by Merry Farmer
Martin shook the stray thought aside. “Rayburn, why are you arming the prisoners?” he asked in a flat voice.
Rayburn’s expression went suddenly serious. “Figured we could use every gun we can get,” he said, glancing down to the main deck.
Martin turned to see Dick and one of the men who had come over from The Vixen with him emerging from the hold. They smiled and seemed relaxed as they headed to the side of the ship and crossed the railing to descend to the rowboat that had brought them over. Martin breathed a sigh of relief that they were leaving, but it didn’t untangle the tense knot of foreboding in his gut.
“Perhaps you’re right,” he mumbled to Rayburn, then added, “I keep hoping he’ll just take The Vixen and sail off without causing any more trouble.”
“That why you gave him command of the prize?” Rayburn asked, a knowing spark in his eyes.
Martin replied with an affirmative look instead of words. Rayburn was one of the sharpest men he had on The Growler. He would have turned the ship over to him if he thought Dick wouldn’t have mutinied the second he so much as hinted at it.
“A ship full of undisciplined men who would rather fuck than sail and a passel of unruly females,” he sighed. When Lady Malvis’s brow rose, he muttered, “Sorry, my lady.”
He turned to walk away, heading down to the main deck, when he spotted Lettuce emerging from below deck. Instantly, a smile lit his face and his breeches went tight. Memories of the way she’d sighed so sweetly as they’d made love the night before and the way she’d slowly pulled herself out of guilt over the whole thing flooded back over him. He admired her for feeling guilty, as strange as that seemed, and for overcoming those feelings. It meant she wasn’t the sort of loose woman he was used to bedding. The fact that she would come so deliciously for him was an astounding compliment. He wondered how she would feel about setting up house with him in St. John’s.
“Get a grip on yourself, Foster,” he muttered as he approached her. He was as bad as his randy crewmen.
His smile vanished as soon as Lettuce turned toward him. Her expression was pinched with fear, and her body was tight with tension. Martin picked up his pace, balling his hands into fists, ready to murder whoever had put that expression on her face.
“Did one of my crew assault you?” he asked, reaching her and resting both hands protectively on her arms.
She shook her head. “It’s not that,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Martin, I must speak with you in private. I’ve…I’ve just heard something horrible.” She glanced furtively around, as though searching for something or someone.
Dread clenched Martin’s stomach. Dick and his man had emerged from below just a few minutes before Lettuce. There had to be a connection.
“In my cabin,” he said, sliding a hand behind Lettuce’s back and leading her on. “Dick has just left The Growler, by the way,” he added in case his theory was correct. He nodded to the port of the ship where Dick’s rowboat was just coming into view as it made its way back to The Vixen.
Lettuce spotted the boat, gasped, and leapt to Martin’s other side so that he shielded her from the boat’s view. Her actions confirmed his suspicions.
“Dick is planning to kill you and take both ships,” Lettuce burst as soon as they were secluded in his cabin. “I heard him and the other man plotting below.”
Martin released a breath, letting his shoulders drop. It was good to know that his suspicions were founded. He walked deeper into the cabin, leaning against the edge of the bed and crossing his arms. “What did you hear?”
Lettuce blinked at him, drawing slowly closer to him. “You’re not alarmed?” she asked.
Martin shrugged. “I am alarmed, but I’m not surprised.” He crossed his arms. “Dick has always had ambitions that require my absence.”
Lettuce frowned, coming to stand in front of him. “So, this doesn’t worry you at all?”
“Of course it worries me,” he said. “It’s worried me for months, for years. But he hasn’t killed me yet. If we can just make it to St. John’s, he won’t have any need to.”
“Do you think he’ll leave you alone once you hand the ship over to him?”
Her question echoed the ones he’d asked himself a hundred times before. Would Dick truly be content to let him walk away once they reached port? The man had no reason to wreak any sort of revenge on him. But was that enough?
