by Merry Farmer
“Oh, but it is. Your word to Cole is. Your word to your crew is. I want you to give me that same word.”
The muscles in his jaw are jumping and his eyes are burning with fury.
“Let it be so,” he says.
“So if I help you get the coordinates, you will take me with you and give me the jade necklace?”
“Yes.”
“Your word?”
He closes his eyes for a moment. “Yes, woman, my word. Now please, hurry.” He looks back at the dunes. “Someone might have spotted us leaving the ball. They may have discovered the broken window.”
Despite his earlier threats, I’m excited to spend more time with him, and, frankly, to help him. There’s clearly still enough of a gentleman in him not to hurt a woman, especially since he’s so worried about ruining me.
I look at the box in detail. I’m not an expert by any means. When I was a small child, the boxes had seemed completely impenetrable to me, and I had been fascinated to watch my granddad move the panels through a series of slides and moves and get each box to open. It always seemed as if he had performed a small miracle. When I was old enough, he taught me how to open them myself.
The precious, bittersweet memories burn my eyes. Well, Grandpa, time for your legacy to help me.
“Hurry, Samantha.” James glances at the dunes again.
The box in my hands looks like a thick compact-powder case. On one side, slightly lighter wood repeats the dark form of the box. A Chinese dragon carving decorates the other side. I feel the box with the pads of my fingers, scrape the wood with my nails looking for any gaps between the panels. Finally, one of the side panels shifts under my finger. The change is so slight, I almost miss it. I press, and it moves more. A slide, and it comes off completely. With shaking fingers, I hand the free panel to James.
I probe the panel next to it. There’s the slightest movement, and I push to slide it off. Now two sides of the hexagon are off. It’s dark, so I cannot see much. James takes the box from my hands and peers inside then turns it over and shakes.
“Empty,” he says, his voice lifeless.
“Wait. We haven’t opened it completely. Let me see.”
I take the box back and try to slide the third side, but it doesn’t move. My fingers chill, all the excitement vanished. I press harder on the side, but still nothing. I explore the interior but find nothing.
“Did someone open it before us?” I ask. “Why is it empty?”
James spits a curse that makes even me blush.
I continue to feel and press, and then it hits me. The hexagon on the cover. There’s a slight color difference in the wood bordering where the two slides once were. I press on the cover and it slides, opening the box, but anger replaces my moment of hope. It really is empty.
Completely, utterly empty.
“No,” I whisper. “It can’t be.”
Is that it? Am I stuck in the eighteenth century forever? Is my life here now? With that thought, the very air presses in on me from all sides. I can’t stay here! My life is in New York. What about my lovely apartment? What about my promotion?
“Maybe there’s a double bottom,” he says. “Let me see.”
He takes the box and presses on the bottom. “Something moved.”
I hold my breath as he fiddles with it more. Please, please let there be a double bottom.
After long, excruciating moments that stretch out like an eternity, the hexagon bottom is in his hand. The box falls on the ground, and he’s holding a folded piece of paper.
My mouth goes dry. I lean against him, trying to see what is in there, and he shifts right next to me, his side touching mine. “What does it say?”
A current runs between us sending liquid bliss through my veins. Our eyes lock for a moment, and desire sparks between us. He unfolds the paper and looks at it for a long time. “What is it?” I ask. He turns it to me, and I see two rows of numbers, the signs of degrees and minutes.
“The coordinates,” James says, and his face seems to shine.
The thumping of my heart is so loud and fast it’s about to jump out of my chest. One step closer to home. “Shall we go there? They might chase us, right?”
But I’m not ready to go. Not from here, not from James’s powerful proximity. His closeness, his scent ensnares me. If only I reach out a little bit, I can kiss him again.
As if he’s reading my thoughts, he turns to me and claims my mouth.
Chapter 10
Samantha
He’s not just kissing me, he’s devouring me. His lips are a tornado and I’m the house on the prairie, torn apart in the most delicious way.
Wrapping his arms around me, he pulls me tighter to him, heat sizzles through my veins and my body melts against him like wax in the Caribbean sunlight. He runs his lips and his tongue down my throat, making every cell of my skin burn.
Arching into the sweet prison of his arms, I run my fingers through his silky hair and sink into his scent—clean linen, sandalwood, and sun.
From the direction of the dunes, a twig snaps and James breaks the kiss and tugs me after him. Tucked behind the bushes with the hidden boat, under the palm trees where shadows reign, we crouch and listen. But the beach remains silent, only waves whisper and the breeze rustles through the leaves. Risk electrifies my whole body. With his arms around me, James turns me to look at him.
“If anyone comes, I will protect you, Samantha,” he says, then looks at my lips. “You are safe with me. But maybe not from me.”
He’s looking at my mouth as if he’s in agony and it’s the painkiller. He leans to my lips, and I whisper, “What about the whole ruining me thing?”
“I was wrong,” he says, and the breeze kisses my cheeks with the scent of the sea and mango. “It is me who will be ruined if I do not have you.”
