by Paula Quinn
’Tis takin’ all my resolve not to go over there, climb into me bed, and make ya ferget what ya came here fer.
Lord, he was already making her forget. She’d come for adventure, not for him, yet here she was lingering in a room while he slept, letting images of his body make her blush and burn. She needed to get a hold of herself. She needed to think about what to do when he kicked her off the ship. She would have to go to her grandparents and try to explain what she was doing there. Och hell, she dreaded it.
She combed her fingers through her hair and plaited it into a long single braid.
She would have to tell them the truth. That she’d stowed away aboard a pirate ship and Kyle followed her. She felt mildly ill thinking about it. She would prefer penning a dozen notes to her kin in Skye to explaining to her grandsires face-to-face and telling them how foolish she had been.
A sound from the chair startled her. She looked to find Alex shifting uncomfortably. Her plaid slipped down a little lower on his hip. She practically leaped for it and managed to grab an end of the soft wool before it slipped off him completely. Her victory left her in the position of staring at his chest, then lower, over the slight, tight hills to his taut, tanned belly, farther down to the tuft of dark hair between his hips.
She swallowed, a little breathless with the thought of how all those sculpted angles would feel beneath her hands. The sudden desire to touch him coursed through her and she almost missed the slight change in his breathing.
She lifted her gaze to his face and found him squinting at her, his fingers grasping his forehead.
“Lookin’ fer something?”
She wished the floor would open beneath her and swallow her up. He caught her appraising him like a cat would look at a succulent mouse and she had no other recourse to take but honesty.
“Yer covering was about to—”
He held up his palm to stop her and closed his eyes. “Speak softer.”
She smiled, glad that he was suffering a wee bit after what he put her through last night.
“Yer covering was about to fall off,” she said more quietly. “I was stopping it.”
He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He just breathed. Then, after she thought he might have fallen asleep or become unconscious, he said in a low, groggy voice, “Be a love and fetch me a cup of watered-down rum.”
“Rum?” She stepped back and laughed at him. “Fer the morning-after effects?”
“Caitrina.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Don’t argue.”
Don’t argue? Was his word the law? She wanted to argue with him but the set of his jaw told her not to. Without another word, she swiveled around, slipped into her clothes, and left the cabin.
Don’t argue. She’d heard him speak the command before to his men. Well, he wasn’t her captain.
And yet, here she was obeying him. She huffed down the steps to the main deck and looked for someone to help her fill his order. She didn’t see Mr. Pierce, or even Mr. Bonnet. She did, however, run into two seamen on their way to the galley.
One of them deliberately stepped in her path and sneered in her face. “Ya have the captain to thank that my cock is not in ya right now.”
What a disgusting threat to make to a woman, Trina thought and swept her hand over his belt.
“And ye have him to thank that this dagger is not through yer neck right now.” She jerked her hand forward and nicked his flesh with the tip of the blade.
He looked down and swallowed audibly. “That’s my dagger.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his friend move toward her. Her reflexes were lightning quick, thanks to her mother’s careful instruction while the boys practiced with the men in Camlochlin’s vast fields. She lifted her ankle and plucked the captain’s pistol free of the silken binds she’d made last night. She readied the weapon and aimed, halting him in his steps.
“Robbie, Nicky, step away from her or I’ll gut ya from stem to stern.”
She heard Mr. Pierce’s voice behind her and said a silent prayer of relief. She wasn’t certain she could take two men coming at her at once. These weren’t her relatives.
“Did ya both ferget that she’s the captain’s guest?” Pierce asked them. “Ya want to be hung up by yar ankles?”
When they paled, Trina took pity on them. “Dinna’ tell him.”
“But—
“Please, Mr. Pierce.”
When he nodded, giving in to her request, Robbie and Nicky stared at her for a moment and then ran off.
Mr. Pierce watched them go, then turned to her and waited while she returned the pistol to her calf. “What are ya doin’ out here alone? Tryin’ to prove something?”
