“Up there, Lisa. Climb.”
Chapter 7
Lisa
The deck seems so far below us, dark but for the places where torches shine against the night. There, I can see some of the men looking up at us, openly curious. The sight makes my stomach jump and tighten, excitement and fear mixing in a sharp cocktail. We are so high, on this tiny round wooden platform, and the gaps between the planks beneath our feet and the grate-like railing around us make it feel even more precarious.
“You can’t be serious, Cole,” my voice comes out tight and high. “Let me go down, please.”
“I am dead serious.” He stands directly behind me, looking into his spyglass, which is like a little telescope. I feel his hard muscles against my skin, the material of his breeches against my bare legs. I inhale deeply and close my eyes, desire and terror coursing through me in equal measures.
“Union Jack!” Cole yells. “Full spread ahead! East-northeast.”
His voice carries the words easily despite the flapping sails and crashing waves. The sailors relay his command and return to manning the ship with even more intense activity. Underneath the sails, standing on the deck, is Jenkins, and he commands the sailors who begin to pull the ropes, moving the sails.
Cole looks again at the ship, then cries, “Ten miles!”
“The bastard’s faster than us. Damnation,” he mutters.
The ship moves, the crow’s nest sinks and rises. The rolling is harsher now, and my stomach jumps to my throat.
“Did you say Union Jack? The British Navy?” I ask.
He turns me to him and looms over me, all dark and mighty in the night. Above us, the stars. Below us, the sea and the ship. Around us, the sails. And he is still the sight that steals my breath away and turns my knees to jelly. “Someone who is flying their flag, at least.”
He brushes his knuckles against my cheek. “You are so beautiful. So innocent. So pure.”
My mouth dries. He pushes me slightly and presses me against the railing of the crow’s nest. “We’re about to sail at full speed, chased by the enemy. How do you feel about that?”
He runs one hand down my chest and over my breast, caressing it through the fabric, playing with my nipple until it hardens. I gasp for breath, helpless, as exquisite pleasure spreads through my body. “I’m not sure…” I say. “Like on a really tall roller coaster?”
He lifts me up and sits me on the railing. I shudder and look down, my head spinning from the sight. He wraps his arms around my waist and kisses me. His lips are demanding and yet soft at the same time; his tongue explores my mouth, and it’s so delicious my panties grow damp.
“Do you feel alive?” he asks. “When the danger is so near, does it not set all your skin ablaze and make your hair stand up? Does it not make you feel deeper, hear clearer, and see more colors?”
I lick my lips. “You certainly do, Cole. You do all those things to me. And more.”
He growls in his throat and crushes his lips to my mouth.
The ship turns and dips, and we dip with it. The arousal from his touches and the turbulence of the world around us—the naked danger, the swarming activity of the ship, the darkness of the night, and the brilliance of the stars and moon—it is all caressing me. It is all making love to me.
Not just Cole.
And I’m somewhere in a different world, on the other side of the mirror, like Alice. In a world where all of my misgivings and flaws have become bare and open, and all I can do is let them out.
And if I fall and die, that would be a good death because I’d die daring. I’d die living a full life—for the first time ever.
I kiss him back, drunk with excitement and burning with arousal. He removes my T-shirt, and my bikini top, and the wind slaps against my bare skin like a cat-o’-nine-tails, adding fire to my blood. I tug at his shirt, too, and he removes it willingly. His bare chest glides against mine, silky and crisp where he has a little dark hair.
He stops the kiss and whispers against my lips, “Open this devilish lock on your garment.”
I smile and jump down to the floor of the crow’s nest. I undo the button and the zip, and he tugs the shorts down my legs, together with the panties. I look around, suddenly aware that any of those sailors who have the right angle can see me like this, completely naked. And how many of them are on the ship—a hundred? More?
The heat of embarrassment floods over me, the urge to cover myself making my hands jerk to my breasts and my crotch. But Cole catches my hands.
“No,” he says softly, his eyes two dark pools of sin. “Embrace it. Make love to it. Let it wash through you.”
My insides clench, and sweat covers my skin. I want to hide, but there’s something so freeing about being exposed like this. There’s nowhere to go. Take me or leave me.
“You are perfection,” Cole murmurs as his eyes crawl down my body taking in every detail. “My perfection.”
He grabs the end of a rope that is hanging from somewhere further up the mast, then takes my wrists and ties them. My jaw drops open, and I watch in astonishment as he does this, my breath caught in my throat. My whole body tingles. Am I really about to let him—
He pulls another rope and my wrists fly up.
I gasp and jerk my arms, but Cole has already tied the other end of the rope to a hook on the crow’s nest.
I’m completely at his mercy. I feel—helpless. Exposed. Beautiful.
Desired.
My breasts rise and fall fast, my nipples harden under Cole’s gaze.
He comes to me, and without touching me with his hands, he kisses me. The kiss is gentle and rough at the same time. Possessive.
When I’m completely breathless, he holds my waist and kisses my chin, then trails his lips down my neck and takes one breast in his mouth. I quiver at the heat of his tongue compared to the chill of the air. He cups the other breast with his hand and rolls my nipple between his thumb and index finger, his mouth teasing, tasting, his tongue licking, his hand massaging.
