‌Three years ago, a confident, sexually charged, uncommonly handsome pirate strolled onto my ship. Little did I know, his sinful gray eyes and traitorous mouth would twist my entire world wrong-side-out.‌

Priest had joined my crew with Reynolds, who was looking for work.

But Priest had a different agenda.

He was on the prowl for his next conquest.

Within a fortnight, I found myself pinned beneath his thrusts in my cabin, screaming, writhing, delirious in the throes of the most profound, erotic, and emotionally penetrating coupling of my life.

The raw, uninhibited magic I’d felt with him hadn’t been one-sided. Entangled in sweaty limbs, stripped to the skin, and deeper still—deep enough to expose our hearts—we were buried so far inside each other there would be no unraveling.

What began as an unstoppable explosion of passion forged into something pivotal, essential, and more.

We’d become addicted to each other. Insatiable. Inseparable. We couldn’t keep our clothes on, our hands to ourselves, or our hearts closed off. It had happened so suddenly it knocked us off our feet and fundamentally changed us.

How quickly I’d trusted him with my secrets and my future. Even more shocking was the intoxicating intensity in which the hedonistic king of libertines had returned my love. It was widely known that his cock had been under more skirts than a dressmaker’s needle.

But not once did I try to trap him or tie him down with marriage. He was the one who demanded commitment and monogamy while swearing off his profligate lifestyle.

I just want you, he’d said. Only you.

I’d believed him, joyously and blindly.

A year after we met, we’d made it official and exchanged matrimonial vows aboard Jade.

Since my love for him was my greatest liability, we kept our marriage hidden. Outside of Reynolds and a few other loyal members of my crew, no one knew.

In Charleston, I was Benedicta Leighton, granddaughter of the ninth Earl Leighton.

Everywhere else, I was Bennett Sharp, daughter of the notorious Pirate Edric Sharp.

The only living person who knew Benedicta and Bennett were one and the same was my husband.

He knew everything about me. Every.

Vulnerable.

Weakness.

Exposing our relationship would’ve made both of us susceptible. Then and now. Didn’t matter that I no longer looked at Priest through the lens of blind love. If he were captured by an enemy and tortured as a means to control me, I would surrender to any demand.

Pathetic, wasn’t it? He’d hurt me in the worst way possible, and I would still exchange my life for his.

Even more pathetic, I’d gone as far as amending the Articles drawn up by my crew on board Jade to include: If any man shall harm Priest Farrell, whether in aggression or defense, that man shall be marroon’d or shot.

I stood by that code today. If he died, it wouldn’t be on my watch. I would protect him at all costs.

There was a time when I was certain he would die for me, too. But that was before.

Before he betrayed me.

“Have you broken our agreement?” A hot prick of resentment smarted at the base of my throat. “How many know we’re married?”

“I told no one. But I would’ve announced it to the world if it had aided my search for you.” He set the compass into a lazy spin on the chain, taunting me with it. “Turns out, I only had to wait for Charles Vane to hang.”

My chest tightened. “Go to hell.”

“Been there since the day you left me in Nassau.” His expression contorted with fury as he stretched out his arms. “I have nothing left, my love. You must know I’ve exhausted every resource at my disposal, coin in my purse, and tarnal breath in my body pursuing you.”

Irrational guilt tried to surface, but I shoved it down. “What about the breaths you dribbled upon the bosoms of tavern wenches? Were those for me, too?”

“Yes.”

“You’re a despicable liar. The biggest scoundrel of them all.”

“You’re angry.” His silver eyes flared in the moonlight. “You’re not alone in that.”

Reynolds remained quiet and vigilant at my side. He would guard me with his life, but he couldn’t protect me from Priest. The damage my husband inflicted on me was never delivered with steel or gunpowder.

“End this marriage.” I straightened my spine. “Let me go, and you can have the compass.”

I didn’t mean it. Relinquishing my father’s gift would’ve been worse than losing a limb. I wouldn’t give it up without a fight.

“I already have the compass.” He twirled the instrument beside his leg. “As for you, I’m incapable of letting go.”

The instant I’d heard his Welsh lilt in the tavern, I knew it would come to this. He wanted me for reasons I couldn’t fathom, but none of those reasons mattered. Not after what he’d done to me.

Evading him for two years had been sheer luck, and now my luck had run out. The only way to escape him was to kill him.

