own cabin if she moved now, but her legs would not carry her across the cabin. Then she heard his footsteps cross the deck above her with a different tread. He was coming down. It was too late.
Almost choking on her own breath, she sank back on to the bunk and lifted both pistols. They wavered uncertainly and she realized that her hands were shaking.
With a tremendous effort she stilled them. The door slimmed open and Mungo St. John stooped into the cabin, and then stopped as he saw the dark figure and the twin barrels that menaced him. They are loaded and cocked, she said huskily. 'And I will not hesitate. 'I see. ' He straightened slowly, so the dark head just brushed the deck overhead. Close the door, she said, and he pushed it closed with his foot, his arms folded on his chest, and that mocking half-smile on his lips. It made her forget her carefully rehearsed speech, and she stuttered slightly, and was immediately furious with herself. You are a slaver, she blurted, and he inclined his head, still smiling. 'And I have to stop you. 'How do you propose doing that? ' he asked with polite interest. I am going to kill you. 'That should do it, ' he admitted, and now he smiled, a flash of white teeth in the gloom. 'Unfortunately they would probably hang you for it, if my crew didn't tear you to pieces before that. 'You assaulted me, she said. She glanced at her torn drawers lying near his feet and then with the butt of one pistol touched her torn bodice. A rape, by God! Now he chuckled aloud, and she felt herself blushing vividly at the word. It's no laughing matter, Captain St. John. You have sold thousands of human souls into the most vile bondage.'
He took one slow pace towards her and she half rose, panic in her voice. Don't move! I warn you He took another pace and she thrust both pistols towards him, at the full stretch of her arms, I shall fire The smile never wavered on his lips and the yellow flecked eyes held hers steadily as he took another lazy pace closer. You have the most beautiful green eyes I have ever seen, he said, and the pistols shook in her hands. Here'
'he said gently. 'Give them to me He took the two gold-worked barrels in one hand and turned their muzzles upwards, pointing them at the deck above them. With the other hand he gently began to open her fingers, untangling them from trigger and butt. This is not why you came here, he said, and her fingers went slack.
He took the pistols out of her hands and uncocked them before laying them back in their velvetlined nests within the rosewood case.
His smile was no longer mockin& and his voice was soft, almost tender as he lifted her to her feet. I am glad you came.
' She tried to turn her face away, but he took her chin between his fingers and lifted it. As he brought his mouth down to hers, she saw his lips opening, and the warm wet touch was a physical shock.
His mouth tasted slightly salty, perfumed with cigar smoke. She tried to keep her lips closed, but the pressure of his own lips forced them gently open and then his tongue was invading her. His fingers were still on her face, stroking her cheek, smoothing her hair back from her temples, touching lightly her closed eyelids, and she lifted her face higher to his touch.
Even when he slowly unfastened the last hooks of her bodice and eased it down off her shoulders, her only response was to feel the strength go out of her thighs so she had to lean against his hard chest for support.
Then he lifted his mouth from hers, leaving it empty, cooling after the warmth and she opened her eyes. With a sense of disbelief, she saw that his head was bowing to her breast, and she was looking down on the thick dark curls that covered the back of his neck. She knew it must stop now, before he did what she could hardly believe he was about to do.
When she tried to protest, it was only a whimper in her throat. When she tried to seize his head and thrust it away from her, her fingers merely curled into the springing crisp curls the way a cat claws a velvet cushion, and instead of thrusting him away, she drew his head down and arched her back slightly so that her breasts rose to meet him.
Yet she was unprepared for the feel of his mouth. It seemed as though he were about to suck her very soul out through the swollen, aching tips. It was too strong, she tried not to cry out, remembering that the last time she had done so, it had broken the spell, but it was too strong.
it was a sobbing choked-up little cry, and now her legs gave way under her. Still holding his head she sagged backwards on to the low bunk, and he knelt beside the bunk without lifting his mouth from her body. She arched her back and raised her buttocks off the bunk at his touch and allowed him to draw out her billowing skirts from under her and drop them to the deck.
Suddenly, he pulled abruptly away and she almost screamed to him not to go away again, but he had crossed to the door and locked it. Then, as he came back to where she lay, his own clothing seemed to fall away from his body like morning mist from mountain peak, and she came up on one elbow to stare at him openly.
She had never seen anything so beautiful, she thought. The devil is beautiful also. ' A tiny inner voice tried to warn her, but it was far away and so small that she could ignore it. Besides it was too late, far too late to listen to warnings now, for already he was coming over her.
She expected pain, but not the deep splitting incursion that racked her. Her head was flung back and her eyes flooded with the tears of it. Yet even in the stinging agony of it there was never a thought to reject this stretching, tearing invasion and she clung to him with both her arms about his neck. It seemed that he suffered with her, for except for that single swift deep stroke, he had not moved, trying to alleviate her agony by his utter stillness, his body was rigid as hers, she could feel the muscles taut to the point of tearing, and he cradled her in his arms.
Then suddenly she could breathe again, and she took in air with a great rushing sob, and immediately the pain began to change its shape, becoming something she could not describe to herself. It started as a spark of heat, deep within her, and flared slowly so she was forced to meet it with a slow voluptuous movement of her hips.
She seemed to break free of earth and rise up through flames, that flickered redly through her clenched eyelids.
There was only one reality, and that was the hard body that rocked and plunged above her. The heat seemed to fill her until she could not bear it any longer. Then at the last moment when she thought she might die of it, it burst within her and she felt herself falling, like a tumbling leaf, down, down, at last, to the hard narrow bunk in a half-dark cabin in a tall ship on a wind-driven sea.
When next she could open her eyes his face was very close to hers. He was staring at her with a thoughtful, solemn expression.
She tried to smile, it was a shaky unconvincing effort. Please don't look at me like that. ' Her voice was even deeper, more husky than it usually was. I don't think I ever saw you before, he whispered and traced the line of her lips with his fingertip. 'You are so different. 'Different from what? 'Different from other women. ' His reply gave her a pang.
He made the first movement of withdrawing from her, but she tightened her grip on him panic-stricken at the
