by Angel Payne
“So,” he finally said, “we’re eating little red berries that way, aye?”
Golden still flushed down to her toes remembering what he’d done then. She rolled on the bed of leaves Mast had made for them in a small alcove of hanging moss, hardly believing her sensitive tissues began to zing again from the mere memory. But his tongue—oh stars, his tongue—had painted such heat into her flesh, such gorgeous awakening into her body, she was certain half of her had melted and slipped back into the lagoon, lost forever to this magical place.
She let a needing sigh explode off her lips.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She jumped in surprise despite the new warmth to that low-thundered voice. Curling her body into a suggestive pose, she murmured, “I was expecting you to return from the other direction.”
Other direction, indeed. He was her black panther more than ever now, crouched on a fat tree limb overhead, elbows cocked casually to his knees. His dark eyes were relaxed, but still devoured every inch of her at the same time.
He rose and leaned against the tree trunk. Now Golden felt her own eyes darken at the sight of those endless black-clad legs, the bronze-rippled muscles beneath the open white shirt. Besides being overdressed, he was perfect male beauty from his gorgeous head to his graceful toes.
“I expected me from the other direction.” He folded his arms across his chest. “But things haven’t been what I’ve expected lately.”
The flush repeated down her body with the implication of his brandy-smooth tone. She attempted to change the subject before she gave in to the urge to join him on the branch, likely killing them both with what she’d do to him there.
“How is the ship?”
“Quiet and under control,” he replied. “Well, except the crew.”
“The crew?”
Twinges of alarm bit at her. Why were the men giving Mast problems? She knew they’d been upset about her being aboard at first and she’d worked hard to conquer their fears—but that was before New Providence. Before she’d almost gotten their captain killed.
“All right,” Mast said in a confessional tone, “I’d say the whoops of joy have calmed by now. But they were damn loud when their captain extended shore leave another day.”
Golden sat up, eyes wide. “Their captain—”
“Gave them an order. And expects it to be followed, no questions asked.” He assumed a dominating stance on the limb, hands to his waist. “Does anyone have any problems with that?” He tipped his head forward. “Your ladyship?”
She shook her head and giggled. “Nay! Nay at all, Captain Stafford.”
“Then wipe that shocked look off your face.”
“Ohhhh…aye, Captain.”
“Lay back down,” he commanded lowly.
She rested back on her elbows, reveling at how his jaw tightened when he watched her breasts thrust up through her still-damp chemise. “Aye, Captain,” she repeated in a sensuous rasp.
Anticipation heightened as she watched him swing down from the tree, muscles bunching then straightening with his easy but eager movements. But he didn’t move to lay beside her, as she craved. He stopped at her feet, looked down the length of her sinuous pose then back up again to her eyes. Neither spoke. The wind sang through the wilderness, lifting his hair off his face and the shirt off his shoulders. A muscle flexed in his jaw again.
“You know, your ladyship, you’re one hell of a misbehaved hellcat.”
Golden bit her lip. “I know.”
“Completely uncontrollable.”
“Aye.”
“Utterly untamed.”
“Then tame me.”
She turned it into another plea as she slid across their bed and pulled Mast to his knees. “Tame me,” she implored against his neck then his chest, then lower and lower, until she arrived at the top button to his breeches.
She slipped it free from the loop.
He moaned.
She loosened another.
His hand snaked into her hair. Twisted hard. “Don’t stop,” he charged.
She didn’t. As she freed his pulsing shaft, the forest throbbed around them, keeping time to the lovers’ song they composed together. Mast snarled with primal force as he took her fingers and guided them to the most pleasurable spots of his arousal.
“Here.” He let her rub the two balls encased in the velvet sack. “And here.” He pushed her thumb at the base of his turgid stalk, groaning as she complied with a smile. “And here, hellion.” He slid her grip to the pulsing bulge at the top, where the slit wept with his tasty clear liquid. She wiped it off again, sucking it off her forefinger.
