Blood Script

by Airicka Phoenix

  “Bedtime.” James stalked in, one hand tugging at the zipper on his coat. “Nicholas will take you back to your room.”

  Nicholas moved behind her with a switch blade in hand. It snapped open with a flick of his wrist. The blade glinted in the light before it disappeared with its owner behind her.

  “Post Presley outside her door,” James instructed as he ripped off his coat and pitched it aside. His top followed. “I want no one in or out without my direct orders.”

  He stopped in front of her, beautifully bare chested and built like something straight out of a dark, dirty fantasy. All those hard muscles forming hills and valleys along the broad planes of his shoulders and stretching over the glorious expanse of his wide chest made her almost forget why she was so angry.

  Nicholas cut through her binding. The bits of rope hit the floor, freeing her. Blood rushed through the numb limb, aggravating every movement. She wanted to weep.

  Her captor never noticed. With nonchalant grace, he snapped open the top button on his cargos, and it took all she had not to watch with riveted fascination as the zipper followed.

  “Let August know there’ll be one more for meals,” he went on telling the other man as if she weren’t in the room, unconcerned that his waistband was slowly sliding down the lean curves of his hips. He folded his arms. “No desserts.”

  Cora’s brain was malfunctioning. Thoughts and words were streaming, but with a hazy blur that seemed to take the importance of whatever she’d been thinking. Beneath her top, her nipples had gone rigid. They strained against the t-shirt containing them with a none too subtle ache she hadn’t felt in damn long time. It mirrored the pang taking residence between her thighs where the boy shorts where pulled a little too tight against her mound. The seam had slipped between her lips, and if she shifted even slightly...

  Five blunt fingers closed in the soft muscle of her forearm and she was jostled into motion. But movement was a luxury Cora couldn’t afford when both legs were sleeping and the sight of her captor’s rugged body had awakened every female instinct in her.

  The latter was mortifying.

  It was insane.

  She couldn’t even humor the notion without severely hating herself.

  “Let go of me!” she snapped with more impudence than was probably wise.

  A twin set of hands dove into her hair and she was viciously yanked out of her chair. The assault drove her into her enemy’s arms, into the taut wall of his chest. She forgot all about the needles piercing her feet. What was worse, she gasped upon impact, a low, breathy sound that did not belong in that situation.

  The hand in her hair tightened, eliciting a shockwave of delicious shivers cascading down her spine. The electrical currents intensified every sensation, making her hyper aware of every inch of him melding with hers.

  Gray eyes bore into hers with a knowing glint that made her want to die on the spot.

  “Give us a moment, Nicholas.”

  Don’t go. Don’t leave me with him, she wanted to beg. But the other man had already exited the room, sealing the door securely behind him.

  “We need to work on that mouth of yours, sweetheart. I won’t have you disobeying me in front of my men.” One hand slipped from her hair and fastened around her middle, pinning her completely to him. “The next time it happens, I will put you over my knee, wherever we may be, and I will remind you who’s in charge.”

  The hand at her waist slid down and tucked beneath the hem of her top. The hot, callused palm splayed over the globe of her ass cheek. The burn of his touch hissed against her skin with the accuracy of a smack.

  Cora choked on her sharp inhale. “Don’t...”

  “Do we understand each other, Cora?” His fingertips danced over the soft incline where the curve of her backside met the back of her thigh, and where the seam of her underwear started. “Will you behave?”

  One finger slipped beneath the elastic.

  Just one.

  But the sensation rocketed straight to her core. She felt the invasion with the same severity as if he’d plunged that finger inside her.

  Shit.

  “Cora.” His tone was as slow and taunting as the run of that finger following the band forward up her hip bone and down.

  Down.

  “Yes...” although she couldn’t fathom for the life of her what she was agreeing to.

  His eyes darkened with the feral hardness setting his features. “That’s a good girl.”

  The hand vanished. Its absence sent a jolt through her, reawakening the senses he’d stolen.

