by Eris Adderly
“Well perhaps since I am such a villain, in your estimation, then by all means,” he said, “let us have you face away from such a disagreeable sight.” Shifting his legs below her and using the leverage he already had with her on his left thigh, he hoisted the woman in his lap by the waist to reposition her so she sat square atop both his legs with her back to him.
Seeing her new position astride his legs, she tried at once to stand and be away from him. Her ascent came to an abrupt halt, however, as he brought both his arms around her waist, pinning her to him where she sat. Her hands pushed at his arms and her feet at the deck as she strained to be free, her struggles causing her bottom to wriggle against him in a most pleasing manner.
Edmund squeezed his circling arms tighter to get her attention and spoke in patient tones. “Settle down, Mrs Collingwood. You aren’t going anywhere and you’ll only exhaust yourself.”
To his surprise, she stilled at his words, her form slumping a bit in defeat. He wanted to take advantage of this moment where she wasn’t fighting him so he instructed her further: “Lean back against me, please—I don’t wish to speak to the back of your head.”
Permitting herself a small sigh of resignation, she did as he bade and left off her forward straining against his grip to settle her back onto his chest. She continued to look away from him, stiff and stubborn as ever, as she laid her head on his shoulder. Here was a measure of progress, he thought, and allowed her for the time to continue avoiding eye contact.
With her body now draped over his from shoulders to hip, warm and inviting, Edmund knew there would only be so long he could rein himself in to conversation alone. He forged ahead, not wanting to waste time.
“It strikes me, Mrs Collingwood, that as I pointed out on our way back to my cabin, you may not have been entirely upset by the fine work our Mr Till performed last night. In fact, even my own contributions to the task seemed to be received as not altogether unpleasant.”
She harrumphed at him, moving her arms back to their familiar crossed position. “You’re quite mistaken, Captain, if you took my reactions for anything other than—”
“Please, my dear, there’s no need to demur. I’ve handled plenty of women in my time. I know the sounds of enjoyment when I hear them. And yet some of the sport we three enjoyed seemed, well, untried on your part. Did the late Mr Collingwood keep you deprived of such pleasures?” Now his curiosity was legitimate and not just a matter of simple needling. She shifted in his lap and he bit the inside of his lower lip to still himself against the sensation of her backside against him. He wanted at least some answers out of her before he indulged in the physical.
“A respectable woman doesn’t speak of such things, Captain Blackburn.” She evaded his questions as her tone began to sharpen once more.
“And who is respectable?” he asked, teasing now. “You? Sitting here, merry as you please, on the lap of a notorious pirate, and without a chaperone?” He watched her face colour again at his barbs, and she turned to look at him now, her careful avoidance of his eyes forgotten in her irritation.
Look at those cheeks, those eyes. She’s rather glorious once she’s nettled, isn’t she?
“You know bloody well I wouldn’t be sitting here if it weren’t for—”
Edmund silenced her with the sudden press of his lips against hers, the taste of her from the day before demanding to be savoured again with her mouth so close to his. Her eyes flew wide and she made some startled sounds of protest, but her face was too close, cradled against his shoulder as it was, for her to pull away.
It was a matter of quick seconds, but time seemed to stretch out with his anxiety as Edmund waited for the response he sought. Just when he thought he might have to resort to other measures, though, some small miracle decided to fill his desires and she softened against him. With his arms still clutching her about the waist, he nudged her lips apart long enough to find her tongue with his. The quiet moan of release that spilled from her mouth into his at this all but lit him ablaze.
He kissed her with a slow luxury the likes of which he’d never bothered to take with his usual ladies of the evening. How often would he have the chance, he wondered, to revel in the kisses of a woman like this? It was when she began to respond in kind to the strokes of his tongue, however, that he had to leave off before he went mad. Instead, he moved his eager mouth to her throat and shoulder, working his way along the skin and away from the soft lips that called him.
“No …” she said, the word barely a breath.
Edmund would not leave off his attentions at her neck, but he again became exasperated with her reluctance. “No, Mrs Collingwood? Your lips tell me otherwise.”
“No,” the now panting widow said, clarifying, “Mr Collingwood did not ever show me any such interest as all this.”
“Did he not?” Edmund relaxed when he saw her ‘no’ was an answer to his earlier question instead of a protest. He continued his tasting of her flesh as he moved his hands to her hips and drew her more firmly against him.
“He wasn’t even … interested in … our marriage bed … at all,” she explained between breaths and delicate gasps at his kisses.
This particular revelation jarred Edmund as its import sank down past the lust gripping him. If what she’d just confessed were true, and today and last night were the first times a man had bothered to touch her so … His blood boiled at the thought and he ground himself against her, drawing her sharp inhalation in response.
He moved his right hand away from her waist and down her thigh, where he reached between the back of her leg and his and began to gather the material of her gown. He would not cut her out of the last dress he had on board today, but it was plain he would need to get at her secrets before very much longer.
The woman in his lap didn’t seem to notice his free hand busy pulling aside the fabric barriers between them, so consumed was she by his burning mouth and the now insistent press of his erection against her bottom. When he had the offending layers of cloth shifted out of the way, however, and her bare skin came in contact with his breeches, and their rigid contents, she sobered up in a heartbeat.
