck.

  Martín thrust the woman from his mind just as a shout broke through the gloom, accompanied by the flaring of a torch on the Blue Bird’s deck. Men boiled from below deck, many armed with swords or clubs. Those already on deck—mainly former captives—scrambled to repel them. The entire ship erupted into hand-to-hand combat within seconds.

  More torches blazed to life, and Martín saw that one of the Blue Bird’s sails was flapping uselessly in the mild breeze. An African stood below the billowing canvas, a large knife held at the ready, mute evidence of who had halted the Blue Bird’s progress. Dozens of freed slaves, as well as the men Martín had left onboard, grappled with the mutinous sailors they’d locked in the ship’s hold earlier that day.

  The same mutineers he had pardoned for the woman who had just threatened to shoot him.

  Martín shook his head, both at the bargain he’d made and his own stupidity. He’d been foolishly confident to leave only a half-dozen of his crew on board the Blue Bird, and he was very lucky both the freed slaves and loyal members of Graaf’s crew were making short and brutal work of the mutineers. He swept the Blue Bird’s deck for Beauville, holding his breath until he spotted him. His first mate was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but otherwise looked unharmed.

  Martín heaved a sigh of relief. “It appears Beauville is taking matters in hand. Salier, Truesdale, and Marx, prepare to take us over.” He turned to find Jenkins beside him, clutching his pistol. Martín gestured for the gun and slid it into his second holster.

  “Go below and make sure the woman has not located more of my weapons.”

  Jenkins turned a dull red, but kept his mouth shut before scuttling away.

  Martín turned back to stare at the other ship. The night had been exciting, but not in the way he had hoped.

  * * *

  Sarah huddled on the small, hard bunk in her cabin and hugged her knees tightly to her chest, appalled at what she had just done. By drawing a weapon on the captain—his own pistol, of all things—in front of his men, she had surely signed her own death warrant. Bouchard was not like Graaf. The Dutch captain had seemed almost grateful when Sarah took him hostage and made his decisions for
him at the parley.

  Bouchard was something completely different.

  Everything she’d learned about him thus far screamed of his pride and his obsession with appearances. She had attacked both in full view of his men. It wouldn’t matter to him that he had easily disarmed her.

  She winced as she recalled how quickly he had done so. His face had been as hard as a stone wall when he put himself at the end of a loaded and cocked pistol. He did not fear dying. No, what he feared was looking weak or foolish. Twice in one night she had found the gap in his carefully constructed armor and shoved something sharp inside. She shook her head at her own idiocy. Why had she goaded him about his inability to read? His look of murderous rage when she’d exposed him had been even more frightening than when she had held him at gunpoint.

  But what he’d been doing to her in the cabin before Daniels interrupted them had been even more terrifying.

  The place between her legs—a place she’d given little thought until tonight—tightened with a frustrating combination of intense pleasure and nagging want as she remembered what he’d been doing.

  Sarah covered her hot face with her hands, embarrassment vying with desire at the memory of his eyes and hands and mouth on her skin. She’d thought she knew what would happen tonight, but nothing the captain had done was like anything she’d seen village boys doing. His hands were so clever and wicked, and it had felt as though he had ten of them instead of just two. She would dare any woman to get that close to the gorgeous man and keep her wits. She refused to feel guilty about giving in to his practiced wiles. The physical sensations he’d evoked had been impossible to ignore or rise above. She’d wanted something so badly—still wanted it—that she would have given anything to get it. Was that how it was for everyone? Was that what her parents had always preached against?

  The memory of his arousal and how it had felt in her hand made her throb and tingle. She knew what his hardness meant. He’d wanted her. He wanted to put himself inside her. Her entire body thrummed at the mere thought, and she pressed her thighs together, mortified. She must be some kind of deviant; she’d not felt ashamed or embarrassed, just hungry. How could she be so wicked? So wanton? What would her mother and father have thought?