by Angel Payne
But she was more than grateful. She was more than a little guilt-ridden. And confused on top of that. Both added up to frustration she couldn’t mask. From the midst of it, she finally snapped at him, “Why?”
His black brows bunched. “What the hell did I do now?”
“Stop that,” she returned. “Dinky told me. Not only did you dive in to that storm and save me, but the crew wanted to throw me back after you did. And you didn’t let them. Why?”
The softness vanished from his mouth, too. “You definitely look better.” Her question might as well have been a dog yip. “Proper clothing becomes you, even if you look as if a hurricane was your lady’s maid.” He cleared the distance to her in two strides. “Turn around.”
Despite the wash of warmth from his sudden nearness, she pushed at the wall of his chest. “No. Not until you answer me.”
Not only didn’t he budge, but he pressed in closer to her. “I don’t think you’re in a position to—”
“I sure as hell am and I sure hell will. I’m not even done yet.”
“Christ help me.”
“You not only saved me from the storm and your crew, but you brought me here, to your own cabin. Then you stayed by me, helping me to rest and heal. And you’re going to tell me why.”
Once more, she might as well have been an arf-arfing terrier. “The corset,” he said. “That’s it. Your corset’s backwards. How the blazes did you do that? Don’t they make you wear a corset in that godforsaken wilderness?”
“Answer me!” Frustration gave way to a pure case of enraged. She curled both hands into the front his shirt and wrenched. “You stayed by my side, even after I nearly killed you on Saint Kitts and attacked you again last night.” She wasn’t going to let this rest. She showed him so by widening her hold to his shoulders. As much of them as she could get in her grip, anyway. “Why are you doing all this for me? What the bloody stars is going on?”
The straight line of his mouth still didn’t falter. But the tendons which coiled and hardened beneath her hands…they spoke up for him. Every flex was a gentle whisper yet a powerful shout, telling her of his own deep conflict about this insane adventure entangling them both.
Then he made things even more complicated.
He touched her, too.
Golden had a follow-up argument to rail at him. It was forgotten now. Words of any kind suddenly didn’t matter. The way he curled his hands around her elbows, strong and commanding, sent bursts of sensation through her arms, her belly, her breasts. When he slid his fingers up her arm, gentle and revering, a sigh rose then caught in her throat. Her body was no longer flesh and muscle. It was transformed into a river of languid, liquid warmth.
“My lady.” His murmur was low, intimate. “Do you remember our little talk on the stairs last night?”
She nodded her head. She longed to scream. To cry out. To make that wondrous lip-pressing magic with him again.
“So you remember when we spoke about books and covers? About the importance of trusting what you can’t see as much as what you can?”
She felt her head bobbing. His voice swirled around her, a dark and beautiful wind, bringing a cloud of awareness that, for one exquisite moment, turned the cabin into a world of their own.
“Then turn around…and let me fix your corset.”
Chapter Seven
She obeyed him.
Unbelievably, that wasn’t what stunned Mast the most.
It was how she obeyed, with such grace and silence, that made him wonder if the ship had suddenly sailed into one of the magic clouds of legend.
Indeed, his hands felt of another world as they grazed her skin, guiding her arms from the sleeves of the gown. She was as soft and supple as he remembered…no, better; now he had time to linger about it, committing her silken feel to the depths of his memory. She sighed every time he touched her. One of them pitched into a gasp when he corrected the wayward corset with one determined pull. He paused his hands on her waist. Her body was like an hourglass, curved in so many of the right places…
“Christ.”
He hadn’t even felt the oath tempting his lips. He played with a goddamn forest fire by inching closer to her, nearly pressed to her, unable to resist touching her again. He trailed one of his hands to her nape. With the other, he lingered in the white-gold strands of her hair. He was certain his arm had detached from him now and was touching sunlight itself. They smelled the same way, like white honey in dawn’s first light. She was so beautiful. So wild and free.
