by Angel Payne
Then her gaze stretched across the melee to Dinky. He wasn’t yelling a word. His face was…transformed. His lovely two-toned gaze had gone soft as a sunrise, fixed on a sight over her shoulder. The man’s rugged mouth lifted in a half-daft daze.
One by one, the rest of the crew noticed it, too. And followed suit. Golden swallowed and turned her gaze with them. Then she gasped in delight.
“Maya!”
Chapter Eight
Bloody hell.
Mast didn’t know exactly what happened in those shock-frozen moments after Golden elatedly welcomed her friend, but he’d remember what brought him out of that daze well into his later years.
It was the weight at his feet. He looked to discover a pool of black hair around his boots, emotion-filled Caribbee drifting from the middle of the thick mass. The woman clung so hard, he couldn’t move without the threat of toppling over.
“What the—fuck-headed—hell?” he snarled, though he nearly apologized for the burst when he cast a beseeching glare at Golden. Like Dink, this new twist transformed her. Though they’d barely dragged Dack away again, her apprehension at the boy’s attack had vanished. Now she stood with a bewildered smile on her lips and a knowing twinkle in her eyes.
“She says you saved her life,” she translated. Her voice lilted with soft amazement. “And now she owes you hers. She says that’s why she followed you from the beach the night you left Saint Kitts…the beach where the evil soldiers shot at you…and she sneaked on board while you were all preparing to leave.” The glitter in her gaze thickened to a lush gilt as she stepped back to him. “Stafford…how many times did you risk your life that night?”
Mast squirmed. Damn it, a fish would have been more comfortable on this deck right now. The sight of her before him, wind in her hair and that smile on her coral lips, was no bloody help. “Would somebody get this wench off me?” he forced himself to growl.
Rico and three others leapt to comply, but the native’s zeal couldn’t be daunted. She clung as if he were one of her gods come to life. Mast cursed and tried to escape, only to confront Dinky’s challenging glare. His first mate’s face promised something close to mutiny if the girl weren’t allowed to remain on board as Golden had been. If the bewilderment over his first mate’s gallantry wasn’t enough, Golden’s topaz gaze still burned into him, petitioning his compassion with equal weight as Dink.
In short, the choice had been made for him.
Finally, he pulled Maya up himself and mumbled an awkward welcome aboard to her. Despite Dink’s nod of approval and Golden’s full hug of thanks, he felt even more like that waterless fish. When people came aboard his ship, their welcome usually came after they were told the rules. Twice. He wondered if a goddamned minstrel troop would be the next faces popping over his rail, asking for asylum, a hot meal and oh, perhaps a stage where they could juggle kittens and swallow fire to delight the crew?
He clung to that angry brood for three days. Which did nothing to explain why he nearly tiptoed down the starboard side of the galley in hope of not attracting the musical female laughter coming from the other side. Damn it, he should be able to sulk anywhere on his ship, but her ladyship wasn’t grasping that point—to the point that he now sneaked around in the quest for a moment of peace on his own quarter deck. Alone. In full solace from the torment of watching the coral lips from which that joy spilled, or scrambling for answers to the amazing questions that mouth was also capable of forming.
Her questions. Holy God, Golden’s questions. It all started with Robert’s little line-securing lesson that first morning and hadn’t let up since. Even Maya brought no reprieve to the insatiable animal of Golden’s curiosity. Once she tagged along behind Mast on one duty or repair along the ship, she eagerly moved to the next, watching him, listening to him, digesting that information then asking, to his repeated astonishment, intelligent and legitimate inquiries about the details of everything from tacking against a headwind to slushing the masts with the kitchen grease. Bloody hell, she even talked him into letting her try her hand at some of it—at which, to his further bewilderment, she showed the promising touch of a quick learner.
