“You are a wonder, Miss Thatch,” he murmured. “As curious as a kitten and as spirited as your grandfather.”
She didn’t question his reference to her grandfather. She never knew him, so it was unlikely he did either. “Are you implying I’m too audacious with my actions?” She jerked back against the glass door of the shower closet, shocked out of her forgiving laxity.
Did he not like brash women? Were they threatening, intimidating, unnerving? She shunned her self-conscious doubts about her character and focused on the captain. Maybe by making him uneasy she’d feel vindicated for the way he tricked her.
His gaze dropped down to her soaking wet garments. “You are aware I can have my way with you at any time, aren’t you?” His grin widened.
“You wouldn’t!” she exclaimed with false bravado.
At the thought of his mouth nibbling and sucking on her breasts, her nipples puckered.
“It’s what a pirate does, me beauty. We take whatever pleases us.” His voice took on the grizzled tone of what she imagined a pirate might sound like.
He brushed a sweeping circle around her mouth, and pulled her bottom lip down with his thumb.
Of course she had concerns about her situation. Not for what she thought he might make her do, but for what she might beg of him. She couldn’t let that happen.
“Yes, I do believe your only goal is thievery,” she said. “But not of my virtue. You want the treasure for yourself, and I’ll tell you right now, if there is a treasure, then it rightfully belongs to me. You broke into my house and stole the Crystal Compass, and that’s stealing.”
“Aha!” The captain startled her.
She thought he might call her on not being a virgin. Her mind whirled with excuses for a couple of seconds before anger took over at the thought that she might need any. It was none of his business what happened in her past.
He stepped back the few inches the small shower closet allowed and put his hands on his hips. “You called it the Crystal Compass. So you do accept the device is mine.”
Abigail let out an inaudible hiss of air when she realized the captain wasn’t referring to her state of chastity. “I accept it was yours. Unclaimed for fifteen years is abandonment. Therefore, lawfully it belongs to the finder. However, I’m willing to compromise. Once I find my grandfather’s treasure, you can have back the snow globe, Crystal Compass or whatever you want to call it.”
“And what of your cousin’s claim? Blackbeard is his grandfather too.”
“He can only speculate his kinship to William Thatch. I know mine by the fact I have his letters, his journal, his map and that snow globe.”
She popped the glass door open and stepped out of the closet. The captain followed, pushing the door closed. He pulled a towel off a hook on the wall and handed it to her. She turned away to avoid staring at his incredible nude body.
“There’s dry clothing in a cabinet in the cabin above us,” he said. “Use whatever you’d like.”
Abigail heard the shower door creak open. She peeked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the captain’s stunning backside as he moved inside. He turned and reached to pull the door shut. Her gaze naturally flitted to his maleness. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. His healthy endowment to his masculinity showed his arousal. That sight drew the air from her lungs.
When the door shut, cutting off her inspection, she took a step toward the shower. The notion of getting inside, being close, touching him streamed through her mind. She stopped and watched his silhouette reach up. Her guess that he went for the lever proved right when water resumed spraying the interior of the bathing closet. His humming a familiar tune made her smile. It reminded her of home. And then he stopped and began to sing a different song. The bawdy pirate’s tale changed her mind about indulging in carnal pleasures. When he bent over to retrieve the soap and his bottom splayed against the frosted glass for a moment, embarrassment burned her cheeks.
She fanned her face and hurried from the cabin before she gave in to her desires. She tromped up the steps to the midlevel passageway. Dripping wet, she shed her clothes as she entered the room. She grabbed a sheet of folded linen from a shelf and wrapped it around her body. Then she wandered around the storage cabin looking through everything while plucking the last of her hairpins from her disheveled hair.
The captain said she’d find clothing, but the room held much more than the usual lace-up boots, frilly dresses and satin corsets. He appeared to store his inventions along with practical goods. The copper tub caught her eye. Its monstrous size made it impractical, unless someone planned to bathe right there in the middle of the cabin. Surrounded by bags of flour, rice and sugar, the fixture appeared much like the bathing closet. It too had pipes running along the outside and riddling the inside with holes. Behind it sat a mechanical device with a crank to turn the gears. None of it made sense. She made a note to ask.
As she raked her fingers through her hair, combing the tangled strands back, she thought of Jasper’s tender caresses, his skillful artistry in kissing. On how many women had he practiced the seductive moves? His passion far outdid that of her old beau, reminding her once again there was someone better suited to her.
She walked to the tall cabinet that appeared to be the one in which the captain mentioned she’d find clothing. She opened the doors and an array of colors and fabrics greeted her.
“What have we here?” She lifted out a brass form shaped like a woman’s midsection with half cups for breasts to rest in.
Thin, lightweight, delicate–the unusual garment fascinated her. She held it up in front of herself and looked in the mirror fastened on the back of the cabinet door. Curious to know exactly how it felt, she sat it down and dug through the garments. She found a red-and-white striped skirt and a red silk shirt. In a drawer, she found bloomers and a chemise. It seemed odd that the captain had ladies’ clothing, but she stored the question away with her others.
