HUGH felt his stomach pitch at Kelly’s words. No, he wouldn’t have listened a year ago. Not before he’d met Bradock, and not when his ideas of what people should be had been so intractable.
“Here now, angel. Don’t look defeated.” Kelly brushed a hand against his cheek.
“I don’t know what to do. If I go back, confront Bradock….”
“He’ll try to bribe you, and when that fails, he’ll kill you. Or he’ll kill you on sight and be done with it.”
“He has to be stopped.”
“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, lad.”
Looking at Kelly, Hugh made a decision he knew would alter the course of his life forever.
“You can’t take me back.”
“Care to tell me why?”
“I won’t go. Not until Bradock is stopped.”
“Are you angling for a position on board the Lir?”
“This isn’t a jest.”
“No, it isn’t. But I’ll warn you, right and wrong up here in the skies isn’t always the same as it is on land. You’ve a lot to learn about being a pirate.”
“I’m willing to learn.” He stuck out his hand. “Do we have a deal?”
Kelly took his hand, and the grin that flashed across his face was Hugh’s only warning before the other man yanked him close. “What if I still want my payment?”
“My body as ransom?” he breathed against Kelly’s lips.
Kelly nipped his lower lip in response.
“You can’t have it. I’m a pirate now, Captain Kelly. I don’t give, I take.” With that, he crushed his lips against Kelly’s, plundering the pirate’s mouth as he wound his fingers through soft-as-silk hair.
He pushed Kelly back until they reached the bed and the other man tumbled back, pulling Hugh down with him. They rolled, Kelly coming out on top with Hugh pinned beneath him. He felt his erection pulse as it rubbed against Kelly’s through layers of fabric. Kelly took his mouth, and Hugh was lost in sensation. He felt his arms being drawn up, but he didn’t care. Not until he felt familiar ties wrapping around his wrists.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m not about to let some young whelp of a pirate get the best of me. I’ll be the one doing the taking, beautiful.” Kelly’s eyes shone with humor. “I’ve fantasized about this since the last time I had you bound to my bed. If you want to be free, you’d best tell me now.”
“I want to be free.”
The surprise and disappointment on Kelly’s face was almost enough to make Hugh take it back, but he waited quietly until the bonds were undone. Kelly rose from the bed but stopped as Hugh began to remove his jacket. As he shrugged out of his clothes, the older man’s eyes tracked his movements.
Leaning back, Hugh raised his arms over his head. “It would seem that you don’t think of everything, Captain. Binding a fully clothed man? Now who’s being foolish?”
Kelly laughed loud and long before he hurriedly removed his own clothes. Then he straddled Hugh, and that beautiful hair Hugh had long dreamed about fell against his naked skin. He shivered at the contact, making Kelly smile. When the silken metal ties wrapped tight around his wrists once more, Hugh let out a sigh of contentment.
Kelly shook his head and smiled. “If I had known this would happen, I never would have let you out of my bed the last time.”
“I’m not sure I would have wanted to go.”
Warm, callused hands stroked his skin with teasing softness. A scrape of nail here, a light-as-air touch there… nothing was predictable where Kelly was concerned. The almost tender seduction made him feel drugged with lust. By the time Kelly’s hand closed around his shaft, Hugh could do no more than whimper. “Kelly, please.”
“You look even more beautiful when you’re begging for me, angel,” he said as he stroked his hand up and down Hugh’s shaft, pausing every so often to tease the sensitive crown.
When Kelly released him, Hugh’s eyes flew wide open. But Kelly was only reaching for something—oil, Hugh realized. He slicked his own length, and Hugh was spellbound by the sight, for once wishing his hands were free so he could do the task for Kelly.
“Next time,” Kelly murmured, seeming to read his mind. “Raise your knees for me, Hugh.”
He did as Kelly instructed, and his heart pounded at the thought of what would come next. Kelly coated his fingers with more oil before touching the entrance to Hugh’s body. With gentle persistence he pushed in, first with one finger, then two. Hugh welcomed the invasion and thrust back, silently urging Kelly to move faster.
“Aren’t you the eager one?” That cocky grin reappeared, but there was a warmth in the expression that made Hugh smile as well.