Trina shook her head. “He sent me fer watered-down rum. He’s in much pain.”
The quartermaster looked her over as if weighing her in his thoughts, then said, “Go back to the cabin. I will get the remedy and bring it to him.”
Would not one but two men on this ship order her about then? She glanced at another group of rowdy pirates passing her and saw the reasoning behind Pierce’s request. That didn’t mean she was all right with the fact that she couldn’t walk around alone. But she appreciated the quartermaster’s warning. Still, until they reached France, she was going to have to do something about protecting herself. For now, she huffed, but remained silent and walked away.
By the time she returned to the cabin, the captain had pulled himself out of his chair and into his pants. The cut fit snugly over his hips and thighs, hinting at his masculine attributes as much as her plaid hanging off him had. She cleared her throat and he separated his straight razor from his jaw and turned to face her full on.
“Did ya bring me drink?”
Stepping inside, she shook her head and gaped outright at the long, sleek muscles of his bare arms and torso. “Mr. Pierce is bringing it.”
“Why didn’t ya? I could have had it already.”
She glared at him, not caring how good looking he was, and sat in the chair he’d slept in. “Ye could have gone yerself and had it even quicker!”
“Lower yar voice,” he warned. “My head is—”
“Go to hell.”
The door opened and Mr. Pierce stepped inside. “He’s already there, Miss Grant. But this will help.” He held up a huge flagon and shoved it in Alex’s outstretched hand.
Trina watched the captain down the entire contents in one long guzzle. If he was going to puke, he better have a bucket. He burped instead and then fell to his bed.
“Poseidon’s balls, never again,” he breathed. “Do ya hear me, Sam? Come to me with gunpowder again and I’ll maroon ya on the next island we come to.”
“Yar guest needed protectin’,” Sam said, folding his hands behind his back.
The captain sat up on his bed. Trina guessed his watered-down rum remedy was working by the swiftness of his movements. “Protection from whom?”
“From ya, of course. ’Tis why I fed ya gunpowder rum.”
Alex laughed. “Since when do ya concern yerself with who needs protectin’ from me?”
“Since last eve,” his quartermaster answered.
Trina tried to get Mr. Pierce to look at her so she could smile at him. He glanced her way briefly, saw her gratitude, nodded, looking a bit uncomfortable, and then returned his attention to Alex. She realized then just how many times Mr. Pierce had saved her since she’d arrived. Mayhap he didn’t hate her after all.
“Miss Grant.” The captain leaned over his bed and cradled his head in his hands. “Ya should thank Mr. Pierce. My intentions were probably very obvious and not in yar favor.”
“Probably? Ye dinna’ remember?” she asked him, wondering how much more insult she had to endure. “Ye didn’t appear that drunk to me.”
“My body has grown immune to some of its effects, but ’tis gunpowder, woman. I don’t remember anything about last night.” He rose from the bed, glanced at the wall in the corner by his bed, then tied his hair away from his face.
“Did we speak of me treasure?”
“Aye, Captain,” she lied, loving the dramatic pallor that came over his face. “Ye told me all yer secrets. When ye drop me and Kyle off in France, we’re going to hire a ship and a crew and steal yer treasure from ye.”
Mr. Pierce finally smiled. So did the captain.
“Robbie Owens and his brother Nicky approached her earlier…”
The captain didn’t take his eyes off her when Cooper entered the cabin with their breakfast.
“Mr. Pierce,” she tried to cut him off. “I asked ye not to—”
“She disarmed Nick in the space of a breath and held his own knife to his throat.”
She thought she saw the slight crook in the captain’s mouth while he listened to the quartermaster. She was certain Cooper winked at her before he left the cabin.
“She stopped Robbie in his tracks with her free hand, in which she held a pistol she keeps tied to her leg.”
Both men’s eyes dipped to her skirts.
“I don’t think ’tis safe to let her carry around a pistol. Do ya?”
