Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  And such was the life of the good and the great.

  Yawn.

  “Your families want the arrangement,” I said. “And you want your career.”

  “That’s the essence of it.” He rose to his feet and gripped my waist, lifting me to stand.

  I swayed, flinching in pain. “Will you spank her after you marry her?”

  With a hand on my arm, he escorted me toward the sleeping cabin. “A gentleman does not spank a lady.”

  He only spanks his whores.

  Indignation steamed from my ears, but I kept my voice soft as syrup. “While you spend months or years away at sea, your lady sits at home alone, waiting, starving for attention. Left to her own devices, she’ll find ways to pass the time. Delicious, devious ways that involve ungentlemanly spankings from handsome footmen and burly gardeners.”

  “The nuptials will proceed, with or without her maidenhood intact.” He released me in the aft chamber. “Go to bed.”

  I searched his tone and features and found only the prosaic, unimaginative facts.

  What did he feel? It was not fear or dread. Perhaps he felt a whole lot of nothing full of nothing.

  Or perhaps he cared very much about his sweet lonely virgin and her potential transgressions. I wouldn’t know until I found a way to lift that cold mask. I was tired of seeing it. So goddamn tired.

  I peeled off the stays and crawled into bed, face down and bottom up—a bottom that would be black and blue by the morrow.

  Ashley left the cabin and returned moments later with the salve. He removed his clothing except the breeches and stood over me, his irresistible physique straight and proud with all those muscled indentations.

  I turned my head and faced the wall.

  He knelt beside me and, with the dispassionate hands of a doctor, applied more cooling medicinal ointment to my buttocks.

  “Lieutenant Flemming treated my wrists last night.” I closed my eyes, melting into the glide of his touch. “As the ship’s surgeon, shouldn’t he be the one doing this?”

  His fingers paused on my hips, and a tremor rippled through them.

  “I am the only man who touches you here.” He splayed a huge palm over my sore backside.

  The possessive declaration hitched my breath. I expected that nonsense from Priest’s mouth. But Ashley’s? What the unholy hell?

  He yanked down my shirt and climbed off the bed, leaving me whirling in bewilderment.

  “What about the forty pirates in the hold?” I listened to him move through the cabin. “Does the threat of them touching me still stand?”

  “From Monday to Sunday.” He dimmed the lanterns and stripped off his breeches.

  The bed sank beside me. I kept my face turned away, eyes closed. The coverlet tugged and stretched as he settled. Then silence.

  Replaying our conversations, I slipped into drowsy introspection. The matter of his betrothed didn’t concern me. If he loved her, he would’ve put me in another bed. Or on the floor, for that matter.

  No, his heart didn’t beat for her. If anything, he was looking for a reason to avoid going home.

  His career resided on this ship. A warm female body slept beside him in this bed. With the right whispered words, I could move his mind, stir his passion, and convince him that his home was here.

  With a pirate whore.

  I was a far leap from the noblewoman waiting for him in England. But my gut told me that if it was an obedient virgin that hardened his cock, he would be with his betrothed. Not here with me.

  I am the only man who touches you here.

  He was the only one stopping himself from touching me everywhere.

  Unless my feral, possessive husband showed up. Then my efforts with the commodore would be for naught.

  If Priest had his way, my captivity would transfer from Ashley to him. Being Priest’s prisoner wasn’t favorable, but it was a great deal more appealing than hanging from a noose.

  In an ideal world, I would escape both men, recover my compass, and live the rest of my life a free woman, commanding my beloved ship.

  But there was so much that could go wrong and so little that could go right.

  Those were the thoughts that chased me to sleep. When I drifted, I sank hard. And I dreamed about my mother.

  A halo surrounded her, like a blurry ring of light around the sun. Was it her golden hair? Her aura? I wanted to touch it, but I didn’t have a body. I wanted to hug her, but I didn’t know if she was dead or alive.

  None of this was real. Not her smile nor the cliff on which we stood nor the wings that unfurled behind her. No, wait. Those wings were real, for when she jumped, she didn’t fall.

  She flew.