She sat bolt upright on him trying once again, without success, to push herself away. “Captain!” Her voice held some of the desperation of the previous night. “We can’t! Oh please! I should never have let you—”
“Shh, come now, my dear,” he said, “we both know we’re well beyond all that.” The hand that had gathered her dress out of the way was now trying to fumble his aching need out of his breeches before she was able to squirm off his lap entirely. This end achieved, and when the blunt head of his shaft brushed for the first time against the damp folds at her centre, his captive beauty went stock still, as though she could hide from the reality by not moving.
Edmund was so close to being inside her now. He clenched his jaw and tightened his body against the urge to shove himself home, straight away. Sliding the tip along her wetness, he prolonged the taking of his pleasure a moment longer.
“Tell me you don’t want this.” His voice came as a growl as he pressed at her entrance. The fabric of her gown puddled over his lap, obscuring his view, but he had more than enough experience to tell him where he needed to push.
“I don’t! I don’t want this!” She denied him now in earnest.
She can’t mean that. She can’t. Just feel how wet …
The sound of her impotent pleas nudged him past his breaking point and with a last well-aimed push, he was inside the lovely Hannah Collingwood.
“Captain!” she cried again in protest, “I said I didn’t want to!” In her anxiety at his invasion, she clenched around him and, involuntary though the movement might have been, it made his eyes roll back in his head. By God, she was tight.
“I must not have heard you.” He ground out his obvious lie as he worked the full length of himself up into the furnace of her core. She was so achingly warm and close against him. He would have to tread with care, he thought, if he wer
e to last any longer than a moment.
Hands at her hips, he made his way in and out of her at a tortuous pace. He soon became glad he chose this more deliberate path, because the widow began to relax into his controlled thrusts and her deep rhythmic breaths were turning into the whining sounds of a woman straining toward pleasure. His libido soared at the thought that he was coaxing these moans out of her, but both of their little bubbles of joy came bursting apart as a loud series of knocks at the door jarred them out of the moment.
She gasped at the startling noise and flexed around his shaft in her surprise. Delightful! He had to grip her by the hips to prevent her from hopping off him.
A loud voice made its claim against the door: “Captain, Mr Till said I’d find you in here. I’ve an update on our course.”
Edmund eyed Mrs Collingwood who had turned, wide-eyed to shake her head at him, a silent plea for him to send the voice outside away. He had but a moment to decide.
This might be a bit of fun. And I do love when she turns such a pretty shade of red.
“Enter!” he called to his navigator.
The door swung open to admit William Osbourne, swift-tongued navigator of The Devil’s Luck. The mercurial blond man leaned into the room and his darting eyes took in the flushed female perched on his captain’s lap.
“What’s your report, Osbourne?” he said as the man stepped into the cabin and shut the door.
“Well, Sir, based on my calculations once again this morning …” The navigator launched into his explanation of how the ship needed to bear, and his estimates for how long it would take for them to arrive at Nassau, weather permitting. He tried to ignore as best he could the unusual scene before him as he spoke.
As Edmund tried his best to focus on the information pouring out of Mr Osbourne, he circled his arms again about the waist of his flustered widow to keep himself firmly sheathed inside her. She stared straight ahead now, perhaps in hopes that if she didn’t look at either of the two men, she would not have to admit she was again impaled upon a cock in front of an audience. Or perhaps she hoped Osbourne wouldn’t figure out Edmund was nestled from stem to stern within her warmth—her skirts did cover the most damning evidence from view.
“Thank you, Mr Osbourne.” He acknowledged the man once he ran out of words, at last.
The navigator moved then to leave, but appeared on a whim to turn a mischievous face back into the stateroom to drive home the fact that he was wise to the state of affairs beneath the blue-green sea of fabric. “Give her one for me, Captain,” he said with a grin as he began to pull the door shut behind him.
“I’ll give her several, Mr Osbourne,” Edmund said, his own penchant for devilry run amok, “if you’d care to stay and watch.”
The blond man’s eyebrows climbed with interest and he stepped back into the room, securing the door again with himself on the inside. He leaned against the wooden panels at his back and folded his arms, intrigued by Edmund’s offer of a bit of a show.
“Captain!” Mrs Collingwood pushed against the deck with her feet in a mighty effort to dislodge her body from the shameful situation in which she now found herself. Her strength, however, was no match for the man who held her tight.
He throbbed with the thought of her humiliation in front of yet another crew member, and somewhere within him, a small part of his mind wanted to know whether it was odd that her shame should add so to his gratification. For the moment, though, he banished the niggling idea, and moved once again within her slick heat.
Pumping now into her rigid form, Edmund began to lose himself to the rhythm of flesh against flesh. He felt her thighs tighten over his and saw her hands fly to her mouth to prevent herself from crying out.
The pushing, the sliding, the way she stretched to accommodate his length beneath her skirts, was going to bring him past his threshold, and soon. He felt his testicles contract as his body readied for that final burst of delicious release, but the ultimate trigger came from something other than his own efforts. Something impossible, though it happened all the same.
