Master of Seduction Read online

  His words confused her.

  He closed his eyes as if he were being tortured.

  “Jack?”

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I just have to get…” He took several deep breaths. “Control.”

  His hand trembled as he reached up to cup her cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  She kissed him for the tender concern.

  He fell against her, and she savored the feel of his entire body pressing against hers, the strange feel of his hips between her legs.

  This was her Jack. Her pirate and her…

  Lover, she thought, startled by it. This night would change her forever. She would never go back to being the same innocent girl he’d captured that night at the inn. After this, she would be a woman in every sense of the word.

  And though it should terrify her, it didn’t. She wanted Jack to be here. Wanted him to be the man who taught her the intimate details of this aspect of life.

  To her disappointment, he left her lips and trailed kisses down her neck to her breasts. A thousand needles of pleasure pulsed through her with every touch of his tongue and hand against her flesh.

  He moved his hand over her hip and down to the throbbing ache at the center of her body. She moaned as he separated the tender folds of her body and stroked her intimately, bringing peace to the burning need.

  “Like that, do you?”

  “Yes,” she groaned.

  He smiled. “What if I told you it gets better?”

  “I wouldn’t believe you.”

  His stomach quivered against hers as he laughed. He trailed his lips down her ribs, to her stomach. Lorelei arched her back as he ran his tongue over the sensitive flesh of her hip and more pleasure assailed her.

  She was going to die from it, she was certain. How could anyone survive this…?

  Jack moved his hand from between her legs. Before she could whimper her disapproval, he took her into his mouth.

  Her eyes flew open.

  “No, Jack!” She gasped. “You can’t.”

  He kissed her inner thigh, looked up at her, and gave her that dazzling smile that never failed to warm her. His finger circled the throbbing core of her body in an intimate caress and he gave an impudent nip to her thigh.

  “Trust me, Lorelei. You want me to do this.”

  And before she could protest further, he returned to her. Lorelei bit her hand at the fierce pleasure that erupted through her. Never in her life had she felt anything so intense, so wonderful.

  His tongue teased her while his finger continued its slow assault.

  She wanted to scream out for help and still he kept on giving her pleasure. Her body quivered and spasmed as he quickened the strokes of his tongue. She buried her hands in his hair, pushing him closer to her as she pressed her feet against the mattress to bring her body closer to him. And just when she was sure she would perish from it, her body burst into a thousand glowing embers.

  Lorelei screamed with release as the entire room spun about her.

  Jack lifted his head in triumph. Somehow, he’d survived touching her, and now it was time to claim his prize. With his entire body trembling, he pressed her back against the mattress. He didn’t want to hurt her, wished to all that was holy that he could take his pleasure without it, but he couldn’t.

  Biting his lip in guilt, he separated her legs one more time and plunged himself into paradise.

  She tensed as pain intruded on her pleasure.

  Jack froze. “I’m sorry,” he whispered in her ear, trying to offer her comfort. “Are you all right?”

  Lorelei took a deep breath as her body adjusted around him and she marveled at the strange fullness of him inside her.

  They were truly joined. She wasn’t sure if she should be all right.

  “If it hurts too much, tell me and I’ll stop.”

  She stared up at him. Concern for her was etched plainly on his face, in his eyes. He meant his words.

  Imagine a pirate saying that to his captive.

  Reaching up, she brushed his long hair up over his shoulder, then moved her hand to the tiny gold hoop. “I’m all right,” she said, smiling at him.

  Relief relaxed his features and he slowly began to move against her hips. The stinging ache of her body was compensated by the knowledge that Jack cared for her. That he had considered her feelings above his own needs.

  That knowledge brought so much joy to her that she felt as if she could fly. She meant something to him. She wasn’t just another woman in a long list of lovers he’d taken.

  She was different.

  His strokes quickened as he buried himself deep within her, and she reveled in the feel of his body inside hers. Whether he admitted it or not, he was sharing a part of himself with her, and she wondered if it would change him as much as it was changing her.

  Lorelei bit her lip as pleasure once again began to override the pain. Over and over he slid into her, until he finally groaned.

  He pulled himself out of her and spilled his seed on the bed next to her hip. Jack collapsed on top of her, his breathing ragged in her ear.

  “Thank you,” he whispered once he’d regained his composure.

  She wiped the sweat from his forehead, then kissed the flesh of his brow. “You were right. I had never imagined anything like it.”

  Instead of the smugness she expected, he looked ashamed.

  “Jack?” she asked as he pulled away from her.

  He didn’t say anything as he left the bed, went to his trunk, and pulled on his clothes.

  Lorelei frowned. Clutching the sheet to cover herself, she sat up. What was the matter with him? She’d assumed this would make him ecstatically happy. Instead, he acted as if he’d just walked into a tavern full of Regulars. “Jack, what is it?”

  He didn’t say anything, nor did he look at her. He just walked quietly out of the cabin.

  Once on deck, Jack dragged his hands through his hair as he cursed himself for the base-born bastard he was. He’d thought claiming her would make him feel better. Quench the insatiable inferno of his body.

