“Run?” His warm gaze slid over her body, caressing her. “I wouldn’t dream of it . . . Mr. Starr.”
“You dreamt of it last night.”
He leaned over her, unlatched the stern windows, and threw them open. Sea wind, salty and full of tang, danced into the cabin and shivered over her skin, mixing with the deliciously clean scent of his shaving soap. Instead of straightening up, he rested his forearms against the sill, hung his head between them, and gazed lovingly down at her. “I had a reason for running.”
“And what was that, Cap’n?”
“I couldn’t stand to see how upset I’d made you.”
“And you thought that running off and getting yourself killed at Penobscot wouldn’t make me upset?”
“You should know me well enough by now to realize I’m not so easy to kill.”
“Well, when a person loves someone, they worry. And worry a lot.”
“And do you love me, Moyrrra?”
“Aye. But I don’t think I’ve done a very good job of convincing you of it,” she lamented, holding his gaze as she reached up and touched his cheek. “I wish I could take back all the awful things I said to you, Brendan, that day you came back to Newburyport alone, without Matt. I’m so sorry.”
“Grief causes us all to think and act in odd ways, mo bhourneen.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.” He remained leaning over her, blotting out the light from the window. “Do you still want to marry me?”
“I’d marry you right now, Brendan, if there was someone on board who could perform the ceremony.”
“Then we’ll do it when we get back from Penobscot.”
“Yes, when we get back from Penobscot.”
“And not a moment later.”
“Not one. “
They remained like that for a moment more, she lying on the window seat looking invitingly up at him, and he resting his weight on his forearms and, braced against the slight roll of the ship, gazing down at her. And then her eyes lit with mischief, and she put her finger to her tongue and licked it, still holding his gaze. His eyes darkened and his breathing quickened. The cabin grew quiet. Then, slowly, she withdrew her finger and touched it to his lips, gently tracing their shape, painting them with her own moisture.
“You should know that Kestrel and I have settled our differences. I’m quite willing to share you with her—under one condition.”
He caught her hand and pulled her fingertip into his mouth, gently sucking on it and causing sensation to flare deep in the pit of her belly. “Anything, stóirín.”
“You must share her—with me.”
“That’s a lot to ask. You nearly let her broach to.”
“Like hell I did.”
He smiled, and slowly withdrawing her finger from his mouth, began to kiss each finger in turn. “All right. You had her well in hand. Why should I have doubted you?”
“You shouldn’t. I’ve been sailing as long as Matt has. Besides, Kestrel and I had a common goal that day—saving your life. We were depending on each other. She wouldn’t have let me down. She wouldn’t have let you down.”
“I know that.”
“So are you going to let me take her out once in a while?”
“Uh . . . well, maybe.”
He was leaning heavily against the sill, his forearms supporting his weight. Above his head a tin lantern swung with the roll of the ship.
“If you want me to prove how much I love you, Brendan, you’ll have to do better than a ‘well, maybe.’” She reached up and began undoing the buttons of his waistcoat, one by one. Her other hand drifted downward, grazing his arousal through his breeches. His eyes slipped shut and still braced against the window, he leaned his forehead on one arm, allowing her the pleasure of seducing him. “You’ll have to say yes.”
“Yes to what?” he asked, distantly.
“To taking Kestrel out.” She circled him with her palm, rubbing hard, watching him swell up against her hand. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“No . . . Yes . . . Faith, I don’t care. . . .”
“Is this too much for you?”
“No, take her out . . . I really don’t care.”
“No, Brendan, I’m talking about this now.” She squeezed him through the breeches and ran her fingernail along the hard ridge. “Am I pushing you too far? Can you withstand a rigorous afternoon of making love to me without fainting in my lap?”
He managed a grin. “The day I cannot love my wee lassie is the day I’m dead and buried.”
She stared up into his mirthful eyes. Then, playfully, she reached up and in one quick motion, jerked his arms down, squealing with delight as he fell atop her. They both tumbled to the deck, laughing.