Those smiles stayed on both their faces as Kelly entered him. His pace remained tender and unhurried, a pleasant surprise for Hugh. Tension built inside him as Kelly moved in and out until each thrust was ratcheting the pleasurable ache higher. He began to pull at the ties that held his arms immobile, and Kelly shifted, grazing against a spot inside Hugh that had him crying out. Kelly repeated the motion, and that boiling tension erupted, streaming out of his shaft as Kelly took his mouth, drinking the sounds he made.
With a groan, Kelly broke the kiss and clenched Hugh’s bound wrists in one hand. Kelly bit Hugh’s lip, and Hugh relished the small pain as the other man’s seed filled him. When Kelly let go of his lip, Hugh tasted blood.
Gasping, Kelly pulled back slightly. He looked at Hugh’s face, touched the wound on his lip. “I’m sorry for that,” he huffed out.
Hugh shrugged as best he could. “It will heal. I can barely feel it anyway.”
Kelly separated himself from Hugh and released his bonds, rubbing feeling back into limbs that were rapidly going numb.
“Thank you.”
“Are you thanking me for rogering you?” Kelly smiled. “You do have lovely manners, beautiful. We’ll have to do something about that if you’re going to make it as a pirate.”
He rolled his eyes at that. “You’re mad.”
Kelly pulled him over until he lay blanketed above him. “Who but a madman would bring the man who tried to poison him onto his crew?”
Hugh shook his head and laid it against Kelly’s chest. “I don’t suppose that pointing out it was sleeping powder, not poison, would do me any good.”
“None at all.” Kelly grew quiet again and stroked a hand up and down Hugh’s back. Hugh was content to lie there and listen to the beat of Kelly’s heart.
“It isn’t a safe life up here, angel,” Kelly finally said, all traces of levity gone. “Not when there are men like Bradock after you.”
“I know that,” Hugh murmured. Lifting his head, he met Kelly’s gaze and smiled. “But what Bradock has done… I cannot ignore it. Besides, there’s freedom here on the Wings of Lir. A freedom to”—he rubbed against Kelly—“be without fear. And if I were looking for the safe life, I would never have set out to capture a pirate.”
“I don’t suppose that pointing out it was I who captured you would do me any good,” Kelly teased.
“None at all,” Hugh repeated back. Then he leaned forward and took Kelly’s mouth in another plundering kiss.
Limbs tangled as they began to move together once more. Problems like Bradock could wait for a day or two. The airship was on course as it sailed the skies, taking its young passengers to safety. How odd it sounded: pirates righting the wrongs of a “good and honorable” man. Hugh didn’t stop to let himself wonder at that, or the strange turn his life had taken; such thoughts could wait for another day. At that moment, he was simply content to step into the new life that waited for him on the Wings of Lir. More importantly, he was ready to explore the pleasures to be had in the arms of his pirate.
RILEY SHANE is a native Californian who has spent the years since graduating high school bouncing around the world at every opportunity. When not being shanghaied by loud, demanding, often-crazy characters, Riley collects degrees and useless information.
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nbsp; Most of the time you can find Riley buried under a mountain of books, but it’s far easier to find Riley on the web at http://www.rileyshane.com, http://rileyshane.blogspot.com, and on Twitter (@rileyshanebooks). Contact Riley at [email protected].
THE WINDS OF CHANGE
MAGGIE LEE
Nassau, New Providence Island, November 1717
Under the Sign of the Dog and Duck
“DAMN it, Seb, get a move on!”
Theo Cook turned to scowl at his friend, who was strolling leisurely along the quay as though he had all the time in the world. Sebastiano quirked a quizzical eyebrow, but he did nothing to quicken his pace. Cook sighed, fighting down his frustration. Unfortunately, Seb was right; this was the fifth week they’d spent idling away in New Providence with little indication that they’d be leaving any time soon. There really wasn’t any reason to hurry.
