chapter sixteen

Amanda jerked helplessly as she felt his hands close over the soft flesh of her upper arms, but it was useless. His mouth came down over hers, his lips hard and hot, taking what they wanted from her shaking mouth, his tongue thrusting insolently between her teeth, daring her to fight him. When she tried to wrench her mouth away, his hand came up under her chin, his long fingers biting into her jaw as he held her still. He kissed her, over and over again, long, hungry kisses that gave no quarter to the remnants of her innocence. His hands were everywhere, not hurting her but shaming in their familiarity, roaming her body as if it were his to touch and explore. Despite her fear, the feel of those long, strong fingers with their faintly calloused tips running possessively over the crests of her breasts caused a tingle in her belly. Her nipples swelled to quivering life against the stroking hands. She felt him smile against her mouth at this evidence of her reluctant arousal, and then one hand was trapping the tender prey while his mouth moved to torment it. Amanda gasped as his teeth closed over the rosy nipple with a force that stopped just short of pain. Her eyes flew open, and her hands came up instinctively to clutch at his head. A pair of lanterns lit the cabin; by their soft glow, she could see every detail: the blackness of his hair against the pearly gleam of her breast, the whiteness of his teeth as they mouthed her quivering nipple, the bronze of the large hand that cupped her softness, holding it helpless victim to his mouth. The rough texture of his jaw and chin against her silken flesh reminded her vividly of the first time he had taken her. He had seduced her then as now, exciting her unsuspecting body to blind enchantment before destroying her girlish illusions forever with hard, thrusting pain. Remembering that pain, Amanda went rigid. Her hands, which had been curling around the back of his head, now tried to push him away.

“No,” she gasped. At her protest, he moved away from the nipple he had been alternately tormenting and enticing. His eyes as they met hers seemed to sizzle, their silvery color darkened to the shade of molten iron.

“Yes,” he said softly, baring his teeth at her in what was more a snarl than a smile. Then, to her surprise, his hands fell away from her and he stood up. Amanda lay blinking up at him, bemused, too amazed that he was letting her off so easily to do more than stare at him. She completely forgot about her nakedness until his eyes raking her body reminded her. Then she blushed and turned onto her side, groping for the rough-textured cover beneath her to pull over her quaking body.

“Be still,” he said, reaching down to remove the fold of blanket from her clutching fingers. Then his hand on her shoulder turned her onto her back again. Amanda tried to resist, but his strength was far greater than hers and reluctantly she surrendered to it. She lay on her back, one leg slightly bent as she instinctively sought to hide the silky triangle of black hair. Her arms came up to cross over her breasts in that age-old gesture of self-protection, but he wouldn’t allow that. He bent, catching both her wrists, pulling them away from her breasts and pushing them down until her palms lay flat against the bunk. When he released his grip, she would have returned her arms to their original position if a predatory gleam in those smoldering eyes had not stayed her. He watched her expectantly for some few seconds; when she made no move to defy him, his muscles relaxed slightly and one hand went to the buttons on his shirt. His eyes never left her.

“You have a beautiful body, Amanda.” His words were more a taunt at her helplessness than a compliment. “I like looking at it. It heightens the . . . anticipation.”

Even without the drawling emphasis on the last word, the movements of his fingers as they leisurely unfastened his shirt would have told Amanda that he had no intention of letting her go. He wanted her, and he would take her, whether she was willing or not. At the thought, Amanda shuddered. Matt’s eyes narrowed slightly at the convulsive tremor, and his mouth hardened and tightened.

“Please don’t do this, Matt.” At any other time Amanda’s pride would not have allowed her to beg, but the memory of the stabbing pain and subsequent degradation drove out every other consideration.

“You beg so prettily, Amanda.” Even the silkysmooth mockery of his voice frightened her. She stared up into the dark, handsome face, so familiar and yet so terrifyingly unfamiliar, with the wide-eyed fascination of a rabbit mesmerized by a snake. “I shall teach you to beg me to make love to you. I’d like that.”

