Luke grabbed a mast, braced himself, and fought those rushing him. He tripped one and drove his sword through the throat of another. When the other rushed him again, slipping and sliding in blood and rain, Luke punched him then drove his dagger up under his ribs into his heart.
He was about to attack a third when he spied one heading for his cabin.
“Over my dead body,” he growled and raced that way. The man had just made it to the door when Luke caught up with him. The miscreant spun and came at him, but it was too late. Luke shoved him against the door and slit his throat.
A split second later the door swung open and the man fell dead at Hannah’s feet. Wrapped in nothing but a blanket, she looked positively delicious.
“I told you three knocks and a pound,” he said, exasperated.
“And I told you the last time I left you to your own devices, you nearly got killed.” He was shocked to see tears in her eyes. “I refuse to let that happen, Luke. Not when—”
“All clear, Cap’n,” Robert hollered in quick time. “We got every last one!”
“Not when, what?” he prompted her, curious, hopeful.
“Bloody hell, she got another, eh?” Robert praised. He joined them and eyed the man on the floor.
“Actually, Luke got this one,” she provided primly before she offered a saucy grin and winked at his quartermaster. “Not to say I would not have taken him down easily enough if given the chance.”
Hardened pirate that he was, Robert leaned against the threshold, offered her a goofy, smitten grin and settled in to flirt. “I know ye could, poppet, and better than the lot o’ us.”
“Go see to the men,” Luke ordered his quartermaster. “I’ll be up in a moment.”
“Hell if ye will.” Robert snorted, not believing him. “The whole bloody ship heard ye two over the storm, and we all agree, ye’re a might gone on this one, Cap’n.”
“Go,” he warned. “Or ye’ll hear a might more than my lustin.’”
Robert chuckled, winked at Hannah then swaggered away before Luke cleared his throat, and his quartermaster strode back.
“Aye, Cap’n,” he grunted as he dragged the body out.
“Tell me,” Luke said softly, redirecting his attention back to Hannah.
“Tell you what?” she said innocently.
“What you were going to say.”
“I am not sure what you mean.”
“Is that so?” He stepped close, tilted her chin until their eyes were aligned and used the tone that made her talk. “You refused to let me get killed when what?”
“Hannah,” he prompted, sterner still when she hesitated. “I will not ask again.”
“Oh, fine,” she whispered. Her chin might be notched stubbornly, but her eyes were misty when she said words he’d waited most of his life to hear. “I refuse to let you get killed.” Her mouth wobbled a little. “Because I love you, Luke.”
Chapter 11
Blast it, he had a way with her, didn’t he? Hannah eyed the door with uncertainty after Luke left to see to his crew. Talking about love was not something they did. It was not supposed to exist in what they shared. Or so she had always assumed.
How could their dark desires co-exist with such a holy emotion?
She gazed around his cabin, just like she had when she was strapped to his bed. The walls contained various contraptions. Each and every one, she realized now, made to fulfill various fantasies she had written about. Heat flared beneath her skin at the thought of doing them all with him.
Of revisiting the games they used to play, then playing new ones.
She licked her lips and looked at the bed again. The ropes and rings. They truly were just as she had described them, but the actual act far exceeded her expectations. That said something because her fantasies about him finally taking her had been profound.
She tingled with anticipation of more.
Of having him back inside her.
She put a hand over her womb, wondering about things she should not wonder about. It sounded like his feelings about sharing a child with her had not changed. She dared a small, whimsical smile then shook her head. If love had no place in their dark desires, how could children? Because they would have to stop these practices if they meant to raise little ones, would they not?
She opened the trunk and eyed its contents. They were all there. Every last scroll. She was about to shut it when she spied a ribbon and picked it up.
“He kept it,” she whispered, staring at her ribbon. The one he had tied her hands back with on the chair by the river. She had wondered where it got off to.
The door opened, and Luke’s gaze went to what she was holding.
When he remained silent and shut the door, she spoke instead. “Why did you keep it?”
Even as she asked it, she knew. She had known since the moment the pirate held a knife to her throat, and she saw the look on Luke’s face.
“You should not,” she murmured, answering her own question. “We should not.”
He eyed her for another moment, clearly discomforted by the conversation, before he said the last thing she expected. “Why?”
“Why?” She looked at him in surprise. “We are speaking about love, yes?”
“We are,” he confirmed softly, joining her. He took the ribbon and ran it through his fingers as though he had done it a hundred times before. “Why should we not, Hannah?” He met her eyes. “Why, if we feel such, should we turn from it?”
“Because of this.” She gestured at the bed and the walls. “Because of me.”
He perked a brow. “You?”
“Yes, me,” she repeated. “I am…broken.” She glanced from the rings and ropes to him. “I tried to spare you this. To not…become this.”
He narrowed his eyes in confusion before understanding dawned and mayhap a dash of relief and frustration. “That is why you broke our engagement? Why you turned me away?”
