by Kresley Cole
Lassiter drew his eyebrows together in an agonized expression. “It’s usually not so dangerous. And even now, I wouldn’t overly worry about her because she’s in capable hands. Hell, she is a capable hand. But before there was no doubt about our ship’s integrity—now I don’t know if those thugs could have been successful. It would be a deadly combination if they timed an accident to occur in the strongest tossing of the ship.”
His look was beseeching. “I’ve got to get to my daughter, because if she hasn’t already, she could soon know a living hell.”
Chapter 11
This is embarrassing,” Nicole heard one of their midshipmen mumble from the deck.
What an understatement. Just hours ago, they’d lost their rudder, and the Bella Nicola had become completely incapacitated. Their beautiful, regal ship with its American flag pennants had been flailing around, out of control—a menace to the fishing vessels dotting the waters off the coast of Brazil.
After several hours, they’d managed to rig a makeshift rudder that would help them get closer to land and help. More important, they’d been able to get out of sight before the other gaining ships in the race had any chance to see them. Nicole knew it was shallow—but she would simply have to drown herself if Sutherland saw them like this.
She shook her hung head, only to cringe again when she looked up to the bow. They’d certainly found help.
The Bella Nicola was being towed by a fully stocked guano freighter.
Even in the turmoil of the Bay of Biscay’s continuous storms, which Derek secretly believed was the best part of sailing, his mind had been constantly on Nicole. Evidently, she’d been spying on the competition. All of the competition, if he was part of some list.
Hell, he’d seen her studying his chart. And now that she’d learned how far south he planned to go, they’d try to beat it. He in turn would have to sail closer to the Antarctic than he’d ever anticipated.
When he found Nicole he would…bloody hell, he didn’t know what he’d do.
For not quite six thousand miles, he’d followed patiently behind the Bella Nicola, rarely varying from his south-southwest course. He’d already passed other competitors and was comfortable with his position, even though Nicole led, and he was most likely steadily losing ground on her. He didn’t doubt he’d make it up in the Southern Ocean—no ship was stronger than his in those seas.
As they neared the easternmost tip of South America and the waters took on the emerald green cast so common over the reefs in this area, his crew spotted some local fishing vessels about sixty miles off the coast. Anxious to confirm his second-place position, Derek closed in and signaled them. The locals approached in their log raftjangadas and related that the Desirade had already passed.
Silence claimed the deck. Word of Tallywood’s lead stunned everyone. Even though the Desirade was an extreme clipper, Tallywood had never attained half its potential speed. With his superior airs and his negligence in captaining, he’d become a hated figure in the shipping community.
Tallywood’s lead was surprising news in itself, but then Derek learned that the Bella Nicola had been towed into port at Recife, Brazil.
Towed?
He thought of his own strong position, of the ships he’d passed in the Bay of Biscay and down the trades. It would be a close thing to take the lead from Tallywood as they continued south, then turned east toward Africa and the Cape of Good Hope, but Derek could afford to stop. It wasn’t as if Nicole would be cutting a larger lead in the meantime, and she was his main competition. Or at least, her ship was. After ordering his crew to Recife, he went to his cabin to change.
He smiled, a lupine grin, when he recalled another excellent reason to stop in Recife—namely, Madam Maria Delgado’s bordello….
Without warning, the dream from two nights before flooded his mind. In it, Nicole lay in his bed, completely unclothed beside him, her impatient hands smoothing over his body. He turned and reached for her, pulling her body close to press against the naked length of his own.
He tilted her head to take his seeking mouth, and she eagerly met his lips, slipping her tongue in to lightly lap at his own. His hands roamed the front of her body, only stopping to press his thumbs over her nipples.
Over and over, he brushed the peaks while he plundered her mouth, until she began writhing uncontrollably, arching her pelvis onto his swollen rod, making him want to explode against her.
