Captain Rourke

by Helena Newbury

  I didn’t get the chance. As soon as I drew in breath, his thumb was against my lips. Every nerve ending in my mouth was trembling and alive, the stroke of his rough skin against my softness electrifying. “Hush, lass,” he growled.

  And then he grabbed the bottom of my borrowed sweater and tugged it all the way up to my neck, baring my breasts. I let out a strangled moan and started panting harder, my brain trying to catch up. I could feel every millimeter of my skin as cool air breezed over me, followed a heartbeat later by the heat of his gaze. His eyes ate me up, every curve, and I felt his cock swell and press even harder against me. I caught my breath: I’d never had a man so obviously relish me.

  Then he filled his hands with my breasts, lifting and squeezing, thumbs rubbing across my nipples. Then his mouth enveloped me. I arched my back and cried out as those hard lips found my softness, as his tongue sought out the stiff peak of my nipple and lashed around it.

  His mouth moved to my other breast and he took the first in his hand, thumb rubbing over my spit-shiny nipple. Glowing ribbons of pleasure shot down to my groin and began to twist, pulling taut…. I wanted to thrash and buck but he had me pinned so thoroughly I could barely move. I had to settle for grinding my ass against the floor, coins clinking and shifting under me.

  He started kissing me again and tugged me up to half-sitting so that he could get the sweater the rest of the way off. We were panting and desperate, kissing open-mouthed and hungry. I wanted to sit all the way up so that I could get his shirt off, but he was kissing me so hard, I had to keep scooching my ass back along the deck, or I’d have toppled backwards. He finally managed to get the sweater off over my head and toss it away and then I felt something solid behind me I could use to lever myself up to sitting. I groped behind me, put my hands on the edge of the thing and pushed—

  It tipped and I dropped with it. There was a tinkling metal roar I’d only ever heard in movies and I was engulfed in a tidal wave of gold.

  I’d just tipped over the chest.

  Coins flooded over my shoulders and down my body. They swept over my stomach and rolled down my legs, glittering and chinking. When it was over, my whole upper body was covered, only my head and breasts visible.

  I caught my breath, eyes wide. The coins were cold but, against my heated, naked skin, they felt wonderful. I moved a little and gasped as I was caressed by a thousand smooth, cool fingers.

  Rourke looked down at me and grinned: that big honest, Scottish smile that lit me up inside. I gave a shaky, nervous laugh and then he was kissing me again and I gave myself up to the sensations: his hot mouth, the cool coins, his hands sliding over my breasts. Both of us were out of control now, hands frantic as we explored each other’s bodies.

  His hands moved lower and I felt him pull off my panties. I lifted my ass to make it easier for him. I was lying on a shifting carpet of coins and, already, they were warming from our body heat.

  He tossed my panties behind him and moved forward but I stopped him, my hands on the top button of his shirt. I couldn’t wait any longer, had to see him, and had to feel him against me.

  He growled, impatient, and I could feel the heat of him throbbing through the thin cotton as I pushed buttons through holes as fast as I could. A triangle of tan skin slowly appeared: that deep valley between the slabs of his pecs. His nipples were pink and perfect and I ran my thumb over one, making him growl. God, he was so hard, midsection tight and powerful from swimming, his abs deep ridges I had to stop and run my hands over, fingertips tracing each line. I traced the scars, too, the fierce teeth marks the shark had left. They didn’t mar him: they told the story of who he was and showed his strength: he’d fought that monster and survived.

  He let me finish the last button and then ripped the shirt from his shoulders and threw it away. He hunkered down over me, gripped my thighs just above the knee, and pushed. I drew in my breath as my legs folded and opened, coins shifting under me. His blistering, almost angry gaze locked on my eyes for a second and then slid down, over breasts that had started to rise and fall in urgent, gasping rhythm, over my stomach, still strewn with gold, and down to my groin. And then he just looked.

  I should have been self-conscious but there was no room for that. He was gazing at me with such a mixture of hunger and reverence that it took all my fears away. I’d never felt anything so deeply hot.

