Chapter Fifteen
“Yes, I’m going to seduce you. I’m going to ravish you, and give you pleasure and then…then we’ll always have this to remember.”
It was exactly what she had wanted to hear, though until this moment, Phylis could never have articulated it so well.
A moment to remember. Their lives were charted in different directions, yes, but this moment…this moment would be theirs.
“Good,” Phylis said brightly, her pulse thrumming in her ears. “Shall I lock the door?”
It could not be more evident that Michael had not expected such a response, for he gaped with such astonishment, she could not help but laugh.
“What, you thought you’d have to argue with me on this one?” She clasped her hands behind her back, trying not to be too delighted at the way he was staring at her with such hunger. “Was this not how we met?”
Was that a hint of embarrassment pinking his cheeks? “I know, it’s just… Well, this is—”
“I may not have lain with a man completely, Michael, but I… Well, I know the taste of pleasure,” Phylis said quietly, hoping beyond hope he would respond as she expected.
Michael growled. “Well, I actually gathered that from when I last pleasured you.”
A ripple of need cascaded through her. “And I expect you to pleasure me like that again—at least once.”
There was no mistaking the eagerness in that expression. “‘At least’?”
“Well, we have all afternoon and all night, don’t we?” Phylis said nonchalantly, though she could not help the tightness in her throat as she said, “Why do you think I gave my crew the night off?”
And he was kissing her, crushing his ardor upon her lips as though this were his final chance to ever be with her again.
Phylis returned the kiss, tilting her head so the sensuous moment could deepen, parting her lips to welcome him in and almost moaning at the hedonism that ripped through her as their tongues tangled.
Oh, this man. He had shown her a world she had never known, could never know, and he had never demanded more from her than what she had been willing to give.
And she wanted to give this.
Need was burning within her, a need that had started from the moment she’d seen his eyes light up at the auction. This was a man who yearned for the new, for the different, for the exciting—and she was under no illusion that that was why he was here, seducing her.
And rather well, she had to admit.
Indeed, he—
Michael pulled away. “I can’t.”
Phylis tried to catch her breath as the painful disappointment of his physical absence made her want to cry out. “You can’t?”
“I can’t,” he said ruefully, pained regret in his eyes.
He can’t?
Then what the hell was she supposed to do with all this pent-up desire throbbing between her thighs?
“It’s just…you’re leaving, and I’m leaving…”
Phylis rolled her eyes as she staggered to the door and turned the key in the lock. “We’ve been over this, Michael.”
“I don’t want you to be hurt.”
There was genuine concern in his tones, and Phylis swallowed before turning around to smile brightly. “I know.”
“And I cannot help but feel that you will be. Enjoying amorous congress and then going our separate ways… It’s not going to be easy on you. On either of us.”
And Phylis knew it. Her gut roiled at the idea that they would never see each other again, that this connection, whatever it was, had to end merely because she had a job to do.
The whole world beckoned to her, and for the first time in her life…Phylis did not want it.
She wanted him.
“If only there were some way,” Michael was saying, tugging a distracted hand through his hair and ruffling it most attractively. “Some way to make this work…”
The idea was not fully formed as it reached Phylis’s mind, but it didn’t need to be. The core of it was entire and made complete sense.
An annual meeting.
Well, it would work, wouldn’t it? There were always a few weeks in January when she would want to be in dock somewhere for repairs—why not wherever Michael was?
They could meet, they could see each other, and she could go off and live the rest of her year as she had always intended. It did not matter whether Michael was in London or New York or Sydney…for that short time, wherever they were, they could be together.
“What is it?”
Phylis blinked. Michael was staring with wide, curious eyes, and he had stepped closer to her, leaving only a few inches between them.
She swallowed. “I have a way—it’s not easy, and it will require compromise, but we could be together—”
Once a year.
That was what she had been going to say, but her lips were stopped by a harsh, desperate, relieved kiss from the man she now knew she loved.
Once a year. It would not be enough, but it would be something, and Phylis knew as she wound her hands around his neck and pressed herself up against his chest, she would take it.
She would take any time she could be with Michael Chance.
The kiss became more urgent, more heated. Phylis gasped in his mouth as he pushed her backward, pinning her against the door, and all she could do was cling to him, cling to the man she adored beyond anything else.
