Bound by Decency

by Claire Ashgrove

  351

  Bound By Decency

  31

  India drank slowly from the tankard someone had passed her an hour or so ago and welcomed the harsh burn that scalded her throat. When she’d calmed down enough to return to the deck and found Cain absent, she’d braved the mess. Now she questioned the wisdom of her decision. The drunken sailors whose hands occasionally strayed beneath the heavy table to rest upon her knee grated on her nerves. Those, however, she’d quickly learned how to evade. With a handful of Nassau’s whores still aboard, the seamen were easily diverted by a casual suggestion their hands would be better warmed by covering a nearly naked breast. The way they fled their seats in pursuit almost made her laugh.

  She might have, if Alex weren’t sitting in Cain’s lap. Where she’d perched more than once since their meal of pork and grits concluded.

  No, the seamen were not so troublesome. The woman who found both Drake and Cain’s thighs more inviting than the empty seats had India wanting to rip out her wild curls by the fistfuls. Cain’s lack of protest made India wish she knew how to pack ball and powder into the muzzle of a pistol.

  Draped across his lap, Alex wrapped her hands around Cain’s tankard and pushed it to his mouth. “Come now, Cain, ye be as borin’ as a clam. Drink up. It’ll make yer conscious easier to face.”

  What conscious? As far as India could tell, he had none. He certainly felt no compulsion to relieve his legs of the newfound weight.

  “Aye, relieve you of your infernal decency,” Drake joined in from across the crowded room. “If you’ve come so far you cannot drink, doomed you be.”

  Cain’s mouth twisted with amusement. He set one hand on Alex’s waist. With the other, he pushed her hands aside and reclaimed his mug. Tossing his head back, he drank deeply. As he lowered the mug, his gaze lifted over Alex’s shoulder and settled on India. He watched her intently, the humor in his eyes fading. He gave Alex’s bottom a pat and pushed his mug into her hands. “Find me another.”

  Doomed indeed. Doomed to sleep on the hard cold planks of his cabin. God’s teeth! How could she have come to care for such a lout? She’d deluded herself, allowed his charm to convince her into thinking he felt something for her. Perhaps he did, but clearly nothing more than he might feel for any random bit of skirt. He was a lout and a knave. A pirate of the truest sort. And though he’d tried to convince her to see him as he truly was, India had blinded herself to the truth. She was nothing to him. His avoidance of her deliberate suggestion, his refusal to speak on her behalf, and now this, all pointed to the obvious fact she was a pawn. A trifle. Something to be forgotten once Richard lay in a watery grave.

  Fury, longing, and sorrow waged war in her heart. Cain’s debauchery shouldn’t bother her, and yet it did. More than she cared to admit.

  As Alex eased out of Cain’s lap, she pressed her lips to his cheek. She set his mug on the table and barked out a husky laugh. “I do not do yer biddin’, handsome. Get yer own.” She moved to the empty chair beside Drake, and for the briefest moment of time, her expression softened. The bawdy woman disappeared, replaced by almost likeable tenderness. She ran her fingers through Drake’s untamed waves and pushed his hair away from his face. His hand caught hers, pulled it gently free, and brought the flesh of her palm to his mouth.

  Alex’s lips parted, but she jerked away from Drake. She caught his mug from between his knees and lifted it high. “A toast, I say! To findin’ the scurvy lot who took Triton’s Jewel and washin’ the decks with their blood!” Unconcerned about putting her mouth where Drake’s had been, she drank from the pewter tankard.

  Deafening cheers erupted. The women giggled. Cain’s gaze locked on India, and she flushed beneath the heat in his stare. Her blood warmed, and moisture gathered between her legs. For heaven’s sake, she was no better than the rest of the harlots surrounding her.

  She ground her teeth together. Yes she was. Cain might have introduced her to the pleasures of being a woman, but she had not become a slave, nor would she leap at the first bone he threw her.

  Alex sauntered back to Cain, once more placing herself astride his lap. “Now ye bein’ a good captain, an all the like, show us a bit of yer spirit.” She squeezed his biceps, her lips twisting with a wry smirk. “Show me, mighty Cain, that ye’ve not forgotten what it be like to sail with me.”

