Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  The majority of the crew had gone ashore to debauch in the town for a few hours. But my most loyal men remained on board to defend Jade against anyone who might attack her. These seamen didn’t just know my husband. They had attended our nuptials and been his closest friends.

  Priest rested a possessive hand on my lower back and escorted me past the boatswain, pilot, surgeon, carpenter, and a dozen other concerned faces. They all knew he’d betrayed me. They knew I’d been running from him ever since. I would only need to give them a signal, and they would charge him with weapons raised. He would fight back. Some of them would die. He would be injured, possibly killed, as well.

  There was a better way to deal with this.

  Judgment and distrust wafted from them as we walked by. Priest’s presence wasn’t just horribly belittling. It was openly belittling as he marched me across my own ship with nothing more than a hand on my back.

  I pushed him away and squared my shoulders.

  No captain could ever be certain of her command or crew. If I didn’t prove to them by the morrow that I had this under control, I would lose their allegiance. And possibly my ship.

  Without a nod, glance, or so much as a twitch in their direction, Priest led me toward the companionway that descended toward my cabin. I focused on keeping distance between us and many steps ahead, as if I were the one steering this madness.

  Trailing behind, Reynolds barked orders to set sail the moment the remaining crew boarded.

  At the threshold to my quarters, I glanced back, casting Reynolds a warning look. One that demanded he not interrupt until I called for him.

  “Run along,” Priest said to his brother. “Unless you prefer to watch.”

  I shook my head at Reynolds as he bared his teeth and released a menacing sound.

  Undeterred, Priest shoved me into the cabin and kicked the door shut behind him with a rattling bang.

  “Two years.” Priest prowled toward me, unleashing the force of his temper with a soul-shivering roar. “You are my wife!”

  I flinched at the violence in his voice and swept around the desk in my private chamber, putting the heavy furniture between us.

  Rather than chase me, he listed over dishware and maps on the scarred surface, using the long reach of his fist to ensnare the neckline of my bodice.

  “So help me God.” He hauled me right up to his icy gray eyes. “I’m going to bloody your arse for the hell you put me through.”

  “The hell I put you through?” My hackles rippled. “You betrayed me!”

  A lantern glowed beside him, casting his expression in terrifying relief. He was all menace, vibrating rage, and man.

  Predator.

  His grip tightened on my bodice as his fingers tunneled into the valley of my breasts. My feet scrambled backward, but my body held fast, restrained by that large, callused, invasive hand.

  The heat of it made my breath hobble, injecting an edge of thrill into the fear. The scent seeping off him was every bit the sun and sea, hot and male, leather and sin, everything I remembered and more, scrambling my senses. Disarming me.

  And those unremitting iridescent eyes… Never in my life had anyone looked at me with such ardent concentration. It unnerved me. It aroused me. I lowered my gaze, evading the dark, dangerous, masculine beauty that caved in my lungs.

  “Two years without you.” He pounded his free hand on the desk, nearly toppling the lantern. “You punished me for two unbearable years.” Yanking me closer, he gave me a hard shake. “Dammit. Look at me!”

  Livid heat radiated off layers of muscle and seething brawn, dissolving my strength of will.

  I lifted my gaze to his.

  “I love you.” His brittle whisper barely penetrated the sound of blood beating in my head.

  Outrage thrashed through me. Outrage and pain. All I could see was him clinging to another woman the same way he held me, whispering the same three words with the same arresting passion.

  It put my life in perspective. A life that must continue without him, no matter how badly it hurt.

  With a calm resolve that made me proud, I opened the desk drawer at my hip and removed a worn, heavily creased vellum letter.

  “Do you love me as much as you love her?” I set the paper on the desk between us, turning it so he could read the bold, elegant scrawl.

  He stared at it, refusing to answer, as his expression twisted with recognition and grief. His eyes darted over the words, and his hand fell from my gown to trace the handwriting.

