by Anthology
“A memory I shall always cherish.” Her tone was tart, but her gaze softened as she made a study of his form.
His manhood had stood at half-mast when he first turned, but beneath her eager gaze, he grew fully erect. Bree felt an answering tug within her body. She tapped his thighs, and they parted, allowing her to kneel between them.
Slowly, she traced the trail of hair from his chest downward, stopping just short of touching him. Bree’s nails scratched a path from knees to hips. Each time she approached his manhood, she saw William’s eyes become a storm that built with each denied opportunity.
Enjoying the rush of power, Bree moved to her hands and knees. Pressing her hands to the mattress, she leaned forward to take his cock between her breasts. She rocked her body back and forth.
His hands banded about her wrists. “Don’t stop.”
She immediately stopped and smirked, saying nothing.
“You’d try the patience of a saint.” His head fell back, and his hands released her.
Bree shifted her body lower. She cupped the heavy sack between his thighs and let the anticipation grow.
“Brianna.”
The needy way he said her name made her breasts ache for his touch. She took him in her hand. Bree had never felt anything that was both so hard and so soft all at once. Her hand slid up and down. Moving closer, she licked the head of his penis as her hand attended to the shaft.
“Suck me, minx.” A pleading tone sounded beneath the growl. His hands were fisted in the bed sheets to keep from grabbing her again.
Her tongue circled the head several times before she took him into her mouth. Brianna let herself feel the motion of the ship and let her movements be guided by the gentle bobbing. As William’s groans increased, an ache pulsed in her quim. She suckled him with increasing enthusiasm.
“I’m close, lass. Decide if you’re going to finish there or climb aboard.”
Smiling, Brianna lifted her head. “Prepare to be boarded.”
He chuckled. “Come here, darling.”
Bree climbed astride his body and poised herself above his cock. “Surrender?”
“No.” He gave her a cocky smile. “Now what?”
“To the lowest hells with you,” she spat and impaled herself upon him.
His thumb found her clit and stroked her. Her hips rocked back and forth, greedy for more. She took her breasts into her hands and teased her nipples as he had. He groaned beneath her, urging her on.
“I can’t take much more, Bree. Come for me, love!”
Brianna welcomed the hurricane they’d created. Lightning flew through her body. Her blood was the thunder booming in her ears. Wave after wave of pleasure broke over her. And the word love capsized her heart.
Afterward, he held her the way a drowning man would cling to driftwood—as if she spelled his salvation. Brianna allowed herself the fantasy of being William’s lass as she drifted off to sleep, having completely forgotten why she was there.
I’d be happy if I were his.
Bree awoke to an obscenely bright morning. She frowned at finding herself alone and sat up. One of her dresses from the Maya lay draped over the desk. The message was clear—get dressed. A cold shiver passed through her body. She did so and opened the door of the cabin.
Marcus was waiting. “I’m to take ye back to the Maya.”
Her gaze flicked past her friend. “But what about—”
“Lass, he says we can have our lives, our ship, and our cargo,” he said gruffly with a shrug. “What more do you want?”
The question was like a slap across the face. The girlish dreams that had formed in the hours after sex evaporated.
As she followed Marcus down the ladder to the longboat, she could feel her temper rising. They rowed away, and she spotted William at the helm of the Ghost, arms crossed over his chest. She couldn’t discern his expression, but she imagined one of smug satisfaction at her eager surrender.
Damned pirate.
“You bastard! You think you can send me away like this? Coward!” Curses rained from her lip as Marcus implored her to hush. As the distance between the rowboat and the Ghost grew, she continued to berate the pirates whose rowing conveyed them back to the Maya. “And you tell him I said so!” she spat as she climbed aboard her vessel.
Her last days at sea were spent stewing and plotting in her cabin.
Papa met her and Marcus at the docks. He would escort her to Monsieur Martine’s plantation, where the marriage papers would be signed with Marcus as a witness. Papa seemed pleased by Bree’s docile appearance. Marcus kept a narrowed gaze on her movements.
