“She’s not a captain.” This came from the other end of the table. “She has no ship, no crew, no commission. She’s not a captain.”
“She’s my captain,” Archimedes said.
Yasmeen smiled and waited for it.
“Mon capitaine?” The first mate’s brother lifted his head. “On this ship, there’s ‘my arse’ and ‘my God,’ but no ‘my captain.’ ”
Cheers sounded up and down the table, the men laughing. Archimedes’ brows rose. She shook her head. It wasn’t mocking, and their reactions told her what she’d hoped to discover: A good portion of these men had once been sailors, but they weren’t tied to the navy with bonds so tight that good-natured humor couldn’t slip in between.
“You’re still mine,” Archimedes said, holding her gaze.
Yasmeen’s lips parted. How did he do that? It was a personal, possessive claim, stated in front of a crew, but it was clearly supportive rather than undermining her.
Flustered, she looked to the thin aviator beside him, the one who’d complimented her lady. “Thank you, Mr. . . . ?”
A blush darkened his cheeks. “Leroy, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Mr. Leroy. It was a pleasure to fly her.”
The first mate leaned forward, stuck his hand over the table. “Vashon, here. Peter. That’s Paul.”
“Vashon,” Archimedes repeated. “Of the Flying Vashons?”
Yasmeen’s brows rose. The Vashons were a famous French aviator family whose generations of military honors and aerostat inventions had built them into a legend.
“Cousins, but they don’t claim us,” Peter said. “We ran into a bit of trouble when we were younger, flying off in airships that didn’t belong to us.”
“Vashon airships,” Paul added.
“We’d probably still be welcomed in the fold if they’d been anyone else’s. And if we hadn’t tried to race to the Arctic Circle, deflated the balloons in an ice storm, and ended up making a boat of the ships. Have you ever seen a great white bear? Me, either. One day, though.” He shook his head and continued the introductions, gesturing toward the quiet man on Yasmeen’s left. “The shy one there is Cassel. He talked to a woman once—then his mother put her tit back into his mouth to shut him up. The raggedy one next to him is Simon. That bitter one next to him is Mr. Engels, our navigator’s mate.” He indicated the man who’d said she wasn’t a captain. “He never left the war.”
“There are a lot of men that haven’t got out.” Engels didn’t glance at her. “My brother Vincent, who was killed by a firebomb in Bonaire after she scouted out his garrison for the Liberé. You’re licking the ass of that woman, Vashon. Even the captain thought it was an insult to eat with her.”
“Yet the captain thought it appropriate for me to eat with you,” Yasmeen said. “Either I’m an insult he’s passed on to his crew instead of bearing the burden of my presence himself, or he decided that my company is tolerable, after all. Which do you think it is, Mr. Engels?”
Engels’s mouth shut. He gave a sharp nod and looked down at his plate.
He’d hate her still. That was just fine. She’d made her point. If he continued tearing her down, he’d be calling out his own captain with every word.
“I think the captain wanted to give us something more pleasant to look at than our first mate’s ugly face,” Paul said, and grinned when chuckles started around the table.
“That’s very kind, Mr. Vashon.” Yasmeen met Archimedes’ eyes across the table. “I’m pleased that you find my husband as handsome as I do.”
The first mate laughed outright before he settled back, gave her a thoughtful look. “Your crew had women.”
“About half of them were.”
“Don’t you worry about fornication?”
He said the word as if he’d suffered through a few too many sermons.
“No,” Yasmeen said. “They’re welcome to do whatever they like, as long as it doesn’t interfere with their duties or disrupt my crew’s ability to work.”
“But aren’t women always falling pregnant? Aren’t you always losing crew members?”
“It takes two to make a baby, Mr. Vashon,” she said dryly. “So I let them know that if a pregnancy occurs, it won’t just be the woman going. I’ve found it makes the both of them more willing to use sheaths.”
“Sheaths?” Peter looked to his twin. “How do you suspect Guillouet would respond to that suggestion if we offered it to him?”
