Chapter 35 #2
“I know.” She ducked her head. “And I know I must seem absurd to you. But…” She looked up. “Do you remember the first time you kissed me?”
“Of course.” An image of her, a goddess in amber, spread across the library chaise flashed across his mind.
“Do you remember how the room looked? The candles, the champagne, the firelight, and you…like a fairy-tale prince in sapphire silk.”
“A bit worse for the wear now, I’m afraid.” He brushed a curved finger over his scar.
“Not to me, not ever, not when you’re one hundred years old with white hair and wrinkles.”
“Then what is it?”
“I know that we cannot have that night or that setting again. And though I know that we will have a wedding ceremony, this is our wedding night. I wish…” She shook her head, struggling to make him understand.
“You wish it to be special,” he said, wondering how he could make it so.
He wanted her so much. He’d waited so long; he’d have tumbled her on the deck if the captain hadn’t offered them the stateroom.
But he knew that she was right, that her first time should be special.
And as he thought about it, he realized he wanted it to be special, too, for her and for them.
He glanced around the room, searching for something, flowers, candles, rose petals, a pirate’s string of pearls.
His eyes fell upon a basin of water, a sliver of soap, and a hand towel the cabin boy had left for them. He smiled and climbed off the bed.
The soap had been made with olive oil and to Elizabeth it seemed to smell of the fruit ripening in the sun.
As James bent over her, swirling the soapy water across her skin in ever-widening circles and smoothing her dry with the towel, she felt herself easing back into his hands.
He washed her as clean as she imagined any babe had ever been.
He didn’t stop. Pouring fresh water into the basin, he began to dribble it across her skin, tongue chasing the droplets, his lips sipping the water where it pooled in the hollows of her body.
She felt like the ocean beneath the ship, restless and rocking, and she arched her hips.
He dribbled water across them and it trickled between her thighs, his tongue darting after it.
Not a drop escaped him to dampen the sheets.
She spread her legs to allow him greater access, and he dribbled more water.
He parted her folds and let the water drip in a most exquisite form of torture.
Elizabeth couldn’t help herself; she began to moan low in her throat.
And when he bent to sip and suck, her hands sought his body.
She clutched at him, gripping and stroking, desperate to communicate the way he made her feel, the way he made her ache and want.
He drew himself up and kissed her and she realized he was right, she did taste of the sea, salty and sweet, and everywhere the spicy scent of olives.
She felt him, thick and heavy, against her thigh, rubbing the wetness where his hands and mouth had been and she wasn’t afraid and it wasn’t too fast—it was right.
“Elizabeth?” It was a question.
She pressed her mouth against his throat, feeling his pulse hard and fast against her lips, and murmured, “Yes.”
“I love you.” He pressed against her.
“I love you, too.” She reached down and touched him, surprised at how much more of him there was. Together, slowly, they began to guide him in.
As he filled her, there was pain, a tight and tearing pain.
She bit her lip and braced her back to prevent him from knowing, from stopping.
He kissed the sweat that beaded her brow and his fingers teased her sensitive nub, creating a pleasure that drew her up, again and again.
And there was a deeper well of pleasure.
She could feel James coming closer and closer with each thrust. And it was more important than the pain.
It was everything. She gripped him with her hands, pushed against him with her hips, reaching for it.
Like a diver reaching for a pearl buried at the bottom of the sea and running out of air, she threw herself against him, her lungs bursting, heart pounding.
She drew herself up around him, clasping him tight within her body, and found the pleasure wasn’t a pearl at all, nothing so luminous and cool; it was a ruby, fiery and intense, driving through her body and exploding red behind her tightly closed eyes.
Elizabeth and James were still wrapped tightly in each other’s arms when the boat reached the shores of England. When they disembarked, they discovered that Lord Grenville had sent a coach for Joley and James, along with fresh clothes and funds for the trip to London.
The Frenchman expressed surprise when James explained they would not be traveling with him.
“I do not understand, Lord Dinsmore…” he began. “Lord Grenville…”
“Convey my regrets to His Lordship,” James said.
“Tell him…” His eyes slid to Elizabeth. “Tell him I have some unfinished business with the Earl of Moreham.” He smiled.
“And reassure Lord Grenville that when my business is complete, the networks he desired me to establish will be knit far closer than he ever could have imagined.”