Pirates, Passion and Plunder

by Victoria Vale

  Speared at the mouth, unable to move my head, I roll up my eyes to watch him in his moment of rapture. Eyes squeezed tight, his reddened face is screwed into what could be a grimace of pain. Lips peeled back, my master bares his teeth as he shudders and spills…

  … until with a final gasp, he tugs himself free of me, totters three steps to the bed and panting, hurls himself down to lie flat on the blankets.

  After a moment, his gaze shifts to mine. He smiles, bright and white, patting the space beside him. “Let us be comfortable, madam.” Under the covers, we lie, warm and close. My face resting to his chest, he wraps his arms around me. “Happy, Josephine?”

  “Yes, Master. Oh, yes.”

  “You feel you might want to conduct further explorations?”

  “I believe so, Master.”

  Chapter 12

  Finale

  Back at the Albatross, heads turn as we board. Mr Bridges salutes. “Welcome back, captain.” His glance hovers uncertainly over me. With the thick cape hanging from my shoulders, my attire is concealed.

  My master shifts to stand behind me. “Josephine, allow me to take your cloak.” I clutch at the swaying fabric, gripping it around myself like armour, but he murmurs, “Better to get it over with now. The entire crew will see you at some point. Better it happens whilst you are with me.”

  Cheeks blazing, I nod, allowing my captain to reach around, unfasten the clasp and remove the cloak.

  Mr Bridges’ jaw drops. So do those of the nearby crew members. And I wish heartily for the metaphorical hole-in-the-ground, famed of song and legend, to swallow me up.

  The captain’s eyes twinkle. “Chin up.”

  He’s right…

  Facing forward, my eyes glancing neither right nor left, I accompany my captain to his cabin.

  The day is fair, the sun is bright, and the wind fills our sails. The Albatross skims blue water and the waves foam white in her wake.

  The captain adjusts my hold on the sextant. “You will find the instrument easier to use, Mr Parsons, if you hold it so…”

  He stands behind me, following the line of my arm and the eyepiece out to the horizon. “…The trick is to adjust the mirror such that the image of the celestial body, in this case, the sun, brushes the horizon…”

  He indicates the scale marking off degrees and minutes of arc… “You may then take an accurate reading using the micrometre… It is important to be accurate in your use of the instrument. Small errors make for large discrepancies in one's position…”

  From high above comes the cry. “Sail!”

  All eyes swing to the distant ship. The captain snaps open his glass, raising it to scan outwards.

  After a few moments, his voice rings out. “It’s the Black Falcon. And we have the gage on them!”

  The crew breaks into cheers, then burst into activity, dashing for their stations.

  The captain lowers his glass, passing it to me. “Take a look, Mr Parsons, at our enemy. Are you ready to go into battle once more?”

  “Oh, yes, Master.”

  About Simone Leigh

  Simone Leigh writer intelligent, sensual, erotic romance and thrillers.

  English but living in rural Spain, when not writing, she spends her time with her rescue dogs and cats, renovating her Spanish finca and orange orchards, or swimming naked.

  According to one recent internet troll, she is ‘Beyond Redemption’.

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  Pirate’s Pleasure

  by Mariah Stone

  A Time Travel Romance

  Chapter 1

  City of Pirates Museum, Jade Island, The Bahamas

  August, 2019

  Lisa

  Cole the Black does something to me. I’m in some sort of trance, watching his onyx eyes under his low eyebrows. Slight stubble covers his strong jaw, and a scar crosses his cheekbone. His hair, long and dark, is held back above the ears in a partial ponytail, the rest reaching past his shoulders. His features are sharp and rough. Dangerous. How can a painting in a frame cause this feeling? Maybe this bedazzlement is what a snake induces in a mouse before launching and eating it alive…

  A nudge in my ribs startles me. I shoot a quick glance at Samantha, my best friend, who is standing next to me in the City of Pirates Museum. She studies James “Prince” Barrow’s portrait hanging beside Cole’s. Between them, two antique jade necklaces hang on the wall.