That was when the torture became unbearable. She’d smile at him from whatever messy task he’d set her to, eyes twinkling, cheeks flushed, and bring him terrifyingly close to a smile himself. Then right at that frightening ledge, she’d glance away once more—as if clueless that by learning about his world, she was getting closer to his heart.
Dangerously closer.
The observation transformed his hands into fists—for the hundredth time today. “Hell,” he gritted.
Damn it, he was not going to allow this. He didn’t care if she was the daughter of the king. This seditious chit couldn’t stride aboard and turn his life inside out like this. He’d even march up to his own quarter deck if he so desired. He strode onto the plane of polished wood, welcoming the gusts whipping over it, filling his lungs with the cleansing wind. He breathed in again, letting the wind whisk out the cobwebs in his mind, too.
A high squeal gashed the reverie like a machete to rice paper.
“Good God.” He spun around, already seeking the only person who could emit such a sound.
He didn’t see Golden anywhere.
He used a spare line to swing down to the main deck. He was joined by several of his crew as he stalked to the starboard rail, and was hit by a familiar flood of anxiety and amazement as Golden sprinted at them from the other direction, feet covered in nothing but dirt, hair unbound, eyes shining.
Another sensation hit him. Relief. Her shriek was one of excitement, not distress.
“Maya, come!” she yelled. “He’s swimming over here now!”
“Golll-denn!” protested the poor, panting Indian who stepped to the rail beside her. “This is nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense!” She halted on the other side of the longboat from Mast, but if she saw him, she certainly didn’t say so. “Yes!” she cried, lunging against the rail. “There he is! Look, Maya!”
“Golden!”
But the Indian’s cry wasn’t in reprimand this time. Maya made the scream in horror as they all watched Golden lunge over the rail, arms reaching, feet pushing off the deck. She slid farther over the choppy sea, until all Mast could see was the swell of her delectable ass.
He cleared the longboat in enough time to grab her and pull her back, using those cheeks as his grope points.
As soon as he grabbed them, he deeply longed to spank them. First he’d do it to punish her. And then he’d do it just to please him.
“It’s all right, Maya,” he said past the terror still pounding his ears and the blood newly pooled to his cock. “She’s not going anywhere now, damn it.” Except, perhaps, to his cabin—where giving in to his fantasy didn’t seem a horrible way to teach her a lesson. Not at all.
Maya had other ideas. With her large brown eyes still fixed on Mast, her jaw worked for several seconds but produced no sound. She finally blurted, “You—you did it again. You saved her life!”
Once again, the girl dove into another worship session at his feet. “Dinky!” he bellowed. Since he still had Golden in his grip, the three of them were about to topple over into the longboat. Dink came to his aid with a chortle, pulling the native girl away with a gentle and strangely chaste touch.
But the intrigue over Dink’s newfound chivalry would have to wait. Mast thanked the crew for their concern and waved them back to their duties before he spun Golden to face him. She winced in protest as he secured her yet tighter but he’d be skewered whole if he fell for that helpless act as he had on Saint Kitts. And at the moment, having her thighs seated against his was precisely where he wanted her.
She made a feeble attempt to push at his arms. “I—I really need you to let me go, Captain.” Her gaze flitted nervously over the rail. “Please.”
“Nay.”
“Nay?”
“Not until you tell me what the blazes you’ve disrupted this shi
p and crew for.”
She actually had the nerve to look back at him with a glare. “I’d show you what the blazes, if you’d only let me move an inch.”
He still wanted to haul her back to the cabin, throw her over his knees, fling her skirt over her head and redden her backside until she cried for him to stop.
He gritted his teeth as he did the opposite.
Surprisingly, she didn’t even waste a moment to gloat. Golden flashed a genuinely appreciative smile before twining her fingers into his and pulling him against the rail again.
Her tender tone of direction came as another mild surprise. “There.” She pointed. “Thirty yards out and to the left.”
He rolled his eyes but obliged her. “Wait a minute,” he spluttered as a distinctive splash erupted in the spot to which she’d directed. “You don’t actually think that fish—”
“Dolphin.”
