house. One of the women had brought along her seven-year-old son so Ataa would
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have someone to play with. There were also a couple of men servants who would take
care of the yards and act as guards.
“Although I’ll tell you now that you won’t need them,” Renaud had stated. “There
isn’t a man within a thousand-mile radius who would get on your bad side, Farrell.
Your reputation is deadlier than Louis Corsair’s.”
“Seoltóireacht Chothrom,” Alsandair said. “Smooth sailing. That’s what we will call
our home.”
“Aye,” Rylee said, repeating the name. She threw back the bright yellow hood of
her oilskin slicker. “That is what we will have from now on.”
It had been while Alsandair was taking his first cruise as Renaud’s chief tactical
officer and Rylee was spending that time under the care of her other husband that
Rylee’s ordeal had finally crashed down on her and she had nearly buckled beneath the
strain. He had known it would happen sooner or later, knew she’d start to relive the
horror of that day in the cave and had warned Andi that it would, so Corsair had been
prepared. It had taken both him and Kyle to see Rylee through it.
“Perhaps it was good you weren’t here,” Kyle had told Alsandair. “She would not
have wanted you to see her like that. I thought Andi would go out and kill something
when it was all over with. I know you would have.”
On one level Alsandair disagreed. He was tired of killing, yet on another level he
wished he could resurrect the four culprits and put them to the sword once again for
the hurt and anguish they had caused his lady.
“Mama, look!” Ataa said, pointing.
A little boy with a wide, toothy grin had run down to the shoreline and was waving
excitedly. At his feet, a small white cat was weaving between his bare legs.
“I hope to Alel that’s a male cat,” Alsandair said with a frown, “else we’ll be
overrun with furry critters.”
“I hope she’s a female,” Rylee said. “Widget needs a playmate too!”
Alsandair grunted as he gave one final shove of the pole and the pirogue slid
smoothly along the pier that would definitely need some work. One of the men came
hurrying from a smaller house set off to the side of the main house.
“Welcome, Commander and Missus!” he said, and waded out in the water to take
the line Alsandair tossed to him. “Welcome, little mister!”
Ataa set Widget on the pier then scrambled off his seat and practically threw
himself at the stranger. “Hi, I’m Ataa,” he said. The child never met anyone who
remained a stranger for long.
“And I am Neville,” the man said, swinging Ataa around and setting him down in
the shallows. “That boy is my nephew Yves.”
Ataa made a beeline to Yves and together they ran off, Widget—racing from the
pier—and the little white cat scampering along behind.
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Neville held the boat steady as Alsandair stepped down into the water, not trusting
the safety of the wobbly pier. He reached for Rylee, sweeping her into his arms and
wading through the water to take her to shore.
“We are going to love it here, Sandy,” she said, her arms around his neck.
“Aye, milady,” he said. “I believe we will.”
The two maids were waiting on the veranda. They were around the same age as
Rylee, had friendly, welcoming smiles and seemed honored to be working for Le
Vengeant, The Avenging One. News of what he’d done in the cave that day had taken
on mythic proportions and tales were being told and ballads written of how he’d saved
his lady-fair and avenged her. The other guard had come to introduce himself as well,
and it was discovered he was the husband of the older of the two maids. It seemed all
four of the servants were related in some way and lived in the house beside the pier.
“We’ll add on to your house,” Alsandair told the servants. “That one is too small for
all of you.”
Long after the sun had set, the servants had cleared away the supper dishes and
Ataa had worn himself out playing with Yves, Alsandair and Rylee sat on the veranda
and watched a deer grazing at the water’s edge. It was peaceful, still, the scent of
gardenia and wisteria floating through the air. The cicadas were tuning up and
somewhere out on the water, bullfrogs honked to one another.
“Happy, sweeting?” he asked.
“Aye,” Rylee said. She was sitting with her bare feet in her husband’s lap and he
was rubbing the instep of her right foot. “Our children will love it here.”
Alsandair’s hand stilled. “Children?” he echoed. “Sweeting, are you…?”
“Not yet,” she said, “but that will come.” When he did not continue with the
massage, she glanced over at him. “What’s bothering you?”
“Whose child it will be,” he said softly. “Mine or Andi’s.”