  “He’s so handsome.” She stares at James. “And yet he couldn’t find a date for the ball.”

  I study James’ golden hair and violet eyes, square jaw, and straight nose. He’s such a contrast with Cole. James is more the type of man I’m naturally attracted to, the ultimate Prince Charming.

  Just like Hank, my ex-fiancé.

  “Who wouldn’t go to a ball with him, Samantha?” I ask, a knot forming in my throat. “No man can look this dreamy.”

  The thought of Hank sobers me up and makes my skin ache like an icy shower after a warm bath. He was everything I wanted. My mind buzzes, and my eyes prickle, but tears don’t come, courtesy of three piña coladas Samantha poured into me at breakfast.

  She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t.” She points at Cole’s portrait. “The other guy is my type.”

  I continue staring at James. It’s safer. I’m afraid if I look at Mr. Dangerous again, he’ll step out of the portrait, put me over his shoulder and carry me away to do dirty and dangerous things with me. Forbidden pleasures and wild rides. Things good girls like me aren’t supposed to want.

  “I thought we could spice up our sex life,” I remember Hank saying.

  “Are you bored with me?” I had asked, mortification dripping down my skin like melting ice.

  He looked down. “Frankly, yes, babe. It’s all the rules you have. No lights, no oral sex, no—”

  He stops talking, sighs, and looks at me. My arms and legs are like wet cotton.

  “How about we go to a swing club so that you can experience other pleasures?” he suggests.

  “You want to sleep with another woman? You’re that bored with me?”

  The memory twists my stomach and plants a headache behind my temples. I shake my head and force myself to look at Cole, hoping for a distraction.

  Cole is different from Hank. Where Hank is charm itself, Cole is clearly a predator who uses women for his pleasure as if he owns them. He probably dazes them, like me, bends them to his will. Then tosses them away. He’s afraid to love, I decide.

  Afraid to get hurt.

  If only men like him opened up to love, they wouldn’t feel the need to sleep with anyone else.

  Reminds me of someone I know—Samantha.

  “Well, Cole the Black does look like your type, Samantha,” I say. “He needs someone to love his lost soul, just like you.”

  She snorts, but I just smile and shake my head. She deserves the happiness of a lifetime with the right man. And I believe she’ll find it.

  I believe I will, too, despite Hank. Despite the fact that I’m spending my and Hank’s five-year anniversary with Samantha. Despite my broken heart.

  I’m loyal, and I was ready to work on our relationship. And he—he just wanted to sleep with other women.

  “I can’t do that,” I’d said.

  “Then we are done,” he’d said.

  And here I am.

  Nausea rises in my stomach, and I turn my face to the breeze that brings the scents of pear, mango, and hot stones through the open window. Beyond it, the dark-blue Atlantic shimmers under the sun.

  The personal tour guide Samantha hired raises his eyebrows. Adonis is a native to the island and wears a white T-shirt, a bright red headscarf, a necklace of colorful beads, and a live snake.
>
  “Don’t be afraid,” Adonis says.

  “I’m not,” I respond and lean closer to watch the snake slither and stick its tongue in the air.

  “Are you crazy? Get away from it,” Samantha says.

  I smile, enjoying her surprise. She thinks she knows me, but there are things I’ve never told her. Like about how I’ve always fantasized that Hank would take me, dominate me, because he couldn’t take his next breath otherwise. The reality was that he’d always made me do most of the work and only let me come on rare occasions.

  “Are you kidding, Sam?” I say as I study the snake. “I’ve never had a snake stay in my hotel.”

  Adonis throws a curious glance at me. “You have a hotel?”

  “A pet hotel, in New Jersey.” I smile at the snake. “I love animals. I have three dogs and two cats, all from the local shelter. They’re with my parents now, and I miss them terribly.”

