Sometime after six bells—Samantha’s new but limited bell knowledge had become a tiny source of pride with her. The only occasions when she was positive about the time were at three, seven, and eleven o’clock.
It was a bit after those six bells next morning when the surgeon James referred to as Stitch returned to remove the sutures from Samantha’s hip.
“Looks well healed. A miracle considering the infection, but there’ll be no helping the scar.” He finished quickly. “You can be moving about a might freer now. The rest of the prisoners have been allowed to spend time on deck. Might do you some good, as well. Clean air and sunshine is the best medicine, but take it slow. Your legs will feel like pudding for a few days still.”
Stitch covered her once more with the sheet. “Course you’ll be needing some breeches. I had to cut away the ones you came with when they first carried you into the surgery.” He turned to James, who’d been working and watching from his desk. “I could scrounge her up a pair.”
“Thank you. That would be helpful. She’s not going on deck wearing nothing but my best shirt.”
Samantha smiled as she fussed with the cuffs. In the last few days, she’d been out of his best shirt more than she’d been in. She thanked the doctor and waited until the door closed behind him before she swung her legs out of bed and took her first official stroll.
It was fourteen steps over dangerous terrain of smooth polished wood and thick wool rugs to reach her final destination--James’s lap. The doctor was right. Her legs were as watery as the sea. Grasping the edges of the desk, she reached her goal. Her reward was the feel of his arms circling her.
“Well done.” He kissed her.
“I’ll be climbing the center mast before you know it.”
“I’d wait for the breeches.” He trailed a finger up her thigh.
Samantha shivered out of a sudden rush of anticipation, but James was quick to pull his hand away as if he’d done something wrong. The scene from yesterday morning continued to hang heavy between them. She behaved irrationally, but at the time, coming from a sound sleep, she had little control over her reaction to him coming into the bed. Still, James didn’t deserve the reception he received. He’d been nothing but kind and loving. He’d shown incredible restraint and patience. To panic like that… without cause… She was embarrassed and angry with herself, and more angry at the man whose ugliness still tainted her.
Her fearful reaction to James’s had been born out of months having to defending herself on those horrible nights Wessler chose to visit her bed. She’d been trained to expect the worst. She hated that Wessler’s poison still had a hold upon her, and she wished she could come up with the words to try and explain it to James.
Reaching out to take his hand, she returned it brazenly to where it had been on her thigh. She looked into his summer-sky eyes. “If I trembled, it was because now I’m free to be as loud as I wish in your bed.”
He dropped his forehead to hers. “I hate that I frightened you.”
“I hate it too, but not for the reasons you think.” She wound her arms around James’s neck and kissed him. “I’m sorry for yesterday. You are nothing like him. Not in the tiniest way. I despise the shadow he’s cast across what is only good and wonderful between us. He may have stolen a piece of my soul, but I won’t allow him to touch the piece that belongs to you. It’s hard to find the words to explain. It isn’t like a wound you can stitch back together. I’m not sure if I’ll ever fully heal from what’s happened, but it’s unfair to you—to us—to have it ruin a single second.”
“Nothing is ruined,” he assured her in a whisper, smoothing the hair away from her cheek.
She whispered back. “It is if you’re afraid to touch me.”
He held her gaze and allowed his hand to move higher. “I love you. I’ll never hurt—”
Samantha stopped his words with a fingertip. “You can stop with ‘I love you.’ It’s all you ever need say to me.” With her other hand she guided his touch higher still. “Or better yet, you could show me.”
When his fingers slipped between the folds of her sex, she gave a small gasp. He sucked the tip of her silencing finger into his mouth as he urged her to open for him. Delicious tremors raced along her limbs. His touch was achingly slow.
Samantha moved upon his fingers with tiny shifts of her hips and whimpered. James angled a line of kisses down the side of her throat. He paused to nip at the sensitive bend where her neck curved into the line of her shoulder. The combination of sensations was magical. She pulled the leather thong holding his hair allowing her to bury her hands in its rich thickness and pulling him to her. James murmured his approval against her skin. The timber of his voice rumbled through her.
His feather-light strokes soothed while igniting an unknown urgency inside her. She arched into him. “James…please.”
He lifted his head, captured her lips, and stopped his intimate caresses only long enough to scoop her into his arms and carry her back those fourteen steps—he made them in eight—to lay her on the bed.
She smiled up at him. “I could have walked.”
