Lord of Pirates

by Scott, Scarlett

She left the room with Edmond’s hand possessive and firm on her waist. The hull was wet, she noticed, sea foam sprayed here and there. She raised her skirts to prevent them from being dirtied.

  “How bad was the storm damage?” she asked, concern returning to her now the shock of survival had fled her.

  “Several men went overboard.” His jaw tightened. “We took a beating. We’ll have to stop in daylight as soon as we can to repair her.”

  “I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand, giving his fingers a reassuring squeeze. She couldn’t imagine how awful it must have been to watch his comrades being swept to sea, no way to save them.

  “It could have been far worse,” he said. “I’ve known entire ships to go down in storms like the one that just pummeled us. It’s one of the hazards of the sea.”

  “Just the same, I’m sure it’s never easy, losing men.”

  “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy.” He gave her a sad smile.

  “Isn’t it? I’m not so sure.” She thought of their brief time together. Giving herself to Edmond had been easy, yes. And worthwhile? Her foolish heart, thumping madly in her breast, thought so.

  “Indeed.” He escorted her to the privacy of his cabin. “Thomas is calling you Lizzie now, is he? You’re certainly familiar with him.”

  Lizzie suppressed a smile of her own. “You needn’t fear I’ve developed tender affections for your brother, Edmond. I’m yours.”

  The words escaped her before she could think better of them or call them back. He stiffened, looking down at her with a questioning gaze. “Are you mine, sweet Lizzie?”

  “In this moment,” she replied with honesty.

  “And what of the next moment?” He ran a finger down her cheek.

  Lizzie pressed a kiss to the pad of his finger, heart full of longing. “The choice is yours, I suppose.”

  He drew her to him for a kiss. She ran her palms up his chest between them, not minding if he smelled of the sea. She wanted to be as close to him as possible. She wanted him inside her. To her, in the brief span of time since his resurgence in her life, he had become as necessary as air.

  Her hand landed in the unmistakable stickiness of drying blood. He was injured. How had she forgotten?

  “Your wound,” she cried, pulling away from his embrace. “I must tend to it at once. What happened?”

  “Splintering wood.” He shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  “Let me have a look, if you please.” She was already slipping the tattered remnants of his shirt down over his shoulder.

  A menacing red gash stretched across his chest, still oozing blood. Her heart beat twice its rhythm. “This needs cleaning, Edmond, else I’ll be nursing you as well.”

  Her father had taught her that wounds were always to be kept clean. Many physicians suggested strong emotion led to fevers, but her father and some of his colleagues believed otherwise.

  Edmond flashed her a wicked grin. “I’m not concerned for my welfare, Lizzie darling, but you may continue removing my garments if you’d like.”

  “Wicked man.” Trying to keep her mind on practical matters, she pushed him to the bed. “What am I to do with you?”

  His grin deepened. “Get naked with me.”

  She tsked. “Where do you keep your rum?”

  “Brilliant idea. It’s in the cabinet just over there.”

  Lizzie fetched the half-empty bottle and tore a strip from her petticoat. It wasn’t as clean as she would have preferred, but it would have to do. She splashed some rum on the muslin. “I’m afraid my idea isn’t quite the same as yours.”

  “Why the bloody hell are you pouring my rum on a scrap of petticoat?” He sounded outraged.

  She wasn’t concerned. She dabbed at his wound, cleaning it as best she could despite the hiss of breath he inhaled at her touch.

  “That bloody well stings, woman.”

  “Good.” She sent him a saucy look “That means it’s doing its proper job.”

  “Damn you, give me that bottle.” He plucked the rum from her grasp before she could stop him.

  “You’re a most vexing patient, Captain Grey.”

  He hooked his free arm around her waist, drawing her into his lap. “You can call me the Scourge of the Atlantic, my love.”

  She laughed at his rakish charm, enjoying the easiness between them now, craving it, for however long it would last. The storm and her precarious proximity to death had changed her, had altered the way she saw Edmond. The way she allowed herself to feel for him. “You’re incorrigible.” She said the last without any heat.

