Page 31 of The Black Lion
Arabella cried out when he shoved inside her with one brutal thrust, forcing his way past the press of the plug on the other side of the thin wall separating one passage from the other. He palmed her buttocks and held her open, exposing every bit of her as he watched with rapt fascination the plunge of his shaft in and out of her, slick with her juices.
She was impossibly tight with the plug taking up space inside her, gripping him with such force it took his breath away. Rough groans lodged in his throat, hot and vibrating, his vision growing hazy and dark around the edges. He took hold of her hair and wrenched her up off the desk, creating a deep arch in her back and changing the angle of his thrusts. She became as wild as he was, arching into the clench of his fist in her hair and throwing her hips back to meet each of his battering thrusts.
He shed all notions of gentleness and care as she rocked into him at the perfect rhythm, opening her body until he became a part of her. The desk swayed beneath them, Bella’s nails scoring the lacquered wood as she became the lioness to his lion—clawing and panting and crying her pleasure with wild abandon.
Drew released her hair, wrapping one hand around her waist to mold her to him, his other cupping between her legs. His middle finger found her clit and he stroked it swiftly, his pelvis pounding against her buttocks as he slammed into her with brutal force. It only heightened her pleasure, and she thrashed in his arms, her sheath contracting around him as climax swept over her.
He took hold of her shoulder with his teeth, holding fast and growling as his own end followed close on the heels of hers. Arabella’s orgasm seemed to go on and on, the ripple and pull of her sheath strengthening with each caress of his fingers at her clit, each bite of his teeth at the juncture of her shoulder and neck. For a moment, the entire world fell away as release swept through him. He doubled over from the strength of it, pressing her down onto the unyielding desk. With one hand gripping the back of her neck to hold her in place, he fucked her through his finish, wringing himself dry inside her.
Drew collapsed over her, the strength sapped from his limbs. Arabella was in a similar state, her body limp and still beneath him, save for the rapid rise and fall of her back against his chest.
When he found the strength to move, he kissed her cheek, then straightened to ease out of her. She flinched when he pulled the plug free but remained silent, her harsh breaths going from swift and grating to soft and nearly silent. Putting the plug aside for the time being, Drew fell back into his chair and pulled her into his arms. Once he’d eased the clamps off her nipples, he urged her to curl up in his lap, her head nestled against his chest and her mussed hair tickling his jaw. He stroked a hand up and down her back, a sudden urge toward affection washing over him.
After a while she went still, seeming to come back to herself. She peered up at him a bit shyly, her eyes still glassy from the after-effects of their primal coupling.
“Will it always be this way between us?” she whispered, her voice a bit hoarse from screaming her pleasure.
He grinned and gave her bottom a playful swat. “I certainly hope so, my Bella. Now that I’ve shown you what being in my clutches will entail—and be assured that this was only just a taste—I ask again, are you certain you wish to wed me? Can you live with a husband who will make such demands of you?”
Bracing her hands against his chest, she sat up, her grin sly and all too alluring in its teasing. “Not only can I live with it,Idemand you carry on with me this way for the rest of our days. I’ve never felt so alive, Drew. I don’t think I could be this wanton with anyone else, but with you …”
He chuckled. “I will do my best to live up to your expectations. In fact, I fully expect to die an old man, happily buried inside you when my heart finally gives out on me.”
“If I have my way, that won’t be for a very, very long time.”
“Aye, my Bella,” he agreed. “Not for a long time.”
They rose from behind the bed then, Drew leading her to the washstand, where they had to make do with cold water for washing. Shivering, she climbed into bed with him, where she lay between his spread legs, her back against his chest as he rested against the headboard. Through his open windows, the salty scent of the ocean and clean, night air wafted in. The sky was cloudless, allowing them a stunning view of a luminescent moon and a blanket of diamond-like stars.
Arabella glanced down to where his hands rested over her belly, tracing her fingertips across the letters tattooed on his knuckles. “I know a seaman’s tattoos always hold some sort of luck or significance for him. The lion is part of your identity, but this … ‘hold fast’. What does it mean to you?”
