Considerately he peeled down his breeches for her. More than ready for her attention, his cock thrust before him, tight and throbbing for her touch.
She bowed her head demurely, as though she’d never beheld such a sight.
“I have heard this act described,” she murmured, “at the French court. But I have never before performed it. I cannot promise a—favorable result.”
“I can,” he muttered. Again she’d surprised him with her intoxicating blend of sophistication and innocence. An unwelcome qualm of conscience jabbed him. “However, if you don’t want—”
“How should my wishes matter?” She slanted him a distinctly wicked look. “I am merely a harem girl, am I not? And you are the Ottoman sultan whose pleasure will determine my fate.”
As she held his gaze, her little tongue flickered out for an exploratory lick. As it swept along his throbbing shaft, Calyx closed his eyes and groaned.
“Dios mío!”
Encouraged by his response, she circled her tongue around the head of his cock and across the ruby tip.
“Salty.” She sounded surprised.
“We’re at sea,” he said through gritted teeth. “Jayne...”
“What I want to know is...” Gently her lips enclosed him. The wet slide of her mouth along his shaft nearly sent him out of his mind. “Do I have your promise?”
“Promise?” he got out. The hot silk of her mouth encased him stem to stern. He cupped her head to hold her there.
Her tongue swept slowly along his length in a languid massage. When she drew teasingly back, it nearly set him cursing.
“I want your promise, capitán,” she said huskily, “that if I satisfy you tonight, you’ll release me tomorrow.”
“No.” The word was out of his mouth before he could think. He wasn’t ready to let her go, not by a long shot.
“No?” She sat back on her heels and gazed up at him, lips pursing in a pretty pout. Mischief and satisfaction mingled in her spirited features. She might be the one playing captive, but she knew she had him, the minx. His cock was throbbing, balls tight and hot, pulse hammering hard and fast in his veins.
“Are you certain?” she murmured. “Because if you are, I fail to see why we should pursue this game to its natural conclusion.”
Calyx clenched his fists and cursed, which only made her laugh. He dragged his wits together.
“If I were any other pirate afloat, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. You’d be on your back and I’d be buried between your sweet thighs, with your consent or without it.”
A tiny groove appeared between her slim brows. Soberly she studied him.
“You are no ordinary pirate, Calyx de Zamorra. Behind all the scandalous whispers and notorious exploits and ruthless reputation you cultivate so carefully, you are an honorable man. You loved your mother and suffer the Devil’s torment of guilt for her fate. You protect women and children and champion the weak. Body of God, even your cat seems to like you.”
“Behemoth?” He snorted. “He isn’t a cat. He’s a fiend from Hell. And so am I, señora.”
With aggravating certainty, she shook her head. “You refuse to take a woman against her will. Thus, if you swear now to free me, I know you will keep your word.”
Calyx stared down at her, a contradictory tangle of emotions jostling in his chest. She knelt before him in high boots and breeches, slender arms tied behind her and gorgeous breasts thrust forward, gazing up at him with a look of improbable trust that softened her stubborn features.
Their little game aside, she was in fact his captive. He could have her tossed overboard and not a man aboard—except Diego—would raise a hand to stop him. By rights, she ought to be terrified. She ought to be witless with fear.
Yet she’d never faltered, never betrayed a moment of fear or weakness. Instead she bargained with him as an equal. She beguiled him, taunted him, intrigued him, lied to him. She aroused him beyond reason.
Yet he knew he dared not trust her.
Whatever her hidden motives, he could never see her hurt. Every hour she spent aboard working her mischief, he was playing with fire. For her own safety, he had to put her ashore.
“Very well,” he said gruffly, swallowing a sudden thickness in his throat. “I can’t promise it will happen tomorrow. But when the storm abates, I’ll put in and set you ashore.”
Hope flared in her gamine features, excitement mingled with a shadow of something he couldn’t read. Then, lashes falling, she bowed her head. For no reason he could name, his chest ached.
When she looked up again, her eyes were smoky with seduction. His cock, which had subsided a bit during their odd and poignant negotiation, sprang swiftly to attention.
