Page 19 of Scandalous

“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 hard 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?”