by Pam Godwin
No, he had to start this, lead it, and control every step thereafter. It was the only way a man like him functioned.
So I kept my hands to myself, and consciously doing so made me realize I’d never touched him outside of self-defense. What did the texture of his hair feel like? Would his muscled torso heat and flex beneath my palms? How quickly would his cock grow in my grip?
Those answers, his tongue on my breast, and the sounds of his gasps slowly invited me beneath the mask and into the secret realm of Lord Ashley Cutler.
He lifted his head and allowed mine to lower. His gaze fell upon my mouth, traced the line of my jaw to my hair, and landed on my eyes. Momentarily unguarded, he showed me everything in those volatile depths—the conflict raging in him, the sweet agitation of potential, the masculine need demanding to be satisfied. It left me thunderstruck.
Curling his fingers beneath the top edge of my bodice, he fished out the laces of my stays and cinched them until they were straight and tied.
With his rigid jawline so close, I couldn’t detect a single whisker. His ebony hair combed back in modest waves, his face aglow from washing. Dear lord, he had gorgeous skin, the color of moonlight glinting off pristine sand.
At age thirty-four, he’d been blessed with the beauty of man in his early twenties and the confident carriage of a king at the acme of his reign. I yearned to strip him of his shields, his armor, and his clothes and to do to him what he did to me. I wanted to make him ache.
“Turn around.” His voice, winded and rough, affirmed that I wasn’t the only one affected.
I gave him my back.
He gathered my hair with unhesitant hands, as though he knew how to handle a thick, heavy mane such as mine. Draping the mass over my shoulder, he tackled the laces on my bodice.
Sharp, distinct tugs wrung air from my lungs. Yank. Exhale. Yank. Wheeze. Like a slow burst of gunfire, he mercilessly set the pace of my gasps.
When he finished, my relief was short-lived. He didn’t step away, didn’t move his hands from the gown. Instead, he went exploring.
Fingers drifted around my hips, finding and caressing my curves through the folds of fabric. His touch echoed everywhere at once, a harmony of sensation rippling beneath my skin and thrumming through my veins.
I wiggled against him, awash in desire. It simmered in me like molten sweet cream, but it didn’t suffice. Was he dangling pleasure within reach only to rip it away and frustrate my expectation in the end?
Tantalizing bastard. If he were one of my crewmates, I would punish him for being such a tease.
“We should eat now,” I said.
“No.” He spoke against my neck, his mouth hot upon my skin, burning me up. “I’m not finished.”
Standing behind me, he slid a hand across my chest. The other meandered over my abdomen and sank into the voluminous skirts between my legs. With a firm grip on my nether regions, he pulled my backside tight against his groin.
I hissed as bruised muscles shuddered and clenched in pain.
“You still feel my punishment.” He trailed his nose along my shoulder. “Shall I retrieve the salve?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
But I wasn’t. Wrapped in his powerful arms, held against the marble slab of his chest, with his finger directly on my clitoris, despite all the pleats in the skirt, I didn’t trust my own judgment.
If he took, I would give. He wanted me, no mistake. I couldn’t feel his hardness through our clothing, but I didn’t need to. I heard his want in the consonance of our panting, felt it in the union of our sizzling energy, and saw it tremble in the fingers that now twisted in my curls.
With his grip in my hair, he spun us both until we stood face to face, eyes locked. Barely a sliver of space separated us.
His mouth lowered. Mine lifted. Straining to meet, our lips parted, floated closer, closer, and paused just before making contact.
Our chests rose in unison. Inhale. Exhale. In. Out. Deeper than a lick, more divine than a kiss, we became breaths. Nothing but trembling, heating, mating breaths.
It was a magical, instinctual attraction. I pulled, and he came with me. He leaned back, and I followed. We were joined by sparks that coalesced into one entity, drawn together like magnets, bound by an invisible force.
The fire that burned inside me, deep in the heart of my innermost being, roared into a conflagration, demanding fuel, seeking him. I wanted his mouth to fan the flames. And his hands. His heavy cock.