Free. Oh, aye. Free to the tune of five thousand pounds. Wayland’s five thousand pounds. Remember Wayland, you bastard? Your best friend? The man you promised her safety and her purity to, not this hot, hard madness? Keep your head on your shoulders and your cock in your breeches, damn it.
He jerked back with a tamped growl. On an equally tight swallow, he grappled for her corset ties. Her skin goose bumped as the cords grazed it, and he gritted his teeth against the temptation to suckle those nubs away from her incredible flesh. He wondered what she’d taste like. Pondered what her reaction would be if he reached beneath the corset to cup the creamy swells there, and teased pert velvet tips…
“Hold still,” he gritted. It was all he could manage between his swift, severe breaths. He rushed to close the whalebone panels together over her back, feeling like Orpheus fighting the lethal temptation of Eurydice. He grabbed the last length of each tie in his hands and yanked. Hard.
Golden’s lips burst with a groan. Her senses crashed with an onslaught of torment. She was still breathing, but wasn’t sure how. One moment, Stafford had been touching her with fingers that felt like heaven inside flesh. The next, he was forcing her eyes from her head with the whalebone torture device then jerking her around to face him again.
Yet despite the dizzying lack of air, she bit her lip in anticipation. Of what, she didn’t understand. He was still poised so damnably close. And the gown’s bodice was still pooled around her waist. The midnight depths of his gaze roamed all over her newly-plumped cleavage. On a long and heavy breath, he raised a hand to follow behind. His fingers, long and warm, traced the tops of both her breasts. Golden couldn’t control the high whimper he induced. Both her tips turned into hard, aching points. She was overwhelmed by an image of him pulling them free and using his magical fingers to roll them, pinch them.
He took another step closer then questioned, “How does it feel now?”
She arched her head back to look at him. “I—I can’t breathe.”
“Yes you can.” He slid his thumbs into the valley between her swells. “Right here. Just let it come.”
Yes. For you. Don’t stop. Please.
“It’s—it’s very tight.”
His gaze turned smoky. He dipped it to her lips. “That can be a good thing, hellion.”
“And it hurts a little.”
“That can also be a good thing.”
“Captain Stafford?”
“Aye?”
“Put your lips on me again…please.”
She might as well have thrown bilge water on him. In the space of two blinks, he pulled his hands away. With two more, he stepped back, alarm slamming his face. “Make sure you’re presentable before you come back up top,” he muttered.
He ascended the stairs like that bilge water was about to flood the cabin. The hatch thudded ominously behind him.
Disbelief turned her into a statue for a solid minute. Shock kept her there for another. It was the rage that got her moving again.
“Insufferable ass,” she seethed, tugging the dress back up and pushing a few buttons in. “Stinking, farting boar. Lice-ridden bog rat!”
She paced the cabin, scouring her brain for filthier disparagements. Something to express how aggravating, baffling, and infuriating the man really was. She fast decided there wasn’t a creature alive to fit that cage. He was unconquerable. Unfathomable.
Even as she stood surrounded with the things of his private world, she felt more
warmth from the furnishings themselves than the person who used them. His expensive books held no tenderly-placed markers. A few knickknacks were granted permission to be on display, if one could call a sandglass, an extra quill and inkwell, and a trio of compasses proper knickknacks.
He was impossible.
She suddenly froze next to the writing desk. At first she’d felt guilty about the messy sheaf of papers there; he clearly hadn’t had a chance to straighten the whole area since she’d assaulted him on it last night. But guilt lost the battle to fury as she curled fingers around one hastily-scrawled parchment.
She yanked the sheet to eye level, then curled it up in her fist along with a handful of skirting as she flew up the stairwell and erupted out the hatch. Still, she didn’t stop. She did that only when she stomped across the ship and found him again.
Damn it if she didn’t nearly forget her purpose once that happened. He was standing on the quarter deck, as glorious and imposing as a dark god surveying his dominion, leaning on one leg that braced against the rail. The wind blew his shirt against his chest, so she could fully view the dark, intriguing silhouettes of his male nipples.