The husky little moans escaping her soft lips made him desperate to possess her, to pound himself into her unmercifully until he made her convulse around him and cry his name. But each time he positioned her to take him, she moved elusively, maddeningly. At last, she allowed him to rise over her, his arms at her sides and his legs resting between hers as his mouth hungrily took hers again.
Suddenly she broke the kiss, and he sensed she would move away from him again. To keep her where he wanted, he swiftly spread his legs over hers to rest against the side of each thigh so that all of him surrounded her pinned body. But then she put her small hands on his chest and, before he could stop her, pushed against him as she inched her way down his body until he straddled her shoulders and head. He was too stunned to move—too heavily aroused to think. And when she grasped him and brought that hot, wet mouth over him, he didn’t know if he could stop himself from spilling into her….
Jerking upright in bed, he’d awakened from the most powerfully erotic dream he’d ever experienced. As the pressure pooled in his groin, he groaned in the dark. He gripped himself, intending to finish it off, but his rough hand sliding over his cock was a poor substitute for a woman’s soft flesh, or soft mouth.
His aching erection wouldn’t subside, and with each second he’d endured it, he’d sworn he would make her pay for this night. She had brought him to this—to experiencing more violently sensual dreams than he’d ever had, even as a green lad. Even more determinedly, he’d vowed that he would find a woman when they next stopped and use her until Nicole was placed firmly in the back of his mind.
And now he could.
When they’d docked in Recife among the many ships crowding the main harbor, Derek learned the damage to the Bella Nicola was nothing more than a broken rudder. They’d be repaired and on their way in half a day. But by then he would have had a woman or possibly two, restocked his ship with perishables, and made open sea.
As he pushed through the market stalls set along the docks, he scarcely perceived the pungent odor of coffee or the sour smell of rotting sugarcane. He hardly noticed the locals gaping at his height or demeanor. His thoughts were focused inward.
He didn’t actually decide to go to her ship. He just found himself walking there, and to justify his direction, he convinced himself it was on the way to Maria’s. Or not too far out of the way. When he came upon the spotless vessel, he asked a crewman scraping the deck if he could speak with Miss Lassiter. The man ignored him.
Permission to come aboard was denied by another crewman. Unless Derek wanted to start a war between his crew and theirs, he’d have to back down. He inquired one last time about Nicole, and this time was answered by Chancey as he walked up behind him. Derek turned slowly, prepared for a fight.
The big man only stared at him, taking his measure. Finally, he said, “Ye touch her again—ye die,” then casually walked on aboard.
Derek took one last look at her ship. He would prefer having Nicole, but at this point, he’d make do.
Decided, he made his way to an elegant Spanish-style palazzo overlooking the harbor. Casa de Delgado was the largest and most impressive home in the city, and if he remembered correctly, its inside mirrored its immaculate exterior. The rooms were spacious, lofty, and colored in the rich colonial tones that the plantations favored. Minutes after he walked through the heavy wooden doors, a guard escorted him to a tasteful study.
When he entered, Maria Delgado looked up from her account books. Unconsciously she pushed at the spectacles that made her look more like a headmistress than a madam. He
’d met her many years ago when he was a young man on his way to the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and occasionally he’d remembered with pleasure his experiences in the upscale bordello.
“Captain Sutherland, how good you are to visit us once again.” She smiled warmly as she rose to clasp his hand. “It has been far too long.” It had been a long time, but you couldn’t tell from her demeanor. She seemed completely unsurprised that he’d arrived even after all these years. And she studied him closely.
“You are, of course, welcome to enter directly.” Madam Delgado unfailingly screened every potential client before allowing him to frequent her place. He recalled many regulars joking that new clients should bring Maria character recommendations just to get into her exclusive brothel.
He took her hand in his. “It is good to see you again, madam. You’re looking beautiful as usual.” And she was. Possibly in her early forties, she had a youthful radiance that made her dark eyes sparkle. Her thick black mane was not yet laced with gray.
“I suppose we must get you in and out as soon as possible. No?”
Derek stared at her in amusement until she asked, “You are sailing in the Great Race?”
