Pleasing the Pirate: A Loveswept Historical Romance (10 page)

Sebastian and Phin shared a look. Leave it to the ladies to fall in line with their plans and not even realize it.

However, the look on Mairi’s face was a bit alarming for Phin. She reminded him of a cornered wild animal that knew its death was imminent. She took a few steps back, her wide
eyes darting around as if searching for an escape. He would have felt sorry for her if Claire’s plan didn’t align eerily effortlessly into his.

“The opera can be boring,” Gabrielle was saying. “But one doesn’t go to watch the performance. One goes to watch everyone else.”

Being friends with earls put one in a different situation. Phin was certainly not accepted by the ton, even though he received a nod of approval from Sebastian and Nicholas, both earls in their own right—Sebastian’s title came from his father; Nicholas’s was earned and awarded by the crown. When Phin ventured out in society with them, which was very rare, the ton tolerated him because they were hesitant to offend Sebastian and Nicholas, but they never accepted him.

“I appreciate the kind invitations, but I fear I must decline. I’m not here to go to operas,” Mairi said.

“Of course we can go,” Phin interjected, ignoring Mairi’s withering look. “We would love to have dinner with all of you tomorrow night and I’m positive that Mairi will fall in love with the opera. Won’t you, Mairi?”

“I shan’t go.” Mairi crossed her arms. They had just left Lord Claybrook’s impressive and very intimidating home. Mairi had insisted on returning the gown, but Gabrielle could be a domineering force and in this proved to be stronger than Mairi. She not only insisted that Mairi take the gown, but she promised more on the morrow when they returned for the informal dinner party.

Mairi wasn’t pleased. She wasn’t comfortable in such fine fabric that would feed her people for a month or more. And the stitching! She’d never seen such fine handiwork. Surely the person who stitched it had gone blind in the doing.

“It’s one night. We can afford to go for a few hours,” Phin said.

“Mayhap
you
can afford to go for a few hours, but I can’t. I need to find my brother and return to Scotland.”

He looked at her for the longest time from the shadow of the carriage. His eyes bore into her as he sat sprawled across his side of the coach. He’d extended his legs and crossed his ankles. His arms were loosely crossed over his chest and his hair was loose around his shoulders. She turned away because sometimes it just hurt to look at him.

“I’ll make a bargain with you,” he said.

“Oh, no. The last time I made a bargain with you …” Her face heated at the memory.

His brows rose and a smile played across his beautiful lips. “What about the last time you made a bargain with me?”

They’d yet to discuss the details of that bargain—her payment for his help in finding her brother—although it seemed to hang between them whenever they were alone.

“It was a wee bit one-sided,” she finally said.

“When the payment is finally … paid, I’m certain you won’t think it was one-sided at all.” His voice was husky, full of promises that Mairi could not begin to decipher and the emphasis on the word “paid” was disquieting.

His voice was rough with those promises and it made Mairi want to squirm in her seat. It suddenly became very hot inside the carriage. Strange considering that outside the carriage it was
a bit chilly. Her face felt flushed. All of her skin felt flushed. She stopped from fanning herself.

“I’m anxiously awaiting that payment, Mairi.”

She burned with humiliation. Nay. She had to be honest with herself. She burned with anticipation. More and more she’d wondered what it would be like, coupling with the likes of Phin Lockwood. There had been more than a few times she’d woken up with the sheets twisted around her and her body hot from fevered dreams that had left her feeling incomplete. She’d never felt this way before, this uncomfortable, this … unfulfilled.

“Yes, well.” She cleared her throat and shifted.

“It’s too soon,” he said. “I prefer to wait to request my payment.”

That secret place between her legs was hot and wet and aching. Her breasts felt as if they’d swelled and were going to burst out of her borrowed corset. Ach, but they hurt.

She did not want this man to realize how much his knowing looks and his one kiss had riled her senses. To give him that would give him a power she did not want him to possess.

