by Connie Mason
Several sailors were working near the opening of the companionway. Plying their long, curved needles and sinewy thread, they pretended to be intent on mending a ripped sail, but Peregrine knew their ears were cocked to this exchange.
If he couldn’t control a single woman, how could he lead these men?
“This discussion is over, Mr. Higgs.”
“No, it is not.”
Dammit, did she think she was the only one who cared about the captain? The success rate for trepanation, according to the doctor he’d observed, was directly proportional to the length of time between the injury and treatment. He might have already waited too long hoping the captain would come around on his own.
“If you do not open this door immediately, Miss Upshall, I’ll call the ship’s carpenter and have it taken down with a crowbar.”
“But I told you, I’m not decent.”
“Then I suggest you hurry with your toilet, miss.” Peregrine turned and bellowed up the companionway in a voice that rivaled Captain Scott’s at his belligerent best. “Mr. Rowley! Report to the captain’s cabin! Make that double time and bring your sledgehammer!”
“Belay that order, Mr. Higgs!” a male voice rasped from the cabin.
“Captain?” Higgs pressed his ear to the door.
“Well, it’s not the bloody king of France,” came the muffled response. “Open the door, woman, and let the lad in before he tears my ship apart.”
There was a scrape of wood on the other side of the door and it opened slowly. Miss Upshall was knotting the laces at her waist in a hurried bow, but took time to wave him in.
Captain Scott was propped up on his elbows. He still looked like death on a leeward shore. The whites of one eye were bloodred, but his eyes were both focused on Peregrine’s face. He could see. His speech was clear. He’d mend.
“Mr. Higgs, don’t you think the Susan Bell’s seen enough rough treatment without you staving in her hatches?”
“Aye, sir,” he said with a grin.
“Then report, Mr. Higgs,” the captain demanded.
Peregrine snapped to attention. “The bilge is holding no more than three feet of water. Pumping crews assure me that level falls by the hour. The men are repairing sail as we speak. Mr. Rowley says we’ll have to wait till we raise the Turks before he can replace the foremast,” he said, eyes straight ahead. “But the main mast is sound and bearing full canvas. I make our position two hundred miles south by southwest of Bermuda and our speed a solid five knots.”
“And the crew?”
“All present and accounted for.”
The captain let himself sink back on his pillow and closed his eyes. Miss Upshall pressed a wet cloth to his forehead.
“Actually, the number of souls aboard is more than we figured,” Higgs said. May as well tell the captain now. He’s bound to find out eventually. “We have a stowaway. Reggie Turnscrew.”
The captain chuckled. “I’ll wager he’s thought better of that already. That was a wicked blow.”
Peregrine smiled. “The boy’s still pretty green about the gills. I didn’t think anyone that small could cast up that much.”
“We’ll let the storm be his punishment, Mr. Higgs. Lord knows, it was mine.” The captain draped an arm over his eyes. “Has he found his sea legs, then?”
“Aye, he’s been making himself useful, between trips to the rail.”
“Good,” the captain said. “Put him in the galley to help Cook and tell him to be careful not to slice off something important. Is there anything else?”
There was, but Higgs figured it would keep till the captain was recovered. “No, sir.”
“Carry on, Mr. Higgs.”
As Higgs closed the cabin door behind him, he caught a glimpse of his captain and Miss Upshall just looking at each other. He felt his ears heat. It was a look of such soul nakedness, Higgs was as embarrassed as if he’d caught them doing the deed.
Chapter Nineteen
All through the long night of the storm, Nick had sensed Eve’s presence there at the wheel with him. When he braced for each wave that crashed over him, she’d been by his side. When he strained to steer the ship’s prow into the waves so that she wouldn’t go belly up on the next swell, her face shimmered before his eyes and gave him strength to keep fighting.
Now she was here before him in truth. Gazing back at him with her heart in her red-rimmed eyes.
