Every surface of Jade was lifted, scoured, and replaced until my hands and nerves were chafed raw. Planks, doors, walls, ladders, sails, clothing… Even bodies. Every man on board was subjected to a thorough inspection by myself or Reynolds.
The compass remained hidden.
Days bled into a week, and I lost myself in the search, so I might forget the real reason my boots carried me down to the bilge every morning.
My longing for Priest refused to abate.
I tried to heed Jobah’s advice and listen to what Priest didn’t say with words. But every visit yielded the same as the first. He glared in brooding silence. I analyzed every twitch. He demanded my fidelity. I repeated my threats. We argued. He roared, and I left.
I refrained from torture or fornication—with him or anyone else. I tried
gentle.
“Gentle doesn’t work with Priest.” I stood alone in my cabin, naked and resolved. “He leaves me no choice.”
I grabbed a peeled orange from the desk, held it to my chest, and squeezed. The juices sluiced down my breasts, and I caught the sticky rivers, rubbing nectar into my skin from shoulders to waist.
With my torso bathed in the fruit, I donned Priest’s shirt. The white one with leather laces he’d left in my cabin a week ago. It hung to my knees and still smelled like him—dark, musky, sinful. But not for long.
From a small sea chest, I removed a bottle of odoriferous water I’d bought from an apothecary some months ago. Removing the cork, I doused
my hands and ran them over the shirt. The aroma of clove oil, rosemary, and cinnamon reached my nose, subtle yet strong enough to dilute the scent of orange.
That done, I scrubbed my hands until every trace of pulp was removed from my fingers and nails. Then I made my way to Priest.
At the hatchway to the bilge, I paused, breathed deeply, and gathered my strength.
Yesterday I left him seething with the uncertainty of whether I would return or who I might return with. If my visit today didn’t produce the compass, I would have no choice but to come back with a crewmate and make good on my pledge to fuck another. Probably Reynolds.
But I couldn’t think about that right now. Couldn’t let myself get dragged into the anguish of doing something so shitten.
I needed this to work. If I angered Priest badly enough, he would surrender what I needed and be finished with me.
I can do this.
Cold, hard purpose soaked into my muscles, immersing the panic as I opened the hatch and descended. At the bottom of the ladder, I stood tall and turned slowly.
His silvery gaze grabbed me from across the dim space, arrowing in on his shirt. I wore nothing beneath the white linen, and though it wasn’t transparent, it didn’t hide the shape of my nipples or the curves of my form. His gaze feasted on every dip, lowered to where the fabric brushed my knees, and rose to my eyes.
My heart thundered uncomfortably as we stared at each other.
I felt it then, had prepared myself for it—the mysterious, knee- weakening alchemy that simmered in the air between us.
His beautiful face beckoned, the cast of his hard jaw and chiseled mouth exquisite in the flickering shadows. His bare chest flexed with slabs of muscle, his arms straining with enough power to steady two heavy matchlock guns. Or the weight of my body as he pounded me against the wall.
Yes, I was undeniably attracted to him. But the connection went so much deeper. When he exhaled, my lungs gulped. When he swallowed, my mouth dried. When he blinked, my entire body stilled. And it wasn’t just me.
Everything I did—every breath, heart beat, and word—resulted in consequences and obligations for him. If I ran, he would follow. If I died, he would grieve. If I kissed him, he would harden, lengthen, and groan.
It had been a series of mutual actions that bound us together, and it would take a single concerted blow to permanently tear us apart.
Without breaking eye contact, I put one foot before the other and began an unhurried approach.
Surprise flashed in his gaze, his body stiff with suspicion. He’d expected me to torture him with infidelity, not return to him alone, wearing only his shirt, and stepping within arm’s reach.
He sat with his back against the wall and legs stretched out before him, frozen. His mouth opened, possibly to ask what I was doing. But it snapped shut as he regarded me, seemingly finding the answer in my expression.
Desire flushed my skin, and I parted my lips. Tiny spasms overwhelmed the juncture of my legs, his shirt pulling across my breasts with my quickening breaths. I let him see every reaction he roused in me—my hunger, my vulnerability, the endless ache to mate with no one but my husband.
My body would give me the leverage I needed with him. If not today, then with another man in front of him. I counted on that. And dreaded it.
A water bucket for washing sat near his foot. I kicked it, sending it skidding and sloshing out of the reach of his chain. Then I stepped over him and planted my bare feet on either side of his hips.
