Mathew’s heart leapt when Rief released his arm and circled him on the step below, a predator cornering his prey. Though it hurt where Rief had grabbed him, he refused to massage his arm. The flesh was probably bruised, and rather than be angry about that, a part of his mind was perversely pleased Rief had marked him, even in anger.
“You tell me, Mr. Weston,” he went on, his voice scathing with sarcasm. “Were you donating all your goods to orphans and convents?” He laughed. “No. I reckon you planned to sell it for a profit just like any businessman would.”
Trying to ignore the heat of Rief’s body all but on top of his, Mathew searched wildly for a way to escape the cylindrical prison.
“We’re businessmen too. We’ve got a license from the government. We explain everything to the captain, and they sign a paper saying they want our help. Yet you still have us cursed and named pirates!”
Instinctively Mathew pressed his back against the cool brick.
Rief filled in the miniscule gap, breaths ragged and fists bunched at his sides. Standing between Mathew and freedom, Rief held him trapped. It should have frightened Mathew, and in truth it did.
But it did something else too.
The passionate way Rief defended his life stirred emotions inside Mathew, both wild and untapped. A connection to something violent and out of control.
Forbidden.
Frustrated, Mathew huffed a few times before he spoke. “Why y-you....” He couldn’t think of a word bad enough. “Ill-mannered....”
“Ill-mannered? Is that the best insult you got?” Rief’s incredulous laugh bounced all around them.
Mathew silenced that laughter the only way he could think of.
He kissed him.
Their lips barely brushed, and Rief yanked back, eyes wide in shock. Mathew knew the same shock mirrored on his own face.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe, could do nothing but stare. What did you just do?
Then the air around them shifted, charged with sudden lust and anger.
Mathew didn’t know who moved first, but their mouths crushed together, Rief’s lips almost bruising him with the intensity. The sharp stubble of his freshly shaved face scraped Mathew’s skin, and he whimpered from the sinful feel of it. Rief made a strangled sound in his throat, then eased up, prodding open his lips and flicking his tongue inside.
Every nerve in Mathew’s body roared to life when their tongues met.
Terrified and shaking, but so damn desperate for more, Mathew plunged his tongue into Rief’s mouth, punishing him, tasting him with a frightening hunger. He swore Rief growled, but his pulse throbbed so hard in his temples he couldn’t be sure. Hanging on to the man for dear life, Mathew savagely plundered his mouth like the wreckers had done to his ship.
Good Lord, he wanted something, more... everything!
He clutched a fistful of Rief’s shirt, yanking him closer. A hand slid to Mathew’s nape to cup his head, fingers coiling in his hair and knocking his hat to the steps. Then Rief took a hold of his hip, shifting his leg between Mathew’s thighs.
When the entire length of Rief’s erection pressed against him, Mathew shuddered.
Dear God, the man was as hard as Mathew!
That grip moved to his ass, and Mathew responded by pressing their bodies together, diving headfirst into the darkest place of desire. When Rief nipped on his lower lip, a spasm of pleasure flared in his core, moving to his balls until it pulsed in rhythm with the blood thumping in his ears.
Never in his life had he expected a kiss that felt like this. To be so rough yet tender... so perfect.
Mathew released his shirt to stroke Rief’s chest, fingers trembling as he traced those glorious muscles. His lips never broke from Rief’s, and the feel of a cock against his own made him ache everywhere. It was just like his dream, their erections pressed tight, hands roaming, and bodies intertwined. Mathew’s heart beat against his ribcage, as desperate to escape as his erection. When Rief’s thigh pressed into his crotch, rubbing, thrusting, it sent him so close to the edge he feared if they kept it up he would burst in his trousers.
The coolness of the brick against his back, the wild kisses, the heat of that bigger body, the hardness of his cock—all of it consumed Mathew. He felt alive and free. He felt a passion he did not know existed. A fire he never dared to hope might be real.
This is living in the sun!
