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Taking it slow as treacle poured over sponge cake on a chilly day, Philip removed her satin wedding dress, frilly undergarments, and brand new, extremely tight corset. Thank God!
Beryl wanted to rub her sore skin, and even scratch a little, but restrained herself. That wouldn’t be very ladylike or enticing.
Instead, she basked in the way he looked at her, the exclamations of endearment as he uncovered more and more of her to his hungry gaze.
Yes, she was going to like passionate love and desire far more than the lukewarm arrangement she’d had with Arthur.
Having Philip undress her was gloriously arousing. However, she was far more interested when he took off his own shirt to reveal a broad chest with flat nipples and a sprinkling of dark hair. Hm.
And the ridges of muscle across his stomach drew her hands to his body at once, unable to keep from touching him even as it caused a flutter low in her hips.
She was even more spellbound when he shucked off his pants and—
“Gracious!” she exclaimed, clasping her hand instantly around his stiff shaft as it sprang free. “How on earth did you keep that in there? Why don’t men wear larger trousers?”
He didn’t seem to be able to speak, kneeling next to her on the bed, his eyes closed as she explored his body.
Finally, his hand whipped out and halted her touch.
“Love, you must stop, or we will be done before we begin.”
“I have no idea what you mean. Look.” She pointed out the bead of liquid on the end of his manhood.
His laugh sounded pained. Then pushing her down onto the bed, without delay, he covered her mouth with his. Their kiss, as usual, began with a simple melding of mouths, and then his tongue entered her parted lips and began to explore.
She sucked gently on the invading marauder, enjoying the feel of his hands on her skin. And then, as had happened when he’d entered her bedroom weeks earlier, she could feel dampness gathering between her thighs.
“I think I am ready.”
Silence.
“Philip?”
He sighed. “Just let me love you. Remember, I am the one doing the plundering.”
She giggled but stopped as soon as he began to trail kisses down her sensitive skin, drawing her nipples into his hot mouth, one after the other, before going lower to blow on her damp curls.
In fact, by the time he nudged her legs apart and fit the head of his shaft to her opening, she could hardly breathe.
“Hurry,” Beryl said, digging her fingers into his buttocks, pulling him toward her.
“It will hurt a little, I’m told,” he warned her.
“Oh, then don’t hurry. Just—”
He entered her, gliding into the area of her body that was pulsing with need.
“Ow,” she uttered.
He froze. “Is it terribly painful?”
“No. You may continue.”
Still, he didn’t move.
“Really,” she assured him, “it doesn’t hurt anymore. Carry on ravishing me.”
He snickered softly. “This is the strangest—”
“Please, don’t tell me you’re comparing me to other women whom you’ve made love to. Or I shall lose all enthusiasm for this undertaking.”
“Of course not.” Philip dropped a kiss on her lips, a long, unhurried one, even as she could feel his manhood throbbing fiercely inside her.
As he tugged at her lower lip with his teeth, she realized the pulse between her thighs matched the heartbeat in his chest pressed against her own.
What a wondrous thing!
Lifting his head, his dark eyes were glittering with desire, or was that the sheen of love?
“I was only going to say this is the strangest, most polite pirate plundering that ever was. I’m sure of it,” he insisted. “And now that I know what it feels like, I promise you I have never made love before.”
She smiled, tilting her hips in invitation for him to start moving again. Rather urgently now, she wanted the heady, thrilling sensation he’d given her in her bedroom.
He slid farther into her heated channel, and she gasped at the fullness. Then he drew out, and she gasped again as her body seemed to squeeze and hold onto him, causing a delicious tugging feeling.
With easy movements of his hips, Philip repeated the action, gliding in and out, and she wrapped her legs around the back of him, clasping her hands onto his broad shoulders and hanging on.
Panting and lightheaded, the release she sought was just beyond her reach, until he slipped his hand between their bodies and touched the center of her desire, the throbbing nubbin he’d stroked when first he’d touched her in her own bed.
It catapulted her into the heavens, as her coiled pleasure tightened and then expanded with blissful release.
Crying out, she clung to him, feeling his body tense under her touch, and then after a rapid surging motion that filled her completely, he voiced a guttural, exciting sound of absolute masculinity. She felt him spend his warm seed into her womb, and then he settled a moment on top of her, his body heated and his skin damp.
When she was about to beg for air, Philip rolled off of her, and they lay side-by-side staring at the cabin ceiling.
After a moment, she said the first thing that came to her wool-wrapped, exhausted brain. “I’m awfully glad I was kidnapped and you saved me.”
Wordlessly, he drew her into his arms, pulled the counterpane over them, and took her with him into a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
AN INSISTENT SCRATCHING at the cabin door awakened him, and Philip could see by the waning light through the portholes, they’d slept the day away.
Yesterday, he’d imagined spending this day in the bottom of a bottle of brandy, knowing Beryl was off on her honeymoon. Instead, he’d spent it curled around the woman he loved. A miracle!