“Stop it, Matt.” As he unfastened the last button and pulled his shirttails from the waistband of his pantaloons, she shuddered. Then, despite any possible consequences, she scrambled to the far corner of the bunk and huddled so that her knees came up to her chin and her arms wrapped around her legs. Her every instinct screamed for her to run, but there was no place for her to go. Matt loomed between her and the door, and even with fright sharpening her speed and strength, she knew she would never get by him. He had her trapped; she was totally at his mercy—and from the harsh gleam of his eyes, she guessed that he was not feeling merciful at the moment.

“You’ll make me hate you,” she warned, her eyes enormous as he shrugged out of his shirt and then crossed the few steps to the bootjack, where he inserted in the grooved slot first one heel and then the other, which allowed him to draw off his boots easily.

“I’d rather live with your hatred than with your love,” he said, his voice gritty with anger. “At least that’s an honest emotion. Your so-called love almost got me killed.”

“I didn’t betray you, Matt,” she cried despairingly, and then the words died in her throat as he unbuttoned his pantaloons and pushed them down his legs, then stepped out of them. As he straightened to throw them over the chair, Amanda stared at his body. Before when he had been naked, the room had been dark and she had been too dazed with passion to observe much. But now lamplight bathed the room in a soft, golden glow, illuminating every hair and sinew. And passion was the furthest thing from her mind. Her eyes grew enormous as they moved over him.

He was magnificent—and frightening. There was such strength in the broad, bronzed shoulders and muscled arms, such masculinity in the thick black hair covering the wide chest and hard, flat abdomen. His hips were narrow compared to the breadth of his shoulders, and he had dispensed with her bandage so that his wound was now exposed to the air. It had healed over, no longer raw but still a red, angry-looking gash against skin that was paler than the teak of his arms and chest. His legs were pale, too, silent testimony to the fact that they were usually decently covered when he labored in the sun. Their long, straight muscularity was not softened by the faint blurring of dark hair. Her eyes slid back up his legs to rest with a horrified inevitability on the thing between them. It was enormous, she saw as a sick feeling rose in the pit of her stomach. It jutted out from the wiry nest surrounding it with blatant male aggression. It looked swollen and hungry—and she was the meal it wanted.

“Look as long as you please,” he said softly. “We have all night.”

Her eyes jerked up to his. Mortified to have been ought looking at him, she blushed scarlet. He smiled nastily. At the unrelenting intention she could read so clearly in his eyes, she felt her throat grow dry. She swallowed, then her tongue came out to wet her parched lips.

His eyes narrowed as he observed the tiny movement.

“Then again, perhaps we have less time than I thought.” And with that husky warning, he moved, coming toward her with savage grace while she cowered away from him, gasping, huddling back into the corner, shaking her head as if to ward him off. It was useless, as she had known from the beginning it would be. Nothing was going to stop him from taking what he wanted from her. One steely hand closed over her ankle, dragging her across the bunk. She kicked at that imprisoning hand with the other foot, squirming, frantically trying to free herself from the fate that was now so close. He controlled her by capturing her other ankle as well, using them both to drag her sprawling toward him. Then he pinioned her with his body, lowering himself on top of her, his hard thighs crushing her softer ones into the thin mattress. Made reckless by fear, she tried to claw him, only to have her hands captured by his.

“Oh, no, my sharp-clawed little cat, none of that. I forgave that trick once. If you had succeeded in doing it again, you wouldn’t have liked the consequences.”

There was increasing passion as well as warning in that drawling voice. Suddenly Amanda realized that her squirming attempts to free herself were merely exciting him further. She stopped moving, her wine-red hair like spilled skeins of bright silk against the white pillow and her eyes bottomless wells of smoky purple as she stared up at him.

“Please let me go, Matt.” Her voice was breathless, husky with fright and threatened tears. He stared down at her, his eyes hard as diamonds as they moved over the pleading softness of her face, the fear plain in her wide eyes and quivering pink mouth. His face darkened, closed.

