Dawn was a welcome sight as it swelled over the horizon, melting yesterday’s gloom. The mingled scents of salt water and fresh air shimmered through my deep inhale, invigorating me.
I slid from the bed—unsurprised to find Ashley’s side cold and vacant
—and limped toward the open door of the balcony. The foot injury was inconsequential, if not a little sore. I’d received the utmost care and would be walking with a normal gait by the time we reached New Providence.
The other missteps I’d taken, however, still needed mending.
At the rail, I stared out at the empty ocean. The sun glowed in smudges of pink and lavender, reflecting like sparkling diamonds across the water’s surface. Warm rays kissed my face and soaked through the loose nightgown. The trade wind sought my hair, tangling the strands as though it had nothing better to do.
What was I going to do?
I was married to an adulterer who would never let me go. I wanted a nobleman who would never marry me. If and when the two men collided, they would promptly kill each other. I should hope for that outcome and escape the moment it happened. But I was finding that my ability to exercise logic where they were concerned was nonexistent.
Even if my affection for Ashley was requited, he wouldn’t desert the Royal Navy or eschew his family, ranks, and obligations to be with a ruined, untitled woman. Besides, a relationship with him wouldn’t sever the one I’d been running from for the past two years.
One thing I’d learned was that love conquered nothing. It would only make my hopeless situation all the more hopeless.
A rustling sound drifted from the dining cabin. Footsteps? I thought I was alone.
Curious, I stepped back inside and followed the disturbance through the sleeping chamber, the day cabin, and… Oh. My eyebrows lifted.
Ashley sat at the table, wearing breeches and nothing more. A stout man with crooked legs bent over him, scraping a cutthroat razor along his neck.
“You have whiskers?” I edged closer, squinting at the steel-edged lines of Ashley’s jaw. “Since when?”
“Good morning, Miss Sharp.” He glanced at me sidelong without turning his head. “How’s your foot?”
“Good morning. The foot’s fine. But seriously, I didn’t know you could grow facial hair.”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I can, and I do.”
His barber finished and turned away to stow the tools. As he reached for a towel, I beat him to it.
“May I?” I held up the rag and met Ashley’s steady gaze.
He stared at me a moment before giving a stiff nod. “You may go, Sergeant.”
The bandy-legged man lumbered from the cabin with his small sack of supplies.
When the door shut, I sidled between Ashley’s spread knees and sat on the edge of the table. Leaning in, I ran the towel along the strong column of his neck.
His lips parted, and I sucked mine between my teeth. I could still taste his kisses and feel his hard male body wrapped around me. The magic between us hadn’t faded. Every lingering look rushed my blood like a tidal wave bent on ruination.
“I’ve never seen hair on your face.” I dropped the towel to glide my fingers across his rigid jaw and sharp cheekbones. So soft. So impossibly stony.
“It grows slow and comes in patches.” His breathing quickened beneath my caress. “Shaving is only needed once or twice a fortnight.”
“That’s okay.” I floated closer, tracing the satiny skin around his wide lips. “I can’t grow a beard at all, which makes me dreadfully ill-suited to my role as a pirate captain.”
“That so?”
“Truly. Everyone knows that beards incite terror and inspire reverence. You saw Madwulf’s horror when you severed his bug-infested pride and joy.”
“I think…” His majestic blue eyes glimmered as they dipped to my mouth, and lower still, pausing on my chest. “You possess other, more sufficient assets, so as to strike a man with awe.”
I followed his gaze downward, and my heart bounced off the walls. The neckline of the nightgown hung low and gaping in my bent position, offering him a glaring view of my bare breasts.
As I leaned back, his hand caught the loose garment and yanked it down my shoulder. The linen settled at my elbow, exposing one breast entirely. His gaze fixated, his pupils expanding, darkening, and soaking in that bared part of me for the first time.
My flesh ached for the heat of his wet mouth, my nipples tightening with each agonizing second he stared.
For two years, I’d dreamed of being gazed upon by a man who desired me. A man who didn’t lie or betray or long for another woman when he was with me.
Ashley didn’t just gaze. He narrowed the space between us, enveloped me with his scent I loved so well, and raised a hand toward my chest. Rather than seizing me in a careless grip, he skimmed his palm against me, just a featherlight touch on my nipple.