  I woke gently, quietly, blinking into the darkness and marveling at the discrepancy in the dream. For years, I’d relived the countess falling to the rocks and always woke gasping and shaking with tears in my eyes.

  But not this time.

  This time I felt warm and peaceful and…

  I wasn’t the only one awake.

  Lying on my side, I stared at the wall. The wild mane of my hair sprawled across the mattress behind me. With a hand tangled in it.

  Ashley was petting me.

  I held still, measuring my breaths as he stroked the spiraled strands and smoothed out the knots.

  The sensation crawled into my veins, torturing me. I didn’t know what felt true—my delirious pleasure in the affection or his ability to give it. But it felt right. He felt right. I didn’t want him to stop.

  His breathing quickened, deepened, and his fingers wandered to my hip. The heat of his hand lingered there, soaking through the blanket and saturating my skin. It was the touch of a man with one thing on his mind.

  My body fevered, and my pulse sped up. This was what I’d wanted. But wasn’t it too soon?

  If he gave me his seed tonight, I could move forward with the pregnancy plan. But shouldn’t I try for his heart first? That ruse was easier to play out, less complicated.

  If he tried to bed me now, I could deny him, give him the chase men seemed to love. It might make him want me more.

  If I denied him, he might force me.

  I spent thirty seconds reasoning this out before his hand disappeared.

  He slid soundlessly from the bed and strode to the balcony, making the decision for me.

  I simmered in frustration and cursed myself for feeling rejected again by a man I didn’t want.

  But I did desire him. For reasons any woman with working eyes desired him. I could look past his pestilent personality for an hour or two if it meant putting my hands all over that flawless, godlike body.

  I wasn’t usually so lustful and eager. But it had been two years since I’d lost myself on a man’s cock, and after spending two days with this one, I was feeling that abstention right where I needed him the most.

  My cunt throbbed. My nipples hardened. My entire body strained to sense his movements on the balcony. Then I heard it.

  A grunt. A heavy breath. More followed. Then, “Oh, God. Oh, Christ, yes.”

  I froze, dazed, rendered utterly confused. Those whispered throaty words sounded nothing like his voice.

  Sliding from the bed, I followed the string of muffled groans toward the balcony. The loud creaking of the ship deadened my soft steps. His gasping sounds smothered my own labored breaths.

  Pausing just out of view, I peeked around the edge of the open door and choked.

  Standing in the muted glow of the distant stern lantern, a broad-shouldered silhouette bent at the rail, tall, dark, and gloriously nude. With his back to me, he gripped the balustrade with one hand and stroked his shaft with the other.

  My drubbing heart propelled into my throat, and I pressed a hand over my gaping mouth.

  Ashley Cutler, you gorgeous, filthy pervert.

  His arse was so chiseled and perfectly shaped I wanted to cry. Powerful thighs flexed and contracted as he strained on his toes and worked his muscled arm. And his noises… Those hung
ry grunts, trapped behind clenched teeth, sent a million shivers up and down and through my body.

  Leaning into his impassioned strokes, he was in plain view of the moon and the endless roaring sea. Oh, I envied those waves. He pleasured himself for them, gripping and jerking his long swollen rod.

  Earlier, I’d felt the thick length of it through his breeches. But to behold it in the flesh, to feel the weight of it in my hand… My fingernails bit into my palms as bolts of liquid heat pulsed through my blood and leaked between my legs.

  His breathing came faster. Mine came harsher. Moisture broke out on my forehead. More trickled down my thigh.

  Impressive in size and manner, he loomed on the balcony, absorbing shadows and taking up space. The muscles in his back bunched and played with the dim light, his body smooth and hard, glinting silver like the sea in the moonlight.

  Watching him, I felt too little, too delicate to accommodate all that strength and terrifying authority. But I would. I would fit him inside me and wrap myself around that broad chest, those muscular legs, that hard, hungry cock.

  And if I stood here another second, I might do something embarrassing like force myself upon him.

  Fisting my hands, I slowly retreated and crept back to bed. There, I lay on my side, facing the wall, and listened to him grunt, stroke, and moan his way to release.