With that, a single curiosity still burned hot inside her. Now that she’d tasted him again, she had to succumb to all of it. She moved Mast’s hand away and tentatively slid her lips to his hard knob.
His moan moved her, a powerful masculine outcry, yet the sweetest music he’d ever given her. Golden clung to him, wrapping her hands around his buttocks. They trembled and bucked in her grip.
“Golden.” His voice was full of sweet pain. “Fuck! Golden!”
Suddenly, she was lowered to her back again. Mast surrounded her, his lips at her mouth, his hands probing the junction of her thighs. She arched her hips into his touch as he kneaded the folds of her womanhood.
“You’re so wet,” he whispered. “So wet and ready for me.”
Golden kissed his neck. He tasted salty with sweat, musky with sex. “Tame me,” she said. “I’m yours. Tame me completely.”
“Spread your legs,” Mast commanded in a growl. “Wider.” He pinned her pussy lips with his thumbs, his cock jerking beyond control as her tight pink entrance gleamed in readiness for him. “Beautiful,” he praised. “Now raise both your arms and grab that vine. Don’t let go, hellion. I’m going to ride you hard.”
She’d barely complied before he mounted her feverishly, cursing himself as he did. He’d vowed a slow and languorous taking, pleasuring her as thoroughly as he had earlier in the afternoon. But the entreaties she’d just whispered in his ear were like a red flag before a bull, and now he couldn’t stop. The need was shocking, frightening, but he just…couldn’t…stop…
He buried himself to the hilt on his first thrust. “Damn. I’m sorry, darling. So sorry. Your body lights this fire in my cock, and—”
“Captain?”
“What?”
She yanked him down by his shirt front and silenced him with a deep kiss. “Shut your mouth and make the most of your shore leave, before I prove how uncontrollable I can be.”
He groaned and laughed at the same time. Both sounds shifted into his heavy grunts of passion, as he fucked into her without mercy or softness. He marveled at what the fire he received in return from this brazen creature could do to him, at her breathtaking desire, uninhibited need, and unstopping love.
Love.
Great God, he was as astounded as Golden when the words spilled from his lips. But she’d cut to the very core of him again, and he’d blurted it as unthinkingly as…well…the truth. As unexpected as a summer storm, as startling as a lightning flash, love had ambushed his lonely heart. It was the last blasted thing he’d been looking for, and the only thing that had ever filled him so completely.
It complicated so much.
Come their arrival at Abaco, it complicated everything.
“Golden,” he begged silently as he conquered her body completely with his, “forgive me.”
Chapter Twenty
A brisk morning wind brought the Athena into Abaco Harbor an hour earlier than they estimated. But instead of the pleased nod Mast would normally give that news, he retreated to the quarterdeck to scowl at the awakening little town. He broke his silence once, a “bloody damn” muttered in response to the apprehension that loomed as the whitewashed buildings on shore did.
It was the sight he’d been dreading. The deep-green hills that signaled the end of their voyage. The lovely Lady Golden returned to her father by the d
ashing Captain Stafford. Dashing, he could hear the matrons cluck, but “very well not acceptable.”
It meant goodbye. The End of a story that should never have had a Once upon a time.
She’d cry, but try valiantly not to. She’d kiss him then slap him. And he’d take it. Then he’d touch her tawny cheek one more time, wishing he was the sun so he could kiss every inch of it.
It was real life. And the impossible net of emotion it had all become.
Mast swore again.
“Fine sight.” Dinky’s casual tone contradicted the suddenness of his appearance. If the little man had overheard Mast’s mutterings, he wisely gave no indication of it.
“Mmmm.” Pretty as a funeral, maybe.
“Nice little harbor. Good place to raise up some little ones, I’d be thinkin’.”
“Mmmm.”
He barely controlled his commentary below a growl this time. Dink’s words called up the vision of Golden on one of those verandas, surrounded by laughing hellion children. Children with another man’s features. And maybe one lonely little tot with unruly black hair and a much-too-long nose. He closed his eyes tightly against the sight—and the way it sliced his gut like a double-edged sword.