Around his cock, he felt the tell-tale fluttering of a woman reaching her peak. Hannah Collingwood was putting forth a colossal effort not to make any sound that would give her away, but Edmund knew that hot rippling sensation over his erection very well indeed.
Dear god, woman! You can’t hide yourself from me.
The very thought of her reaching her climax wedged itself into the last crack in his façade and he spilled himself into her with a growl. Showers of sparks cascaded over the backs of his tightly shut eyelids as he rode out the contractions: not only his but hers as well.
He wanted to exult. To throw his head back and laugh with glee. Edmund, she came! She came, right here on your cock! It had worked out far better than he could have imagined.
Edmund couldn’t allow himself to wallow in bliss with a member of his crew standing there. He wrested himself to a more normal state with a vigorous shake of his head and dismissed the one-man audience leaning against the door. “That will be all, Mr Osbourne.”
“Aye, Sir,” the navigator said with a disbelieving grin, unable to offer anything more eloquent with regard to what he’d just seen. The man slid out the door, shutting it behind him again and leaving Edmund and the widow in silence.
With a final series of pumps for good measure, he addressed the woman impaled on his lap: “Have you had enough for now, Mrs Collingwood?”
The sound of her choking sobs in response told him she’d indeed had her fill. He released his hold on her hips and she slid to the floor, her face in her hands, unwilling to look at him. There would be little he could do now to bring her back around, he thought, feeling an unexpected pang of regret as he fastened his breeches again.
As he banged out through the stateroom doors and mounted the stairs in the council room that lead to the upper deck, Edmund called in a carrying voice to his crew: “Where is Ellis George? Someone find me that carpenter, if you please.”
Best be away from her now, Blackburn. You’ve properly buggered your chances for some time with this little performance.
After a moment of shouts along the deck to locate the man he sought, the ship’s carpenter, Mr George, came trotting over to the doorway where his captain stood.
“You called for me, Sir?”
While many assumed the navigator was the most intelligent member of a ship’s crew, on The Devil’s Luck that distinction was more likely to go to Ellis George. The man possessed a skilful hand at shaping wood, to be sure, but over the years, Edmund had also found him well-read, highly observant, and a master at the art of being circumspect. In Edmund’s mind, the carpenter was the very man he needed to carry out his next set of orders.
“Fetch a bucket of water and the least filthy rag you can find, Mr George. I suspect our Mrs Collingwood is feeling especially … unclean … just now, and I think it best if someone other than myself to stood watch to ensure she bathes. Gather what you need and be sharp about it; I’ve business with Hezekiah about the sails and I don’t wish her left alone for the time being.”
True, his conversation with the bosun could wait, but there was no need to say as much to the carpenter. He needed an excuse to be away from the woman and let her collect herself, if only for an hour or two.
“Aye, Captain.” George gave a brisk nod and swept off to do as ordered.
He thought for a moment, watching the carpenter head off to fetch the bucket, that again the placing of his own desires first had caused that sobbing mess on the floor in his cabin. She’d been humming along just fine before he’d chosen to lap up her shame in front of Osbourne. He sighed to himself as he was forced to confront once again the one area—carnal desire—where he had nearly no control of his impulses at all.
Edmund Blackburn would need to try at least one more time if he wanted to see the Widow Collingwood open herself to the passions he knew she harboured in secret, and he would need to go about it in a far more judicious manner.
&n
bsp; Just what that was, he had no idea.
* * * *
Hannah barely had time to recover any semblance of composure before yet another member of Captain Blackburn’s cursed crew came banging through the doors of the stateroom. He carried a bucket and a bit of cloth, and closed the door behind him with one hand. The captain did not follow him and she steeled herself at the idea of being alone with still another strange man.
“Mrs Collingwood?” he said. She didn’t answer him out of spite; she was certain after her ordeal at the mast the previous day, the entire crew would be more than familiar with the two new ‘passengers’ aboard. Tight-lipped though she was, however, she couldn’t help but stare at the man. He must have been somewhere between her age and the captain’s, yet his hair had gone almost completely white—and where it wasn’t white it was silver. Moreover, his eyes made her blink and look again. One was brown and the other the palest blue. It was disconcerting.
First that tattooed mountain of a quartermaster and now this man? Where does Blackburn find these people?
“Captain has asked me to see to it that you bathe,” he went on, brushing past her stares and silence as he stepped forward to set the bucket on the deck beside her, along with the rag. She could see now that the wooden container was halfway full of water.
Her legs still folded under her as she sat on the floor, Hannah looked in disbelief from the offered water back to the man who’d brought it.
Surely, Blackburn doesn’t expect me to shame myself in front of the entire crew, one by one. Or does he?
“Thank you for your kindness, Good Sir”—she twisted the politeness of her words into something else—“but I’m sure I can take care of such matters in private.”
“Name’s Ellis George, Madam, ship’s carpenter. And I’m afraid the captain insists I stay to ensure you’ve made a proper go of it.” He leaned against the door with these revelations, making an effective bar to any attempt at escape. Although where she would go if she darted past him was entirely beyond her. And who would protect her? Brigit, wherever she was at this point?