Justine Grant wouldn’t listen to reason. She adamantly shook her head, refusing to hear him out.
“Oliver, you’re not well enough. What if you should have more pains while you’re at sea?”
Inside the wood-paneled walls of his study, Oliver held his excitement in check. He was eager to pack his bags and be off, but first he had to deal with his wife.
“It’s been months since I’ve had any, darling,” he lied, and pressed her delicate hands within his own. Better she didn’t know the pains in his chest had increased steadily over the last few months, in number and severity. If she knew that, he wouldn’t be allowed out of bed.
“Besides, you know how much I’ve missed the Jewel. I need to get her back.”
The loss of his ship and the twenty slaves who had run with Samantha were the only truths about that night Justine knew. He’d never told his wife the real reason the girl had thrashed him. It was best she didn’t know about his nightly strolls to the slave huts. As employees, he felt it their duty to lie beneath him when his urges became too much for his wife. Only Samantha had ever fought back. He’d managed to convince Justine he was just checking on the girl, who had complained of being ill all day, when she’d coldheartedly bashed him in the head.
He ached for revenge. The girl had done in one night what nobody else had managed to do in his forty years—best him. Since Justine wouldn’t understand that, he kept it to himself.
Justine’s eyes welled with tears. “It could take months. I can’t be without you so long. And what of the plantation?”
Oliver gave his wife a reassuring embrace. He rested his cheek on top of her rose-scented hair. She wasn’t bred to handle day-to-day operations of a plantation, and he’d always seen to it she didn’t have any worries other than those required by society. A few luncheons, afternoon teas, and the occasional nighttime coupling in their bedroom. Always in the dark, never fully naked. She was a dutiful, loyal wife, if not a passionate one.
“Nathaniel will check in with you daily. He oversees most of the work, and he can do it just as easily without my presence. As for you”—he pulled away and wiped a lone tear from her porcelain cheek—“you and Lewis will be fine, and I won’t be gone so long. Now that we know the Jewel is nearby, we’ll find her.”
Worry and, to Oliver’s frustration, uncertainty coated her words until they sounded like whining.
“Please stay. I have a terrible feeling about this.”
He patted her head and moved to pour himself a brandy. The liquid caught the low light of dusk that filtered into his study.
“It will hardly seem as though I’ve left before I’ll be back. Trust me, Justine,” he said, and raised his glass. “A fortnight, at most, and I’ll be back. With my ship.”
And you, Samantha, will be sorry. Very, very, sorry.
Eight
Luke stared out Samantha’s cabin window. He’d dragged a chair over and propped a boot onto its seat, and was nursing his second, and last, rationed cup of rum for the day. There was no need for candles, as he preferred the darkness of the room. His thoughts alone cluttered the space.
He’d known leaving Port Royal that there was something about Samantha that was different. He’d been eager to discover every facet of her body, every curve and delicious taste. Only a small handful of women had resisted his charms, so he’d been confident Samantha would float along like the rest. They’d please each other, enjoy each other. And walk away.
If they were ever lucky enough to meet again, they’d simply take the gift as it was presented and make the best use of it. Only a few had ever lingered in his memories long enough for him to seek them a second time. Mostly, he preferred a variety of women, places, and events.
That had been before Miss Samantha Fine seeped into his blood. Luke swirled the liquid, the biting smell of the liquor rising from the crockery mug. Still, it wasn’t enough to overpower the main fragrance in the cabin. He couldn’t describe it in one word. It was a bouquet of scents. Individually the smells of clean bedding, polished wood, sea air, and sensuous woman were appealing. Combined, they made a potent perfume.
Which brought his troubled thoughts full circle. She was no ordinary woman. What she was, exactly, was harder to nail down. Clearly, she could command a ship and crew as effectively as any man he’d sailed under, although her methods were definitely her own. She was strong when she needed to be, and yet she was delicate at the same time. He had no doubt she could weather any storm. It was what would remain after the eye of it had passed that confused him.
