Pirates, Passion and Plunder

by Victoria Vale

  He grinned and headed for the cabin, at last relishing the sight of Hannah when he opened the door. She was right where he had left her. Her wet off-white dress clung to her tempting, curvaceous body, making him glad he had not allowed his gaze to linger on her before.

  He never would have made it out of here.

  “You are…there are no words for you,” she seethed. “Sinful.”

  “Sinful?” He chuckled and closed the door, bracing himself against the sway of the ship. “Is that all you can come up with? I thought to hear more of your colorful phrases from before.”

  “Sin is the epitome of what you are,” she spat.

  “Ah, yes,” he murmured, wondering if she were tempting him on purpose. “You and that word.”

  She stilled at his softly spoken reminder, recognizing the warning in it.

  She wasn’t pulling at her bindings anymore, and he found that he wanted her to. Fighting. Writhing. At his mercy. Struggling between the need to escape and the need to stay.

  “I think, as you requested, that will be one of your special words this time.” He went to the trunk. “You remember our special words, do you not, tease?” He pulled out one of the many scrolls. “More specifically, the one about sin?”

  “You saved them too?” she whispered, clearly relieved that something more threatening wasn’t in there yet emotional that he cared enough.

  How could he not? They were from her.

  Rather than answer her, he unrolled one, and read aloud.

  Luke,

  Never ‘Dear Luke’ or ‘My Dearest’ or even ‘Friend’ but simply his name.

  I was sitting in our spot today, wondering if you recalled what I said to you the day we found this place. What you said we might use it for. The excitement I felt. More so, the rules you introduced. Do you remember? I say a word, and you stop. I say another word, and you continue. I thought that particularly clever of you.

  He could almost see her squirming with need as she wrote this outside the small building they had found. As she penned it in the safety of her homeland and grew bold indeed.

  Now that we are no more and this but a fantasy, you should know you could have pushed me further. You could have been more daring. We were out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody would have heard me. You could have roped me off to rings and taken me without mercy. Perhaps ‘tease’ as you were so fond of calling me, would have stopped you and ‘sin’ would have allowed you to continue. Or perhaps you decided to ignore the rules altogether…

  “So what say you, my dear?” Luke arched a brow at her. “Is it ‘tease’ or ‘sin’?” He tossed aside the scroll and made sure she heard the threat in his voice. “Or should I, as you speculated, ignore the rules altogether?”

  Chapter 9

  “You would not dare,” she gasped, far more aroused by the predatory look in Luke’s eyes than she let on. “Rules are important…our rules especially.”

  She was still caught off guard that he had saved all her letters. More pointedly that like hers they were worn as he too had obviously read them often.

  “Rules are important,” he agreed. He pulled off his boots and yanked off his shirt. “So imagine my surprise when you wrote such.”

  “Bloody hell,” she cursed before she could bite her tongue. He had been fit in his youth, but not like he was now. Muscles rippled everywhere. Along his strong arms. Across his broad chest. A series of mouth-watering ridges down his abdomen. She could see his muscular thighs easily enough because of his soaked breeches. He was harder than ever, his cock straining against the material.

  Near painful pleasure blossomed between her thighs and she licked her lips, eager to taste him on her tongue again. She trailed her eyes back up his body. He was richly tanned and had tattoos now. One, in particular, stood out. One singular bold word etched into his skin for all time.

  Tease.

  “That’s me…” she whispered.

  “No,” he said softly. “That is but a word that will keep you safe.” He shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. “If we follow the rules that is.” He pulled a dagger from his waistband and trailed his fingers up her thigh. “And I am not sure after being teased by letters like that for so long that you deserve such respect.”

  “Surely you recall that was just our way,” she countered, reaching for anything. “I taunted, you tried to take, I teased, and you took, back and forth. We followed our whim. Wherever our fancy took us.”

  “Our fancy?” he murmured. “Our fancy nearly took us to the alter if I recall.”