Mathew moaned, arching into him, longing to take possession of Rief. He wanted to be connected to him somehow, more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
Then it was over as suddenly as it had begun.
Head reeling, he reached out to steady himself on Rief’s broad chest, but he wasn’t there. Mathew flopped onto the step, his head too dangerously light to risk remaining upright. Making ragged gasps for air, he opened his eyes. Light blinded him, and for a moment he could see nothing but a glaring illumination of the sun coming in from the window behind Rief and his silhouette towering above.
Rief reached for him, and Mathew flinched, expecting another kiss.
Instead Rief gently touched his temple, brushing a lock of hair off his forehead.
Mathew was in shock.
Shock that he had kissed a man and shock that his body had responded so violently.
Though his senses were still storming and throbbing, he shuddered at the delicate touch of Rief’s fingers in his hair. He held his breath, trying to decipher the clouded expression on Rief’s face. What was it? Lust? Regret? Affection?
Rief dropped his hand to the side, tightened his lips into a grim line, and cleared his throat. “I trust you know the way back.” His voice was choked and rough. “Good day, Mr. Weston.”
Then he turned on his heel and disappeared down the stairs, two at a time.
Chapter Six
“The day of the sale arrives. Who are the bidders? The aforesaid five (Key West) merchants! How easily might these merchants agree not to run one or the other on his bid, and thus the whole cargo might be divided among them...(for) less.”
—article in “Hunt’s Merchant’s Magazine,” 1842
After years of denial, there was no going back to the bliss of ignorance.
Mathew had kissed another man.
Though the bruise on his arm had almost faded as the week passed, the feel of Rief’s lips still haunted him. The musky scent of the skin on his neck. The firmness of those big hands on his ass and in his hair. The scratch of stubble across his chin. The hard body in his arms, the tongue inside his mouth.
Absently, he fingered his lips, almost expecting them to feel different the way he did on the inside. That was his first real kiss, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost taste his wild wrecker once more. A hot flush worked over him, stealing his breath.
“Are you well, Matty?”
His mind jumped back to the present, and he dropped his hand guiltily. Smiling down at Maggie, he said, “Yes, I am quite well.”
“You look flushed. Are you catching ill?”
“I assure you, I am fine,” he said, trying to master his body’s involuntary reactions to the memory of that scorching kiss.
She wrinkled her brow. “You have been acting very queer.”
“I have?”
“Yes,” she insisted. “Your mind has been elsewhere. Far more than usual.”
“I have been very busy arranging this auction, Margaret.”
“I thought when Papa and your father returned, you would leave the work to them,” she said with a longsuffering sigh. “But instead you are always down here working, and leaving me at the inn with Mrs. Cohen.”
Fighting an eye roll, he gestured around to the small crowd of people gathered for the sale of the Lucky Clipper’s cargo. Inside the main warehouse, the quick staccato of the auctioneer’s voice added to the cacophony around them. With the millions of complicated questions about Rief, and the equally complex answers rattling around in his head, his patience had worn thin. “I won’t allow others to run my busin
ess just so I can be available to respond to your every whim.”
Her jaw dropped. “Matty!”
Not feeling any remorse for his rudeness, he hurried her inside to find their fathers. “Come now, we don’t want to miss anything.”
Barrels, crates, and huge bales of cotton lined up in respective piles. After checking the original manifest, only about fifteen percent of their original haul had been lost or damaged beyond repair. Fashionably dressed American ladies milled through the rows of goods while their men were deep in conversation with their contemporaries.
“Is this about the lavender silk?” Maggie asked.
He nearly laughed aloud. “I have much more important things to concern myself with than how you wish to dress me.”
Ever since her declaration about ending their engagement, there had been a decided awkwardness between them he didn’t know how to fix. In light of recent events with Rief, he didn’t know if he even wanted to.
“Then you are angry that I don’t want to marry you,” she surmised.