“I’m sorry, I misunderstood. Yes, I am sailing the race, but we’ve got a good lead so I have a bit of time.”
“I see.” She smiled and tilted her head to the side as she stared at him intently. Strangely, when Maria tilted her head like that, he was reminded of Nicole.
Her curious behavior made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He was glad he was prepared for a shock, because she mysteriously asked, “So, what would you like today, bello? I’m thinking you look to be in the mood for a slender, small-waisted redhead with dark blue eyes. No?”
The sun was just reaching noon when he made his way back through the palazzo to leave. Though Derek should have been running from here after what he’d just done, he was strangely reluctant to go, and his steps were slow.
“Oh, Captain Sutherland?” Maria called from behind him, and he groaned inwardly. “Captain Sutherland…”
He did not want to hear about his actions from her, but she didn’t look like he could easily avoid her. Her bespectacled eyes blazed with a look of determination.
He stopped in the breezeway and waited for her to stroll over, wondering why she looked pleased.
“Captain, you did not have to pay Juliette so much. That is far too much for even one thousand minutes with her,” she said with a sly smile, “much less five.”
His lips thinned. The last thing he needed right now was to be subtly ridiculed by a Brazilian madam. “I paid Julia what I did—”
“Juliette,” Maria interrupted.
“Juliette received that much money,” he ground out, “because she wouldn’t stop crying.” And because he wanted to mitigate his embarrassment.
“Ah, bello, I only tease,” she said with a laugh. “It was very kind of you. Especially since I get twenty percent,” she quipped. “But now I know you must leave us. I only ask that you take the east exit, down the steps there.” She pointed. “You will go through a garden past my little home, and you can see lovely blooms all around.”
“I’ll have to pass,” he said, mustering no regret in his voice. “I have a rather limited interest in botany.”
“I’m afraid you will insult me,” she said in a mulish tone, her laughter forgotten. “I extend this invitation to view my private home to no man.”
He eyed her, knowing something was wrong with this situation. But he had a lot on his mind and didn’t want to fight with the woman, who looked to be digging in her heels.
“As you wish, madam,” he said with a curt bow. “Just down these steps?” At her nod, he turned to leave, thinking this day grew odd indeed. He entered the garden and found it nice but not the earth-shattering experience Maria thought it was.
Her home consisted of a main house with two wings, separated from the palazzo by the garden as well as a sturdy gate, open now. It was pleasant, but nothing like the grandeur of the bordello. Maria’s behavior from this morning on had been baffling—
His thoughts were interrupted by a conversation between two women drifting out from a cracked-open door in one of the wings.
One woman had a thick British colonial accent, Indian, he’d wager. In a crisp, businesslike tone, she said, “Now, relax, please. And unbutton your shirt further.” Had Maria wanted him to stumble on something here? Curious, he slowed outside the door.
He froze at the woman’s next comment.
“You have to relax, Nicole. Just trust me. When I am through with you, you’ll feel like a new woman. So get your mind off your problems. Chancey will take care of your boat—”
“Ship.”
“Very well, ship. Now, take a deep breath so I can finish with you before you have to leave.”
She couldn’t be talking to his Nicole; it just wasn’t possible. But her dulcet voice, the strangely accented voice he recognized at once, replied, “Sasha, this doesn’t hurt.”
“Of course not, silly.”
His whole body tensed as he moved closer. Was he losing his mind, or was Nicole Lassiter in this Brazilian madam’s personal abode getting undressed for a woman? His hand shot to the doorknob but just as swiftly stilled. He should listen, find out more about her. Like what she was doing in there with a woman.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“You should have,” the woman confided. “It drives men wild.”
“Ah, that tickles!”
“Stop squirming, Nic.”
Derek, his teeth grinding, heard a pause, and then the more sharply commanded, “I mean it!”
“You should have more sympathy. When was the last time you had it done?”
“I do it to myself. I could teach you if we had more time.” Christ, just what were they talking about?