His hands instantly went to my ankles, sparking a delicious fever across my skin as they slid upward, caressing the backs of my calves, behind my knees, and beneath the hem of the shirt.
Heat rolled off him in waves, his gaze never leaving mine. A lump constricted my airway, and my strength abandoned me.
I sank onto his lap, straddling him, and God help me, he felt like home.
He gripped the laces of the shirt and hauled me into him, angling for my lips. I turned my head, and his mouth caught the corner of mine, lingering, panting soundlessly.
Neither of us moved, stunned by the excruciating touch. Or perhaps fearful the slightest shift would sever it.
Heart pulsations beat by. His exhales soaked my lips. My hands locked on his shoulders. Rock-hard thighs supported my bottom, and his shirtless torso pressed in, making me warm all over.
He rested his brow against mine, and our noses slid together, side by side, affectionately nudging.
Fingers touched my face. Four points of contact curving around my cheek. Assertive warmth searing my skin. I wanted nothing more than to melt into him.
So much of my life had been submerged in sadness. Loneliness in my childhood, grief over losing my parents, Priest’s devastating perfidy—all of it lay waste to my emotions and shaped my darkest dreams.
I ached for every minuscule portion of affection my husband was willing to dole out. Pathetic.
My thoughts swam in a nebulous jumble as the impulse to devour him battled the instinct to bash his head against the wall. But the moment his lips kissed a languid path across mine, I was ensnared.
He plunged deep into my mouth, hunting my tongue and humming a voracious groan. Pleasure coiled. Madness threatened, and my inner muscles clenched in a shuddering frenzy.
His hand collared my neck, and the other palmed my backside, yanking me against the grind of his pelvis. The feverish sensation coaxed a moan from my throat, and the sensual roll of his hips dragged my focus to the source of all our misery—his heavy, swollen cock.
Awareness that he was my husband flooded my logic. My nose knew his scent. My tongue knew his taste. My hands recognized the soft texture of his hair, and my body sang in invitation, heating and growing slick with need.
He broke the kiss to put his mouth at my ear. “You’re so hungry, my beautiful girl. So responsive.”
The roughened texture of his accent shoved me to the brink of orgasm. God’s wounds, how I missed his heated words, the whisper of them across my flesh in the throes of passion.
His hands moved, roving beneath the shirt and unerringly finding the deep scar on my belly. His fingers shook as they traced the jagged, puckered skin before sailing up my abdomen, molding around my breasts, and closing painfully on my nipples.
With that, the plan was set. Now that he’d touched my chest, it would only take a few minutes to soak in.
Already, with his hands on my damp skin, confusion creased his forehead. Why was I sticky? Why did I let him touch me in the first place?
He should have been voicing those questions and pushing me away. But evidently, he wanted me too much to listen to the warnings.
His lips returned to mine, his tongue a wicked conqueror, pillaging the recesses of my mouth and demanding participation. His arousal stabbed my bottom, and I opened to him—my lips, my arms, my legs—drawing him tighter against me, locking my thighs around his hips, and bearing down on his hard length in my fierce need to get closer to him.
His breath stirred the hair that had fallen across my cheek as he rocked into me, savagely miming the movements of lovemaking. Every jab of his hips fed my hunger for him, driving me into blistering madness.
“Bennett.” His palms chased the lines of my body beneath the shirt, stroking and kneading my breasts. “Just touching you makes my hands burn.”
It wasn’t me causing that reaction, and in another minute, he would figure that out.
Time to pull away.
Leaning back, I didn’t move as if I were putting a stop to this. I shifted my weight, adjusting my legs to stand. But I did it seductively, slipping a hand between my thighs and stroking my soaked flesh as I slowly rose to my feet.
The motion of my fingers seized his attention. He gripped my knees, not to prevent me from standing but to spread me wider for his smoldering, gluttonous gaze.
I made a scandalous show of it, fondling and fingering myself only a breath away from his mouth. Close enough to taunt him with the scent of my desire.
Sweat formed on his temples. His breathing hastened. Every visible muscle hardened, and his pupils swallowed the gray of his eyes, giving him the appearance of a feral, mindless predator.
In a blink, his shoulders thrust forward, his face coming for my cunt. But I was ready for it, my feet already moving in an agile dance to evade him.