He placed a hand to his temple, where a throbbing had begun. “I do not wish to discuss this right now, especially when my opinion is not required. I am completely powerless when it comes to deciding my own future, and I have learned to accept that. You will make this decision on your own, as you do everything.” He paused to look down at her, frustration and weariness emboldening him. “Seeing as I have no choice but to abide by your wishes, if you would be so kind, please inform me when you have made a final decision about my life, Miss Kirkwood.”
“You don’t have to be so sharp,” she whispered, her cheeks reddening. “I will take back the silk. If you don’t want a vest of it, I won’t insist. I am sorry.”
Taken aback by her total misinterpretation of his ire, he drew up short. “Thank you.”
“You are welcome,” she said, adding after a pause, “But you would have looked quite handsome in it.”
He sniffed. “I shall have to take your word for it.”
A relieved smile brightened her face. “I am glad that’s settled.” She patted his arm, adjusting the turned-up cuff of his brown linen frock coat. “See how much easier it is for friends to resolve arguments when the nonsense of being husband and wife doesn’t get in the way?”
Though he appreciated the gesture, respecting his wishes about a vest did not solve anything. If Maggie chose to call off their engagement so she could live her life as she pleased, it did not change his fate. As a married man or a bachelor, he’d spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Knowing the dangers had always held him back, but now that he had been well and truly kissed, a fire had been awakened inside him that needed to be quenched. Mathew had tasted the forbidden, and nothing short of exploring these new feelings would ever be enough.
Unfortunately, Rief had disappeared like a specter, fading away and leaving him with an empty ache in his heart worse than the one in his trousers.
“Oh look, there’s Papa,” Maggie declared, leading him toward the back of the warehouse.
Mr. Kirkwood lit up when he saw them. Eyes locked on the auction preparations, Father completely ignored their arrival. Top hat firmly in place, he had his arms crossed, a scowl creasing his face and a copy of the local Inquirer clutched in a fist. The wreckers had brought the Lucky Clipper into the wharf yesterday, and Mathew had imagined the news that she’d sail again would improve Father’s foul temper, but it had only worsened.
“Hello, Papa.” Maggie turned her cheek for a kiss, which her father obliged.
“There you are, my dear. Where is Mrs. Cohen?”
“Napping. This heat is just too much for her.” She would never admit she’d rushed Mathew out of the inn before the old woman had a chance to wake.
The portly man mopped his brow with a lace kerchief. “Yes, it will be good to be back in England where one can breathe without sweating so much, won’t it, Weston?”
Yearning stabbed his heart at the thought of abandoning this island without ever seeing Rief again, but he smiled. “Oh, yes, it will be most welcome.”
Mr. Kirkwood gestured to a stranger beside him, introducing him as a traveling merchant from Havana there for the auction. “Mr. Fairfield, may I present to you my beautiful daughter, Miss Kirkwood, and her soon-to-be husband, Mr. Weston.”
So she hasn’t told her father she broke off our engagement.
Mathew greeted the handsome man with a tip of his hat. He smelled of lemon soap, fresh and almost feminine. When Maggie extended her hand, it was promptly taken up and kissed, though Mr. Fairfield’s eyes remained squarely locked on Mathew, confirming an initial suspicion that they shared similar leanings. Ordinarily, Mathew would’ve created an excuse to leave rather than risk being seen with another man so obvious. Yet today, in light of his preoccupation with Rief, the merchant’s possible proclivities were rendered a mere curiosity.
“Fairfield just informed us that Chambers is the owner of The Emporium,” Father said, startling Mathew. “He’ll be bidding on items to resell in his store. Did you know that, Mathew?”
“No, I did not, my lord.” That was the store where Maggie had purchased the ugly lavender silk.
Father glowered at him. “Don’t you think you should have known?”
Flustered that Chambers had deceived him once more, he wanted to tell Father that it wasn’t his fault. These men had perfected their scheme years ago, and anyone would’ve been duped.
Instead he said nothing.
“Look around, most of the merchants are from Key West,” Father grumbled.
