by Eliza Knight
“Is he even here, in town?”
Constantine’s gaze flicked up and down the dirty avenue. “Anything is possible,” he said. “Be on your guard.”
Augustin’s gaze lingered on him before he faded back into the shadows of the small huts and businesses across the dirty avenue. Wrapped in a boat cloak, Augustin blended in nicely with his surroundings but Constantine knew he had a big broadsword beneath that cloak. Like all of Constantine’s senior officers – including a powerful knight named Remy de Moray and a dark ex-priest known simply as Lucifer - Augustin came from a fine family and had been trained as a knight, now finding himself in the odd position of using those skills on the high sea to purse a life of wealth and glory.
But his attitude was the same as the other high-trained knights on the high seas, Constantine included. Whether they were to have remained on land in the service of a king who demanded they go forth and conquer against other kings and men, or whether they remained on the sea and pursued their own form of conquest and wealth-gathering, it was all the same. They all had to make their own way in life, by hook or by crook. Sometimes knights did things under the guise of honor that weren’t necessarily so honorable.
But no one was losing any sleep over it.
“Come back to bed!” the woman demanded. “You have what you came for and I am growing cold waiting for you!”
Jolted from his thoughts of his men and the glory they sought, Constantine came away from the window.
“I doubt that you could become cold, in any case,” he said rather seductively. “But I would like to know where your husband is this night. Surely he is nearby? This is his village, after all.”
The woman shook her head. “I left him and his whore at St. Yves,” she said bitterly. When Constantine shook his head, not knowing what she meant, she threw her hand around irritably. “The home we share on the outskirts of town. He is home, back in the hills. As long as he has wine and that woman, he will not care where I have gone. But I will not wait much longer for you, Anglais, so you will come to me now.”
It wasn’t a request. Constantine knew he could no longer delay the inevitable, so he leapt into bed beside the woman, rolling on top of her and listening to her seductive giggles. Her hands were in his breeches now, trying to force them down, and he obliged her by unfastening the ties and removing them. When she grabbed his manhood, he flinched because her hands were cold. But her mouth wasn’t. When she turned him on to his back, her hot and skilled mouth began to work his manroot in a move that had Constantine rather eager to experience.
Laying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, Constantine allowed himself to give in to the carnal delight of a woman pleasuring him. He had no intention of holding back his release because the sooner he found his climax, the sooner he could leave. Sometimes, he could hold out for a very long time - he had that kind of control. But it depended on how attracted he was to the woman and how much he wanted his pleasure to last. In this case, it would be a fast event and, he was certain, faster than Dureau’s wife wanted it to be, but he had a schedule to keep. A ship to board, as it were. And the he had to make it home before Dureau came after him, looking for that massive treasure.
Constantine grinned at the mental image of Dureau realizing the money he’d lost.
But the grin didn’t last long. Suddenly, a piercing whistle filled the heavy night hair and Constantine knew exactly what it was. He’d know de Russe’s whistle anywhere. Leaping up from the bed, with his erection jutting out from his body like a great flesh sword, he raced to the window only to see de Russe in the middle of the avenue, motioning frantically to him. Constantine knew he had to leave; he didn’t question de Moray in any fashion, but he very much wanted his breeches.
Yet, it was not to be. The chamber door suddenly shuddered and, as Constantine leapt onto the windowsill, the door half-exploded in a shower of splinters. The woman upon the bed screamed. It was enough of a jolt for Constantine to leap for his life from the second-floor window, miraculously landing on his feet in the mud outside the tavern. Mud splashed up all over him but he didn’t give it a thought as he caught the boat cloak de Russe tossed at him, wrapping it around his body to cover his nakedness as both he and Augustin ran as fast as they could for the cove where the tender had just pushed off with Kerk at the helm.
Men were shouting from the window of the bedchamber and Constantine could hear Mme. Van Rompay crying and screaming, but he didn’t dare turn around to look. Clearly, Dureau’s men had somehow discovered their tryst and as he and Augustin neared the shore at low-tide, they knew they’d have to swim for the tender. Kerk wasn’t going to turn it around, and for good reason, but he did order the men to stop rowing as Constantine and Augustin plunged into the icy water and began swimming as fast as they could.
They could hear Kerk urging them on, telling them to hurry, and hurry they did, but Constantine was hampered by the fact that his erection was now being assaulted by icy sea water, so the swim was becoming rather painful for him. Still, he soldiered on, his powerful body plowing through the water until he reached the rear of the tender. Augustin was a little slower, being that he was weighted down by his clothing, and by the time Constantine was on the boat, Augustin was hauled in a few seconds behind him.
Then, the men began rowing as hard, and as fast, as they could.
Then, and only then, did Constantine turn to see what he’d been running from and he wasn’t surprised to see several men that he recognized rushing into the sea up to their ankles but coming to a halt when they realized they could not catch up to their prey. The light from the village behind them was just enough to illuminate the angry men on the sand, several of them, and he thought he caught a glimpse of Dureau himself. Dureau was a tall man, slender, so his silhouette was a distinctive one. But a shout from the pursuers dissolved any doubt as two whom, exactly, had been chasing them.
“Le Brecque!” came a man’s angry voice. It sounded very much like Dureau. “You bastard! I will have my vengeance upon you!”
With his men rowing furiously around him, Constantine stood up on the rocking boat to better see the man who was shouting threats at him. “Dureau, my love,” he called out in return. “This is all you shall have of me!”
With that, he turned around and bent over at the waist, thrusting his white arse in Dureau’s direction. He knew the man could see it, reflected in the weak light of the village, when he heard him laugh. But it was not a happy laugh.
“That is the best part of you!” Dureau boomed.
Constantine stood up and turned to face him, blowing the man a kiss. “Your wife thought so, too,” he said sarcastically, blowing him another kiss. “I adore you, my dear friend. Until we meet again!”
By now, the fog that was rolling in from the sea began to envelope them as it moved towards the shore. Constantine lost sight of the angry French pirates but not before he heard Dureau’s voice one last time.
“It shall be sooner than you think!”
Constantine knew that was probably true. Dureau’s ships were probably inland at this point but he could move them out to sea quickly if he wanted to. The only saving grace at this point was the fog. For once, it would be their friend as it discouraged the French from pursuing them in it. But from this point on, Constantine knew he would have to be more careful of the French than usual.
The dirty game between them would get dirtier.
Such was the life of the commander of Poseidon’s Legion.
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