“You can’t possibly think that—animal—is the same creature from which I pulled you a fortnight ago.”
“I don’t think. I know. Extra width to the snout, three light splotches past his left eye. Don’t gape at me, look at him. It’s Nirvana. He’s followed us.”
“That’s preposterous.” But he tore his gaze back to the sun-dappled waves where the lone porpoise jumped. The lone porpoise. The first he’d ever seen without at least one mate nearby. And the first with an abnormally keen interest in the Athena.
Because its “mate” was aboard her?
He turned to Golden, not knowing whether to scowl or laugh. She returned a spirited smile.
“They’re smarter than you ‘masters of the sea’ think they are, you know.” Even her rebuke lilted with a joy that matched her name. It continued to the extra sparkle in her eyes, the gentle way the wind made love to her hair.
His fantasy got an instant addendum. After he spanked her, he’d roll her over, keeping her skirts hiked high. He’d slide his body into hers as she smiled at him…just like that.
She was talking again. He forced himself to focus on what she explained.
“Nirvana found me when I was eight. He saved my life. He’s watched over me ever since, no matter where I am.” She laughed, the sound a sexy tinkle on the air as the dolphin leaped up as if confirming what she’d said. “I’m a touch ashamed I wasn’t looking out for him to begin with. I should have known he’d be there.”
Mast clung to the first part of her explanation. It was the first real opening she’d given him about her life’s journey. He knew, by the occasional turmoil that passed in her eyes, that her path had possessed as many shadows as sunlight. He also suspected there were deep, difficult explanations for the nightmares from which he’d shaken her more than a few times. Hauntings her mind refused to let go…memories that were, he suspected, inexorably linked to the hatred in her soul.
Because of that, he seized the opening to finally ask her a few questions.
“Saved your life,” he began with nonchalance that was feigned on a number of levels. His body still wanted her. His mind leapt to learn more about her. “You were all of…six?”
“Eight.”
“I suppose that’s how the natives came to consider you a sea goddess.”
She laughed again. “Silly Arawak misunderstanding.” She bent her face up at him, shoving back the shining mess of her hair to do so. The wind flushed her cheeks, and her lips were shiny from where she re-wetted them. She was so goddamn captivating…
He slipped an inch closer to her. “Nay. Not silly at all.” He tilted his head to align his gaze with hers. “You had an entire shipload of grown men fooled the other night.” On a rough murmur, he added, “Including their captain.”
She returned his subtle smile. “The one person on earth who should know better.”
He shrugged. “Immortality. It’s a confusing pain in the arse sometimes.” Letting the music of her giggle play sweetly on his blood for a minute, he pressed, “The Arawak. I thought they’d been obliterated a hundred years ago.”
“In the true sense of the life they knew, aye. Slavery, wars, and diseases wiped out many of the ancestors of my tribal family. But the islands teach one to adapt, to…blend.”
He echoed the deep breath she’d taken to produce that word. Released it slowly. He took a step closer to her, watching how she noticed what he did: how their bodies fit so perfectly into each other, how the air between them warmed and thickened, how right it felt when they stopped fighting each other and…blended.
Their faces pressed toward each other with the same force of thought. Sea mist rained on them as the ship hit a large swell, cooling Golden’s skin as Mast fired up her mouth with the torch of his desire. She mewled like a creature from the forest in which he’d chased her, opening to him with similar abandon, with untamed passion. When her fingers tangled in his hair, he couldn’t control the impulse of his imagination anymore. He palmed the sweet scoops of her ass, squeezing them hard, forcing her body to feel the raging tumult of his, even through her skirts.
“Sweet stars!” she gasped when he pulled back to let them both grab air.
“Sweet is right,” he returned. “Christ, you’re breathtaking.”
“Breath? I’m not sure what that is anymore.”
