The Captain's Rebel (Irish Heroines)

by C. B. Halverson

  “I felt…powerful.”

  Grant’s fingers trailed back and forth against my instep, sending tickling waves up my limbs, my toes flexing helplessly against the small movement.

  “You like that feeling, don’t you, Mary?” His hand slipped up my leg as he walked up the side of the bed toward me, lingering on the sensitive flesh beneath my knee. “You have to maintain perfect control aboard my ship. It must be exhausting, this charade of yours.”

  My heart pounded at the implications of his words. Did he mean the nature of my disguise? Or the horrible suggestion that I might be spying for the French?

  “It’s exhausting being a boy, but it also has its perks.”

  “Is that so?”

  I smiled up at Grant. “No corsets.”

  He placed a hand on my waist, and I sucked in my breath as he twirled his finger around my belly button. The heat from his gaze seared me, and moisture soaked me between my legs as he perched on the bed, bending his neck to place a line of kisses on my lower abdomen.

  “How do you feel now?” he breathed, lifting his knee to straddle my body. His teeth grazed the opening of my mound, finding the small nub of pleasure hidden in my folds. He nibbled on it, and I bit my lip to keep from crying out as tiny shards of physical release quivered through my body. My hips jerked reflexively up to his, but he merely stared at me through dark, hooded eyes, his breath hot against my clit.

  “I feel helpless.”

  He rubbed his cock against my opening, and I moaned, bucking my hips to meet him. “Do you feel that, Mary? Do you feel what you do to me? You are not helpless.”

  Desire welled up inside my core as he brushed against me again. Hovering over me, he brought his tongue up and down the length of my folds, lapping up my desire with a low moan. He slipped a finger inside me, and I gasped.

  “You love the power, Mary, but you want this more.”

  “You’ve made me want it,” I panted, thrashing hard against his probing fingers. “Oh, Captain, I want it.”

  “You want what, Mary?” He lowered his head to suck harder on my clit, and I felt my orgasm rise, blood pumping in my ears.

  “I want…” My eyes squeezed shut, my core contracting around his fingers.

  “What, Mary?” he demanded, slipping two more fingers inside me, his assault on my core so cruel, punishing.

  “You. Inside me. Now.” I gasped and clenched my fists, straining against the ropes.

  “Not yet.” The Captain disengaged his fingers, and I moaned in frustration, my body trembling with the stunted release.

  He crawled up my body until his mouth was mere inches from mine, locks of brown hair falling into his feral eyes. “I want you to give yourself over to me completely, Mary. I want you to do exactly what I say, be as compliant as Lady Jane was to your hand. Compliant to my voice, my hands, my cock.” He thrust his fingers into my hair and pulled me up from the pillows for a painful, aching kiss. “Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir,” I whispered.

  And I did want it. Wanted to submit to him, open myself completely to him.

  He grabbed my nipple and pinched hard. The pain flooded through my breast at the same time it sent a shot of pleasure down to my clit. He brought his mouth down to one and sucked hard, and then, letting go, slapped it with a sharp movement. I gasped, trying to escape my restraints, shield myself, but the Captain slapped again, harder this time.

  “I do not think you do,” he said in a hoarse voice. “Or you would take the punishments I give you.”

  “But why?” I whimpered, tears stinging the edge of my eyelids.

  “Because you need it. You want it. I can feel you soaking through my sheets, you are so wet for me. Your body cries out to me to take control of you, discipline you.” He slapped my nipple again, and I let out a loud yelp at the same time I pulled at my bindings. He clamped his hand around my neck and gave a firm squeeze. “Cry out again. Move again. And you will pay for it.”

  He slapped hard on my nipples again, but this time I bit my lip to keep from screaming, stilling myself to the intense pain that somehow brought me to the peak of ecstasy. I choked back a sob, aching for release, my thighs wet, my clit full and swollen.

  Grant brushed his hand against my breast, gentle this time, and I melted against his touch. He inched his knees up closer until his cock hovered over my mouth. A drop of pre-come wept from the tip, and reflexively I extended my tongue out to taste.

