by Eris Adderly
Lord be praised, he can’t see her.
The mass of the cutting block was obscuring the maid from Hawke’s view, and it seemed, by some stroke of luck, to be hiding his suspiciously askew shirt and breeches, as well. John let out the breath he was holding.
“I’m right as can be, Hawke.”
“You sure?” the man asked, “Thought I heard you swearing away when I came through the hatch.”
“Ah, well”—he made a quick excuse and a dismissive gesture of his head—“the leg gets to me sometimes, ye know.”
There was a tug at his waist. In the half a glance he could spare at the floor, he saw Brigit had moved his breeches aside again and had him in hand. Her eyes sparked with mischief, and she brought a single finger to her lips, signalling him to silence above a sly grin.
She wouldn’t dare.
“What brings ye to the galley between meals, Mr Hawke?”
He had to keep the deckhand from coming any further into the room.
“Right,” the sailor said, mercifully standing where he was, “Do you dice, Mr Bone?”
Her lips were on him again. His hand was a fist at his side, tension gripping him about the throat. Hawke remained oblivious.
“It’s been a … while, but I’ve been known to roll the bones a time … or two. Why?”
She was bobbing her head now, challenging him to hold himself together. Her mouth was so hot, and the way it slid …
Pray he doesn’t notice the way ye can’t string a sentence together, John.
“Well then!” He still had no idea. Good. “Mr Grey and Mr Hezekiah have sent me ‘round to see if you’ll join us for a game after evening meal.”
“Grey’s purse getting light again, is it?” He managed a laugh, but her tongue was squirming over that damned ridge. John bit at the inside of his cheek to stifle a groan.
“I imagine it is!” The other man chuckled, one hand to the knee that remained on the higher step.
Soft fingertips pulled and massaged at the skin of his scrotum and he covered a grunt of surprise with an abrupt cough.
This woman, I swear …
“Very well, Hawke, tell him I’ll be there.” The man needed to shove off, already.
Strong suckling from below. He braced himself.
“That maid of yours can come along, if you want.” Hawke glanced around the galley. “Is she not here?”
A flickering of tongue darted into the slit at the tip of his cock.
Oh, I’ll need to take her over my knee after this!
“She’s off to the head.”
The sailor grinned, the beak of his nose splitting his face in two. “Heard the two of you were bedded down right cozy-like in that bunk of yours last night.” Blond brows tipped up in suggestion.
John shrugged with half a grin of his own. What was there to deny?
A shiver wiggled up his spine.
Was that her teeth?
“That be all, Mr Hawke?”
He had to get this man out of here.
The deckhand nodded in the direction of the block. “Throw me a piece of that biscuit, Bone?”
He squinted at the man. Some of the crew would always try for more than their daily portion, but he needed this one gone, and now.
Heaven’s sake! Don’t bring a thumb into it, girl!
John grabbed a ration of tack from the bin and tossed it to the sailor on the stair, who caught it spinning out of its arc and raised it in an appreciative gesture.
“My thanks, Mr Bone!”
There were light kisses now, along the shaft. She was showing some sort of mercy.
“Well tuck it away, Hawke, or the rest will be down here wanting more than their share, as well.”
“Right,” he said, stuffing the hard round of bread into a pocket. “See you for dice then, Bone.” The lanky man made his goodbye over a shoulder as he hoisted himself with his bent knee and ascended through the hatch as quickly as he’d come
His breath came out with a rush of air as soon as he saw the last of Hawke’s boots, and a giggle curled up from beneath the tented hem of his shirt. He yanked back the fabric to see green eyes glinting up at him, a hand clapped over her mouth now to hold back laughter. He shook his head.
“Ye find that amusing, do ye?” Her chuckles sputtered out around her fingers in response along with vigorous nodding. “Saucy thing.” It was difficult for either one of them to keep a straight face with his prick still jumping in the air for attention.
“I’m sorry, John.” Her laughter was uncontainable. “But you were brilliant just now. Mr Hawke didn’t suspect a thing!”
The playful manner of the woman on her knees was contagious, and there was still the matter of his stiff cock that needed addressing. He fisted his hand into her hair once more, roughly pulling her face close to his arousal.
“If I recall correctly, Mrs O’Creagh, there’s someone else who wanted an extra portion before evening meal. Isn’t that so?” There was a teasing note of threat in his voice as he used his other hand to guide the healthy pink head back and forth over her lower lip.