Heat rushes through me, pleasure jolting to the very core of me, making me clench and burn. My head falls back, and I arch into his sweet torture. I want to run my fingers through his hair, I want to dig my nails into his shoulders and bring him closer, make him suck harder. He goes to the second breast and repeats the process, and if not for the ropes holding me, I would fall.
That is when he gets down on his knees, leaving a hot trail of kisses down my belly. With each kiss, I clench, anticipation of where his mouth is heading quickening my breath.
He kisses me all the way down to a small triangle of hair, courtesy of a tasteful bikini wax. When Cole separates my flesh with two fingers and seals his mouth with my sex, all thoughts of who might be watching, of how high we are above the deck, of anything else in the world, evaporate.
His tongue explores me in a circular motion, round and round the clitoris as though he’s having an hors-d’oeuvre before the main dish, sending all my senses into a melting, beautiful, wonderful mixture of sensations and bursts of pleasure.
And then he hits the epicenter. I moan, arch and put one leg on his shoulder to give him all the access he can get, and he continues, licking, sucking, playing, teasing until I’m about to fall apart around him. Then he withdraws. I sway, helpless with yearning.
A cool breeze kisses me right there, and an eternity of stars is staring at me, lovingly, and the sea whispers sweet nothings. The rope holds me in place, and I realize I’m the yin, there to compliment the yang.
There to compliment Cole.
And I know he can’t exist without me. In my submission is power, and in his domination is weakness.
He grabs my thighs and turns me around so that I face the bow of the ship. Before me is the front mast, the powerful sails, and sailors working below. Anyone could see me at any moment.
I close my eyes and embrace the feeling of exposure as Cole told me to. His warm, calloused hands run down my spine, spilling heat as they go. They find the top of m
y butt, and he runs them around the cheeks, then slaps them playfully. I arch, pushing my butt back into his hands. Then comes another slap, harder. And another, harder. They burn, but in a good way, and I spread my legs.
I feel Cole suck in a breath and fiddle with his trousers, then something hot and hard and long brushes against my butt.
Oh.
The darkness. The freedom. The permission to play bad. To color outside the lines.
To be me.
That’s what he’s giving me.
And it feels like I’m a sail and he’s the wind, and he fills me and gives me direction and purpose.
And then he enters my sleek sex, and the world explodes in all sensations of pleasure. There’s the sweetness of chocolate and the bite of rum and the softness of whipped cream. There’s the relaxation of a massage and the tightness in the chest before a big jump, and the pleasure of listening to really good salsa music.
And yet, none of these compare to the storm he unleashes inside me. I melt and tighten around him as he begins thrusting into me. He’s big—giant—and he stretches me to the limit, then thrusts so deep it hurts.
And I love it. I push my behind back, eager to meet his thrusts. He holds my breasts, then runs his hands down, fingers parting my cleft. His chest presses to my back, his muscles hard and powerful as he continues taking me higher, to the heights of pleasure I’ve never known.
With his finger, he circles my clit, and I’m dissolving into him. I’m not sure anymore if I’m still me, or if I’m part of him or this ship or the sea.
Maybe I’m everything.
The pressure continues building and building. And then, without warning, I’m falling apart. I’m exploding, shaking, sinking and rising. He shakes, sinking and rising with me. The air fills with his groans as he cries my name and I cry his. I lose the last threat of separation between me and the stars and Cole and the sea.
I’m everywhere.
I’m everything.
I’m seen.
And I see him.
Chapter 8
Cole
Mine. Mine. She’s mine. My heart beats against Lisa’s back.
I hold her, still shaking and breathing heavily. She’s silky and warm, and we breathe together like one being, the movements of the ship underneath us echoing the rhythm.
I allow myself a moment or two more to absorb the delicacy of her body against mine and flow in the waves of softness. Then I detach myself, untie the rope around Lisa’s wrists and begin to dress.
The experience with her was the most intense I have ever gone through. My time with Duchess Chestwitch does not even compare to the exquisite pleasure I felt with Lisa.
The fresh sea breeze touches my skin, and a cold shiver runs through my body. What I felt with Lisa was so full of light. She took me high, so high I could see the stars and the moon. I worshiped her, as though she was healing water and I was a deathly sick man.
And what I tasted was life.
And I want more.
But there will be no more. She is about to leave me forever.
And I do not want her to stay—why would I? She makes me crave dangerous things. To forget about other women, to want no one but her in my arms for the rest of eternity.
Is what I feel towards her something my father felt towards my mother? I remember the last time I saw him. I was just a boy, getting ready for my first big voyage. His face was too old for his thirty-five years, weathered, wrinkled, tanned like leather. I remember his hunched back, the gray, watery eyes. He always smelled like fish, even after the monthly bathing when my mother scrubbed him clean with lye soap.
“You were born to the wrong family, Son,” he had said while we were out fishing on his boat—the most precious thing he owned. “Had I never had you, had I never married your mother, I would be free. But you will end up like me.” He looked at me and my three older brothers, his face bitter. “You all will. You will all find a girl you will be stupid enough to fall in love with, marry her, and then every year there will be one more mouth to feed. Mark my words.”
