Riley's Sleeping Beauty Read online

  Her longed-for plummet into the sea was apparently not to be. Arms of steel circled her waist and dragged her back, even as her ears were filled with a string of vile curses. Carrying her over his shoulder, the pirate crossed the deck with long, angry strides.

  The foul-tempered, even more foul-smelling beast had placed one foot on the ladder leading below deck when Abby heard an authoritative command ring out from a man, who until now had been silent. She didn’t particularly care where he had been. His sudden, timely appearance was most welcome.

  “Put her down, Higgins.” When the order wasn’t immediately obeyed, he added in that same quietly lethal tone, “Now, Higgins.”

  Higgins, she thought. How much tamer that sounded than Blackhearted John.

  As she listened to it, she realized that the voice that had addressed the pirate was oddly familiar and, despite its firmness, strangely seductive. Abigail felt her captor stiffen, felt the taut set of his shoulders. If anything, his arms tightened around her as he spewed forth another stream of invective, most of which she could barely understand. She waited with bated breath for the response from her would-be rescuer. Hopefully they wouldn’t decide on a little sword play with her as Blackhearted John’s shield.

  “On the count of three, Higgins,” the man said impatiently. “Or you will find yourself at the end of the plank looking into the face of death. The sea will bring you cold comfort.”

  A shudder swept through the pirate, communicating itself to Abigail. She waited with some impatience herself for his decision. As she saw it, the choice seemed clear-cut. Unfortunately, her captor’s wits were highly suspect.

  The standoff lasted an eternity, the count spoken slowly and provocatively. On three, the pirate fouled the air with one last curse and dropped her onto the deck like a sack of potatoes. The fall jarred her teeth, but she considered that to be scant price to pay for her freedom from the man. Without looking, she heard his footsteps receding as he stormed away, probably for more of that rum to drown his sorrows. Hopefully he wouldn’t decide to retaliate against her for the humiliation he’d just suffered.

  Easing to her feet, Abigail turned slowly to face her rescuer. At the sight of his green eyes flashing sparks of gold, she drew in a ragged breath and wondered for a heartbeat if she hadn’t jumped from the frying pan into the fire. There was no doubt in her mind that this man, for all of his kindness in rescuing her, was far more dangerous than the first. An oddly expectant tremor of excitement ricocheted through her as she studied him.

  Powerfully built, with a mane of thick, blond hair, a shadow of a beard and the stance of a warrior, he was dressed all in somber black. Yet there was a radiance about him that beckoned to her in the most provocative way, a way that seemed ever so faintly familiar, as if they had met before in some other time, some other place. His fierce expression gentled as she studied him.

  “Captain Riley Walker at your command,” he said with a gallant bow. “Welcome aboard the Sea Witch. I think perhaps it would be wise if we went below to my cabin, where you will be safe from further attentions of my crew.”

  “Riley,” she repeated with a vague sense of alarm, even as she followed him. “Riley.”

  Surely it could not be coincidence. She had known a Riley once, perhaps twice. Or were they all one and the same? This really was getting to be quite confusing.

  “You are troubled by my name, Lady Abigail?” he asked as he offered her something to drink.

  Abby accepted the cup as she glanced around. His cabin was far tidier than Blackhearted John’s had been. It actually looked as if it had been cleaned in recent days.

  “I knew someone once...” she began.

  His smile made the words die on her tongue. That smile, too, seemed reminiscent of another, equally devastating smile. She felt suddenly more at ease, reassured...and quite enchanted.

  “Could you explain how I came to be aboard the Sea Witch?” she asked.

  “I am afraid that is something I have no way of knowing,” he admitted. “When we claimed the ship, you were on board.”

  So that much of what Blackhearted John had said was true. “Where was the ship destined?” Abby asked.

  “The Carolinas, I believe.” He regarded her worriedly. “Do you not recall this?”

  She sighed. “I seem to recall very little.”

  “Perhaps in the struggle with Higgins, you were injured,” he suggested. “A bump on the head, possibly.”

  “I don’t believe so. Even before, none of this seemed familiar to me. You say the Sea Witch was destined for the Carolinas. Exactly where?”

  “A place called Charleston. Does that sound familiar?”

  Abby shook her head. She knew Charleston, of course, but had no idea why she might have been headed there aboard a ship. “Did we set sail from England?”

  “Yes and with a king’s ransom in goods,” he said. “Capturing the Sea Witch was truly a good day’s work for us.”

  “There were other ladies aboard?”

  “None.”

  “Was I banished then? Why would I have been sent so far from home alone? Did the captain not explain?”

  The pirate, who was lounging against the wall as they talked, looked faintly embarrassed. “I’m afraid he was dispatched before we could converse about such things.”

  “Shoot first, ask later,” Abby murmured. Apparently there was some centuries-old tradition behind the technique she had thought to be disturbingly modern.

  “Beg pardon, my lady?”

  “Nothing.” She looked into his eyes, steeling herself against the provocative effect. “Tell me, Captain Walker, what is to become of me?”

  “That depends.”

  “On?”

  “How adventurous you prove to be.”