“Tell me exactly what you heard Dick say,” he said, reaching for Lettuce and pulling her to stand between his legs while he circled his arms around her.
The fetching blush that came to her cheeks and the way she looked down, then up at him through her lashes, was a sharp contrast to her words. “He said that you were a disgrace and that you were weak,” she said. “Which I do not agree with, by the way. The strongest of men are the most lenient when it matters. But Dick and his man feel the opposite.”
“I’m not surprised,” Martin grumbled.
“They said that you will be dead within twenty-four hours.”
“So soon?” Martin raised one eyebrow. The threat Dick presented had always been vague. It was disconcerting to hear it now had a timeframe.
“He said that Lord Benedict and some of the other male prisoners are planning an insurrection, and that they would strike then.”
Martin tensed at the thought. “That’s bad news.”
Lettuce blinked. “An insurrection?”
“Yes.” He focused his gaze on her, and on the way her anxious expression made his chest feel tight and his blood pump harder. He had to keep her safe. “I would wager that none of the men from your merchant ship know the first thing about fighting pirates who have no respect for life.”
“No, I don’t think they do,” she said, even more alarm in her eyes.
“An insurrection would mean more men would die,” Martin went on. “Which is the last thing I want.”
“It is?” When he nodded, she asked, “What is it you want?”
“For everyone to make it home safely,” he sighed. “To be rid of Dick and his sort forever. To use my prize money to buy a cozy villa in St. John’s and to be the merchant I always wanted to be.” He paused, then added, “To find myself a wife and beget a small army of happy children.” He reached up to cradle her face and to brush his thumb across her cheek.
Her eyes went wide and she whispered, “We hardly know each other. We’re virtual strangers.”
“So?” he shrugged. “Did you know Mr. Pigge well before you married him?”
It was a low blow, and he regretted it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Especially when Lettuce lowered her head and pinched her eyes shut. However, she also leaned her face into his hand.
“I knew enough to know he was an evil man,” she said in a quiet voice. “And I know enough to know you are a good man.” She glanced up at him.
Martin smiled in spite of himself. He should have been focused on the plot to murder him, but instead he said, “Do you think I’m a good man? I’m a vicious pirate. I shot your husband.”
“In self-defense,” she said, then shrugged slightly. “For the most part. But you are a good man. I can tell by the way you handle your crew.”
“Oh?” He swept his hands down her sides and around her hips to cup her backside. “Are you certain? I’ve handled you as well, in a variety of piratical ways.”
Her lips twitched into a grin and lust glittered in her eyes. “I am beginning to think that somehow you and my deceased husband were switched. Pigge was more like a rapacious pirate, while you….” She let her words fade as her gaze fixed on his lips.
“I am so a rapacious pirate,” Martin protested, his heart feeling lighter than air. It was one thing to go without pussy for months on end, but it had been years since he’d bantered with a woman so easily—a woman he liked and admired and desired.
She smirked. “Dick said you were no pirate, and I am inclined to agree with him.”
A sentence which included mention of Dick should
not have aroused Martin so much, but the growing tightness of his breeches proved just how much it did. “What am I if not a pirate?” he asked.
“You’re a gentleman’s son,” she said slipping her hands under the front of his jacket, which he’d been wearing unbuttoned because of the heat. “You’re a merchant-to-be,” she went on, stroking her hands up until she could push his jacket off his shoulders. “There is nothing rapacious about you.”
“My dear, you are sadly mistaken on that account,” he said, his voice a low grumble, freeing his arms from his jacket and tugging his shirt out of his breeches. “I can assure you, I am as rapacious as any pirate. More so, in fact.”
“No,” she said, leaning back slightly and biting her lip. “I refuse to believe it. You are kind and generous and self-effacing.”
“Self-effacing?” he repeated, his hands moving to the buttons of his breeches. “I’ll give you self-effacing.”