“Never in this life,” he muttered thickly, and then he was transferring her wrists to one hand, which imprisoned them over her head while his other hand came up to capture her chin. She shut her eyes helplessly as his mouth came down on hers.

Even as he kissed her he was nudging her thighs apart with his knees. Amanda tried to keep her legs together, tensing her muscles and straining against him, but his strength defeated her. At last, with a sob muffled by his devouring mouth, she gave up. He spread her legs wide and settled himself between them. She tensed as she felt the fiery hardness of him probing at her softness.

Oh, God, please help me, she thought, every muscle stiffening as she remembered the pain that had come before. Now he was pushing at her, thrusting against her, demanding entrance.

Then, as if he felt her resistance, the thrusting movements suddenly stopped. The hand that had been curled around her chin deserted its post to slide down over her body, pausing briefly to fondle first one breast and then the other before moving over her flat belly to the soft mound of hair below. Amanda gasped and began to struggle again as she felt his hand between her legs, knowing that he was bent on doing something indecent to her. His hand stoked and caressed, gentling the soft tissues he had frightened earlier. Amanda felt her muscles gradually begin to relax. No sooner had she done so than he took advantage of this lowering of her guard to slip one long, strong finger inside her.

Immediately Amanda stiffened, horrified, crying out her protest against his mouth. He drank in her cry, kissing her deeply while refusing to remove that shameful invading finger. Amanda tried to squirm free, but he held her too securely. She arched her back, fighting—and then he began to move his hand.

His finger slid softly in and out in gentler approximation of the movements his body had made before. Sometimes he withdrew it altogether, stroking the outer flesh, which had begun to grow warm and moist, then returning to the dark cave he was claiming as his own. Amanda stopped fighting him. What he was doing to her was not painful at all, unlike the other thing. It was almost pleasurable. Gradually, as he showed no sign of relenting, her muscles went limp altogether. She was actually anticipating the movements of that finger. Her hips moved once, twice, in involuntary response. The finger was abruptly removed. Amanda’s eyes opened, and she squirmed in silent protest at the cessation of that gentle teasing. Matt’s mouth, which had slid down to her breasts, came back up to cover hers. And it was while he was kissing her with hot, expert urgency that that thing began to probe once more between her thighs.

Amanda felt it and stiffened—but it was too late. It was already sliding inside her. To her surprise there was no pain, only a hot, throbbing fullness that seemed to expand as it moved deeper and deeper within her. She gasped, astonished. It was not at all like the time before . . . And then he was moving, sliding that thing in and out of her as he had his finger. Only it was infinitely more exciting.

Despite herself, Amanda began to get caught up in the urgency of his movements. Her nails dug into his shoulder, and when his mouth left hers to bury itself in the hollow between her shoulder and neck, her head tilted submissively back against the pillow, her eyes closed, making no protest. She didn’t want him to stop . . .

“Wrap your legs around me,” he whispered hoarsely in her ear. Amanda quivered, obediently moving her legs. No sooner had she done so than he stiffened, his arms tightening around her. Then he groaned, thrusting once, twice, three times into her body, the movements hard and urgent. Amanda cried out at this sudden change from gentleness to savagery. At her cry he thrust again, harder and deeper, as if he would embed himself forever in her body. Then he shuddered and became limp.

Amanda’s eyes slowly opened as she lay beneath him, feeling the heat and weight of him crushing her into the mattress, smelling the musky man-smell of him and feeling his sweat dripping onto her body. Her body felt tense, as if it were waiting for something—something that only he could give her. But he was not moving. She stared down at the top of the black head buried against her throat, at the wide, bronzed shoulders that blocked her view of the rest of their entwined forms. He was still inside her, but the hard urgency was gone. He felt softer, smaller . . . Amanda wanted to cry with frustration. She had been on the verge of something—something momentous. She knew it, though she didn’t know quite how she knew. But he had stopped . . .

He moved then, his eyes opening so that they looked into hers. They stared at each other for a long moment, unspeaking. Then he levered himself off the bunk, reaching for his pantaloons. Amanda watched him dress, unable to think of anything to say. She felt tired, drained, depleted, and also curiously on edge.