I whimpered and shivered as a delicious fever sprang to life in my bones, heating deep in my core, and hotter still between my legs. He watched every reaction, his hawk eyes examining my body’s answer to his oh-so-soft caress.
“You’re exquisitely formed.” He molded his fingers around my breast, lifting and testing the weight. “Like a queen.”
“I’m certainly no queen.” My bosom felt so heavy, so swollen with need.
“No, you’re right.” He lowered his mouth to my chest and breathed, “You’re a goddess. A sea goddess.”
He ran the flat of his tongue over the pebbled peak, and my spine bowed in response. A groan vibrated in his throat, and I moaned with him, shaking beneath the heavenly sensations of his warm firm lips. My hands flew to his
hair, my nails dragging across his scalp and threading through the glossy black strands.
My head dropped back on my shoulders as he suckled. His hand cupped my backside, and the other plumped up my breast, holding it against his worshiping mouth.
Any second, he would throw up his walls and say something mean to push me away. But for now, I gloried in the unguarded moment, savoring the rush of breaths, the caress of strong fingers, and the masculine sounds of appreciation.
I touched him everywhere I could reach—his bulging shoulders, the hairless bricks of his chest, and the heavily muscled flesh that flexed along his arms as he commanded them to move.
His jaw felt like marble against my breast, where he licked and kissed with devotion. His lips, so soft and full, delivered pure ecstasy when they wrapped around my throbbing nipple.
Fingers fanning down the curves of my waist, he splayed them across my midsection and slowly sank into the valley of my thighs. My bottom teetered on the edge of the table as he teased the dark juncture between my legs, finding my wet curls through the linen.
I realized, truly comprehended, just how very destructive this man was on my life. He hadn’t just physically captured me. He’d besieged my emotions, my reasoning, and he was on his way to imprisoning my soul.
As he leaned back to stare at my glistening, swollen breast, his broad shoulders blocked out the world. All I saw was him and the gorgeous planes of his face in facets of light and dark, silk and steel, kindness and cruelty. And I trembled.
With fear. With desire.
I craved the addictive sensations he stirred in my body. And I feared every second he made my knees weak and my heart yearn for more than carnal pleasure.
He braced an elbow on his thigh and lazily trailed a knuckle around the outer curve of my breast, his gaze pensive as he watched the movement. “Why do you hate England?”
“Besides the fact that everyone there wants me dead?”
“Yes.” He cupped me in his palm and ran the pad of his thumb over my nipple.
“England rejected my mother. Banished her.” I brushed my fingers through his shiny black hair. “Whenever she was reminded of her home, it made her horribly sad.”
“Perhaps she was sad because she missed her beautiful country. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I remained here, in the West Indies, for the last seven years. Before that…” I took a bracing breath and met his eyes. “I spent the first fourteen years of my life in the wilds of Carolina. Charleston. No one knows that.”
Except Priest.
Ashley regarded me impassively. “If you were in Charleston, how did you know your father?”
“He visited throughout my childhood. I was closer to him than I was to anyone else. When he…” I placed my hand over his, flattening our fingers against my broken heart. “When he died on the gallows, my mother threw herself off a cliff.” My voice stuttered, hitching with old hurt. “I was there when it happened. I lost both of my parents on the same day.”
He reached for me, pulling me onto his lap and against his bare chest. “I’m sorry.”
His soft, sincere tone swaddled me in warmth. As did his arms and the protective cage of his body. He straightened the nightgown to cover my chest. Then he just held me, watching the sun rise, sipping from a cup of tea, with no sense of urgency to set me away.
So I started talking. I told him about my upbringing, my mother’s struggles in exile, my father’s secret visits, and their tragic love story. And because he listened with such quiet intensity, I walked through every detail of that harrowing day seven years ago, including the start of my relationship with Charles Vane.
By the end of it, my sadness had settled like the sand in an hourglass, resting quietly but always there, ready to tip and flow again.
“Have you visited Carolina after that day you left with Vane?” he murmured against my hair.
“No. Charleston and England are the two places I intended to avoid for the remainder of my life.”
“England is a special corner of the world, Bennett.” “What do you love about it?”
“The rich history. The raw, unspoiled countryside. It glows with greenery, moss-covered moors, and dramatic cliffs along the coastlines. The
view from the hill on my father’s land looks out onto nothing but sprawling fields crisscrossed in stone walls like seams on a patchwork counterpane.” His accent thickened, and his eyes seemed to shine with inner peace. “Since most of our tenants’ families have resided there since the fall of the Roman Empire, they’ve been maintaining the same hedgerows for generations upon generations. I daresay they’ve perfected the art.”
