Surrender of a Siren (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #2)(87)

Her question from that afternoon haunted him. What was it that he really wanted? For a self-centered libertine, it had been an oddly long time since he’d pondered that question. For the past two years, he’d poured, bled, and sweated himself into this shipping business. His goals were clear. He wanted Joss to become his partner; he wanted Bel to have her London debut; and he wanted to provide security and a measure of status for their family as a whole. But what did he want for himself? It had been years since he’d allowed himself to spin fantasies of a happy future—not since he was a youth of Davy’s age. Happiness, he’d concluded, was meant for other men: men who lived honorably, kept their promises, built honest fortunes. Men who deserved it. Gray simply took pleasure where he found it, then left it behind. It was mad, and more than a bit dangerous, for a scoundrel like him to dream of lasting joy.

But now she was dreaming it for him. For them. Naïve, fanciful thing that she was, she genuinely believed they could live happily ever after. None of his angry words or dark confessions had persuaded her otherwise. Remarkable. He’d finally met the one girl he couldn’t disillusion. And so, soaring through the darkness, rocked by waves and blanketed by stars, Gray decided to try an experiment. He shut his eyes and dared to dream.

He wanted someone to share his life. To share his burdens, his triumphs, his home and his bed. The longing assailed him, nearly flinging him from the mast with its intensity. It was as though a well of yearning existed inside him, deep and limitless, and he’d been keeping it tightly capped for years, lest he fall into it and drown. And now it flooded him, coursed in his veins like his lifeblood.

He wanted … he wanted so many things. Simple pleasures. To buy her a dozen muslin frocks to replace the one he’d destroyed today. To feed her succulent fruits and ripe cheeses and slices of roasted meat. To lay his head in her lap and feel her fingers in his hair, and listen to all her fanciful tales and dreams. To share thoughts without exchanging words. To lay with her, be in her, feel her body surround him as often as she’d allow. And a child … God, how he wanted a child. He’d been fighting that desire for more than a year, ever since he’d cradled his newborn nephew in his arms. It was irresistible in the most base, selfish way, this impulse to create a life. A child would be bound to love and admire him, no matter what he did. A child would be bound to accept his love. A child would bind him to her, forever.

Somehow it always circled back to her. He wanted her.

This was the voyage he’d meant to go respectable. He thought he’d lost that chance in the taking of her virtue, then the discovery of her lies and that bundle of gold beneath her stays. The futility of all his struggling had burned a black, smoking crater in his soul. But perhaps that was exactly what he’d needed: a blast to his petrified heart, and this resultant void that only she could fill. Perhaps, at long last, what he wanted and what was right were one and the same.

All that remained was to convince her. Well, there he had experience on his side. He knew a little something about conquest.

Gray spent an hour up there in the rigging, soaking up the darkness, gathering bravery from the wind. When the eight bells finally rang, they signified far more than a change of watch.

He was going to change his life.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sophia startled awake. By what dim, silvery light the cabin window afforded, she made out the silhouette of a man standing at the foot of the bed. He was tall—so tall his shadow spread up the wall and seeped into the ceiling cracks, like ink. It could only be Gray. She wondered how long he’d been standing there.

She rose up on her elbow. “What do you want, Gray?”

“I want you.”

Heat swept her from crown to toes. She lay there waiting, suddenly uncertain how to speak or move or even breathe. The small sounds of waves lapping against the boat and canvas snapping in the breeze swelled to a deafening roar.

He leaned forward, placing one hand on either side of her legs. The bed creaked under his weight. Falling back on the pillow, Sophia let out a small squeak of her own.

He prowled up her body, moving forward on hands and knees, until he caged her completely. His scent, hot and male, engulfed her. The front of his shirt hung loose, and as he crawled over her, the fabric brushed against her belly, then her br**sts. Her ni**les peaked instantly. His hand captured her chin, his thumb and fingers framing her jaw. Her pulse beat wildly against his palm. Though his face hovered mere inches above hers, she could barely make out his features. Moonlight glinted off the bridge of his nose and the neat, blunt edge of his teeth. He inhaled slowly, and Sophia could have sworn he sucked that breath straight out of her lungs.

He was everywhere around her—his strength, his heat, his rum-scented breath. She was powerless to do anything but stare up at him, eyes wide and straining in the dark. Her lips began to tremble.

He stilled them with his own. A brief, tender kiss that loosened every joint in her body. And now she trembled everywhere.

Still cupping her jaw, he broke the kiss. A breeze, ribbon-thin and cool as  satin, rushed between their lips, only to be chased away by his hot, urgent whisper: “I want you.”

This time, his mouth crushed down on hers, insistent and bruising. He lowered himself onto her, and Sophia thrilled to the way her body instinctively molded around his. Her lips parting to suckle his tongue, her br**sts flattening under his chest, her thighs gripping his hips as he insinuated his legs between hers. And, oh God—when his hips forced her thighs wide and the hard ridge of his arousal pressed home through the layers of trousers and chemise—she was already softened and wet for him there.