  Jealousy ripped through India, a bitter pill to swallow. She shoved out of her chair, knocking it over in the process. Silence descended on the hall, and the weight of the sailors’ stares bore into her back. Refusing to look behind her and witness Cain’s response to Alex’s challenge, India stalked from the room.

  ****

  In the wake of India’s abrupt departure, thick tension descended on the mess. Cain’s men looked to him, anticipating his reaction. The weeks of sailing in her company instilled in them a great respect for her. Though he’d been keenly aware of each roving hand that strayed her way, he knew their intent held no true threat. He’d have stopped them, had she not proved so adequate at defending herself.

  Even Drake, who sat unmoving, grey eyes watching intently, expected his temper. Alex remained the only one who seemingly could not grasp the sincerity behind his warning that he would not abide by mistreating India.

  He looked up at her expectant face, the humor dancing in her eyes, and knew she had pushed India purposefully. Placing herself in his lap—she’d never perched atop him before, and this was no product of displaced attraction. Calculating and sharp, she’d used him as a means to inflict the blows he’d forbidden.

  Rage reared its head, but he couldn’t fault her alone. Determined India should learn the cold reality of the life she found so fascinating, he’d done nothing to stop the invisible knives Alex threw. She might be female, but she embodied the meaning of pirate. Cain’s crew spared India their true natures out of loyalty to him. Few others would exhibit the courtesy, and he wouldn’t always be present to protect her. But this, he’d let go too far. He hadn’t taught India anything. All he’d done was wound her.

  Cain met Alex’s laughing eyes. In a voice meant only for her ears, he warned, “Get off me.”

  Sobriety cleared Alex’s expression. Violet eyes widened a fraction, and in a manner that contrasted with her headstrong nature, she complacently slid off his lap. Once again at Drake’s side, her amusement found courage. “Poor Cain. Marked by a slip of girl who plays at sea-born life. Ye’ve turned so bloody soft.”

  Cain rose from his chair with deliberate slowness. The men closest to him gave him a wide berth. He observed even the whores’ smiles dimmed.

  “Enough, Alex,” Drake murmured. “India is no threat to you.”

  Giving Alex one last glower, Cain marched to the main hatch ladder. He climbed as if his life depended on it. Perhaps it did. The seizing of his chest suggested it might.

  On the main deck, he ordered himself to walk, not run, to his hall and the cabin beyond. His footsteps echoed ominous, but the silence beyond his door brought even darker foreboding. He debated knocking, then chastised himself for the foolishness. This was his cabin. He had no need to knock.

  He thrust the door open and entered. India stood beside the bed, arms crossed over her chest, gaze fastened on the water. “India—”

  “Not a word, I won’t hear it!” She spun around, the fury in her eyes burning bright. “If it’s Alex you want to carry on with, then deposit me on the nearest shore. I’ll find my way to Brighthelmstone and my father’s estate.”

  He stiffened like a schoolboy taken to task by the master. Annoyed with his absurd reaction, he scowled. “You’re mistaken.”

  “Am I?” She took a step forward and squeezed his arms as Alex had done. Affecting Alex’s brogue, India cocked her head and mocked, “Show me what it’s like to sail with me.”

  Possessed by feeling he could not explain, Cain caught her to him. His mouth crashed into hers, hard and demanding. She pushed at his shoulders, and he ignored the bite of her nails. Slowly, deliberately, he kissed h
er until the rage that burned within him quieted to tolerable limits. When he let her go, she shoved away with so much force, she stumbled.

  “That’s what it’s like to sail with you, India,” he confessed on a haggard breath.

  For one moment, he thought she might believe him, and what had happened in the mess would vanish into the unmentionable past. Her expression clouded with something he couldn’t define. The hand she brushed against her mouth trembled in the dim light. But in the next heartbeat, whatever moved her disappeared with her sharp, disbelieving snort. “Me, and Alex, and whomever takes your fancy. I was just the naïve fool who thought it meant something.”