  “My dearest Priest…” I lowered into the desk chair and recited the opening from memory. “Last night, I didn’t just welcome you into my body. I let you into my heart. Again.”

  My voice quivered, and I closed my eyes against the anguished look on his face.

  To hell with his anguish.

  A week after we became husband and wife, he sneaked out of our bed and left the room we’d rented in Nassau. Early the next morning, he returned, saying he hadn’t been able to sleep. Given his pallid, disheveled appearance, I thought he was ill.

  Until I found the letter in his discarded trousers.

  I’d memorized every painful word over the past two years.

  His gaze remained fixed on his lover’s words, his demeanor darkening, as he read in silence what I recited in my head.

  My dearest Priest,

  Last night, I didn’t just welcome you into my body. I let you into my heart. Again. I won’t call it a mistake. Never that. But it was desperate. A wildly pleasurable, terribly desperate moment of weakness.

  I should have waited until you woke to say this in person. But we both know I cannot deny you. Not face to face when you look at me the way you do, with a love so intense I think you might die from it.

  So I shall pen this clearly and with a coward’s heart.

  We cannot see each other again.

  No more stolen nights. No more sneaking around. No more risking our lives to be together. My family, my obligations, my very existence put you in danger, just as yours threatens everything I’ve accomplished.

  I cherish every trice we had over the years. Not just the orgasms, but the friendship we shared. The familiarity. The laughter. The sorrow.

  The passion.

  My love for you will endure, even though last night shall be our last.

  It is my most devout hope that this ache will dull on both sides with time. Even so, in these final moments before I must leave, I realize I will be less happy, less honest, and less human without you.

  I know I must let you go, and someday I will. But for now…

  For now, respect my wishes.

  Stay away. Move on. Find love.

  Forgive me.

  I must leave now before I give into the temptation to join you once again in bed. As I stare at you from across the room, I’ll never forget this view of your flawlessly nude body sprawled across the tangled counterpane. Sated. Peaceful. Magnificent. I’ll remember it well, knowing I put that tranquil expression on your handsome face if only for one more night.

  May God watch over you and keep you safe, my heart.

  No signature. No name to put with the words that so effectively destroyed my marriage.

  When I’d confronted Priest about the letter that morning, he hadn’t made excuses or denied the adultery. He’d been too distraught to form words. More distraught, it seemed, about his paramour leaving him than about his wife discovering the affair.

  Upon that realization, I’d lost my ever-loving mind, screaming, throwing dishes, and demanding answers. But he’d only sat there, dazed and speechless, drowning himself in a bottle of rum. He drank so much, in fact, he didn’t notice I’d left the room, boarded Jade, and fled Nassau without him. By the time he sobered, I was long gone.

  To this day, the identity of his lover remained a mystery.

  I suspected she was a titled lady of breeding, someone like my mother, who couldn’t live beyond her dowry, her role in high society, and her obligation to marry a lord.
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  As a wanted criminal and son of a prostitute, Priest Farrell didn’t stand a chance with a woman like that. He was lucky she’d given him her virtue. If that had even been the case. Maybe she was a widow.

  “Who wrote the letter, Priest?” I reclined in the chair, draping a leg over the armrest in feigned indifference.

  “I can’t give you that.” His fist curled, wadding the letter beneath it. “Don’t ask me again.”

  He was still protecting her.

  My molars ground together. “Does she know you had a wife?”

  “Following our agreement, I’ve told no one about our marriage.”

  “If you followed our agreement, you wouldn’t have rutted between every pair of legs in a skirt!”

  “One person.” His gaze shot to mine, igniting with the same ire that roughened his Welsh accent. “Since the moment I met you three years ago, there’s only been you and one other.”

  That couldn’t be true. Not that it mattered.

  If I knew his lover’s identity, maybe I wouldn’t kill her. Perhaps I would just ruin her the same way my grandfather had ruined my mother.

  Did that make me the villain?

  Whomever this woman was, she loved Priest. Her letter said as much. And she’d met him before I had, which meant I was the other woman. A woman she didn’t know existed.