With his gaze fixed upon my lips, he held me prisoner, a willing captive to his attention. Now he just needed to erase that last inch. It had to be him.
Then he did. He pulled me tight against his hard body. But instead of raiding my mouth, he seized my neck. Licking. Kissing. Vibrating, bone-penetrating kisses that made my heart and blood hum with satisfaction.
My fingers clutched his waistcoat and shirt, clinging to his strength. It was a miracle that my legs remained beneath me. His potency washed unbearable longing through me, rousing a craving I’d held at bay for four days. And he wasn’t finished.
Tilting my face up, he put his sculpted mouth at my ear. “You are so gratifying to the senses. So clear and absolute.” A kiss at my hairline. “Unrestricted. Unconditional.” His lips brushed across my cheek. “Ripe with temptation. Fit for eating.” He touched his forehead to mine, breathing heavily. “You’re so damn stunning it hurts.”
I closed my eyes, shivering at the mercy of desire. Heat gathered between my legs, pulsing, liquefying. If he could do this to me with only his words, what else could his tongue do?
“Ashley—”
“Silence.”
“Kiss me, then. Kiss me until I can’t speak.”
He went motionless, wooden, all signs of lust rapidly evaporating. His arms fell away, and he retreated a step.
My eyes widened, tapered, and glared.
“Don’t give me that look, Goldilocks.”
“You’re attracted to me.”
So was my wretched, cheating husband, and look what that got me.
Remember the pain, Bennett? You still feel it.
But Ashley was different. He wouldn’t betray me like that.
“Apples…” He plucked one off the breakfast tray. “They’re a rare treat during long voyages at sea. When I see one, it attracts me, makes me crave that which I don’t need. If there are several available, I always select the prettiest one. I can eat it. Or I can simply appreciate its beauty and toss it back.” He dropped the fruit onto the platter. “Because I know I can live without it.”
My nostrils widened with the seething rush of my anger. “You’re comparing me to a goddamn apple?”
“Was it not an apple that influenced Adam’s fall and introduced evil into human nature? Adam’s apple is…” He pulled down his cravat and ran a finger over the bulge in the front of his throat. “Man’s swelling.”
Forbidden fruit and temptation led to sin. And erections. Understood.
“Point made.” My cheeks rose mischievously. “Challenge accepted.”
After we shared a breakfast of fried hasty pudding, molasses, apples, and tea, Ashley strode aft toward the sleeping chamber. With a sigh, I admired the muscles flexing in his thighs beneath the hem of his blue frock.
My attraction to him was a ball and chain. There was no shaking it. His head-to-toe prettiness made seducing him a palatable plan. But what if this became more than a ruse? What if I lost my grip on what was real and what wasn’t?
I needed to remember that I had a violently possessive husband coming for me, and he would rip apart every man who touched me. Ashley could die on Priest’s sword. Or vice versa.
My stupid heart constricted at the thought of either man perishing. How did that make sense? They were both my enemies!
Ashley returned, carrying a comb for dressing hair. Where had that been hiding?
Rather than offering it to me, he stood behind my chair and arranged my curls to hang down my back.
Frozen,
I sat upon the cushion he’d provided for my sore backside, bracing for the impending pain from his ruthless hands. But it didn’t come.
He started at the ends, gently working at knots and moving his way upward. Each gentle drag of the comb sent tingling comfort across my skull and down my neck.
Peculiar. He doted upon my hair every night when he thought I was asleep. Like a secret compulsion. But showing tenderness in broad daylight? And combing with a finesse that rivaled a female hand?
“You’ve done this before.” I relaxed beneath his touch and closed my eyes. “Who is she?”
Not his betrothed. A lady of virtue would require a chaperon. And absolutely no touching.
He glided the tool rhythmically through a section of my locks for several minutes before responding.
“My sister.” He divided another portion of curls and crouched to comb the ends. “She had hair like yours. Tight, coiling curls that bounced around her waist. Except hers were black.”