He kisses me again, letting me sink deeper into the warm sea of desire. His hands unlace my dress and tug the bodice down to my waist. When the warm night air touches my skin, it breathes again. James releases the lace of the corset, and when he throws it aside, I take a lungful of air sending my head spinning. When he caresses my skin under the shift, I fly high. He strokes me, massages my back, my breasts, my waist. Prickling, sizzling, expanding after hours of being trapped in the corset, my skin and muscles sing under his touch.
I run my hands over his broad shoulders, his muscles hard under the shirt. Off comes his jacket, then his waistcoat, and my fingers crawl over the linen of his shirt covering his firm stomach.
My breath rushes out of me as I pull away to look at him. “I need to see you.”
His smile is both wicked and tight, and he spreads his arms in an invitation. “Please do, madame.”
I take the edges of his shirt and pull them up, tugging it over his head. What I see under it fills my mouth with saliva. All muscle, his body is lean and perfect. His pecs make my palms ache to brush them, his six-pack looks carved of stone. A long, thin silver scar runs across the left side of his chest down to his solar plexus. There’s also a round pale-pink one on his side that must be newer. Though his face and hands are tanned from years on the open sea, the skin under his shirt is fair, his chest lightly covered in soft blond hair. His shoulders and biceps are like smooth, round rocks.
“Wow,” escapes my lips, my mouth as dry as cardboard.
He chuckles and pulls me to him. “Now it is my turn to free you of your clothes.”
And that he does. He pulls me up to stand and tugs down my dress gathered at my waist together with the panniers. When stand before him in my shift, he pulls it up and over my head, leaving me only in the stockings, my panties, and the shoes. I’m vulnerable under his burning gaze and stop the urge to cover myself.
Why do I feel as though it's the first time?
First time on the beach. First time since Leonard what I want is more than just sex. This is like making love.
Making love is something Lisa would say. I do not make love. I have sex, like a man, leaving emotions as
ide. At least that’s what I’m telling myself, waiting until I fully believe it. I must be careful with James, because this feels too good.
But even given all this, I can’t stop.
His gaze snakes up and down my body and leaves warm traces behind.
“Lord Almighty,” he says. “I have seen no one as beautiful.”
The words start a low burning fire in me, my blood turning into simmering caramel.
“What are these small pants you are wearing?”
“Underwear. What, women in your time don’t have those?”
He chuckles. “Are you still insisting that you traveled in time? I’ll play along. Not such small underwear. And not the women of high social rank.”
He pulls me to him, and we sink onto the blanket of our combined clothes. He claims my lips again, turning the simmering into a full-blown boil. His fingers trace down and sparks prickle between my skin and his hands. And when he finds my breast, he takes the nipple between his thumb and his fingers and massages it. Then he sucks, licks, teases it, and I dissolve in him.
Until he goes to the second breast and repeats the same there, and my knees melt like butter on a stove.
I run my hands over his hard body, enjoying his smooth skin, the crispiness of his hair on his chest and stomach. He’s moving down and kissing my stomach, going lower and lower. Until his face is level with the juncture of my thighs. He pulls my panties off, then freezes and looks up at me.
“Where is your hair?”
Right. I went for a Brazilian wax in preparation for the vacation. I chuckle and my cheeks burn. “Do you like it?”
He brushes his fingers along my sensitive cleft. “So smooth,” he whispers against my skin. I arch my back as his touch sends a wave of what feels like liquid velvet through me.
A moan escapes my throat. He brushes his fingers against me there, over and over, his fingers featherlight, teasing, and turning me on so much that perspiration covers my skin.
His hand spreads my legs and they fall open for him. He is still kneading my breast with one hand while the fingers of the other one are parting me. “All mine,” he says. My insides clench, and I almost come from his words alone.
He kisses me then, right there. His tongue is going in circles around my clitoris, spilling pleasure like warm wine down my limbs. He is teasing and pressing and sucking, and I’m mindless with bliss. I’m somewhere on another planet, in another world, in between centuries. My muscles clench around him with a deep ache. I’m writhing.
But this is not enough. I want him.
“I don’t want to come yet,” I breathe out. “I want you inside of me.”
He straightens and rises on his knees, then removes his breeches. His erection springs free.
“Oh,” I whisper.
He lowers himself supporting himself on straight arms and our eyes lock. The man I see is bare and vulnerable. I choke a bit from the awe and lust glimmering in his eyes and the feelings reverberate within me. As if I’m a long-awaited prize. As if I’m something divine and he worships me.
No one has ever looked at me like that. Not even the man I thought was the love of my life.
James is right between my thighs, and they are smoldering. I’m all wet and hot down there, sleek with desire.
“How do you want me?” he says.
My hands on his hips, I’m just about to tug him toward me when he freezes and looks up. In the heat of the moment I forgot everything else, but, thankfully, James did not.
Because as I freeze and follow his gaze, the sound of hooves comes from behind the dunes.
Chapter 11
James
The thumping of hooves is still quiet, so they must be far away. My whole body is like hot molasses as I leave my moon goddess and dress.
My gut knots and my chest is heavy as I force myself not to pull Samantha back into my arms. The clothes feel wrong on my skin. I am still aroused, although the breeze is helping me to cool off. Whether the intruders are the governor’s men or someone else, they do not want anything good with us.