Craning his neck, Cook scanned the calm waters of the sheltered bay to see if any new boats had docked, but the same tired sloops bobbed listlessly in their moorings. If things didn’t pick up soon, he and Seb would be forced to sign on with one of these motley crews and take their chances stalking the small trading vessels that wove between the islands. He sighed again; though pickings would be slim, he supposed it was marginally better than watching their dwindling resources slip through their fingers day by day.
Cook shook himself, trying to dislodge his unease. “Today is our lucky day,” he declared hopefully.
“You said that yesterday, Cook,” Seb pointed out mildly.
Cook slid an arm around his friend’s shoulders. “The wind is about to change, you’ll see.”
Sebastiano smiled indulgently, and Cook felt his own mouth twitch in response. He kept an arm slung around his friend and forced a little more speed into their pace. It was already past noon, and the place was beginning to stir; the taverns along the waterfront were rapidly filling with dozens of sailors looking for work, and Cook didn’t want to lose out on any offers that might come their way. He tipped his head up and sniffed the air. The wind would soon be blowing out of the northeast; in the next few days, all of the boats anchored alongside the quay would be slipping out of harbor and making their way out to sea. If he and Seb didn’t secure a place by the end of the week, they’d be stuck in Nassau for unforeseen weeks to come, and although this was the best place in the world when they had money lining their pockets, it was one of the most unforgiving places to end up penniless.
“Where to today?” he murmured, studying the shabby taverns crowded together behind the seawall. There wasn’t much to choose between them; each served the same watered ale and rotgut, each was as squalid as its neighbor, and filled with the same disreputable cutthroats and cunning whores.
“Anywhere but The Dragon,” Seb replied. “They won’t extend credit until we pay off some of the tally.”
“About as likely as a flying pig,” Cook snorted. “Anyway, their ale tastes like cat piss. No, today I think we’ll give The Dog and Duck a tickle.”
“Are you sure?” Seb asked doubtfully. “We owe them almost as much as The Dragon.”
Cook patted his back. “I told you, I have a good feeling about today. Besides,” he added, “The Dog is Teach’s favorite haunt. I hear he’s due in soon.”
“I’ve heard that same rumor for the past three weeks,” Sebastiano said evenly.
Cook studied Seb’s face, but there didn’t seem to be any reproach behind the words. “I know, mi querido, but today—”
“—our luck is going to change,” Seb finished dryly.
“I feel it in my bones,” Cook said, ignoring the sarcasm. He slipped his hand in Seb’s and tugged, and his friend followed reluctantly into the dimly lit tavern.
They chose a table close to the door, and before long one of the barmaids approached, carrying a pitcher of dark ale and two battered mugs. “Afternoon, sweetheart,” she said, winking at Cook. She nodded coolly at Sebastiano, who managed to keep most of his disdain off his handsome face.
“C’mere, darling.” Cook pulled her onto his knee and settled her squarely over his half-hard cock. “Did you miss me, Rosie?” he murmured. She wriggled suggestively, laughing loudly when Cook buried his face against her exposed breasts. His nose wrinkled at the smell of her floral perfume, barely masking the rank odor of sweat that rose off her unwashed body. Despite that, his cock still stirred. She rubbed herself against his groin and gestured with her head toward the back room. Cook caught Sebastiano’s dark eyes and saw the resignation on his friend’s face. He cupped Rosie’s heavy breast and brought her puckered nipple to his lips, his tongue darting out to lick a cool trail around its nub, and Seb looked away, flushing deeply.
When Cook hesitated, Rosie mewed a little sound of annoyance. She glared at Seb, her lips thinning. “He still leading you about by the cock?” she said spitefully. Seb’s face darkened almost imperceptibly.
“Don’t be like that, Rosie darling,” Cook sighed.
“You’re all the same,” Rosie grumbled. “Too much time at sea with only each other for company. You forget what a woman is for.”
“That’s a bit rich,” Cook muttered; after all, he’d spent almost half his share of their last booty between her legs. But her implication stung anyway. Ignoring the pinched set of Seb’s lips, he set Rosie back on her feet and followed her into the small room behind the bar, closing the door firmly on Seb’s palpable disappointment.
