by Swanz, Peppa
And all at once it was all she could do to breath. Everything stopped—time, space, the world revolving around the sun. Everything but him and the sweet bliss that spread in white hot waves from where she gripped his cock and outwards to her very toes and fingertips. Somewhere in the distance she heard and felt him find the same completion.
Her body trembled with electric aftershocks as she rested her head on his shoulder and listened to his breathless cries as his body stiffened, his cock flexed and his warm seed filled her passage.
Up on deck the celebration continued. The crew laughed and drank and ate heartily of the fresh fruit and various foods they had stolen from the other ship.
It was always the way after a raid. James believed that being captain was as much about discipline as it was about rewards, and he always rewarded his men well for their loyalty and their bravery.
They roared with more laughter and toasted the fine captain and his doxy, the beautiful Wild Red Ellie.
James smiled against Eliza’s breast as they lay together on his bunk. As soon as the goods were on board and they were safely away from Lord Brooks and his crew, James had congratulated them all, had Mr. Smith pull out enough food and drink to keep the men happy, then practically dragged Eliza down to his quarters and ravished her. He felt his cock flex just thinking about the way she had arched and cried out with pleasure, but he was too tired to perform again.
She had been amazing today. He grinned as he remembered his feelings of loss like he had never felt before. He had failed his men and they were all about to die, either there and then or at the hands of the hangman back in England. Then there she was, like an angel or a demon, he wasn’t sure which, she had saved all their lives at great risk to her own.
Damn but he liked her. James wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, emotions like the ones he felt when he was with her could be dangerous. But he couldn’t get past the way she had risked her life to save his. She had put on a brave face but he had seen the way she trembled, and it just made her stronger. She had been afraid for her life and yet she had not let it stop her. Like a true heroine she had risked all...To save him.
“Eliza?” he murmured, needing a distraction from his dangerous thoughts.
“Hmm?” She hummed and placed a gentle hand to smooth his sweat-soaked hair.
“Tell me about where you’re from.”
She laughed and the sound was breathless and pleasing to his ears.
“You’re going to have to narrow it down a bit there.” She said. “I mean we’re talking over two hundred years so it’s safe to assume that everything is different.”
He nodded, understanding. “All right, tell me about travel. Do men still sail the seas?”
“They do, but not like they do now…” She started and James shut his eyes and listened.
Eliza told him of flying machines that could take a man from country to country in hours rather than months. Of spinning propellers, long metallic wings, of engines that ran on an explosive fuel. Then she told him about pictures on huge white walls that moved and made sounds, telling stories and helping men sell something called fast food.
He barely understood how most of what she was saying came together, but the rise and fall of her voice was so soothing. The feel of her fingers combing through his hair and the sounds of his men safe and still celebrating above all served to lull him into a deep calm.
His head filled with the vision of himself flying with huge metal wings on his arms and then drifted to an exhausted painter sketching an entire play.
After a time, and barely awake he heard her voice pause and wondered if she was asleep.
Another moment passed and he felt her press a lingering kiss on his forehead. Her mouth shifted so it was by his ear and he felt the tickle of her breath.
“I love you,” She whispered, so softly, so sweetly as he drifted.
His eyes flicked open but when he looked, hers were closed and she was breathing evenly in her sleep. For a long time he looked up at the ceiling. All his tiredness and calm had fled with those simple words.
Something cold inside him spread out through his body and he heard those words again. A different voice and a different time, but the words were the same.
James groaned and swung an arm over his eyes. His head filled with the image of a different pair of eyes. Brown and shimmering as they looked up at him, a soft cry escaping her lips as he took her virginity.
No. This was nothing like that. Eliza was not Caroline. This was completely different…
James turned his head to look at the woman sleeping so peacefully next to him. She looked beautiful with her long red hair fanning out on the pillow, her pretty face still flushed.
Eliza was so strong, strong in ways that he had never known a woman to be. She was infuriating in her direct defiance of society’s rules, of nature’s rules, of his bloody rules. He remembered how she had put herself in danger for him and his crew, more then she could have ever known with that bastard, Brooks on board.
He still couldn’t get his head around the fact that she was from the future, but what other explanation was there? She knew her mind and seemed knowledgeable enough about her time that it just couldn’t be imagined...Could it?
No woman had ever managed to make him feel such a wide berth of emotions so strongly. She made him crazy, she infuriated him, she made him laugh, she made him think that maybe there was a chance for him, yet.
But did he love her?
Of course not, why the very idea was ridiculous. Sure he liked her...He grinned wickedly down at the sleeping woman, he definitely enjoyed her. But love? Love was for gentlemen and honorable naval officers, not pirates like him. There was no place for such softness in his world.
Even as he thought the words something inside him melted when Eliza flickered open her eyes and smiled dreamily up at him. “James?” she said, voice husky with sleep as she reached up to caress his cheek. “What are you thinking about so seriously?”
“I can’t remember,” he murmured and lowered himself over her stretched out body, one knee wedging between her thighs. It wasn‘t a lie. “But would you like to know what I’m thinking now?”