  Against her better judgment, Abby found the remark intriguing. “Meaning?”

  “The sea is a taxing mistress, my lady. I long for one who is warmer, more comforting,” he said.

  As he spoke, he took a lazy, provocative survey that heated her blood like nothing she had ever felt before.

  “If you wish, you could remain with me,” he offered. “There are gold and riches to be shared with the woman equal to my demands.”

  “In other words, you seek to buy yourself a compliant mistress for a few pieces of gold,” she said, unable to hide her disdain even as she fought against temptation. Captain Riley Walker intrigued her. Her heart pounded a bit harder in his presence. Her senses, in fact, had come to life in the salty air. She could imagine worse fates than belonging to this strong, virile specimen. Being taken against her will by someone such as Blackhearted John was one.

  “Is sharing my life and my bed such a terrible thing to contemplate?” He regarded her with some amusement. “Or is it pretty words you want? This seems an odd place to expect a courting ritual, my lady, especially under these circumstances. You are mine to claim, if I so choose.”

  Abby regarded him indignantly. Drawing herself up, she faced him squarely. “The choice is mine. It would be best if you did not forget that, Captain Walker.”

  He grinned, clearly unintimidated. “An illusion I will permit, because it suits me. I have been relishing a spirited battle of wits for some time. It seems one has been handed me. I intend to make the most of it.”

  His expression sobered. “A warning, though, Lady Abigail, and quite a serious one. You will remain in my cabin unless you are on deck with me at your side. As you have seen, Higgins and the others will take their pleasure without thought of your sensibilities. Should any of them do that I would have to kill them, and I do not wish to lose any of my crew to such activities. Is that clear?”

  Abby shuddered, stricken by his words and by their cold delivery. On balance, it seemed he was more distressed by the thought of losing those blackguards than by the thought of any harm coming to her. Still, she could see the sense of the warning, and she was not foolish enough to take it lightly.

  “Understood.” Because she could not bear to contemp
late such things and because she longed for another of those smiles, she offered him a winsome smile of her own. “Pray tell, though, if I am in your cabin, where will you be? Asleep beneath the stars, perhaps?”

  He laughed. “Not bloody likely. Whenever possible, I shall be right here beside you, my lady.” He moved nearer as he said it. His hand rose to cup her cheek and lingered there, warm and gentle. “Do you find that thought repugnant?”

  Ignoring the sensations stirred by his touch, she managed to keep a note of indignation in her voice as she told him, “I find that thought most arrogant, my lord. You seem to believe that by winning the ship, you have won the lady. It is not so. You would be wise to remember that. I am as capable as you of defending my honor.”

  “In time we shall see who is the wiser or the more capable, my lady,” he said, giving her a devilish wink as he left the room and closed the door to his cabin.

  A moment later Abby heard a key grate in the lock and realized that she was well and truly captured aboard a pirate ship in the Caribbean. For some reason that did not strike nearly as much terror into her heart as it ought to have.

  She sensed, in fact, that in Captain Riley Walker, she had found a man of uncommon strength, tempered by an equal measure of gentleness. His spirit was wild and daring enough to equal her own, while his heart...

  Well, the truth of it was that she did not yet know if his heart had the same capacity to love as her own. The prospect that it might tantalized her.

  With her blood suddenly and unexpectedly running hot and wild through her veins, Abby wondered if she had at last come across, admittedly in a most uncommon manner, the man bold enough to be her match.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was some time before Abby heard the grating of the key in the lock again. She must have fallen asleep, because she had no sense of the passage of time. The candle Captain Walker had left burning was down to a mere nub now, and the cabin was pitch-black. It was all too easy to imagine that loathsome Blackhearted John on the other side of the door.

  As she waited for the door to swing open, her breath caught in her throat. Fear had her heart slamming against her ribs. Not until she saw the mane of blond hair and heard Riley’s whispered voice did she release that pent-up breath.

  “Lady Abigail, are you asleep?”

  “I am awake,” she confessed, pleased by his show of consideration.

  “Then why do you sit here in darkness? There are more candles.”

  “I had not thought to search for them.”

  “’Twould be no search. They are beside the one I left burning,” he said as he proved it by lighting another and casting the cabin in romantic shadows. “Are you hungry, my lady? I have brought you fruit from the islands, some bread and a little wine from France. I have been saving the last bottle for a special occasion.”

  For some reason she couldn’t explain, Abby’s pulse pounded at the seductive note she heard in his voice. There was a taunting, provocative air about his words that made her feel more daring than she ever recalled feeling before. To feel so about a stranger would indeed be scandalous, but Captain Walker did not seem to be a stranger at all. Perhaps it was merely his sort of arrogance she had experienced before, she decided eventually. And perhaps it was time to bring him to heel.

  “You find something about this night special?” she inquired boldly.

  “Aye, my lady. I do. It has been a long while since I had a beautiful woman to share my table and...”

  “Do not say my bed, sir,” she said, deliberately daring to match his taunts and risk the consequences. “That would be presumptuous.”

  He observed her with obvious amusement, though his eyes had darkened with what surely must be desire, the kind and depth of desire she had always dreamed some man would come to feel for her. Hot, strong, pulsing need, rather than the tepid emotions that had seemed her lot up until now.

