Temptation Released Read Free Page B

that would follow.

Chapter Three
     
     
     
    Raphael stalked over to the wall separating his cabin from Elise’s and leaned his back against it. It was awfully quiet over there, and he wondered what she was doing. He hoped she wouldn’t prove trouble for the crew. They were used to women being on board—he ransomed two or three a year, easy—but they’d never had anyone like Elise. Stubborn, defiant, deliciously lush and inviting.
    He frowned. She’d told him, nay, demanded that he ravish her. But did she want him, or any man? Would the little minx proposition his crew? He’d already spoken with his men, but they were pirates after all. If the woman showed her nakedness to them, he couldn’t blame them for taking what would be offered.
    He had shared willing women with his crew before, but the thought of Lady Elise being passed around made his skin crawl. No one had the right to touch her. No one but him.
    He grimaced.
    No, not even him. If anything prevented this ransom exchange, he might not get another chance to get this close to his cousin, Miguel, and slit his throat. He’d vowed, at the feet of his dying mother that he’d hunt down the bastard who’d turned them away when his mother had been deathly ill. She may have lived if he himself had been older, and his cousin had actually had a heart.
    Raphael glanced down at his white-knuckled fist and forced himself to relax. One of the major conditions of Elise’s return, he’d been instructed, was that her virginity remain intact. The bastards would use a doctor to check her virtue. Even though Raphael thought the act barbaric, he was simply the delivery person, after all. What happened to her when she left his ship was not his concern. His only concern meant that she remain in her cabin, away from all of them. After all, her temptation-filled body wasn’t enough to make him lose everything he’d worked for.
    A soft moan from the other side of the wall had him tensing. He turned his head and pressed his ear to the thin wood.
    There it was again. Was she hurt?
    He almost left to go to her, but waited instead. When her breathy moans met his ears, his cock twitched, recognizing the sound as one of lust.
    No. It couldn’t be. She is a lady.
    But… “No,” he said this time aloud. “A lady would never touch herself in that way.”
    His gaze strayed to the dagger sticking out of the wall to his left. In between a cabinet and his bed, his quartermaster had stuck it in the burl in the wood after he’d cut around the piece. As a reminder of where the peephole was.
    Raphael snorted. He’d not touched that dagger in all the years it’d been there. He wasn’t into spying on his captives.
    A deep groan came through this time, louder than before. Damn.
    Moving carefully, and telling himself the whole while he was checking to make sure she wasn’t injured, he grasped the dagger’s handle and pulled. The burl came out silently. The hole was oblong, and no wider than his thumb.
    Holding his breath, he set his eyes to the opening and peeked into her room.
    It took him a moment to orient his vision, but there across the room was Lady Elise. He blinked and his cock went to full mast. She reclined on her bed, her skirts up above her hips and her neckline dipped so that her breasts rested high, tipped with nipples so tight his mouth watered to taste them.
    She had one hand on her breast, teasing the tip as he’d done a short while before. The other hand was against her pussy. He cursed the angle of his view and that her knees were bent as he couldn’t see how she was pleasuring herself.
    When she let out a breathy sigh, he matched it.
    She squeezed one full breast and pulled her taut nipple between her fingers. Then she rubbed over the other breast, this time tugging and twisting the nipple until it turned bright red. Her head lay against the pillow with eyes closed. His gaze trailed over her delicate cheeks, across her full lips she bit so enticingly, and he