“We should have left earlier,” I say through gritted teeth.
Samantha dresses, too, cursing the amount of clothes. She puts on the shift and the dress and leaves the rest on the ground.
“We must take the boat into the sea,” I say.
“Won’t they notice?”
“They are still far enough away. We must make haste.”
She nods and we go through the bushes to the boat. I right the overturned boat and we drag it over the sand towards the water’s edge, which is about twenty yards away. The thudding of hooves is closer now; they must be right behind the last of the dunes. Samantha and I are only halfway across the beach.
They will be upon us any moment.
“Hide behind the bushes,” I command.
She straightens and watches me.
“There’s no time to waste. Quickly, behind the bushes. Do as I say.”
She nods and rushes there, then disappears. I take my pistol and sink behind the boat, then peer at the beach. I resolve to use my cunning. They will likely come to the boat to inspect it, and my plan is to shoot one with my pistol and fight the other one with my knife.
Two riders appear from behind the dunes. They slow and look around the beach. They get down off their horses and walk towards the boat. This is my chance.
Although it is night, there is enough moonlight to allow me to see them quite clearly. I move the hammer to full-cock and aim. When my target is clear, I pull the trigger and the flintlock explodes with a loud bang and an explosion of sparks and smoke. The man screams, is kicked back and falls.
The other one darts for the bushes where Samantha hides.
Ice needles pierce my entire body as I run there, too. I have no time to reload the pistol, and I remove the knife from my boot. The shadow of the man darts into the bushes, and I follow.
I hear a thump and Samantha screams, her voice shrill. I speed up, and there she is.
In the arms of a red coat, his pistol at her temple.
Fear grasps me, tightens my throat, slashes my gut like a saber.
I lock eyes with her. She’s terrified but not showing it. I see a prospect before me, but I need her put her to trust me, and she must do it without me telling her to.
“Kill her,” I say. “She is of no consequence to me.”
Her eyes widen. The red coat frowns and shoots a quick glance at her. “What?”
“She’s just another wench.”
Samantha frowns and stares at me, then her eyebrows rise in realization. She understands the game I’m playing. Smart, intuitive woman. The trust she puts in me makes my lungs tighten.
“Yes, sir!” she says. Please, save me. He kidnapped me and seduced me. I’m so glad you came and freed me from this dirty pirate.”
Her words sting a little. Dirty pirate? Her eyes soften, as though she is apologizing.
The red coat studies her, confusion mixed with doubt on his face. Then he lets her go and pushes her behind him, pointing the barrel right in my face. I sigh with relief—Samantha is safe for now. I hold my hands up.
“Madame, stay behind me,” he says. “What is your name, sir?”
I chuckle as I see Samantha taking a large piece of driftwood in both her hands behind him. “James ‘Prince’ Barrow,” I say, and observe with delight how his face pales.
At that moment, Samantha hits the back of his head with the driftwood, and I launch at him with my knife. He falls to the ground, and I put my knife to his throat. But he has lost consciousness and there’s no need to kill him. I stand up and look at Samantha.
“Are you all right?” I ask as Samantha flies into my arms. I pull her tighter to me, pressing my lips to the top of her head and inhaling her heavenly scent.
She’s shaking slightly in my arms, and I’m surprised. She looked so brave just a moment ago. I rub her arm up and down to warm her, even though the air is already warm.
“We need to tie him up
,” she says, and her breath warms me through my shirt.
She looks up at me with eyes as dark as the night sea. I sink into them, forgetting the danger, the unconscious man lying at my feet, and the second one a few feet away. I lower my head and kiss her, the need for her closeness roaring in me like wildfire.
I have barely begun feasting on her lips when the red coat moans. With regret, I interrupt the kiss.
“You are correct, Samantha, we need to tie him up. Would you be so kind to tear off some of your shift, please?”
The man is waking up, and I hold him while she lifts the skirt of her dress and tears off three long pieces of cloth. I gag his mouth, then drag him to the palm tree and tie his hands behind him, and then him to the tree. I take his pistol and his cutlass and go check the other man. He has a wound at his hip and is unconscious but still alive. I relieve him of his weapons, as well.
Then I return to my fair lady time traveler. My conscious mind refuses to believe her words, but in my heart, I feel their truth. The trust, the bond between us is strong. And it is terrifying.
“We must make haste now, Samantha. Let us take the boat to the water. I need to determine the course with the coordinates on land, but let us be near the boat so we are ready to go at once in case more men come.”
She nods. “Sounds like a plan. Come on.”
We continue to drag the boat towards the sea, and once it’s right at the water’s edge, I remove the maritime map and the instruments to measure the course. I put them on the sand, and as I’m doing my calculations and measuring the course, I realize I’m feeling something I haven’t felt for a long time—a sense of connection. The feeling of working as a well-coordinated crew. It’s something I’ve always envisaged a relationship with a woman could be.
But a dull ache pierces me as I shove the feelings deep down. I cannot allow them. I must not fall under the spell of a woman like her. She has no intention of staying with me. She is going to travel back to her time once we find the necklace.
And I am going to stay here and try to forget her.