Might as well run a sword through my own heart. I couldn’t do it.

His gaze stayed on mine, and somewhere in that cruel scowl, he knew. He knew I still loved him.

But if he thought we could pick up where we left off, he was out of his mind. Did he think that after the lies and infidelity, I would graciously forgive him? That I would welcome him back into my bed?

As if he gave a damn what I wanted. Priest Farrell took, plundered, and raided for his own enjoyment. He was a cold-blooded pirate who acted without moral restraint or conscience, especially when it came to his primitive desires.

“Where’s your ship?” I glanced at the shore behind him, unsurprised to find him alone. “No crew?”

“I released them this morning when I located you. Gave them the ship as a parting gift.”

Cold, silent dread filled my stomach, solidifying what I’d already surmised.

He had every intention of coming with me. And why not? His loyalties lay with no one and nothing. He was a lone sea wolf, bouncing from ship to stolen ship, seizing and discarding without attachment to the crews or the vessels he captured.

He meant to treat me with the same callousness. Again.

“Return the compass.” I held out my hand, knowing damn well he wouldn’t surrender his only insurance.

“Not until we’re aboard Jade.” His mouth curved up at the corner, and his tongue caught the crease with a teasing lick, as his gaze descended to the bodice of my gown. “Once I remove that garish travesty from your body with my teeth, I’ll reacquaint myself with what lawfully belongs to me. Then I’ll return your precious compass.”

My nipples hardened in memory of his fastidious touch, and my pulse fluttered angrily in my throat. “The devil fetch you, you rotten, unfaithful bastard.”

“Your temper still makes me hard.” The velvet darkness of his voice curled beneath my rage. “Not an inch of your satiny skin will go unmarked before I’m hilt-deep inside you again.”

Reynolds leaped in front of me and thrust out his cutlass. “You lost the privilege to touch her.”

“Watch yourself, Reynolds.” Priest slipped a dagger from his belt and picked his fingernail with it. “I’d hate to kill you. You’re like a brother to me.”

“I am your brother, you bleeding cunt.”

“By half. God knows I have enough of those to fill a galleon.”

“Because your mother was a whore with the sores of syphilis dangling about her stretched lips.”

Priest closed his eyes and went preternaturally still. The air cracked on the next breath, and they lunged at the same time. But I was braced for it, already jumping between them with my arms outstretched.

“Enough.” With a hand on each marble-hard chest, I shoved them apart. “By my account, both of your mothers were whores, and your father was no better, seeing as he tried to kill his only sons.”

“Just so.” Reynolds stepped away from my touch. “We were pirating his ship.”

Stealing from their own father. It had been Priest’s idea, and Reynolds and I had gone along with it. I almost lost them both that day, but in the end, the battle had turned in our favor. It had been my sword on which their father fell.

“I saved both your backsides, remember?” I shoved them farther apart, keeping an eye on Priest, as my hand tangled in the laces of his shirt.

I should have pulled away, but it had been too long. Two years too long. I felt that separation in the pads of my fingers as they slid across familiar ridges of hot muscle, basking in his masculine strength. Fearing it.

His nostrils widened, and he leaned in, pushing against my palm, testing my courage.

In the blackness of night, my senses sought the tempo of his heart, which pounded as furiously as my own. “Don’t come any closer.”

One touch would be my undoing. I could barely breathe in his presence. His jaw set, and the lonely gap between us swelled with years of contempt and distrust. If I allowed him aboard my ship, in my cabin, I courted a harrowing outcome. He would seize the last of my determination,

my dignity, until there was nothing left worth salvaging.

Unless I turned the tables and gave him a dose of his own deception.

I relaxed my fingers in his shirt and let him press into my space. He didn’t hesitate to crowd in, dipping his head and placing his words against my throat.

“We need to go.” He bit my neck, his teeth sinking fast and deep, making me whimper. “We have company.”

I jerked back, slapping a hand over the hurt as I searched the pier behind him.

Sure enough, silhouettes emerged from the shadows on the shore and strode in our direction. Moonlight illuminated their uniforms, and my pulse took flight.

Priest and I were wanted for murder and piracy and would be hanged if those men recognized us. Priest wasn’t even wearing a disguise, but his face didn’t show a trace of concern. On the contrary, the abyss in his eyes pledged to slay anyone who tried to interfere with his plans for me.

