“Waif,” he said, gathering her wrists together against his torso. “When this is over you get to decide what you want.”
Her begging lips sought his again and he gave her a hard kiss. “I don’t understand. How can you even doubt what I want,” she panted. “I want my captain… please.”
“When this is over,” he said. “If you want him, you can have him… But, he needs you to be free. You need to be free. Free of your father, your brother, free of Dario, free of me… You’ll be free, Sassi Robins.” Brushing the hair from her face, he clasped her cheeks. “I promised you your freedom and when you have it, you can pursue your greatest fantasy, whatever that is.”
“Swain,” she whispered and pulled him to her for another kiss.
She couldn’t understand what he was saying. But, he was her captain and he was promising to make her dreams come true. Freedom from all the worries she’d been living with would be a fantasy come true, but freedom from him was a curse. Sassi would take being forcibly parted from Swain as a punishment.
Tightening the circle of her legs, she pushed her pelvis to his, massaging herself on the hard-on desperate to burst from his fly.
“Helluva meeting, cap’n.”
Sassi was still dazed by the impact of her captain’s kiss; too dazed to register there were others in the wheelhouse with them. Even after Swain took his mouth away from hers, she took a minute to focus. Her captain was twisted away from her. She peeked around him to see Jockey, Foist, Swing, Tune, and Hector there just inside the wheelhouse door, each as amused as each other.
Swain cleared his throat and tried to back away, but her legs were still around him and they wouldn’t let him go. Her captain had to use his strength to unlock her ankles, pulling them apart and away from his body to put her on her feet.
Easing her away from the wall, he tried to urge her to keep on walking, but she didn’t. “Turn to, Waif,” Swain said.
Sassi knew that meant she was supposed to get back to work, but her head was still spinning. “I need… just a second,” she said, still holding onto his arm. Blinking a few more times, Sassi cleared her throat and shook her head. That was when she saw just how hilarious the crew thought her muddle was and she glared at them all. “You know, our captain won’t mind if I spit in his food, can the rest of you say the same?”
“I’d swallow your spit,” Hector said, relaxing her. It was just like him to flirt with her even now. “I don’t think there’s a man on crew who wouldn’t.”
The rest of the crew only laughed for a second before they noticed the tense captain at her side. “He’ll get his sense of humor back in a couple of days when I’m back on shore,” she said, kissing her captain’s arm because he was too busy scowling at his men to offer her his cheek. “Chow will be ready when you boys are.”
Swain hadn’t moved, but she couldn’t ignore his orders any longer. Heading for the hatch, she sat on the floor and climbed down the ladder, pulling the hatch down after her to lock it from the inside.
The male crew members had ship operations to discuss and she had a meal to prepare. Life went on, and it would keep going on even after she and Eros were torn apart.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Stuart Robins came tripping into the wheelhouse before Swain had a chance to say anything to his crew.
“Yo, cap’n, we’re only messing about your girl,” Tune said. “We know the wife’s hands-off.”
Swain didn’t doubt that for a second, he trusted his crew with his life and with Sassi. But, with another man trying to muscle in on her against even her will, he was particularly sensitive to the subject of her virtue.
“What the fuck is going on?” Robins asked. “What the fuck we doing up here?”
“Taking care of things,” Swain said, shaking off as much of his grouchy mood as he could. As long as Sassi was on Eros, sleeping in his berth at night, she was safe. That was what he had to hold onto to keep his sanity. She was his focus and all that mattered. “Close the door, it’s time for strategy.”
Robins frustrated him. Sometimes he said things that made Swain think he was going to take care of his sister in the way a brother should. But, most of the time he just came across as lazy, looking for the easy way out.
The wheelhouse door was closed and the men began to gather around the chart-table. Swain unzipped the side pocket of the duffel bag and pulled out a stack of papers. “Okay,” he said, when everyone was in position. “We have a list of creditors who need to be satisfied. This really is as simple as that.”