  The sound of him coming set off a mini-orgasm through my core. I shuddered and shook with my hand over my mouth, trying with all my might to calm myself.

  By the time he returned, my eyes were closed, and my breathing had resumed an even tempo. But with my body still on fire, I didn’t think sleep would find me again.

  Until his hand sank into my hair.

  He caressed my locks in a soporific rhythm, flowing with the undercurrent that rocked the creaking ship. It was my undoing.

  I fell with him, deeply, tranquilly into perfect slumber.

  Over the next two nights, he repeated his erotic performance on the balcony, unaware that he had an audience. I watched from the shadows as he grunted and trembled and squirted his seed into the wind. Then I fell asleep to the soothing cadence of those cock-stroking fingers in my hair.

  Sinful. Resplendent. Undeniably wrong. I could spend an eternity with him like that.

  But alas, the sun rose each morning, bringing with it his severe, tedious countenance. He spent the daylight hours elsewhere, leaving me alone with my needlework and pent-up frustration. In the evenings, he avoided conversation, and I thereby escaped more spankings.

  On the fourth day as his captive, I finished the gown.

  At last, I could leave his cabin.

  I woke before dawn, dressed quietly in the dining cabin, and waited for Ashley to emerge. As I tightened the laces I could reach and re-straightened pleats, my spine felt taller, my chin angling higher.

  The alteration of Ashley’s frocks was the best idea I’d hatched since boarding this ship. Extravagant, brocaded fabric covered my frame from breasts to feet. Practical, sturdy material. Yet so elegant in detail. And something I hadn’t noticed until now… The dazzling blue threads matched the color of his eyes.

  I couldn’t wait to see his reaction, to watch his gaze devour the gold-embroidered whorls that edged the deep-cut bosom, the dramatic tuck where my waist greeted my hips, and the skirt full of turnings and windings that accentuated my curves.

  I loathed constricting garments, but this morning, I felt fashionably feminine. Sensual. Better than ordinary.

  The reflection in the window caught my eye, and for a poignant moment, I saw the image of Lady Abigail Leighton. Golden hair blazing in the sunrise, huge cerulean blue eyes, regal features, delicate lines… Was that really me? It couldn’t be. My mother had been such a gorgeous woman.

  Doubt swarmed in, heavy and sticky, clinging to my skin.

  Graceful garb, tamed curls, and proper posture didn’t change what I was.

  Pirate whore.

  His mockery didn’t hurt me. I was, by my own will, a pirate. And by aristocratic standards, a ruined whore to boot. I owned that.

  What had injured me with Ashley had been his timing. He’d told me I was beautiful, touched me with interested fingers, melted me with heated looks, coaxed tendrils of my trust, and… Rejection. He’d hit me right when he knew it would hurt me the most.

  Movement sounded in the sleeping chamber.

  The prick hath risen.

  I breathed in slowly and remained out of view in the fore cabin, listening to him urinate off the balcony. Just thinking about his cock in his hand brought to mind other things I’d heard and seen him doing at that rail.

  It still scrambled my mind. For a man who was annoyingly strict, over-precise, and more strait-laced than a preacher at Sunday service, he sure did have a lot of pollution to release at the end of the day.

  Had he stroked himself to completion every night before he’d met me? Or was this a new habit inspired by my charming personality?

  One evening, in the very near future, I would join him on that balcony and take matters into my own hands. In the literal sense.

  I hated him, and at the same time, I longed to pleasure him in ways a refined lady wouldn’t begin to consider.

  He was commodore of HMS Blitz, the only one-hundred-gun ship of the line on the sea. But with me, he would be a man, mortal and made of flesh that hardened with the hunger to sink into my velvety sheath and live there until death and beyond.

  Or so thought my ego.

  As he moved through the aft cabin, grooming and donning clothes, the exterior door to the dining cabin opened. The young soldier who delivered the meals—George was the name I’d pried from him yesterday—stepped in carrying a silver tray. And stopped.

