by Pam Godwin
“Are you pleased?” He grasped my arm, holding my hand against his erection.
“What?” I didn’t like the sudden clip in his tone or the meanness in his grip.
“Does the size of my hunger meet expectations?”
“Exceeds, I should think.” I pulled on my arm. “If you unhand me, I’ll show you my appreciation.”
His fingers opened, and I lifted my hand to cup his face.
“You feel incredible, Ashley.” I searched the chilling blue of his eyes. “Not just the hard parts of you. But the tender ones.” I leaned in and tasted his full sweet lips. “I find your softest parts the most pleasing.”
His gaze warmed, his chiseled features losing their sharp edges as he kissed me back. He molded his hands around the back of my head and rubbed his mouth against mine, watching me between the unhurried, languid rolling of our joined tongues.
Magic pulsed between us, producing marvels with every touch. My entire being assimilated to the harmony of his, joining us on a level neither of us understood. I knew he felt it. He wore the thunderstruck look of a man who was sinking fast and forgot how to swim.
The temperature of our licking grew hotter, more carnal, and soon the air dripped with fire, spitting sparks across my skin. I wanted to slow it down, to savor the moment and capture the intimacy.
With my hands framing his face, he mirrored my pose, holding me the same way. We lingered in that embrace, kissing, sharing eye contact, as hidden forces bound us closer and tighter together.
Until he pushed back.
His arms fell to his sides, and something snapped between us, twisting a dark, helpless feeling within me. Slowly, our connection frayed and broke. A wall went up, emptying his expression. Then he shoved me off his lap and onto my knees.
“Unlace my breeches and take me out.” He rose from the chair, towering over me. “Don’t make me wait.”
Kneeling at eye level with the erection straining beneath the fabric, I knew what this was. Detachment under the guise of possession. The ugly kind of possession that had no obligation or respect for the object possessed.
A cold sensation, wrapped in hurt, knotted in my belly. I wasn’t prepared for the humiliation. Wasn’t prepared for my body’s trembling betrayal or the tears that swarmed my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks.
He reached down and caught a droplet with his finger. “What’s this for?”
“I don’t want us to be like this.” I flung him a sharp look, and more tears fell. “I don’t want to be your whore.”
I was ruining everything, sabotaging my own plan.
He rubbed my tear between his fingers, studying me with a tedious mien of righteousness. At length, he gripped me under the arms and set me on the chair. Then he disappeared into the aft cabin.
My stomach sank as I cursed my foolish, irrational behavior. What the hell was wrong with me?
It wasn’t long before he returned, clad in full dress—cravat, waistcoat, frock, breeches, buckled shoes. His armor.
As he stepped before me, bending to put his face in mine, I braced for the consequence of my stupidity.
“We’re not equals.” His mouth, that had kissed me so sweetly, now twisted into an authoritative sneer. “Don’t forget what you are or why you’re here.”
His fingers shook as he grabbed his hat, jammed it onto his head, and left.
The sound of the door shutting gave my body permission to release its pain. I doubled over and clapped a hand against my mouth, muffling the pathetic sounds that erupted from my chest.
If he were any other man, I would never tolerate such indignity. But as my captor, he could speak to me in whatever manner he wanted.
But he hadn’t wanted to be so cruel. I’d glimpsed the emotion in his trembling hand. I’d heard the creak in his voice that didn’t match his detached proclamation.
Indifference hadn’t walked out that door. There’d been regret in his footfalls and a burning in his eyes.
He was fighting this hard and unraveling fast.
What did a man do when he unraveled?
He lashed out.
We’re not equals.
Those words were for him. He clung to them, desperate for the reminder, because he knew where this was headed, and he had about as much power to stop it as I did.
Fated. Destined. Whatever name I gave it, I’d felt it the day we met.
But awareness didn’t make it hurt any less.
As I stared down at my bandaged foot, registering the smarting throb, I suspected there would be more stumbling and more pain before we found our way.
Dawn was a welcome sight as it swelled over the horizon, melting yesterday’s gloom. The mingled scents of salt water and fresh air shimmered through my deep inhale, invigorating me.
I slid from the bed—unsurprised to find Ashley’s side cold and vacant—and limped toward the open door of the balcony. The foot injury was inconsequential, if not a little sore. I’d received the utmost care and would be walking with a normal gait by the time we reached New Providence.
The other missteps I’d taken, however, still needed mending.
At the rail, I stared out at the empty ocean. The sun glowed in smudges of pink and lavender, reflecting like sparkling diamonds across the water’s surface. Warm rays kissed my face and soaked through the loose nightgown. The trade wind sought my hair, tangling the strands as though it had nothing better to do.
What was I going to do?
I was married to an adulterer who would never let me go. I wanted a nobleman who would never marry me. If and when the two men collided, they would promptly kill each other. I should hope for that outcome and escape the moment it happened. But I was finding that my ability to exercise logic where they were concerned was nonexistent.
Even if my affection for Ashley was requited, he wouldn’t desert the Royal Navy or eschew his family, ranks, and obligations to be with a ruined, untitled woman. Besides, a relationship with him wouldn’t sever the one I’d been running from for the past two years.