  Samantha sighs. “What a brilliant way to use your NYU degree, opening a tiny business in a tiny area and being able to hire no more than two employees. You could be in media like me by now and live in Manhattan. We’d buy two apartments next to each other.”

  “Ah, stop it, Sam. I love my furry clients, and business is going great.”

  She rolls her eyes a little bit, and Adonis goes on to tell us about James. Cole and James were friends—both pirates, both captains of their own ships. They’d raided a Spanish treasure ship, but James encountered trouble and had to fight for his life. Cole had ended up with the treasure, with the understanding that should something happen, whoever had the treasure would split it with the other once the waters calmed.

  “Cole kept his word and hid James’s part of the treasure,” Adonis says with a sly smile.

  “See,” I say. “I told you, Cole was just a lost soul. He could have taken all the treasure for himself, but he didn’t. He just needs love to open up his heart.”

  Samantha shakes her head. “I’m astonished you are still a hopeless romantic even after the breakup.”

  Adonis chuckles, and it looks like he exchanges a knowing look with a snake. I frown. Did I just imagine that?

  He goes on to tell us that the reason James needed a date for the governor’s ball was to steal the third clue Cole had left him. He needed a woman to impersonate his wife.

  But without that date, James never found the treasure, never settled down as he had wanted to, and once he got back to Bristol, he was hanged for piracy. The story is so sad, it makes my chest tighten.

  “I wish he had found a woman who could help him,” I say, and Adonis hides a smile.

  “Was the treasure found?” Samantha asks.

  “Yes. Eventually. These two necklaces”—he points at the space between the portraits—“are their replicas. Two identical necklaces, for two noble twin sisters in Spain. Cole put one in James’s half and kept one for himself.”

  “Why jade?” Samantha asks.

  “In voodoo, jade is the gem of love, so strong, people can find each other anywhere. Even through time.”

  Samantha and I exchange a look, and I know she finds this ridiculous. While all this talk of finding each other through time and voodoo is not true, I do find the notion of timeless love romantic.

  “Would you like to try it on?” Adonis says.

  “What?” Samantha says. “Aren’t we forbidden from touching stuff in a museum?”

  Adonis smiles. “Not when I am your tour guide.”

  I grin. Samantha brought me here to distract me and to give me an adventure. Well, here we go.

  “Yeah!” I say. “Why not. They are replicas anyway, right?”

  He removes the necklaces and hands us one each. I jerk a little as a buzz goes through me when the cool metal lands in my palm. It’s probably just that I’m so excited—and a little drunk. But the necklace is pretty. The gold is pale and obviously handmade. The sun pattern around the jade stone is as delicate as lace. I’ve never owned anything jade, but I do like the stone. It’s mesmerizing, all those dots and layers, like it represents the whole universe.

  “Yes, just replicas,” Adonis says. “Put them on. Go on.”

  “I don’t know.” Samantha shakes her head and holds the necklace out to Adonis. “What if the guard comes? Aren’t we going to get into trouble?”

  Adonis winks. “The guard won’t come. I promise. When else will you have a chance to try on a pirate treasure?”

  Samantha looks at me, I look at her, and we both nod to each other slightly. “All right,” Samantha says. “A fun thing to do. Something to remember in New York.”

  While she puts the necklace on, Adonis and his snake study me. As my eyes lock with the snake’s, my head spins a little, and all I can see for a moment is its glittering gaze.

  It has jade eyes.

  Did I notice that before?

  All thoughts evaporate from my head.

  “While James was hunting for the treasure, Cole stayed back in the Caribbean,” Adonis says. “Unlike James, Cole came from a poor family. But working for years as sailors without pay made them friends. Cole had seen injustice, violence, and poverty since he was a boy. He had a big family in Bristol and worked on a ship to send them money. Because there was no pay in honest labor, Cole became a pirate. Like that, he could support his family.”

  My heart squeezes, imagining the thin little dark boy in rags. Even dangerous souls have the reason to be so.