  “It would be the truth of it,” he said, “if only you would admit that you are as drawn to me as I to you.”

  Abby found she was rather enjoying the unfamiliar role of coquette. She had a feeling with a little practice, she would become quite good at it. “A lady would never admit such a thing and most especially of a man she has so recently met.”

  “But we do not know if in fact you are a lady, do we?” he challenged, his eyes glittering brightly.

  “Perhaps not,” she conceded. “But it is most rude of you to say so.”

  “True,” he acknowledged readily and without a hint of repentance. “But is it really my manners that are in question here? Or is it your fear that what I say is true and that you will fall into my arms most willingly?”

  Abby could not help grinning at his bold arrogance. She turned away to hide her smile...and to keep him from guessing the accuracy of his assessment. It was true. Something deep inside her had stirred to life the moment she had laid eyes on him.

  If the Earl of Wilton had promised fulfillment of her desire for adventure—even if he had reneged on that promise—then this equally bold Riley Walker of the Sea Witch was surely tempting her in other, far more mysterious and intriguing ways.

  In the blink of an eye a passion she had not known she possessed had awakened, a passion that was deeper and more complex than even those magnificent feelings she had shared with the earl. She might not have yearned to be trapped on the high seas by a band of pirates, but this other, this incomparable feeling of hot-blooded anticipation was something she had longed to experience. If Captain Walker could entice her so with nothing more than a look, a smile and a few well-chosen words, what could he accomplish with his touch?

  “You wished something?” he inquired.

  He spoke in that tone of lazy amusement that she found so irritating. Abby followed the direction of his gaze and saw that her hand was outstretched toward him as if to initiate the very caress she had been daydreaming of. A tide of scarlet swept into her cheeks. She sought to counteract the truth by improvising quite cleverly.

  “A piece of fruit,” she said hurriedly, turning her attention to the assortment he had provided.

  His disbelieving laugh sent a most intriguing sensation chasing down her spine, but he obediently held out an orange, its peel already removed, its juicy sections laid open on his palm.

  Abby took only one section and carefully bit into it. The sweet juice ran down her fingers. Riley’s gaze went from the orange in his hand to her mouth and then to her fingers. There was something in that look that set off a riot of sensations inside her and turned the game more provocative yet. She had never imagined that the simple act of eating could prove so sensuous.

  She looked back into Riley’s eyes, searching for evidence that he was as shaken as she by this strange allure. Their gazes caught and held. Convinced by what she saw, Abby took another section of orange.

  Slowly, ever so slowly, fully aware of Riley’s blazing eyes, she delicately bit into that piece and then another, allowing the juice to gather on her hands until they were sticky with it.

  Her gaze still captured by his, her confidence strengthened by the catch she heard in his breath, she touched her tongue to one finger, savoring the sweet juice as she savored his rapt attention. At his harsh, indrawn breath, she drew the finger into her mouth, licking it clean, wondering at the wild trembling she felt deep inside.

  As inexperienced as she was in such matters, she could almost anticipate the eventual outcome of this taunting game she played. Her entire body quivered at the thought of it.

  True to her imaginings, when she was finally through, Riley took her hand and touched his tongue to her palm. That most intimate, unexpected contact sent shivers of delight dancing through her.

  Then mimicking her own actions, he carefully drew each finger into his mouth, clearly savoring the last lingering taste of the orange and the daring intimacy. Abby’s own senses reeled from the wickedness of it.

  He gazed at her, his own eyes hooded. “Did you enjoy...” He hesitated for just a moment, long enough to allow
her imagination to run wild, before concluding, “Did you enjoy the orange, my lady?”

  “It was most—” she, too, hesitated “—satisfying.”

  “Odd, that is not how I found it at all. I would have said stimulating.” His hot gaze raked over her. “But it has left me feeling...unfulfilled.”

  Abby’s blood had turned to fire in her veins, and with it came an outrageous new level of daring. “Then perhaps you should have your own orange, Captain Walker,” she suggested mildly.

  He smiled ruefully. “That is not at all what I would taste, if given the choice, but for now I can see from the willful set of your delightful chin that it will have to do. Will you feed it to me?”

  “You cannot manage on your own?” she asked in a voice that was irritatingly breathless.

  “I could, of course,” he agreed. “But knowing that the orange came from your hands would make the experience more pleasurable, I am sure.” He held out another whole, peeled orange. “Please, my lady.”

  With a mixture of anticipation and reluctance, Abby took the fruit and held out a section. Expecting him to claim it with his fingers, she was surprised when he took it in his mouth, his lips grazing her fingers again in the process. Those same disturbing, fascinating sensations curled deep inside her, and with each piece of fruit he accepted, he drew her fingers more deeply into his mouth. The sensations turned darker and more devastating until Abby was trembling with a mysterious need she couldn’t explain.

  She knew she should have been shocked, that she should have protested. She recognized that she was playing with a fire that could rage out of control at any moment, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. There was an inevitability to what was happening, as if these flirtatious caresses were leading to something she had yearned for her whole life.