He'd gone back topside today leaving her confused and wanting to sort out her powerful feelings. When he'd revealed he hadn't hurt her crew, she'd been floundering from her first glimpse of Sutherland's unreserved smile. Her flustered brain could formulate only one word. Devastating.
She thought he would make love to her tonight. While she was nervous about the actual act, she was calm about the ramifications of it. She'd realized today that her feelings for him went deeper than mere lust. She didn't know if she could call it love, but whatever gripped her was boundless in its strength.
The door opened and creaked closed. When Sutherland began undressing, even the mundane sounds of his disrobing made her skin tighten and heat pool between her legs. She couldn't stand another night of this; something had to give.
He'd taught her months ago what it was she desired, and now the craving, the wanting, wouldn't recede, only kept building. When he sank down next to her and put his arms around her, it took every ounce of will not to turn and place her lips and tongue against his skin.
He pulled her closer, and she worked to slow her breathing, but when his stiff arousal pulsed against her back, her breaths hitched in and panted out.
Tonight was different for him as well. Instead of lying tense beside her for half the night before exhaustion finally claimed him, he moved over her, and with a tiny flick of his tongue kissed the sensitive skin of her ear. She stifled a moan as her body trembled, quivered even more when he skimmed his lips down to where her shoulder met her neck.
What did it matter if he knew she was awake and wanted him? She couldn't hate him any longer. And without that barrier, she found her feelings rushing in a completely opposite direction. She couldn't stop this and didn't want to.
When he grazed the backs of his fingers over the night-shirt covering her nipple, she gasped with pleasure, but the sound made him take his hand away. She wanted to cry in frustration. So many nights like this, so much passion. Not another wasted second.
She grasped his arm behind her and brushed her fingers down it until she found his hand. Before she could lose her nerve, she placed it back on her breast. He sucked in a breath and groaned as he cupped her and thumbed her nipple.
She rubbed up against his front, gladdened by the hard feel of him, aroused by his manhood, impossibly still growing as it pressed against her. She moaned low in her throat. At once, he turned her on her back, covering her mouth and body with his own, moving his hips. When he raised himself on his arms, she looked down and saw his manhood thrust against her and then land over her belly again and again. The sculpted muscles above his groin and banded over his chest and shoulders strained, bulging under her grasping hands.
He dipped his head and ran his lips over her aching nipples, first one, then the other, wetting the cloth that covered them. It was too much. She couldn't stop her hips from rising to him. She even thought she might find that overwhelming pleasure at that second--she was so close.
"Nicole, I won't be able to stop after much longer. Tell me now, or I swear I'll take you," he bit out. This time instead of rubbing sinuously over her, his straining flesh caught against the juncture of her thighs, pushing into the cloth covering her, demanding entrance.
She shook her head back and forth. "No, I want you.... I want to finally feel you inside me."
He hissed in a breath at her words. "There's no turning back from this." He lowered his head again to her tight nipples.
"I feel like I'll die. Please..." she breathed as she undulated beneath him, opening her legs wide for him.
Whatever tenuous restraint he possessed snapped. He groaned, a brutal masculine sound, and ripped apart her shirt. She shook. Lord, his strength, his size--she responded to that latent power emanating from his body even as she feared it. If he was losing control as she was...
He teased her with his finger.
Lightly caressing her at first, then gradually stroking her inside, with one finger, then two, and nothing else mattered. Each time he drove into her with his fingers, his whole body rose up over her, his stiff manhood probing against her thigh, as if preparing her for what he was about to do.
But her body couldn't wait. That delicious pressure gathered within her until she went senseless, sobbing out his name, head thrashing...eventually feeling nothing but the cold air on her tight nipples and the powerful squeezing around his relentless fingers.
"Ah, God, Nicole, I feel you--I can't stop now," he said, his voice pained as he put a hand on each thigh and opened her legs wider to him. Her eyes soaked up his every movement. His neck, his arms, even the muscles in his jaw were set with tension. He fought so hard not to hurt her that he punished himself.
"Don't hold back, don't..." She raised her hands to his chest and drew her nails down his rock-hard torso. He shuddered. She boldly rose up and grasped his manhood, fascinated fingers smoothing over the taut velvet heat of his skin.
"Nicole, don't..."
He sounded in pain, but then he made the smallest thrusting movement against her palm and she continued exploring him. She thumbed the slit at the top, and his body jerked. Her eyes widened when the thick tip grew moist against the pad of her finger, and she moaned even before he did. He threw his head back as she continued to run curious fingers over him, running his length, cupping the heavy sack beneath, until he lowered his chin, his eyes coming back to bore into her own.