  “Are you hungry, my darling?” He brushed my short sweaty curls away from my forehead.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good, because I want to see you swallow this cock.”

  Without any hesitation, he rammed his shaft into my mouth, and I had to repress the desire to heave as it scraped the back of my throat.

  “You need to relax for me, Mary. Open up.”

  I concentrated on the muscles in my throat, willing them to part for him. By some miracle they did, and he inched farther into my mouth.

  “Oh, that’s good,” he moaned. “Open for me, Mary. Take all of me in.”

  It seemed impossible. The Captain was too massive, too long, but his thumb pressed softly against my neck, and I found the will to contract my throat muscles, letting him in more.

  He groaned. “Oh God, your mouth is so beautiful.” The sound of his pleasure made the blood sing in my veins. A small amount of come drizzled down my throat, and I moaned.

  “I am going to fuck your mouth, Mary. I am going to give it all to you because you need it. You want it.”

  I stared up at him, his cock deep in my mouth, and while I should have felt shame, horror, fear, I felt nothing but complete trust.

  I needed it. Wanted it.

  He tilted his hips back, and I rubbed my tongue around his shaft, tracing the deep vein running the length of him. He moaned, letting me taste him, and then without warning, he slammed his cock deep down my throat. I dug my fingernails deep in my palm, trying to fight off the invasion, but he pressed his hands against my arms, pinning me to the bed as his balls brushed against my lips, the rough curls of his hair tickling my nostrils. My eyes watered, my throat contracting with the force of him invading my mouth, but I took a deep breath and let him in, all of him.

  He smelled earthy and delicious, and he moved out and shoved back into me again with a dark, masculine grunt of desire. As soon as he felt my muscles loosen, he pumped harder, the rhythm of his desire taking him over. My tongue ran up and down his length, wild, trying to take in all of him. His cock pulsed and a small shot of come splashed against my throat, salty and bitter. With a low moan, he slipped out of me, his cock swollen, the delicate skin stretched to its limit.

  “Not yet,” he growled, jumping off the bed and reaching for the drawer containing his flogger. He cracked it in the air, and I shivered in fear and anticipation.

  “You still hesitated as I fed you my cock, Mary.”

  I gasped, straining against my bonds. “I was surprised. I—”

  He bent over the bed and cracked it again just above my cunt. A white-hot surge of pain radiated through me even as my clit ached with heaviness. He grabbed my hair and pulled me in for a hard kiss. Breaking it off, he hissed into my ear. “You need to give yourself to me fully, Mary. I hope this helps you remember.”

  The flogger snapped back again, grazing my delicate folds. I winced, tears streaming down my cheeks. “Jesus, Mary, and all the Saints!” I gasped. He flicked it across my clit expertly, and I moaned as the sting bled into endless pleasure, my bound legs twisting and scissoring. He gave one last slap across my exposed quim, and then he threw the flogger to the ground and pounced on me like an animal. He buried his face between my legs, licking my welts, kissing them hungrily and sending his fingers back inside me, my climax rising.

  “You come when I tell you to come,” he breathed, mounting me, each muscle on his abdomen quivering as he sought control over his own desires. His cock bulged red and angry, heavy with need, and I longed to touch him, fee
l the hard length of him in my palm. He clamped his hand on my neck again, tighter this time. “I am going to fuck you now, Mary.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, my hips rising off the bed, searching for his beautiful tip. He rubbed his length down across my folds, my body splintering against him, all sense crashing down into some endless dark well. “Fuck me, please, sir.”

  With one long groan, he thrust inside me. No care, no finesse, no tenderness. He pounded me, impaling me, breaking me. My desire crested, but I held back, suspended in the air, as his arms wrapped around the small of my back, bringing me closer to him until his cock jabbed deep inside. The pressure sweet and horrible at the same time. Primal and painful, I wanted all of him, and somewhere in the back of my mind I heard myself cry out his name.

  “Come for me, Mary. Come all over my cock.”