  “So beautiful,” he whispered. His voice was tight with lust and his Scottish accent shaped the words into poetry.

  He cupped me. A finger parted me and—God, I was soaking. He stared into my eyes and I bit my lip, rolling my hips as he pushed the finger into me all the way to his palm, groaning along with me.

  Then he was unfastening his belt and kicking off his pants. His cock sprang out, iron-hard and ready, and I ground my ass into the coins as I saw it: long and God thick, a satiny head of purple-pink atop tan perfection. It had that same solid weight to it as the rest of him, not just big but somehow heavy. When he moved atop me and it nudged my thigh, the heat of it made me gasp.

  I heard the rubber sound of a condom. Then he used one hand to guide himself to me, the head of him nudging up against my folds. The other hand he slid into my hair, palm cupping my cheek, thumb brushing my cheekbone.

  He pressed forward, his muscled hips sinking between my thighs, and I rocked my head back and cried out at how good it felt. He filled me in one long, slow, perfect thrust, not stopping until the base of his cock kissed my folds. I looked up at him, eyes wide, nostrils flaring as I took quick, shuddering breaths. I could feel him throbbing within me: so hot, so solid.

  He lowered his head so that he could kiss me again and it was slow but deep, lips trembling as we panted, both of us overwhelmed by sensation. He looked down the length of my body, all the way from my face to where he was buried in me and then on down my legs. “You’re like a dream, lass.” His voice was thick with lust.

  I wriggled under him, embarrassed but glowing. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. Then he rose up on his forearms, his broad shoulders blocking out everything behind him, and he began to move.

  He withdrew and I groaned: it was like a loss, an ache. Then those powerful thighs and hard ass flexed and I caught my breath as he drove into me again, his size making me gasp. His chest rasped over my nipples, sending streamers of pleasure lashing down to my groin, and my fingers clawed at his shoulders. His mouth was at my ear, cursing at how good it felt: how good I felt.

  He was staring down at me with such intensity, relishing every silken drag of his cock inside me. His weight pinned me to the deck as he began a steady rhythm and for long minutes our fevered panting was the only sound in the room.

  He took me higher and higher, until I was begging. Then he lifted himself on his elbows and cupped my breasts. I’d been tossing my head in pleasure and a lock of hair had wound up lying across my chest. He stroked hair against skin, the silk of it and the press of his heated thumb making me gasp. I heard him mutter something under his breath, almost in wonder, something that might have been mermaid. Then he squeezed, making me grind and thrash atop the coins, and began fucking me even harder.

  The pleasure was expanding, filling me to bursting point. I had to release the pressure and it came out not just as pants but as words: yeses and oh Gods and his name, over and over. At first, it was just under my breath but that wasn’t enough: it rose until I was saying it, shouting it, I couldn’t help it—

  His thrusts became hard and then almost brutal, the feel of a man driven beyond control. My hands were frantic, running up and down his back. Every inch of him was like rock and I wanted to explore all of him. The feel of his muscles flexing under my palms as he drove into me was intoxicating and every tight thrust was making the pleasure swell and tighten—

  My legs bent, heels coming up off the deck and digging into the hard cheeks of his ass to urge him faster, faster. My eyes widened as I felt myself do it: I’d never done that before. But I felt him harden and swell even more insi
de me: he liked that I was as out of control as he was. The coins shifted in musical tides under us as his rhythm sped up. Our hands found each other and interlaced, the pleasure blossomed and then drew tight—

  I tipped my head right back, coins cool against my cheek, and cried out long and hard, my scream of ecstasy filling the Fortune’s Hope. And that seemed to set Rourke off because he slammed into me twice more and then held there, hilted in me, and I felt the pulse of his release.

  37

  Hannah

  I’d thought about two people in one hammock but had decided it was impossible. Even if we fitted, how the hell would we climb in?