  “Absolutely,” he agreed before sealing their mouths in a hungry kiss.

  Lizzie kissed him back with all the repressed emotion of the past few hours. She wanted to hold him against her, to become one with him. She wanted his naked skin, his hard cock deep inside her. She wanted his tongue, his seed pumping into her. Here and now, in his arms, she felt alive. It was disconcerting and heady at the same time.

  He tore his lips from hers. “I want you, Lizzie. I want you like I’ve never wanted another woman in my life.”

  “I want you too,” she confessed. She wanted him so much it scared her, for the potential for ruin was as great as that of the storm they’d survived. More than anything, she wanted to believe there could be hope for them, that he wouldn’t again abandon her in favor of the sea. That she could somehow surmount the impediments of life as a pirate’s woman.

  Was it impossible?

  Could she?

  Could they?

  He smiled, framing her face with his hands. “You are so lovely. There’s nothing I’d like better than taking you right here on this bed.”

  She didn’t even think. Simply spoke. “Then perhaps you should.”

  “Ah, you tempt me.” Edmond pressed his forehead to hers. “But I have it on good authority that I stink, and I should hate to sully you.”

  She inhaled, and all she could smell was him. Musky and earthy and necessary. “You don’t truly smell. Your brother was having you on.”

  “Mayhap, but I’d like to clean up a bit all the same.”

  The urge to tend to him rose within her. She wanted to take care of him, make him feel loved. Beneath his thick pirate skin, she sensed there waited a man who wanted to know tenderness in his life once more. To know the tenderness she had long held for him in her heart but had never been able to show him. “Let me bathe you.”

  “You seek to spoil me,” he said, but his protestation lacked bite.

  “You need spoiling,” she pointed out, warming to her task. “Who’s been looking after you all these years?”

  She couldn’t help but think of him as a dory floating in the middle of the ocean, all alone, no shores in sight. Surely he longed for a home, a woman who loved him. She hadn’t realized just how lonely she’d been until Edmond had reappeared in her life, reawakening her to passion and possibilities.

  “I’ve been looking after myself.”

  “Little wonder you’re in the straits you’re in.” She tsked. “Pirate trying to outlast the dangers of the sea. Does it not grow old for you?”

  He raised a brow. “You dare to henpeck me, my dear?”

  “I am no longer the same girl you left behind.” The old Lizzie had hardened into the woman she was now. “I am bolder and stronger than I was then.”

  Chapter Eight

  God’s blood, she was right. The woman she had become was not meek and sweet but fiery in her determination, fearless enough to follow him to sea. Edmond grinned, feeling the weight settled upon his shoulders by Thomas’ wounding and the storm lift merely by being in her presence. She was a saucy wench, strong enough to love without being loved in return. He’d treated her poorly in the past, and he wanted her to know, but the words escaped him.

  Instead of telling her what he ought, he tilted up her chin. “If henpecked I must be, then I choose you to do the henpecking every time, my dear. I submit to your ministrations. I fetched some water earlier, just over there.”
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  An answering smile curved her lips. “I’m relieved to hear it, Edmond.” She rose and crossed the cabin, heading to the small crock of water he’d brought from the galley.

  He watched the sway of her hips, thought about how sweet and hot she felt around his cock, and was instantly hard. Christ, he hoped the water was cold or he’d ravish her before she even managed to wipe the sea stench from his body. She turned back to him, cloth and crock in hand, catching the direction of his heated stare.

  “How have you come to be so bloody beautiful?” he asked, content to watch her, to savor her presence.

  Her eyes glinted. “How have you come to be so handsome?”

  “Handsome?” He rubbed his hand over his beard. “I’m a timeworn sailor, not the sort of man you deserve.”

  “I’ll decide that,” she said simply, seating herself at his side. “You’ve always been my fate, Edmond Grey. You were just too stubborn to see it.”

