“God, you’re like holding a hot coal!” His hands dropped lower and pressed me hard against him.
“Firm is it? Ha,” I said, getting my mouth free for a moment. “Take those baggy things off.” I slid down his length and onto my knees in front of him, fumbling mazily at his flies. He freed the laces with a quick jerk, and the petticoat breeches ballooned to the floor with a whiff of wind.
I didn’t wait for him to remove his shirt; just lifted it and took him. He made a strangled sound and his hands came down on my head as though he wanted to restrain me, but hadn’t the strength.
“Oh, Lord!” he said. His hands tightened in my hair, but he wasn’t trying to push me away. “This must be what it’s like to make love in Hell,” he whispered. “With a burning she-devil.”
I laughed, which was extremely difficult under the circumstances. I choked, and pulled back a moment, breathless.
“Is this what a succubus does, do you think?”
“I wouldna doubt it for a moment,” he assured me. His hands were still in my hair, urging me back.
A knock sounded on the door, and he froze. Confident that the door was indeed bolted, I didn’t.
“Aye? What is it?” he said, with a calmness rather remarkable for a man in his position.
“Fraser?” Lawrence Stern’s voice came through the door. “The Frenchman says the black is asleep, and may he have leave to go to bed now?”
“No,” said Jamie shortly. “Tell him to stay where he is; I’ll come along and relieve him in a bit.”
“Oh.” Stern’s voice sounded a little hesitant. “Surely. His…um, his wife seems…eager for him to come now.”
Jamie inhaled sharply.
“Tell her,” he said, a small note of strain becoming evident in his voice, “that he’ll be there…presently.”
“I will say so.” Stern sounded dubious about Marsali’s reception of this news, but then his voice brightened. “Ah…is Mrs. Fraser feeling somewhat improved?”
“Verra much,” said Jamie, with feeling.
“She enjoyed the turtle soup?”
“Greatly. I thank ye.” His hands on my head were trembling.
“Did you tell her that I’ve put aside the shell for her? It was a fine hawksbill turtle; a most elegant beast.”
“Aye. Aye, I did.” With an audible gasp, Jamie pulled away and reaching down, lifted me to my feet.
“Good night, Mr. Stern!” he called. He pulled me toward the berth; we struggled four-legged to keep from crashing into tables and chairs as the floor rose and fell beneath us.
“Oh.” Lawrence sounded faintly disappointed. “I suppose Mrs. Fraser is asleep, then?”
“Laugh, and I’ll throttle ye,” Jamie whispered fiercely in my ear. “She is, Mr. Stern,” he called through the door. “I shall give her your respects in the morning, aye?”
“I trust she will rest well. There seems to be a certain roughness to the sea this evening.”
“I…have noticed, Mr. Stern.” Pushing me to my knees in front of the berth, he knelt behind me, groping for the hem of my shift. A cool breeze from the open stern window blew over my naked buttocks, and a shiver ran down the backs of my thighs.
“Should you or Mrs. Fraser find yourselves discommoded by the motion, I have a most capital remedy to hand—a compound of mugwort, bat dung, and the fruit of the mangrove. You have only to ask, you know.”
Jamie didn’t answer for a moment.
“Oh, Christ!” he whispered. I took a sizable bite of the bedclothes.
“Mr. Fraser?”
“I said, ‘Thank you’!” Jamie replied, raising his voice.
“Well, I shall bid you a good evening, then.”
Jamie let out his breath in a long shudder that was not quite a moan.
“Mr. Fraser?”
“Good evening, Mr. Stern!” Jamie bellowed.
“Oh! Er…good evening.”
Stern’s footsteps receded down the companionway, lost in the sound of the waves that were now crashing loudly against the hull. I spit out the mouthful of quilt.
“Oh…my…God!”
His hands were large and hard and cool on my heated flesh.
“You’ve the roundest arse I’ve ever seen!”
A lurch by the
“Shh!” He clasped a hand over my mouth, bending over me so that he lay over my back, the billowing linen of his shirt falling around me and the weight of him pressing me to the bed. My skin, crazed with fever, was sensitive to the slightest touch, and I shook in his arms, the heat inside me rushing outward as he moved within me.
His hands were under me then, clutching my breasts, the only anchor as I lost my boundaries and dissolved, conscious thought a displaced element in the chaos of sensations—the warm damp of tangled quilts beneath me, the cold sea wind and misty spray that wafted over us from the rough sea outside, the gasp and brush of Jamie’s warm breath on the back of my neck, and the sudden prickle and flood of cold and heat, as my fever broke in a dew of satisfied desire.
Jamie’s weight rested on my back, his thighs behind mine. It was warm, and comforting. After a long time, his breathing eased, and he rose off me. The thin cotton of my shift was damp, and the wind plucked it away from my skin, making me shiver.
