Captive Innocence Read online

  He lay down beside her, reaching for her, covering her breasts with his hands, seeking them with his lips. Her arms wound around him, holding him close as she pressed her nakedness against him. His hands made an intimate search of her shoulders, and a golden warmth spread through her veins.

  He whispered Spanish love words, praising her beauty, celebrating her sensuality. Her body seemed to have a life of its own and she succumbed, turning, opening, like the petals of a flower.

  Then she felt him move upon her, demanding her response, tantalizing her with his mouth, bringing her ever closer to that which had always eluded her and kept itself nameless from her.

  Her body flamed beneath his kiss ...

  Books by Fern Michaels:

  A Family affair

  Forget Me Not

  The Blossom Sisters

  Balancing act

  Tuesday’s Child

  Betrayal

  Southern Comfort

  To Taste the Wine

  Sins of the Flesh

  Sins of Omission

  Return to Sender

  Mr. and Miss Anonymous

  Up Close and Personal

  Fool Me Once

  Picture Perfect

  About face

  The Future Scrolls

  Kentucky Sunrise

  Kentucky Heat

  Kentucky Rich

  Plain Jane

  Charming Lily

  What You Wish For

  The Guest List

  Listen to Your Heart

  Celebration

  Yesterday

  Finders Keepers

  Annie’s Rainbow

  Sara’s Song

  Vegas Sunrise

  Vegas Heat

  Vegas Rich

  Whitefire

  Wish List

  Dear Emily

  Christmas at Timberwoods

  The Sisterhood Novels:

  Blindsided

  Gotcha!

  Home Free

  Déjà Vu

  Cross Roads

  Game Over

  Deadly Deals

  Vanishing Act

  Razor Sharp

  Under the Radar

  Final Justice

  Collateral Damage

  Fast Track

  Hokus Pokus

  Hide and Seek

  Free Fall

  Lethal Justice

  Sweet Revenge

  The Jury

  Vendetta

  Payback

  Weekend Warriors

  The Godmothers Series:

  Classfied

  Breaking News

  Deadline

  Late Edition

  Exclusive

  The Scoop

  E-Book Exclusives:

  Captive Secrets

  Captive Splendors

  Captive Embraces

  Captive Passions

  Cinders to Satin

  For All Their Lives

  Fancy Dancer

  Texas Heat

  Texas Rich

  Texas Fury

  Texas Sunrise

  Anthologies:

  Secret Santa

  A Winter Wonderland

  I’ll Be Home for Christmas

  Making Spirits Bright

  Holiday Magic

  Snow Angels

  Silver Bells

  Comfort and Joy

  Sugar and Spice

  Let it Snow

  A Gift of Joy

  Five Golden Rings

  Deck the Halls

  Jingle All the Way

  FERN MICHAELS

  CAPTIVE INNOCENCE

  eKensington

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Fern Michaels:

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Letting Go Of The Past

  Copyright Page

  Prologue

  He listened for the sound of her footsteps padding quietly across the Persian carpet. His senses were alert, sensitively attuned, every nerve in his body vibrating erotically with anticipation. Soon, he told himself, she would come to him. He would be aware of her heady perfume as she entered the room, he would feel the motion of air as it glided across her naked body before she slid into bed beside him. His arms ached to hold her, his mouth was greedy for hers.

  The door on the far side of the room opened, allowing a brighter shaft of light to pierce the dimness inside. The gaslights had been turned low, the way she liked them, the way he liked them. She never wanted to make love in the dark. “I want to see you,” she would complain, murmuring low, in the sensual voice he loved. “I want to look at you....”

  No more than he loved seeing her, looking at her, expecting and cherishing the pleasure he saw in her eyes and the slight tilt of satisfaction near the corners of her mouth.

  She stood in the shaft of light, knowing it outlined her splendid body, allowing it to bathe her silhouette and lend its radiance to her every movement. Her dressing gown was of gossamer silk, red and vibrant, bringing out the soft gold tones of her skin, buffing it to the sleekness of satin. Her long wealth of golden hair hung about her shoulders and over one breast, making her appear virginal, innocently modest, belying the message he read in her eyes.

  As she approached the high tester bed, moving toward him, his heart seemed to stop in his chest. She was beautiful, his little lioness, desirable and untamed. He was as attracted to her mind as he was to her body; the combined effect on his senses was devastating. Each curve, each line seemed edged in flame. She was his, this golden woman, only his. The perfection of her thrusting breasts, the full and glorious hips tapering into lean, strong thighs that protected the very center of her being were his alone for the taking.

  With an elegant gesture that was far more sensual than innocent, she shrugged off the vibrant crimson dressing gown, standing silently still for a moment, allowing her eyes to follow his muscular torso upward to his magnificent panther’s head. Love spoke from his eyes; desire pulsated through her body, communicating with his own hungers and needs. And when she threw back the blanket, uncovering him, her frank and guileless gaze was sassily directed to a place beneath his flat belly. Seeing the evidence of his desires, she smiled, brash and bold, confident of her effect on him, quivering in anticipation of the touch of his body to hers.