  She yanked out of his arms and found herself splayed on the floor at his feet.

  The impact never even registered.

  “Don’t touch me,” she panted. “I ... I won’t be manhandled.”

  He stood over her, a hulking figure dominating the very air around him. His hands hung loosely at his sides, hands that had, moments ago, been holding her up. But it was the thick, fat head of his cock that captured her attention. It peeked out from the wide V where his pants had slipped down the rock-hard squares stamped into his abdomen. Its rigid length mocked her. Not that he seemed to notice when bent at the knees to crouch in front of her.

  “When I manhandle you, you will know it,” he drawled. “That was a warning, your first and your last. I don’t like repeating myself.”

  Just like that, he pushed back up onto his feet and moved around her. His fist slammed into the metal twice, and the door immediately swung open. Nicholas stepped into the room.

  “Ms. Harris is ready to be returned to her quarters.”

  Cora shoved up on her own accords before the hand reaching for her could make contact. That didn’t seem to stop the man, however. He grabbed her arm anyway.

  “I ... I need the bathroom.”

  Neither man moved for a full second, as if her request was somehow foreign to them. Nicholas’s brown eyes pivoted away from her to his boss with a mixture of surprise and confusion. It was clear they either didn’t have very many women on board, or they had somehow mastered the ability not to pee.

  James nodded at the other man, giving him the go-ahead without saying a word. Cora took that time to survey her surroundings. It was clearly a bedroom, possibly his with a cot pushed up beneath the only window in the place and an open chest of clothes at the foot. The only other objects in the room were the two chairs and a desk. Its sparseness made her wonder if he genuinely didn’t have much, or if he was the sort of man who didn’t need much. Either way, there weren’t many weapon choices. Her only other option was the open door behind her.

  But the moment the idea entered her head, it was immediately reminded that they were still in the middle of the Atlantic. The sobering thought was followed promptly by the idea to wait until they’d hit land. Escape would be a much more tangible prospect then. In the meantime, she would just have to play nice and pray that was the last time she ever visited the Captain’s quarters.

  “Come on.” Nicholas bent down and snatched up the burlap sack James had taken off her head and tossed aside. He shook it out and held it open. “Let’s go.”

  “Don’t worry about that.” James moved to the desk and the small mountain of papers. “What’s she going to do? Memorize the horizon in the dark?”

  Nicholas seemed to realize that as well when he bunched the thing up in one hand and motioned her out with the other.

  It became painfully evident she wasn’t dressed for a trip across the ocean the moment she left the room. Everything was freezing cold beneath her bare feet once she stepped off the carpet. The chill burned at a temperature that hadn’t been that drastic when she’d originally been brought out. It seemed to have gone down with the nightfall. Each step was the equivalent of a treading on a sheet of ice. The corridors were worse. The Captain’s quarters must have been heated because there was no missing the sudden and drastic change. She couldn’t feel her legs from the knees down.

  “Here,” Nicholas said, pushing open the door to a room
where even the toilet was metal.

  “I don’t think I can sit on that,” she hissed through chattering teeth.

  “Put toilet paper down,” her companion suggested.

  If only that were the only problem. Truth was, she wasn’t sure she could bend her knees without snapping them in half. Nevertheless, she braved the journey in and let him seal the door behind her. She padded to the seat and peered down into the surprisingly clean hole.

  There was no helping it. It was either brave her chances or soil herself. The latter was a satisfaction she would not give their dear Captain.

  She did her business, butt hovering almost a foot off the seat. She washed her hands and studied her reflection in the scuffed mirror hanging above the sink.

  Her hair was in chaos. Thick tendrils hung in matted knots around her face and down her shoulders. The dark strands, and the dull lighting, casted a waxy, yellow tinge to her pale complexion. There was a bruise around her lips in a perfect circle that she guessed had come from the oxygen mask. She rubbed at it, not sure why, but it didn’t wipe away.

