bodice. She breathed a sigh of relief when it came loose. The thing did great things for her figure, but it was not the most comfortable garment she'd ever worn.
He rolled her onto her back, parting her legs and peeling off the remaining stocking. His callused fingertips rasped tenderly up the length of her legs in a long, appreciative caress. She stretched like a pampered kitten, arching and wiggling with voluptuous pleasure even before his fingers brushed across her damp sex.
“Did I pass?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“Will the sexpot pirate queen let me live to love another day?”
She reached out to caress the jut of his erection, already conveniently sheathed in latex, she noted with interest. “It depends on your stamina,” she said sternly. “You didn't think that the pirate queen would be satisfied with one little orgasm, did you?”
“That orgasm was not little. It went on and on.” He lifted her up until she straddled him. “Show me who's boss, pirate queen. Ride me.”
Raine was still shaky from the aftermath of her last orgasm, and she braced herself against him, splaying her hands across his hard chest. The unfamiliar position made her feel clumsy and uncertain.
Seth took control smoothly, lifting her up and nudging himself inside her. It was always a shock, the heat and solid hardness of him pushing, forging his way in. But she was relaxed, her sheath soft and moist from his tender skill. She enveloped him easily, with a shuddering moan of pleasure. She touched his face and found it hot and damp with sweat. The unguarded look in his eyes moved her, and she collapsed across his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck.
In that moment all their power games, playful or otherwise, were revealed to her for exactly what they were. Superficial games, to distract them from the strength of their feelings. She didn't feel conquering, or conquered. She felt unveiled. She knew herself better in that moment than she ever had before, her fears and her hunger and her loneliness. AH of it was brilliantly lit, out in the open for them both to see.
She saw him, too, in an infinity of poignant details: the mole on his shoulder, the sweeping winged pattern of his heavy eyebrows, the seams carved around his wide mouth. The sharp-cut line of his full, sensual lips. Seth's dark eyes were full of the terrible knowledge of their mutual vulnerability, just as her own must be.
It filled her with tenderness, a burning ache. She hid her face against his shoulder and lost herself in the surging, voluptuous tempo of his body beneath her. It wasn't power she surrendered to as she clenched herself around him. It was wonder. Breathless, knocked fiat, heart-swelling wonder, leaving her soft and helpless.
He wound his fingers through her hair and gently tugged until she lifted her head. The dark intensity of his gaze reached inside her and saw everything she was. Accepting it, wanting it.
“Hey.” He rolled her onto her back, still joined, pressing her into the crumpled sheets. “You never told me the rest of the story.”
Raine clutched his shoulders and arched, opening herself to accept more of him. “What? What story?”
“What happens to the pirate queen and the captured sailor.”
“Oh.” She laughed, breathless and charmed by his mischievous grin. “I, um, don't know the rest yet,” she admitted.
“I do. Sailor stud is so insatiably hot in bed, he fucks the pirate queen senseless. Totally blows her mind. Nobody's ever given her such good head before. She loses it. She gets swept away. She falls in love.”
He had never used that word before. The scary word. The L-word.
Raine clenched her arms and legs around him and licked her lips, tried to remember how to speak. “That's terribly dangerous,” she said. “She shouldn't compromise her power like that. It's sure to be her ruin.”
“Yeah, I know, but the poor chick can't help it. She just goes nuts when he touches her like this.” He reached between them and rolled his thumb tenderly around her clitoris, making her gasp and heave against him. “She loves it when he thrusts his cock inside her, all the way, like this, and stirs her around... and around, like a nice, big stick... see? Hitting all her sweet little love buttons, inside and out She's just got to have it. He's too good. She's hooked....”
She cried out, losing the thread of the story as the deep thrusting of his shaft within her combined with his clever, skilful fingers to provoke another sensual explosion inside her.
When she opened her eyes, he was waiting patiently, staring down at her. He folded her legs up and rose up onto his knees for a better view as he withdrew. He slid just the head of his cock up, down, all around her clitoris, in a tender, highly stimulating caress.
Raine tried to make her trembling lips form words. “She's sexy and insatiable, yes, but she's tough, too,” she said shakily. “She wouldn't let herself be controlled by sex, no matter how amazing it is. She's more than just an overheated body. She has a brain, you know. Otherwise she wouldn't be top dog.”
“Yeah, but don't forget She has a heart, too.”
Raine stared into his eyes, speechless.
Seth nudged himself inside her body once again. “That's what gets her, see. Her heart. Sailor stud finds the key to it. He gets past her armor, sees all her secret wounds. He understands why she's such a scary, bad-ass babe, why she thinks that she needs all that control. He finds the vulnerable woman inside, and for the first time ever... he makes that woman feel safe.”
“Oh,” she gasped.
He slid a hand beneath her buttocks, lifting her so he could wedge himself still deeper. “But it goes both ways,” he said. “Sailor stud is in bad trouble. He's never had it so good, see? He's almost willing to just surrender. Almost willing to settle for a life of humiliating captivity, just so he can have that red-hot, sex-crazed pirate queen lather him up and ride him into screaming oblivion every night And before he knows it, crash, bam. He's in love with her, too.”
She reached up, gripped his shoulders and hung on for dear life. “A disaster,” she said. “What a dilemma.”
“Hell, yeah. It's nightmare for the poor bastard. His heart is being squeezed in a fucking vise.” Seth slid inside her in a slow, heavy lunge.
Raine squeezed her eyes shut. “What... what does sailor stud decide?” She held her breath. The fate of her whole world might hang upon his answer. Or then again, maybe not. Maybe it was just another game for him. She couldn't know, or guess. She could only feel.
She opened her eyes when she felt his hand against her face, and was immediately lost in the intensity of his dark gaze. He pushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. His fingers brushed her cheek, soft and reverent “I don't know the rest of the story yet I'm making it up as I go along, too, Raine. Just like you.”
His shaky, uncertain tone made her heart turn over with terrified joy. “Well, um, the pirate henchmen are getting restless,” she said, trying for an airy tone. “They're crazed with jealousy for sailor stud—”
“Because pirate queen wants him all to herself. She won't let them watch. Not even once.” His eyes dared her to argue with him.
“Not even once,” she conceded gentry. “The door to her cabin is locked, and she covers up all the spy-holes in the wall.”
“So they know their perfect world is threatened. Their goddess, their whole reason for being, has been seduced away from them.” He scooped the nape of her neck into his big, warm hand, smoothing her hair over the pillow. “They want things the way they were before. They want their goddess back, but she's changed. You can't turn back time. You can't stop a force of nature. You can't stop love.”
“No” she whispered, in total agreement. “You can't.”
He moved inside her, melting her heart with the powerfully erotic sweetness of their lovemaking. He draped her arms over his neck, sliding his arms beneath her shoulders.
“Hold on tight,” he said. “Listen carefully. This is how it goes. Pirate henchmen hatch a plot to tie up sailor stud hand and foot and throw him overboard, but pirate queen gets wind of it at the very last moment. She dives into the ocean with her dagger clenched between her teeth, grabs him before he sinks, and cuts his bonds. Even though the crew has mutinied, and she knows that she and sailor stud will be left out there in the drink... shark chow.”
She tried to smile, but her mouth was trembling “Oh, come on,” she protested. “She would never do that. You're pushing it, Seth.”
“He gives truly excellent head,” Seth explained. He pulled out of her and slid down the length of her body,