  She could tell by his darkening gaze and the haphazard way he had said it in the brothel and now here that he’d by no means pushed past her rejection. She never should have said yes to begin with, but he was him, and it seemed like the most natural thing to say at the time. While tempted to tell him she did it for his own good, she held back. It was too hard to speak of. To remember. To live through again.

  “Did your husband meet your fancy then,” he murmured, cutting her dress from the collar to the end of the sleeve with one swift slice. “Did he control you well?” He sliced the other sleeve, his eyes drifting to hers. “Did he make you scream with pleasure until you were hoarse?”

  “It was an arranged marriage,” she reminded. “He was more than twice my age, and you know it.” Her husband rarely lay with her. When he did, it was drab and mercifully quick. Outside of the bedroom, he never spoke to her or glanced her way. Then one day, his heart gave out, and he was gone, having never sown his seed. “His only desire was to fill me with child, but alas, it never happened.”

  “Do you still want one?” Luke said softly. His eyes were unreadable as they stayed with hers. “Do you still long for a child you could raise differently than your uncle raised you?”

  It stopped mattering the moment you left. But of course, she did not say that.

  “Do you?” she murmured. “Because I believe you rather liked the idea of having one without such an oppressive father.”

  “I haven’t given it much thought over the years.” He gestured at the cabin. “But then my lifestyle is not exactly conducive to it.”

  Before she could respond, he sliced from her cleavage all the way to the bottom of the dress, then did the same to her thin petticoat, leaving her bare. He growled with approval, feasting his eyes on her flesh, his gaze lingering on her breasts.

  She tried to keep talking, to keep his mind distracted from what he ultimately sought, but lost all ability to think when he touched her. Lightly sometimes, a little rougher at others, as though experiencing something he thought long lost to him. It was a strange mix of anger and cherishing that had her arching into his touch. Seeking more. Needing it like she needed air to breathe.

  “Luke,” she whispered, pleading for something…more. She craved his kiss, his lips, already addicted to them though she’d had but a sample.

  Yet, as she suspected would happen, he did not give her such but pleased her in other ways. He licked, nipped, and kissed first one arm then the other, hitting all the sensitive areas others would have ignored. She shivered and groaned barely aware of him pulling off his pants but wholly aware of his sizzling hot cock when it brushed her belly.

  Trying to feed the ache between her thighs, she struggled to press against it, but he kept her away, his eyes turbulent. “I had sworn to myself I would bind you so tight you never moved again, but I prefer to do things differently this first time.”

  First time? Did that mean what she thought it did? And should she truly be so eager? His touch lit her on fire, but he tended to leave a great deal of pain in his wake. Not of the flesh but most certainly of the spirit. She knew she had no one to blame but herself but sometimes, especially after experiencing that kiss, she wished he had turned back all those years ago.

  She wished he had not taken no for an answer.

  He squeezed her breast, then began tasting it as he had her arms, savoring the sensitive flesh. He pulled an aching nipple into his mouth and feathered his fingers acro
ss her stomach in just the right spot.

  “Oh,” she cried out. Pleasure fanned everywhere, and she arched into him. Many a night she had envisioned feeling this again, but even that did not do the real thing justice. He knew her body better than she did. Where to touch. What to lick, kiss, or bite at precisely the right moment.

  Luke knew how to drive her close to the edge then pull her back, hurt her and please her all at once until she said their special word to stop him or drive him on. He had always listened in the past, making each time better because she felt safer.

  She knew there were boundaries if she needed them.

  He suckled the other nipple, twirling his tongue around its pebbled surface as he made the same swirling motion with a finger down her belly, pelvis, then lower, teasing, not quite touching her hungry channel. Close, closer, but no matter how much she strained, the rope kept him just out of reach.

  “Please,” she whimpered, breathing harshly, squirming as she teetered on the edge then drifted back from it again. She pleaded that he not hold back. “Don’t do this…not right now.”