One thing I’d learned was that love conquered nothing. It would only make my hopeless situation all the more hopeless.
A rustling sound drifted from the dining cabin. Footsteps? I thought I was alone.
Curious, I stepped back inside and followed the disturbance through the sleeping chamber, the day cabin, and… Oh. My eyebrows lifted.
Ashley sat at the table, wearing breeches and nothing more. A stout man with crooked legs bent over him, scraping a cutthroat razor along his neck.
“You have whiskers?” I edged closer, squinting at the steel-edged lines of Ashley’s jaw. “Since when?”
“Good morning, Miss Sharp.” He glanced at me sidelong without turning his head. “How’s your foot?”
“Good morning. The foot’s fine. But seriously, I didn’t know you could grow facial hair.”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I can, and I do.”
His barber finished and turned away to stow the tools. As he reached for a towel, I beat him to it.
“May I?” I held up the rag and met Ashley’s steady gaze.
He stared at me a moment before giving a stiff nod. “You may go, Sergeant.”
The bandy-legged man lumbered from the cabin with his small sack of supplies.
When the door shut, I sidled between Ashley’s spread knees and sat on the edge of the table. Leaning in, I ran the towel along the strong column of his neck.
His lips parted, and I sucked mine between my teeth. I could still taste his kisses and feel his hard male body wrapped around me. The magic between us hadn’t faded. Every lingering look rushed my blood like a tidal wave bent on ruination.
“I’ve never seen hair on your face.” I dropped the towel to glide my fingers across his rigid jaw and sharp cheekbones. So soft. So impossibly stony.
“It grows slow and comes in patches.” His breathing quickened beneath my caress. “Shaving is only needed once or twice a fortnight.”
“That�
��s okay.” I floated closer, tracing the satiny skin around his wide lips. “I can’t grow a beard at all, which makes me dreadfully ill-suited to my role as a pirate captain.”
“That so?”
“Truly. Everyone knows that beards incite terror and inspire reverence. You saw Madwulf’s horror when you severed his bug-infested pride and joy.”
“I think…” His majestic blue eyes glimmered as they dipped to my mouth, and lower still, pausing on my chest. “You possess other, more sufficient assets, so as to strike a man with awe.”
I followed his gaze downward, and my heart bounced off the walls. The neckline of the nightgown hung low and gaping in my bent position, offering him a glaring view of my bare breasts.
As I leaned back, his hand caught the loose garment and yanked it down my shoulder. The linen settled at my elbow, exposing one breast entirely. His gaze fixated, his pupils expanding, darkening, and soaking in that bared part of me for the first time.
My flesh ached for the heat of his wet mouth, my nipples tightening with each agonizing second he stared.
For two years, I’d dreamed of being gazed upon by a man who desired me. A man who didn’t lie or betray or long for another woman when he was with me.
Ashley didn’t just gaze. He narrowed the space between us, enveloped me with his scent I loved so well, and raised a hand toward my chest. Rather than seizing me in a careless grip, he skimmed his palm against me, just a featherlight touch on my nipple.
I whimpered and shivered as a delicious fever sprang to life in my bones, heating deep in my core, and hotter still between my legs. He watched every reaction, his hawk eyes examining my body’s answer to his oh-so-soft caress.
“You’re exquisitely formed.” He molded his fingers around my breast, lifting and testing the weight. “Like a queen.”
“I’m certainly no queen.” My bosom felt so heavy, so swollen with need.
“No, you’re right.” He lowered his mouth to my chest and breathed, “You’re a goddess. A sea goddess.”
He ran the flat of his tongue over the pebbled peak, and my spine bowed in response. A groan vibrated in his throat, and I moaned with him, shaking beneath the heavenly sensations of his warm firm lips. My hands flew to his hair, my nails dragging across his scalp and threading through the glossy black strands.
My head dropped back on my shoulders as he suckled. His hand cupped my backside, and the other plumped up my breast, holding it against his worshiping mouth.
Any second, he would throw up his walls and say something mean to push me away. But for now, I gloried in the unguarded moment, savoring the rush of breaths, the caress of strong fingers, and the masculine sounds of appreciation.
I touched him everywhere I could reach—his bulging shoulders, the hairless bricks of his chest, and the heavily muscled flesh that flexed along his arms as he commanded them to move.
His jaw felt like marble against my breast, where he licked and kissed with devotion. His lips, so soft and full, delivered pure ecstasy when they wrapped around my throbbing nipple.
Fingers fanning down the curves of my waist, he splayed them across my midsection and slowly sank into the valley of my thighs. My bottom teetered on the edge of the table as he teased the dark juncture between my legs, finding my wet curls through the linen.
I realized, truly comprehended, just how very destructive this man was on my life. He hadn’t just physically captured me. He’d besieged my emotions, my reasoning, and he was on his way to imprisoning my soul.
As he leaned back to stare at my glistening, swollen breast, his broad shoulders blocked out the world. All I saw was him and the gorgeous planes of his face in facets of light and dark, silk and steel, kindness and cruelty. And I trembled.
With fear.
With desire.
