Sea of Ruin

by Pam Godwin

  “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.”

  Cautious excitement streamed through my veins, shimmering with barmy bubbles of desire.

  As I padded toward Ashley’s nude back, he didn’t turn, didn’t remove his hand from that which he stroked between his legs.

  Reaching for him, I ran my fingers across the tight muscles flanking his spine. His breath rushed out, and his body grew impossibly harder, stiffer. Closer, I teased my bare nipples against his back. Then my lips. My tongue.

  A violent tremor raced through him, and we shuddered together.

  I kissed his shoulder blades, tasting salt mist and lust on his damp, velvety skin. My hand trailed down his bulging arm. I kept going, past his elbow, around to the front of his hips, and gripped him where he gripped himself.

  Thick, swollen, masculine need overfilled my palm. He groaned, deep and throaty. My mouth dried. My skin caught fire.

  “Bennett…” He twined his fingers around mine and slid our hands along his hardness. “Christ, yes. I’ve imagined this so many times.”

  A jar sat to the side on the rail. Whatever it was, he’d used it to lubricate. The glide of our fingers moved deliciously over the shape of him as if stroking liquid satin.

  Satin over steel that went on and on forever.

&n
bsp; I’d seen a lot of naked men in my life but never one with this much girth and length. And I still hadn’t seen him.

  “How are you so big?” I tightened the circle of my fingers, unable to make them touch all the way around.

  “Superior breeding.”

  I swore I heard a smile in his voice. “Let me see you.”

  The backs of his legs trembled against my thighs. Humidity clung to our skin. Being this close to him, both of us nude and sliding together… God, I burned, feverish beyond the heat of the Caribbee night.

  He turned toward me, crowding my smaller frame. His fingers caught my wrists and held them at my lower back, making my heart thump with dangerous yearnings.

  With my hands restrained, he brought our bodies flush together, trapping his arousal between us.

  My gaze tipped upward, questing. Blue eyes stared back, steady, unwavering, no signs of running.

  He hauled me up his towering body, lifting me onto my toes. Chest to chest, I had nowhere to go as he pried my lips open with the demand of his. Hungry breaths poured into me, his tall, strong build bearing my weight and scorching my skin.

  His kiss ate me alive, devouring the recesses of my mouth, licking inside me, and swallowing my moans. I was drunk on it, intoxicated by the intensity in which he dominated every movement.

  Sucking at the edges of my lips, he used his tongue like a weapon against my defenses, lashing blow after blow until I gave up all pretense of resistance.

  His hands continued to shackle mine behind me, his arms binding us together as his mouth hunted and claimed. His jaw widened my lips so he could sink deeper, farther, twisting my senses into a whirlpool of dark, smothering desires.

  I’d never imagined a kiss could be so blinding and incorporeal. Our mouths and souls fused together as though we were melded in a forge and fashioned as one in molten fire.

  He transferred my wrists to one hand and used the other to rain insatiable caresses upon my skin. He touched me everywhere, between my face and my hips, kissing me passionately and always returning to my breasts. He seemed to love my sensitive nipples, his fingers tweaking and plucking them into hard, elongated peaks.

  But I ached to feel that hand elsewhere, to travel lower, where he’d never touched me bare. I was so wet and wanton I thought I would die with waiting.

  By the time he sought the curls between my legs, every nerve in my body was quaking. He rubbed firm fingers along my wet slit and sheathed them slowly, sensually. The pleasure that assailed me was so exquisite I bit him mid-kiss, crying out.

  “Dripping.” He brushed his cheek against mine and panted at my ear. “You want this.”

  God confound me. “Yes.”

  He grasped my shoulders and spun me toward the rail.

  “Wait.” I swayed, trying to shift back. “What are you—?”

  “Don’t let go.” He forcibly clapped my hands onto the balustrade and gave them a commanding squeeze.

  His chest covered my back, his body heavy and rigid as though fighting for every shred of self-control.

  “Ashley.” I craned my neck, trying to see him over my shoulder. “I want to look at you and kiss you while you fuck me.”

  He pressed his face against my nape and ground out a sound of mingled frustration and pleasure.

  “If you want this…” His mouth moved to the side of my neck, and his teeth clamped down. A threatening, lust-filled bite. “Stop talking.”

  I did want it, but not if he meant to take me like a whore. Before I’d met Priest, this had been my preferred position, for it was less complicated, less awkward with men I didn’t know.

  Then Priest showed me the divine pleasure and intimacy in eye contact during lovemaking. I wanted that with Ashley.

  But he wasn’t having it. With a hand clenched on my hip, he affixed me to the rail and bent over my back. Effectively trapping me, he glided the head of his enormous erection through my slickness from behind.

  Beneath the feverish swamp of his masculine heat and the sweet relief of his cock fitting against my cunt, I didn’t have the strength to stop this. I wanted him to the point of pain.

  Until he shifted his hips and pressed up into my darkest place.

  “Wrong hole!” My hands shot out, grappling at nothing, the scream in my throat strangled to silence.

  “Mercy God.” He pushed past the ring of muscle, groaning low in his chest, his fingers a bruising vise on my hip. “Let me in. Deeper. Deeperaaaaah!”