Rough waters raged beneath her calm surface. They could force her to come here. They could even order her to marry Martine. But they couldn’t make him want to marry her. Sharing the lurid story of her night as a pirate’s whore should end this marriage before it began. She’d be back on the Maya by nightfall, and she would convince her father to drop this fantasy of her spending her days as a lady.
Brianna wasn’t sure who she hated more—William for discarding her so easily, or herself for her body’s response to the memory of her pirate. Those full sensual lips. His broad shoulders. His eyes. As they waited in the landlubber’s parlor, she let memories of that night wash over her.
“Monsieur Martine.”
Bree froze as he entered the room. She stood as still as a statue when Martine took her hand and raised it for a kiss. Then fury overtook shock, and she slapped him as hard as she could.
“Brianna!” Papa gasped.
Marcus grabbed Papa’s arm and began whispering urgently to his oldest friend in a low voice.
William laughed. “I had a feeling that would be your reaction. Do you want an explanation?”
Biting back a screech, she picked up a vase from a nearby table and hurled it at the wall.
“Was that a yes or a no?”
“Tell me,” she growled. She took inventory of every other breakable within reach should the impulse strike again.
William spun the tale of a sailor who ran away and became a pirate. Who saved every last share of booty until he could afford his own ship, and later this island with its defunct sugar plantation.
“The problem with producing rum is that everyone wants to take it. Steal your product, pillage your land, and attack your people. Damned pirates.” At this, he winked at Brianna, who glared in response. “What better way to scare off pirates but to invent a scarier pirate?”
The island was full of other former pirates who wanted to retire and raise families. They worked the plantation, made the rum, and patrolled the waters. William encouraged his men to travel to other islands and spin tales of the Ghost and the vicious pirates aboard her. He backed it up by capturing or killing pirates and slavers, granting a safe home to those who wanted one.
“The problem with being a rum producer is that I have to be social. Other plantation owners, merchants, and so forth. I need a wife. Someone who could put on the proper manners when necessary, you see? But all I met were these soft girls with no spine. Nothing at all like you.”
She gave him a blistering glare. He’d played her for a fool. “I aim to geld you.”
“Of course, you will. Uncle Marcus told me he thought we’d suit. I saw him in a tavern on Barbados about six months ago and told him of my troubles. He knew your pa wanted to marry you off, but that you’d suit a gentleman about as well as a lady suits me.”
“Uncle Marcus?” Bree and her father spoke as one.
“I’m the family embarrassment, what with my piracy and all,” William said it with no small amount of pride.
“For ye to steal her away and ruin her virtue wasn’t part of the plan,” Marcus spat. “That was dishonorable.”
William shrugged. “Ma would tell you pirates have no honor. Besides, a spitfire like you described required a special sort of courting. Brianna’s virtue is her own business.” He turned to Bree and took her hands in his own. “You once asked me what you should call me.
” His gaze locked with hers. “Why not husband?”
Somewhat pacified by William’s declaration of her right to bodily autonomy, Brianna gave him a wicked grin. “That depends. Will you give me a wedding present?”
His gaze narrowed in suspicion. “Name your plunder, minx.”
She bit his lower lip before kissing him in earnest. “The Ghost. I’ll call you husband. You’ll call me Captain.”
The Heat
Mia Hopkins
A winter storm hammered the coast for three days straight. Sheets of rain bore down on the lone house on the hill. Waterfalls raced down the sharp slant of the saltbox roof. By Friday evening, Helen had grown so numb to the sound of the rain that she almost didn’t hear the knock at the door.
She put down the speech she was writing for her next suffragette meeting. When she looked out the window, she saw a tall stranger.
Wrapping her wool shawl around her shoulders, she opened the door a crack. Chilled air and the tattoo of raindrops rushed into the room. “Can I help you?”