“Why do you do it?” he asked the sea beyond the small, circular window. “Why do you force yourself to do something you hate?”
No other captain he’d seen had shown remorse for taking a ship. Not only had he seen the dread in her eyes when he’d announced the merchant ship on the horizon, but she’d wept for the dead afterward. Luke drank deeply of the rum and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the glass. He needed to find out what drove her. Why was she hunting Dervish? What had he stolen that she’d risk her soul to avenge?
“I don’t know, but I damn well will.”
Maybe once the puzzle of Samantha Fine was put together, he could get her off his mind. A load lifted off his chest. Yes, that was it. The reason he dwelled on her was because he didn’t have all the answers. No other woman had been mysterious. They’d been strumpets, peddling wares he was only too happy to buy. Surely once he’d bedded her and gotten to the bottom of her quest for Dervish, he’d be rid of these nagging feelings that traipsed alongside him day and night.
Feeling much relieved, Luke shuffled to the table where she kept a candle and flint. Tiny sparks shot out and the candle fluttered to life.
Squawk. “Man in cabin. Man in cabin.”
Content that the problem of Samantha would soon be solved, Luke dragged the chair from the window to Carracks’s cage.
“Now, birdy,” he said, “let’s teach you some real words.”
When Luke woke, cloaked in the smell of woman that lodged in every thread of Samantha’s bed, dawn had yet to raise its head. However, if the rattling pans were any indication, Trevor was up and looking to ready breakfast. Luke stretched, easing muscles into wakefulness. The feather pillow was soft. Her bedcovers were just enough to warm a body without being sweltering. It should have been a perfect night’s rest. It bloody well would have been if he couldn’t smell her with every breath.
Which made closing his eye even worse, because with her scent clouding his senses, it was all too easy to picture her. She’d be naked, of course. The skin he already knew to be soft would heat beneath his touch; a mouth he’d touched fleetingly he now ached to possess. His body, more than ready to deliver what his overactive imagination had created, went hot and hard. The covers, draped low over his hips, slid to his thighs with his arousal.
Throbbing for release, Luke clenched his hands and willed the lust under control. He would have her, damn it. It had been many years since he’d had dreams like those, since he’d awaken with a fierce lust coiled in his belly. He found the clothes he’d left scattered on the floor and dressed hurriedly. Tucking his pistol into his sash, he headed up. It was time to put another piece of her puzzle into place.
The hatch to her cabin was directly in front of the quarterdeck. Though he’d prefer to catch her off guard, there was nothing he could do. She’d see the hatch lift and have a second or two to put up the wall she hid behind most of the time.
The hatch opened without a squeak. One thing about Samantha, she ran a clean ship. He’d never seen one kept so polished. He stepped out and eased the hatch into place.
Samantha wasn’t on the quarterdeck.
She’d braced the tiller and it remained pointed, unaided by her hand. The moon wasn’t much, but enough to reveal her easily. She was by the mainmast, coiling rope. Luke stood by and watched.
For a small woman, she was efficient. The task, which he knew had been accomplished prior to his retiring, was redone. Luk
e didn’t see a difference, so he assumed she was simply keeping busy to remain awake. She straightened and moved to the bowsprit. He prowled behind her.
He treaded softly, lest his boots alert her to his presence. When she stopped at the bow, long hair flowing with the breeze, and turned to look out the starboard side, Luke’s breath left his lungs.
The moon touched her cheeks and nose, kissing her skin with a feminine glow. Her slender neck arched back, revealing the column of her throat. Luke’s lips parted. She shook her head, and coils of gold cascaded down her back. There’d never been a woman who looked less like a pirate.
Curves he’d kill to feel in the palms of his hands pressed against the bodice of her simple gown. If only his gaze could burn away the fabric. A picture of her standing on deck, bathed in nothing but moonlight and the slippery trail of his tongue burst upon him. It blinded him with hunger.