The clawing sound became more adamant. The moggy was hungry or perhaps thirsty, for Philip might not have remembered to put down a bowl of water. Or, more likely, Leo simply wanted to annoy him.
“You’d best let him in,” came her soft voice beside him, “before he ruins the door.”
“Why don’t you do it,” he suggested, “and I’ll watch you.”
She laughed, a lovely sound. “If he’s hungry, he’s not the only one. I’m ravenous,” she declared.
And just as a pirate’s wench should, she got out of bed stark naked and padded across the new rug to the cabin door, letting Philip ogle her backside. He would never get tired of that particular view.
She pulled the door open only a few inches, and Leo strolled in, ran across the rug, and jumped directly onto the tangled bed clothes. Then he froze.
“I think he was hoping you were in the bed, not me,” Philip observed.
She poured them each the last of the champagne and sauntered back to him, clearly knowing she had all his attention.
Handing him a glass, she climbed in. Sure enough, the cat relaxed, settling into a warm, round ball between them.
Beryl giggled. “I guess he wasn’t hungry, but I still am.”
“You are insatiable,” Philip declared.
“I meant for food,” she clarified, sipping the now flat, warm liquid and making a face.
He took the glass from her. “I am and ever will be at your service.”
Rising from the bed, he knew she was catching an eyeful of his backside, but only for a moment before he slid on his pants.
“Oh,” she protested.
“I’m not going on deck without my pants. But I’ll be quick. I’m afraid until cook comes onboard, the fare will be more of the same.”
“And tea?” she asked.
“If you can wait a minute, I’ll light the stove, but I warn you, I’m liable to burn my ship to its rudder. I do have a barrel of fresh water, so we can have tea, and I know I have a pound of sultana cake. How about we eat a little, and then I get you home before your family thinks you’ve been kidnapped again?”
Glad he could provide the tea she so loved, he hurried out of the cabin. When he returned, she was dressed, though he noticed she’d left a few layers on the cabin floor.
Setting the cake and tea upon the table, he pulled out her chair.
As if they were both beacons of civilized society, she nodded her gratitude, took the seat, and let him push her in. He paused only to don his shirt.
They ate and drank in comfortable silence for a moment, and he fervently hoped she had no regrets.
“In case you are wondering, I will go to a magistrate today and get a license.”
She nodded her agreement, chewing thoughtfully.
“And I will go to your father,” he added, “and make my formal request for his blessing.”
She shrugged. “It seems a little late for that, but it would be respectful.”
“And will you be happy to come on voyages with me?”
Her eyes got a little rounder. “As long as we’re not going to the Orient.”
“Never again,” Philip promised. “Not even if Queen Victoria herself asks me.”
That engendered her bright smile.
“It’s all so very different from the life I’d expected,” she mused, and her words sliced at his happiness.
“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out of his mouth, even as his heart plummeted, for she seemed to be expressing regret.
“No, don’t be. You misunderstand me.” She set down her mug of tea with a thump. “I cannot tell you how glad I am not to have to do what was planned for me. The feeling of suffocation which caused me to go with my father on his long voyage has entirely lifted.”
He stared at her, her hair completely loose around her shoulders, her wrinkled gown, her sparkling eyes, drinking tea, eating cake — looking well-tupped.
“I cannot promise you will have anything like a viscountess’s life,” he told her, “but I can promise it will be an adventure.”
“I would expect nothing less from Lord Corsair.”
He felt the familiar heat of embarrassment.
“Now, will you tell me why your men call you that?”
Philip couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “I made the mistake of telling Rufus about a game my brother and I played as children in Newquay. Of course, we were always pretending to be pirates, building boats out of whatever wood we had and begging fabric off our mother for sails. We wanted to be bloodthirsty and bold, like the Barbary corsairs. It seemed for a century or more, they controlled the seas. And we learned every story we could, and found them all fascinating.”
In fact, he only then recalled a particular one. “I just remembered an English corsair named Henry Mainwaring was even knighted in the seventeenth century.”
“Just like you,” she interrupted.
He laughed. “Now there was a captain with a good moniker, The Dread Pirate.”
She tilted her head and considered him. “It wouldn’t suit you.” She popped another morsel of buttery sultana cake into her mouth. “You are more dash-fire than dread. Please continue.”
“More dash-fire than dread?” he echoed, reaching over to wipe a crumb from her lips. “Anyway, my father became a baronet by appointment from the queen, and Rufus delights in making fun, in conjuring a mincing dandy trying to be a brutal corsair.”
“But you are not a mincing dandy. I know. I’ve met a few.”
Philip didn’t want to think for a moment of the men she’d known before him, even if only on a ballroom dance floor. Grasping her arm, he tugged her until she stood, and then he hauled her onto his lap.
“Then what am I?”
She took his face in her hands, and he knew he could stare into her fawn-like eyes forever.
“Oh, that’s simple,” she said. “You’re a pirate, of course.”
And she leaned down, claimed his lips, and plundered his mouth as only Lady Corsair could do.