His lids lowered until he was looking out from beneath them. He tipped his head back against the squabs and studied her. Not in the inquisitive way he’d done before but slowly, sensuously. His gaze roamed her body, landing on all the forbidden parts for far longer than was appropriate.

She burned with a fire that threatened to consume her from the inside out. Her blood ran sluggishly through her veins, pounding between her legs where she felt her desire so acutely she wanted to groan.

He’d not yet touched her and she felt as if she would explode right then and there. She couldn’t imagine what would happen to her if he truly did touch her.

“Don’t,” she said softly.

“Don’t what?”

He’d not moved, but it was as if he took up all of the carriage. The air seemed to thicken with the desire that simmered between them.

“Don’t look at me such.”

“How am I looking at you?”

“As if you want to eat me alive.”

“Because I do want to eat you alive. I want to lick every inch of you, nibble on your breasts and taste what’s between your legs.”

His words made her want to cover what was between her legs with her hands. Surely such a thing was not done. Was it? The image that sprang to her mind was so erotic that she wanted to push it away and found she didn’t have the willpower to do so.

“What do you think of that, Mairi?”

She had to lick her lips in order to speak. “I think … I don’t know what to think.”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on bent knees. “You want that too, don’t you?”

She nodded, too embarrassed to admit out loud that she wanted him to do all those things to her. Even though she was still unsure of what all those things were.

“Come here.” He gently tugged on her hands and before she knew what he was about she was sitting next to him. Oh, but this was wrong.

He was breathing deeply, his eyes dilated in the near darkness. Flashes of light from the street lamps outside the carriage illuminated half of him at times.

“I want so badly to kiss you.” He was so close that his whispered words caressed her face. She stared at his lips.

“So kiss me,” she whispered. Who was this woman speaking? Certainly not her. But she waited, breath held, while his lips closed the distance between them. He did not kiss her at first, but brushed his lips across hers in a touch so feathery light that she closed her eyes and wished for more.

She didn’t have to wait long for he came back with another caress, then another. Gently he nudged her head closer with a hand on the back of her neck. She didn’t need much prodding, more than willing to do what he requested. Hussy. That’s what she was. Brought to her knees by a kiss.

But, oh, what a kiss it was.

This was wrong. So wrong. And yet nothing short of the end of the world would make her stop now. She never knew there was a need so great, so desperate that it would surely drive her insane.

The coach rumbled down the cobbled road, swaying back and forth and she swayed with it, nearly falling against him. Or mayhap she was leaning against him. She wasn’t certain. All she knew was that if it weren’t for his hard arm pressed against hers she would surely fall off the seat.

Every bit of her being was centered on Phin’s lips and what they were doing to her. Each
kiss was like tiny jolts of lightning igniting her body.

He pulled away. He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling as if he’d run a long distance.

“Oh, my,” she whispered, pressing her cheek into his shoulder. “Oh, my.”

She’d never imagined such a thing could exist and now that she’d experienced it she knew she’d never be the same. She wanted more.

She pulled away and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Phin’s head was resting against the squab and he was looking at her through half-closed lids.

“I don’t suppose thank you is an appropriate thing to say here,” she said.

He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

She scooted to her side of the carriage. Her breasts still ached and she yearned to release her corset to set them free. The area between her legs was wet and uncomfortable. She’d never felt like this before, so heavy and light at the same time. Her lips felt swollen and they tingled. If he kissed her in other places would she tingle there as well? Her face heated and she had to look away.

Good Lord, she couldn’t be embarrassed now. Not after that kiss. And yet she knew that so much more could happen and that was what was embarrassing.

“That was amazing.”

Amazing. Yes, that was a good word to use. Amazing.

He caught her hand and held it. They sat that way, each lost in their own thoughts, holding hands, until the carriage stopped at the Coxswain.

“I shan’t go tonight.” Mairi repeated her earlier statement. The statement she made right before she turned Phin’s world upside down with her naïve, yet completely erotic … He wasn’t sure what to call what they did in the carriage. Kissing seemed such an inadequate word. He’d never kissed a lass like that before, without it ending in a good tupping, at least. And while he’d been aching and uncomfortable afterward, he wouldn’t change one moment of that carriage ride. In fact, he wanted to do it again.