  He felt her words like a knife. “I was acting in your best interest. Good Lord, Lizzie, would you have wanted to be the wife of the most wanted criminal in the realm? Do you realize the import of what I’ve become? You’re as lost to me now as you were these last ten years.”

  “I don’t believe that.” Lizzie dipped the cloth into the water and slid it over his wounded shoulder first. “I cannot.”

  He ignored the slight burn, trapped in the torment of his conscience and his wants. He wanted Lizzie more than he wanted life. But how could he foist himself upon her when he would likely be dead before summer? He liked to think he was invincible, but the truth was that he’d lost too many brethren to mistake the reality of his profession.

  She caressed a wet path over his chest and torso, then dipped the cloth back into the crock. His cock strained against his breeches. All it took was the slightest touch and he had no defenses against her.

  “Why don’t you believe that?” he asked, his voice thick. He was mesmerized.

  She met his gaze, hers sultry and heavy-lidded. “Because I’m here with you. I’m yours, Edmond. I always have been. A woman’s heart never lies.”

  He shouldn’t press her further, he knew, but he couldn’t resist. “And what does your heart say?”

  Her nimble fingers went to his breeches and he almost lost his ability to think. “That I love you,” she murmured.

  Perhaps he was completely mad, he reasoned, because her declaration made him harder still. “Lizzie, sweet.” He should tell her how he felt, he knew, but he was frozen with the shock of her words. Though he’d braved death on many occasions, he was still terrified of the love he carried for her.

  But Lizzie was hell-bent on torturing him. She opened the placket of his breeches, then came upon the bed to straddle him. His cock sprang free. She cast a wanton look his way before running the moist cloth over his rigid length. He groaned and thrust his hips. He wanted her berry-red mouth to replace the cloth.

  As if hearing his silent plea, she closed her lips over his tip, sucking. It was all he could do to refrain from exploding in her mouth at the contact. There was something so tantalizing, so innocent and yet depraved about watching this good woman, still clothed in her sensible mantua, taking him into her mouth.

  Her tongue flicked over him, and she took his cock deep into her throat. He moaned, sinking his fingers into her tight, wet heat. Lizzie sucked again, head moving up and down as she drew him into her throat, then out, then into the moist heat again. Within moments she brought him to shuddering release. Edmond watched as he pumped his seed into her open mouth. She met his gaze as she swallowed, then licked a teasing path across his cock.

  The breath heaved from his lungs as he collapsed against the bed, spent and sated. Lizzie curled against him, rubbing his chest in soothing circles. He had never felt so loved. He wanted to return her generous words but somehow could not. In the end, he fell asleep with his woman’s soft and reassuring form at his side.

  The next morning was bright and sunny, the fright of the night’s storm a thing of the past. Lizzie found Edmond on the quarterdeck, the wind ruffling his black hair. How she loved him, she thought, reveling in the sensation. It felt good to be free with him, to touch and kiss him as she wished. To indulge in all she had missed in the years she’d spent without him.

  For however long it lasted. Her heart ached at the thought.

  “Good morning,” she greeted, pressing a kiss to his bearded cheek. His scent washed over her, a captivating blend of spice and sea air.

  “Good morning, sweet Lizzie.” He grinned, flashing a row of even teeth that were starkly white against his bronzed skin.

  He was incredibly handsome, utterly captivating. Her heart swelled. Best to turn her mind to safer matters, she cautioned herself. She’d only make a cake of herself swooning all over him before his men.

  She cast an admiring glance over the ocean surrounding them instead. “Why are we traveling so slowly?”

  “We’re limping,” Edmond explained. “The storm forced us to turn south. We need to anchor and make some repairs.”

  “South?” She was startled by the revelation. “I thought we were headed north and I’d be returned to Philadelphia on your way back.”

  “Are you so eager to be rid of me, my dear?” His question was quick, cold.

  “No,” she answered truthfully, “but neither can I stay on a pirate’s ship forever.”

  “Other women have before you,” he responded in a thoughtful tone. “It’s not unheard of.”