  He didn’t just fuck her while he was married to me. He loved her, deeply and completely. That was the greatest, most destructive source of my torment.

  I’d watched the devastation of his love bleed out around him the day she left him. He’d loved her long before he knew me and would’ve given her his life. But he wasn’t good enough for her.

  So he married me.

  His second choice.

  A consolation prize.

  “If it was aristocratic breeding you wanted in your bed…” I met his eyes. “My lineage isn’t lacking. My grandfather was an earl and—”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, madam.” His disgusted tone scalded the air between us. “I don’t give a damn about your noble blood.”

  Of course not. Priest Farrell wasn’t motivated by power or money. His pursuits were carnal, drawn from the irrational, volatile, dark well of lust beneath his skin.

  To be a recipient of such an all-consuming desire was every woman’s dream. I’d lived that fantasy for a year, ignorantly, unknowingly sharing him with another.

  I would’ve welcomed the thrust of a blade in my chest over the insufferable pain that crushed me from the inside out. If I could only let this go.

  But I had let it go. At least, I’d been working on it quite successfully before tonight.

  “Are you still together?” I shouldn’t have cared. Caring prevented me from moving on.

  “No.” He glared at the crumpled letter in his fist. “That night in Nassau was the last time we made contact.”

  He was telling the truth, the agony in his voice undeniable.

  I wanted to delight in his suffering and mock him with cruel laughter. But I felt his pain too deeply. I empathized with every bitter breath, self-destructive thought, and excruciatingly lonely night he’d endured.

  Because I loved him. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t feel so scared and hurt. I wouldn’t feel so compelled to lace my hand with his, pull him to me, and comfort him in his sadness.

  Gripping the edge of the chair, I stopped myself from reaching out.

  “It was a mistake.” He stepped to the wall of windows behind me and stared out at the black sea. “The affair we had behind your back, the terrible pain I caused you… I regret it deeply.”

  “Your regret doesn’t begin to compare to how I feel about our marriage.”

  His jaw flexed, and he shoved open a pane of glass, letting in the warm breeze.

  “There’s no one else, Bennett.” He ripped up the letter and flung the pieces out the window. “I haven’t been with anyone since I woke in an empty bed beside this cowardly note.”

  “You expect me to believe that you—a shameless rakehell much given to wenching, consorting with widows, and bilking maidens of their virtues—have been celibate for two years?” I gaped at him. “Because your lover left you?”

  “I’ve been celibate for two years because my wife left me.”

  “Now I know you’re lying.”

  “I don’t give a damn if you believe me or not.”

  His responses confused me, which was probably his intent. What had I been thinking, bringing this woman-eating shark aboard my ship?

  There were so many things I wanted to scream at him. Why did he marry me if he loved someone else? How long did he intend to carry on a clandestine relationship behind my back? Why was I not enough for him? Was I not pretty enough? Delicate enough? Demure enough? Did I not make him happy? What could I have done differently?

  I swallowed every unhealthy, self-deprecating thought and focused on recovering my compass, which was hidden inside his snug breeches.

  Those needed to come off.

  One thing I knew about Priest… The quickest way to get him out of his clothes was to remove my own.

  “Why are you here?” I stood and crossed the chamber to the built-in armoire, reaching behind me to loosen the ties on my bodice.

  “You know why.” His voice deepened, and his footsteps trailed after me, as expected.

  “You want to fuck me.”

  “That’s a given, but not nearly the heart of it.”

  “What, pray tell, could be the heart of your intentions, if not to wet your cock?”

  “It’s really quite simple. I want to take care of you.”

  “Oh, please.” I yanked at the ties. “I’ve been doing that well enough on my own since I was fourteen.”

  “Here. Allow me.” He rested a warm hand over mine against my spine.

  Lowering my arms, I drew in a deep breath and let my plan play out.