  “Was that not what you said in one of your letters though?” he whispered against her skin, nipping her inner thigh, blowing across the sensitive flesh of her nether region. “To bring you to the edge again and again but never let you go over.”

  She tried to sift through his words, sensing a certain alarming familiarity to them. “Something you did many times,” she murmured. “That is nothing of note.”

  “But it was.” He flicked his tongue once through her folds then a particularly sensitive area on her hip. “Because it did not end there. It went much further.”

  Suddenly, he was gone, leaving her caught in an unsatisfied limbo, needing him with a ferociousness she had never felt before. Why was that? What triggered it so strongly this time? She watched him through half-mast eyes while he lengthened the ropes considerably. What was he up to?

  It never occurred to her she might be able to fight him off.

  That she might break free.

  Mainly because she simply did not want to.

  “You do not remember your taunts in that letter, do you, tease?” he growled. “They were very cruel to say from such a distance. So taunting, it’s a wonder I did not kidnap you years ago.”

  She struggled for memory until he flipped her, and forced her to her elbows and knees.

  Then it all came back.

  “Ah, you remember now, don’t you?” he murmured. He knelt behind her and grabbed her hips. “You played a risky game writing such naughty, depraved words.” He slapped her buttocks then massaged away the sting. “Anyone could have intercepted that message. Just imagine what would have happened then?”

  When she tried to rise, he pushed her back down to her elbows and slapped her arse again, a little harder this time. “Move again, and you will not like the consequences. After all, I still have that scroll and a ship full of lusty pirates that will do my bidding.” He curled over her and ran his fingers between her legs. “Men that will gladly watch us, rubbin’ themselves the whole time, eager for some. Then have a turn at ye themselves.”

  As he knew she would, her traitorous body thrummed at the idea. Not so much being taken against her will by others but by being watched. Yet in that missive, she had taken it that far, giving those other pirates more opportunity than Luke in the end.

  “Oh, yes,” he breathed. “I read that letter so much I’m surprised it is still in one piece.”

  He leaned back, so he could admire the view, spreading her cheeks, rubbing his cock enticingly along the crevice, his voice hoarse with need. “So bloody beautiful.”

  “Tell me what you said,” he prompted. “And I might let you have a say in this.”

  When she didn’t respond, unable to find her voice she was so aroused, he curled over her and murmured in her ear, using the stern tone she had no choice but to obey. “Tell me what you said, my little tease.”

  “That you would do this to me,” she managed. “Just as you have, only others would watch, waiting their turn.” She swallowed hard, awash in crippling desire. “I only ever wanted you, though, and you knew that.”

  “I did,” he agreed, stroking between her thighs, fanning her lust until it devoured her. “Yet what did you do in the end? Before I could at last press deep inside you?”

  “I denied you,” she whispered.

  “And will you again?” he whispered, nibbling her earlobe. “Will you tease or sin?”

  It didn’t matter what good sense said, her mouth had a mind of its own.

  “Sin,” she gasped. “Please sin.”

  With a strangled, fierce growl, he gripped her hips roughly and finally did what she had dreamt of for so long. What she craved with blinding need.

  He took her in sin.

  Chapter 10

  He thought nothing could beat the fantasy, but it turned out driving into Hannah’s tight, wet sheath was a thousand times better. She belted out a strangled cry of pleasure and gripped the bedding hard. He had always meant to take her gently the first time. In fact, he had envisioned it often in his youth.

  But the man he was now had to dominate her.

  Her agreeing to be his wife then turning him away then the teasing letters over the years, boiled down to this moment. While he knew she wrote them craving the control he could offer her, they had turned his need for her into a raging beast.

  He gripped her hips rougher still and slammed into her, consumed by the feel of her sweet, moist heat. Entrenched in the desire she wrung from him. Blind with lust, he rode her with a reckless abandon beyond anything he had experienced with another woman.

  She, in turn, clearly appreciated it.

