As though she’d heard the unfinished thought inside his head, Cassia fluttered her lashes closed, then tilted her head up to receive his mouth.
And he was lost.
With a growl, Nathaniel kissed her as he’d longed to do these past days, and like a kitten who’d become a cat, Cassia curled her long fingers into the fabric of his shirt, and clutching it close, she drew herself against the wall of his chest.
Nathaniel filled his hands with her buttocks; scooping that delectably rounded flesh, he pulled her even nearer, pressing her to the hard ridge of his shaft.
She kissed with the same abandon that she gave to the words she spoke, free and unfettered. The brief hesitation and uncertainty that bespoke a woman who’d never been kissed faded, replaced in an instant with one who welcomed each slant of his mouth over hers.
He flicked his tongue along that seam, tracing that plump flesh, and a little moan whispered from her lips, fanning his own with that breathy heat made by the sound of her yearning.
Lust thickened in his veins. This was why women were not permitted aboard ships. This right here. Even as the voice of reason and logic and restraint hammered his head with that reminder and the urging to set her away, Nathaniel remained hopelessly bound, as unable to set her from him and end this embrace as any of those sailors lured out by the sirens at sea.
He slipped his tongue inside, and swirled it around the contours, tasting all of her, and she delicately prodded his, at first, and then matched him in a bold thrust and parry.
This was madness.
And yet, he, a master of control, found himself completely without any this time.
Chapter 10
Cassia had never been kissed.
Until now.
Oh, she’d practiced it a good deal.
She’d been so certain there’d be a kiss one day that she’d not wanted to not have some experience.
First, she’d done so in her pillow, and then courtesy of Sir Lance of Lot, the stuffed toy knight her youngest sister had been given as a babe and made a de facto friend and additional sibling. Cassia had confiscated that most realistic looking of dolls and practiced in preparation of the time when she’d have her first embrace.
An embrace that had never come.
Not from a stable boy.
And certainly not from any passionate lord when she’d made her Come Out.
In fact, she’d come to believe she was destined to die kissless.
Only to know this moment of grand passion and glorious heat and hunger.
Nothing, however, in all the books she’d read, or in her imaginings or dreams, could have prepared her for this.
This was what drove poets to prose and bards to song.
She whimpered, sliding her fingers along the contours of his chest, slab after slab of hard muscle, each ridge defined, and they rippled under her touch.
Nathan cupped her nape in one large hand that dwarfed her head and angled her, better positioning her to receive his kiss, and she gladly tipped and went, following where he led.
His other hand went on a busy search of her that should have shocked her with its boldness, and one that she should have pushed away because of it, and yet, her entire body threatened to go up in flames, and she was content to burn, desperate to know more of the feel of that possessive, powerful hand on her. He teased it down the side of her waist, and then brought his fingers climbing up once more to cup her breast.
Cassia moaned as, through the thin, loose fabric of her lawn shirt, he teased her, tweaking the nipple, bringing it to a hard pebble with the pad of his thumb. And then he cupped her again.
Her lashes fluttered and her legs sagged, but he was immediately there to catch her. Moving his hand from her breast, he slid it swiftly under her buttocks, drawing her to the long ridge of flesh tenting the front of his trousers.
Instinctively, she rubbed against him with an intuition as old as Eve, her body knowing it needed to stretch and move against that steel-hard flesh.
Nathan groaned, that low, desperate rumble, a remarkable display of wanting . . . for her. This big, powerful man, so restrained except in his fury, brought to the point of dissolved speech and frantic touches, because of her.
And it left her gloriously heady as heat pooled low in her belly . . . and even lower. In that place she’d previously only cleaned herself and never dared touch beyond that . . . even when she’d been curious.
In all the books she’d read, not a single one of them had mentioned the hunger or that wicked, forbidden ache that throbbed between her legs.
The manner of pressure that made a lady press them together in a bid to get some relief and—
Nathan ripped his mouth from hers, and she reflexively cried out at the sudden loss.
And in all her imaginings of how her first kiss would end, she’d never foreseen this.
Horror.
It was etched in every harsh plane of his sun-bronzed face.
That emotion even reached his bluish-black irises, and she dug her toes sharply into the planks of the floor.
“I didn’t mean to do that,” he said, his voice harsh. With his earlier desire? Or with disgust?
Nay, nothing could have prepared her for this.
“If you are blaming m-me,” she rejoined, proud when her voice trembled only slightly, “then you—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I am to blame. It was . . .” And for the first time since she’d met Captain Nathan, he floundered. With his words. His lips moving and his eyes relaying confusion as he sought to find his way. “I would never . . .”
Cassia tensed and braced herself. Waiting for him to say more. But not wanting him to.
Because she knew what he’d reveal.
Disgust with her.
Because ultimately, men did not want her.
Her own family did not want her. Not truly.
She was the daughter who’d been underfoot, but not the cherished one. From their father always finding time to speak with Myrtle about his collection of antiquities to Arran always returning from his travels with some knickknack or other he’d thought Myrtle would appreciate, Cassia’s own company had never been so sought the same way by her kin.
Nathan blanched. “You’re going to cry.” He sounded desperate. For her not to, and that made it all the more difficult to stop those drops from welling in her eyes.
“I’m not,” she lied, blinking, and one rolled down her cheek, making an absolute liar of her.
She wasn’t even good at lying.
There came a flurry of footfalls, and a rap at the door.
Nathan positioned himself in front of her. “Enter,” he barked, and his almost-too-deep-to-be-considered-a-baritone voice bore no hint of quavering or the weakness or desire of before. In fact, she may as well have imagined the kiss between them.
Of their own will, her fingers came up, and she touched that swollen flesh that still tingled with the remembrance of it.
The panel opened, and several deckhands streamed in, carrying two buckets each of steaming water.
And for all the misery and shame of rejection, warmth unfurled in her breast. He’d thought of her, again. Surely, with this latest consideration for her and her needs, he could not truly hold her in disdain.
“You need a bath,” he said gruffly, sticking a knife blade into the ridiculously hopeful musings she’d allowed free rein in her brain.
A blush turned her entire body hot, and she glanced down at her toes, at the wall, at anywhere except him. Yes, she did. It was entirely different, having a hip bath. One could not properly—