  Was he serious? Her heart leapt, ridiculous though his suggestion was. “Edmond, please don’t speak of such things unless you are confident in what you say.”

  He reached for her hand, tangling his fingers with hers. “You know the more time I spend in your company, the more I want our idyll together never to end. But neither would I put you in danger. This is a hard life, Lizzie.”

  The familiar sadness crept through her again. She managed a smile, squeezing his hand. “We needn’t make such decisions now. Where are we?”

  “Just off Virginia,” he responded, taking her cue and venturing once more into safer conversational waters. “We are well known here, which is both good and bad. The officials want us captured but the people have always been true to us. I’m hoping to go ashore for a few days, give Thomas the opportunity to regain his strength. We can’t afford another storm or battle in the shape we’re in.”

  “Very well. Can I be of service?” Lizzie doubted he’d allow her to perform labor of any sort, but she was feeling the need to be useful.

  Edmond grinned. “You may watch us.”

  She sighed. “Am I never to have any adventure?” She had to admit she’d been secretly longing for excitement.

  “I’m afraid not, my dear.”

  But just as he spoke the words, a cry sounded through the men. There was a ship approaching them, large and ominous on the horizon. Lizzie glanced back to Edmond, not missing the way he’d stiffened or the grim cast to his features.

  “Other pirates?” she guessed.

  “It’s doubtful.” He took her arm and began hauling her away from the sudden flurry of activity on the deck. “Whoever it may be, you’ll have to go back down to the hold. It could be dangerous.”

  “Must I?” The thought of miserably awaiting her fate as she’d done during the storm was most unappealing to her.

  “Yes. You must stay safe at all costs, Lizzie.” He paused, naked emotion in his eyes. “I can’t lose you.”

  It was the closest he’d come to an admission of tender feelings. Granted, potential peril loomed in the distance, but she took comfort in his confession nonetheless.

  The ship was coming in at a good clip, spurred on by the wind and a number of men plying the oars. More cries rose from the pirates.

  “I’ll see myself below,” she suggested. “Your men need you.”

  He nodded, his mind clearly wandering to the danger of the situation at hand. “Wait for me. I’ll come to you.”

  Lizzie pretended to
go below deck once more, but instead of following through with Edmond’s dictates, she hid among some wine barrels that had been lashed together to survive the storm’s angry waves. She took in the bustle of the pirates scurrying to their positions. Edmond ordered them to take up their muskets, and in the next few minutes, the details of the ship approaching them were delineated in the afternoon sunshine.

  Dear God, the Royal Navy was upon them. Guns lined the ship that approached, its colors high, its menace sending ice into her soul. There was no way the pirates would be able to successfully defend themselves.

  The fury of the evening’s storm had taken its toll on the Freedom. Her mast had been severely damaged. Lizzie had seen the water she’d taken on in the hold as well. Now they were in no position to outmaneuver a frigate that appeared to outgun and outman them three to one.

  Edmond gave the command to sail in an attempt at escape. But before they could make it far, the opposing ship unleashed the guns upon them. The jib halyard became the Freedom’s first casualty, sending the foresails crashing down. They instantly slowed, allowing their opponent the chance to draw nearer.

  “Let them taste our musket fire,” Edmond commanded over the confusion. “Send them to hell where they belong.”

  From her now-tenuous perch, she watched as Edmond gestured for his gunner to send a barrage of grapeshot toward the enemy. As the smoke cleared, the enemy ship was almost close enough to make out the features of its men. Edmond’s pirates were faintly visible as they lit fuses in rum bottles and tossed them into the other ship. Explosions rocked the deck. The rum bottles, she realized, had been loaded with gunpowder, turning them into deadly weapons.

  Her heart raced a mad pace as the opposing ship responded with another hail of gunfire. The sound of the battle was deafening, loud pops and cries mingling with the moans of wounded men. Even as the warfare unfolded, the Freedom was being guided to the shore. It appeared as if Edmond was attempting to run her aground to give his men a better chance. But suddenly, the enemy ship swung against the Freedom, the hulls of the two ships slamming together.