  I bucked, gulping for air, stunned beyond thought, as he worked the enormity of his cock into my arse. He was so well lubricated that he’d already sunk halfway in.

  “Ashley…” I breathed through the sharp sting, the searing pressure, and tried to shove him away. “Stop!”

  He pulled out, and his open hand slammed against my buttocks, jarring fire into my bones.

  “Be still while I use you.” Then he was on me again, inside me, impaling his length into my backside. “Take it. Just how you like it.”

  Something fractured inside of me. A breaking apart of my spirit. By the time he was fully seated, I had no fight left.

  With unbending hands and an iron will, he controlled me, and I yielded, defeated, letting the ruthlessness of his lust hammer in and out. He felt terrible and beautiful, wild and experienced, mean and ravenous.

  I didn’t know how many thrusts he got in, but it wasn’t many. He fucked me hard and came fast.

  When it was finished, he withdrew from my slumped body. His hands didn’t reach for me. His eyes didn’t seek. He turned his back and strode away, leaving me to fester in agonizing silence.

  I wouldn’t chase him. I wouldn’t beg for a different outcome. And I would not cry in front of him.

  Pushing away from the rail, I retreated into the shadows of the balcony and listened as he washed behind the privacy screen. He was cleaning me off him, rinsing every trace of me away. Like it never happened.

  It shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t care. I was stronger than the cruelty of men.

  Footsteps sounded beyond the door. Moments later, he strode past the balcony, dressed in a shirt and breeches, without casting a glance in my direction.

  “Why?” I heard myself ask as I stepped back inside. “Why did you take me there? Why like that?”

  He stopped, his broad shoulders stiffening, as he assumed the powerful stance of a commodore.

  “I know why you’ve worked so insidiously to lure me. You wanted my seed.” He turned to face me, his blue eyes blazing. “So I gave it to you in a place you couldn’t use it against me.” His nostrils flared. “You will stand trial, Bennett Sharp, and you’ll do so without my babe in your womb.”

  I backed away, my legs shaking as shock and overwhelming sorrow rode roughshod over my insides. Of course, he was right. I’d arrived with several plans of escape. But the one he referenced would’ve been a complete and utter lie.

  “If you had taken the time to look at my body, you would’ve noticed my scar.” I placed a trembling hand over the puckered skin low on my abdomen.

  His gaze followed the movement and jerked back to my face.

  “Do you know what happens to a woman when she takes a sword through the middle?” I raised my chin, helpless to stifle its quivering. “She loses her female organs, her menses, and her ability to conceive. I will never be a mother, Ashley. Your concerns have been wrongly placed.”

  I tried to stem the flow of tears. Tried. And failed.

  He didn’t stick around to witness them. Turning on his heel, he stepped through the chamber, the hem of his untucked shirt just a flick of silk behind him as he vanished beyond the dining cabin.

  The exterior door opened, followed by a deafening slam.

  My diaphragm convulsed, shoving a sob past my lips. A series of choking, wheezing, wet hiccups followed, and I tried to swallow them. Tried to muffle my cries. But I couldn’t. I doubled over and wailed like a pathetic child.

  As those wretched sounds met my ears, I clamped my mouth shut.
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  This wasn’t the ferocious daughter Edric Sharp had raised.

  This wasn’t me.

  I slapped at the tears on my face and staggered to the balcony. There, I transformed my cries into rage. Snarling and roaring into the wind, I let the ocean snatch away my heartache and bury it beneath the pounding waves.

  For the past seven years, I’d lived among men, fighting tirelessly for every inch of respect in a man’s world. I never let their prejudices weaken me. I never swooned, cowered, or submitted in the shadow of masculine strength. I never allowed anyone to see me as anything but a hardened, ruthless pirate captain.

  With the exception of two.

  I’d let two men inside my very vulnerable, very feminine heart. And they chewed it up, one behind the other.

  Hadn’t I always wanted to be just like my father? Well, I was as it turned out.

  I’d fallen into impossible love.

  Twice.

  The hardest lessons left invisible scars. At the rate I was going, that was all my heart would be. Just a twisted, hideous, unfeeling knot of tissue in my chest.

  But it wouldn’t kill me.

  At age fourteen, I survived the deaths of my parents. At age eighteen, I survived the thrust of a sword in my belly. At age nineteen, I survived the worst pain of all—the betrayal of the man I loved more than all else in the world.

  Now, at twenty-one, I would survive this, too.

  Somehow, someway, I would escape the madness of this ship, with or without the arsehole who commanded it. But first, I needed medicine. A healthy dose of rum to heal the pain. There was a whole chest of it in the dining cabin.

  Grabbing a linen coverlet, I draped it over my shoulders and lit a lantern. Then I trudged through the chambers, past the desk, around the table, and veered toward the coffer of liquor. As I bent to open it, a shadow moved in my periphery.

  My blood chilled.

  Near the exit, the darkness seemed murkier. I narrowed my eyes. My vision adjusted. My breath stopped short, and my heart took off.

  A silhouette sat on the floor, its broad back against the door and head hanging in the clutch of hands.

  He hadn’t left.

  An eruption of doubt, relief, and distrust ran riot through me. Why was he here? On the floor?