Chapter 7
Eliza was in love.
With the ship, with the sea, with the new life she had inexplicably fallen into, but above everything she was in love with James Bartholomew Butler.
She had read the books, too many probably, and she knew what he was. She shook her head and looked out at the water. There was something so good about him, honourable and strong, wonderful in his pride and the way he loved this life as much as she.
Turning her head she looked up at the helm and James. He was so handsome sexiest way, so rugged and gruff. Every scar, that slight crook in his nose, were all declarations of his masculinity, of his strength, of his devotion to this life and to his crew. How many years had she spent staring at his picture in her books, fantasizing about what it would be like to be with him?
James stood tall, his hands resting, seemingly calm on the wheel. A long brown coat stretched over his broad shoulders and strong arms. His hands were large, weather-worn. He had killed with those hands, caused pain and suffering, stolen, and probably a lot of other very bad acts. And yet, he had saved her life, and from the stories his men told countless others, including theirs.
Those hands had brought her to the brinks of ecstasy and over. She remembered his mouth less than an inch from her own, grinning sensually as he slid one of those long, thick fingers inside her soaking heat while his thumb oh so gently stroked her swollen clit.
She had to swallow hard to stifle a passionate shudder. “Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.” She hissed and gripped that railing as the first tear dripped down her cheek. How could she fall in love with him? She barely knew the man.
But how could she not? He was every fantasy she had ever had, wrapped into one. How many nights had she lain awake just staring at his picture in the old book? Wishing he were there with
her, caressing her heated flesh imagining what he would do if he were with her. No man had ever looked at her the way he did, made her feel the way he did.
Above in the crow’s nest a sailor called out. She watched as the man climbed quickly down the rigging and lunged up to his captain’s side. “A ship, I saw a ship close to the wind and on course.” He panted. “I think it’s Caroline’s Virtue.”
James paled and grabbed the man, giving him a firm shake. “Are you sure, man?”
The man nodded, looking fearful. “Yes, Captain.”
The captain shut his eyes tightly for a moment then seemed to gain back his control. “Fine job, Gregson. You have sharp eyes.” He said, though his voice was strained. He grabbed a telescope and climbed the rigging to get a better look at the ship that seemed to be emerging from the setting sun itself.
He looked for a long time and Eliza noticed the way his forehead began to shine with freshly pricked sweat. “Bloody, buggery, blast!” he hissed, spitting between clenched teeth before his gaze found her and he glared at Frances who cowered just at her side. “Get her below!” he growled, ignoring her outraged spluttering. “And make sure she stays put.”
* * * *
“What the hell is going on?” she looked to Francis who was leaning against the door, and watching her wide eyed, his arms outstretched. “And will you relax, I promise to stay put.”
Francis looked at her more closely, obviously judging the honesty of her words. Satisfied he finally pushed off the door. “Belongs to Lord Brooks,” Francis puffed and sat in the side chair.
“And armed to the teeth, it is too,” Carter sat on the bunk, waving his arm over the mattress invitingly and grinning when she rolled her eyes and sat on another chair. “Sweet Caroline’s Virtue has taken down many a pirate ship.”
“Aye,” Francis said nodding. “But this is the ship she be after.”
“Why? Is it to do with the whole rivalry between Brooks and the Captain? And how did it get here so fast?”
“That is far too many questions for a wench to be asking,” Carter said sternly then pulled back at her indignant scowl.
Francis chuckled at her other side. “Yes, the rivalry between Brooks and the Captain has gone on for many years, even before we met him. It runs deep and the current is deadly. As for the other. It is not impossible, he must have had his other ship follow close enough but too far for us to see.”
Eliza frowned. “It still seems like a lot of trouble over a silly feud between two men.” She shook her head. “Do either of you even remember what it was about?”
“Now that’s a story,” Carter said with a sneer. “I’m not sure that it be fit for you’re pretty ears though Miss.”
“And that besides,” Francis added. “It has been passed around so often, I’m not even sure what is truth and what is the lie.”
She looked to Carter, who was still watching her, a darkly mischievous glint in his eyes. “The ship is called Caroline’s Virtue,” he started with a grin.
A shiver of apprehension tingled to her fingertips. “Who is Caroline?”
“Caroline was the sweet and virtuous lady, betrothed to Lord Brooks.”
Francis cleared his throat. “The story goes that both James and Brooks were candidates to be captain of a new ship. Young Master Butler was determined that he deserved the position and made several sacrifices to get it.”
Carter interrupted. “But Brooks was given the rank, he had the contacts and the breeding after all, even if he‘d barely worked a day in his life.”
“James flew into a rage and vowed revenge,” Francis continued.
“And a few years later he got his chance.” Carter laughed. “James was put in charge of Caroline’s safe passage to Brooks’ side. On the voyage he raped away her virginity and delivered the Lord’s betrothed, ruined, and pregnant with his bastard.”