“Does your family own a lot of property?”
“Two estates in London and many along the southern coast. I own several myself. My favorite sits upon a cliff that overlooks the very water that touches your Carolina.”
That brought a small smile to my lips. Although he was thirteen years my senior, perhaps at some point during our childhood, we’d gazed out onto the same ocean at the same time.
“Is it cold there?” I asked.
“Depends on the season. It’ll be summer when we arrive. Warm and pleasant.”
Not on the gallows. No matter the weather, the noose would be as frigid as death.
“Will you watch me hang?” I met his gaze. “Or will you deliver me to the headsman, accept your promotion to admiral, and sail away on your flagship without looking back?”
His expression emptied. “I’ll be there until the end.”
My throat and stomach burned as he set me on my feet. Then he stood and stalked into the sleeping chamber.
Honestly, either answer would’ve hurt. Why had I even asked the question?
I swallowed a painful lump and followed him at a distance, remaining quiet as we dressed and groomed for the day.
The things we did by rote—cleaning teeth, donning skirts and shirts, lacing stays and boots—would’ve been ordinary if done alone. But here, together, every task felt significant. I would wager that he’d never performed his morning routine side by side with another person. A husband and wife didn’t even do these things together. Yet we went through the movements as if we shared everything and had known each other our whole lives.
Once my gown was in place, I didn’t need to ask for his assistance. His hands were already there, tightening the laces and adjusting the pleats in the
back.
Only this time, when he finished, he didn’t pull away.
His fingers sifted through the coils of my hair, brushing the tresses over my shoulder. Looming behind me, he set his lips against the exposed side of my neck. Not to kiss. He simply rested his warm mouth there, breathing me in, scenting my skin. Apologizing?
His hands curled around my waist, bringing my backside against his groin. A pained noise sounded in his chest, followed by a whisper at my ear. “You’re the chief cause of my misery.”
I flinched, eyes narrowing.
Not an apology, then.
“You make me hard, Bennett.” His cultivated accent cracked like kindling. “So unbearably, ceaselessly hard I’m in agony. I can’t think, can’t do my job, can’t—”
He released me and turned away. I spun toward him, watching the frock stretch across his back as he ran his hands down his face and over his mouth.
“Ashley.”
He shifted back and pinned me with an accusatory glare. “I will not fall for your trickery.”
“Trickery?” I squared my shoulders. “You think I want to feel affection for a man who intends to watch me hang?”
Something flickered in his eyes. Then they cleared, and his jaw worked side to side.
“Don’t play games with me.” He strode toward the exit. Big surprise.
“You’re the one playing games.” I raced after him and caught his arm in the day cabin. “You touch me and kiss me and work us both into tangled knots. Then you run away.”
He swung back, his ocean eyes bright and deep, as he clutched my face in his hands. “Who says I’m running?”
I didn’t understand his meaning. Until he kissed me.
His mouth paralyzed all thought as his assertive tongue delved between my lips, past my teeth, and straight through my heart. I moaned at the heady contact, the emotional intimacy, gulping down the force of his ravenous intensity.
Tongues twining, hands sliding, his mouth, his potency, his overwhelming masculine presence consumed me. Then he hooked a knuckle beneath my chin, lifted my face, and did something no man had ever done to me.
He kissed the tip of my nose, soft, lingering, deep in its affection.
“You feel me running, Bennett?” He rested his forehead against mine.
“No.” My chest rose hard, my voice barely a whisper. “I feel you falling.”
He closed his eyes. When they opened again, he stared at me with sullen austerity. His mask locked in place.
Stepping back, he straightened his frock, turned toward the dining cabin, and left.
I pressed a hand against my mouth, trapping the heat from his lips.
It was hard to love a man—much less tolerate one—who would choose his career over my life.
But it was impossible not to love Ashley Cutler.
He was complicated, iron-bound, steadfast, and passionate. Like Priest in the best of ways. Not better. Just… He was everything I longed for, for so very long. To give up on him would be to give up on myself.
I looked around his empty quarters, debating whether to go topside for a stroll in the ocean breeze. But I shouldn’t strain the stitches in my foot. Infection was the last thing I needed.