“I been thinkin’ on things like that a lot lately,” Dink went on. “Family. Home. Belongin’ somewhere.” He coughed nervously. “That’s why…well, that’s why I’ve asked Maya to marry me.”
Mast opened his eyes.
“She said yes,” Dinky prodded into the tenuous silence.
“That’s…bloody brilliant, Dink.” He finally forced a half-smile. “I’m happy for you, my friend.”
They clasped arms, each holding the other from the elbow to the wrist, eyes locking awkwardly.
“I’d be honored if you’d perform the duties, kid.”
“I’d be honored in return.” Again the effort of response was torture.
Much to his relief, they broke apart and moved to their familiar stances at the rail. Mast tried to relax, tried to think about the sunshine and the crisp sea air, perfect heralds of a man’s betrothal announcement. But all he saw in the bright gold rays were topaz eyes filled with passion and life. All he heard in the wind were musical laughs and whispered fuck me harders; all he heard in the surf were feline-inspired cries in his ear at the height of a crashing climax.
All he heard was wind that could tear a man’s soul from him, then return it satiated, filled. Loved.
He closed his eyes again.
“O’ course, we can’t do the deed right away,” Dink broke the silence again. “There’s a few obstacles we have to hurdle first.”
“Obstacles?” he responded half-heartedly. Right, Dink. Tell me what you know of obstacles. Let’s hear them all. I’m dying to know.
“Guess ya could call ’em that.” The man resettled on the rail. “Ya see, I just happened ta set my cap for the daughter of the Arawak chief on Saint Kitts.”
“Nice work, Mister Peabrooke. Straight for the top, just like I taught you.”
“Yer flammin’ me, right?” Dink gave an incredulous snort. “M, don’t ya remember we fancy white men aren’t exactly invited guests of those people? The few hundred livin’ Arawak would just as soon kill us as we did them. How do ya think ol’ Chiefie is gonna take it that his little girl has fallen in love with one of us?”
Mast blinked. “The bastard might toss a spear through your heart.”
“Yeah. He just might do that.”
“What about Maya?” An unexpected surge of anger drove his glare into his friend. “She could be banned from her tribe, Dink. Severed off from her people.”
“Yeah, she could.”
“For the rest of her life.”
“I know, ya wanker. Maya knows. But we did something that may come as a shock to ya, kid. We talked about it. We went over the risks, but decided they were worth takin’.”
He narrowed his eyes at Dink. Then shoved back from the rail. A blast of comprehension made him weave a little. “Maya’s a strong woman.” His voice sounded utterly witless.
“Aye.” Dink curled a sage smile. “She is.”
“And she really loves you, doesn’t she?”
His grin went lopsided. “That she does.” He clasped Mast’s shoulder. “And I’ll tell ya, kid, that’s worth a spear through my heart any day of my sorry life.”
Mast nodded slowly. He looked down. A minute ago he’d thought himself the wiser of the men on this deck, the more world-weary one. But the only wisdom he could claim was that of the stiff-spined books and cold seas which had kept him company the last ten years. He knew nothing of the life he’d amputated from his existence.
The life—and the love.
He had so much to learn. And only one teacher he wanted.
He yanked his head back up, returning his mate’s reassurance with a determined stare and a set jaw.
“Thanks, Dink.”
“Any time, Captain.”
Spinning on his heel, Mast shouted for any more speed they could fill the sails with. He was suddenly very impatient to get to that dock.
He’d forgotten about the revelry that would greet them when they did. News traveled more swiftly than a court rumor among the two hundred British inhabitants of Abaco, especially when the Earl of Pemshire was excitedly bellowing it. Behind Wayland, there trailed a throng of everyone from queenly matrons to delighted boys to barking mutts, all come to see the Athena, back at last with its precious cargo.
“Papa!”