“Of course it is,” she murmured. “You helped me…saved me actually, during a truly difficult time in my life.” She touched his cheek and spoke from the heart. “While I loved the idea, I never should have said yes to your proposal in the first place, and for that I am sorry.” She shook her head. “You did not deserve a life like this…the depravity.”
She sighed and pulled her hand away. “Yet ironically you took to piracy.”
“Did you think it was all you then?” he murmured. “You knew I found pleasure in it. Understood my need for it. Or so I assumed.”
“We were young,” she said. “Everything is exciting at that age.” She shrugged. “Intimacy.”
“Yet we never really shared intimacy, did we, Hannah?” He traced his finger along her jaw. “Not until now and even then, it was but a fantasy.”
“So you see,” she murmured. “We are incapable…perhaps I am.”
“Have you ever been aroused without these fantasies?” He pulled her blanket away but kept his eyes with hers. “Do you think yourself incapable because you are broken, as you say?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered, referring to the only example she had. “I was not aroused by my husband, and that intimacy was how it should be.”
“Doubtful,” he said dryly, pulling off his shirt and boots. “But that is beside the point.”
Luke removed his trousers then reeled her close. “Have you ever simply been held, Hannah?” He tilted her chin until her eyes were with his. “It is not something you and I ever did, and I have long regretted that.”
“We had an understanding,” she murmured, overly aware of the way he felt against her. The heat of his body. His stiff cock against her soft flesh.
“We did have an understanding.” He searched her eyes. “But I would like a new one.”
She peered at him curiously. “What did you have in mind?”
“More of this for starters.” He brushed his lips across hers. “And more of this.”
He lifted her until she wrapped her legs around his waist then crawled onto the
bed and laid her on her back. She lowered her legs and waited to be flipped or tied or a variety of other things, but instead, he remained over her. He cupped her cheek and brushed his lips across hers again before he deepened the kiss. This time it wasn’t angry and desperate but slow and sensual.
Lost in the taste of him, the feel of his tongue against hers, the warm glow that spread through her, she barely realized what she was doing. Touching him. Feeling him. She ran her hands over his broad shoulders, the light dusting of hair on his chest, then she touched his strong back and tight backside.
He was so hard and hot and masculine.
The more they kissed, stroked, and touched, the more her excitement built along with something else. Something absent when they played their games. A blossoming warmth that intertwined with the lust.
“What do you feel now?” he murmured against her lips. He pulled back and searched her eyes. “Are you aroused, Hannah?”
“I am,” she said hoarsely, wanting more, desperate for what came next.
Again expecting him to at least order her arms above her head or to close her eyes, he instead continued as they had been. Passion mixed with lust as they kissed and touched, going somewhere far beyond anywhere she had ever been. There was no begging or pleading in agonizing anticipation but a building pleasure that made her whole body burn.
Just when she nearly said please not from habit but because she wanted him in her, part of her, he already seemed to know. He spread her thighs wider and pressed forward. Not harsh and demanding but slow and easy, drawing out the experience in a way she never could have imagined.
She moaned when he fully seated himself, then he kissed her. The combination of feeling him inside her and tasting him all at once made unexpected emotions bubble up. Excitement because she felt remarkably alive. Sad because they had waited so long to do this. That she had turned him away when this was possible. The main emotion though was most crippling. Most eye-opening. Most consuming.
Love.
On some level, she knew it had always existed between them, but she had no idea how intense it could be. How it swelled as her arousal swelled. Every thrust seemed to make the feeling expand, surrounding her in a glow that swept her away.
So much so that she wept as his thrusts increased.
Limbs slid against limbs and sweat slicked their bodies as they made love. Both out of control and in control all at once, she wrapped her legs around his waist and took him even deeper. He, in turn, thrust harder still, often rolling his hips just enough to fan the flames of her arousal even more.
Engulfed in pure erotic sensation and boundless desire she grabbed his arse needing all of him, everything, until he thrust once, twice then locked up with a strangled groan. There, with him all the way, she went over the edge, and her body let go. She trembled, her pleasure heightened even more by the feel of his hot seed coating her womb.
While she was lost in waves of ecstasy she never imagined possible beyond her darker side, he whispered desperate words in her ear.
Words she had no idea she’d longed to hear until now.
Chapter 12
“I do love you, Hannah,” he whispered in her ear, the words worshiping, said from his heart. “I always have.”
A soft smile curled her lips, and she nodded, tears still trickling down her cheeks. He took one on the tip of his tongue before it vanished down her neck. Then he gently brushed the others away and pulled her into his arms. There was no need to ask why the tears were there. He knew what she had just discovered. A piece of herself she had no idea she possessed.
“What do you think of intimacy now?” he asked softly. “Done in a most normal fashion.”
Not that there was anything normal about lying with her. The feelings she invoked were profound. A level of passion that surprised even him.