She was quiet for a moment and when she spoke, he could hear just a touch of hurt
in her voice. “Will it matter?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her no but that would have been a lie. It did
matter but—just as Andre had—he had accepted this arrangement and even if he did
not embrace it as easily as her other husband did, he would never complain. There
would be no way to tell who fathered the child if he took his looks from Rylee. Both he
and Andre were dark with black hair, dark eyes and of roughly the same build. It
would be difficult to know who fathered the babe unless the child bore a striking
resemblance to his father.
“It will matter in what name we give him or her,” he answered honestly.
“I have names already picked out,” she said, and wiggled her toes in invitation for
him to continued rubbing her foot.
“You do, do you?” he asked as he began massaging her foot again.
“If it is a girl, she will be Gabrielle, and if it is a boy Justin.”
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Alsandair nodded. He liked the names. “Aye, but what last name, sweeting?”
“Farrell-Corsair,” she replied without hesitation.
In the gathering twilight, he smiled. “You’ve thought this out pretty well, haven’t
you, Ry?”
She moved her foot so she could rub the soft bulge at the junction of his thighs.
“Aye, Sandair, I have.”
He moved her foot away from his crotch and lowered her leg to the floor. Without
another word he stood, stepped over to her chair and bent over to scoop her into his
arms.
“Well, let’s see if we can’t hurry little Justin Farrell-Corsair up, shall we?” he asked.
With his lady in his arms, Alsandair had just a bit of trouble getting the screen door
open but he managed to open it enough to insinuate his booted foot between the jamb
and the edge of the door and use his hip to push it aside.
He carried her down the long central corridor that bisected the house and to the
large master bedroom at the back of the structure. Kicking the door shut, he took her to
the lovely, carved oak bed that had been a belated wedding present from Briarly, the
ship’s steward of the Mary Constance.
“Briarly finished it jus
t before he sailed off with Captain Andelton,” Kyle had
reported when he met Alsandair on the docks after his friend’s maiden voyage as a full-
fledged pirate. “Corsair handed the ship back over to Andelton at Rylee’s request. That
was his wedding present to her.”
Alsandair would miss Andelton, Ruck, Briarly, Bonny and all the crew of the Mary
Constance. They had become his friends but he knew they were where they wanted to
be—on the decks of their home away from home.
The thick coverlet done in multi shades of green—Rylee’s favorite color—that lay
upon the bed had been a gift from Antoinette. As he placed his lady on the plush
softness, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Who would have thought a woman like Toni could sew?” he asked when Rylee
gave him an inquisitive look.
Sinking down into the mattress, Rylee did not relinquish her hold on Alsandair’s
neck and drew him down atop her. “Let’s not talk about anyone but Justin or
Gabrielle,” she said, her eyes hot and sultry.
Alsandair slid his hand over her breast. “Let’s not talk at all,” he suggested.
It had been a month since he’d last seen his lady and much longer than that since he
had made love to her. That final night on the Mary Constance before the ship had been
attacked by Andre had been their last time together in a carnal way and his body was
on fire with need for hers.
His lips upon hers, his tongue thrusting gently past her lips to stroke hers, his
thumb caressing her swollen nipple, he pressed his weight against her, feeling his shaft
grow rigid and full.
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Rylee twisted so she could turn him over and lie atop him, easing her mouth from
his to smile down into his heated gaze.
“I love you, Sandair Farrell,” she said.
“I’m an easy man to love,” he teased.
She laughed and sat up, leaning back so she was perched on his knees. Lifting one
leg then the other, she dragged the skirt of her gown up then pulled it over her head,
baring her body to her lover for—like the other women on Wicklaw Cay—she had
taken to wearing nothing beneath the cool cotton gown. She tossed the gown aside.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice husky. He reached up to cover the
mounds of her breasts with his palms. “So very beautiful.”
Rylee pulled the pins from her hair and shook her head to let the fiery mass float
down over her shoulders and back to tickle his thighs. She covered his hands with hers,
pressing his flesh tight to hers.
“I want us to make a son tonight,” she said, and wriggled against him, “but it will
be hard to do with you confined in those britches, Farrell.”
He dragged his hands from her breasts to her hips and easily lifted her off him,
setting her beside him. “Let’s see what I can do to remedy that, milady.”
Rylee sat there and watched him get out of the bed and begin to undress. With her
eyes glittering with desire, her body primed to accept his, she flicked out a tongue to
lick her lips.
“Ah, wench, you’re not being fair,” he groaned as he peeled the shirt from his chest.