“Ruined and ashamed,” Francis added solemnly. “The young lass threw herself overboard taking her life and that of her unborn son…”
“And the honoured Lord Brooks has been chasing me ever since.”
The three looked up suddenly at the intrusion of a fourth voice to see James filling the doorway, his face void of expression. “Leave us,” he said to the two men, but his gaze never left Eliza’s face.
“Captain—James,” she started and took a step closer. “It’s not true, it can’t be…” But his cold expression filled her with fear and a new kind of confusion.
“Why can’t it be?” He returned coldly. “You foolish wench, I am a pirate, not some priss dandy.”
“No,” she gasped and backed away shaking her head. “James, I know you.”
He laughed loudly. “What do you know?”
“I know you!” she screamed. “We’ve…”
“What?” James grinned, his eyes still cold, cruel in a way that she had never seen. “Made love?”
His mocking tone made Eliza cringe. Humiliation flooded her, mingled with fear as she looked at the man in front of her, once sexy and wicked—now dangerous.
“But you never --” she was cut off by a bout of harsh laughter.
James tipped his head to the side and growled viciously. “Oh, Wild Red Ellie. I didn’t need to rape you.”
* * * *
James snored loudly at her side. He stank of rum and sweat.
Eliza had lain silently when he’d entered the cabin again, slamming the door behind him. Her whole body tensed as he stripped off his wet clothes and climbed into the bunk. But she needn’t have bothered. He lay down as far from her as possible on the small bunk, almost as though he was trying not to touch her.
As gently as she could, she rolled onto her side to see his bare back. She felt numb. After so much turmoil, now she just felt empty.
Was it true?
What did she mean, was it true? Of course it was true! He admitted it himself…
He was so close, his back rising and falling in his sleep.
God what was wrong with her? James was a pirate and a self-confessed rapist, and here she was, lying in bed with him, her fingers aching to caress his shoulder and trace his phoenix tattoo the way she had so many times before.
What was she supposed to do? They were in the middle of the ocean, Eliza wasn’t even sure which one so it wasn’t like she could just sneak out…
But shouldn’t she be panicking? She should have been afraid, terrified, fighting for her life.
It couldn’t be true. It must be some kind of misunderstanding.
So what? He accidentally held Lord Brooks’ betrothed down and forced his cock into her…
There it was.
Eliza rolled onto her front and screamed silently into the pillow. Angry tears spreading over the soft fabric as she took gasping breaths and screamed silently again.
Oh God!
Long wrenching sobs shook her body. She was lying in bed with a rapist, crying because he wasn’t the perfect romance novel hero she wanted. A woman was dead after being raped and sent pregnant to her husband-to-be and Eliza was crying for her own loss. She felt so guilty, horrified. She was disgusted with herself.
How the fuck was she supposed to feel!? It wasn’t like they had ever dealt with this issue on Home and Away. When mum had pulled her aside to give her “The Talk” she hadn’t even touched on what to do if the man you love turns out to be a cruel misogynist bastard.
Needing air, Eliza carefully climbed out of the bed, her eyes never leaving James’ back. His snoring continued undisturbed as she tiptoed across the floor and carefully opened the door.
* * * *
James' eyes flicked open when the door clicked shut. Rolling over revealed that Eliza was gone but he didn't follow. It wasn't like she could go anywhere.
He shifted over into the warmth of where she lay and rested his head on her pillow breathing in her scent. Her sweet whispered words echoed in his head. I love you.
He had done everything in his power to push her away and squelch those utterly feminine emotions, bu
t...
What did it matter? He'd never sought her love and certainly didn't want or need it.
I love you.
Why the hell did she need to get so emotional anyway? He was a bloody pirate! Wenches aren't supposed to fall in love with pirates. They were supposed to run in fear.
Caroline should have run in fear. Sure he hadn't been a pirate when he'd stolen her virginity, but she was his first step. His soul was tarnished from that moment on, and a pirate though he was he had tried to remain a good, honourable man. But the simple fact of what he had done for vengeance, the innocence he had taken when he could have just as easily destroyed the man with his sword, that would forever drag him back into the depths of hell.
Her sweet, trusting brown eyes flashed into his mind. So large and soulful, yet so innocent. He remembered the way her cheeks had pinkened every time they found themselves alone on the deck, or when they dined together. Where husband was cold and respectful, James had been warm and flirtatious to the point of scandal. They had carried on a private flirtation, sharing secret heated looks and he took every opportunity to touch her hand, her arm, her face.
But while she was falling into a flight of romantic fancy, his own motives were aimed directly at the spoilt Lord who had taken a position that should have been rightfully his. He had not forced her to lay with him, but he did not deny the story. He had tricked her, fooled the a sweet maiden into giving him something which belonged to her betrothed and used words of love and adoration, that he did not feel and on discovering the consequence of his release within her, she had thrown herself overboard Lord Brooks‘ ship, taking James‘ bastard son with her to the depths.
A bloodcurdling scream pulled him from his thoughts.
