’Twas this place. It was getting into her head.
Aye, she couldn’t think of garnering pleasure from this pirate. Nay! She should be outraged. Yet, she was not. If anything, her blood heated. The place between her legs thrummed with need. Ignoring all of her logical thoughts.
Indeed, she would secretly enjoy it if the captain were to climb atop her and thrust himself between her thighs.
She whimpered before realizing the noise had escaped her.
Noir turned from his companions then and, dark stormy eyes locked with hers. His gaze moved over her face, pausing at the lip she had tucked between her teeth down to her rapidly rising and falling chest. Her nipples tingled, already hard and begging for his mouth to clasp the flesh between his teeth, to lick and suckle her.
Her emotions must have flitted across her face, as the captain smiled at her in a devilish and inviting way. He slowly stalked to ward her, standing at the foot of the bed. The front of him was even more impressive than his back.
His chest and stomach were sculpted into ridges and valleys tapering down to his navel, where the sprinkling of his chest hair came to a line that led directly beneath his breeches.
“Welcome back, lass,” he said smoothly.
Faryn nodded, tugging at the ties.
Her body might have pulsed a tune of anxious anticipation but her mind screamed nay. She
couldn’t allow this to happen. She had to stall for time. Time for her to figure out a way to escape.
She tore her gaze from Noir’s magnificent body and stared at the impossibly high ceiling.
Tears pooled in her eyes again. She’d only been in Orelia’s lair for a few hours and already she was changing. Already her morals were leaving her. Everything she valued tossed to the wind.
Everything she believed in—gone.
The mattress moved beneath her and from her peripheral vision she watched the queen stand and saunter toward the captain.
“You have one hour to prepare her for what is to happen. I will be most disappointed if she doesn’t open her legs for you willingly and equally disappointed if she doesn’t enjoy it.”
Faryn closed her eyes, though she couldn’t close her ears.
God help her, she would be ruined.
Yet, she didn’t have much choice. Be ruined, or forever a slave in this place.
Faryn chose ruined and free.
C H A P T E R F O U R
Desire had filled the innocent depths of the Faryn’s eyes as she’d greedily taken in the sight of Wraith’s half-nude body. Just as quickly fear, anger and hurt had replaced it and she’d turned away.
He’d seen the calculation in Orelia’s eyes as she’d watched the interplay between them. She’d seen a way out of her bargain. A way to keep the girl, who he was sure she wanted for herself.
One hour.
Was one hour enough for him to convince the lass to be willing, to make her pleasure known?
Noir was not at all in doubt he could give her pleasure, but asking a shy virgin to show it in front of others was a whole other difficulty.
He pulled on his shirt, hoping that by covering his naked chest he would be able to quell some of her fears, have her listen to and concentrate on his words.
She still stared up at the ceiling and now he could see moisture on her cheeks. She was crying.
Pulling a thin sheet from a chest against the wall, he walked slowly forward and sat down on the bed beside her. Gently, he covered her with the sheet, and relief flooded him when she turned her gaze toward his, the hate gone from her eyes.
“Thank ye, but why did ye do that?” Her voice was small, and he hated that.
He hated that she was scared. That this woman who’d come at him with a flashing tongue could be cut down to something so small. Hated that when they’d raided Ireland, she’d been rounded up and tossed below decks. Hated that he’d not even bothered to see who had been taken, and only come to see her when she was being whipped at the mast nearly a month later. He wasn’t idiot enough to flatter himself that the would have rescued her for something better had he gone below to the slave hold to see their newly acquired flesh, but he liked to think he might have.
“Ye looked cold,” he murmured with a smile.
“Ye lie, Captain.” Her words were filled with mirth and accompanied by a small smile. “Ye seek to comfort me. But ye needna do such a thing. I know what I must do, and I promise I will do it. Ye shall have me, ye shall have my family’s coin. And I shall be free.”
More than her fear, he hated the fact that he would bed her only because she wanted freedom. He wanted her to desire him. He wanted her to beg him. But with a woman of her stature, her moral code, such a thing would be impossible without marriage. Marriage was not up for bargain.
But perhaps he could hint… and that would help to assuage her.
“Leannan, ” he sighed. “I know ye to be of noble birth. And while a pirate may not be who ye’d thought would take away your most valued possession, it is so. If it pleases ye—”
She rolled her eyes and chuckled, shocking him into silence.
“Captain Noir, please dinna tell me ye are about to humble yourself and offer marriage to me?”
He couldn’t speak, only stared.
“Ye can if ye wish, but know that I will deny ye. I am betrothed already and he is sure to find us upon the open sea for my wedding date is set to be very soon, and rain holy hell down upon ye.”
“Do ye love this man?”
She crinkled up her face and snorted. “Does any woman ever love the man her parents have chosen for her to marry because it will strengthen both families’ place in the realm and their coffers?”
“Nay,” he said flatly, his lips thinning.
“I sense from your response that perhaps ye were at one time betrothed?” She shifted on the bed, the sheet sneaking down to expose the tops of her breasts.
Why did that bit of flesh entice him more than seeing her nude had? He could imagine every inch of her breasts. Imagine pulling the sheet away with his teeth to nip at her tender flesh.
He snapped his gaze back to hers. “I was once. But ’twas long ago and in another lifetime.”
“Truly?” Her eyes narrowed as she tried to read him.
The little imp. “On my honor.”
At that, she laughed aloud. “Captain, ye have no honor. Ye’re a pirate set to steal ladies from their beds and plunder their riches.”
At her choice of words, he too chuckled. He didn’t know why but a piece of the steel he’d surrounded himself with to protect his identity opened. This woman was able to wrench a hole in his armor. “’Tis true of me now but I havena always been Captain Wraith Noir, lass. Everyone has secrets.”
“Tell me yours.”
Her gentle demand was alluring. Made him want to open up to her, to tell her his secrets, confidences that had never passed his lips. Get hold of yourself, man! He was about to spill his entire life story in her lap when he should be enticing her to enjoy what they were soon to experience so they could both escape alive.
“If I told ye, they wouldna be secrets anymore.”
“So mysterious ye are, Noir. Ye know nearly everything about me, and yet I know nothing about ye.”
“’Tis not about the knowing. Besides, I know naught of ye.”
She grunted skeptically. “Then what is it about?”
She had him there. How to answer her? Wraith sighed deeply. He was no good at this wooing thing. The women he cavorted with came to him, hopped on his lap and demanded a ride.