She tucked her lower lips between her teeth as her gaze shifted from the dark hair
on his head, past the curly hair on his chest to the wiry curls at the apex of his thighs as
he pushed his britches down over his hips.
“Who said anything was supposed to be fair?” she countered. “Anything goes
when you’re trying to make a baby.”
He put a knee to the mattress and was soon atop her, straddling her hips as she had
straddled his. He ground his swollen shaft against her. “Anything?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Anything pleasurable, at any rate.”
Alsandair slid down her, easing her legs apart with his hips before putting a hand
to his cock to place it at her entrance. “Want me, wench?” he asked.
Rylee nodded. “More than anything in this world,” she replied.
He pressed into her slowly, deeply, until he was seated well and truly inside her
velvet sheath. He didn’t move but stared down into her eyes, waiting for her to wrap
her arms and legs around him. When she did, he smiled and began to thrust smoothly,
surely in and out of her heated folds.
“I think it takes a bit more thrust to make a baby, Farrell,” she said, tightening her
grip around him.
“You do?”
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“Aye, I believe so.”
He increased the depth of his penetration but continued the slow, steady rhythmic
pushes.
“Ah, mayhap you might want to step up the pace a bit, milord,” she instructed.
He increased the speed of his thrusts. “Like this?” he inquired.
“Umm,” she said, writhing beneath him. “You’re getting there.”
He put his hands under her hips and lifted her so he had better access to her nether
regions. He went as deep as he could. “How about now?” he asked.
“Aye,” she breathed, her moist heat slippery with their combined fluids. “You are
almost there.”
With sure, strong strokes that filled her, and with a velocity that soon had them
both grunting, he took her up the mountain of desire, carrying her to the very summit
of that wondrous peak and fell with her in spiraling turns of sheer ecstasy that spun
them both out of control as they tumbled.
She clung to him—this man who was a third of herself—and gave herself to him
again and again as the night wore on. She moved in perfect unison with him and graced
him with as much pleasure as that which he gifted to her. By the time the moon was at
the zenith of its path, a tiny souvenir of their great love had been left behind.
* * * * *
On the veranda of L’endroit Sûr, Andre Corsair took the snifter of cognac from
Antoinette’s pudgy hand. To either side of him were Kyle and Louis, sitting in their
rocking chairs and enjoying cheroots. Renaud was sitting sideways on the steps with his
back against one of the porch’s pillars, his knees drawn up. It was very late but none of
the five people gathered on the veranda seemed to notice.
“To Rylee,” Andre said, raising his snifter.
“To Rylee,” the others toasted.
“And to a future of smooth sailing for us all,” Andre whispered beneath his breath
then took a long sip of the fiery brew.
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About the Author
Charlee is the author of over thirty books. Married 40 years to her high school
sweetheart, Tom, she is the mother of two grown sons, Pete and Mike, and the proud
grandmother of Preston Alexander and Victoria Ashley. She is the willing house slave
to five demanding felines who are holding her hostage in her home and only allowing
her to leave in order to purchase food for them. A native of Sarasota, Florida, she grew
up in Colquitt and Albany, Georgia and now lives in the Midwest.
Charlee welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email
address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
Tell Us What You Think
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[email protected].
Also by Charlotte Boyett-Compo
Ellora’s Cavemen: Legendary Tails I anthology
Ellora’s Cavemen: Seasons of Seduction II anthology
Fated Mates anthology
Ghost Wind
HardWind
Passion’s Mistral
Shades of the Wind
WesternWind: Prime Reaper
WesternWind: Reaper’s Revenge
WesternWind: Tears of the Reaper
WesternWind: WyndRiver Sinner
WindVerse: Ardor’s Leveche
WindVerse: Hunger’s Harmattan
WindVerse: Phantom of the Wind
WindVerse: Pleasure’s Foehn
WindVerse: Prisoners of the Wind
WindWorld: Desire’s Sirocco
WindWorld: Longing’s Levant
WindWorld: Lucien’s Khamsin
WindWorld: Rapture’s Etesian
And see Charlotte Boyett-Compo’s stories at Cerridwen Press
(www.cerridwenpress.com):
BlackWind: Sean and Bronwyn
BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn
Desert Wind
In the Wind’s Eye
Taken By the Wind
Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning
publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC
on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you
breathless.
www.ellorascave.com
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