“Simple,” Robins scoffed and folded his arms, but tensed when he caught sight of the top sheet Swain was holding. “Where did you get that? That’s the piece of paper Karen found in my dad’s stuff.”
“It’s a copy,” he said, turning it to show he had both sides of the ledger.
“Where did you get it?”
Was the guy going to give him shit? Why did it seem he wanted to start a fight when there were more important things to be doing? Swain would happily beat the crap out of Robins if it would make the dude feel better, but that would wait until they’d dealt with the threat.
“Your sister’s email,” he said.
“Her… what the fuck? How the fuck did you get into her email?”
Clenching his teeth, Swain worked his jaw trying his best to hold onto his patience. Sassi. He had to think of Sassi and how annoyed she’d be if he decked her brother. “With her password,” he said.
“How the hell did you get her password?”
Every minute he spent with Stuart Robins made it clearer to Swain how Sassi had ended up in her predicament. The brother was easily distracted by frivolous details; if the father had been the same, he wouldn’t have thought to deal with his debt before passing it onto his children.
It would’ve been good if Robins could’ve used some of this outrage on the guy trying to enslave Sassi. “I walked into the head after breakfast when she was taking a shower and asked for her fucking password.”
“When she was naked?”
Smacking the side of his fist on the back of the booth at their side, Swain lost his patience. “You want to do the big brother thing and threaten my ass for screwing your little sister, go right ahead after we’ve dealt with the fucker trying to drag her down the aisle.”
“And don’t do it in his own fucking wheelhouse,” Jockey said.
“Or while his crew are at his back,” Hector followed up, a growl in his tone.
Yeah, Robins wasn’t in his comfort zone. But, if he was anything like his sister, that wouldn’t stop him from charging ahead.
“None of you got a sister?” Robins asked, appealing to them all.
Tune laughed. “Any of our sisters hooked up with a stand-up guy like the captain here, we’d have a fucking parade.”
“Can we get back to the goddamn point?” Swain said. The crew was relaxing and even Robins seemed to soften, but he didn’t want anyone at ease, he wanted them all on alert. “We’re going out tonight, start as a group, split into pairs, whatever it takes. We’re putting word out that Henry Robins’ debts are being settled.”
Huffing, Stuart Robins widened his stance and leaned back. “Easier said than done, Captain.” He spat the rank, which made the rest of his crew bristle, but Swain held up a hand to calm them. “If it was that easy, I’d have done it already. You’re talking over a hundred grand, and that’s without Dario’s line. You wouldn’t listen to my plan. So, where the fuck are we going to get that kind of money? Rob a bank? I guess we’ve got the manpower for it.”
Reaching over to the bag in the center of the chart table, Swain unzipped it and opened it wide, exposing the bundles of cash to his crew who stood in stunned silence for almost a minute before they started to express their shock and admiration.
“Shit, cap’n,” Tune said.
Hector took a block of bills and flicked through it. Swing took two and smacked them together. Swain narrowed his eyes on the gaping Robins, who took a second, but did a doubl
e take before making eye contact.
“You’re extending a line of credit,” Robins said. “Adopting my father’s debt.”
“I’m paying your father’s debt.”
Stuart scoffed. “What difference does one creditor make over another?” he asked. “What the fuck is it you want from us? Why are you any better than Dario? Why the fuck should I let you buy my sister?”
“I don’t want your sister,” Swain said, which wasn’t at all true, he did want her, but that wasn’t why he was doing this. Still, he corrected himself. “I don’t want to buy her.”
“She asked you to do this?” Stuart demanded. “Did she?”
“She has no idea I’m doing this,” he said, turning his determination to his crew. “And she won’t… no one will tell her about this.”
“Lie to her?” Stuart said. “Why would we lie to her?”
“I’ll tell her when it’s done,” Swain said.
“Our cap’n’s an old-fashioned guy,” Jockey said, taking the money from Swing to toss it back into the bag. “A man should take care of this kind of business for his girl.”