Seeing her savoring the night, enjoying the rocking of her ship, scattered every memory from his head. He’d had a woman not long before being hauled into the jail at Port Royal. Rachel? Charlotte? Bloody hell, he couldn’t remember her name, but she had red hair. Or was it brown? No, she had black hair, that was it. He was fairly certain.
Luke cursed. What was happening to him? It wasn’t that he usually remembered all their names and faces, but he could, when called upon, remember the act. He tried to draw it from memory. And failed.
Annoyed with Samantha and his reaction, he stalked over to the source of his memory loss. To hell if she heard him or not. He had to get her out of his head before he forgot his own damn name!
Sam had busied herself with tidying up a ship that her crew had already organized. The ropes were recoiled, the deck was swabbed again. Everything she could have done to keep her mind off Luke had been done. And none of it had worked.
Her thoughts kept going back to her cabin where he’d held her, where she’d slept peacefully for the first time in five years. After Dervish murdered the Destiny, it had been dreams of her family that had haunted her. Later it had turned to nightmares of Mr. Grant. Today, it had been neither. And it had been wonderful.
Now she knew what it was to sleep, just sleep with a man. To wake in strong arms that hadn’t harmed her, but had healed a small part of her soul. She stared out to sea. It would be so incredibly difficult not to have that again. But she had to resist him, did she not? He was a pirate. What could he possibly offer her but more pain and misery? And a constant reminder of the loss of her family.
She heard the hard rap of boots on wood and turned. It wasn’t surprising to see Luke stalking toward her, although she had expected him to sleep later. It was, however, shocking when he came close enough for his tension to crash over her. The force was tangible and immediately put Sam on the defensive.
“What’s happened?” she asked, assuming a problem with her ship or crew.
Luke stopped, but not before he’d invaded her personal space. He was close enough for his every feature to be clear in the moonlight. A green eye, ripe with resentment, pierced hers. An energy, like a hurricane that built and built until its raw power was untethered, pulsed from his pores. His choppy breath blasted her face as he glared.
“When did Dervish rape you?”
The question, so far removed from what she’d expected, stunned her.
“What?”
He aimed a long finger at her chest.
“Don’t play stupid now, Samantha. It’s a little late for that. How long has it been since Dervish raped you?”
She grabbed at a rope and clung, as much to anchor herself against his verbal attack as to delay answering his question. “What makes you think he did?”
Luke growled, baring his teeth. “I heard your nightmare, remember? I was there. Now you’re bent on hunting down Dervish and killing the man. Any fool can put the pieces together.”
“Any fool,” she murmured and took a deep breath. She hadn’t thought of it from his position. Of course it would seem that Dervish had taken her innocence. She had no intention of correcting him. She’d already allowed him further into her life than she should have. Her heart was perilously close to danger as it was. Telling him the truth would further close the distance that was already shrinking between them.
“You’re right,” she said. “Dervish raped me. About a year ago.” She walked around Luke and made her way to the stern, lest he read the lies on her face.
He followed her, his heat prowling closer and closer. Every muscle in her body longed to turn to that heat, to be held and cherished. But pirates didn’t stay long enough to build anything lasting. No, Luke would take his pleasure and sail away. Joe was right. She wouldn’t be able to live with that.
Luke’s hand on her shoulder stopped her. He turned her around. He was calmer now, more like the man who’d held her as she slept and who’d looked at her with smoldering desire. It was that man, not the pirate, she feared more. Because it was that man she couldn’t resist.
“When it happens with you and me, Samantha, it won’t be anything like it was with Dervish.”
She shivered. The certainty in his words should have insulted her, but instead they turned her blood to warm honey.
“It won’t happen, Luke. You’re a pirate.”
His gaze held hers, and within it she caught a fleeting glance of something akin to regret. From anyone but Luke, she’d have believed it.
“Yes, luv. It will.”
His arms circled her, drawing her close with the slightest pressure. She allowed him because her thoughts had washed away with his certainty that they’d be together. Perhaps it was because she’d been starving for affection these last five years. Or maybe it was too many hours in the sun. Surely any man would have this affect on her if she’d only give him a chance.