I craved the addictive sensations he stirred in my body. And I feared every second he made my knees weak and my heart yearn for more than carnal pleasure.
He braced an elbow on his thigh and lazily trailed a knuckle around the outer curve of my breast, his gaze pensive as he watched the movement. “Why do you hate England?”
“Besides the fact that everyone there wants me dead?”
“Yes.” He cupped me in his palm and ran the pad of his thumb over my nipple.
“England rejected my mother. Banished her.” I brushed my fingers through his shiny black hair. “Whenever she was reminded of her home, it made her horribly sad.”
“Perhaps she was sad because she missed her beautiful country. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I remained here, in the West Indies, for the last seven years. Before that…” I took a bracing breath and met his eyes. “I spent the first fourteen years of my life in the wilds of Carolina. Charleston. No one knows that.”
Except Priest.
Ashley regarded me impassively. “If you were in Charleston, how did you know your father?”
“He visited throughout my childhood. I was closer to him than I was to anyone else. When he…” I placed my hand over his, flattening our fingers against my broken heart. “When he died on the gallows, my mother threw herself off a cliff.” My voice stuttered, hitching with old hurt. “I was there when it happened. I lost both of my parents on the same day.”
He reached for me, pulling me onto his lap and against his bare chest. “I’m sorry.”
His soft, sincere tone swaddled me in warmth. As did his arms and the protective cage of his body. He straightened the nightgown to cover my chest. Then he just held me, watching the sun rise, sipping from a cup of tea, with no sense of urgency to set me away.
So I started talking. I told him about my upbringing, my mother’s struggles in exile, my father’s secret visits, and their tragic love story. And because he listened with such quiet intensity, I walked through every detail of that harrowing day seven years ago, including the start of my relationship with Charles Vane.
By the end of it, my sadness had settled like the sand in an hourglass, resting quietly but always there, ready to tip and flow again.
“Have you visited Carolina after that day you left with Vane?” he murmured against my hair.
“No. Charleston and England are the two places I intended to avoid for the remainder of my life.”
“England is a special corner of the world, Bennett.”
“What do you love about it?”
“The rich history. The raw, unspoiled countryside. It glows with greenery, moss-covered moors, and dramatic cliffs along the coastlines. The view from the hill on my father’s land looks out onto nothing but sprawling fields crisscrossed in stone walls like seams on a patchwork counterpane.” His accent thickened, and his eyes seemed to shine with inner peace. “Since most of our tenants’ families have resided there since the fall of the Roman Empire, they’ve been maintaining the same hedgerows for generations upon generations. I daresay they’ve perfected the art.”
“Does your family own a lot of property?”
“Two estates in London and many along the southern coast. I own several myself. My favorite sits upon a cliff that overlooks the very water that touches your Carolina.”
That brought a small smile to my lips. Although he was thirteen years my senior, perhaps at some point during our childhood, we’d gazed out onto the same ocean at the same time.
“Is it cold there?” I asked.
“Depends on the season. It’ll be summer when we arrive. Warm and pleasant.”
Not on the gallows. No matter the weather, the noose would be as frigid as death.
“Will you watch me hang?” I met his gaze. “Or will you deliver me to the headsman, accept your promotion to admiral, and sail away on your flagship without looking back?”
His expression emptied. “I’ll be there until the end.”
My throat and stomach burned as he set me on my feet. Then he stood and stalked into the sleeping chamber.
Honestly, either answer would’ve hurt. Why had I even asked the question?
I sw
allowed a painful lump and followed him at a distance, remaining quiet as we dressed and groomed for the day.
The things we did by rote—cleaning teeth, donning skirts and shirts, lacing stays and boots—would’ve been ordinary if done alone. But here, together, every task felt significant. I would wager that he’d never performed his morning routine side by side with another person. A husband and wife didn’t even do these things together. Yet we went through the movements as if we shared everything and had known each other our whole lives.
Once my gown was in place, I didn’t need to ask for his assistance. His hands were already there, tightening the laces and adjusting the pleats in the back.
Only this time, when he finished, he didn’t pull away.
His fingers sifted through the coils of my hair, brushing the tresses over my shoulder. Looming behind me, he set his lips against the exposed side of my neck. Not to kiss. He simply rested his warm mouth there, breathing me in, scenting my skin. Apologizing?
His hands curled around my waist, bringing my backside against his groin. A pained noise sounded in his chest, followed by a whisper at my ear. “You’re the chief cause of my misery.”
I flinched, eyes narrowing.
Not an apology, then.
“You make me hard, Bennett.” His cultivated accent cracked like kindling. “So unbearably, ceaselessly hard I’m in agony. I can’t think, can’t do my job, can’t—”
He released me and turned away. I spun toward him, watching the frock stretch across his back as he ran his hands down his face and over his mouth.
“Ashley.”
He shifted back and pinned me with an accusatory glare. “I will not fall for your trickery.”
“Trickery?” I squared my shoulders. “You think I want to feel affection for a man who intends to watch me hang?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Then they cleared, and his jaw worked side to side.
“Don’t play games with me.” He strode toward the exit. Big surprise.