  “No,” he whispered. The tightness in his lungs felt as if someone had set boulders on his chest. He struggled for a breath. Managed only a shallow gasp. “India, stop.” He reached for her, his fingers grazing her arm as she turned away. Desperate to stop this nonsense he caught her with his other hand and wrestled her into his arms. “No. You have everything wrong.”

  She twisted, her fingers prying at his. He held fast, determined not to let her go.

  “I see no reason to argue this, Cain. Alex and you have a history, it’s plain to see. I refuse to be part of it.” She shoved again at his chest. “Let me go!” Her voice caught on the sob she tried to hide by ducking her head.

  “Perhaps once,” Cain answered quietly. He tried to stop the words, knowing whatever he said would only make things worse. For her. For him. The words would only bind them further. Bring them straight into the formidable place where they had no future and what time they might claim would end all too soon. But his throat refused to obey, and the battle that warred within him broke free. “Alex and I had one night, years ago. It was a product of nothing more than two persons who had been at sea too long.” He smoothed one hand down the long silken length of India’s hair. “Nothing like what you provoke inside of me. There are times I feel like I am dreaming. That at any moment I might wake and find my cabin empty, your presence nothing but a product of my imagination.”

  She trembled in his arms. The rigidness of her spine relaxed, and she leaned her weight against his chest. “I don’t understand,” she whispered into his shoulder. “The way you’ve behaved today…”

  “Ah, sweet India.” He ran his hands down the length of her arms and captured her hands. His fingers wound through hers, and as he brought their hands between their bodies, she lifted watery eyes to his. The glimmer in those wide blue pools clawed at Cain’s heart. He’d kidnapped her, threatened her, and only once had he seen her cry—when she had been in physical pain. Not like now, when he held sole responsibility for her tears. All because he’d foolishly tried to push her away out of a desperate desire to keep her at his side.

  He kissed her eyelids before the tears could slip down her cheeks. Wordlessly, he led her to the edge of the bed and took a seat at her side. “You give me hope I dare not believe in. Once I dreamed of a life free from this. A home on the bluffs, overlooking the sea, where I could always be close to the water, but free of its chains. A family...A wife.” His gaze searched hers, begging her to believe. One solitary tear trickled down her cheek. It fueled his resolve. Gave him courage to admit what he would have never confessed. He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. Softly. Reverently. “In your kiss,” he whispered against her mouth, “I know that place.” He brought one unsteady hand up to cup the side of her face. “In your eyes, I see it clearly.” With his other hand, he settled her palm over his heart and flattened it with the press of his. “In your fingertips, I feel the breeze in my hair.”

  She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, then swallowed as if it required great effort. “What are you saying?” she whispered.

  “Alex is so far removed from that paradise, India, she could never take me there. Even if she weren’t brash and crude, she and Drake are lovers. Suited to each other with their wild ways. But I wanted you to see the truth behind this life. The way it is, even amongst the women.”

  Her delicate eyebrows pulled together. “Why?”

  Cain closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. His insides shook as if he had just outmaneuvered a hurricane. Because I love you. But though he had given all the other secrets of his heart freedom, he could not release those words. She would never understand how he could confess them and walk away when he must inevitably return her. He looked at her again, choosing the half-truth, “To convince you out of this notion to stay.”

  The fingertips that rested against his chest pressed more firmly into his skin. She slid a hand along his arm, up his shoulder, to the hair at the nape of his neck. “Tell me you don’t want me here, and I’ll ask Drake to return me to Nassau once we find Alex’s ship.”

  He opened his mouth to do just that, for it would be better for the both of them. Hurt now. Move forward. Before they said too many things that would make forward impossible. But his throat closed around the lie. “I can’t,” he exhaled. “God help me, I can’t.”

  India held his gaze as silence engulfed them. Dimly, he heard the rumbling laughter of his men. The hull creaked as The Kraken drifted in the late twilight. In the distance, a whale’s call echoed.

  Trapped by the power of his immense feelings for this woman, Cain struggled to breathe, to sift his thoughts into coherent words he knew he ought to say. How he wished he could move backwards through time, attend the first dinner party William Prescott arranged, and meet India for the first time. He’d have asked for her that night. Hired another man to assume his captain’s duties and forced himself to learn the books, to deal with the negotiations that would keep him on land. If he had, his wedding might lurk around the corner. The life he desired with India, within his grasp.