He missed me by a hairsbreadth. I kept backing up, dodging the swipe of his hand. With a roar of frustration, he rose to his full height and lunged.
The chain snapped taut, halting his advance and yanking his leg out from under him. He landed just short of reaching me, on his knees, with his fists grinding against the wooden planks. When he lifted his eyes, his
savage glare—consumed by fire, fury, and hunger—glowed from beneath a thick shadow of lashes.
“Come here, Bennett.” His voice scraped like the coarse sand of a seashore. He went for his breeches, his fingers blindly fumbling with the laces. “I need inside you.”
“Yes, I know. You need a lover like I need the sea. I suppose you could say we both long for the dark wet depths of a demanding mistress.” I retreated until my bottom hit the barrel. I perched there, legs spread, with my hand between my thighs. “But you can’t have me. Not anymore.”
He sat back on his heels, cast a fleeting glance at his palm, and dismissed the bubbling redness so that he could turn that vicious scowl back on me.
“You’re intent on continuing with this plan?” His jaw clenched around every word. “You wish to torture me.”
“Is it torture watching me like this?”
I hadn’t stopped touching myself, my fingers stirring the slick juices around my opening. It felt nice, as it should have. I’d done this often enough over the past two years, alone in my chamber, wishing for companionship while thinking only of my husband.
But this time, I didn’t have to fashion him in my mind. The sheer scope of muscle laid bare before me made my hand stroke faster, harder, squelching damp, turgid flesh and infusing the space with the sounds of my wetness.
He remained on his knees, his perfect arse resting on his heels as he strained forward, nostrils widening as if scenting the air.
Powerfully built in a way that could only be considered desirable, he was a beast in his prime. His shoulders had deep indentations where sturdy bones met thick tendons. His hands made lethal fists on his thighs, his chest rising and falling, arms tensing, every inch of him smooth and hard- surfaced.
Beneath the thinly woven fabric of his breeches, he was long and contoured, fully aroused and well-endowed, larger than any man I had ever felt between my legs.
A wash of memories rushed through me, funneling heat from my chest to my belly and lower, where fat slicks of moisture gathered and leaked out. It had been a long time since I’d been this aroused, the evidence streaking my fingers and thighs and holding his rapt attention.
So much so, he didn’t seem to notice how he was rubbing his hands on his breeches, scratching his itchy palms. A sure sign he was suffering from more than just a neglected erection.
I paused my stroking and drew a salty finger into my mouth.
He froze, tracking the movement as if carried away in an ecstatic trance. The muscles in his jaw locked, his eyes glowing like cauldrons of molten ore.
Then he blinked. His fingers flew to the ties on his breeches, one hand stroking his bulge through the fabric, as he attempted to free it.
“I wouldn’t do that.” I lowered my arm.
“You want to stop me from touching myself? Shackle my hands, you heartless minx. I dare you.”
“No shackles needed. You see, there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who can eat oranges.” I pulled off my shirt and stood before him, naked. “And those who can’t touch them.”
His palms were already blistering like the sores of syphilis. Except his ailment wasn’t contagious. It was strange.
Honestly, I didn’t know anyone who could break out in a rash of itchy red spots just from touching nectar. Although, I had a man on my gun crew once who fell violently ill when he ate tree nuts.
Priest looked at the sticky residue on my chest and back at his hands, his complexion paling as he made the connection.
“You bathed yourself in oranges.” He glanced down, running his gaze over his bare chest, searching for invisible traces of the toxic pulp. Then his eyes widened in horror, and he raised his fingers toward his face.
“Don’t touch your mouth.” My pulse kicked up. “You haven’t ingested it. Yet.”
If he swallowed even a whiff of the fruit, those blisters would swell in his throat, close his airway, and kill him. At least, that was Ipswich’s conclusion when we told him about the peculiar affliction three years ago. I never wanted to test the theory.
“Only your hands came in contact with the juice. I spread it here.” I gestured at my nude torso. “Just…don’t touch your face. Or anything else.”
I directed my eyes at his groin.
If he put his contaminated hands in his breeches and tried to stroke himself, it would inflame so severely he would lose his arousal. That was the reason I went to all this trouble.
No masturbation. No orgasms. Not until I allowed him to scrub his hands.
Physical and mental torture.
“Give me the water.” He glowered at the wash bucket, knowing relief was well out of his reach.
“Give me the compass.”