He should look away. He’d nearly killed her with his willfulness. He’d nearly doomed them all with his stubborn recklessness. He didn’t deserve to have her now.
But by God, he’d take her.
“Eve—”
“Hush now,” she said, dipping the cloth into the basin and returning it to his forehead, suddenly all business. “You need to rest.”
“Christ, my head’s pounding like a smith’s hammer.”
“That’s to be expected,” she said. “You took a nasty blow.”
On the edges of his mind, he vaguely remembered the foremast snapping like a twig. The whole timber went flying past him like a giant’s javelin, its rigging whistling along behind it. He’d turned and ducked, but one of the heavy pulleys whiplashed back and smacked him a glancing blow.
He put a hand to the base of his skull and fingered the tender lump. Not so glancing, after all. He’d seen stars wheeling, but somehow, he’d managed to stay upright and continue to fight the wind and waves. Then as dawn broke and the storm blew itself out, he felt himself sinking. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision till it tunneled completely. No amount of treading would keep his head above that black water.
“Good thing you woke when you did,” Eve said, her voice hoarse. “Mr. Higgs was coming to perform a trepanation on you.”
“Was he, now?” Nicholas started to laugh, but it made him light-headed. “I didn’t know our Higgs fancies himself a surgeon.”
“He was desperate,” Eve said. “He thought it was the right thing to do.”
“But you wouldn’t let him?”
She arched a brow at him and a little of the old vinegar crept into her tone. “I think, sir, that you have need of every bit of the pudding in your brainpan.”
“Ah, woman. Your tender concern touches my heart.” He tapped his breastbone, but even that slight movement came at a price. Blood thundered in his head.
“Higgs was afraid for you,” she said, her eyes welling. “I was afraid for you.” Her chin quivered. Then her face crumpled. Finally, she threw herself across his chest and buried her face in the crook of his neck. “You wicked, wicked man! How could you do something so monumentally stupid?”
She swatted his shoulder right on the deep bruise. He had to bite his tongue to keep from groaning aloud. Even though she seemed spitting mad at him, at least she was in his arms. He didn’t want to do anything to make her think better of it.
“Higgs tried to tell you the storm was too close, but would you listen?”
He decided the question was rhetorical and gathered her closer, stroking her back in what he hoped were soothing circles. Never mind the throbbing in his head.
“And then strapping yourself to the wheel! Of all the idiotic—”
“Someone had to—”
“Well, of course, someone had to because you just had to have your own way.” She raised her head and palmed his cheeks. “Oh, Nicholas, I was sick with worry for you.”
“You were?” If he’d known doing something incredibly stupid would work this well, he’d have done it much sooner. He just would have picked something that didn’t endanger his ship and crew.
And her.
“I was very worried,” she said softly and leaned down to kiss him. Her butter-smooth lips were a balm on his sea-blistered ones. A lock of her hair tickled against his cheek.
He wanted to kiss her back. He wanted to fist her hair and hold her mouth there for him to plunder as long as he wished, but when he ordered his hand, it rebelled. Lifting his arm was suddenly too much effort. It fell back to his side.<
br />
He was too weak to ravish a woman who was his for the taking.
God, it seemed, had a perverse sense of humor.
Eve didn’t seem to mind his lethargy. She continued to kiss him till he grew dizzy. Then she pulled back and searched his face, peering down at him with a frown.
“You look terrible.”
“There must be honey under your tongue. You say the sweetest things.” He cocked a brow at her and winced. Every twitch was agony. Even his hair hurt.
“You can’t let your crew see you like this,” she announced. “The first thing we need to do is to give you a good shave.”
He managed a small, painful grin. “Am I to trust you with a blade?”
“You don’t have any choice in the matter, sir.”
He wanted to touch her and this time, his hand responded as he willed it to. He managed to grasp her forearm. “Eve, stay a moment. Last night, I think I woke once or twice.”
A curtain drew down behind her eyes.