  But it hadn’t. It hadn’t accomplished anything except make him hate himself for what he’d done to her.

  And for what? For vengeance?

  For…

  For himself.

  He sank down under the shelter of the railings and hung his head in his hands. He was no better than those craven bastards who bid on the young girls who had first come to the bordello.

  How many times had he listened to those girls cry over the deed and complain about the pain? ’Twas why he always avoided virgins. He had never wanted to prey on innocence. Never hear a woman cry because of something he did to her.

  “Jack?”

  He looked up to see Lorelei standing in the moonlight. Her hair was down around her shoulders and her pale gown shimmered. She looked like an angel and it took all his control not to cross himself.

  Why had she come to him?

  No doubt she hated him, and he deserved her hatred.

  But the worst part of all was that he still wanted her. Even after having her, he wasn’t satisfied. His body was already stirring again.

  “Why did you come out here?” he asked.

  “I was worried about you.”

  He snorted at the very idea.

  She knelt down beside him and brushed his hair back from his face. He stared at her, amazed that she showed him such tenderness. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had touched him that way.

  He leaned his head into her palm, relishing the soft feel of her skin against the stubble of his cheek.

  If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend he was someone else. That he was…

  But he wasn’t someone else. He was Jack Rhys. Pirate. Murderer. Purveyor of sin and of death.

  He could offer her nothing.

  Not even himself.

  “I wish you’d talk to me,” she breathed. “Tell me why you look so troubled.”

  He laughed
bitterly. “You sound like Morgan now.”

  “The man who’s following us?”

  He nodded. “You sort of met him the night I kidnapped you. He was the one who tried to talk reason into me.” Leaning his head back, he stared up at the stars. “I should have listened to him.”

  She dropped her hand to his shoulder as she sat down by his side. “Jack,” she said, her tone chiding. “I had a choice in the matter.”

  “No, you didn’t. You were innocent and curious and I preyed on you.”

  Silence hung between them for several seconds, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and held an amazed tone to it. “So, you do have a conscience after all.”

  “Amazing, isn’t it?” He looked at her and saw the tender look in her eyes. The tender look he didn’t deserve.

  ’Twas her hatred he deserved, not her comfort.

  She reached down and took his hand into her own. “A few weeks ago perhaps,” she said, lacing her fingers with his. “But it’s not so amazing now.”

  “Oh, God, Lorelei, you don’t know,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand. “You don’t know me. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be me.”

  “I would like to try.”

  And for the first time in his life, he wanted to talk to someone. To tell her what was inside him and have her soothe it. Could she?

  Trust no one at your back unless you want a knife in it. ’Twas the pirate’s first code and a lesson he’d learned firsthand. He’d never even trusted Morgan to that degree. But in spite of his arguments, he wanted to trust her.

  Without thinking, he reached out and drew her into his arms. He held her between his knees, her back to his chest. Inhaling the sweet scent of her hair, he leaned his cheek against her head and curled his left arm about her.

  Lorelei closed her eyes at the tenderness of his embrace, praying that this one time he would actually open himself to her. Patiently, she waited.

  When he spoke, his voice was nothing more than a whisper. “I never wanted to be a captain, Lorelei.”

  She opened her eyes, but resisted the urge to turn and look at him. “Then why did you?”

  “After Robert Dreck retired, his crew voted me into the position.”

  “But you seem to enjoy the position and you do it very well.”

  “Perhaps. But I was quite happy being a boatswain.”

  “Then why didn’t you decline?”

  “That is easier said than done. I’d led the crew to victory several times when Robert was injured and they probably would have gutted me had I refused.”

  She cringed at the thought. “How terrible.”

  “Pirates generally are.”

  She relaxed against his shoulder and inhaled the sweet scent that was Jack. “Not you,” she breathed.

  “Now you’re deluding yourself,” he said with a hard edge to his voice. “I assure you I well earned my reputation.”

  This time she did yield to the impulse to face him. “No, you didn’t. I saw the entries in your log. You paid men to tell those stories.”

  He shook his head. “I’ve done that as well. But I’ve also committed a lot of crimes in my day, including murder.”

  13

  Lorelei pulled back from Jack, aghast at his confession. Could the man holding her so tenderly really be capable of murder? True, he was a pirate who’d been rumored to have killed hundreds in cold blood, but that was a legend. Surely the man she’d come to know would never do something so horrendous. Not without good cause, anyway.

  “You killed someone in cold blood?” she asked bluntly.

  His face betrayed nothing of his feelings or thoughts. He nodded.

  “Why?”

  Jack looked away and now she saw the sadness and remorse inside him. “He killed my mother.” His voice was empty. He stated it like some simple, innocuous fact.

  “What happened?” she asked, wanting to understand.

  Jack sighed and leaned his head back. She could sense he wanted to withdraw from her, to speak no more about a subject that was so close to him.

  She waited patiently, hoping he would learn to trust her with the truth.

  To her amazement, Jack repaid her patience. “He owned the bordello where my mother worked. When I was eight, she sold me to him for the price of a new pair of shoes, then ran off with some sailor.”

