I blinked. “Next hour?”
“What?” He kissed my lips, slow and lingering. “You thought that once I finally got you into bed I’d want to get it all over within five minutes?”
“I... um... I’m just not sure what there is to do for a whole hour.”
He rubbed his nose against mine. “We could have fast sex four times, reasonable sex three times, or great sex once. Twice, if we’re lucky.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus.”
He laughed and kissed me again. Then he lifted his head and surveyed me with a wistful, slightly sorrowful stare. “Maddie, I—”
I stopped his words with a kiss. “No,” I said, somewhat fiercely. “No promises you won’t be able to keep. I don’t want hearts and flowers, Sam. I just want to know what passion feels like. Just once.” My lips twitched. “Or twice. If we’re lucky. Is that too much to ask?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“I don’t mean to make demands on you.” I didn’t want him to think I had any expectations beyond tonight. “If you would rather leave now, I’ll understand.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Why on earth would I want to leave?”
“It seems unfair to have such expectations of you.”
Now he looked completely bemused. “What are you talking about?”
“Expecting you to give me pleasure...”
“Madeleine, it really isn’t that difficult, I swear. Any decent man worth his salt should be able to ensure his woman enjoys her time in bed with him, and in fact it makes it more pleasurable for him if she enjoys it too.” He shifted to one side of me and stretched out. Resting his head on a hand, he traced the fingers of the other lightly across my breastbone.
“What do you mean?” His words held no meaning, but they intrigued me. I felt as if he was taking me aboard his ship to some mysterious treasure island I’d never been to.
He pursed his lips. “Did Tom ever give you an orgasm?”
“Not on purpose.”
Sam gave a short laugh that was half-amused, half-angry. “I swear, if the bastard was alive I’d have killed him for that.”
I sighed and turned my gaze up to the ceiling. “’Tis done, Sam. Let it go.”
“He seriously never gave you an orgasm?”
“As I said, I am a lot less experienced than most people would think.”
“I cannot believe you run a tavern.”
“I’m a very good actress.”
“You are. You act as if you know what men want in bed.”
“You don’t have to know what’s in a sausage to eat one. In fact usually it’s best if you don’t.”
He chuckled. “That may be so. But it is difficult for me to believe. You look...” His voice trailed off.
I glanced at him. “Like a whore?”
His eyes widened with shock. “God, no! Beautiful, Madeleine, I was going to say you look beautiful. Fuck. I cannot believe you said that.” He stopped stroking my skin and glared at me.
“Sorry.” I hadn’t meant to make him angry. I knew I acted no different to the other girls—I wore the same tight bodices that propped my breasts up for display, and rouged my cheeks in the same way. He wouldn’t have hurt my feelings to tell me I looked like a prostitute.
Reaching behind his head, he pulled undone the black velvet ribbon that tied his hair back and tossed it onto the floor. His dark hair fell about his face in silky strands.
He ran a hand through it, then looked across the room, out of the window into the dark night.
“Over the years, I both loved and hated coming to Nassau,” he admitted. “All the time I was at sea, I dreamed of you and couldn’t wait to see you. And then as soon as we docked and I entered the tavern and saw you with Tom, I couldn’t wait to leave again. I hated watching the way he treated you—with disdain, as if you were nothing, lower than low. It is a crime that you were married to that man at such a young age.”
“It is the plight of many women, I fear.”
“I know. Were you faithful to him?”
“Always.”
“And you have not been with another man since he died?”
I looked up at his stern, handsome face, his curious eyes. “No.”
A frown flickered on his brow.
“Do not flatter yourself that I was waiting for you,” I said, although I’d already told him as much earlier.
“We shouldn’t have waited this long,” he said.
“I am glad I did if only because morally I do not have to reproach myself. I have peace of mind, and that is no small thing in today’s world.”
“I suppose.” He looked sad. Reaching out a hand, he linked our fingers. Was he wondering how different our lives would have been if we had married at a young age? Maybe if we’d met before he’d taken to the sea, he would have been content with a life as a tavern owner, living with one woman.
I could hear my mother now: If ifs and ands were pots and pans, there’d be no need for tinkers’ hands...
I didn’t want him to be sad. There was no point in regret. Life had dealt our hand of cards, and we just had to play them as best as we could.
I wanted to see that mischievous glint reappear in his eye, and feel his lips on mine. I wanted his passion, not his melancholy. Lord knew I had enough of that myself.
I rolled to face him. “You still haven’t explained what you meant about it being more enjoyable for a man if the woman receives pleasure. You forget what job I do, Sam. The door gets left open enough to let me know that men don’t always care if the woman has a good time.”
He ran a finger across the swell of my breasts above the tight bodice. “That’s not what I meant. Maddie, you do... pleasure yourself?”
“Yes, Mr. Nosey. I pleasure myself, as you so finely put it. Now you’re going to ask me to prove it, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Not yet. The point is, do you understand what happens when you become aroused?”
I nibbled my bottom lip, embarrassed that I sold sex for a living and yet couldn’t be sure to what he was referring. If and when I pleasured myself—and I was too tired to do so on a frequent basis—I usually did it through my clothing. “Um...”
“Your body lubricates itself ready for a man, Maddie. The more turned on you are, the easier it is for a man to enter you.”
I stared at him. “Oh.” I felt as if he’d suddenly told me the sun rises in the east, a fact of which I should have been aware, but that I’d never noticed.
“The key is for a man to get the woman so aroused that it makes it pleasurable for you both when he enters you.”