“Not safe fer who?” the captain asked. “Her, or us?”
“Us.”
The captain shook his head. “I won’t let her go around unprotected.”
“Och, here.” Tired of being the topic of their conversation, she yanked her skirts over her ankle and pulled the pistol free. “’Tis yers anyway.” She tossed it to the captain, who looked at it in disbelief. “I took it back from ye last night after ye took it back from me. I dinna’ need my own weapons. I have an uncle who taught me how to take my opponent’s.”
The men exchanged a brief glance. One was amused. The other was not. “Finally, she admits to bein’ a thief.”
“Being skilled at defense doesna’ make me a thief, Captain.” This time, she smiled back at him. She wouldn’t let him goad her. “From what I know of ye, ye’re easy enough to seduce. If ’twas yer map I wanted, I could have had it last night.”
His sexy grin remained unchanged, but a slight deepening in his dark eyes revealed that he found her more than amusing. He found her alluring, and he found her dangerous. He didn’t have to speak a word for her to see it.
“Let us get this straight, Miss Grant. From now on, ya don’t hide anything from me and ya don’t ask me men to do so either. Secondly, I’m no stranger to the wiles of women.” His voice dipped an octave and danced over her flesh, settling somewhere in her belly. She realized that he had to be this desirable to all women, not just to her. “I’m not as easily seduced as ya might think.” He was an expert at it. “It would take longer than a night to seduce me. And ya don’t have more than a night left on me ship.”
He was kicking her off in France. There was no doubting it. She wanted to believe she was relieved. But she wasn’t.
“Lucky fer ye, Captain,” she said, turning for the door.
His laughter rang out, almost melting her kneecaps. “Why is that, Miss Grant?”
She turned to cast her reply over her shoulder. “A few more nights with me and ye could lose all. ’Tis flattering, really… to know I befuddle the rake Captain Kidd.”
She reached the door and stepped out into the day without hearing his response. Her heartbeat pounded with such ferocity, she feared she might faint. She refused, and straightened her shoulders, descending the quarterdeck.
What the hell had come over her? Was she so deeply committed to staying, even for a little while longer, that she would cast aside the fact that Captain Alexander Kidd was a knave who could and would seduce her completely and then cast her aside when he was done? She’d never seduced a man the way she just promised she could. What if he expected her to prove her words?
Suddenly, France didn’t seem so bad.
Chapter Twelve
For Alex, France couldn’t come into view quick enough. He had to get Caitrina off his ship. He’d told her that it would take longer than a night to seduce him. He was lying. If taking in different nuances of her face and reveling in them every time he looked at her meant anything at all, then he was already becoming a little seduced—befuddled by her as she claimed. A part of him wanted to hide everything he valued from her. The other part wanted to dangle his treasures before her eyes and fight her for them. Befuddled? Aye, he was. She rattled him.
He didn’t like being rattled.
He tried to blame it on the gunpowder rum and the pain of two hammers striking his brains. But, in truth, he would have found her as curious, beguiling, and challenging whether his head pained him or not.
He stayed away from her while they crossed the Celtic Sea. When she approached him, once on deck, and once in the galley, he skirted her path, avoiding any contact between them.
He enjoyed rum and women of ill repute. He didn’t want anything more than that. He’d loved a woman once and she cost him everything, his treasure, his heart, and ultimately his father. If he ever decided to settle on one woman, she wouldn’t be someone he didn’t trust one hundred percent.
He didn’t trust Caitrina. What did she want? Adventure, as she claimed… or was she like Madalena and she wanted his treasure?
When nightfall approached, he didn’t go with her to his cabin, but watched her cousin escort her. He waited almost ’til dawn broke over the horizon, when cups were empty and much of his crew was hunched over the tables. He walked to his quarters pleased with himself for avoiding her. The more time he spent with her, the more she tempted him to let her stay, at least until their next port of anchor in Lisbon. Nay. She had to go.
He entered his cabin planning on doing as little talking as possible until they reached France.