That was the day I knew I would do everything not to end up like my father. No mouths to feed. No woman to love. No one to tie me down.
These thoughts, these emotions make a cold sweat break through my skin. I haven’t loved anyone since Duchess Chestwitch. I was ready to forget my father’s prediction. When she got rid of me like of an old undergarment, it almost destroyed me. Although later I realized it meant that I was still free. What I feel now, for Lisa, is so much stronger.
It could make me forget my wish to stay free.
It could ruin my soul completely.
I need to keep my distance from her. She will not stay for me. I should have never seduced her. But how could I have known that she would taste so good I could not stop?
My chest is tight, my body still aching softly, I refuse to look at her.
“Let us go down. I got distracted, but I am the captain and I have urgent matters on my hands.”
Her eyes land on me, heavy and wide. Her pain stabs me in the abdomen. But this is for the best. For both of us.
“Did you not feel what I felt?” she says, and it breaks my heart.
“Get dressed. Let us go down.”
She runs her hands through her hair and briefly closes her eyes, then gets up and puts on her small garments.
“Stop being so bossy. Why can’t you just talk to me about this?” she asks. “This has been the most transcendent night of my life. You—you are the most amazing—”
Her words tear me apart. “Please, Lisa. No.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Why not?”
These feelings are an illusion. If I give in, if I allow myself one more step towards her, my heart will fill with her. And when she leaves me, she will crush it into dust.
“I felt such a connection with you,” she says. “It was magical. Didn’t you feel it?”
“There is nothing magical about this, Lisa. I took you on top of the ship, while my sailors could see you. It was a rush of danger combined with skilled lovemaking. That is what you felt. Not magic. Not transcendence. Just good sex.”
I turn around and begin the climb down. “Come.”
Lisa
As soon as we reach the deck, he turns his back to me and walks away, his white shirt flapping on his broad shoulders. I ignore the curious stares of the seamen as well as the question in my head that asks if they are looking because they saw me up there during the most intimate moment of my life or because my clothes make me look like a prostitute in this era. Before, such thoughts would have brought heat to my cheeks. Now, I don’t care.
I grab Cole by the arm and turn him around to face me.
“No. You will not walk away from me.”
He turns and looks at me, his face pained, his eyes dark. Then he blinks and the expression is gone, replaced by a dark look from under his frowning eyebrows.
I swallow. I will not be intimidated anymore. “That was the deepest emotional and physical connection I’ve ever experienced, Cole.”
“I told you—”
“I want to stay longer. Not forever or anything. It’s just… I—I’m not ready to go.”
His eyes widen, and for the first time I see an echo of vulnerability in them. He’s like a lost boy who has gotten a present for the first time in his life. Then the pain returns, and he puts back his stern mask.
“It does not matter. I do not want you to stay. No woman will bind me.”
I swallow. I know he’s just hurt. I know that woman wounded him. I know he’ll need time to heal and will resist opening his heart, and I’m patient.
“Not forever, Cole. Just a little longer.”
His jaw tightens.
“No.”
“You don’t have to commit to me! Just be with me a little longer. My pet hotel is taken care of by my employees for a while, and my cats and dogs are with my parents. I want you, Cole.”
He shakes his head. “You are not the only on
e.”
That stings. The thought of him with another woman makes me sick. “Okay. I still get one question, don’t I? So, here’s question number three. What are you afraid of if I stay?”
He turns and strides away, and I follow him.
“Cole! Answer me.”
He doesn’t respond, just climbs the stairs to the upper deck. I follow, but the ship shakes, and at the same time a sailor runs down the stairs past me. I try stepping to the side but the wet step slips under me. The ship lurches. I stagger back, but instead of hitting the wooden deck, I fall into the darkness.
A scream is ripped from my throat as I flail. Then my back hits the surface of the ocean with a violent blow, knocking the breath out of me. Water floods my ears and my nose and closes above me.
Chapter 9
Cole
Lisa’s scream pierces the air. I turn around, and she is nowhere to be seen. I rush to the railing.
People, the ship, the waves move slowly, as though half-frozen in the moonlight. The wind blows, the waves crash against the ship, the men yell, and the sails flap. But my heart is louder, thundering in my ears. My body is rooted to the spot, my blood turning to ice.
Instinct takes over. I cannot leave her behind.
“Man overboard!” I yell. “Drop the anchors!” Then I run down and look around, but I cannot see her. My stomach sinks. Despite the cries of protestation from my crew, I jump into the ocean.
I take a lungful of air. The water takes me with a sleek resistance and muffles my hearing as I sink. Cool darkness surrounds me. Huge waves pull me down, one after another, without giving me a breath. Water muffles the sounds around me. The ocean is cool and makes my body weightless, and my shirt tickles my skin as I move around. Salt burns my eyes in the dark. I struggle to swim, looking around without seeing anything. Then, finally, I spot long pale limbs struggling in the darkness. I swim to her as she’s trying to push herself up to the surface.
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