“How can you be so arrogant and sure of yourself?”
“Even though you believe I do not care for you, it is obvious to the rest of the world that I do. You are precious to me. You are mine, and what is mine I protect, to my last dying breath if necessary. Never doubt what I carry inside for you.” The sound of his fist thumping against the bulkhead cracked so loudly in the dark, Willa feared he’d break his hand.
She sat up suddenly, intending to go to him, to calm him. But when she stood, he was there, close and warm. He cradled her face in his large, calloused hands, the same hands that shook and were clumsy during their strange, late-night wedding, or strong and deft, when he sewed up a sailor’s torn limbs.
The kiss he claimed was so soft at first that she didn’t know whether she should respond or not, but he deepened the pressure on her lips and pulled her closer. She could taste the salt on his tongue, and the scent of clean soap mingled with the musk of his bare skin flooded her senses. With each ensuing kiss, he continued to whisper, “You are more beautiful just the way you are than she could ever be.” At the last minute she panicked and tried to push him away. That was a mistake. The feel of the strong, steady beat of his heart mesmerized. She couldn’t pull away.
He thudded down onto the bunk and took her with him, pulling her back against his chest. Willa jerked away at the hard prod at her backside.
“Shhh,” he said, and whispered snippets of a strange tongue into her ear, Gaelic she supposed, as if gentling a mare. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want only to give you pleasure.”
Chapter Twelve
Cullen had grownup on his mother’s family’s Highlands estate, tending sheep, gentling horses and working side-by-side with clan tenants in the fields.
Everything he’d ever learned, everything he’d ever experienced had led to this moment with this woman. Patience, he’d decided long ago, was highly overrated, but now he understood what a precious trait it could be and how lucky he was to have had to cultivate the art throughout his life.
Willa remained stiff and alert to his every movement, his every word, his every breath. Tucking her warm, shapely bottom close within his thighs was excruciating, but he was determined to let her take the lead in love-making. His cock, of course, had other ideas, but, damn him, he’d have to wait.
His wife pushed a bit to the side, avoiding the hard-ridged intrusion. When she accidentally touched him, he sucked in a sharp breath.
“Did that hurt?” Her tone was anxious. Then she brushed her hand against him, slowly and deliberately, and he stopped breathing.
He put his hands over hers to stop further exploration. “If you don’t cease stirring up a conflagration, this will be over before we start.”
“Oh.” She turned her head, her mouth open as if forming a question. He stole another kiss and then pulled her back against him. When she squirmed and tried to turn around, he held her firm with one arm while his other hand explored the contour of a nipple-hardened breast straining against the thin muslin of her night shift. Out in the middle ship, beyond the surgery, fiddle music surged and the sounds of dancing and loud revelry drowned out Willa’s cry of pleasure.
She pushed into his hand, but Cullen lowered his head and replaced his fingers with his tongue, wetting the thin fabric over her breast. When she bucked against him in pleasure, he maneuvered their bodies into a tight, curled position on the narrow bunk.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “It’s the wrong…”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “I’m not going to hurt you, Willa. I’m not going to do anything that would get you with child. You have to trust me.”
When she stiffened and tried to pull away, he stole another soft kiss and waited, willing his body to wait, like the fox who waits for the hen house to quiet down after dark.
The air below decks was close with all the sailors and their “guests” in the midst of a raucous party. At least that was what Willa blamed for the dizzy spin of her head. And then she realized she’d stopped breathing. She took a deep, clarifying breath and regained her bearings.
The narrow bunk that barely accommodated one sleeping adult now sheltered both her and Cullen, pressed together, nearly naked, in a hot, clammy heap.
The tender skin beneath her right ear burned from the last, lingering kiss Cullen had claimed. He’d asked her to trust him. And he’d promised not to get her with child. However, she feared the hard, probing part of his body now pressed against her bottom had other ideas.
His hand had stealthily lifted her nightdress just to the juncture of her knee where he now lightly massaged the skin behind the joint. Each gentle sweep of his fingers climbed a tiny bit higher on the back of her thigh. After what seemed a blistering eternity, he headed higher, this time on the inside of her thighs.
She let out a long sigh when he abandoned her upper legs and returned to what she’d hoped he would do. He once again suckled at her breasts beneath the thin muslin. Only this time he applied harder pressure which shot straight to her center. She forgot about her carefully constructed calendar of courses and curled into him, levering one long leg over his bare hip.
In one swift rustle, he pulled her nightdress over her head and tossed it to the cabin deck.
When she drew back as if scalded, Cullen claimed her mouth in a long kiss and explored the inside of her mouth with his tongue. His clever hands returned to her breasts which seemed to have taken on lives of their own, begging shamelessly for attention.
He levered his body over hers and moved her legs apart to accommodate him on the bunk. He moved lower, and just when she thought he’d betrayed her and would enter her body in spite of his promises, he made a quarter turn and plied the entrance to her mons with his thumb. When she jerked at his touch, he stopped and returned his attention to her breasts, suckling one at a time with soft caresses to the other.
At the same time, his thumb resumed circling slowly and gently at the small nub she’d discovered long ago as a center of pleasure for herself. Only now, his insistent, light pressure stoked an unfamiliar warmth that spread to her belly. This man was a menace to her self-control.
The glow of the rowdy party in the middle deck shone down the hatchway and imbued a faint light through the canvas walls of their cabin. She could see the blanket still hanging between their two single bunks.
Where was the level-headed Dr. MacCloud who had assured her a woolen coverlet thrown across a rope would be enough to keep them safe from temptation? That was her last rational thought before she fell apart in his arms with a moan when one long finger slid into her, and then two in wetness she was sure could not be coming from her own body.
Cullen would never understand women in general. Willa in particular was an enigma within a maze of unanswered questions. As a man and master of his own world, as most of his friends believed, he didn’t have to understand Willa. She was his, his to love and protect.