More than sailing, more than captaining, more than the Dreamer: this was the man she loved. The man she chose.
And the man she chose was doing something absolutely fascinating with her shirt.
“Damned thing,” Michael was muttering. “How the hell…?”
“Never taken a man’s shirt off a lady?” Phylis clucked her tongue, pushing away his fumbling fingers and merely lifting it up over her head. She almost laughed at the way he gawped at her breasts. “Never seen a woman’s breasts before?”
“Never—never like that,” he murmured, his gaze transfixed. “You’re telling me you were in that auction with nothing but—”
“Why should I wear a corset?” Phylis drew back, leaning against the door and arching her back. “And why aren’t you kissing me?”
A corset had never really been necessary, anyway. Her small, pert breasts had never needed much support, and she certainly didn’t want to be curtailed in the breathing department while hauling on a rope or heaving a chest.
Besides, it made it all the more delightful when Michael instantly and obediently lowered his mouth to her nipple and took it within his mouth—and sucked.
Bliss seared through her as Phylis whimpered, eyes struggling to stay open. “Oh, Michael—”
Further words were impossible as one of his hands grasped her other nipple, rolling and twisting it between thumb and forefinger, and Phylis could hardly breathe as Michael’s other hand made light work of the buttons at the front of her trousers, allowing the fabric to fall to reveal…
Everything. All of her.
Phylis tried to think, tried to consider what she looked like, splayed against the door with her trousers by her ankles in only her socks held up by garters, her breasts being fondled by the most handsome man she had ever seen, but all she could do was accept the decadence.
And by God, there was a lot of it.
Michael lifted his mouth to hers and captured her lips with a kiss as his finger stroked down her sopping-wet slit. “So pretty…”
Phylis squirmed, desperate to spear herself onto the man’s hand. After all, she knew what sensual delights the man could create between her thighs.
But he chuckled as he moved his hand back, refusing to allow her the satisfaction of instant gratification.
“Patience, Captain Seaton,” Michael murmured as he trailed kisses down her neck.
Phylis squirmed, desperate for more even as the aching-hot need pulsed within her. “Michael, please—”
“Oh, you know how much I like it when you cry my name,” he muttered, his mouth delving down once more to pleasure her breasts.
Well, that was certainly an idea. With quivering fingers that could hardly believe she was doing this, Phylis captured his hand in hers and brought him deeper, deeper inside her as she whispered, “Michael, oh, Michael, please pleasure me…”
There was a roar in his throat as Michael obeyed, curling his fingers within her and beginning a rhythm of swift pace that made Phylis’s knees quiver and her bones melt.
Oh, by Neptune, there was such sweet agony in the edge he was driving her to, driving her to but refusing to allow her further, and he had to know, this experienced lover of hers, that without that extra step, she could reach no climax.
Phylis ground herself against his hand and moaned with unrestrained frustration. “Michael, please—please make me come, Michael!”
Whether it was her words, or her tone, or the fact that she was pressing her hips forward and rubbing against what felt like a rather spectacular manhood, she did not know.
She did know that the man she adored above all others wended his thumb up toward her nub and circled it slowly but with some force.
“Oh, Michael—Michael—Michael!” Phylis came apart, her legs shaking, her back arching, her entire conscience centered around her center, which was being worked mercilessly through ecstasy. “Michael—yes!”
Her lover stroked and pleasured her relentlessly, beyond what she thought she could endure, and it was only when a second peak rose and fell and she collapsed into his arms that Michael finally slid his fingers out from her dampness.
Trying to catch her breath, wondering if she would ever remember what breath was again, Phylis blinked up into the eyes of a man who looked very satisfied.
“That,” Michael said quietly, “was almost as good as licking you out.”
Phylis quivered at the coarseness of his words—not anything she hadn’t heard before; one could not grow up on the high seas and not hear such things—but when the man who had just brought you to climax uttered such things, it made you want to…
Well. Why not?
“Phylis?”
She had kicked away her trousers and pushed Michael back a few steps before he could say another word, but it was worth it to see the look of surprise then delight on his face.
“Phylis!”
“Well, you’ve had a turn of deciding how we pleasure one another,” she pointed out—fairly, in her opinion. “Twice, if you include—”