  “Yes…yes!”

  My body imploded and snapped back to earth as Grant’s rhythm went wild, hungry, and merciless. With one final moan, he spilled his seed into me. The deep contraction of his shaft had me thrashing again, thrusting my hips up to capture every drop of him, every last bit. He collapsed over my body, and I breathed in his scent. Cedar, shoe polish, the sea, and beneath that something I could not define, something dark and masculine and mine.

  Mine.

  “Mine,” he whispered in my ear, as if reading my thoughts. “You are mine, Mary.”

  I could have curled up inside him, all memories of my past life melting away until I was reborn again. Our bodies melded together, skin against skin, the pounding rhythm of his heartbeat mirroring my own. I loved him. Of course I did. Maybe I had loved him the first night aboard the Elizabeth, but in that moment, I knew it as sure as anything. And yet, I had no idea what to do with that love, and like a secret treasure I had no choice but to bury it far away and deep within myself.

  Maybe I dozed or maybe Grant had really ravished me silly, but before I knew it, my binds had loosened from my wrists and ankles, and he had collected me against his chest, his hands soothing my curls away from my face. I glanced up at him, and he stared at me from beneath heavy, hooded eyes. As always, he was unreadable, an implacable wall of steel, the Admiral’s news of spies not even reading in his gaze as he pressed a kiss against my lips.

  “I can see why Lady Jane enjoyed that so much,” I whispered. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that kind of pleasure before.”

  “Not with Johnny?”

  I rolled back against the bed with a sigh, pulling the sheet over my nakedness. “That all seems so far away now, like someone else’s memories.”

  “You have changed, Mary,” he said.

  I looked back at the Captain—my Captain. He had the beauty of a cruel angel warrior, the hard lines of his face cut in dark shadows. Tears stung my eyes, and I blinked them back. What turn of events had brought us both to this place, and how would things have been different otherwise? I left Dunraven seeking my fiancé, but I found this fiery, raging sort of love instead, a love that almost replaced my desire for the luscious green fields, the wild hills of Dunraven.

  Yet, none of that mattered when I lay so close to this man. All I could think of was the smooth texture of his arms caging me against him, his muscles flexing as he thrust into me. The sound of his moans as he tucked into my body haunted me constantly, and I longed to feel the sharp bristles of his unshaven cheek as he buried his face into my neck. Grant surrounded me, his hard masculine power spellbinding, and with one word he could make me submit to him. Me. Mary O’Malley, who submitted to no man, no government, no King. But for my Captain, I would have given anything. He was my compass, my North Star, my lighthouse, the voice calling me home. Not to Ireland, but to his body. Again and again.

  “I have changed, sir,” I whispered.

  “Are you crying?’

  “No.”

  He kissed me again and pulled me tight to his chest, the small curly hairs tickling my nose as I nestled in close to him. The ship rocked us like a cradle, but sleep eluded us both as endless streams of conversation played out in our heads, the multitude of words we could not say. So much was at stake. Our inevitable distance, the set of circumstances that would ultimately tear us apart.

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, Mary,” Grant whispered.

  “Tell me a story.”

  “A story? About what?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath, running my hand across the scoop of his neck to his broad, chiseled shoulders. “Tell me the story of how a lowly little cabin boy became a Captain in the Royal Navy.”

  “You do not want to hear that story.”

  I slid up on my elbows. “Of course I do. Go on. I imagine you didn’t get here on your good looks alone.”

  He arched a stern eyebrow at me. “What are you implying, Mary?”

  “I’m implying that while you may not have been Captain Bloomfield’s bumboy, you don’t rise in the ranks without giving special favors. Not for you. Nor for me, neither.”

  Grant sat up. “One, I was certainly not Bloomfield’s bumboy as you call it. And two, I did rise in the ranks by giving special favors, but not the kind your dirty little mind can dream up.”

  “Ah, not so fast there, Captain.” I cupped his cheek, a smile splayed across my lips. “You’re the one who’s instructed me in all the dirty secrets of the Royal Navy.”