  The bedding moved beneath her slight weight, and yet he knew her to be full bodied and not lacking any of the softness and alluring curves that bewitched a man, despite her petiteness and delicate frame.

  The scent of her aroused his awareness, the sound of her skin sliding against the sheets, like silk on silk, brought a stab of barely controlled lust. He loved this woman, he wanted her, as he had for a thousand times in the past and would for uncountable times in their future. She was his golden girl, his woman of indefinable mystery, the perfect balance of mind and beauty.

  With a tenderness born of love, he r
eached for her, bringing her hard against him, feeling the growing fever enflame him, cautiously placing a guarded check on his overpowering need to throw her on her back, to have her, to lose himself in her. His hands smoothed over her delicately skinned breasts, reveling in their weight and fullness, gliding down to her slim waist and her velvet haunches, permitting himself a long and sensual kiss on the fleecy triangle her nudity offered.

  Hungry lips devoured her, satisfying his passion for her beauty, finding details and perfections that were like a potent wine to his sensibilities. The sleekness and length of her thighs, the flatness of her belly, the elegant length of her legs, and always he returned to her mouth, her wonderful, giving, yielding mouth, that spoke of its own greedy hungers and appetites. His attentions strayed and lingered on her breasts, delighting in the hard nubs of their rosy crests that offered their own silent provocative appeal.

  Royall’s body sang a siren’s song, alluring, seductive, calling through the dimness to an answering need in him. She writhed beneath his touch, loving it, needing it, crazed with the desire to offer herself completely to the explorations of his fingers and lips.

  Sebastian, loving this need and madness in her, advanced further in his caresses, spurred by his thirst for her endless beauty, teasing, stirring, touching, and at last offering the ultimate caress of his lips on the place that held such attraction for him.

  Their passions were equal, joyously met.

  Her fingers played in his hair, brushing it back from his brow, exposing it to her lips. She kissed him lightly on the lips, tasting herself there, straining toward him, her body rising and falling with the tides of passion that demanded obedience to the desire to culminate their love.

  Determined hands pressed him against the pillows. His breath came in hard, short gasps of expectation. Her full breasts pressed against his chest, their tips burying themselves against the erotically crisp furring that marked its broad expanse. She knew her power over him and yielded to his mastery over her. Beneath her fingers his skin glistened moistly, and the long, masculinely hard length of him consoled her yearning need for him.

  Her lips tasted every nuance of his physique, and her fingers touched the familiar yet never less exciting ripples and muscular smoothness of his adored body. Licking and teasing kisses at the hollow in his throat evoked a low, throbbing groan of sheer pleasure and delight. She brought his face to the ripe plenitude of her firm breasts, feeling him inhale their fragrance, reveling in the teasing torments of his mouth, surrendering to the reach and height of desires that his kiss brought her.

  The contact between them was smooth, artful, deliberately paced and yet abandoned. He came alive beneath her fingers and his desires throbbed between them, igniting her to a burning flame whose only purpose of existence was to bring warmth and comfort to the man she loved. And within the fires of her own passions, she knew she would be consumed and rekindled time and again, until her satisfactions became ashes from which a renewed desire would rise like the legendary phoenix to take her into flight and carry her beyond the limits of the flesh. And her flight was not a lonely one; beside her, a part of herself, he would be with her, touching, adoring, loving.

  She cried out his name, arching her body to receive him, her fingers digging into his hard muscles as she held him fiercely. She tumbled skyward, bringing him with her, becoming a part of a rushing wind that scoured the heavens and purified lust into a sacrament of love. “Sebastian,” she whispered, answering his response, and she knew that the only name she knew or would ever need to know was his.

  He held her in his arms, cherishing the contact between them, soothing her into a blissful sleep. Tiny, barely perceived touches of her lips caressed his chest. Even in sleep she loved him, his golden girl. His arm tightened, bringing her closer. And he loved her. Always, he loved her. And he marveled at the fates that had brought her to him to soothe the aching within him, the loneliness that only she could fill.

  Chapter One

  Words and foreign phrases rioted through her head. Belém. Rio de Janeiro. Impressions of a world far from the one she knew. Sparkling opalescent waters of Guanabara Bay stretching across the Tropic of Capricorn. Names and places on a map—places she never dreamed she would see. Sun. Heat. Throngs of people, darker skinned, wearing brighter colors. A people of the tropics in this land south of the Equator where unfamiliar languages were spoken. This land called Brazil.

  A thrill of anticipation tingled Royall Banner’s spine as she watched the natives of Rio de Janeiro ready the streets for Mardi Gras. It seemed so strange to be here, on the other side of the world from her native New England, where dark skin was more familiar than white, where colorful dresses and bare feet were the norm. Royall’s amber-gold gaze peered through sooty black lashes, preserving the memory of her first day in Brazil’s seaport city.