“I’m going out on deck for a while,” he said, his voice curt, his eyes remote as they slid over her. “Go to sleep.”

Amanda closed her eyes, turning on her side, pulling the bed coverings over herself. She refused to so much as look at him as he left.

It was a cold, clear night, and the driving wind was fast whipping itself into a storm. The Clorimunda was a good ship, a New England-built clipper like four of the six others he owned, but even she was having a little difficulty making headway against that wind and the surging waves. Matt watched as a sail was expertly repositioned to take maximum advantage of the wind without allowing it to overpower them, and he smiled, albeit a trifle sourly, at Zeke’s seamanship. He had taught the boy well; it was hard to remember that the “boy” was a twenty-six-year-old man and as capable a captain as Matt himself. Which was a mighty good thing for him, Matt reflected as he climbed the stairs to the quarterdeck from the captain’s cabin below it. If Zeke and the Clorimunda had not appeared when they had, he would more than likely have drowned.

After diving to escape the fusillade of bullets, he had been caught in a vicious undertow, which had pulled him willy-nilly out to sea. To fight it would have been suicide. He had had to swim with it, praying that its strength would give out before his did. It had been a close run. He had been swimming for hours, and the sun had begun to sink below the horizon, when he spotted a sail in the distance. The chances that it was even marginally friendly were not good; more than likely, he’d considered, it had been sent out to search for him. But no matter; if he had to die, hanging wasn’t so much worse than drowning, and at least if he signaled the ship—and if it saw him and picked him up—he had a chance. If it didn’t, he might not last the night. Certainly no longer, not with his muscles aching and weighing him down like lead, and the sea rising. A bitter anger was all that had kept him alive so long. He wasn’t going to die yet if he could help it. Not until he’d settled the score with Amanda.

Zeke—and if there ever was a miracle, it was that the ship had been the Clorimunda with Zeke at her helm—had thought, and freely said, that he was mad to risk so much for a girl, no matter what she had done to him. What else could one expect from a woman? Zeke had asked. They were no more than a hank of long hair and silky skin, and if they had a brain at all, it was concerned solely with their own comfort. Back-stabbing was as natural to them as fleas to a dog, and as little to be remembered or punished. That this was a fair assessment of his own usual attitude, Matt recognized. And he stubbornly refused to explain why this incident, this girl, was different. He hadn’t felt angry at a woman in years, not truly angry, not the gut-wrenching, fire-breathing kind. But now he did; he wanted to hurt Amanda as she had hurt him, to teach her what it felt like to be alone and frightened and at the mercy of something over which one had no control. He wanted her to beg for mercy . . . He had insisted that they turn about and fetch her, and Zeke, reluctantly, had bowed to the habit of obedience ingrained in him and had given in. With the proviso that he and a few of the men, not Matt himself, would go ashore . . .

“Come up for air so soon?” His brother’s jovial voice broke into his thoughts. Matt had crossed the quarterdeck and now stood beside Zeke at the wheel.

“Mmm.” He would not discuss Amanda, or his feelings for her, with anyone, not even with his brother, who had shared most of his waking thoughts for years. At the noncommittal reply, Zeke cast him a sideways glance, then rubbed the bridge of his nose in a thoughtful gesture that was characteristic of him.

“She’s a pretty little thing, but I wouldn’t have said she was quite your style. Too young, for one thing.” Zeke made this observation in a dispassionate voice, staring out at the dark waves that were growing ever taller. Matt leaned against the wheel casing, crossing his arms over his chest and regarding his brother with brooding eyes.

“She’s almost eighteen,” he said. No need to tell Zeke that Amanda was something different, special—or had been until she had betrayed him.

Zeke raised his brows and risked an inquiring look at his brother. “Want to talk about it?” he asked softly. Matt shook his head.

“No.”

“All right.” Zeke knew when to let a subject drop. For a while both brothers were silent, intent on the sea and sky and their own thoughts. Then Zeke spoke again.