Nicole sounded wistful. “I wish I did. I miss it here,” she added before she began giggling.
“We miss you t—Nic, I can’t continue until you can stop your belly from quivering like that.”
Enough. His blood boiled. Jaw clenched, he yanked open the door and sucked in a breath, loudly exhaling as the scene before him unfolded. A fully, though scantily, clothed Eastern woman bent over a half-clad Nicole. Luckily, the woman snatched her hand away just as Nicole bolted up or, as he now realized, she would have had a streak of red henna going straight up her neck.
A feeling of acute relief washed over him. The woman was decorating Nicole’s body with henna in the traditional Indian mehndi. His lips crooked up in a grin, which wasn’t surprising, considering his intense satisfaction at finding her, and finding her innocently uninvolved. Maria, he thought with an inward laugh, had gathered exactly what he wanted.
“Sutherland! What are you doing here?” Nicole cried out. Could she know what her open shirt and hennaed skin did to him?
“I could ask the same of you. I was certain I’d see you again—I just didn’t expect it to be in the home of a madam,” he replied. Then he hitched in a breath as he got a full glimpse of the braided vine design drawn on her creamy skin. It circled her waist like a bracelet, and then, in a pattern of swirls and buds, crawled up her torso to meet in a point between her breasts. In an instant, he knew the memory of her wide eyes and wildly decorated body would stay with him his whole life.
She was too astounded to do anything but gape at him, until she saw his heated stare assessing her body. Her hands flew up to grab the sides of her shirt to pull it closed.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” the Indian woman, Sasha, commanded in a stern voice as she swiped at her hands. “The last bit isn’t dry yet.”
She gave the woman an oppressed look and moved to the side of the bed. In a huff, she turned herself from him to button her shirt.
She stopped when she received a cuff to the ear from Sasha. “I’m sorry, Nic. But you won’t do anything to ruin this mehndi.”
The woman turned to Derek, her large flattened earrings chiming as her
doe eyes flickered over him. Then she gave a pointed, amazed look to Nicole. “He is Sutherland, the man you spoke of?”
Nicole grimaced at the question, and a furious blush stole across her face. Derek was surprised but extremely pleased that she’d spoken of him to this woman. And obviously to Madam Maria, too.
Nicole glanced down. Evidently, she thought she’d covered everything important, so she whipped around to face Sutherland. But not before flashing Sasha a look that screamed, Are you happy now?
Sasha looked back at Derek and gazed at him in awe, muttering something about powerful magic. As Nicole watched Derek, her expression changed rapidly from wary bemusement to outright exasperation, until she finally jerked her glance to the woman. “What are you talking about?”
“The mehndi is very powerful. It is already working.”
“Already working?” Nicole choked out. “You said it would bring me luck and ward off evil. But on the contrary, Sutherland’s arrival is unlucky and he is not being warded off, so I’d say this stuff”—she looked down her chest—“is definitely not working.”
Sasha arched an eyebrow at her. “No, no, Nicole. Don’t you see the lotus here?” She tugged up Nicole’s shirt and pointed out a finely drawn, lacy flower on her flat belly. “I drew that for fertility and love. And then your mate just happens to walk through the door! It is most definitely working.”
Nicole’s jaw dropped. “Sutherland is not my mate! A-and you can count on the fact that we won’t need any luck with fertility, because there won’t be any—any—”
“Planting?” he added helpfully as he bit back a grin.
“Planting?”
She was angered that he played with her, but he couldn’t help it. He found he enjoyed teasing her.
“Again, what are you doing here?” she demanded.
He’d watched the whole scene between Sasha and Nicole in grinning amusement. But his grin was wiped off his face when the lapel of Nicole’s shirt brushed a hardened, pink nipple just visible under the linen. Fascinated, he hardly trusted himself to speak intelligibly, so in response he smiled down at her, hoping it didn’t look as predatory as he felt, and answered her question with a question. “What do you think I’m doing at a brothel?”
