Page 18 of Devil of the High Seas
She felt the hard, thick length of him pressed against the front of her, and for the first time she knew what it meant to create desire in another person. She felt a rush of power and passion at the thought of affecting Gavin in this way.
Josephine was only dimly aware of him backing her toward the nearest wall. Then she was pinned, helpless against the wicked pleasure of Gavin’s sensual seduction. He angled his mouth over hers again and again, as if he could kiss her for a thousand years and never stop. She certainly didn’t want him to.
When he finally tore himself away, he glared at her.
“You’re playing with fire, child,” he warned. They both caught their breath, panting hard in the golden room.
She raised her chin. “I’m not a child.”
Gavin’s gaze was purely piratical. “No, you aren’t. It’s just that I’ve lived in the world, and you haven’t. You know nothing of the danger of passion…of being swept away.”
She pushed away from the wall and he stepped back, just enough to let her pass by him to walk toward the door that led back to the house.
“I may not know…but I wish to,” she said softly, her chest aching. So this was it. They would say and do nothing more despite what lay between them?
“He told me,” Gavin said heavily.
She halted to look at him over her shoulder. “Told you what?”
Gavin’s eyes were alight with a dangerous fire. “That you arehis.”
She let her own fire burn in her eyes. “I belong to no man, only to myself.”
His eyes darkened at her response, as though he was excited by her defiant challenge.
“Be careful, Josie. Never tell a pirate he can’t have something,” Gavin warned. “He’ll be tempted to steal it.”
Her voice softened as she understood what he was saying. “I wish I could believe you...”
She wanted, no, she wisheddesperatelythat hewouldsteal her away, but he wouldn’t dare. Not from his brother. She was Griffin’s future bride, and he would not take his brother’s betrothed. She fled the room, needing to escape before she gave in to the need to lose herself in him again. She knew what she was missing now, the passion and fire that she so longed for... that she would not have with Griffin.
The terrible irony of her fate was not lost upon her. The one man she would have given her soul to... was a pirate.
CHAPTER5
“Yes, that is lovely.”
Josephine glanced at her mother’s pleased face as Lucia smoothed out the exquisite skirts of what would be Josephine’s wedding dress. It was a beautiful dress—ice-blue satin skirts and a cream bodice studded with pearls, swirls of gold embroidery decorating the flowing overskirt, shimmering in the light of the setting sun, as if fire danced along the threads. It was a gown fit for a princess, and any woman would be delighted to wear it. Josephine would be too—if it was actually marrying a man she truly loved.
She turned her face to the tall cheval glass in the corner of the bedchamber and studied her reflection in silent misery. Her head throbbed, and she desperately wanted to close her eyes and just escape this moment. And what was to come.
The two days since they had left Griffin’s estate had flown by too quickly.
Josephine had but blinked and now she was on the eve of her marriage to Griffin.
She’d no sooner returned from that life-altering kiss with Gavin in the secret room than to find her parents preparing to return home. Her parents’ announcement that she was to be wed in two days had stripped her of any chance of saying goodbye to Gavin. She’d been under the watchful eye of Vesper and her mother ever since, as if they’d suspected she’d take flight before the ceremony.
That was how she found herself two days later, wearing the most beautiful dress she’d ever seen and feeling like she was withering away inside like a rose planted in soil where no rain ever fell.
Adrian leaned on the doorjamb of her chamber, watching their mother and Vesper fuss over the gown. His gray eyes were dark as he met his sister’s gaze.
Save me,she silently pleaded with her eyes to her twin.
His answering look told her that he wished he could.
“How does it feel, my love?” her mother asked her as she placed her hands on Josephine’s shoulders. Lucia beamed at her, the brilliant smile digging an invisible blade deeper into her heart. She wanted to enjoy this moment, to make her mother happy and to feel as though this was the most wonderful thing in the world, but that would have been a lie.
It feels like a prison,she thought. “It’s fine,” she managed to say instead.