I spun toward the jolly boat while keeping the compass in my periphery. Staying alive was more important than a sentimental trinket, but I desperately needed both.

As Priest moved to leap into the boat, I swiped at the compass. He caught my wrist, yanked me against his solid frame, and pulled me down with him.

We landed against the stern, and my descent lacked all the grace of his. I stumbled back, stubbornly blocking his attempt to catch me. My backside hit the middle seat, and my feet went up, giving him an indecent view beneath my skirts.

Damnation!

Frantically putting myself back in order, I waited for a licentious comment. Thankfully, he spared me that, but there was no escape from his smoldering gaze.

Those hooded gunmetal eyes knew how to seduce a woman without words, pleasure her without touch, and make her feel like she was the center of his entire universe. He did all of that now. With a millisecond look.

My blood pounded, and my insides quivered as hunger spiraled through me, making it impossible to focus, to plan, to reason, only to crave the ecstasy I knew he could give me.

But I wasn’t his one and only.

How many women had he fucked over the past two years? How many times had he panted I love you into someone else’s ear?

God damn him, it hurt. The pain was never-ending, festering inside me and wringing my emotions into something ugly, vile, and unrecognizable.

I could never be with him again. Never trust him again. Hell, if I were even half the fierce pirate captain the stories claimed, I would torture him to the point of death, heal his wounds, and torture him again.

Another thing I could never do. But I did have a plan for him and would see it through before the night’s end.

Footsteps sounded on the pier near the shore, announcing the approach of the governor’s men.

I held my breath and gripped the side of the rocking boat as Reynolds jumped in behind me. I didn’t have to look at my quartermaster’s face to glean his thoughts about our unwanted passenger. His silence roared against my back, making me shiver.

Without a word, Reynolds stabbed the oars into the water and shoved us out to sea.

To Jade.

My home and refuge.

I knew every cable, spar, and inch of canvas she carried. Every day I toiled as hard as her hardest-working crew member, proving I deserved to be her captain. After commanding her through years of cruises, with prizes and booty to show for it, I’d more than earned my position among the crew and thereby their respect.

Priest’s return to Jade jeopardized everything. He cared more about satisfying the urges between his legs than the common good of my ship and her mates.

The one-hundred-and-twenty-man crew was always spoiling for a fight. That worked to my advantage as long as the fight wasn’t against me. But if Priest undermined, manhandled, or challenged me in front of them, I would appear weak.

A weak captain fell in disfavor, and a democratic crew wouldn’t hesitate to rid themselves of the weakness and vote in a new leader.

Rallying that kind of mutiny was my husband’s specialty.

Through cunning, charisma, and clever language, he knew how to talk his way onto a ship, inspire the crew into throwing their captain overboard, and coerce them into voting himself in as the ultimate authority. Once he grew bored with his conquest, he moved on to the next one.

Three years ago, he boarded Jade intending to do exactly that. Then he met me.

Somewhere between his shameless flirting beneath the ratlines and my orgasmic gasps to God against my cabin door, he decided he was more interested in my body. And my heart. Both of which he consumed, betrayed, and irretrievably lost.

Now he was back to reclaim and repeat.

I would let him believe he won, let him get physically close enough to lower his guard. Then I would clap him in irons and throw him in the hold.

As Reynolds rowed us into the shrouded safety of the sea, Priest’s steady gaze never strayed. He watched me with the focus of a hunter, heating my blood and affecting its flow through my veins.

“I’m sorry about Charles Vane.” Deep, predatory, and unapologetically lustful, his voice purred across my skin.

That voice, by Christ. It caressed me in places I gave no license to touch, and that enraged me beyond reason.

“You’re not sorry.” I flexed my hands, my breaths seething. “You knew I would come out of hiding for Charles and jumped at the chance to use my grief for your own gain.”

“I’m resourceful.” He wet his lips. “And truly, I regret the way Charles died. I would’ve preferred to execute him myself.”

He’d always despised my relationship with Charles, specifically the part where I gave Charles my virginity.

Priest’s jealousy had no restraint or shortage of skill with a cutlass. As several maimed men had discovered, anyone who touched me without Priest’s consent lost their hands, their tongues, and the flesh between their legs.

There was a time when I found comfort in his savage overprotectiveness. But now I saw it for what it was.

Mad hypocrisy.