  Even though he didn’t move, raw emotion seemed to bleed from every pore of his skin. Lorelei closed her eyes in sympathetic pain. No doubt he’d carried that secret all these years.

  She couldn’t imagine the callousness it would take for a mother to not only abandon her child, but to sell him on top of it. What other horrors must there be within him?

  “Four years later,” he continued, “she returned. Baxter took her back in, but by then the years had taken a terrible toll on her beauty. She was so pock-marked and scrawny that no one wanted her. One night when she failed to…” His voice trailed off and he shifted his gaze to the side of the ship.

  Jack’s stern face showed the strain of a man who had seen hell firsthand and had barely lived to make it back to earth. “She hadn’t earned any money that night. In a rage, Baxter killed her for it.”

  Dear Lord, what horrible things he’d seen. Horrible, dreadful things he must have known. And then to have his own mother murdered by the man who owned him….

  She couldn’t imagine anything worse.

  “You killed him afterward?” she asked, jumping to the most logical conclusion.

  Jack shook his head. “I was too afraid of him at the time. All I did was carry her body outside and bury her in the tiny plot reserved for dead prostitutes.”

  Her stomach wrenched at the thought as a vivid image played through her mind.

  “Oh, Jack,” she whispered, reaching up to touch his face. “I’m so sorry.”

  Tears welled in his eyes, but he quickly blinked them away. “Don’t be. I survived it, which is more than I can say for my mother.”

  Had he? His body had survived, but not his heart. His mother and what she’d done to him had torn that from him long ago, and Lorelei wondered if anything could revive it.

  They were quiet for a little while as Lorelei sifted through her tangled emotions and the awfulness of his past. There was still one question she had, and though part of her didn’t want it answered, she felt she needed to know. “When did you kill Baxter?”

  He rubbed his hand over his chin, then brushed the stray tendrils of her hair down her back.

  “Two years later,” he said simply. “I was cleaning out the chamber pots when a young girl was delivered to Baxter. She was probably no older than twelve, and he took her into the room where he inspected his new merchandise.” Jack curled his lip at the word. “I could hear her screaming and begging for his mercy. He just laughed like the evil bastard he was, and then I heard him start slapping her.”

  Anger and hatred flared in his eyes, and she could feel the agony of his memories.

  “Something inside me unfurled,” he whispered. “And when next I came to my senses, he was lying dead at my feet and I was covered in his blood with a dagger in my fist. The girl started screaming again, and I ran off and jumped aboard the first ship I reached.”

  She could see the scene so plainly, imagine the terror Jack must have known as a young boy. Still, it wasn’t cold-blooded murder. It was wholly justifiable.

  “That’s not murder, Jack. You saved that girl.”

  His eyes turned dull and he yielded a heavy sigh as if somehow resigned to his fate. “I was a slave who killed his master. There’s not a court on this earth that would spare me for the crime.”

  Her throat tightened as the truth dawned on her. He was right. Though it was wrong, in the eyes of the world, he would be considered a murderer.

  But he would never be such to her. She knew him better than that.

  Lorelei laced her fingers with his.

  Jack gave a light squeeze, then brought her hand up to his lips where he placed a gentle kiss o
n the back of her fingers. “You’ve no idea how many women I saw ruined by men like Baxter, men like my father.”

  He frowned as he stared down at her and again she saw the raw pain on his face. “And tonight I realized for the first time that I’m no better than any one of them.”

  “That’s not true,” she insisted.

  “Isn’t it? We both know I ruined you tonight. Justin won’t have you when he finds out.”

  Chewing her bottom lip, she diverted her gaze to the deck of the ship. That was one part of all this she wasn’t looking forward to. How on earth could she confide such a thing to Justin? It would devastate him.

  “He certainly won’t be pleased,” she agreed.

  “You’re so naive.”

  “Perhaps, but I’ve known Justin all my life. He’s a good man and he will still honor me.”

  Jack tensed and malice shone in his eyes. “You still plan to marry him?”

  She fell silent as she thought the answer over. Marrying Justin would probably be the wisest course of action. No one would ever dare shun her so long as she was his wife. Nor would they openly torment her.

  But that wouldn’t be fair to Justin. Nor to her. Her loyalties now lay somewhere else.

  “No,” she said at last. “I can’t marry him now. He’ll no doubt argue the point, taking the blame for it all upon his own shoulders.”

  “I seriously doubt that.”

  “You needn’t doubt it,” she said, sitting up and taking offense at his slander of Justin. “He will blame it all on his scheme gone awry.”

  Still, disbelief showed on his face. Lorelei wished she could convince him of the truth, but he wasn’t about to listen to her. She’d learned that much about him over the last few weeks. Once he got that look, there was nothing that could sway Jack Rhys’s point of view.

  “So then,” he asked. “What’s to become of you?”

  “Don’t worry about me.” She smiled at him, certain of her words. “I have a father who loves me, and whatever scandal comes of this, I shall survive it.”

  Sighing, he looked up at the stars as if exasperated by her. “If you only knew how many strong women I’ve seen broken. I was so wrong to take you.”

  And it was then Lorelei made a dreadful, frightening discovery.