  Dejected, and willing herself not to succumb to the thick wedge of emotions threatening to overcome her, Cora ran a hurried hand through her hair, and opened the door.

  Nicholas was waiting for her just outside. He turned his head when she stepped out and he took her in with those heavily shrouded eyes. Neither said a word, but he motioned her to follow with the jerk of his head.

  He took her back to the room with the crates and bags of rice. Nicholas opened the door with a jerk and nudged her inside.

  The first thing she noticed was the cot with its mattress and pile of blankets, and a neat bundle of folded clothes. Then the absence of all the rice. Even the crates had been rearranged further up against the wall, leaving a decent amount of room for a single person. The reordering accounted for the time James had left her tied to the chair in his room. But the act of decency was overshadowed by the fact that he’d left her tied to a chair. Oh, and the fact that he’d kidnapped her. Regardless, the gesture was surprising.

  “Someone will be outside if you need anything,” Nicholas told her. “Just bang on the door.”

  Cora turned just as he was leaving the room and their eyes locked. “Thank you.”

  He paused with one hand on the door and gave a barely conspicuous nod. Then he was gone and Cora lunged for the material laid out for her.

  There was a pair of black sweats that needed to be rolled several times at the ankles, a shirt with sleeves that went over her hands and a hoodie that she zipped up to her chin. There were no shoes, not that she expected there to be on a ship filled with men, but there was a pair of socks that she pulled on over her numb toes.

  Properly bundled, Cora climbed beneath the warm sheets and pulled the blankets up to her chin.

  It wasn’t until she was beginning to drift off that it hit her—the smell. The familiar scent of spices coming off the clothes.

  His scent.

  They were his clothes.

  She was wearing his things.

  The thought made her want to take them back off, but common sense prevailed.

  Instead, she lay in the musty cubical and pretended not to notice.

  Chapter Five

  “Girl back in her room?”

  Nicholas joined James at the rails, his movement oddly silent for a man his size. He braced his forearms on the post next to him and leaned in.

  “Yeah.”

  James turned his gaze back to the endless span of black tumbling on for miles. The absence of light outside their small circle always made him think of eternity, of his own mortality. In the ocean, in the dark, they were but a dot. Its vastness never failed to intimidate him, yet it was that very thing that made him love it all the more.

  “Any word from Bishop?”

  Nicholas rocked his head slowly from side to side. “Sat phones are down. Michael’s working on them now.”

  James checked the light up face on his watch. “Tell him to hurry up. That’s our only link to the man and I want this over with.”

  “Yes sir.”

  But neither moved away from their spots. The night was a crisp one, one of the colder trips they’d taken that year. Their journey over the Northern Hemisphere was a constant temperature battle; the ocean didn’t give a shit that it was early October. Not at night, anyway.

  “Remind me to get Takahashi a gift basket.”

  Nicholas grunted. “I already thanked him. Generously.”

  “That never should have happened.” He slanted a sidelong glance at his first mate. “The girl should have been watched. She shouldn’t have gotten as far as she did.”

  Even beneath the murky shadows, there was no missing the slow grin that spread across the other man’s face.

  “Takahashi offered his playroom if you want to teach her a lesson.”

  James squinted into the distance, contemplating the offer with a scratch of his jaw. “That is tempting.”

  “I told him you’d think about it.”

  He already was. Putting her over his knee was all he’d thought about since her grand escape attempt through Takahashi’s fortress. There was nothing more embarrassing than having a captive running through a client’s house. Then to have them end up in said client’s playroom.

  “Should have cuffed her to the bed,” he mused to himself. “I honestly thought we had more time to unload Takashashi’s cargo.”

  “Now, there’s an image to keep a guy warm at night.” Nicholas pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket and lit one with a flick of his lighter. The tip blazed a scarlet red through a plume of gray tendrils. “There’s a few things about her, actually.”