“It seemed to me,” he said slowly, “that someone was sharing my bunk.”
Those blessed moments when he surfaced and felt a soft breast pressed against his chest, a slim leg carelessly hooked over his, were like a bit of heaven till the blinding pain in his head dragged him back down.
“Did you sleep beside me?” he asked.
She drew her lips into a tight line and then nodded.
“I thought so. I’m still so very tired,” he said. “But I wonder if you’d do it again, while I’m awake enough to enjoy it this time.”
She fidgeted with the skirt of her gown, balling it in her hands. She’d crumple it even more than it already was if she kept that up.
“You really need to eat something instead,” she said.
“Later. My head won’t let me touch a bite just now. Please, Eve,” he said softly. “I know you must be done in, too. Only for a little while.”
She hesitated a few heartbeats and then started to join him.
“Last night, you weren’t wearing your gown. Were you?”
“For a man who was dead to the world, you were awfully observant.”
He shrugged and then wished he hadn’t. His shoulders hurt like hell.
“This is a narrow bunk,” he said. “I’m only thinking there’ll be more room for the two of us to sleep without all that extra fabric.”
She eyed him skeptically. “That’s all you’re thinking?”
“No,” he admitted with a wolfish grin, “but until this headache goes away and the cabin stops spinning, thinking is all I can manage.”
“If it will help you sleep, I suppose there’s no harm,” she said primly as she picked up the chair and braced it against the door. “In case Mr. Higgs comes back unexpectedly, ” she explained as she began to loosen her laces.
Nick watched her with complete absorption as she removed her boned gown. Light from the stern windows was diffused through her thin chemise. He was treated to the shadows of her legs all the way up to the promised land between them. Her breasts were swinging free as she bent to scoop up the gown, fold it neatly and deposit it on the chair.
As she walked back toward him, his body roused to her. But since the slightest movement resulted in pain roughly equal to plunging an ice pick in his ear, he knew he’d just have to suffer.
But what delicious suffering! When she climbed under the sheet and molded her sweet body alongside his, his cock thrummed with excitement. He felt the hard buttons of her nipples through the cotton chemise and his body throbbed at the evidence of her arousal. If she were already his mistress, he’d take her hand and guide it to his shaft.
The mere thought of her touch made his balls tighten.
“We’ll just settle this arm like so,” she said, arranging him to suit her. His left arm was around her and she placed his hand at the dip of her waist. On the outside of the sheet, more’s the pity.
She nestled her head on his shoulder. “Comfy?”
Like a man on a rack.
“Fine,” he managed. He inhaled deeply. Her hair still smelled faintly of jasmine and the rest of her smelled of brisk sea air and warm woman.
Her breathing was deep and even as she relaxed into him. She must be worn slick after the storm and nursing him, he reasoned. He let his hand drift down to her hip, but the movement cost him. His cock, however, cheered the move with an aching twitch.
“What are you doing?” she asked, suddenly tense.
“Just trying to get comfortable,” he said, drawing a deep breath. Her body melted back into his and he knew almost to the moment when she relented and let herself drift into an exhausted slumber. Her breath blew in small puffs against his chest hairs.
Nick ignored the directive from his cock and closed his eyes. The Susan Bell was safe. All his crew had survived. He was lying beside the delicious Eve Upshall with naught but a thin bit of cloth separating them.
It was enough. For now.
Her hand brushed against his swollen cock. It roared with aching life.
“What are you trying to do to me, wench?” he demanded. Had she forgotten so soon about the painful lump on his head?
“What do you want me to do to you?” Eve asked in sultry tones. She threw back the sheet and ran her gaze over his nakedness from head to toe. Then she walked her fingers down his chest, past his navel and circled his groin in maddeningly light touches. “Oh, that’s right. Your big head’s pounding so, you can hardly move your little one.”
He’d known all along that the woman had a cruel side.
“Of course, it’s not so little now, is it?” she said as she drew her finger from base to tip.
