When Armand bent his head to press a kiss to her breasts, she sighed with prickling pleasure as his silky hair ruffled against her chin and his lips tugged at her nipple. She turned her head on the pillow and smiled dreamily at the sight of her blue satin garter encircling his muscular upper arm.
But when he raised his head and put his hand between their pressing bodies, Madeleine automatically tensed for what was to come.
“Don’t, chérie,” he said. “Relax. I’ll be gentle. Let me love you.”
She did.
And he did.
She released a shallow breath as she felt his throbbing tumescence slide slowly, cautiously into her. She knew that he was watching her face for signs of pain so she was very careful not to exhibit any traces of the discomfort she briefly experienced. It did hurt. It had been a long, long time. And he was so…so big. She felt as if her body were being filled and stretched far beyond its capacity.
But not for long. Amazingly enough, she found that her yielding flesh was indeed able to accommodate his impressive erection. And when he began to move inside her, Madeleine gave silent thanks that this stranger to whom she was willingly surrendering her body was so very well endowed.
In this dark lover’s arms, Madeleine became oblivious to the raging storm. Swept away in a tempest of white-hot passion, deeply impaled upon his thrusting flesh, she rocked and bucked against him, finding the rhythm of the rocking, bucking bunk beneath them.
It was a wild, erotic ride as neither Madeleine nor Armand held anything back. Mating in an almost animalistic manner, they moaned and gasped as they made hot, totally uninhibited love as the ship rose and fell violently, the fierce movements only adding to the savage joy of their vigorous coupling.
Glorying in the intimacy and the ecstasy, Madeleine was certain that this handsome Creole was indisputably the world’s most thrilling lover. She was totally enchanted, loving the look in his flashing black eyes, the taste of his burning lips and the splendid feel of his lean body on hers—and in hers.
She was amazed that he had the power and the stamina and the skill to make her climax again and again until she was practically weeping his name in near sexual hysteria. And she was shocked that he could attain his own hot, spurting orgasm and then be able and ready to pleasure her again within just a few short minutes.
And so it went.
While the hurricane howled and punished and threatened to capsize the already sinking ship, the lovers continued to thrill and please and pleasure each other as if there were no tomorrow.
And there wasn’t. But it didn’t matter.
As Madeleine again felt her lover’s hard flesh seek the soft warmth of hers, she sighed and gazed at him, enthralled.
He was everything. He was the only thing. There was no future and no past. Only now with him moving inside her as he looked into her eyes and murmured her name in low, soft tones that she magically managed to hear above the deafening din.
Only him.
Only now.
And now was forever.
Six
Forever came to the end seconds later.
The world intruded.
Loud shouts from out on deck brought the lovers abruptly back to reality. Heads snapped around, listening intently, Armand and Madeleine learned that the sudden flurry of excitement was over a coastal steamer that had been spotted making its way toward the crippled ship.
The sea, they now realized with some surprise, had calmed dramatically in the last few minutes of their lovemaking. They were not going to die after all.
Armand gave Madeleine a quick kiss, levered himself up and drew her to her feet. In haste they dressed and hurried out on deck, hearts pumping with adrenaline.
The steamer had reached the sinking ship, but it was a small vessel. Passengers were already clamoring over the Starlight’s railing and crowding onto the steamer’s deck, endangering the vessel that offered safety.
“No more!” shouted the worried steamer captain, “we can’t take any more passengers. We’ll swamp if we do! Water’s already to the gunnels! Get back, get back!”
A cry of protest rose from the pushing, shoving mob of men. Determined to get Madeleine on the steamer and save her life, Armand swept her up into his arms and forced his way through the crowd.
“Wait!” he shouted to the captain of the City of Mobile, handing Madeleine down onto its decks, “You must take her! She’s the last woman on board. Show a little mercy, Captain!”
“Very well,” the frowning captain reluctantly agreed, “but she’s the last one I’ll take.” He drew a pistol from his waistband and shouted, “I’ll shoot the next man who tries to board this vessel!”
Amidst curses and threats from those left behind, the dangerously overloaded steamboat backed away from the sinking ocean liner. Jostled and pushed about, Lady Madeleine stood on the crowded deck and looked back at the sinking ship.
Her tear-filled eyes clung to Armand de Chevalier as he gallantly smiled, waved and threw her a kiss. The lump in her throat grew bigger as she kissed her fingertips and threw the kiss back. And when he hastily unbuttoned his soiled white shirt and whipped it off his left shoulder to reveal her blue satin garter encircling his hard brown biceps, she laughed and sobbed at the same time.
“Armand,” she said without sound, realizing that her lover was going to die. She would never see him again.
After many long, nightmarish hours spent on the badly over-crowded City of Mobile as it steamed through the Gulf and made its slow way upriver, Lady Madeleine at long last arrived in New Orleans.
It was sunset.
Wan and exhausted from the ordeal, Madeleine stood at the riverboat’s lacy railing wondering if her Uncle Colfax and Lord Enfield would be at the landing to meet her. She wondered if they had heard of the hurricane in the Gulf and the sinking of the S. S. Starlight. Would they think she had perished? Gone down with the ship? They would have no way of knowing that she had been spared.
Madeleine sighed as she shaded her eyes from the dying summer sun. She couldn’t expect them to meet every river steamer making port in hopes she would be on it. It didn’t matter. As soon as she reached the levee, she’d hire a carriage to drive her straight to her Uncle Colfax’s French Quarter mansion.
Her eyes lighted in anticipation of seeing her adored uncle. It would be so pleasant to have a little time alone with him before she had to face her fiancé, Lord Enfield. The prospect of looking the lord in the eye and pretending that she was still the high-moraled lady he thought her to be, filled Madeleine with dread and apprehension. She was eager to see him, of course, but now that reality had sunk in, she was so riddled with guilt she wasn’t sure she could conceal her anxiety.
Dear, kind, unsuspecting Desmond. If he knew what she had done, his heart would break and he would surely hate her for all eternity.
The Louisiana sun finally sank beneath the horizon as the slow-moving riverboat approached the levee. In the lingering orange afterglow Madeleine spotted, standing side-by-side on the bustling levee, her Uncle Colfax Sumner and Desmond Chilton.
Torn by conflicting emotions, she raised a hand and waved madly.
“My sweet little Madeleine!” exclaimed her beaming uncle after the riverboat captain had personally escorted her down the gangway and into the outstretched arms of the spry, sixty-seven-year-old Colfax Sumner. “We heard about the terrible storm,” he said, embracing Madeleine, but addressing the captain. “The S. S. Starlight, did she make it?”
Madeleine’s heart hurt when the captain replied, “Afraid not, sir. The last we saw of her, she was swiftly going down. Those left on board most surely