  “So I have, but it was for your own good.”

  I let out a gasp of protest.

  “Don’t tell me you did not like it.”

  Heat rose up my neck, and I hid my face in my hands with a giggle as he tackled me back to the bed, kissing me between my breasts.

  “Don’t get distracted now! I want to hear your story!” I swatted him playfully with my palm. With my other hand, I reached over to his nightstand and grabbed his hat, popping it square on my head. Far too big for me, I tipped it back to find Grant’s eyes narrowed on me. “What? Maybe I would like to be a Captain someday.”

  “You would make a formidable Captain, Mary.”

  “A cabin boy can dream…”

  “Yes, and for a long time that is all I could do.” Grant snatched his hat and placed it back on his nightstand, grabbing me roughly and pulling me back into his arms. We lay in the darkness together, the candle long burned out. His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm, and I thought for a moment he had fallen asleep, but then he spoke. Softly. His deep, baritone voice reverberated through his chest and against my ear, and I curled my hands against his neck, snuggling up tighter against him.

  “The year was 1794, and I sailed on the Achilles under Captain Bloomfield. I had risen in the ranks by then, but a commission seemed impossible, out of reach for someone like me. But I loved the sea, and I worked hard, learning everything I could under him. In those days, we patrolled the Caribbean for pirates—the waters were thick with them—and it seemed once we destroyed one nest, another popped up somewhere else. But it was Bloomfield who had the courage to chase after the main source, the leader of the pirates, Red Fox.”

  I grinned. “Oh, pirates! I like this story already!”

  Grant tucked his hand tightly behind my backside in warning not to interrupt.

  “We had finally caught up to him just east of Nassau, but the wind was not on our side, and he outran us quickly. That did not deter Captain Bloomfield, and we sailed after him. A storm picked up, but the Captain was relentless. Finally, we caught up with Red Fox, and the storm had turned into a downright hurricane.”

  Grant absently stroked my waist, his voice low, almost a whisper as his mind traveled back to that moment.

  “We exchanged fire, Red Fox’s cannon taking out one of our masts. The Captain fell from a musket shot, so I took the ship’s wheel. Red Fox was fast, but we leaned into the wind, nearly taking down half the ship with it. But we managed to cross them and fire at their bow, taking the ship out.”

  “Crossing the T,” I said absently.

  Grant sat up. “Where did you hear that term?”

  “Something the
gun captain screamed during the battle.”

  He nodded.

  I took his hand. “And the ship tilted so sharply. Like this.” I jack-knifed my wrist against his palm.

  “Right. We passed across her bow, the full might of our cannon tearing her apart.” He leaned back on the pillow, his eyes faraway. “They said I was mad to take the maneuver, but it worked.”

  “It is mad.”

  He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Perhaps we are both ones for insane measures.”

  I curled up tighter against his chest.

  Grant sighed, continuing his story. “The Captain was blinded by the explosion, and could no longer sail. I was promoted and am now the officer you see before you today.”

  “What happened to Red Fox?”

  “He was hanged just like all criminals are, his body left to rot on the fortress of Nassau. That is what they do to criminals in this part of the world. Criminals…and spies.” His hand gripped my waist and pulled me under him.

  “Tell me what happened with Andrews.” Grant’s eyes glittered bright, desperate.

  “I told you everything,” I said in a small voice.

  “Not everything. I know there is more, Mary.” He tangled his hand in my hair and pulled my head back. “Tell me. Now. Once you asked me about my maps. Was that him?”

  I swallowed hard, tears stinging my eyes. “Aye.”

  Grant’s mouth dropped in disbelief before he blinked and it became a mask of stone again. “Did he see them? Did you copy them for him?”

  My face crumpled, my control lost as the words tumbled out. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

  “You are not an idiot, Mary. You knew exactly what you were doing.” His blue eyes bore through me, his body still, even his heart against my chest stopped thundering.

  “Please,” I whispered. “I was so afraid.”

  He didn’t move. Not even an eyelash.