The stranger took off his hat, dumping water on her threshold. “Missus.” His voice was deep. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m looking for a place to stay for the night.”
She looked up at him. His overcoat was soaked and his shoes—fancy city shoes—were caked with mud. In the shadows, all she could see of his face was his heavy jaw, shaded in reddish-blond stubble.
“This isn’t a boarding house. Half Moon Bay is six miles up the road. Mabel in town probably has something better suited for a gentleman.” She began to close the door.
The stranger lifted his hand and held it open. “Missus.” His voice was weary at the edges. “I was on my way home to San Francisco. This rain has done a number on the roads. My car got stuck in the mud. I’ve been trying to get free for the past two hours. I’m played out. Please. I’d be happy to pay. Name your price.”
Helen frowned. “Where did you get stuck?”
“Bend in the road, just at the foot of your driveway.”
“That’s been a problem for years. I’ve asked the mayor—multiple times—to send a road crew down to fix that berm. But nothing has happened.” She studied the stranger up and down, slowly taking him in. “What’s your name?”
“James O’Connor.”
“Keep your money. I expect you need some dry clothes and a hot meal in you, Mr. O’Connor?”
“I do.”
His slow, handsome smile made Helen blink.
“I’m much obliged, Missus…?”
“Baker.” She opened the door. “Come in out of the cold.”
As the stranger went upstairs to change, Helen flipped a ham steak in the cast iron skillet, and it sizzled in the hot fat. She opened a jar of pickled beans and poured a glass of milk. By the time the stranger came into the kitchen, a hot meal waited on the table.
“Did the clothes fit?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you, missus.”
“Have your supper before it gets cold.”
As he ate, Helen worked on her speech and watched him out of the corner of her eye. The stranger was as handsome as a film star. Besides his sharp jaw, he had a high forehead, a fine straight nose, and heavy-lidded eyes of icy blue. His short reddish-blond hair was disheveled. Peter’s shirt and trousers hung on his rangy frame, but instead of looking gangly, O’Connor looked lithe and strong.
O’Connor must have been observing her as closely as she was observing him. When he spoke up, she startled at her work. She left a messy blob of ink on the paper.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” he said, looking at her face, “how did your husband pass away?”
“How did you know he passed away?”
“If he were here, I’d be dealing with him. If he were away, you wouldn’t have let me in.”
“Clever.” She put down her pen. “My husband was in the war. France. He survived. He came home to me. Then influenza took him down three months later.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Two years come November. He was twenty-five.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She felt only a dull echo of anger where her heart used to be. Rain hammered pitilessly at the roof.
“Survived the Kaiser. Taken down by la grippe. Hardly seems fair.”
“Tell it to God.” She looked into his pale blue eyes. “I was honest with you. Now be honest with me. Why are you here?”
O’Connor leaned his elbows on the table and stared with sharp, shrewd eyes. He lowered his voice. “After I came back from the war, I bought a bar. Galway Saloon in the Mission District. Officially, it’s a soda fountain. The bar’s in the back.”
“A speakeasy?”
“Some call it that. There’s a fellow who runs a couple of ships up and down the coast. Whisky from Vancouver. He sends my shipment by rowboat to a cove north of the bay. Every month I pick it up here and drive it back to the city.”
“Aren’t you afraid of getting caught?”
“This isn’t like New York or Chicago. There’s no consolidation, no mobsters. West Coast bootleggers are small beans. We pick up what we need for our own purposes. Usually, the feds leave us alone.”
“But something went wrong this time.”
“Rain. Too much damn rain. My car got stuck like a tar baby. Twenty-six cases of whisky in the hold.” He shook his head. “And now the heat is on. Prohibition agents seized a guy’s truck and shipment in Sonoma last week. They’re looking for rumrunners. I can’t afford to get caught.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The only thing I can do. Leave the car. For now. I covered it up with branches as best I could. When the storm lifts, I’ll get it unstuck and be on my way with no one the wiser.”