  A tug here, a gentle pull there, he knew his way around a woman’s garments. But rather than freeing me from mine, he abandoned the task to caress my nape beneath the fallen wisps of my hair.

  At that unexpected touch, a quiver hurried through me, and my heart shook, skipping over beats and rushing blood to my face.

  My attraction to him terrified me, but if I kept my wits sharp, I could rid myself of this problem, once and for all.

  The fingers on my neck made tight circles, pressing deeper into skin, rubbing sore muscles, and massaging out knots at the base of my skull. The strength in his hands was diabolical, the sensuality hypnotic. Only a demon could be so potent.

  My mind numbed. My blood thickened, and my body grew heavy with warm languor. Masculine heat blanketed my back, and I breathed through it, maintaining a calm outward composure. Until he plucked a pin from the coiffure of curls on my head.

  I closed my eyes in bliss as he slowly removed the remaining pins. The weight of sun-bleached tresses tumbled down, lock by lock, the descent of each spiral controlled by his hands, his indomitable will.

  I ached for more affection, more comfort, and sighed as he teased me with it. Hands slid beneath the weight of my hair. Fingertips lingered in the dip between my shoulder blades. Knuckles glided along the curve of my neck. Palms ghosted over my trembling shoulders.

  Lord have mercy, he excelled at torturing me.

  “I wanted to do this the moment I saw you in the tavern.” He ran his fingers through my waist-length hair, scraping trim nails across my scalp and coaxing a moan from my throat.

  The torment continued in rhythmic strokes as he combed from roots to ends, taming my annoying spirals with more patience than any maid had ever shown me. He seemed content to do it, to just stand behind me, petting, untangling, and smelling my hair. His nose slid down my nape, over my shoulder, and across my back, scenting every inch within reach.

  I failed to contain my raspy breaths, too far lost in the sublime pleasure of being touched by this man. My entire being reached toward him in anticipation of the next caress, and he gave it to me with startling tenderness
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  When the last tangle pulled free, he gathered the weighty mass and rested it over my shoulder, out of the way. Cool air kissed my bare neck. Then the seductive, shivery heat of his breath.

  “One of the many things I’ve missed,” he said, feathering warm lips across my nape, “is falling asleep with your silken curls splayed across my chest. With your cheek against my heart. With your arms, your legs, every inch of your magnificent body hugging mine.”

  I missed that, too. Tremendously. And I despised myself for it.

  His mouth trailed across my back, tracing the lines of my shoulders and spine. He took his time, doting upon every hollow and arch, kissing prickled skin, and fingering the top edge of the stays.

  Continuing downward, he yanked at the laces, released a few more, and journeyed ever lower. Brazen fingers molded to the flare of my hips, clenching tight to curves that no man had touched since I’d met the Feral Priest.

  Then, as promised, his teeth sank into the back of my gown and began an erotic assault on the satin, pulling at hooks, ripping through ribbon, and freeing me from the air-depriving restraints.

  His breathing accelerated, and his hands dug into my waist, holding me immobile and recklessly affected. I was so distracted by the wreckage of his teeth and the sounds of his hunger I didn’t notice he’d finished with the gown until it landed around my booted feet in a puddle of shredded fabric.

  A thin ankle-length shift and matching ivory corset of quilted linen covered what remained of my modesty. The undergarments failed to confine everything, and as he turned me to face him, my chest spilled out, right into his greedy hands.

  “Look at you.” With a groan, he scooped up a breast in his huge palm, lifting it toward his mouth. “As stunning as I remembered. Irrationally beautiful.”

  His thumb flicked the nipple, and his lips covered the swell of pale flesh. I felt it everywhere. Hot breath. Velvet tongue. Torture.

  Exactly as planned.

  I would let him believe I was his again. Then I would strike.

  He suckled my breast, nipping my nipple, licking, biting, and kissing with increasing aggression. I arched against his irresistible mouth, caught in the trap of his glinting silver stare. It seared my skin and zapped the air, leveling my insides like a hurricane.