“The same color as yours.”
“Quite so. She used to cry when the lady’s maid took a comb to it. I was many years younger than her, always clinging to her skirts. Very much the annoying little brother.” Affection softened his voice. “I hated when she cried. So I took over the task and learned how to smooth the stubborn knots without causing her pain.”
I felt my eyebrows shifting from squished disbelief to raised surprise. I was probably the only soul on this ship who’d heard this story. Perhaps I was the only one who knew he had a sister.
He was opening up to me.
But my brief victory didn’t taste sweet, for I detected tragedy in his tone and verb tense. “You speak of her as if she’s in the past.”
He set the comb on the table and proceeded to gather my untangled tresses into a long pleated rope down my back. Deft fingers braided mindlessly and tied the end with a leather thong.
That done, he didn’t move, holding his unnerving stance behind me, depriving me a view of his expression.
“There were complications during the birth of her first child.” His hand clamped onto my shoulder as if to prevent me from turning. “Neither she nor my nephew survived.”
Death. An incurable disease.
I breathed out slowly, achingly. “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly, my lord.” My chest squeezed. “What was her name?”
“Arabella.”
“Do your parents have other children?”
“Just me.”
My feelings toward this cruel-hearted man loosened, just a little. I owed him nothing, but my hand moved anyway, reaching back to wrap around the stiff fingers on my shoulder.
He didn’t reject me. Instead, he took my hand in his and pulled me to stand. By the time I turned, he’d erased any sentiment that might have leaked into his countenance.
“Will you tell me about her?” I squeezed his fingers. “Your sister?”
“Another time, perhaps.” With a hard stare, he searched my expression as if expecting to find ill intent.
I stared back, daring him with my eyes to say something mean.
His gaze lowered to my lips. His hand wrapped around my braid. The air quivered.
Then he kissed me.
Deep and drinking, his mouth plundered and claimed. The sudden taste of him stole my senses. My pulse stalled somewhere between utter shock and overwhelming delight before bursting into a gallop. I lifted on my toes and gripped his arms, opening for him, greeting his warm tongue, and moaning against his firm full lips.
His muscles hardened beneath my palms, and I clung, holding him, drowning in the fever that surged between us. His fingers curled around my waist, pulling me close, immobile, tight against his grinding hips.
God’s teeth, the man could kiss and move his body. His tongue rubbed against mine. His mouth conquered and consumed. His pelvis rotated, subtly, suggestively, stoking fierce flames of longing in my belly.
I shook uncontrollably as he licked the inner flesh of my lips, infusing my blood with potent desire. He tasted exactly how I’d imagined—wet, dark, and masculine—like a devastating storm. His powerful body quaked as his throat produced the deep guttural noises I’d heard on the balcony.
My heart danced. My legs quivered. Then I was moving, being lifted by strong hands and set onto the edge of the table.
He wedged his hips between my thighs, shoving the skirt up and out of the way to make space for his indomitable physique. Through it all, his mouth stayed with mine, refusing to release that glorious, voracious kiss.
Teeming with hunger, I leaned into him and reached for his cheek. His jaw flexed beneath my buzzing fingertips, the skin supple and smooth over unbending steel. He cupped the back of my head and angled my mouth where he wanted it, deepening the crush of our lips.
My hand slipped to his corded neck, caressing the tension beneath his cravat. His Adam’s apple bounced against my touch as he swallowed our kisses in greedy gulps.
Tucked into the hollow beneath his iron jaw, his jugular throbbed and swelled beneath my finger. His heart definitely existed. It had beaten for his sister once. And now it pounded for me.
My body thrummed with awareness as he kissed me into oblivion. I was so lost in the intimacy I hadn’t realized where my hand wandered until he gripped my wrist, stopping me from seizing him between his legs.
He didn’t halt the kiss, though. Guiding my fingers up his body, he flattened my palm against his neck. But I kept going, reaching higher, until I discovered the soft, thick texture of his hair.