“Except for the Widow Baker.” She cocked an eyebrow and leaned forward. “Do you carry a gun?”
His eyes flashed in the light as he stared at her. He reached into the loose waistband of his pants and pulled out a Colt revolver in a leather holster. He placed it on the table with a metallic thud. “We all do. For hijackers.”
She looked at the weapon on her table. “Have you shot a man?” she asked, shocked at the unseemly fascination in her voice.
“Lots of ’em.” He picked up his glass and took a long drink of milk. “Only I was wearing a uniform and doing it for Uncle Sam.” When he finished his meal, O’Connor cleared and washed his own dishes. He wiped his hands and turned to her. “I saw a Victrola in your parlor. Could I start it up? Some music might drown out the sound of this rain.”
“I usually stay in the kitchen when it’s cold. There’s no heat in the other rooms.”
“I could start a fire for you.”
Helen shook her head. “The chimney’s stopped up. There’s a furnace in the basement, but it’s broken.”
“Broken, huh?”
To her surprise, O’Connor rolled up his sleeves and left the kitchen. A moment later, he hauled the heavy phonograph into the kitchen. The sinews of his forearms bulged. Helen stared for a moment before she dropped her gaze, angry at herself for her girlish, visceral reaction to his body.
He wound up the contraption and for the first time in nearly two years, music filled the house. “Let’s dance.” O’Connor took her hand and pulled her away from her work.
She shook her head. “I can’t dance.”
“A pretty young thing like you? I refuse to believe that.”
On a dance floor of black-and-white tile, O’Connor led her in a foxtrot, a two-step, and a waltz. Even in his stocking feet, he was a strong lead, comfortable in his skin, and when she didn’t know the steps, he made her feel like she did.
“Your cheeks are red,” he said softly.
She rubbed at her face self-consciously. “That always happens. It’s so ugly.”
“No, it ain’t.” He pulled back and looked at her. “And red hair, too. Irish?”
She nodded. “My mother made the crossing.”
“I knew it.” He smiled to himself. “I came over when
I was ten.”
Burning under the heat of his gaze, she let go of him and changed the record. An upbeat tune filled the kitchen. O’Connor taught her the Baltimore, a shuffle he said was all the rage in San Francisco. When she stumbled forward into his arms, he embraced her, laughing, and a thrill passed through her. The clothes O’Connor wore still held the ghost of her husband’s scent, but underneath the rough cotton was a different man, hard and hot and alive.
The record stopped, and the needle brushed the label with an insistent, rhythmic tap. She froze and looked up into O’Connor’s eyes. His smile faded.
“Missus,” he murmured softly.
“My name is Helen.”
“Suits you. Helen of Troy.”
She snorted. “Hardly.”
“Helen of Half Moon Bay.”
She liked the silly sound of it, the way the letters took shape in her mouth as she whispered the phrase to herself. She was just to the B sound when O’Connor pressed his lips against hers, stunning her.
Her first instinct was to give him a hard shove. So she did.
He hit the backs of his thighs on the edge of the kitchen table.
“What’s the big idea?” she snapped. She checked the buttons of her blouse and fussed with her hair. Her hands had begun to shake. She tasted the salt of him on her tongue. “I’m not that kind of woman.”
“You don’t have to be any kind of anything to enjoy kissing.” O’Connor was smiling and breathing hard. He took a step toward her again.
She took a step back, flustered. “Th-They came here asking permission to court me, you know. Six months after Peter died. Young, old, ugly, handsome. I turned them all away.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“I didn’t want another husband.”
“I’m not asking to be your husband.” He took a second step toward her.
She froze. “Then what are you asking me, Mr. O’Connor?”
“A gorgeous woman like you? Don’t be daft. What do you think I’m asking?” With a wolfish smile, he closed the gap between them and took her in his arms.
She could feel the tautness of his body as he crushed her against his chest. Not a single soul had touched her in two years. Her deadened nervous system lit up like a chandelier.