  James wasn’t immune to the stunning beauty below. He wasn’t blind either. He knew exactly just how much trouble she was.

  “Don’t.”

  Nicholas blew out a tuft of smoke into the darkness. “Didn’t say I was going to, but a month of her looking like that and I won’t be the only one thinking it.”

  That was the problem.

  One woman in a boat filled solely by men was the reason he didn’t hire women crew. For all the trust he may have had in his men, they were still men and months at sea was a chance he refused to take, because rape was the one thing he would not stand for. Even the hint of it was cause for immediate execution. Bringing Cora onboard had been a risk, which was saying a lot considering some of his previous cargos. But she wasn’t just a temptation to the crew, she was outright torment for him. She was the thing that would test all his resolve and sanity. But it didn’t change the fact.

  James surveyed a spot on the railings where the white paint had chipped off to reveal the rusty pole underneath. He picked at the edges absently with the nail on his thumb, his mind fixed on what was sure to be an inevitable dilemma.

  “Anyone touches her and I will personally put a bullet in his skull and feed him to the sharks.” He pushed off the railings and met the other man’s eyes through the coiling smoke drifting around them. “Anyone.”

  It didn’t need to be said. There was no one on that ship, or the whole planet, he trusted more than the man standing on that deck with him. They went back too many years not to trust each other implacably. There wasn’t a bone in James’s body that believed Nicholas capable of hurting a woman. Nevertheless, he didn’t like leaving things to chance.

  “The girl’s off limits.”

  Nicholas saluted him with the hand pinching the cigarette between two fingers. “Aye-aye Captain.”

  Anyone else, he would have already pitched him over for that cheek. But he shot the other man one final glower before starting down the deck.

  The majority of the crew was already in their bunker. Those remaining moved about their tasks with wool caps pulled low over their faces.

  He’d originally planned to turn in himself. He’d crawled under the sheets and fought for rest, but the raging hard on had kept him painfully alert. It had throbbed until allowing it to continue had been
a torture in itself.

  It hadn’t helped that his entire cabin smelled of passion fruit and vanilla orchids. Smelled of her, a distracting fact no man needed when he was already wrestling with the memories of her held captive in his arms, her big, doe eyes dark with all the things her mouth vehemently denied. He wasn’t naïve enough not to recognize when a woman wanted him, and Cora Harris definitely wanted him.

  But the victory was soured by all the voices reminding him why she was there. Her presence was the key to a much bigger plan, a plan that had taken years to put into motion, a plan that was worth more than a quick fuck up against a wall, because when he did finally claim her, it would be in triumph.

  It would be a celebration of his conquest.

  She would be his prize.

  Her body would be the catalyst to all his release.

  But not yet.

  Mind in turmoil, James made his way to the wheelhouse.

  Laimure looked away from the controls when James entered the room. His dark eyes glinted in the dim light. But neither man said a word. Both content simply going about their business. James picked his way to the LED, digital table top lit with an enhanced imaging of the world. Their current coordinates blipped on the screen, a thin, red line. Against the blue of the Atlantic, it reminded James of a vein. And it was, in a sense. It was their lifeline, their way to freedom, and eighteen million dollars. That red line may as well have been a main artery.

  “Target still set on Tangier, Captain?”

  James nodded without looking up. “Going to put an entire ocean between us until we hear from Bishop.”

  “Should be smooth sailing once we skirt around that storm a day out.”

  James straightened. “Keep to the edges. We’ll get some of it, but we won’t get caught in it.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  He never would have risked his men or his ship if time hadn’t been of the essence. A storm, no matter how far out, or how they steered clear of it, was still a storm. Normally, he would have stayed in port, waited it out, but they had a deadline. Every day they spent not delivering was money they weren’t going to get. Plus, he had Cora to think about. Bishop never said how long James would be stuck with her, but he wanted to be ready to dump her off the first chance he got, which he couldn’t do from the other side of the world.