“And to think, Mr. Starr, we could have been doing this all along, on every cruise,” he said, his eyes dancing. “Oh, you have done a fine job deceiving your captain!”
“Face it, Brendan, if you’d known who I was you’d have made me stay home.”
“I am not so sure of that,” he murmured, groaning as she found him again and rubbed him, hard, through the breeches. “I could get used to this. Oh! Very used to it. . . .”
She reached up and pulled a cushion from the window seat. “Here. Don’t put your back against the decking, Brendan, it’ll hurt. Use this, instead.”
He smiled at her thoughtfulness, and sat up a bit so she could put it under his shoulders. And then she stood up just long enough to yank off the breeches from under the skirt before throwing her leg over him and gently easing herself down atop his belly, her mischievous gaze holding his own the whole time.
“God almighty,” he gasped, as her weight came down atop his hardening arousal.
She was stark naked beneath the skirts. He suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“What are you doing to me, lass?”
“Seducing you. Something I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time. Now lie back and enjoy it.”
She leaned forward, every little movement of her body, each subtle change of position, sending him deeper into agony as she parted his waistcoat, pulled his shirt from his breeches, and plunged her hands deep beneath his shirt, her palms roving over his chest as his heart began to thump madly beneath them. In moments, she had his shirt off, and his chest was bare to her hands. She slid her fingers into the sparse hair there and let her fingers, ever so gentle, linger on the little burst of scar tissue. Slowly she leaned down, put her lips against the hard, puckered flesh, and kissed it with infinite tenderness. Brendan shut his eyes, struggling for control, unable to think of anything but the fact that she was naked beneath her skirts and she was sitting on him.
Moving herself against him.
Naked.
And she was worried about him surviving Penobscot? He had to get through this, first!
He sucked in his breath as she reached behind herself and gently stroked his testicles. “Am I proving my love for you well enough, Brendan?”
He couldn’t answer. He’d forgotten how to breathe. Dizziness was swirling behind his eyes now, and he shut them, trying desperately to hold on to consciousness as well as control.
“Brendan?”
“I’m dizzy,” he managed. “But it will pass . . . don’t stop . . . I don’t want you to stop.”
“Are you sure?” she asked, looking down into his eyes, unfocused now, as she continued to explore him through his breeches.
“I’m . . . fine. . . .”
She moved off him, unbuttoned the drop-front of his breeches and then her hands were on him, all over him and no, he was not fine, he was not fine at all, and that was just perfect as far as he was concerned. She began rubbing the tip of him with her thumb, smearing the tiny wet pearl of seed there over the head, gently putting a hand on his chest to hold him down when he tried, weakly, to move, her hair brushing his skin, tickling his belly, catching in the bed of hair in which his erection was rooted. She leaned down and his skin went drum-tight as her tongue
flicked against his shaft, once, twice. A moment later he felt her lips closing around him, sealing him in hot, delicious warmth and drawing him deeply up inside her mouth. His vision blurred and began to spin and he shut his eyes, one arm coming out to grip the leg of the nearby table in a last desperate attempt to anchor himself in consciousness. Sweat broke out on his brow, and beneath his back.
“Moyrrra . ..”
She circled her tongue around the tip, sucking him hard, harder, until he thought he would die with the sheer agony of it. Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore she pulled back, straddled him once more with her weight on her knees, and gently lowered herself down atop him, until her sex, hot and wet and more than ready for him, was just touching the tip of his erection, still held firmly in her hand.
He shuddered, breathing hard. She held him there against her entrance, slowly rubbing the tip of him against herself until he lost the ability to think, to even remember what he’d eaten for breakfast that morning.
“Is this too much for you, Brendan?” she asked with mock innocence.