With a groan, he expressed his pleasure in the touch. His arm hooked around my back as his mouth feasted and fed with no end in sight.
Gradually, in a melting of lips, the kiss dissolved on its own.
His brow fell against mine, our breaths rushing forth in sharp spurts. My heart dealt blows like a hammer, my entire body trembling in a sheen of restless want.
I’d enjoyed that with a recklessness I didn’t want to analyze. But as my pulse slowed, irrational guilt crept in.
I hadn’t kissed another man since I’d met Priest three years ago. The betrayal tasted like stale ale in my throat, and this was only the beginning.
I banished the thought before it grew roots.
Ashley leaned back, and his eyes captured mine, intense and dilated.
“You feel this.” I glanced at his groin, unable to see the engorged ridge I knew was hiding beneath his frock. “You took as much pleasure in that kiss as I did.”
“Relish it.” He lowered his mouth and kissed me with infinite kindness, as though for the first time. Or the last time. He straightened and retreated a few paces. “It won’t happen again.”
I slid off the table and abolished the distance, pushing into his space and craning my neck way back to meet his eyes. “Is the view so very different from up there?”
He glared down at me, nostrils pulsing. “What I see is—”
“A whore sleeping beside a naked man every night? Tell me how this cozy situation doesn’t become cozier.”
In answer, he clutched my waist with both hands, lifting and setting me aside as if I weighed nothing. Then he strode into the day cabin and vanished around the corner.
I simmered until he returned with two cocked hats. One, he jammed onto his hard head. The other, he wriggled onto mine.
After adjusting my braid to drape just so, he offered me an elbow. “Would you like a tour of the finest warship ever built?”
Since talking seemed to get me nowhere with him, I welcomed the change of scenery.
“Yes, my lord. I would like that very much.”
I didn’t feel like a prisoner.
As Ashley escorted me through the passageways of His Majesty’s Ship, which stretched nearly two-hundred feet fore to aft, I didn’t feel like a pirate or a whore or anything comfortably familiar.
With my fingers loosely curled around his muscled forearm and my skirts swishing over my bare feet, I heard the greetings and commands he gave the sailors he passed. But I focused on
what wasn’t being said.
I was, on the surface, ignored by all. No one looked at me. Not directly. Yet every man in the vicinity was viscerally aware of the woman on their commodore’s arm. I could practically hear their arseholes clenching.
The last time they’d glimpsed me, I’d just been plucked from the sea like a drowned rat, wearing only a man’s shirt. Today, garbed in a gown made from Lord Cutler’s frocks, I looked refined enough to be a lady.
If I’d wanted that title, I would’ve followed my mother’s rules, married the Marquess of Grisdale, and perhaps both of my parents would still be alive. My rebellion had cost them everything, and I would make damn sure it wasn’t in vain.
My pirating career would not end in a whimper on the gallows.
The gown, the modest braid, and my delicate hand upon his lordship’s elbow were but small steps to freedom. If I embarrassed the commodore in front of his soldiers, I would lose the progress I’d made toward warming more than his bed.
I needed to melt the ice around his heart. So I behaved myself as he guided me through the upper and middle gundecks—I would return to inspect those guns on my own time—the galley, and the infirmary. Somewhere near the stern beneath his quarters, he opened the door to an elegant cabin occupied primarily by a large table.
The wardroom.
Access to this space was restricted to only warrant officers. Its purpose was to provide a private place for high-ranked men to socialize, dine, and conduct business during wartime.
From what I understood, the topic of women—not to mention the presence of one—was strictly prohibited within its walls. So when Ashley invited me across the threshold, I thrilled at the idea of him breaking a sacred rule.
Perhaps there was a little rebellion in him after all.
Several lieutenants sat around the table, which was long enough to serve a dozen officers. Ashley stepped in ahead of me, and all conversations ended. Everyone rose to their feet, clapped up their hands to their hats, and bowed.
“At ease, Lieutenants.” He pulled his elbow forward, bringing me with him through the narrow space.