“You need to save your strength,” he grinned, hovering over her before dipping his head and pulling the tip of her breast into his mouth. He hadn’t even bothered to remove his best shirt, but sucked at her nipple through the fabric in his haste, dampening the fine linen.
“Take it off me,” she insisted, backing away from his impatient mouth. She needed to feel that impatience on her skin. With one simple tug, she was naked, where James was still dressed all the way to his perfectly knotted neckcloth.
“You truly are beautiful.” He made a slow study of her, from the tips of her toes to the cap of her unruly hair. He grazed the angry pink of her scar with a fingertip.
It embarrassed her to see its ugliness. “All except there.” She covered it, but James pulled away her hand.
“Don’t hide it. It’s part of you. A sign of bravery and—”
“Utter foolishness,” she countered.
“No.” He leaned down and kissed the injured skin. “Not many women would have rushed into a battle to fight for a friend. You’re brave and noble.” From her hip, he laid a tender kiss on the flat of her belly, the dip at the juncture of her ribs. The muscles in her abdomen shimmered with pleasure. Her heart fluttered like a trapped bird.
Samantha’s breath raced in anticipation as he concentrated his attention on her left breast. Cupping it, he teased the tight tip with his thumb before taking it between his lips. A wave of pleasure crashed over her. It was almost more than she could bear.
“James…please…” She begged him again, for what she couldn’t have said. Samantha could no longer offer him her innocence, but every cherished feeling, each tender sensation felt new, unknown, undiscovered. In all ways but one, she was still a virgin.
She tugged at his shirtsleeve. James gave a final swirl of his tongue around the edge of her swollen nipple before lifting his heavy-lidded gaze to her. When he licked his lips and smiled like a cat who’d stolen the cream, part of her dissolved into molten honey.
Samantha began tugging the buttons of his waistcoat from their holes, one after the other. “I-I need to see you. Touch you.” Her fingers fumbled with the normally easy task, but he had her shaking with want.
Even in undressing, he deliberately took his time, carefully removing each piece of clothing with excruciating care. “Are you trying to torture me?” she sighed.
He pulled the shirt from his trousers and tossed it to one side. “No. I want to savor you.”
“Or tease me until I become nothing but a trembling pool of desire?” She fingered the defined muscles of his stomach. James took her hand and lowered it to rest on the solid ridge of his erection trapped within the confines of his trousers. When she curled her fingers over the swollen shaft, she could feel the heat of him radiating through the fabric. He closed his eyes and pulled in a great breath before opening them again. “Then I’ll drown in your arms a very happy man.”
He was quicker removing his boots, and finally his trousers, but to Samantha’s impatient sense, it took far too long. But then he stood before her. Strong. Defined. Aroused.
“I chose the most handsome man at the dance,” she murmured.
Samantha left the bed to stand before him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she aligned her body along the solid length of him before lifting her mouth to his.
James ran his hands down her back and over the curve of her bottom, hauling her tight to him. “I much prefer this outfit on you.” His hands smoothed over her skin, fanning the embers into flames once more. Gently, he raised one of her knees and lifted it to rest high upon his hip. The positioning of her moist sex against him made her plead with him once more to hurry.
“Please…”
He backed her toward the bed. In one exquisite move, he had her on her back and positioned himself between her thighs. The strength and power of him surrounded her.
A sudden wave of panic crashed over Samantha. Instinct wove a past thread of fear to tangle with the heat of her current desire. Her body tensed in preparation for an assault. But none came.
James made love to her. Gently. Slowly. With his whole self. Kissing and stroking every inch of her with such profound tenderness, it made her weep. With each touch, he erased all any fear.
When he finally pushed into her, filled her with the solid length of his cock, she shuddered around him. Her body surged into a swell of release that took her breath and left her trembling beneath him.
He found a rhythm, slow, strong, fervent. Each press of his hips burying him deeper. Filling her, fusing him to her like none other, reaching a place within her she had never known.
A new urgency built within her. She ignored the dull pull of her wound and began to move with him, clutching at the slick skin of his back and buttocks. Pulling him deeper, she lifted her hips to meet the strength of his. She sighed his name, urging him faster.
Samantha cried out at the sheer pleasure of sensations racing through her. In response, James moaned deep in his chest, as he was somehow able to fit an arm beneath her and lift her hips into a new position. The new angle of his thrusts undid her. Curling over her, he ground out her name, “Samantha…sweet God, I love you...”
Arching her back, she bucked beneath him as her body soared straight into the sun.