My gaze snagged on the unfinished gown on his desk. Fabric and sewing supplies scattered every surface. I’d left his day cabin in total disarray.
And he’d left me painfully, miserably, completely unsatisfied.
I sat behind the desk, focused on the sewing project, and tried to ignore the ache. A few stitches here. Some fabric cuts there. But the throb between my legs persisted, accompanied by the tingling simmer that his kiss had left upon my lips.
Damn him and his beautiful pouting mouth. It was the bane of my existence and the only thing I could focus on. So I did what any immoral woman in my position would do.
I propped my bandaged foot on the desk, spread my legs wide, and reached beneath my skirts.
I didn’t need him or any man for this, but it didn’t hurt to imagine his sensual blue eyes. Hooded, unblinking, unsmiling, gorgeous gulfs of blue. I
swirled my fingers around my swollen flesh, stirring my slickness and growing hotter. Until those blue eyes turned silver, sharp and glinting like blades.
Stop.
Concentrating harder, I fingered my ache while imagining Ashley fucking me. Then Priest appeared, pounding his magnificent length between my legs.
Confound it!
I started again. Ashley. His severe expression. That godlike body. Oh, the intensity he would bring as he moved over me, against me, inside me. My head spun with dizziness.
Priest returned, taking over the fantasy. Then they took turns, using my body forward and backward, top and bottom. So indecent. So sinful. So inconceivably good.
I worked my fingers faster, rubbing and thrusting with images of both men polluting my thoughts. I cried out as I came, my legs quivering and hips twitching through the pleasure.
Slumping onto the desk, I caught my breath. Much better.
I cleaned up and went back to work on the gown.
Hours passed. Meals arrived. I nibbled on salt fish and ship biscuits and periodically stepped onto the balcony to escape the swelter of the cabin.
Long after the sun went down, I finished the last detail on the skirt. The gown wasn’t nearly complete, but the task had effectively occupied my mind for the duration of the day.
Setting down the project, I shook out my fingers to get the blood circulating. Exhaustion weighed heavily in my bones. I was tired enough to sleep without dwelling on a jumbled tangle of blue and silver eyes.
Twenty minutes later, I lay in the dark, stretched out atop the counterpane. Brutal humidity saturated the night, but I didn’t mind the heat. It swaddled me into dreamlessness the moment I closed my eyes.
When I woke, I was drowsy, burning up, and not alone.
A beam of moonlight cut across the bed, illuminating a masculine hand on my thigh. I lay on my side, facing the wall, motionless, listening to the creaking of the ship, the roar of distant waves, and his heavy breathing.
His mouth was close, rustling the hair near my ear. Harsh breaths.
Labored. He’d been touching me for a while.
The hem of the nightgown had been pushed to my hips, exposing my backside and the length of my leg. His fingers trailed up and down, delicately tracing the curve of my thigh and the dip between my buttocks. Teasing me softly. Burning me slowly.
My nipples puckered, and the muscles low in my belly clenched lazily, heatedly. It was the best torture. And the worst. If I rolled toward him and let him know I was awake, would he stop?
Please, don’t stop.
But he did. Yanking away his hand, he shifted to his back and released a tight breath. My heart thrashed in my ears as I waited, anticipating the heave of his body leaving the bed. In three…two…one…
Right on cue, he rose and treaded toward the balcony.
I understood his conflict. If he made love to me, he would no longer be putting his country before himself. A man of his stature and moral rightness didn’t bed his prisoners. I was his enemy just as he was mine.
But that line had already blurred, whether or not we consummated our forbidden desires.
I made a decision.
Quietly, I slipped from the bed and pulled off my nightgown. On silent feet, I crossed the chamber to the balcony and stood a few paces behind the lord and master.
Completely nude, he bent at the rail and stared out at the sea, the muscles contracting in his back as he sluggishly stroked himself. Defined sinews etched his biceps. Cords strained along his neck. Twin depressions dimpled the muscles above his taut arse. The sight of his glorious, battle- honed physique flooded me with need.
Then he paused.
“I know you’re there.” His voice rasped, thick with lust. “You’ve been watching me like this most nights.”
Languid, slow-burning eddies pooled in every corner of my body. I opened my mouth, yet no sound came forth.
He began to stroke anew, harder, rougher, his deep voice snapping like a whip. “Come here.”