  “I love you,” India whispered.

  He couldn’t say who moved first, who closed the intolerable distance between them and satisfied his body’s hunger for contact. Full and soft, her breasts pressed against his chest. Her arms slid around his neck, fastening him in place as his wound around her waist to drag her into his lap. She tipped her face up, and Cain lowered his mouth to hers.

  351

  Bound By Decency

  32

  The softest, sweetest kiss carried India back into the bed like a gentle tide lapping at a tranquil beach. Cain came over her, lowering himself into her waiting arms, his weight comfortable. She twined her fingers through the thick wealth of his long hair and closed her eyes. Yes, she loved him. And every ounce of that powerful, amazing feeling swelled her heart until her chest felt tight.

  Slow and leisurely, his tongue swirled against hers as one large palm grazed across her hip, her waist, her ribs, until his thumb stroked the side of her throat, a feather-light caress that mimicked the sensual exploration of her mouth. His palm warmed her skin. Her bounding pulse carried that warmth through her veins. She swept a hand down his back, memorizing the broad planes of muscle, shoulder blades that sharpened as he supported himself on his arms. His spine curved, bringing her palm to the small of his back, the perfect place to press him closer, until every conceivable portion of their bodies molded together.

  And yet, somehow, it was not enough. Her breasts ached, indeed, her entire body ached with the same restlessness Cain’s masterful hands had provoked the previous night. She arched her back, shifted a leg, and finally found a modicum of relief by sliding her hands beneath his shirttail and fanning her palms across his warm skin.

  Cain drew the kiss to a lingering close and lifted away. She opened her eyes, protest on her tingling lips. But before she could utter a single syllable, he shifted so he knelt between her thighs. Blue eyes glinted deep indigo in the dim light of twilight as he slipped his hands beneath her shirt. Strong hands gripped her waist, thumbs stroked the sensitive skin of her abdomen. He pushed his hands upward, dragging her shirt with him. The scrape of his callused palms rubbed pleasantly, awakening every nerve ending to his caress. She lifted to her elbows, and he pulled the thin linen over her head.

  “Take me the
re,” he whispered as he cupped her breasts. Bringing them together and lifting, he pressed a kiss to the deep valley he’d created. Hot and moist, his breath washed against her skin. “To that house on the bluffs.”

  His thumbs rolled over her nipples, and she gasped. Her senses sharpened to a fine point, drowning out all thought beyond the heat that radiated off his skin, the fantastic friction of his fingers, and the heavy rise and fall of their labored breathing. She caught his shirt in her fingers, but her position beneath him thwarted her effort to remove it. Cain chuckled and nudged her hands aside. In one swift motion, he doffed it and dropped it on the floor. As it settled atop hers, he bent his head to her breast and drew an erect nipple into his mouth.

  The hot play of his tongue freed a moan from the depths of her throat. A shiver rippled down to her toes. Heavens above, how quickly she’d forgotten his ability to rob her of thought. She writhed beneath the assuage of his mouth, curled her fingers into his hair. More…Less…She didn’t know which to ask for. Which would cease the unbearable torment.

  Yes, she did, she dimly realized through a sea of engulfing sensation. Cain had shown her last night. She lifted her hips into his. As if he sensed her building need, he pressed into her and rubbed his swollen shaft against her sensitive center. When he withdrew his hips, she let out a plaintive whimper.

  “Cain, please,” she breathed. “I cannot bear this.”

  His mouth worked a path of fire to her opposite breast, where he flicked her aroused nipple with his tongue. “Bear what, my sweet?”

  The absurdity of his question gave her pause. Surely he knew what she spoke of. She tipped her head, catching the lift of his dark eyelashes as he brought his gaze to hers. He said nothing as he suckled at her breast, gently lapping, taunting with each velvety brush of his tongue. But his eyes conveyed the meaning of his words. He wanted her to state precisely what she wanted. To find the bold freedom she’d known last night and shake off this sudden cloak of innocence.