  “This must seem like a fairy story to you, Royall,” her companion, Rosalie Quince, smiled. “Traveling by ship to a tropical city south of the Equator, seeing things that you’d only read about in books. I grant you, Rio is a far cry from Boston.” The older woman’s bright eyes took on a gleam as Royall’s infectious excitement made her remember her own experiences at Mardi Gras. She sighed. That was so long ago—when she herself was a lovely young woman like Royall. When her own complexion would flush to pink, and her own eyes couldn’t see enough. Where had those days gone? “It’s a pity we can’t stay for the celebrations, but we must leave on the boat that will take us to Bel6m and then by paddlewheeler up the Amazon to the plantations.”

  Royall nodded her bright golden head, her amber eyes never leaving the far side of the cobbled street where vendors were preparing their stalls and arranging their merchandise of huge paper flowers and glittering sequined masks. From the distance came the beat of drums and the sound of musicians tuning their instruments. Tonight there would be music, dancing, revelry, the last celebration before the start of Lent. Shrove Tuesday, Mrs. Quince had called it. Tomorrow would be Ash Wednesday, when the predominantly Catholic population would flock to church where a priest would smudge their foreheads with holy ashes and intone the message, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—a reminder of man’s mortality.

  A frown etched itself between Rosalie Quince’s sparse brows. She sensed in Royall a desperate need to join the revelry, to tap her feet to the music and dance in the streets. Scandalous behavior, since Royall was still in her period of mourning—highly improper for a widow whose husband had been buried less than a year before. And it was unheard of to wear a carrot-colored silk dress while still in mourning. The frown etched deeper. Royall said she had done her grieving at the gravesite and left it there in the clammy dampness. This was a new life, and she wouldn’t be bogged down with heavy black bombazine. Rosalie Quince had never truly seen the imp of devilishness in anyone’s eyes in all her fifty-two years, but the unmistakable gleam in Royall Banner’s eyes clearly stated that she meant to get on with her life and enjoy it.

  Royall whirled around suddenly and exuberantly threw her arms around Mrs. Quince. “This is an adventure, and I don’t want to miss a minute of the excitement. I’ll stay here and watch the preparations while you go back to the ship and take a nap.”

  Mrs. Quince was properly horrified at the suggestion. “You’ll do no such thing. Whatever would Baron Newsome think of me leaving you to your own devices? Royall, you must come with me,” she scolded as she hooked her arm through the younger woman’s. “You can watch the activities from the deck of the clipper ship. I take my responsibilities very seriously. This country is a far cry from what you’re familiar with in Boston. Now, come along. You’ll positively wilt in this heat. We’ll have a nice cool drink, and then I’ll take my nap.” The plump little woman gathered her old-fashioned voluminous skirts in hand and proceeded down the street that would lead them to the wharf.

  Royall’s back stiffened. It was no different here than back in Boston. Someone was always telling her what to do, how to behave. She was, after all, a responsi
ble woman of twenty-three years, and a widow. She hadn’t needed a nanny since she was a little girl and she didn’t need one now. Especially a self-appointed nanny like Rosalie Quince, who was determined to perform her Christian duty by playing duenna. What had begun as an adventure to remove herself from the cloying overprotectiveness of friends and family in Boston had ended in her becoming a prisoner of propriety under Mrs. Quince’s tutelage.

  Matching her steps with Rosalie’s, Royall craned her neck to see a group of women with wide, bright-banded skirts and white peasant blouses pulled low over their smooth brown shoulders, cooking chickens over an open fire. Children played nearby, and she saw one little boy get his hand slapped soundly when he attempted to steal a piece of delectably crisp, spicy meat. “Royall, I declare, must you see everything? Come along. This heat has just about done me in.”

  Royall obeyed, as she had always done. Obeying first her father and then her husband and, most recently, her husband’s grown sons and daughters with their narrow-minded New England sensibilities. When, oh when, Royall silently cried, would she be allowed to follow her own instincts and seek her own adventures?

  What in the name of all that was holy did Rosalie think would happen to her if Royall was out of her sight for a few hours? Was she afraid of Royall being robbed, her money taken? Impossible! The only funds she carried in the little reticule that swung from her arm were small amounts, for shopping and gratuities and perhaps for carriage fare.

  A small giggle erupted in Royall’s throat, making Rosalie turn and look at her askance. She could just imagine Rosalie having fears that her charge would be kidnapped, sold into slavery, carried off by a dashing dark-haired scoundrel who was intent on ravaging her slender, young body.

  Ignoring Mrs. Quince’s quizzical glance, Royall kept her eyes straight ahead, kept her feet in rhythm with the older woman’s step. In spite of herself, moisture gathered at the corners of Royall’s prettily pouting mouth at the silly thought. What would it be like to be ravaged, loved, desired by a handsome, hard-muscled man? A man who could fulfill those longings in her that her marriage to MacDavis Banner had only hinted but had never accomplished.