She got ready to approach him, only Caesar bested her to the feat. As the macaw settled on his shoulder, Mast lifted a hand to pet him—and rendered her even more motionless. The man’s face relaxed in a moment of complete contentment. He spoke gently to his pet, and actually grinned for a long moment.
Well, well. The man actually had teeth.
Caesar bobbed happily on his perch—until he spotted her. The bird started flapping and squawking in delight.
“Caesar!” Stafford chastised. “What the hell kind of prick stick got rammed up your—”
Golden let her laugh cut him short. She mounted the steps toward him while shaking her head at Caesar. “I think he’s just excited to see a friend,” she said.
His eyes returned to coal as he glanced at her. “Aye, and never mind the hand that feeds him.”
“If that hand always sounds like a barely-bridled Kraken, then I don’t blame him.”
So much for vestiges of tenderness on the man’s face. His features now imparted the welcome and warmth of a thunderstorm.
“Hello, hello, hello,” Caesar broke into their thick silence, still bouncing happily on the man’s broad shoulder. The bird actually seemed to be grinning now. “Hello, sweetling. Hello, beautiful. Golden, beautiful goddess. Hello.”
“Damn it, Caesar!” His jaw tightened as his glare intensified to a full-bore typhoon. Not that he let her see it for more than two seconds. The man was more intent on ducking his head as low into his tight shoulders as he could get it. “Ignore him,” he muttered. “The pile of feathers picks up strange nonsense sometimes.”
Golden shook her head and let him hear her peeved snort. “Don’t talk about him that way.”
He swiveled, facing her fully. The sun washed over his imposing form, darkening his burnished muscles, reminding her so much—too much—of the moment they’d first laid eyes on each other. That bursting, blinding, wanting moment…
“My Lady Golden, with all deference, Caesar is—”
“Is a living, breathing soul and doesn’t like to be growled at any more than I do.”
His mouth parted, then snapped shut with a hard clomp of his teeth. “I do not—”
“Growl?” The insane conflict he’d made of her bloodstream be damned. With a hard breath, she squared her own stance with his, using the folds of her skirt to anchor her fists. “Be very careful, Captain Stafford. If Oya hears that lie on your lips, we’ll be drowning in another of her storms by sundown.”
A breath rushed from him as well. His was different than hers. It was defined by the exasperated twist of his lips. “I’m certain Oya understands my predicament, my lady, but thank you for your concern.”
She rolled her eyes. “Indeed,” she sneered. “The goddess of the storms ‘understands’ completely about a man who snarls at an innocent bird just for repeating what he said to the unconscious woman in his bed last night.”
He shoved out more breath at her again, though this emission was definitely tighter. Angrier. “You have no bloody idea what I said last night!”
She curled a serene smile. “I certainly don’t. Which is why I’m glad Caesar remembered for all of us.”
His reply to that was prefaced by a long and glaring silence. Though he didn’t surrender an inch of his looming bearing, his voice was clipped and calm as he challenged, “My lady, what the hell is it that you want?”
Golden swallowed. Blast, there was more than just composure in his voice. There was control. A lot of it. Coupled with the hundred carats of black sapphire brilliance he joined to it, her nerves once more twisted on themselves, vines of attraction and vexation now forming the forest of her insanity.
Before that madness stopped her, she thrust the paper from his desk in his face.
“’Tis a bill of lading from Abaco Bay Ropemakers, Captain. Just in case your memory may need to be refreshed.”
His gaze, flashing with new intensity, said he was refreshed, all right. And infuriated. “You. Little. Thief.”
He grabbed the bill and her wrist in one lunge.
“It was lying right there on your desk. I’m surprised Caesar didn’t take advantage of it for other purposes!”
Shockingly, he released her. That didn’t stop her ire from as flaring high as his now. “You ask what I want?” she charged. “An answer or two would be nice, for once. Maybe an explanation of how you happened to be in my papa’s mansion that day on Saint Kitts, and are now sailing for the same island to which he’s been relocated.”