The dark room reeked, sweat and vomit vying with the earthier musk of spent lust. There were already several people coupling frantically, and Rosie wasted no time elbowing her way through and hiking up her skirt, her back pressed against the wall for support. Cook made quick work of it, his knees trembling as he pumped into her wet heat, and at the moment of climax it was Seb’s face he imagined from behind tightly closed lids. Rosie dropped her skirt and smoothed her hair while Cook tucked himself back into his breeches. He gave her a final peck on the lips and slipped a silver real between her ample breasts, and it was with an odd sense of relief that he sent her on her way.
Outside, Seb was nowhere to be seen, and Cook decided to give him a little time to regain his good humor. He meandered along the dirt track the locals had taken to calling Bay Street, as though the name alone could add respectability to the ramshackle cluster of inns, taverns, and brothels that made up the port of Nassau.
Some twenty years ago, this had been Charles Town, consisting of little more than a dilapidated stockade and a handful of palm-roofed huts. After the Spanish had burned the outpost to the ground, the fort had been rebuilt and the town renamed Nassau. A few years later, Henry Jennings had been driven out of his old haunt of Port Royal in Jamaica by Governor Andrew Hamilton and had seized the sparsely populated, ungoverned island of New Providence with its sheltered harbor and claimed it for his followers. Since then Nassau had become a haven for pirates; now some five hundred of their number used this place as a base from which to launch attacks on the merchant ships plying the waves between Europe, the colonies in America, and the Caribbean islands.
Cook sighed loudly as he strolled past the busy alehouses, avoiding the press of hopeful men gathered in each doorway. With so much ongoing activity, Nassau had seemed the perfect place to rest up for a week and blow the booty from their last foray, and when their previous ship had taken to the seas again, he and Seb had stayed behind. Little did they know that they’d get stuck here long after the last of the major sloops had sailed, and long after their gold escudos and silver reales had been squandered on ungrateful drabs and rotgut or gambled away on loaded dice or rigged games of basset.
He reached the outskirts of town and managed to sneak into the tiny back room they rented without the landlord seeing him and demanding payment. Seb was standing beside the window, gazing longingly out to sea. He had stripped down to his breeches against the room’s oppressive heat, and Cook took a moment to drink in the sight. His friend’s lean body was finely toned by years of punishing work, first on European trading ships,
then on the British privateer that had raided his vessel and pressed him into service. His olive skin, warm brown eyes, and jet black hair spoke of his Spanish birth, though years of working with the English had blunted his once thick accent. He occasionally slipped into his native tongue, mostly when his blood was stirred, or to teach Cook the rudimentary phrases he needed to philander or to plunder.
Cook had first encountered Sebastiano Cortez in the late summer of 1716, shipping out from this very port on the Postillion, under the command of the French captain Olivier Levasseur. He was, quite simply, the most beautiful man Cook had ever seen, and he’d been determined to have him whatever the cost. Seb had surrendered to him easily enough, and Cook had taken full advantage of his new friend’s lusty nature as they’d fucked their way through the waters of the Virgin Islands. When the voyage was over, he’d been shocked to discover that he didn’t want to cut Seb adrift as he had so many times before with other shipboard liaisons. Seb had somehow gotten under his skin, a combination of dark beauty, a fiery passion that made Cook’s blood sing, and a steadfast devotion that Cook didn’t truly understand, even as he reveled in it.
Seb’s head was turned westward, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “They’re coming,” he said softly. Cook crossed the room and came up behind Seb, sliding his arms around his friend’s waist. Seb’s skin was warm and smelled faintly of spice, and Cook pressed himself closer, burying his face against Seb’s shoulder. A fragrant breeze blew in off the ocean, the smell of jasmine and honeysuckle heavy on the air. Outside the window a mangrove tree blocked the view to the east, but the western vista over the Caribbean was clear for miles. “They’re finally coming,” Seb repeated.
Cook raised his head and squinted, unable to see so much as a speck on the calm water. But Seb’s eyesight was keen, and he didn’t doubt his friend’s assertion. Even now Teach’s vessels would be weaving through the cays, then slipping between the northern coastline of New Providence and the narrow spit of land at the western end of Hog’s Island and into Nassau’s sheltered harbor.
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