  Soaking his cock with her juices, her hands twisted more in the bedding as she gripped it in passion. She cried out over and over with every thrust before she locked up and belted out a lusty cry of pleasure. Seconds later, her sheath squeezed him in a vice grip before it fluttered and began milking him.

  “Fuck,” he roared when his balls tightened painfully, and fire raced down his spine.

  He thrust hard one last time before exquisite pleasure tore through him, and his cock let go. Blood pounded in his ears. His heart beat out of his chest. He pressed deep, locking her in place as he filled her with his seed, claiming her in a way he never thought he would.

  “Someone,” she gasped.

  “Someone?” he grunted, unsure what she meant.

  “At the door.”

  Only then did he finally hear Robert pounding on the door and calling out, “Cap’n, ‘tis a good time!”

  “’Tis a piss poor time,” he muttered but knew his men needed him. If they were far enough out and in range of the enemy ship, they had to take advantage before the wind, sea, or current worked against them.

  “What is he talking about?” she murmured, melting down onto the bed when he pulled away.

  “Nothing you need worry about.” He dressed then undid her bindings. If for some reason, things didn't go in their favor, he would not have her lying here at the mercy of whoever found her unable to defend herself.

  He pressed the dagger into her hands and met her eyes. “Do not hesitate to use this if anyone but me walks through the door.” Though he knew better, he would not have her trapped. “I could lock the door from the outside, but I will not. That said, you must stay here, Hannah. It will be too dangerous on deck, and you would only distract me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she replied, surprisingly calm.

  But then he had just seen to that, hadn’t he?

  Though she said it haughtily enough, embracing a persona that kept her fear at bay, he didn’t miss the flash of terror in her eyes. “If you recall, the last time I left you to your own devices, you nearly got killed.”

  “Just stay in here,” he repeated. “Lock the door from the inside and only open it for me.”

  “What if you cannot talk?”

  He frowned. “Why would I not be able to talk?” />
  “Well, I don’t know, maybe—”

  Luke put a finger to her mouth, fully aware she rattled on more than usual when she was nervous. “I will knock three times then pound once. Just stay in here, all right?”

  She nodded and murmured against his finger, “All right.”

  “Yes?”

  She kept nodding. “Yes.”

  “Good,” he murmured and did what he had wanted to do since the last time he did it.

  He kissed her hard.

  This time, however, with less anger and more passion. Which might have been a mistake in retrospect because he would have lost himself had the ship not taken a hard turn.

  Robert roared, “’Tis happenin,’ Cap’n.”

  “Ballocks,” he muttered, wishing they had more time together. But the guns were lining up, so the seconds were ticking down.

  He brushed his lips across hers one more time and strode from the cabin. “Lock it behind me, Hannah!”

  Hell if he didn’t wait to hear it click too. If someone wanted to get to her they would, but at least she would hear them coming.

  “Already in position,” Robert said, stating the obvious when Luke took the wheel. “Just waitin’ on yer go ahead, Cap’n.”

  He took in their surroundings. The enemy was right where he wanted them, so he roared, “Fire!”

  His order was relayed to the gunner below, and the cannons boomed, tilting the ship again. Regrettably, because of the waves and wind, they snapped the enemy’s mizzen mast in half but did not breach the hull. Worse yet, they carried light for added speed and had no more cannons.

  “Boom about,” he roared, cutting the wheel back. “Ready yerself to fight! No man left standin’ ye hear? To Davy Jones’ Locker with the lot of ‘em!”

  There could be no evidence of them being here.

  That meant everyone had to die.

  In truth, they were doing the world a service ending this lot, vicious scoundrels all. More than the average pirate. They were also damn good fighters as it turned out. Because of the storm, they could only get so close to the ship, so it was a dangerous battle indeed. Men were swinging on ropes to one another’s ships, battling with swords and whatever else they could find. Pistols were pointless in the driving rain with no opportunity to light the flint.