“In that case, my lord and master,” she murmured, uncoiling from her heels and crawling sinuously toward him, “how may I serve you?”
Desire coiled and hissed in his blood. He wrapped his hands in her thick mane and drew her toward him. “Don’t bother getting up.”
He stopped thinking completely when the silken heat of her mouth closed around his cock.
* * *
Hours passed while the storm raged, tossing the galleon like a cork on the churning cauldron of the deep. A storm of a different sort raged in his cabin as he feasted on the delights of Jayne’s exquisite body. She brought an inventor’s creativity and a vixen’s mischief to her bedsport, spiced with a sexual stamina that challenged him to match her.
It was a challenge he more than met. They made love as though the world were ending.
Though neither of them mentioned it, he knew they were both thinking this could be their final farewell. She’d fulfilled her part of their bargain. Now he must fulfill his.
When he wasn’t buried in her silken heat, they talked.
They talked of everything except England and Spain and the bloody Armada.
She spoke of her simple country upbringing, her boisterous brother and soft-faced mother, the absentminded father who’d doted upon her, whose utter failure in her hour of need had devastated her.
As for Calyx, he spoke of the Andalusian horses his father bred, his brief and spectacularly unsuccessful debut at the Spanish court and the highbred beauty who’d spurned him, the nightmare of his captivity, the fierce joy of raising hell on the high seas as the Scourge of the Spanish Main. She seemed fascinated by his life of freedom and adventure, which she contrasted to her dreary marriage.
They had both triumphed over captivity and survived their tormentors. Now, he thought bleakly, they were both fancy free.
He made love to her again. The scholar in him took perverse delight in discovering—through a methodical process of trial and error—precisely where she liked him to use his tongue before she climaxed in his arms.
When the rap of knuckles roused him in the predawn darkness, Calyx’s first reaction was relief. The galleon still heaved and plunged through stormy seas. There could be no thought of putting in, among the dangerous rocks and reefs that fringed the Galician coast, while the storm raged.
He’d fallen asleep tangled in Jayne’s supple limbs, her dark head pillowed in the crook of his arm. When the knock came again and she stirred in her sleep, he cursed softly and slid from the bunk, careful not to wake her. She needed her sleep after the night they’d just shared. His own flesh stung in a dozen places from the small abrasions of her teeth and nails. But, Cristo, he’d made her sing for him.
Grinning at the memory, he shoved his legs into a pair of breeches and padded barefoot to the door.
Waiting in the corridor, lantern held high, stood the Duque de Nicanor.
His fog of sensual satisfaction shredded. Calyx swore and pushed into the companionway, pulling the door closed to block the bastardo’s view.
Straining for patience, he spoke curtly. “Diablo, man, it can’t be past three bells. What has you roaming the decks at this hour?”
In the swaying light, the Duque’s swarthy features glistened with rain and sweat. The sickly sweet aroma of ea
stern opium clouded his senses. Calyx glimpsed the telltale slash of feline claws across the nobleman’s brow and mentally promised Behemoth a generous cut of fresh-caught tuna.
“I regret, capitán, having to interrupt your dalliance with the fetching señora.” Nicanor’s dark eyes glittered with feverish intensity.
Calyx wondered if the man had fallen ill. Perhaps his cat-inflicted wounds were fevered, or the injury Diego had dealt him when the bastard went after Iago.
“Not as much as I do.” Calyx concealed his rampant dislike behind a silken smile. “How can I assist you, if my officer of the watch cannot?”
“Believe me when I say, capitán, this is no subject you wish bruited about as shipboard gossip among your men and mine!” Nicanor hissed.
The ship pitched and yawed. Calyx anchored himself against the doorframe and spoke through gritted teeth.
“What the Devil are you saying?”
The Duque’s feral eyes glistened with excitement. “I refer to the matter of sabotaje.”
“Sabotage?” Calyx’s gut clenched.