  “But as he grew rich and powerful,” Adonis says, “he became entangled with—hmm, how shall I say it—unusual sexual interests.”

  The words drip down my skin like cold water.

  “See, I knew there was something like that about him,” I mumble.

  “Yes, he doesn’t want commitment, and he’s quite happy in his adventures, especially the ones he has in bed. Or so he thinks. Deep down, I’m afraid he is rolling into the life of a lonely man who has tried everything except for the one thing that will really make him happy.”

  I swallow. “What is that?”

  He winks. “You said it yourself.”

  My lips part, and a single word escapes my mouth on an exhale. “Love.”

  He looks at my hands, and I realize I’m still holding the necklace.

  “Why don’t you try it on?”

  I look at Cole’s portrait and put the necklace on. It’s as though his eyes shift and land on me. Maybe I have heat stroke.

  The world trembles. Wind blows from all sides, whistling in my ears. I suddenly remember Samantha has just put on the necklace, as well, and look at her.

  But she’s not there. What happened? Where is she?

  I begin to disappear, as though the wind is blowing me away.

  Adonis’s voice rings. “You are traveling back in time to help Cole. You wanted to help his lost soul, so here you go. To travel back to modern times, you must put on the necklace.”

  What sort of craziness is this? The snake’s jade eyes are the only thing I see, while the wind is blowing sand against my skin, slowly erasing me.

  I must be dreaming. Or something must have been in that piña colada, because everything whirls and twirls and careens like a ship in a storm.

  I scream for help, but my voice disappears on the breeze.

  And I fall into oblivion.

  Chapter 2

  Caribbean Sea

  September, 1718

  Lisa

  The scent of wood and sea envelops me. The floor sinks under my feet, then rises. Waves splash nearby. Someone groans softly, as if they’re being tortured. Did I make that sound? The planks under me scratch my fingers and the bare skin of my legs.

  Worry settles in the pit of my stomach. Where am I? Am I dreaming?

  I manage to open my eyes, squinting into the golden-orange light of the setting sun that falls through a large window, which is atilt. There’s a massive wooden bed, the sheets crumpled and scattered. Against one wall is a desk, and a big chair is half-turned with its back to me. Someone is in the chair, and now I know the sourc
e of the groan I heard a few seconds ago. They moan again and grunt, moving their hand rhythmically up and down, and I recognize the pungent scent of a man—of sex.

  I freeze and hold my breath, all dizziness gone. My face singes. The skin on my chest burns where just a moment ago, a jade necklace hung. My feet weaken and my hands shake. My heart thumps in my ears. I’m in someone’s bedroom, they are having sex, and I haven’t been invited. The room looks like something out of the past. Am I still in the City of Pirates Museum?

  I look around. On the wall by the bed, a riding crop hangs, and above the bed on the ceiling, a mirror. I gasp without a sound.

  Oh God, this all seems so real. I feel like a voyeur, observing the man’s private moment. I need to get out of here.

  I stand up, and now I can see the man clearly.

  I should cover my eyes, turn away, let him know he’s not alone. But my blood is simmering with excitement. I know I ought to leave, sneak through that closed door and hope he doesn’t notice me.

  But it’s like I’m caught in a trance again.

  All I can do is watch, paralyzed, like a mouse waiting for the snake to get me.

  He is completely naked, leaning back in the chair. His head is tilted back slightly, his eyes closed. His long, athletic legs are stretched out in front of him and set wide apart. He has massive, sculpted shoulders, glorious pecs I could snowboard over. His long dark hair is spread across his shoulders and chest. His biceps muscle flexes rhythmically as he pleases himself. The six-pack of his powerful stomach stiffens and glistens with sweat.

  My gaze crawls further down his body to the place where his hands are moving. Heat rushes through me, and I suck in air as I see his length, his thickness. The sight makes the deep muscles within me clench, sending a wave of molten heat through me. He moves one hand along his erection while the other cups his balls and massages them.