She discarded the linen sheet and put on the clothing. Other than the loose knickers, the items fit her as if tailor-made. Just the right stitching of darts and seams allowed the blouse to follow her contours like a second layer of skin. Then she picked up the brass corset and held it against her body. To fasten the buckles in the back, she had to lean forward on the cabinet to hold the formed metal in place. She reached back and carefully managed to work each leather strap through metal buckles, fastening them together.
She stood back and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, lifting and adjusting her breasts in the snug form.
“Revealing to be sure.” She shook her head studying how much more developed it made her bosom appear.
“Very nice fit.” Jasper’s voice surprised her, but she didn’t jump.
She quarter-turned and stared at him in the doorway. “You should have knocked. What if I wasn’t decently dressed?”
“I don’t think it possible to see you any less decent than when you were soaked through in my shower.”
He was right. The fabric of her clothes had gone sheer. She looked in the mirror again. “I like this.”
“Then it’s yours.”
She caught sight of his smile in the reflection. “Thank you.” She spun around, admiring the fit. “I feel as if I belong on this ship now that I’m dressed in an apparatus of your making.”
“You do blend well with the scenery in every way.” He turned.
“Captain?” she called to him before he left.
“Yes?”
“I know I said I wanted you to kiss me again, but I wasn’t myself, and…”
“I’m not holding you to anything you said while drunk, Miss Thatch.”
His kiss had made her belly burn and her heart race. It also left her with a sketchy memory. “Was there something else I asked?”
“No.” A strange sadness shone in his eyes.
She frowned, relegating her vivid dreams to wishful thinking. Obviously, as they’d recently met, he’d have no cause or interest in taking ca
re of her forever as she had imagined him saying.
“I had to land the ship and fix a broken cogwheel, but I’m going to check the wind and take us back up in the sky,” he told her. “Do you want to come and watch?”
Abigail looked at her bare feet.
“No shoes required.” He smiled.
She hated to be conventional. His never-shocked attitude appealed to her.
Jasper Blackthorn was bad for her in so many ways, and yet she couldn’t help feeling he was someone she needed in her life.
Jasper scratched his jaw and watched Abigail parade across the deck in her bare feet. She cut a fine figure in the red-and-white striped skirt and her brass corset. Even as she sashayed away from him, he spotted those small reminders of what he remembered of her as a child. The carefree disregard for propriety and the untroubled way she did as she pleased. The eagerness in her demeanor had shaped a youthful girl. He never imagined that when she reached adulthood, she’d retain those charming attributes.
“Shall I throw the piece of wood in now?” She climbed the steps to the quarterdeck.
He followed, looking at her slight ankles.
She whirled around at the top of the ladder. “Are you looking up my skirt?”
On the middle tread of the steps, he stood eye level with her feet. “I am,” he confessed, giving her a grin. “And it’s a wonderful sight, me beauty.”
She squatted down. Her skirt bunched on the floor, hiding her bare legs.
“It will take a lot more than charm to get under this.” She slid her hand slowly over the formed breast of the brass corset.
He took a breath and reached out, grabbing her leg beneath her skirt.
“Oh!” she squealed, plopping down on her bottom.
He remained on the steps and caressed her foot. “I can have you out of all you wear any time I choose.” He stroked around her ankle, up her calf and all the way to the sensitive area behind her knee.
Abigail blushed. He liked the crimson tint darkening her cheeks. It allowed him to think of the wide-eyed stare as the innocence of a virgin. Not a sound of protest passed her lips. Her eyes darkened, threatening danger or professing desire.
He grasped her other leg and tugged her forward. “Deny you want me to seduce you,” he challenged, pushing his hands higher.
The backs of her supple thighs tensed. He caressed upward, over her knickers, around her hips, then down, raking the undergarment with the intent to remove it. Her sitting position obstructed his effort. Her quietness halted him.
“Tell me to ravish you, me beauty.” He drew back and swirled small circles over her bare knee. “All it takes is one word from your sweet lips.”
“No.” Her voice trembled with an indecisive tone.
“Are you sure?” He ventured back up, between her slightly parted legs, and rubbed the crotch area of her knickers.
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
“Is that a yes to stop, or a—”
“Yes.”
“Or a yes to continue?” He pressed the thin cotton between the lips of her vulva.
“Please,” she whimpered as her head tipped back.
He stroked the fabric, and knew when she shuddered that he had hit a sensitive region. Unrelenting, he stepped up another rung on the ladder. He maneuvered his hand over the damp fabric and hooked his fingers beneath the waistband of her knickers.
“Captain, please.” Abigail’s hips lifted as he palmed her mound.
Her legs fanned out, opening her. He brushed the dampened patch of tight curls and slid his finger into the slick channel. She rocked in rhythm to his thrusts, her soft moans conveying pleasure. He wanted to pull her upright, kiss her and devour the little pants of air sputtering from between her pursed lips. However, the way she had leaned back, propped on her arms, put her at a distance from him. Not that he minded. Her position gave him a good view of watching her enraptured by his hand.