Instinctively he took stock of the night around them. No flicker of flames, no smell of smoke, no thud of racing footfalls or clamor of panic. Whatever had happened, at least the galleon seemed in no imminent danger of sinking to the bottom.
Grimly he ducked inside for boots and a shirt, strapped his sword-belt around his hips. When he emerged, he locked the door behind him. If a saboteur was running loose on board, the last thing he wanted was Jayne naked and defenseless at the man’s mercy.
Firmly he gripped the don’s shoulder and propelled him toward the deck. “Show me.”
He expected to be led to the powder store or the gunroom, the obvious places to wreak havoc in a hurry. Instead, the don led him across the rain-washed deck and down the hatch to the cargo hold. When his boots hit the deck, he plunged into water to his knees.
“Madre de Dios!” Calyx wrested the storm lantern from Nicanor and raised it. The dark bulk of water casks, lashed to the deck for safety, rose around him. “Did we graze another ship? A hidden reef?”
“Your hull is intact, capitán—at least, so far as I know.” The Duque clung to the ladder and eyed him like a cornered rat. “You are standing in freshwater, not salt.”
Calyx scooped up a handful and brought it to his lips. The sweet coolness of drinking water flowed over his lips and sent his heart plunging to his boots.
A hasty inventory confirmed his findings. Someone had systematically unplugged every cask. The galleon’s entire store of drinking water—meant to sustain the full ship’s complement of three hundred men for weeks—was now sloshing around his boots.
Trying to order his thoughts, he scrubbed a rough hand over his face. He’d been meticulous in posting guards over the ordnance. His precious maps and navigational instruments he kept locked tight in his sea chest. But he’d never thought to safeguard their water supply.
“A saboteur indeed,” he said grimly. “And he’s damn well none of mine. I’ve sailed with this crew before, every man of them.”
“Surely you do not mean to suggest,” Nicanor said icily, “that the miscreant is one of mine? My officers are, to a man, scions of the aristocracy—the finest names in Spain.”
As if that exempts them from suspicion, he thought.
“What of your soldados, your pikemen and gunners and the rest? Are you going to tell me they’re all aristocrats?”
“Of course not.” Nicanor sniffed. “Presently, however, they are green and groaning in their hammocks, having heaved up the entire contents of their stomachs in these wretched seas.”
“Illness can be feigned.” Calyx thought rapidly. “The first thing is to interrogate the watch—”
“You are free to interrogate your watch and my soldados at your leisure. But you will find this inquisition to be unnecessary.” The don’s eyes glittered. “I know the identity of your saboteur.”
Calyx stared. “How in blazes can you know that?”
“I know because I saw the saboteur myself.”
Beneath his boots, the galleon plunged. Calyx braced against a bulkhead and kept hold of the lantern as icy water sloshed around his legs. Nicanor clung to the ladder like a barnacle.
Calyx pitched his voice above the howling wind. “Who is he?”
“I regret to be the bearer of ill tidings.” The don grimaced in feigned sympathy. A premonitory chill slid down his spine. “Yesterday, while you were occupied elsewhere, I watched the villain creep into this selfsame hold. I only regret that the exigencies of two hundred seasick men prevented me from investigating at once.”
“And so?” Calyx chafed.
“I fear your saboteur is female.”
His saboteur was female. As Calyx well knew, the Arcángel’s current manifest included exactly one woman.
One remarkably clever, resourceful, secretive, wily, stunningly deceptive woman.
His captive. His mistress. His confidant. His nemesis.
In a way, it made striking sense.
Who else could it be but Jayne?
Chapter Thirteen
Jayne stood before the porthole and stared, mesmerized, at the apocalyptic scene. The sea was positively Biblical! Enormous swells crashed over the wildly pitching structures of the scattered galleons. Torn sails flapped and fluttered, blurred by curtains of rain that poured from dismal skies.
This storm was nothing unusual for the Bay of Biscay, gateway to the mighty deep, a stretch known for turbulent weather. Her senses tingled, though she’d done naught to summon it.