Smiling, he held his hands up and studied the tattoos, the letters upside down from this angle. “In rough times at sea, a man’s hold on the rigging can make the difference between life and death for himself and his crew. A pirate’s grasp on a single line of rigging may sometimes be the only thing keeping the ship from being lost and his mates from going to the depths. Many men of the sea have these words tattooed onto their hands as a reminder to hold fast to the rigging, but also to the ship and the crew, to each other. For me, it was a reminder to hold fast to the thing that was keeping me alive … the hope of finding you again and making you mine.”
She laced her fingers through his and sighed. “Now that I’m here, you can hold fast tome.”
“Aye, my Bella,” he murmured, clutching her fingers and nuzzling his nose into her hair. “I’ll hold fast and never let go.”
Chapter Ten
Afortnight after setting sail from Falmouth, Arabella Baines became Mrs. Andrew Reeves. Standing atop the forecastle deck while the crew packed themselves amidship to watch, she pledged her heart and soul to her pirate captain with Padre presiding.
Her groom was resplendent in a white frock coat shot through with silver thread and gleaming buttons to match, black breeches and boots clinging to his powerful legs. He’d left off his tricorne, pulling half his hair back to keep it out of his eyes and flaunt his handsome face. She’d adorned herself in white as well, finding the most beautiful garments in the Oriental style—white and gold silk etched with patterns of water-lily, bamboo, and plum, the long, bell-like sleeves falling away from her arms like wings. Drew had gone into the coffers of years’ worth of bounty, producing the glittering diamond coronet that sat atop her head—her only adornment.
Rory stood at the captain’s side as a best man, and while Arabella had no attendant, Big Jack had asked for the honor of giving her away. She’d forged a friendship of sorts with the bosun in her short time aboardThe Sea Lion, and had been pleased to be led up to the forecastle on his arm.
Padre led them through a simple, short ceremony that was far more intimate and less formal than her near-miss with Will—and it was all the more beautiful for it.
Even her former fiancé’s presence couldn’t taint the occasion, for Will and her father had been marooned days before, on a small, wild-looking island that Drew was certain was uninhabited. Left with nothing but a pistol containing one shot, they were left standing on the shore asThe Sea Lioncast off back to sea. Just as she had not taken a single look back on that day, Arabella did not think of them now as Padre led them through their vows. The beautiful words were the invention of a priest turned pirate, and fitting for such a ceremony.
“I, Captain Andrew Reeves, take thee Arabella as my wedded wife, my anchor in fair weather or foul, my strength in times of weakness. Shall the sea call me away from thee, may it also bring me back as the tide returns to the shore. I vow to be your shelter in the storm, to love you with every beat of my heart, from this day until my last day.”
With tears welling in her eyes, Arabella made her own promises, clinging tight to Drew’s hands.
“I, Arabella Katherine Baines, take thee Andrew as my wedded husband, in poverty or in prosperity, through sunny horizons and deathly doldrums. If the sea shall call thee away from me, may you always find me waiting as the sky awaits the rising of the sun. I vow to hold fast to you in fair winds or ill, and to love you with every beat of my heart, from this day until my last day.”
Drew was then presented with a pearl-hilted dagger by Rory, who stood by holding two short bits of rope—one in each hand. Taking her hand, Drew revealed her left palm and the razor-thin scar that served as a reminder of the last time they’d committed themselves to one another. As Drew dragged the dagger over her flesh, opening the old wound before doing the same to his own left hand, Arabella felt no pain. There was only joy and the blessed weight of finality as they took their ropes from Rory, pressing the rough fibers to their bleeding flesh. Meeting and holding Drew’s gaze, she allowed her life’s essence to soak the bit of rigging, the tears welling in her eyes finally making their descent.
Under Padre’s guidance, they joined their bits of rope—representative of their pasts and their separate lives—into a lover’s knot, which symbolized the joining of two halves into a whole, of the present and the future. Pulling on opposite ends, they shared a smile as the ropes clung together and held, stained by their blood and joined in a tight bond. A symbol of eternity.
