Savage of the Sea (Pirates of Britannia: Lords of the Sea Book 1)

by Eliza Knight

  “There will be no going back,” he warned.

  “I never want to go back.”

  Still, he stood rigid, as if he didn’t believe her. “I will not change. I will not suddenly develop a conscience and become a lord of the court. I will not give up my ships.”

  “I would never ask that of ye.”

  “Ye would spend your days at Scarba.”

  Jane tugged at the laces on his shirt. “I will be the best mistress the castle has ever had.”

  “My job is dangerous. I could die.” He pressed his hand over hers, stilling her, pressing her palm to his strong heartbeat.

  “So is the life of a warrior, Shaw.”

  “I could be arrested.”

  She raised a brow in challenge. The man could come up with every reason under the sun, but she wasn’t going to let him go that easy. “Then ye’d best have a plan of escape.”

  “Ye have an answer for everything.”

  “I know what I want.”

  “Why would ye want me?” There was such turmoil in his voice, the pain of his past coming to the surface as he lay open his heart to her.

  “Because, Shaw MacDougall, my gentle warrior, I love ye.”

  His answer was a guttural moan. He cupped both sides of her face and bent to kiss her, emotion flowing between the two of them in that heated kiss. She didn’t need him to tell her how he felt, she could feel it in her bones, and in the way he kissed her. In the way he’d protected her all these years. The way he respected her. The way he wanted to make sure she really wanted this, wanted him.

  Jane circled her arms around his neck, sinking her naked body against him, giving herself completely and wholeheartedly.

  Shaw slid his arms around her back, trailing his fingers up and down her spine as he kissed her. The light, feathery touch was powerful, sending shivers coursing through every limb, and an ache to settle deep in her loins. God, how she needed him, needed this.

  Squirming against him, she tugged at his shirt, wanting to know what it would feel like to have skin-to-skin contact, to press her breasts to his chest. She let out a soft moan as he slid his hands down to her bottom, cupping her and lifting her.

  “Lay down on the bed, love. We’re going to do this properly.”

  She did as he asked, watching as he took off his clothes. First his shirt, exposing all that muscle. A sprinkle of dark hair covered his chest and led in a sensual line beneath the breeches he’d worn to look more English when they’d disembarked.

  “Ye’re beautiful,” she murmured, rolling onto her side and propping her head up on her bent arm to get a better view.

  Shaw snickered. “No one has ever called me beautiful.”

  “Then they must have been speechless from the magnificence of your physique.”

  He chuckled at that, tugging off his boots and hose. For a moment, he stood in only his breeches, his breaths coming more labored than they usually did as he perused her, raking her with his hot gaze.

  “Are ye certain?” he asked.

  Jane did not hesitate to answer. “Aye.”

  His eyes darkened in the moonlight, and even she swore the pulse in his neck leapt. Was he as nervous as she was? Reaching for the laces of his breeches, he started to untie them, revealing inch by inch the hardness that had rubbed so tantalizingly against her. Just as she’d seen that first night, she took in his shaft—long, thick, hard and jutting forward like a battering ram. Was that what it would be like? A battering ram as he laid siege to her body and broke down all of her barriers?

  Nay, not with the way he’d touched her, kissed her. He was gentle in his ministrations, if not passionate. Never punitive. She trusted that his lovemaking would be the same.

  Shaw approached the bed, and she scooted back, giving him space to lie down beside her. The mattress dipped with the weight of his knee pressing down upon it, and then he was crawling over her, swiftly taking one of her legs and pressing her knee up around his hip, allowing him to settle between her thighs.

  The abrupt contact of his body stretched out on hers was dizzying. He was hard where she was soft. The hairs on his chest and legs tickled, but what was most different was the hard, pulsing length of him pressed intimately to the folds between her thighs. A fresh rush of need surged in her veins.

  They both let out a moan, eyes locked on one another.

  “There is still time to turn back,” Shaw warned.

  “I’m not turning back.”

  Shaw grinned. “Good. Because I want ye, lass. I want ye more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.”

  Her heart fluttered in her chest. That was as near an admission of love as she was likely to get. “I love ye,” she said. “I love ye so much.”