That was more like it.
“How about…” She leaned down and kissed his belly. “If I…”Her hair brushed lightly over his cock like thousands of slender fingers. “Do the moving for you?”
She grasped the length of him while she moved up to kiss his mouth, swallowing his response and offering her tongue in exchange. She ran her hot palm over his cock in rhythm with her tongue thrusts.
His muscles contracted in concert. His head felt suddenly just fine.
Then she reached down and gathered his balls in her palm, tugging the sac gently. She ran a fingernail along the faint strip of darker skin that marked the centerline of his scrotum, abrading his flesh. The distinction between pain and pleasure blurred.
Eve finally pulled back, peering down at him with a feline smile. “Perhaps you’d like something else in your mouth besides my tongue?”
“You’re reading my mind, wench. Have a care, lest I denounce you for a witch.”
She loosed a low throaty laugh and stooped to grasp the hem of the chemise. In one smooth movement, she bared herself to him. Her breasts were alabaster globes topped with deep rose nipples. She cupped them, thrumming her thumbs across her own stiff peaks. Then she arched her back, presenting them to him as if they were offerings to a heathen god and he was empowered to accept them on the wicked deity’s behalf.
She climbed astride his prone form, pressing the auburn curls that covered her sex to his chest. She was wet enough to leave a faint trail of fragrant musk as she slid down his body.
“Is this what you want?” She lowered her breasts toward his lips.
“Aye, lass.” His mouth watered and he tried to raise his head to claim a nipple but he suddenly discovered he was bound to the bunk with a leather strap across his forehead. His hands were similarly tied.
She sat upright, taking her luscious breasts beyond his reach. She stretched her arms overhead, lifting those orbs farther from him. He longed to run his tongue along the crease beneath them.
“Eve.”He could say no more without begging.
“Oh, all right,” she said, sounding more like Magdalen by the moment. “Here.”
She leaned forward and gave him a teat to suck. It was like nectar on his tongue. She began rocking herself against him and moving down his body once more.
She stopped when the head of his cock met her soft
opening. He strained to fill her, but she held herself out of reach.
A little fluid leaked from his tip. His balls drew up in a tight bunch, poised for release.
Then she relented and moved down, settling her naked rump on his groin. She sat upright, grinding herself down on him. He wanted to reach for her breasts, to thumb her little nub of pleasure, but he was restrained. He couldn’t touch her.
“Never mind, Nick,” she said. “I’ll do it for you.”
The tip of him protruded between her legs and she massaged his most sensitive spot with her thumb. He broke out in a cold sweat, biting his lip to keep from spilling his seed onto his own belly. She leaned forward and kissed him hard, shifting her body so the tip of him entered her.
“You’ll do as I say next time, won’t you, Nicholas?”
“No…yes…I don’t know,” he said, straining to tear loose from his bonds, but they wouldn’t give. “Release me, you b—”
He was incoherent with need and he’d almost called her a bitch to boot. That’d fix things!
She sat up and rocked herself over the length of him, luxuriating in her own arousal. His hips rose to meet her. She reached between her legs to spread herself. Her fingers circled and she arched her back in pleasure.
Nick groaned.
She relented and took him in hand, guiding him into her warm, wet velvet. She touched herself as she moved, pushing herself toward the pinnacle, throwing her head back, her long black hair flying.
Her first spasm began.
Long black hair. Wait. Eve’s hair was deep auburn.
He realized in fury that it wasn’t Eve perched on his cock.
It was Magdalen Frith.
“No!” Nick shouted as he jerked awake.
His cock went off like a cannon anyway. He could no more stop the reverberations than he could stop himself from bleeding if he was sliced with a saber. His whole body shuddered with the force of his wet dream emission.
Eve scrambled out of the bed. “What is it, Nick? Are you hurt?”
“No.” He clutched the sheet up over his chest. Maybe she hadn’t seen. “It’s nothing.”