He pushed her down into the mattress, brushed her fingers away, and gripped himself. Slowly, with a shaking hand, he positioned his rod, running it up and down her flesh, making her even wetter. Hot with embarrassment, she turned her face from him.
"No, Nicole. You're perfect." He kneaded her thighs. "Tonight, I'll kiss you there and show you how much I love your response."
Her mouth opened wordlessly. Kiss her there...? She had only a second to wonder; then he pushed into her. The unyielding head was inside her, stretching her, coming to fulfill her. He withdrew and slowly pushed in farther.
"Oh, God. Please! Sutherland. More." How many times he did this she couldn't know, because the quickening pleasure gathered again....
But there was a sound from outside their cabin, dimly heard by her, a knocking, then a frantic hammering on the door. She didn't know how long someone had been outside and didn't care. Her mind was focused on the feelings cascading through her body. The tight feel of him just inside her. The coil in her belly, the beginning tremors inside...
Just when she thought he would give her all of himself, he pulled away and rose out of bed. He left her feeling empty, bereft, her body quaking.
"What the bloody hell is it?" he yelled--she had never heard him so angry. When he came back to her, he scooped up her unresisting body to enfold her on his lap. Beneath her bottom, he was hard, and she became confused, not understanding why he hadn't taken his pleasure with her.
He bent down and dropped a kiss in her hair before setting her on the side of the bed and standing. "Get your clothes on, love, and quickly." He ran his gaze down her flushed body and bit out a curse. "We've got trouble."
Chapter 19
T he battered Southern Cross limped its way toward Sydney. Split ribbons waved in the wind where sails had once been. A bystander would swear dead men littered the deck, so dazed was the crew by the events spanning the last interminable hours.
Derek thought of all the times he'd wished for a storm, a true test of him and his crew, and shook his head. If not for this last storm, he'd already have made Nicole his. He tried not to think of how close he'd been or how unimaginably perfect she'd felt. He'd managed for most of the storm, since he'd never had time to think of anything but survival.
The life or death of the Southern Cross had been down to the wire. He'd fought and had made his crew fight harder than he'd ever seen men struggle to stay alive. No one slept; it was a constant, grueling vigil. He looked down at his sliced palms and was sure he had lacerations over most of his body. Strange, he didn't feel the pain.
He knew and his men had no doubt as to what
had possessed him during the storm. He'd been a madman, making them struggle like animals for each quarter they could get from the waves and wind.
In the beginning, part of him had believed he'd lose his ship, and he'd labored instinctively out of the fear of death. Then he'd glanced down at Nicole. Down to where she'd disobeyed him to stand on deck. He'd seen such a blind trust in her eyes, a trust in him written everywhere in her pale face, that he'd been rocked by the force of it. She was telling him that she knew he'd protect her.
Now, he looked over to the bow where she strained to see Sydney, the hair outside her cap flowing behind her. He remembered how brave she'd been, and he recalled that he'd been proud of her. Wasn't that an emotion you saved for your family, pride in another? Yet when she'd pitched in and helped everyone, oftentimes pulling on the rigging right beside another sailor, he'd felt his chest swell. His memories were foggy after that. Hadn't his crew looked at her in wonder? Hadn't they secretly made sure some part of her was secured to the ship at all times?
"Ahoy there!" Jeb called out to an approaching fisherman, interrupting Derek's thoughts. "Any news of the Great Circle?"
"Aye," a sun-scalded man in the small dinghy answered. He pointed a finger toward Derek. "You Sutherland?"
Derek nodded, and the man called out, "Hate like hell to be the one to tell you this. The Desirade arrived here yesterday."
His jaw clenched. The Desirade was Tallywood's ship, and if he had to lose, he didn't want it to be to that worthless scrap of a man. Especially not when he suspected Tallywood of sabotage. Though he wanted to smash something, he forced himself to thank the fisherman.
He hadn't really cared about this race, but he'd found he wanted to impress Nicole by winning. He wanted to share the victory since she couldn't have it on her own.
He felt her place her hand on his arm. It was comforting to him that she understood his frustration. His voice was toneless even to his own ears as he said, "I thought I had him."
She uttered a quick, humorless laugh. "So did I."
Her comment put things into perspective. She'd lost everything, while he'd only lost a race. He vowed then that it wouldn't matter, because he'd build Peregrine back with or without the win. She squeezed the hand he'd wrapped around her own. "We're closing in on the harbor. We don't have much time."