  Shaw silenced her declaration with a heated kiss, intense enough to steal her breath and send her heart into palpitations. She clung to him, fingers clutching the rippling muscles of his shoulders, legs to his hips, feet sliding up and down his calves. God, he felt so good. Incredible. Wondrous.

  This was right. They were right.

  The more he kissed her, caressed her, the more determined she was. Her body was on fire with longing, passion. He trailed his lips over her skin, taking her nipples into the heat of his mouth and tormenting her with his tongue. Jane writhed beneath him, the pressure she’d felt when he touched her before was building at a rapid pace, and the more she squirmed, the more she wanted.

  Shaw dipped his fingers between her legs, sliding over her folds and then inside her. She arched her back, begging him with her moans for… What? She was quick to find out, when she felt the tip of his massive manhood touch her opening, but he stilled without going forward.

  Sensing he was awaiting her permission, she slid her hands down his back to cup his muscular rear and lifted her hips. It was all the encouragement he needed. He surged forward, driving deep. Pain ripped her inside and out. She gasped, struggling against him, only causing the uncomfortable intensity to increase as he filled her, stretched her.

  Jane stilled suddenly, praying he was through, that their mating was complete. When she opened her eyes, Shaw stared down at her in shock and horror.

  “Ye’re a bloody virgin.”

  Her eyes widened, and Jane realized she probably should have told him that before, but…it hadn’t come up, and then she’d not thought about it. In their passion, she’d forgotten completely that he didn’t know. Heat flamed her face. Why hadn’t she told him?

  “Aye,” she whispered.

  Shaw’s forehead pressed to hers, his breathing labored. “I’m sorry for hurting ye. I would have been more careful. Dammit. Bloody hell…” He let out a few more curses, bringing her to the point of tears. “God, Jane.” He kissed her tears, her forehead. “I’m so sorry. We dinna have to continue. I’ll leave ye alone.”

  “I’m sorry for not telling ye. I’m sorry for disappointing ye.”

  “Och, love, ye didna disappoint me. Never. I’m frustrated with myself. I’m a monster.” He shifted to move away from her, but just that subtle movement sent a wave of something pleasurable through her.

  The pain had gone without her realizing it, replaced with a heavy feeling of wanting. “There is no pain. Not anymore. Dinna stop.”

  Shaw let out a ragged breath. “Are ye certain?”

  She wriggled beneath him, and he groaned. “Aye.”

  “Thank God.” He kissed her hard, sweat dripping down the sides of his temple. “Ye feel too good to stop. Now, ye’re truly mine. All mine.” Gradually, he pulled out and then, with agonizing slowness, pushed back in.

  Jane moaned at the intensified pleasure. “Please, dinna stop.”

  “I want to make ye come. I want to feel ye shudder around me.” Shaw whispered in her ear, low, gravelly, sensual as he moved, pulling out and plunging back in. He kissed her, caressed her, gripped her buttocks and lifted her to go deeper, thrusting hard, fast, slow, gentle… His pace was meant to bring her to the brink and then toy with her, teasing her. And then he didn’t
stop. Driving deep and hard again and again until she felt that same brilliant explosion that he’d given her with his mouth, his fingers. Jane cried out, arching her back and moving her hips to ride out the pleasure.

  “Mo chreach,” Shaw groaned, and then he, too, was shuddering.

  They lay covered in a sheen of sweat, their bodies still connected, their breaths heavy.

  “Did I please ye?” she asked, worried that he might still be upset with her.

  “Aye, love. More than pleased me.”

  “And ye’re not mad at me?”

  “Ye did nothing wrong.” He rolled to the side taking her with him. “Ye’re perfect. I’d not change a thing about ye.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Shaw woke in the middle of the night to an intense explosion that rocked the ship and drilled his ears. The shock of the boom was quickly followed by the shouts of his men. He leapt from bed, grabbed his breeches and tugged them on as he ran for the door to their cabin and burst through it.

  The men on the deck were running like mad. Flames rose from the bow where they’d been hit, and swabs rushed with buckets to put it out. Smoke curled into the night air, mixing with the scent of panic.