While Priest didn’t allow anyone near me, he didn’t apply that rule to himself and the random doxies who stirred his lust. He loved women. He loved to fuck, and I was under no illusion about what he’d been doing the past two years. Imagining it prickled heat behind my eyes and spread poison through my gut.

“I hate you.” My broken whisper exposed too much. Too much pain. I gave him too much power to hurt me.

“I’ll rectify that.” He sprawled on the seat across from me and stretched out his legs, flanking mine. “When I kiss you, undress you, and lick you… here…” He hooked his boot between my legs and pressed the toe against the juncture of my thighs. “I’ll remind you why you married me.”

“Your cock isn’t the reason I married you. It’s the reason I left you. Because you liked to put it inside other people.” I shoved his boot away, but my fingers clung to the worn leather.

Familiar leather. Black and soft and creased with heavy use, it wasn’t just any pair of jackboots. Seven years ago, they were left on a beach by a pirate who died wearing deerskin moccasins.

“It sickens me that I gave you these.” A clamp squeezed around my heart, and I closed my eyes against the anguish. “You’re not at all the man I thought you were.”

“Perhaps not. But no man will ever live up to the ideal you hold for Edric Sharp.” He slowly pulled his foot from my grip and softened his voice. “I treasure these boots. For two years, they were all I had of you. For that, I don’t regret keeping them.”

His words hit their mark, burrowing beneath my ribs. Would the pain ever stop? It wasn’t supposed to end this way. He had done this to us.

I breathed carefully through my nose, trying to silence the agony he so expertly ran through me.

But Reynolds had heard enough, given the threatening growl in his voice. “If you loved her, you’d leave her be.”

“That weak mentality is precisely why you’re still alone.” Priest wedged my compass into the waistband of his breeches and scrutinized his brother. “Still pining after my wife, I see. You’ve had two years to stake your claim. How many times did you attempt to warm her bed in my absence?”

The oar smacked the water behind me, and Reynolds surged to his feet, jostling the boat.

“Don’t answer that.” I gripped Reynold’s arm, holding him back until he sat and resumed rowing.

“He doesn’t have to answer.” Intelligence glinted in Priest’s bladed eyes. “Had he claimed you, he would’ve killed me before I stepped onto this boat, your rules be damned.” He slanted forward, resting an arm on his knee. “Had he claimed you, I would’ve—”

“Mutilated and castrated him. I haven’t forgotten your threats.” I bent in, leaving a sliver of space between us. “Give me the names of everyone you bedded since we married. It’s time I follow your practices and collect some body parts of my own. It’s only fair.”

His mouth flattened into a severe line, and he leaned back. Effectively silenced. And there he remained until we reached Jade.

With my compass fastened to the leather straps around his waist and secured beneath his breeches, I had no choice but to follow him up the ladder and onto the deck with Reynolds at my heels.

The majority of the crew had gone ashore to debauch in the town for a few hours. But my most loyal men remained on board to defend Jade against anyone who might attack her. These seamen didn’t just know my husband. They had attended our nuptials and been his closest friends.

Priest rested a possessive hand on my lower back and escorted me past the boatswain, pilot, surgeon, carpenter, and a dozen other concerned faces. They all knew he’d betrayed me. They knew I’d been running from him ever since. I would only need to give them a signal, and they would charge him with weapons raised. He would fight back. Some of them would die. He would be injured, possibly killed, as well.

There was a better way to deal with this.

Judgment and distrust wafted from them as we walked by. Priest’s presence wasn’t just horribly belittling. It was openly belittling as he marched me across my own ship with nothing more than a hand on my back.

I pushed him away and squared my shoulders.

No captain could ever be certain of her command or crew. If I didn’t prove to them by the morrow that I had this under control, I would lose their allegiance. And possibly my ship.

Without a nod, glance, or so much as a twitch in their direction, Priest led me toward the companionway that descended toward my cabin. I focused on keeping distance between us and many steps ahead, as if I were the one steering this madness.

Trailing behind, Reynolds barked orders to set sail the moment the remaining crew boarded.

At the threshold to my quarters, I glanced back, casting Reynolds a warning look. One that demanded he not interrupt until I called for him.

“Run along,” Priest said to his brother. “Unless you prefer to watch.”

I shook my head at Reynolds as he bared his teeth and released a menacing sound.

Undeterred, Priest shoved me into the cabin and kicked the door shut behind him with a rattling bang.