“She’s not his girl,” Robins sneered at him.
It pained him that Robins was right, but Swain kept himself rigid and expressionless. He wasn’t going to let Robins break his resolve.
“You wouldn’t be so sure about that if you arrived two minutes earlier,” Hector mumbled.
“No,” Robins said and backed away from the table. “Least I know what kind of depraved, sick fuck Dario is… I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re about… I won’t let you extort her like this, you can’t have her. Sassi’s not for sale.”
Robins was right that they didn’t know each other and Swain respected that he was being cautious with his sister’s safety. But, he wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Whether he had Robins support or not, he was doing this.
“Your sister is free,” Swain said as Robins headed for the door. “I already told her she isn’t going to be bound to me, or to you or Dario… All I want is for her to be free to make her own choices. She’ll only be free if this debt is gone.” Robins stopped. “Fuck, Robins, use your fucking head! Your sister was in here ten minutes ago asking me to cast off and take her away… If all I wanted was her, I’d have taken her away from you already.”
Spinning around, he marched back. “You don’t get to take her away from me. You can’t take her!”
Though Robins was tense, Swain felt calm. “You don’t understand my relationship with her. We’re private,” he said. “But, now that everything is out in the open, trust me when I tell you, if I wanted to take her away from you, I could.”
“The cap’n don’t want to hurt Miss. Sassi,” Swing said.
“None of us do,” Tune chimed in.
“The lass is at home here. She’ll always have a place on Eros. But, the cap’n wants her to have choices,” Jockey said.
“Sassi is part of our family,” Hector said. “We take care of family.”
“You can be a part of this,” Swain said. “Or you can get the fuck off my ship and abandon your sister like you did already.”
“If I leave, she’s coming with me,” Robins asserted.
Tipping his head, Swain held off from laughing. “No… she’s not… Don’t test me, Robins, or her. You won’t like the way it ends.”
Considering everyone in the room for a moment, Robins’ Adam’s apple bobbed and then he started back toward the chart table. “Okay, you said you’ve got a fucking plan?”
Good. He’d made a smart choice. Swain would let him be involved and would trust him, just like he did with everyone else. But, Stuart Robins was already on thin ice. He’d abandoned Sassi once and he’d be a fool to think that Swain wasn’t a hundred percent aware of that.
Sassi might be able to forgive her brother, and that made sense. They were blood, the closest relatives that either of them had. But, Swain was more particular about who he entrusted her well-being to and that man would never be her brother.
Something was going on.
Sassi didn’t know what it was but the guys were cagey at dinner and they ate fast like they were eager to get to something else. Before she’d even thought to stand up to clear the dessert plates from the table, the men had scarpered from the mess.
The water pressure dropped, there was a lot of movement… Yep, they were getting ready to go out.
Fine by her.
She might be stuck on Eros, but she didn’t mind the men going out, as long as she knew what was going on.
Stuart and Karen were locked up in their cabin and her captain was in the shower, so Sassi went to get changed in the cabin before returning to the galley to clean up.
She was still by herself twenty minutes later when she heard her captain growling and stomping up behind her. “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded.
Spinning around, Sassi was so pleased to see his bare torso that she grinned and hooked her hands on the counter behind her to lift her shoulders as she bent her knees.
He was wearing jeans and his boots, but no shirt, and his ripped torso made her insides begin to quake. “Mmm, you look good, Captain.”
“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said and opened his hand.
Pouting her innocence, she glanced down to the shirt she’d buttoned over her body while he was in the shower. “This? You want this shirt?”
“Yes,” he said, his jaw twitching.
“It was lying on our bed,” she said, trying her best to maintain her innocence though they both knew it was an act. “Just lying there, Captain, on the bed we share… Captain… the bed we used to make love on. Do you remember what that felt like, Captain… sliding yourself into me… using my body for your pleasure… listening to me whimper your name in ecstasy…”
Touching his nipple with a fingernail, she dragged it downward to his navel loving how hard he clenched his teeth because it was a sign she was toying with his control.