“Maybe as well as the other suggestions we’ve given him.” Paul glanced at Yasmeen, then to Archimedes. His voice lowered. “Captain believes that women only serve one function, and it’s not aboard a ship. But he thinks the whorehouses are just fine—and I’ll say that I do, too. There’s no one looking at you with big eyes in the morning.”
“Whorehouses are damn fine, I agree.” Peter sighed. “I’d still prefer the women and the sheaths.”
Yasmeen preferred women and sheaths on a ship, too—especially when they were aboard her ship. The familiar ache of losing her lady started up halfway through dinner, and while she remained quiet, Archimedes entertained them all with stories of his adventures. She excused herself early, and was cleaning her guns when Archimedes came into the cabin almost an hour later, his hands empty.
“No notes?” she asked.
“Ollivier is still in the captain’s cabin. It’ll wait until morning.” He looked her over, sitting on the bunk in her breeches and shirt. “How modest are we, Mrs. Fox?”
“Not very.”
“Good.”
Turning his back to her, he shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on a hook. Yasmeen tucked a pistol beneath her pillow and the other between the frame and mattress over her head. She moved to the washstand, poured water from the ewer into the bowl.
She heard Archimedes’ breath catch when she stripped off her shirt. Without turning, she pushed her breeches and small pants to her ankles, kicked them to the side. The water was cold, her soap slippery. Goose pimples raised under her fingers as she began to wash. Her nipples hardened. She didn’t pretend it was the cold. Knowing that he watched her was almost as pleasing as a touch.
The scent of resin filled the air with every stroke of her hand over her skin. His rough voice came from behind her. “What’s that fragrance?”
“Olibanum,” she said. More subtle than a flowery perfume—and to her nose, warmer and more luxurious. Too expensive for her now, the soap had been a gift from Scarsdale before leaving England. “My favorite.”
“It was coconut the night I shot you with the dart.”
“That was oil for my hair.”
She glanced over her shoulder. Archimedes wore only his drawers, the drawstring tied at the waist, the linen stretched over an impressive erection. The glow of the lamp cast gold over the hardened muscles of his chest, the ripple of his abdomen. Watching her, his emerald eyes burned with a hot light.
By the lady, she wanted him.
How long had it been since she’d wanted a specific man? Forever, it seemed. She’d wanted the sport and pleasure of the bed. If she found someone attractive, she’d take them for one night, have a quick tussle, and leave with her need satisfied. It had little to do with wanting them, and everything to do with finding release.
But after all this time, she wanted him. Archimedes Fox.
She reached for the small towel folded beside the bowl, but stopped her hand when she heard the pad of his feet, coming closer.
“Allow me, Yasmeen,” he said. “Please.”
Please. She felt like saying it instead, but she only nodded. Standing behind her, he took the towel, unfolded it over his palm. The rough caress of cotton began at her shoulders, drying the length of her back in long sweeps. Yasmeen clenched her teeth, her head falling forward. She wanted him inside her—but this was even better. Though he practiced restraint, allowing himself only this, such a caress was her sweetest pleasure. Only his bare hands would have been more welcome.
The stroke of the towel slow
ed over the curve of her ass. Oh, sweet lady. The men she was with were rarely patient. And those who took their time still never moved beyond a squeeze of her tits, a grab of her ass.
Not that she’d have wanted them to. Those men served a purpose, but she didn’t look to them for this, wouldn’t trust them to touch her with such intimacy. She trusted Scarsdale, and his caress had been pleasurable—but never combined with this exquisite ache, the wetness gathering between her legs.
The rough towel slipped around her waist. He pulled her closer, her back to his chest, thin linen doing nothing to shield her from the press of his erection between her cheeks and against her lower back. His free hand flattened across her belly, the towel sweeping slowly beneath her breasts. From deep in her chest, her purr vibrated against his hand, his stomach.
His low voice reverberated against her ear. “You won’t try to seduce me into bed?”