He’d sooner die than admit that perhaps it was, for his heart was pounding, the blood rushing through his head, and her image was fading in and out behind a wall of dark speckles and spinning lights. But strangely, the dizzying effect only heightened the agony of pleasure. And as for her taunting, teasing ways . . . well, he’d had enough of that! Fitting his hands around her waist, he lifted her slightly, then lowered her, slowly sliding her down, down, down atop himself, filling her, stretching her, sinking so deeply into her that her triumphant smile faded and her lips parted in a surprised and delighted O.
For a long moment he just held her there, drinking in the sight of her flushed cheeks, her thick, board-straight hair falling over her breasts. He twitched, involuntarily, and felt her inner muscles tightening around him in response. She took a deep, unsteady breath, then her head fell back, her hair spilling down her back and tickling his thighs, and her hips began to move atop him. Impatiently he slid his hands beneath her shirt, finally pulling it over her head until her breasts were bared to his palms. He gazed at the pale, sweet globes, so perfectly formed, like twin melons capped by dusky little rosebuds, and with his thumbs, gently tweaked the nipples until she was whimpering and writhing atop him.
“So . . . is this my punishment, Captain?” she breathed, squirming uncontrollably.
“I think it’s mine,” he said, feeling himself being pushed closer and closer to release with every movement of her hips.
“I like being punished.”
“No one deceives the captain and gets away with it.”
“Then I must deceive you more often . . . oh, Brendan, please . . . take me.”
“Not yet, mo bhourneen,” he murmured, as she leaned forward and ground herself against him, her breasts pressing against his chest, her lips finding his with desperate, hungry abandon.
He kissed her hard, unable to get enough of her, and then she began to move in earnest atop him, building a rhythm, driving him closer and closer to the edge. His head was swimming, his vision darkening, and he wondered if he could stay conscious long enough to complete the act. His hands roved out over the curve of her bottom, pulling her closer, pressing her further down atop himself with each upward thrust of his hips.
“Brendan ...”
“Hold tight, Moyrrra. . . .”
“Brendan, oh, oh, Brendan!”
She gave a sudden cry, her muscles contracting gloriously all around him, and he thrust himself once, twice, three more times deeply up and into her, causing her to stiffen and cry out once again as she climaxed a second time. And then he, too, was carried away, and maybe he lost both control and consciousness, because when he opened his eyes she lay atop him, blanketing his face with her hot damp hair, her arms wrapped around him and her muscles still spasming all around him.
They lay together, breathing hard, slowly drifting down from the heights. Brendan curved an arm around her damp shoulders, clasping her to him as though to never let her go, and it took a long time for either of them to realize that there was a voice coming from high, high above.
“Deck there!”
Brendan raised his head.
“Brendan!” Liam was there, over the skylight, his body cutting off the sunlight streaming down from above. “Come topside, laddie! There’s a strange sail in the lee of one o’ these here islands! She’s flyin’ British colors and runnin’ with her tail between her legs!”
Brendan sighed and lay back, staring up at the deck beams above. He let the silence stretch on, his hand absently stroking Mira’s hair. “Well?”
“Well what?” she asked, cuddling up against him and kissing the underside of his chin.
“Shall we take her, Mr. Starr?”
Their eyes met. Hers gleamed; his danced; and beneath them, Kestrel whispered softly to herself.
Take her.
The tension built. Then, Mira leapt up. She grabbed her breeches and raced across the cabin, hopping into them as she went. Laughing, she snatched Brendan’s sword from the bulkhead, and pirouetting on bare fairy feet, raced from the cabin.
He, hastily buttoning his breeches and waistcoat, was not far behind.
And when they emerged on deck, no one noticed that their wee gunner’s hair was loose and unbound, her lips swollen, her eyes gleaming with feline contentment. No one noticed that their captain didn’t look quite so immaculate, his coat half-unbuttoned, his tricorne slapped atop curls that were rumpled and tousled.
And neither did Kestrel.
For there, speared like a moth just beyond her surging bowsprit, was a schooner, with the Union Jack fluttering from her mast.