Mast looked down from the helm as Golden shouted and waved from the main deck. He rapidly swung his attention back to the wheel. He battled enough trepidation as it was without being distracted by her and that delectable thing of cream muslin she’d chosen to wear today—even if she was the entire reason for his self-imposed determination. This fire he’d gladly walk through for the promise of their future on the other side.
The fire that seared hotter as the dock, and Wayland, grew nearer.
The crew secured the lines and lowered the gangway, spurred by the bevy of young ladies watching the process. Their counterparts, a cocky group of youths assembled at the opposite end of the dock, weren’t happy about the new distraction in the least. They eyed the Athena, its size barely fitting Abaco’s sole dock, with open envy. And Golden, with open desire. Mast fought against striding over and claiming her with a kiss to render her senseless.
He did the next best thing. “Robert,” he called. “Bring Dack up. I want him taken care of first.”
A few minutes later, Robert emerged with an emaciated figure Mast barely recognized as the once happy, determined Dack. Glazed eyes peered out from a sallow face with thin, convulsing lips.
“Land?” the youth squeaked into the suddenly still air. “Land, please? So much water. So much loneliness. I’m trapped. Trapped! Get me out of here!”
Mast shook his head. He now saw that Dack’s sickness had begun well before he’d brought Golden aboard the ship that fated stormy night. The sea could be a man’s friend and enemy at different times. Dack had permanently casted it as the latter.
“Should’ve left him at New Prov, if you ask me,” Robert grumbled. “Bloody bedlamite tryin’ to kill us all behind our backs, not mention our spitfire.”
“That will be enough, Mister Chief Gunner,” Mast replied evenly. He continued in a voice loud enough for the gang of youths to hear, “You know it could well be you or I in his boots next month. Life at sea isn’t what the fairy tales say.”
“Nay. It’s better.”
The seductive murmur at his side was delivered for his ears only. Like a priest tempted by a carnal goddess, he denied his earlier vow to turn to her. Though it was only him who’d heard the whisper, Golden’s sultry tiger eyes might as well have been a ten foot high banner of testament to the “fairy tale” they’d created.
He loved the hell out of her, even for that.
He smiled and bent to her, pulled by that magical amber glow in her eyes.
He yanked him
self back a half inch before it was too late.
Christ. He’d let his head fog over like a hangover. Clear. Damn it, Stafford, you need to stay clear for this.
“Go to your father, hellion,” he murmured with a soft smile. “He’s done a great deal to get you back.”
“Kiss me goodbye.”
He clenched his jaw to keep from doing just that. “No. Remember our agreement about our behavior here.”
“Bull pizzle. Nobody cares about all that nonsense here.”
“The hell they don’t. Watch your language.”
“Or what?” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ll get more spankings?”
“I’m very good at spankings, hellion.”
“I know, Captain.”
“And holding back orgasms.”
She gasped then pouted. “I want the agreement changed.”
“Golden…” He lilted his voice in warning.
“Golden! Thank God, is it really you?”
“Papa!”
Mast exhaled in relief as Golden sped down the gangway. He watched as she flew into Wayland’s arms and then mushed a wet kiss on his cheek. Wayland rocked her back and forth and angrily wiped a few times beneath his eyes. An uncomfortable knot formed in Mast’s throat, but the feeling wasn’t a stranger to him anymore. No, he realized, he even welcomed the aching surge. It affirmed he was alive and renewed a belief that anything was possible in this crazy world.
Even the miracle for which he prayed now.
Golden pulled away from her father and talked at him with hardly a breath between sentences. Mast found himself laughing along with Wayland at the scattered phrases that wafted up to him: “Nirvana…storm…I nearly killed him…gowns…tons! He taught me everything…El Culebra…New Providence…saved my life…”
Wayland’s brows became a heavy gray blanket over his eyes at those last words, but Mast watched him force the twinkle to remain in his gaze until Golden finished. When she did, sucking in a deep breath and laughing, he embraced her again.