With a few quick movements, he had his breeches undone and his cock free. It was such a relief that he groaned. But before he could get to work on Lettuce’s odd assortment of clothes and throw her across the bed, she dropped to her knees. The movement took him so much by surprise that he gasped when she took hold of his prick and leaned forward.
“Good God,” he rumbled as she kissed the tip of his cock, parted her lips around the head, and stroked the underside with her tongue. He had to grab the edge of the bed for support as she hummed with pleasure and then slowly bore down on him.
A wordless cry sailed up from his lungs as she drew him in deep. Scandalously deep. Every nerve in his cock came alive with pleasure as her hot, wet mouth encompassed him. The pleasure blossomed behind his balls, sending shoots of beauty and triumph through him. He didn’t want to think about how she knew exactly how to move on him, with increasing speed and depth, until he was so close to the edge that his brain began to fog. The only thing that kept him from spilling in her throat was the thought that if Pigge wasn’t already dead and at the bottom of the sea, he would have flayed the man alive and ripped him into pieces.
Even that couldn’t stop the inevitable.
“Enough,” he panted, gripping Lettuce’s shoulders and pushing her away.
“You don’t like it?” she asked, all innocent surprise.
“Darling, I love it too much,” he said, standing and drawing her with him. “But I’m the rapacious pirate here.”
To prove his point, he shifted their positions, bending her forward over the bed and standing behind her. His breeches sagged around his knees as he reached in front of her to unfasten the breeches that she wore, rather well at that. He entertained the passing thought that he would have her wear breeches more often as he tugged the ones she wore down her thighs.
She made a delicious sound of excitement as he grabbed her hips and jerked them up. With breeches around her knees she couldn’t spread her legs very far, but it didn’t matter. He slipped his hand along her slit, finding her hot and wet and ready. That was all the signal he needed.
He thrust into her with a deep growl, nearly losing his mind at the tightness her closed legs added to the whole thing. It must have felt glorious to her as well, if the heady sound of pleasure she made was any indication. He jerked his hips against her, bliss radiating through him and priming him for more. She arched her body to receive him deeper, which nearly made him lose his mind. He reached around, delving his fingers into her curls until he found her clitoris, and began to stroke her. If he was going to come, she would too.
It didn’t take long for either of them. He was astounded by her abandon, and when her panting grew pitched and then became plaintive cries as her inner muscles squeezed him, he let go. White-hot pleasure shot through him, from his groin to his cock and the rest of him. He spilled into her, not caring if it would make her pregnant and rather hoping it would. Every bit of it was so damned good that even as his tension and energy drained away, he still wanted more.
“There,” he panted, his body sagging over hers as they sought to catch their breaths. “I told you I was rapacious.”
“It doesn’t count,” she insisted, moving her hips against him so enticingly that he swore he would be hard again before he summoned the energy to remove himself from her. “It doesn’t count because I wanted it. Badly.”
Her words brought a smile to his face. She may have insisted that they were strangers, but she wanted him and she came when she had him. As far as he was concerned, that was the perfect start to what he could feel in his soul would be a much deeper relationship.
But since they were still only skin deep….
“Well then, my little pirate lass. Give me a few minutes and you can take me balls deep again.”
Mad as it was with everything in danger of exploding around them, he could have sworn he heard her laugh.
Chapter 6
Letty hoped something could be done immediately about Dick and his murderous friends, but by nightfall, little had changed. The Vixen still sailed within calling distance of The Growler. From time to time, after she and Martin emerged, red-faced and breathless, from his cabin, Letty spotted Dick pacing The Vixen’s deck, watching the activity on The Growler with an expression she would have wagered was calculating, if she’d been able to see it more clearly.
“Stop worrying,” Martin told her as the evening meal was passed around while the sun set over the water in bright shades of orange and gold. “I’ve had loads of time to consider this possibility before now, and I swear to you, I have a plan.”
She wanted to believe him, but uncertainty and dread had been her closest companions for the past several weeks, and she wasn’t able to shake them so easily.