Luke’s fingers teased their way up her spine and into the depth of her hair. His hand found her skull and drew her head back. Knees trembling, heart racing, Sam waited for Luke’s next move.
“Very soon, luv, we will finish this.”
Before she could argue that it wasn’t an end she was looking for, but a beginning, his mouth inched down to hers.
They’d kissed twice before, but neither had the effect of this one. Before, he’d hurried, a quick smack either to keep her quiet or to show his enthusiasm for an upcoming battle. This one left no room for comparisons.
His touch was gentle, lips grazing hers in slow sweeps. Leisurely, he nipped and nibbled, demanding nothing. The beauty of it pressed into Sam and allowed nothing but an honest response. It flowed from her in hot waves. His mustache was soft, and tickled as their mouths met. Sam leaned into him, her hands digging into his narrow waist.
One of them moaned, and then the kiss deepened. Mouths tilted, allowing deeper contact. Sam clutched his shirt, lest she drown in the wave of desire that enveloped her. She’d never dreamed a kiss could be so passionate. There was no room for thoughts, there was only Luke. She arched against him, burning everywhere their bodies met.
His hands snaked down her back to her waist and crept around her ribs. She sucked in her breath and her breasts filled with wanting, making them heavy in her bodice. Never had she felt such want, such need to touch and be touched. She wanted no barriers, just the explosion of sensation.
Her hands found their way to his hair and held on, keeping his mouth fused to hers. When he flicked his tongue against hers, Sam whimpered and mirrored his movements. Luke’s hands encased her ribs, his thumbs resting just beneath the swell of her breasts. She curved her tongue around his and felt a rush of triumph when he growled low in his throat. So this was what being wanton felt like.
It felt like freedom.
Suddenly Luke pulled away. His mouth was swollen from her kiss. Sam wiped the moisture from his lips with her fingertips. Luke grabbed her hand and sucked the moisture back into his mouth.
“I want every part of you, every taste, to remain with me.”
The words were intimate and seductive. They pebbled her nipples and drew her p
ulse between her legs.
“Luke, I—”
Whistling, Trevor threw open the main hatch and stepped out with her breakfast. Mortified that he’d see the feelings, the lust that had her in its powerful grasp, Sam rushed to the tiller. She threw off the rope and took the helm.
“I have your breakfast, Captain,” he said.
He handed her the plate with no more ceremony than usual. Sam exhaled her nervousness, thanked her cook, and pretended to eat until he disappeared below.
Luke stepped back from the mainmast, where Trevor either hadn’t seen him or didn’t like him enough to acknowledge him. The hunger was still in his eyes. He took the banana off her plate and peeled it. Then, he ripped off a chunk and held it to her mouth. Innocently, she took a slow bite. Luke’s eye narrowed.
“Luv, when your crew isn’t around, you and I”—he gestured his finger between them—“aren’t going to be interrupted until we’re both weak with satisfaction.”
He leaned in, his tongue lifting a piece of fruit off her lip.
“And I’ll tell you this, Samantha, it’ll take me a bloody long time to be satisfied.”
He kissed her again, long and deep until the plate teetered in her hand. If Luke hadn’t grabbed it, it would have tumbled forgotten to the deck. He pulled away and handed her the plate. She fought the desire to draw him back. Trembling with need, she watched silently as he went back to her cabin. To her bed.
She set the plate aside and placed hot hands on burning cheeks. The kiss had been everything she’d hoped for as a girl—and more. Tongues. Who knew they could mate so wonderfully, could arouse so completely? And she was aroused, from the tingling in her breasts to the rapid beat of her heart. But again, he’d left her wanting.
He hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that once her crew wasn’t around, he’d finish what he’d begun tonight. Which, she realized with a sharp stab of panic, could be tomorrow night in Barbados. No, she corrected herself, as dawn bruised the sky with purple and indigo, tonight. Desire squeezed in her stomach, and she took a steadying breath.
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