If she truly wished to be put ashore, she should calm these angry seas—if he hadn’t locked her in again. Calyx had sworn to put in when the weather cleared. She would alight on the Spanish coast, then hire a swift zabra to speed her to Walsingham ahead of the wallowing fleet.
If Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh and the other seadogs did their jobs, they could defend the landing sites.
Portland Bill, the Isle of Wight and Sandwich. The three X’s swam in her mind.
With such foreknowledge, the English could be lying in wait with loaded cannons. Calyx and his stolen galleon would lead the Armada straight to them. Quite likely, the Arcángel would be the first casualty.
If she betrayed him to Walsingham, she would cause his death.
“God’s Eyes!” she swore softly, striking a fist against his desk in frustration.
If she chose to say nothing, the English navy would be overwhelmed by Spain’s superior force. If they landed near Sandwich, Dudley’s manor and her nine-year-old son lay directly in the invaders’ path.
“Ryder, my sweet boy,” she whispered. Her throat swelled as the treasured image of his rosy face floated in her mind. His tumbled curls so fresh and sweet. His navy blue eyes so trusting—a trust she’d failed. The way he’d sobbed when Elizabeth’s men took him away.
If she went to Walsingham, Ryder would be safe. She might even get her boy back.
But then what? Where could they possibly go? Her royal cousin would not welcome her in England, not while Robert Dudley walked the earth. The Boulaine villa in France had gone to pay her creditors in a country riven by civil war, the Huguenots against the Catholics. She could never return there.
God knew she could never go to Spain.
And then there was Calyx.
Wildly she pressed her fingers to her temples and tried to think. What if...what if England offered to buy him off? Calyx was a hired mercenary, not a fanatic. But she had no authority to negotiate such an offer. Why should he believe a word she said?
For he would know she’d been lying about everything else. He would know her for an English spy. He would think she’d used him to sniff out his secrets.
“The one thing I won’t abide is deception. Never lie to me, Jayne. I’m warning you.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” Impatiently she thrust to her feet and staggered across the pitching cabin. She tried the door—still locked. It seemed she was back to being a captive.
A rogue wave tilted the deck and pitched her against the mirror, still draped with her crimson gown. The heavy gold-slashed damask slithered to the floor.
She found herself gazing into the tall oval of clouded glass. Her image floated ghostlike, demure in the sky-blue gown, since her boy’s clothes lay torn and sea-stained on the floor. In her pale features, her eyes were dark with torment.
Truly, she could barely discern the image. It was a mystery to her why Calyx kept such a useless mirror. He seemed to avoid his own reflection whenever he could.
Haven’t the good courtiers told you I’m a freak? Son of a poor raving fool who suffered mad fancies and hallucinations, who believed angels roamed the earth and spoke to her?
Her gaze slid to the blazing portrait where black-winged figures soared above a fiery pit. A sea of doomed faces turned upward in despair. Above, floating against the night-dark heavens, a portal streamed silver light over the bleak landscape. A stern figure with golden curls, clad in mail of shining white, commanded those celestial gates.
Beneath the image, a painted ribbon unfurled: The Archangel Michael Guards the Gate of Heaven.
Her skin tingled as though the air were charged with lightning. Alive with restless energy, she spun away. But a flash of candlelight snared her gaze.
In the mirror’s clouded depths, a lantern bobbed.
Incredulous, Jayne surveyed the cabin behind her. Calyx’s storm lantern had burned out during the night. Her sole illumination was the watery daylight oozing through the porthole.
Wondering if she’d begun to hallucinate under the strain of captivity, she swung back toward the mirror. Her reflection had vanished in the swirling mist. There, shadows were moving, growing, coalescing into human silhouettes.
Three figures with arms linked.
As if the mirror were a portal to some distant realm, she glimpsed a flaming sword, the dark shadow of wings, tawny hair that blazed like a halo, a form clad in glittering jet with streaming black hair and eyes like stars...
Jayne stumbled back from the mirror, arm rising to shield her eyes from the blinding light that poured through those silver eyes. Her heel came down on her hem. Off-balance, arms flailing, she landed hard on her rump.
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