“Ah.”
“You did not realize this?”
“I had no idea.” How could I be so clueless? “Does everyone know this except me?”
“I would say probably ninety percent of men would look at me blankly if I mentioned it. Most of them think a lick of their fingers is all they need to get things lubricated down there.”
I studied him, unable to hide my wonder at this revelation. “How do you know this?”
“Practice.” He grinned.
“But—”
“I had a good teacher, many years ago. Like I said, it’s not complicated, but it is treated as if it is a big secret, which is a shame when the tweak of a few techniques would make a big difference to a lot of marriages, I’m sure.” He twirled one of my curls around his finger. “You really weren’t aware of this?”
“I’m ashamed to admit it, but no. How do you... um... get things lubricated, then?”
He met my gaze, and his lips curved slowly up. “Oh, I think it will be more fun to show you than to explain it.”
My heart rate began to pick up. “Sam...”
He lifted up onto an elbow and cupped my face. “Ssh.”
“But—”
He kissed me.
I sighed and let him, sensing he wouldn’t listen to my protests. I felt like someone who’d been press-ganged on board a ship setting sail for an exotic location, and I had no idea how to climb the rigging or steer the ship. In fact I could barely scrub the decks.
He lifted his head and stroked my face. “You need to stop thinking.”
“That’s like asking the rivers to stop running or the dogs to stop howling at the moon.”
“Maddie. Just relax.”
“Maybe after we’ve fucked. I don’t think I can relax before we do it.”
He kissed my nose. “I’m not going to fuck you.”
“You’re not?” I pushed myself up, the disappointment so strong it made me gasp.
He sat up too, got off the bed, and pulled me to my feet. “No, sweetheart. I’m going to make love to you.”
“It’s the same thing, Sam.”
“It’s not the same thing, and it makes me sad that you think it is. But I’m going to show you the difference.”
He led me across to the window and out onto the balcony, stood behind me, and slid his arms around my waist. Out to sea, the Whydah rested on a still ocean, its masts painted silver in the moonlight.
“She’s a fine vessel,” I said, leaning back against him.
“I only sail in the best.” He brought his hands up to stroke the swell of my breasts. “And look, we have two rising moons to light our way.”
I gave a short laugh, looking down as he took the ribbon at the top of my bodice and pulled it undone. He loosened the laces, and I inhaled sharply as he slipped his hand inside, sliding beneath my stays to cup my breast.
“Sam! We should go inside. People will see.”
“All those people who are watching us,” he murmured in my ear.
I looked across the orchard. “I acknowledge there isn’t a crowd, but someone out on the beach might see us and—oh!” My lips parted as he brushed his thumb over my nipple.
“Nobody will see us.” His words were little more than warm breath on my ear. “I want to feel you here, Madeleine, with the sea breeze on my skin and the moonlight on your face. I want to have a vivid picture in my mind of the first time you come for me.”
“I’ve already come for you,” I whispered, shivering, not from the breeze, which was warm, but from his sure, sensual touch.
“Ah, but this time I get to watch.”
I closed my eyes, letting my other senses take over. The smell of lemons and mandarins filled my nostrils, along with the headier scent from the jasmine growing in the borders beneath me. I could hear the gentle brush of the waves along the shore, the occasional laugh or shout from the men still working by the docks, the singing of cicadas serenading us in the bush. But the sounds were just a backdrop to the sexy murmur of Sam’s voice in my ear as he told me what he was going to do to me.
“First we’ll get rid of some of that tension,” he said, taking my right nipple between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and gently squeezing it. I sighed and let my head fall back on his shoulder. “That’s right, sweetheart. Just relax and enjoy it.”
He rested his right hand on my thigh and began to gather up my skirts in his fingers, kissing my neck as he did so. “Imagine you’re on a rowboat with me, bobbing about on the waves, in the middle of the ocean, with no worries, nothing to think about except the touch of my hands on your skin and that delicious tightening deep inside you that won’t go away.”
He succeeded in lifting my skirt and petticoats, and then his hand was under my chemise and resting on my thigh.
“Sam,” I whispered, covering my hand with his over my dress. He’d barely touched me, but already I was filled with longing, aching the way he’d described it, tightening deep inside. How had he known?
Pressing soft kisses down my neck to my shoulder, he continued to play with my right nipple, flicking the tip with his thumb and then tugging it gently, and I moaned.
“So easy to arouse,” he murmured, moving his hand between my legs under the dress. “I like that.”
Covering my mound with his hand, he slipped his fingers into my folds. “Mmm. You’re wet already, Madeleine. You want me, don’t you? You want me inside you, teasing you to ecstasy?” He slid his middle finger down to catch some moisture and then brought it back up to circle over my clit. “Your little button is begging me to touch it. I want to kiss it. I want to suck it until you come on my tongue again and fill my mouth with your cream.”
“Oh Jesus, Sam...” His deep, sexy voice stirred me inside, and I felt the inexorable approach of an orgasm as his fingers continued to stroke, pressure building inside me.
“Yes, Maddie, come on, come for me. I want to feel you and watch you come. I want to know I’ve given you pleasure and hear you say my name.”
He pinched my nipple, stroking more firmly over my clit, and I clutched hold of the railing and came, biting my lip hard so I didn’t yell his name across the town, even though it was bursting to spill out of me.
His hand remained cupping me, his fingers pressing into my folds, his other arm supporting my weight as I sagged forward, holding me until the waves of pleasure had finished crashing over me.