“I sent Van Horn on to London to see if he can resolve your difficulties. I thought he would be best.”

“Yes.” At the moment Matt was not interested in whether Van Horn would be able to find the vital witness who would enable him to have his murder conviction reversed. The image that kept returning to his mind was Amanda, naked and lovely beneath him, Amanda frightened at first and then responding until he had once again lost control and let himself be carried away too fast for her, Amanda smiling at him, crying, trembling in his arms . . .

“Are you asleep?” Zeke’s half-humorous, half-exasperated voice finally penetrated Matt’s absorbed consciousness. “I asked you if you wanted to take the wheel.”

For a moment Matt hesitated. He was tempted, sorely tempted, to return to his cabin and Amanda, to join her in his bunk and make love to her until she discovered the ecstasy whose memory was even now heating his loins. But, he told himself, if he went below now, it would be an admission, an admission that, no matter what she had done to him, he could not resist her . . .

“I’ll take it.” He made up his mind in that instant.

“I’ll get some sleep,” Zeke said, a note of humor in his voice. “I’ll bunk with Kidd.”

Matt grunted in reply as Zeke left. Matt stood at the wheel, his hands absently enjoying the feel of the smooth wood, his feet braced against the rise and fall of the deck and his face lifted to the wind. It was good to be free again, to have a deck beneath his feet and know that tomorrow was a better than fair possibility. It was good to look up at the velvety black sky and at the endless expanse of sea . . .

Amanda. He could not get her out of his mind. She haunted him like an earthbound ghost. He didn’t have to close his eyes to see her as if she stood before him, her glorious hair blowing in the wind, her lovely face, with its exquisite bones pink and glowing. He thought of her eyes, which changed from amethyst to smoky violet to purple according to her mood, and remembered that her eyes had been as purple as pansies when he had made love to her. From fear at first, then from passion . . . As he had thought, she was marvelous in bed. She excited him as no other woman had ever succeeded in doing. It seemed that he was always losing control when she was around, both of his temper and of his passion, and his control and ability to pleasure a woman were two things on which he had prided himself. It galled him to admit that a schoolgirl could reduce him to the endurance level of a white-hot boy with his first woman, but it was true. Just the thought of that slender, perfect shape, of those pale breasts like small melons with their strawberry tips, of the narrow waist and curving hips, the long, luscious legs and the dark triangle of hair between them was enough to make him tug uncomfortably at his crotch. She excited him, even now, when she was as untutored as a baby. What would she do to him when he had taught her a little more of what it was all about?

The knowledge of her betrayal sat like a stone in his stomach. He thought he knew why she had done it; it had happened in a fit of temper, because of the way he had taken her and his anger afterward. At least, he hoped that was how it was. He could understand, if not forgive, a sudden burst of anger. He had, he supposed, behaved badly that night. But his emotions had been as raw and confused as hers. He had wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman in his life; not just her body but Amanda herself. And she’d said that she loved him. He hadn’t acknowledged the admission in any way, but it had wormed its way into his heart and lodged there, warming him. At the time she had said it, he had been too caught up in the needs of his body to give the words the attention they deserved; later, afterward, when he had pulled them out to examine them, she had been cold and angry with him, refusing to repeat them or give him any hint that she had meant them. It had hurt damnably, if he was honest, and the hurt had made him angry, too. So he had stalked out and she had gotten even. By turning him over to the authorities, to be hanged, as she must have thought.

Throughout that long swim, he had promised himself he would make her pay for what she had done to him. Tonight, when Zeke had dumped her on the floor at his feet, he had felt a cold, hard anger and a colder satisfaction. He had meant to rape her, to punish her for what she had done to him in the oldest, most primitive way known to man. But when it came to the point, when he had felt her soft, silky body stiff with fear beneath his, heard her voice breathing his name, husky with pleading, seen the fright in the huge purple eyes, he had not been able to. He had realized, with a sick sensation in the pit of his stomach, that he would sooner cut off his arm than harm a hair of her head.

He had realized something else, too: he loved her.

And the thought terrified him.