“I don’t need to.” Her head fell back against his shoulder. “This is just as good.”
“It is,” he said, and she heard his surprise. Boldly, he slipped his hand between her legs. She lifted her foot to the washstand, and he swept slowly down her thigh. “I thought it would be torture, but no.”
“You would do that to yourself?”
“Yes. I’d enjoy it.”
She laughed. “Come, Mr. Fox. I will do the torturing for you.”
She slipped into the shirt he’d discarded—God, but she liked his smell. Many in the Horde believed a person’s essence could be trapped in clothes worn so close to the skin. Yasmeen only knew that he was pleasant to look upon and delicious to her senses.
She tugged at his drawers. “Do you truly want to sleep in damp clothes?”
“No.”
The hoarseness of his voice said that this would be torture. Pleasurable, but not as she experienced it. He untied the waist, and they slipped down his muscled legs. The defined ridge over his hips told her he still hadn’t completely gained the weight he’d lost after Venice, but although he’d drunk his meals for two months, it hadn’t softened him. He carried no extra flesh anywhere.
“You keep yourself strong.”
“If I lie around for two months and try to run from zombies, I can’t run very quickly.”
“No, I imagine not.” She rolled the soap between her fingers. “What did you do in Port Fallow? Not running through the streets.”
“I went to the pugilist’s club.” Though his response came easily, his muscles were rigid, his head bent. Waiting for her.
“As your face is still handsome, you must not have fought too many men.”
“They’ve installed the weaving machines. Trying to punch those bags of sand takes more of an effort than fighting.” He closed his eyes. “It’s not half the effort of holding still for this.”
She smiled up at him, then moved around to his back as he’d been to her. Fingers slippery with soap and water, she slid them over his shoulders, washing in a long swathe. His muscles clenched, his buttocks like rocks. Soapy water dripped down his spine to the cleft between. She washed her way down his biceps, his forearm, to his hand. She worked lather into his palm.
“If you wish to wash yourself, Mr. Fox, I will pretend not to notice.”
A hoarse laugh escaped him, and was strangled when her hand slipped around, soaping those delicious ridges at his hip.
“Be practical in this matter, Mr. Fox. We will wake up in Vienna, where we might be chased by zombies. You can try to run after staying awake half the night with a stiff cock, or try to hide what you are doing in your bunk—or you can take care of it now.”
“Ever so practical.” His hand slipped forward. “Sensible.”
Not at all—this was madness for her, too. She listened to his harsh breathing, watched the long stroke of his hand. She could not see anything of what he did but the movement of his arm, but she knew what it would be to bed him. He would be slow. She would scream.
But for now, she wrapped her arms around him from behind and used both hands to soap his heaving chest. His free hand clutched at hers.
“Yasmeen.” He groaned her name.
She slid her inner thigh up the outside of his. She was wrapped almost completely around him now, his shirt wet between them. He stiffened, shook. His back bowed. He brought her hand to his lips and pressed his open mouth hard against her palm. His tongue tasted her flesh as he came.
His breathing slowed again. Reluctantly, she unwound and found a handkerchief to wipe his palm. “Wash this when you’ve finished,” she said. “I recommend doing it last.”
He nodded, gaze roaming all over her face. She rinsed his body with handfuls of clean water, wiped him with the towel. After taking off his shirt, she hung it on the hook to dry and climbed into her bunk.
A few moments later, wearing only his drawers again, Archimedes crouched next to her with a cigarillo between his lips. He lit the end and passed it to her. His emerald eyes regarded her, and for the first time, she could not discern his thoughts from his expression.
Between them, they’d smoked almost to the end of the cigarillo before he said, “Was it all practical?”
Yasmeen smiled. “No.”
“You also don’t like to owe.”
“No, I don’t.”
“It wouldn’t have been a debt. I enjoyed touching you, too.”
“As much as touching yourself?”
“No, touching you was . . . different. More pleasurable than orgasm. And even stroking myself, I felt more than I usually . . .” He trailed off, his gaze caressing her face. “How goes your heart? Still of steel?”