He should feel guilty for using their pretend agreement in such a way to get her to kiss him. And he would. Maybe. But right now he couldn’t summon the appropriate guilt because the end result had been, well, amazing.

But Mairi, it appeared, didn’t think so. Ever since that interlude she’d been irritable and prone to argument. They’d reached their room afterward and it was as if she’d changed into a different person. He’d spent a hard, lonely, cold night on the floor with naught but a few blankets and a thin pillow, listening to her breathing and thinking that if he’d been less of a gentleman he would have been in that bed with her.

But, regardless of his pirating past, he had been a gentleman. Damn his hide.

“Nevertheless,” he said in exasperation. “We’ve imposed on my friends for help, they’ve loaned you a gown. And now we can’t say nay to this request. Give us one night, Mairi.”

Instead of answering she turned back to that blasted window to look for her blasted brother. If he didn’t despise Grant before, he did now. The hold the man had on his sister was frustrating to say the least. Grant McFadden didn’t deserve Mairi’s near worship. He was a threat to the crown and needed to be in prison at the very least, but Mairi steadfastly believed that Grant was the answer to all her problems.

“What do you have against my friends?” Phin asked.

“Nothing.”

He wanted to growl in a frustration that stemmed mainly from pent-up sexual need that was near to bursting his skin. One taste of Mairi, even fully clothed and in a carriage, was not nearly enough. He wanted more. So much more that he was willing to hole up in this dirty room
and not leave for at least a fortnight. Unfortunately, Mairi didn’t want the same things he did and he needed to bring McFadden in. Time was closing in on him more rapidly than he cared to admit.

“We shouldn’t have done what we did,” she said so softly that he almost didn’t catch it.

Ah, so there was guilt? Of course there was. He’d been an idiot to not expect it.

“It was just a kiss, lass.” That, of course, was the wrong thing to say. She shot him a venomous look.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. We kissed. No harm done. Do you regret it?”

“No.” She continued to look out the window. “And that’s the problem.”

“I don’t see a problem if we both enjoyed it.”

He was taken aback by the torture in her eyes, the despair and the desperation. Desperation he had witnessed when she confronted him in his cabin on the
Wanderer
.

“What’s amiss, Mairi mine?”

“Don’t call me that. Please. I’m not yours nor will I ever be. I’m here to gather up my wayward brother and return to Scotland to fix the mess the English have put my people in. I’m not supposed to like you, Phin. I hate everything English.”

She wasn’t
supposed
to like him. Which meant, in a roundabout way, that she did, indeed, like him. He’d never felt such foolish joy before.

“We are not so different from you Scotsmen,” he said, wishing he could somehow change her mind about his countrymen. They weren’t all bad. In fact, very few were. Unfortunately, she had seen only the worst of the lot.

She snorted and he held up his hand to stop whatever it was she was about to say.

“What those soldiers did to you and your people I cannot condone and neither can my friends. It was wrong, but are you to condemn us for something that someone else has done? That wouldn’t be fair.”

“We’ve been terribly hurt by your people. Aileen …”

He’d heard of Aileen, Grant’s fiancée who had been brutally raped and murdered by English soldiers. ’Twas a story that was all too familiar to him. Yet he couldn’t tell her he was aware of Aileen for that would reveal that he knew a whole lot more than he should about her family.

“She and Grant had been recently betrothed,” she said. “But they’d known each other
from birth. Growing up the three of us had been inseparable.…” Her voice trailed off and it was a long while before she spoke again.

“Aileen was caught outside the walls, somewhere she should not have been. There aren’t enough men to chaperone the women. They’ve all gone. Killed in battle or forced to find work elsewhere since our fields have been destroyed or given to English sympathizers.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “A band of soldiers happened to be passing through and thought it great sport to torture her. They dragged her into the woods. Far enough away that we wouldn’t hear her screams but close enough that we would find her body when we went searching.”