  His eyes flitted to me, where I stood beside a chair. They widened, blinked, and darted away. Then he hurried to the table.

  “If you have something to say, Georgie, by all means…” I rested a fist on my cocked hip. “Let’s hear it.”

  “Madam, y-y-you look…” The platter of dishes rattled as he set it down, losing his grip and poise. “You’re radiant.” His gaze snapped toward the day cabin, and his chin dropped to his cravat. “I mean to say, uh— My apologies, my lord.”

  Without another glance in my direction, George swept out of the cabin.

  “And that’s how you clear a room.” I started to turn toward the reason for his sudden departure. “Your presence seems to have that effect…”

  My voice lost sound as I met Ashley’s gaze.

  Hypnotic, shiver-inducing eyes. How unfair for a man to have eyes like that, with lashes so long and silky they cast crescent-shaped shadows on his cheeks. The black fringes made those ocean blue depths dominate his face and everything around him.

  My attention lowered to a perfectly proportioned male chest encased in a red waistcoat of the shiniest silk. He was decked in clothing suited to royalty—an immaculately tailored blue frock, thigh-hugging breeches, and gold-buckled shoes. His white hose, made of woven wool, looked as though they’d been melted onto his defined calves.

  I didn’t have to stretch my imagination to remember those legs, nude and flexing, as he chased his release.

  He openly returned my assessment, his focus caressing my appearance at a leisurely crawl, his expression flat. Empty.

  My nerves twisted. As his feet started moving toward me, I stood straighter, preparing for the worst. When he reached my side, his hand went to my hair, his fingers immediately catching on a knot I’d missed.

  “I searched for a hairbrush and pins.” My cheeks heated. “I couldn’t find anything to tame—”

  “Be silent while I look at you.”

  “The laces on the back of my—”

  “Quiet, woman.”

  He paced a circuit around me, touching my body with only his gaze. Examining. Breathing. Driving me out of my skin. I felt like a target in a spyglass, waiting for the lit match to lower to the touchhole and drop thirty-two pounds of red-hot iron on my arse.

&nbs
p; If I could only be so lucky.

  After a full circle, he paused before me and stepped close. So close the buttons on his coat snagged on the gown’s embroidery. My heart stuttered as I stared straight ahead, where his cravat tucked into his shirt.

  Lifting a hand, his fingers met the taut cords of my neck. Firm pressure guided my head back, exposing the length of my throat. I swallowed, watching him over the tip of my nose.

  His eyes lingered on mine then lowered. His head followed, putting his mouth a hairsbreadth above the hollow between my collarbones, fanning warm breaths across my shuddering skin. He hovered there for the longest minute of my life, tarrying on the edge between impulse and restraint.

  My heart worked itself to exhaustion, waiting for him to do something more than just…smell me. But I didn’t dare move or speak in fear of breaking the spell.

  Incrementally, his hot, wet breaths grew hotter and wetter. The sensation confused me until I realized what I felt was the swirl of his tongue.

  With a hand still holding back my head, he licked the ridge of my collarbone. A featherlight tickle. A taunt. Wicked to the extreme.

  The torment continued lower, his lips ghosting oh-so softly across the exposed swell of my breast. The barely-there sensation brought my lungs to an abrupt halt, and I gulped, inadvertently causing my trussed-up flesh to rise toward his mouth.

  His free hand gripped my waist, and he licked again, hunting for hidden curves beneath the edge of the bodice.

  I whimpered, and a groan vibrated in his chest, one I knew he hadn’t meant to give.

  The invisible wall between us shuddered and bowed.

  His mouth slipped to my other breast, followed by a scratch of canines. Everything inside me foundered, spiraling into felicity, into burning, sinful bliss.

  As if he sensed my internal combustion, he bit harder, sinking teeth into skin, hard enough to leave an imprint.

  Arousal surged, and I trembled for breath, needing, fearing, hoping he would close in for the kill. Lick me, bite me, suck me. I wanted to drown in his pleasure.

  I wanted to grip his stern face, crush my mouth against his, and render him stupid. But if I initiated a kiss, it would give him another opportunity to reject me.