  It turned out, I didn’t need to worry. Rourke simply lifted me to my feet and moved to stand behind me. He took a second to enjoy my body, running those big hands up over my breasts and down my thighs. Then he crushed me to him, shuffled us backwards a few feet, and sat. I yelped: suddenly, I was sitting on his lap on the edge of the hammock, our feet swinging back and forth above the floor. Then he twisted us and lay down, spooning me from behind, and we were in.

  The warm, weighty feel of him behind me was heavenly: as our bodies cooled and the temperature dropped, I didn’t even need a blanket. I just snuggled my shoulders back against his chest, he draped an arm around me, and it was perfect. The hammock rocked gently as the boat moved. A few days ago, the reminder of the sea outside would have terrified me. Now, wrapped up in Rourke’s warmth, it was restful.

  Rourke. I couldn’t keep calling him Rourke.

  “Rourke?” I asked carefully.

  He knew what I was asking without me saying it. “Will,” he said, his Scottish accent a soft silver lash against my ear.

  William. William Rourke. The name was just as old-fashioned as everything else about him. It suited him perfectly. And in his arms, I drifted into a deep, peaceful sleep.

  When I woke, it was dawn. Rourke was still sleeping behind me and I lay there trying to process what had happened between us. What would happen now? Where did I stand? Why had he picked me, after pushing everyone else in his life away?

  I’d always thought Rourke would suit someone like Carla, or Esme: some sultry, adventurous woman who could match him story for story. A brave woman. Whereas I was...well, a mouse. I was a librarian, for God’s sake. I wasn’t sultry like Carla, with her heels and her hypnotic, ass-wiggling walk. And I wasn’t adventurous, or brave. I’d still be in Nebraska if it wasn’t for Katherine getting ill. I wasn’t suitable for him.

  Which got me thinking about Captain Mace and Esme. Mace had loved Esme with all his heart. He’d even scuttled his ship so that she could have his fortune after he drowned.

  Something occurred to me and I was so surprised, I said it out loud. “She never found it.”

  Behind me, Rourke grunted sleepily. “Who? What?”

  I didn’t have any room to turn around to look at him, plus I was enjoying the warmth of him against my back too much. So I stared ahead of me, at the chest and its spilled coins. “Esme. She never found any of the treasure. She didn’t even follow the map to the first clue, or it wouldn’t still have been there.”

  Rourke grunted again. “Lucky for us.”

  “But it’s so sad! Mace went to all that trouble to make sure she got his fortune, to make sure she’d be rich after he was dead, and she didn’t get any of it! Something must have happened before she got the map.”

  “Maybe it was best that he died, though,” Rourke said. “For her.”

  Now I did turn around, even though it was difficult. “For the best? How? They should have been together forever!”

  He shook his head. “Mace was like me. He belonged on the sea. If he had lived, what life would she have had?”

  I wanted to say, a romantic one! Full of adventure and travel and sunsets. But I just stared at him.

  “The sea’s no place for women. It’s no place for anyone but lone men who no one’ll miss if they don’t come back. You haven’t seen how heartless it can be, how it can tear someone away—” He broke off, staring into my eyes. “I’m sorry, lass. Maybe you have.”

  I couldn’t speak past the sudden lump in my throat.

  “But men like Mace and me...it’s best not to get too involved with us. Aye, Esme lost her man but it happened young enough that she could find some respectable fella instead and have a real life.”

  “But—But she loved him! He loved her!”

  Rourke just stared at me for a long time. I could see the emotion in his eyes, the battle between what he wanted to say and what he thought I needed to hear. At last, he said, “Men like us only love two things. Treasure and the sea.”

  I nodded, biting my lip, and then turned my back and spooned with him again. I knew now where I stood. He didn’t regret what had happened but he was laying down the rules: he wouldn’t let this turn into something long term. He wanted to send me back to Nebraska when this was over and be out here on the sea alone because...because why? I knew it was connected to Edwards and whatever had happened to him.

  And unless I could figure it out, we’d never get any closer: he’d push me away the same way he’d pushed away everyone else.

  38

  Rourke

  I plunged into the water and, immediately, I felt better. The sea is isolating, be it a few feet of water above your head or miles of ocean around you on the surface. People think it’s lonely but it lets you escape.