She watched his shoulders roll and his hands uncoil, clearly trying to give her the impression that her query was routine. But as he leaned against the rail, using it as an excuse to throw his gaze across the deck and away from her, she knew she’d peeled back a huge slice of his charade. She’d struck closer to the truth than ever.
“She has the perspicacity of a hawk; would you not agree, Caesar?” After the parrot emitted a low grumble of reply, he muttered, “Aye, and try to wrap your betraying tongue around that one, hmmm?”
“Stop it!” She pounced toward him. “Stop pretending you don’t know and you don’t care! You magically appeared in my life two days ago, and suddenly you’re everywhere in it. Why?” When his eyes locked on the horizon, steadfastly avoiding her, she fought the craving to pound her demand into him. She wasn’t certain the restraint was a good choice, especially as her voice cracked pathetically with her next plea. “Stafford… What am I to you?”
Before she knew what was happening, he’d swung the intensity of his stare back to her—then lifted one of his big rough hands to her cheek. With a gruff push, he brushed the wind-whipped hair from her skin. Her head bent at the force of primal instinct, tilting into his palm. She fought to remind herself about unraveling the mystery of him, of all the damn legitimate questions to which he owed her answers, but as his fingers wove through her hair, spreading his strength into her neck and down her spine, it was impossible to remember why those replies were so important. Why anything could be more pressing than sharing this with him…getting lost in the connection to his dark majesty, his consuming strength…
She sighed a little, willing him to hold her tighter. Silently imploring him to wrap her hair in his fist, then use that hold to drag her against him. Wordlessly begged that he’d mold his lips against hers, letting his hands travel over her body as he did. Then she craved his fingers underneath her gown again, burning her bare exposed skin again…
Her senses screamed. She gazed into Stafford’s face and saw the same demand roaring across his features
It was only when a high, unholy sound shrilled out a third time that she realized her mind hadn’t turned into a jungle. The sound had come from the main hold. She exchanged an alarmed glance with Mast as a rougher yowl pursued it.
“Dack.”
The name burst out of Mast like a vile oath.
Golden frowned at him. “What is a dack?”
It didn’t look like he was fond of the answer he had to give her. But before he could get a word out, a crewman bounded up to them like a mongrel caught in a hornet’s nest. “Ay Carumba!” he shouted. “You’re not gonna believe this, Captain!”
Mast yanked Golden into the crook of his shoulder and countered, “Regrettably, Rico, I probably will.”
As if from nowhere, another sailor appeared. He was a younger man, though his solid coat of dirt and sweat aged him. He was disoriented, squinting wildly at the sun, but soon his eyes got adjusted to the light and he cavorted around the boards, openly looking for something. Or someone.
A chill sneaked into her blood.
Mast tightened his hold on her. Despite his reassuring pressure, she began to shiver.
“You!” the sailor yelled. As she feared, his eyes homed in on her. As she dreaded, he raced up the steps to them.
She turned and curled both arms against Mast, wondering what it meant that he’d abandoned his tension of but two minutes ago to press a soothing hand on her back. She’d just been probing him like a Spanish Inquisition victim; now he was her life boat in this chaos.
This chaos bearing directly toward her.
“You!” the youth shrieked again. Mast’s hold was like the warmth of a torch on a starless night. It gave her the courage to peek out at the heathen who—
The thought was stopped cold in her head by astonishment. Why, he wasn’t a heathen. He was barely a youth. He was truly just a ragamuffin. A confused one to be sure, but—
“You caused this, witch!”
Perhaps very confused.
“Yes, I mean you! You caused all of this with your spells and your evil! I warned everyone. I warned them all. But they wouldn’t listen. And now you’ve summoned another witch from hell to help you. We’re doomed! Doomed!”
Pandemonium erupted. Questions, shouts, and accusations gunshotted the air. Mast tried to leap across Golden at the youth; she barely succeeded in stopping him. Her new friend Robert matched noses and hollers with a withered sea dog and she was certain neither knew what they argued about. The din grew louder and angrier. By the spirits, there was going to be a full brawl before long.