He joined his rough laugh to her soft one. “You’re so damn beautiful when you set yourself free like this, hellion…when you give up your anger, and leave the Moonstormer behind—”
She shoved back so fast, she collided into the edge of the longboat. She teetered and nearly fell into it, but when Mast reached out with a steadying hand, she righted herself by furiously whacking him away.
“Why?” she rasped. “Why did you do that?”
He didn’t demand to know what she was talking about this time. He knew. “Because you’re not healing, Golden. You’re simply waiting. Maybe you’ll wait your whole life to find him and kill him—but you’ll still be empty. And angry.” He spread his arms then brought them back in, slamming the expanse of his chest in blatant accountability. “And lonely.”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “This is my pain. Mine. You don’t understand. You can’t understand.”
“The hell I can’t.” He heard every ugly inflection in the syllables, and he didn’t care. “And the fucking hell I don’t.”
More than you know, hellion. So much more than you know.
“Ohhh, aye; that’s right.” Her face twisted with a mocking smile. “Buckets of understanding from the noble captain. But you just can’t tell me why, right?”
His jaw clenched painfully. This boomerang had come back to hit him solid in the ass, hadn’t it? Just shut the hatch on it now, Stafford. You start spouting any version of the truth, you’re liable to spill something that will link you back to Wayland. The Frenchies could still find you. They could still recapture her. And if she knows anything, you’ll hate yourself forever. It’s for her own fucking good!
“Please,” Golden rasped then. “Just go away.” She shrank in on herself as she backed farther away from him. “Please, just go away.”
Mast nodded once before pivoting and returning to the quarter deck alone. With every step, his thoughts also retreated into their fortress of solitude. It was easy enough to lay the bricks and seal himself back inside them. He’d been doing it since the age of ten.
Golden’s heart plummeted into her shoes.
The boatswain had just called out the switch for the midnight watch, and Caesar was still her only company in the cabin.
Mast had opened the hatch around sunset to let the parrot back inside, but hadn’t ventured more than a step inside after his bird. He hadn’t been back since. She’d eaten dinner alone, sipped her evening tea alone.
Moped and fumed…and dealt with her body’s hot, awakened sensations alone.
He’d clearly picked now to start taking her seriously. He really had gone away. And stayed that way.
Which meant she should be fair flush with satisfaction, aye?
She pounded a fist on the hull in answer to th
at.
“He’s an insensitive, opportunistic beast,” she seethed. “I hope he is sleeping on the deck. And I hope Oya really does come and punish him for his lies. I hope she brings a horrific wind that blows off every inch of his flesh, and then I hope the vultures have a feast on him.”
She went after the hull with one of the spice-scented pillows this time. Her hand was spared the pain, but everything else still hurt…or ached.
It was those aching parts that rankled the most.
How had he done this to her? She moaned on the bed with the hot frustration of it. When she thought of what he’d done to her this afternoon, before he brought up all the ugliness of the Moonstormer, it made her tingle and quiver even now. She was so tempted to touch those trembling parts…to fondle her breasts and stroke the sensitive folds between her legs…
“Beast!” The riotous call from the bird cage gave her a welcome distraction from the torment. “You stubborn, angry beast!”
Golden’s lips turned up. Caesar bobbed proudly on his perch as he rattled off the words she’d taught him tonight. She envisioned the look on Stafford’s face when he found out what she’d done. Served the lout right. She’d take pleasure in watching the agitation tighten his temples. She’d watch with pride as the corners of his mouth clamped in. Then she’d really love it when the blue depths of his eyes started roiling like a new storm, clearly signaling—
What?
Her throat clutched. To her horror, a stinging heat formed behind her eyes.
What the hell did you expect now, Golden, except what that man’s always given you for your efforts with him? Did you actually think you’d “melted” Mast Stafford? Here’s some news: the man’s not an iceberg. He’s a slab of unmalting, unbreakable iron.
“Rrraack! Beast. Beast. Beast.”