Like a strongbox, battered on all sides. She took a final drag, passed the stub back to him. “I have not kissed you yet, Mr. Fox. Is your longing strong enough to initiate it, instead?”
His serious gaze never left hers. “I think my longing will be much, much greater than I thought.”
“You mean to break your heart against mine,” she realized, and understanding slid through her. He’d been terrified of the Horde tower’s dampening effect on his emotions. “You want to feel as much as you can, even if it hurts. You never want to feel anything so shallowly again.”
“Yes.”
So he planned to have her break his heart. “And what will you do if I fall in love with you, instead?”
He grinned. “Then God help us both.”
Chapter Nine
The forest had reclaimed most of Vienna. The old walls marked out a rough perimeter of the city, and ruins were marked by sparser growth, long grasses upon heaps of stone. To the east, the twisting branches of the Danube flowed in a meandering path. When the initial wave of zombies had spread west from the Hapsburg Wall, that river had helped slow the zombies’ progress and saved many of Vienna’s residents . . . for a time.
Vienna had been one of the first cities affected, and the number of zombies had still been relatively few. The river, city wall, and a garrison of soldiers had served as adequate defense, giving the Hapsburgs and their generals opportunity to study the creatures—and, when it became clear that the zombies’ numbers were growing and that the infection spread so easily that one loose zombie could destroy a city, to plan an evacuation. It had been similar to a story repeated across Europe: At the first sign of the zombie mobs, the populations of many great cities had used the rivers to protect them, rushing in a panic to the opposite bank. Once there, they destroyed the bridges and executed or confined anyone discovered with a bite. The water only held the zombies off for a while, however—if only one bite was overlooked, or concealed by someone still hoping to find a cure, the infection spread.
The stories had taught Archimedes well, though. From the airship, he scouted the locations of the nearest water—even if it was nothing more than a big puddle. Aside from the river, however, he wouldn’t find much water in the snow-covered landscape, so he took other precautions.
He’d traded the bright waistcoat and breeches for heavier, darker clothing that wouldn’t shout his presence to the zombie
s. Leather guards buckled over his neck, his arms and legs—if he went down under a zombie, the guards might save him from a bite long enough to get back up. His shoulder harness carried his grapnel and pneumatic launcher, rope, a hand-winch, a miners’ drip lamp for underground and darkened chambers, extra ammunition, a prybar, and machetes. Though revolvers were holstered at his hips, he preferred blades when fighting zombies: they were quiet and never needed to be reloaded. He kept several strapped to his thighs and sheathed in his boots, and two foot-long blades in the spring-loaded mechanisms embedded in his leather forearm guards.
Guillouet cut Ceres’ engines as they passed over the city, allowing them to sail in silence toward the foothills. Archimedes saw Ollivier’s confusion when he came up to the deck and looked out, and remembered his own disorientation upon his first visit. Almost every painting of Vienna showed the hills close in the background, but in truth, they were still some distance away.
The quietness of the engines was welcome after a full day and night of huffing and vibrations, and the look on Yasmeen’s features even more so. Her expression was pure pleasure as she lifted her face to the wind, her heavy lashes lowered against the morning sun as if she were soaking up the warmth through her skin.
Had she looked half so satisfied last night? Unable to see her face as he’d dried her body, he didn’t know—and he hadn’t seen her expression when she’d wrapped herself around him, either.
She’d been so hot against him, so sleek. He still reeled from the memory of how she’d purred against him, then so easily offered the means of his release without touching him.
He had few inhibitions, but he’d never pictured stroking himself off while a woman washed him like . . . a wife? He didn’t know; he’d never imagined having a wife at all. She’d washed him as if she were completely content to do only that, though he knew she wanted him in the bed. More like a mistress, or a concubine, though Yasmeen fit neither. He didn’t keep her.
Perhaps it was the opposite. Perhaps he was to be the concubine, serving her every need.
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