What she was able to do as easily as unbuttoning the waistcoat and shirt she wore was to go to Martin’s bed. She never would have dreamed that it was possible for her to enjoy having a man between her legs after everything she’d undergone with Pigge, but making love with Martin was entirely different. It was wild and sweaty. They were desperate for each other and eager to do whatever possible to please the other. Letty found herself making sounds that would have scandalized her just weeks before as he brought her to climax, then spent himself within her. Part of her mind rebelled at the vigor with which she threw herself into satisfying lusts she hadn’t known she had, but a deeper part of her understood it was a much needed, blissful release after too long a bout of hopeless misery.
But nothing had changed before the sun rose the next day.
“Damn,” Martin muttered as he paced the quarterdeck as the sun rose higher in the breezy morning. “He still hasn’t taken The Vixen and run.”
Letty glanced up at him from where she’d been sitting on a crate in the shade of the sails, oiling a razor-sharp sword. The clang and clash of men practicing swordplay on the main deck formed an odd chorus as it mingled with the cries of sea birds and the lap of the waves. The whole thing was split by occasional gunfire from those shooting at birds as target practice. The activities weren’t limited to the pirates either. Nearly all of the female prisoners were practicing as well, or at least being taught the bare rudiments of swordplay and guns.
“He wants both ships,” Letty said, standing, the sword still in her hands. “At least, that’s what Dick and his friend said.”
Martin hummed grimly, as if in reluctant agreement. He then let out a breath and stepped away from the railing, striding to stand in front of Letty. “If what I think might happen is about to happen, I should teach you how to use that thing properly.”
Letty blinked and swallowed hard. “I don’t think I could ever fight off a man face to face with a sword,” she said in a strangled voice.
Martin studied her with a frown. “Fair point. Ladies of your worth should be able to defend themselves from a distance.”
Of all things, his words sent warmth and joy blossoming through her. Did he truly believe she had worth? No man had ever felt that way about her. She suddenly felt as though she could fend off Dick and all his minions single-
handedly with a hat pin.
“Come,” Martin said, gesturing for her to follow him to the main deck.
One of the pirates stepped forward to take the sword from her as she followed Martin, climbed down the ladder, then crossed the main deck with him. The practicing pirates paused their battles to let them pass, each man nodding respectfully to Martin. The light-hearted attitude they’d had the day before was gone, lustiness replaced by seriousness after Martin had informed his most loyal men of the situation. The mock battles resumed as soon as they’d passed. Farther along the deck, those of the female passengers who had taken to the pirate life were busy handling pistols and muskets while select pirates instructed them. Lord Ainsley—who was back to wearing men’s clothes, though he’d given up his aristocratic threads for the rough outfit of a pirate—was among them.
“I used to shoot all the time at our country estate,” he bragged to a particularly burly pirate, who seemed to be laughing at him, whether Lord Ainsley knew it or not. “I was always good with the grouse. And not bad at fox hunting either. I never did go in for the army, though. Too fussy, if you ask me. But I’m confident that I’ll be able to take out more than a few of those blighters, if they choose to board us. Though I didn’t mind much the last time I was boarded, if you know what I mean.” He winked at the burly man, elbowing his massive arm.
A shot went off, whizzing right past Lord Ainsley’s ear and hitting an empty jar sitting on the far railing. Lord Ainsley flinched and ducked, whipping around to find Lady Malvis standing on the fo’c’sle not far behind him, a smoking pistol in her hand.
“Sorry, my love,” she said with a wicked grin.
“Not at all, poppet,” Lord Ainsley replied shakily.
Letty exchanged a glance with Martin, who arched a suspicious brow back at her.
“We can’t make port soon enough,” he muttered as they reached the ladder to the fo’c’sle.
Letty didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver in fear. She followed him to a chest that lay open at the far end of the deck. It contained a variety of guns and pistols, some of which looked as though they would have been obsolete during her grandfather’s time and some that appeared shiny and new. Martin selected one of the newer pistols.