  Certain it was the Spaniards, Shaw was surprised to see the flag of the French pirates flying high. Blood red, the shape of a skeletal king with a fleur-de-lis hilted sword was painted on its surface

  “Les Porteurs D’eau.” The Water Bearers. French in origin, their current leader was a Flemish blackguard who was more ruthless and cutthroat than Shaw imagined the Devil himself would be, only this one dressed like a king, and wore a crown over his close-cropped dark hair.

  “Nous sommes venus pour vous. Il n'y a nulle part où se cacher.” Nicolas Van Rompay hung from the yardarm, swinging his sword in the air as he shouted those words meant to threaten Shaw and his men, “We’ve come for you. There is nowhere to hide.”

  Shaw let out a string of oaths. Chaos reigned, but at least his men were being efficient. Swabs put out the fires as the other crew fought hard with the bloody French crawling over his ship like ants on a tasty morsel. Somehow, in the middle of the night, Van Rompay and his men had been able to quietly creep up to their ship and blow out a part of his bow with their cannon as well as part of the hull that the men below were trying to quickly salvage before the ship started to take on water. French pirates swarmed the deck, fighting without mercy against the Devils of the Deep.

  Why the hell had the French attacked at night? And then he knew, they’d been nearing the Cornwall coast as they sailed. They were nearly to Perran. The French must have been planning an attack at the Poseidon’s Legion stronghold. They’d intercepted Shaw when they saw his flag, knowing that they had an alliance with the English.

  Van Rompay gave a sharp order in French that sent a ripple of dread down Shaw’s spine. He glanced up just in time to see two heavily muscled pirates gripping onto the rigging they’d cut from one of Shaw’s masts, flying through the air with Lorne and Alexander in their grips.

  “Bastards!” Shaw growled. He reached for his sword, but it wasn’t on his hip. In his haste to leave his cabin, he’d not grabbed any weapons. And while he normally slept fully armored on the ship, last night he’d fallen into a deep sleep nude and in the arms of his wife.

  Doing so had left him vulnerable. Weak. The very thing he feared the most. At every turn, Jane left him exposed to his enemies, and because of that, they were all in danger. If he’d been sleeping on the deck as he had the previous two nights, he might have spotted the enemy before they were upon them.

  “Cap’n!” Jack tossed him a sword, and Shaw leapt onto the rail of the ship, prepared to leap over the black yawning water and onto the French pirate ship when a distinct cry from his wife cut the air.

  Hearing her cry of fear and pain sliced him to the quick.

  He knew without looking that one of the French bastard’s men would have her. Even still, when he turned to take her in, the sight of the blade at her beautiful naked neck was more than he could take. It was a crushing image.

  The lass was his Achilles’ heel, and he would be the death of her.

  Shaw fought the urge to bellow as he swept his gaze over his wife who stood there completely naked, the moonlight shining off her creamy skin, clashing against the blackguard’s arm around her neck and waist. One of Van Rompay’s men had gotten to her. Anger flashed in her eyes. Fear, too, but the latter was drowned out by the ferociousness of her gritted teeth.

  Fury pummeled his insides. How dare that bastard touch his wife? As soon as he got the chance, he was going to gut that man and personally feed him to the sharks.

  “A lady, that is not what we expected to find on your ship,” Van Rompay called in his nasally French accent from where he perched in the crow’s nest high up on the mast of his ship. “How very fortunate pour moi, and unfortunate pour vous.”

  “Get your hands off her,” Shaw growled, ignoring Van Rompay. “Else meet your death.”

  In answer, the cretin’s hand searched out Jane’s breast. She kept her eyes on Shaw, never wavering, her teeth showing in her grimace of rage.

  He wanted to chop the bastard’s head off, to rip off his arms and shove them down the stump. But he stood, motionless as he tried to figure out what to do. Aye, he’d not been able to tell her before, but looking at her now, seeing her fear, feeling it beat against his own, he knew that he loved her. Deeply.

  Which solidified his deep-seated belief that love weakened a man.