He looked at his bed. She slept.
He resisted the urge to stand over her and simply look at her. He didn’t like to admit, even if only to himself, that Miss Grant could possibly tempt him to offer what he hadn’t offered to a woman in eight years. What he swore he’d never give again. He was an adventurer. He wanted no woman at his heels.
But Caitrina didn’t stay behind him. She faced him head-on with enough confidence to make lesser men rethink their position.
He would have laughed at himself if the thought of losing his heart didn’t scare the hell out of him.
“Is it morning already?”
Hell, even her voice, dulcet and low, seduced him enough to make him look at her.
“Almost. Go back to sleep.”
She sat up in his furs, her thick glossy locks draping her sleepy face. Temptation incarnate. “I would speak to ye, Captain.”
He would do more than that. “I would not have ya speak at all, lady.”
He watched her full lips pinch with indignation, but she said nothing. What would have been her retort, he wondered? Once he left her in France, he might miss her banter, but that was nothing good rum couldn’t remedy. He suspected he might dream once or twice about the allure of her dimpled smile. It was possible that he might recall the fire in her eyes the next time he saw lightning flash across the sky.
“Do ya have someplace in France I can bring ya?”
“Aye, my—”
A knock sounded at the door before Sam plunged into the cabin. “Alex, we’ve spotted something on the horizon.”
“A ship?”
“Perhaps.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to take by mid afternoon if we begin the chase now. We could use their supplies but we’re not in dire need yet.”
Aye, Alex knew the condition of his ship well enough. Plundering was sometimes not a question of need but of pleasure. But taking a ship so close to France’s coastline would keep his guest here longer. A lot longer, as his trusted quartermaster was about to point out.
“If we plunder it,” Sam noted, “’twould be wise not to dock again until we reach Portugal.”
Alex agreed. The best way to stay alive was to plunder and get the hell as far away as you could without being captured. He wanted to do it. His blood pulsed for the thrill of the hunt, the
glory of the victory, the joy in the bounty. There was one problem. He looked at Trina. Portugal. Two actually. “We don’t have enough supplies to make it to Lisbon. We needed to fill up in France.”
“We’ll have our loot,” Sam said, as eager for the chase to begin as any good pirate would be. “We will drop anchor in Lisbon as planned and gather enough supplies from there.”
Alex nodded, and with his eyes still on the woman who would likely become a living hell for him, he cast her a shadowy smile. “It looks as if ya’ll be stayin’ aboard Poseidon’s Adventure until we reach Portugal.”
He wasn’t giving her a choice.
“Inspect and load cannons!” he shouted over Sam’s shoulder to whoever was on deck. Ah, this was what he lived for. What they all lived for. He pulled back and turned to Caitrina. “Things are going to get messy. Stay here. I’ll send yar cousin to ya.”
Without waiting for her compliance, he left the cabin with Sam and began shouting orders to his men to rise out of their drunken stupors and get the hell to work.
“Captain at the wheel!”
“Cap’n at the wheel!” Two more announcements went out, one after the other. The hunt was his. It was his duty as captain to shadow the prey and determine whether or not victory was in their favor. Once victory has been established, they would raise the black flag and fire a warning shot of lead from their cannons. After that, it was up to the other ship to surrender. If they didn’t… Alex smiled. If they didn’t, then combat would ensue.
He accepted the spyglass from Sam and adjusted his bandanna to hold against the wind. Ah, it was a good day to fight.
Trina watched the door close behind him and stood frozen in her spot. She and Kyle were staying. They would have to pen another letter to Skye. For now she thought, the captain was about to take a merchant ship… and he expected her to stay put? She tried. She truly did. She was going to be traveling with him for a while. Och, Lord, they’d have to find different sleeping arrangements if she was staying. She didn’t think she could resist him much longer. Waking up to his beautiful face was just as bad as going to sleep staring at it. Alex Kidd and a bed in the same space wasn’t working out well for her.