  And it always helps me think. My head was throbbing, my whole body hot with rage and emotion. I needed the water to cool me down.

  Telling her I didn’t love her...that had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. Why couldn’t I be some normal guy, someone who could make a life with her? Because a life with Hannah...damn, that would be a prize worth more than anything on the Hawk. She was smart and kind and good. The sex had been unbelievable, even better than I’d imagined. And afterwards, I’d cuddled up to her perfect body and I’d slept. Slept in a way that made every night’s sleep I’d had since Edwards feel like a brief, shallow doze. Hannah actually calmed me more than the sea, something I’d never thought was possible.

  I forced my heart to harden. She had no future with someone like me. She needed to be safe on land. And I didn’t deserve her, didn’t deserve anything more than being sucked down into the sea’s black depths. That’s why I’d had to tell her what I did. That’s why I had to keep pushing her away. However hard it was.

  Cursing, I speared a Red Snapper for breakfast and swum for the surface. I hauled myself aboard the Fortune’s Hope, grimacing as the leg took my weight again. Then I paused there, dripping wet and frowning. There’d been something I’d meant to do, the next time I was in the water…. I racked my brains but the memory was gone: all I could think of was Hannah’s soft skin and the way her hair felt against my fingers. It’ll come back to me.

  Still dripping, I stalked over to the door that led below deck. I reached down inside me, hauling the anger up like a man drawing lava from a well. I needed to be savage and hard with her, like I was with Hobbs and Carla and everyone else. I had to show her that I wasn’t someone she wanted to be with—

  I hauled open the door and froze. In that single second, all the anger slipped between my fingers.

  She was pacing.

  As she passed each porthole, the sunrise lit up her golden hair with pinks and oranges. She was indescribably beautiful but it wasn’t just that.

  She was clutching the note we found in the chest of coins, muttering to herself furiously as she glared at it. She was the very picture of the frustrated academic: all she needed was a pair of glasses. But it wasn’t just that, either.

  It was the fact that Yoyo was mimicking her, pacing along the cupboards in time with her, grumbling like her, even scowling like her. I felt my own scowl dissolve.

  I could harden myself to her looks, to her bravery and kindness. But...dammit the lass could be so cute, it just completely disarmed me.

  I went to close the door but it was too late: she glanced up and saw m
e. For a second, we just stared at each other. I could see the need in her eyes. She needed me to tell her how I felt about her. Tell her it had been much more than just sex, tell her that I wanted to be with her.

  She needed me to tell her the truth. And, dammit, I wanted to.

  But if I let her in, then what? This was no place for her. I wasn’t going to let the sea take her. It had taken Edwards and one day it would take me—I deserved that. But not her. She deserved safety, a long happy life in Nebraska with some farmer. Some guy with a working fucking body—

  I looked away. “What’s the matter?” I grunted.

  She didn’t answer, just stared at me, hurt. I felt like the filthiest, most diseased bilge rat: I wanted to slip right down beneath the decks. All she wants is for me to put my arms around her and tell her I—

  I stood my ground. I swore I felt Edwards kick me in the shin but I ignored it. And at last, Hannah looked away.

  “I can’t figure out the next clue,” she said. “It’s not like the first one, it’s not questions where the answers are numbers. It’s...vague. Talks about how he trusts Esme and the treasure’s only for her, no one else.”

  I waited for more. When there wasn’t any, I rubbed my jaw. “That’s it? That is vague.”

  Hannah sighed and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The sweater rode up and I tried not to stare at the tops of her thighs. “We’re missing something. We need to get inside his head.”

  I grimaced. Get inside his head? Sounded like a load of touchy-feely bollocks. Way outside my comfort zone. And the last thing I wanted was to be talking when there was all this tension between us. I wanted to go outside and mess with the sails, or splice a rope.

  Then I remembered the fear, as she’d lain thrashing and kicking in agony on the deck. If we didn’t figure this out, she was dead. If this is what it took, this is what it took.