  Look at him now, unable to move, trying to decide between his men, his ship and a mere slip of a girl who had clutched his heart five years before. Since the day he’d seen her on the floor of that bedchamber, his entire world had been changed. He no longer allowed his men to plunder, even if he’d never indulged in the act himself. Something in her eyes had broken him—though at the time, he’d felt more alive than ever.

  Just like he had last night when he’d laid claim to her himself, when he’d made her his in truth. And when he’d imagined kidnapping a priest from the nearest port and squirreling him away to Scarba to marry them in the eyes of God and all, and to remain there should his wife need a confessor. She had spent the last five years at an abbey after all, and he couldn’t let her drop everything simply because of who and what he was.

  But now, there she stood, a shining beacon of all that he was—a weak, foolish man. And yet, he loved her, and knowing that, how it made him vulnerable, didn’t change how he felt. But he wasn’t going to let her, or his men, go down because of his wayward heart. He had a duty as their captain, their prince, as her husband. To protect them. See them all safe, and the only way to do that was to…deny her.

  “Surrender, and ye shall have her back.” Van Rompay appeared close by, having risked coming down from his perch to witness Shaw’s surrender. The wry quirk of the French captain’s brow made Shaw want to commit murder. The man thought Shaw would drop to his knees and beg.

  From behind the French ship was a flicker of motion. Shaw kept his gaze steady on Van Rompay as he watched Constantine’s ship sail from beneath the fog of night to flank the French ship’s starboard side.

  The Gaia was silent as she slithered through the water like a beast seeking its prey. The men onboard the French ship had their attention so wrapped up in their captain and the naked lass, they had no clue that Shaw’s English allies would soon be upon them. And he would give them no quarter.

  Shaw scoffed, let out a bitter laugh that sounded false to his own ears. “Surrender for that mere slip of a woman? Ha! Ye’ll have to do better than that, French scum. I barely know her. She means nothing to me. A harlot I picked up in London.”

  And then he did the most painful thing imaginable—he turned his back on her, unwilling to see how deep his words cut. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel her steely gaze boring into his spine. If they were alone, he had no doubt she would scratch his eyes out, and he deserved it.

  She’d given herself to him, and he’d tak
en what she offered—with relish, again and again—and now he was betraying her. Or at least, she would believe he was betraying her, and that was all that mattered. He needed her to hate him in order to save her life.

  “Then ye willna care if I take her with me?” Van Rompay shouted.

  Shaw didn’t falter in his stance, even if every muscle and organ inside twitched. Dear God, if Shaw could breathe fire he would. He waved his hand, not trusting his own voice when he raged inside at the sight of her being touched by another, harmed by another.

  At that moment, the French seemed to have regained their senses, taking note of the English ship flanking their others side. With a hiss of fury, Van Rompay turned away from Jane and ordered his men to fire their cannon’s on The Gaia. Even from here, Shaw could hear Constantine’s laugh, as he opened fire on the French ship.

  Great booms followed by the splintering of wood and the cries of men where heard, and Shaw let out an expletive. If they blew the French ship to hell, it would take the Black Knight and Alexander with it.

  “Cease, le Brecque!” Shaw bellowed. “They have Lorne!”

  Across the sea, Constantine cursed, having caught Shaw’s message on the wind. He called for a ceasefire, and instead had his men send grappling hooks over the French rail, tugging her in.

  Shaw turned a deadly grin on the man holding his wife.

  The bastard was still gritting his teeth, clutching Jane’s breast. A prickle of blood trailed down her neck from where the man had pricked her skin. That tiny trickle was enough to send Shaw into a blinding rage.

  He flung his arm out with precision, sending the dagger he’d jerked off a dead man flying. Before the bastard could figure out what was happening, the tip of the dagger was tunneling into his eye. He screamed, his fingers tightening on Jane and the knife he held at her throat, but Shaw was quicker. As soon as he’d let his dagger fly, he’d shifted to the right in one quick step and brought his sword down on the man’s elbow, causing him to drop the knife.

  The French pirate crumpled, his life extinguished, and while his thick weight and grip would have taken Jane with him, Shaw reached out his free hand for her and took her up against him, her naked breasts cold from the night air and her fear against his heated chest.