“It is…worth doing many times over.” She rested her cheek on his chest. “Does that make me normal, though?”
“I don’t think it fair to put a label on what is normal,” he replied. “The things you crave are part of you. They make you who you are.”
“Who I am?” She propped up on her elbow and met his eyes. “I would not trade what we just did for the world and hope to do it again,” her eyes drifted to rings, “but my darker cravings are still there.” Her gaze returned to him. “What does that say about me?”
“That you are a perfect match for me, my little tease.” He grinned then grew serious, cupping her cheek. “Why must your cravings be considered dark? Because they are different? Not what proper society would approve of?” He shook his head. “You might be surprised how many people are like us. The secrets perfectly presentable people harbor.”
“Do you think?”
“I know.”
“I imagine you do,” she murmured and lay back, sighing. “So I am a woman with secrets.”
“That is often the best sort.” He propped up on his elbow and considered her, hoping she could see the same possibilities as him. “Could that be a life you embraced?” He gestured at the rings and ropes. “Those.” Then he gestured at them. “And what we just shared?”
“A life I embraced?” she said softly, her eyes with his. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, would you want all this?” It was bold, but he did it anyway. He placed his hand over her womb. “And this?”
Startled, she blinked several times and whispered, “I swear, sometimes you can read my mind.”
He dared not hope. “Then you have given it some thought?”
“Children? Of course.”
“With me?”
She stilled and eyed him with uncertainty. “We both thought of children at one time but…” Her eyes narrowed. “What precisely are you getting at?”
“Us, Hannah,” he murmured. “You and me…at last.”
Her eyes widened a little. “But you are a pirate, and I am…” She frowned. “Well, I do not know anymore. The only place left for me in this world is with my wretched uncle.”
He knew their plantation had been taken, and there was no place for her in Virginia anymore. He also knew he should have told her what else happened before now, but the timing had never seemed right.
“There is news,” he said softly.
When she looked at him in question, he went on. “I can only assume you thought Thomas and I came upon you and your sister by chance.” He shook his head. “But we did not. Your uncle’s captain betrayed him a while back and planned to go off course. He made a deal with Blackbeard. Let him and his men join his crew and enjoy the pleasures of piracy in exchange for both your uncle’s ships and everything on them.”
“Surely not!” She sat up wide-eyed. “He would not dare!”
“He would, and he did. We are lucky he did not know about that brooch,” he commented. “Or things could have gone very differently.”
“Yet things went poorly enough, didn’t they?” she said softly, addressing the entirety of his revelation. “My uncle did not make it to what might have been our new residence, did he?”
“No,” he said. “Blackbeard’s men captured his ship. All were killed, including your uncle.”
“I see,” she murmured. Surprisingly enough, her eyes grew misty.
“Are you all right.” He brushed his fingers along her cheek. “I did not think this news would trouble you so.”
“Sinner that I am it does not,” she whispered, choked up with emotion. “All I feel is relief…unbelievable relief.” Her eyes met his. “Is that wrong of me?”
“Nothing has ever been so right.” He cupped the side of her neck, offering her comfort. “That man ruined your childhood, Hannah. His was the sort of dark nature that deserved such an end.”
She nodded and wiped away a tear before something occurred to her, and her brows snapped together. “The captain might not have, but you knew about the brooch.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, a mixture of fear and pain in her eyes. “Is that why you came for us?”
“No, Hannah.” He kept
her eyes with his so that she understood. “We came for you and your sister because we love you. Because we would not see you taken by the likes of Blackbeard and his lot.” He shook his head. “We would not have you anywhere but with us.”
“Anywhere?” she said softly.
“Anywhere.” He caressed her jaw. “So I ask again, could a life of tease and sin be for you?”
“This then?” she murmured. “Us?”
“Yes.”
“But you are a pirate,” she reminded. “Where would that leave me?” Her eyes swept over the cabin with a wicked little gleam. “Living here? Like this?”
“What if you could live somewhere new?” he said. “And visit a spot like our special place with me whenever you like? Visit a spot just like this cabin?”
She swallowed hard and eyed him. “What are you saying, Luke?”
“Thomas and Rose are heading to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to start a new life,” he said. “Why don’t we join them?”
“Massachusetts?” she murmured. “But that’s so far away.”
“No further away than your new home was about to be.”
“But how when you are a pirate,” she began then trailed off when she understood. Always one to keep abreast of the latest news, she must have caught wind of it before she left. “You are going to request King George’s Royal Pardon? Truly?”
On five September seventeen, seventeen, King George I of Great Britain issued the “Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates.” This granted full pardon of all crimes to pirates who surrendered themselves to any governor in the colonies within the next year.
“I am,” he replied. “As is my brother and our crews.”
“Is that so?” she murmured, clearly trying to process that information. “But why?” She peered at him. “Do you not prefer piracy?”
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