“Take it off,” he growled.
Sassi sighed. “Okay,” she said and began to unbutton it.
She got past her breasts and down to her belly before he cursed. “What are you wearing under it?”
Parting the sides further, she exposed her cleavage and the swell of her breasts, stopping just short of revealing her nipples. Letting her hands trail down to the few remaining buttons, she showed him a plunging triangle of bare flesh all the way down to her navel.
“Absolutely nothing, Captain,” she said, her sly smile almost becoming a laugh.
His hand shot out to stop her undoing any more buttons. “Fuck,” he said, tightening his grip on her wrist. “Go upstairs and get changed. Now.” But, she shook her head, pulling her lower lip into her mouth with her teeth. “Don’t test me, Waif. Get upstairs and change. Now.”
“I have work to do here, Captain. I couldn’t possibly leave my post while there’s all this work to do. Can’t you see these dishes that need to be washed? There’s so much tidying up to do. There’s just not time…”
Sassi began to turn away, but he grabbed her and hauled her back, holding her up on the tips of her toes. “This isn’t the time to push me, wench.”
Desire and excitement bubbled up through her, but she did her best to subdue it to keep playing it cool. “Is there ever a good time to push you, lover?” she asked, edging her mouth nearer to his. “You want the shirt?” He growled. “Then I want oral.”
Surprising him was fun, especially since it lessened his anger.
“What the fuck?”
“Yeah,” she said, nudging his arm with her hip. “I think that’s a fair exchange, don’t you? You get something you want and I get something I want. It is my sworn duty to provide you with something to eat… to nourish you… We can do it right here.”
“You want me to eat you in the galley?” he asked. Sassi didn’t trust his sneer. “I’ll strip you fucking naked and take the damn shirt. I don’t give a fuck if the crew see you.”
Leaning in
, she whispered. “Yes, you do. The rest of the crew don’t get to enjoy the captain’s girl, remember?”
“Why the fuck are you playing with me? I’ll tongue fuck you later. I need the shirt now.”
She shook her head. “No deal… maybe if you tell me what’s got you guys all in a frenzy, I’ll feel more cooperative.”
“Frenzy? No one’s in a frenzy?”
She exhaled a laugh. “Yeah, right, and I’m a fucking supermodel. There’s zero water pressure, which means everyone’s in the shower. The guys have been raiding the laundry, and the whole ship stinks like an Old Spice factory… you guys are going for a night on the town, aren’t you?” She hit his chest. “How can you think about going out there to party when Dario could be on the hunt?”
“That fucker comes near me and I’ll take him down, no problem. It would make my night,” he said and his awareness piqued. “But, you’re not worried about me handling myself in a fight. You’re worried about me getting laid.”
She couldn’t claim that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind. It was sort of disconcerting that he’d read her so fast. But, she maintained her confidence. “You can’t get laid if I’m in your bed,” she said, folding her arms, plumping her cleavage in the gap between the edges of the shirt. Swain’s glimpse of her breasts made him grab for the shirt to pull it tight, overlapping the sides to cover her body. “And, yeah, I’m not so worried about you enjoying another woman when you have a willing one right here… If you want to get laid, let’s do it. Right now. Anywhere you want.”
“I told you we’re not going to have sex.”
Sliding her hands down his body, she cupped the bulge in his jeans. “Stay here with me, Captain,” she whispered. “Take me upstairs and enjoy me… please, Captain… There’s nothing out there you can’t get right here where you’re safe… Where we’re safe. I’ll let you do anything you want to me… I’ll fulfill any fantasy you’ve got.”
Stroking her face, he dropped his bluster, and bowed to kiss her head. “Let me come home to you sleeping safe in our berth,” he said. “That’s my fantasy, Waif.”
Sweet Seas Page 26