“So it would seem,” Mr. Kirkwood said, and to his dismay, Mathew realized they were correct.
Father glared at Mathew, giving his flawless attire a sweeping head-to-toe look of disdain. “I never should have trusted something so important to you. You’re more inept than a woman.”
Flinching as if struck in the face, Mathew flushed when every eye was suddenly upon him. His arm tightened on Maggie’s, and he adjusted his necktie, the green silk feeling much too tight.
Shaking his head, Father turned away in disgust. “I don’t even know why that old bat insisted you attend college. What a waste of money. She should’ve sent you to a ladies finishing school.”
Indignation managed to quell Mathew’s embarrassment and his back straightened. His aunt may have treated him like pet spaniel at times, patting his head and offering him sweets for good behavior, but she was the closest thing to a mother he’d ever had.
“Aunt Elaine was a good woman,” he said, not bothering to conceal his temper. “Please do not defame her memory with insults.”
“Please?” Father repeated with a caustic grin. “I suppose that’s how polite you were while scheduling this auction with Chambers. No wonder he didn’t allow the proper time to advertise. Are you even sure that he did advertise?”
The handsome merchant offered Mathew a sympathetic smile. “I received the advertisement in Havana, Mr. Weston.”
“It’s a cunning scheme these wreckers have going,” Mr. Kirkwood said, blotting sweat from his bald head. “Don’t blame yourself, Weston.”
“I don’t,” he managed through gritted teeth.
He felt a pat on his arm and glanced down. Maggie’s gentle, reassuring smile was the final blow, heaping shame like coals on his anger until his cheeks blazed. Though he wanted nothing more than to punch Father in the throat and curse the rest of them for their pity, he did nothing—per his usual.
He may have shown boldness in the lighthouse, but that had been an impulsive reaction to feelings and desires he didn’t fully understand. Now, in the harsh light of the real world, any courage he imagined himself to have was nonexistent.
Pretending to be unaffected by Father’s ridicule, Mathew fixed his attention on the auctioneer. But the rapid descriptions and shouted bids were little more than a static hum, drowned out by the blood pounding in his head.
Why must Father always humiliate him? Couldn’t he appreciate what Mathew had done? Lov
e him for who he was rather that hate him for what he wasn’t?
He was a damn fool for clinging to such a hope. Any chance of that had died the day Father discovered he couldn’t touch Mathew’s inheritance. He ceased to be a son and became a bank waiting to be robbed blind. And Mathew continued to allow it. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Kirkwood, his loan to Father never would’ve been written up officially by a solicitor.
He fought a self-deprecating sniff.
But what did that matter? Father would expect him to cover all their losses, and Mathew was still so hungry for approval, he would do it without argument. Though he hated being so pathetic, he had no idea how to stop the inevitable or how to be the man he wished he could be.
As the auction continued, his frustration only increased as the prices decreased.
It seemed merchants were winking at each other, nodding and bowing out just when the bidding began to run and Mathew got his hopes up it might go higher. Almost as if they had made a deal not to allow the prices to go high, the back-and-forth bidding merely a show.
When the auctioneer yelled, “Sold!” on the final bales of cotton, Father cursed. “That was far below market value.”
“Cotton worth thirty thousand gone for less than fifteen,” Mr. Kirkwood remarked with a weary sigh.
Off in the back of the building, Chambers smiled broad enough to split his cheeks. He’d made a fortune today and when the judge announced the salvage award, he would make even more. Mr. Fairfield might have the courtesy to contain his excitement, but he too had made out like a bandit with his purchases.
Damn this town!
“Hopefully we will fare better with the court,” Mr. Kirkwood said. “If we can convince the judge that the wreckers deliberately drove up costs and were not as competent as they led us to believe, we can lower the salvage award to cover this loss.”
“They did salvage eighty-five percent of our cargo and the insurance adjuster insists the Lucky Clipper will sail again,” Mathew reminded him quietly so Father wouldn’t overhear. “I doubt the court will consider that incompetence.”
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