He kissed the inside of her calf, trailing her silky skin up to her knee. Her panting escalated with a staccato of whimpers, and then her breathing slowed.
She lifted her head and stared at him glassy-eyed—sated. “How dare you take advantage of me.”
Her gaze stuck to him as he pulled his fingers free and licked them.
“I don’t think anyone takes advantage of you against your wishes.” He touched her legs to bring her closer. “Now tell me how you want me to ravish you.”
She pushed upright without answering. It wasn’t good enough. He needed her to ask for what she desired. She had been right about him taking advantage.
“I know you’re of a clear mind today to tell me how you want me to explore your body,” he reminded her. “How you want me on you, in you.”
“No,” she replied sharply. A look of astonished embarrassment spread over her face.
It wasn’t the answer he was anticipating. Had he gone too far, said too much, believed too heartily in her inebriated declarations?
“It’s what you asked of me last night.” He grinned, not giving up from pursuing everything under her brass corset.
“I was drunk. I could have said a thousand things I didn’t mean.” She jerked back her leg and kicked out, apparently in an effort to stop him from petting her leg.
Her aim hit him square in the chest. He lost his footing and fell back. A hard thump echoed around his head when he landed on the deck below the ladder. The collision knocked the wind from his lungs.
“Captain?” Abigail’s panicked voice rushed to him.
He watched her scramble down the steps to him. A horrified expression on her gorgeous face showed regret. He laughed to ease her concern, and her irritation showed in the puckering of her brow.
“Serves you right.” She stood up and turned away.
He pushed himself to a sitting position and watched Abigail walk to the railing.
“You wound me with your coldness, Miss Thatch.” He shook off the tingling heat mending his bruised body. He had suffered worse.
“Captain, you should come here right away.”
“Ah, I knew you’d change your mind, me lovely.” He got to his feet and rushed to join her.
Faced away, she collided with him in her retreat from the sight on the horizon. “Are we in trouble?” She stayed against him.
He put his hands on her shoulders and looked beyond her at the ship coming their way.
“Do you see the flag?” she asked. “Isn’t that the Jolly Roger, the same one which Blackbeard flew on his ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge?”
“Yes,” he whispered, surprised she knew it, glad she recognized the danger.
“Who would fly it?”
“That cocky bastard, Eric Teach.” It angered him at how bad that boy had become. He had known him all his life, and yet his influence never fazed the incorrigible nature of Blackbeard’s prodigy. Eric Teach had inherited everything rotten about that old pirate.
“I still don’t understand. Why would he fly a pirate flag? He could get into a lot of trouble if an English ship comes along.”
“Not only English. French. Spanish. American. No country will find humor with his stupidity.”
“What could he possibly be thinking?”
“He wants to make a name for himself, make his mark on the world.” Jasper recalled the feeling of power he had as a pirate. He and others did what they wanted, went where they would and stole what wasn’t theirs. He’d left that way of life, moving in a different direction after his initiation into the brotherhood of immortals. Rules of honor, though he bent many of them, made him a better man.
“As what? A lunatic?”
“As a pirate.” Jasper knew all too well how hard Eric had tried to be a bloody cutthroat. It didn’t matter that Blackbeard’s reputation was more fictional than fact. Eric wanted the notoriety.
“How absurd. There aren’t pirates anymore.” Her quaint innocence touched him. How nice to be so unaware of the evils in the world.
“Technically, they still exist, just not i
n abundance and certainly not as colorful. In Eric’s case, he’s a man born long after the era he’d like to be a part of. And unfortunately, crazy makes dangerous.”
“What are we going to do?” She looked up at him.
A sparkle of faith shone in the depths of her brown eyes. It warmed his soul. They hadn’t yet managed to get on an even keel with each other, but the foundation of trust was there. He had to believe that.
“You can’t let him take the Crystal Compass,” she said.
“I don’t think he knows about the Compass. That’s mine. Only a handful of people are aware of its existence, and I trust them to keep it a secret.” He rubbed her shoulders. “No, he’s just after you to get the map.”
“Over my dead body.” She stormed back over to the railing and paced back and forth.
“I don’t think he’ll have any sentiments of long-lost family getting in the way of making that happen. By the way, where is the map?”
“I folded it and put it in my boot.”
“Tie it to something weighty and throw it overboard,” he said, thinking how Eric would know the area it outlined.
“I’m not going to get rid of the map.” She shot him a resolute glare.
He didn’t bother to argue with her. His best option was to keep Eric from ever getting to Abigail.
“I’m not sure I understand how he would even know about the map…Unless you told him.”
“I didn’t tell him.” He skipped getting into the debate of his acquaintance with Blackbeard. Knowing him as he did, he suspected Blackbeard might have unwittingly told Eric about many things he shouldn’t have.
Jasper looked down at the water. “We don’t have the speed to catch the wind,” he informed Abigail as he ran to the passageway.
“Can’t you make the ship go faster on the water?” she yelled to him. “I would think with all the steam and hardware on this vessel you could—”
Under Her Brass Corset Page 8