Brendan took one look and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Trim for a broad reach! Crack on that last jib and t'gallant, Mr. Wilbur! Faith, d’you expect to catch her with Kestrel half-dressed? Better yet, rig the studders, and be quick about it!”
Topmen raced up the shrouds, out along the yards. Sails spilled down and were sheeted smartly home. Kestrel rose on her tiptoes, the pitch of the sea against her bows rising as she found more speed.
Brendan took the helm, thrilling to the feel of the wind driving against that giant canvas and sending its raw power thrumming down the masts, through the deck, and right up into the soles of his feet. He let the schooner fall off a point, and Kestrel swung her jib-boom past a rock-rimmed islet well off her bow, until the wind was coming over their larboard quarter and sending her plunging toward the other vessel.
He felt a sadness that their quarry was a schooner, but quickly drove the feeling from his mind. The British ship and Kestrel were night and day, one short and stubby, bluff-bowed and unwieldy, the other sleek and dark, dangerous and beautiful.
“To stations, gunners!”
He saw Mira race past on her way to Freedom, and groaned inwardly.
Kestrel was closing in now, swallowing her prey’s foamy wake as she changed tack and tried to dart behind an island. In moments, they were overtaking her. Unconsciously Brendan slid his hand into his pocket and found his sketchbook missing. He swore beneath his breath and grabbed the speaking trumpet that Dalby, wheezing, thrust toward him. “Will you strike?” he yelled.
A solitary gun boomed out in reply, slapped through Kestrel’s jibs, and hissed into the sea.
“Very well, then.” Shrugging, Brendan raised the trumpet once more, and caught Mira’s gaze from where she stood waiting at Freedom, her gun crew holding rammers and sponges.
“Gunners, cast off tackles and breechings!” he called.
One by one, the commands were fired off with swift precision and obeyed with equal smartness. At last, every gun captain and every crew stared aft, awaiting the word—
“Run out!”
He saw Mira fling her hair over her shoulder and crouch down beside Freedom’s ugly snout.
“Point your guns ...fire!”
Kestrel shuddered beneath the force of the broadside. Blindly she drove on through thick, bi
llowing gray smoke, bursting free of it and into open sea once more.
Guns were sponged out, loaded. Again Kestrel's guns spoke, and a great cheer went up as the other schooner’s fore topmast shuddered, leaned, and fell in a tangle of rigging and sail to her decks below.
It was enough to send the British captain racing aft to haul down the colors with his own hand, for the identity of his attacker was no mystery to him. There was only one schooner in these waters—indeed, anywhere—that looked like this one did. Lean, rakish, and lithe, she could only be the Americans’ legendary Kestrel; and that blue-coated figure, framed against the great, undulating backdrop of the glorious red-and-white flag of the privateer, could only be Brendan Merrick.
Captain Edward Sorrington was no fool. Let Kestrel have his schooner. It would probably be the last prize she’d ever take.
For Sorrington was on his way to Penobscot himself, and he knew information that might have saved the American forces had they been privy to it.
Just one day’s sail behind him were the reinforcements that the British general Francis McLean in the Penobscot was expecting, a powerful fleet of British warships led by Sir George Collier in the sixty-four-gun Raisonnable.
But Merrick didn’t need to know that. He’d find out soon enough.
Let him go to Penobscot. Let his legendary vessel join the other American ships already there. Let him, and the cocky Americans, think they could reclaim Penobscot Bay.
They were in for a big surprise.
And so was Merrick, he thought wryly, for in company with the British fleet was HMS Viper, with Captain Richard Crichton in command.
Chapter 30
“That seat of Science, Athens, and Earth’s proud mistress Rome! Where now are all their glories? We scarce can find a tomb! Then guard your rights, Americans! Nor stoop to lawless swa-a-y! Oppose, oppose, oppose, oppose, for North A-mer-i-kay!”
Captain Of My Heart Page 36