“That is so, Mr Bone,” she said, voice smoky as she gave him an impertinent little lick, lapping up the clear bead of dew that had formed at the end of his raging lust. Her neck was bent up to him, lips slightly parted in anticipation, hands resting on her thighs. His grip at her scalp and the command he took seemed to have increased the rate of her breathing.
“Then finish what ye started, lass, and ye shall have it.”
John angled his cock down with his free hand and with those words, sheathed it to the root between her pretty lips.
Her eyes bulged for a moment and she made a startled noise at his thrust, but when he drew back she moaned, eyes closing in bliss, and he knew she wanted him to have this from her as much as he did.
Now.
There were no interruptions this time and he found his stride in mere moments. The ripe, swollen organ plunged to the back of her throat over and over as his hips rolled against her lower jaw the same as they would her lovely little pussy. She left her mouth slack for him, letting him thrust and ride her how he would, green eyes on fire, pleading up at him for more, more.
“This how you’ll have it, girl?” Something told him she’d like the lewd words and, with a growl, he fed them to her along with his jutting pride. “On yer knees, choking on a man, servicing a filthy pirate?”
He punctuated the words with enthusiastic pumps and the muffled sounds of her hearty agreement came out around his flesh as glorious, indistinct mewling. Sin rode off his tongue as he provoked her further.
“That’s it, lass, take it,” he said, easing his movements, spending some time holding himself deep in place at the end of each stroke. His voice was lower now, and he took her hot and slow like molten metal. “Take my cock, Brigit, swallow me up. There’s a good girl.”
She made some guttural noise at this and he watched her hands claw at her skirts, dragging them up to her hips. Feminine fingers dove between her legs and the maid began to move them over herself in a fury, bucking her hips against the frantic working of her own hand.
The entire picture made his sack draw up tight. The young woman taking her own pleasure, a hand fluttering between her spread thighs. Her jaw parted around his cock, the back of her throat breeched by his every push. And her breasts … she’d never bothered to cover them again during their interruption, and the darkened flesh of her nipples was tight with yearning; the one steady central point on each of her soft, bouncing tits.
It was too much.
“Brigit! Yes! Fuck!”
He buried himself balls deep in the sweet, sweet mouth she offered up, spending the entirety of his pleasure in blinding liquid pulses as her tongue pulled at him, wringing him of every drop.
Her throat closed on him and she took in his release, swallowing down his seed as he twitched and jerked, the spasms of his climax still tossing his body about as a ship on rough waters.
John made to p
ull himself away as he floated down from his peak, and his eyes opened, ready to give her a chance to breathe but, to his surprise, she clamped her lips firmly around him. The flushed cheeks of the maid hollowed to pull at him still and she made a determined sound, refusing to release his now precariously sensitive member.
A hand still danced between her legs and she leaned towards him now, concentration furrowing her brow as she stroked herself. Desperate noises came from somewhere low in her throat and her head nodded in hurried affirmation. This was what she needed.
He tightened his grip in her hair and planted himself flush to her nose a final time. Brigit fairly screamed around his cock and her humming fingers lost their pace and seized against the crest of her mound with poorly controlled jolts and spasms of movement. Some sound came from her as she crossed the threshold. It might have been laughter or a sob, he couldn’t tell.
Either way, after a moment of tense clamping down with her mouth, in which he prayed her teeth would not go any further than they already had, he felt her go limp and she slid away from him in a daze. Brigit slumped to rest her weight on one arm behind her on the floor. Her lowered lashes fluttered dreamily up at him, and he braced his tired body with a palm to the block again, staring back down at her.
“John,” she said, eyes serious, “I’ve never …”
He knew she didn’t mean pleasing a man with her mouth. Her talent in that area was stunningly plain. He’d been brought off this way before many a time as well, but still, this had been like none of those.
“I don’t think I have either,” he said, giving her an exhausted smile.
John pushed away from the block and took a step back, tucking himself back into his breeches. He put a hand out and she took it, climbing to her feet as she adjusted the top of her bodice to conceal her breasts again.
As she righted her clothing and person, he pulled the maid to him again at the waist, taking in the flush of her cheeks and the heightened colour of her lips after what they’d just done.
“Ye make me glad Nassau port is a pirate haven, Mrs O’Creagh,” he said to her.
“Why’s that?” She seemed properly confused and he gave her a lopsided smile.
“Because even if we go ashore, once ye see the cut of the scoundrels prowling the docks, ye won’t want to leave my side for a minute.” He ran his thumb over her jaw. “I’ll have ye until at least the next respectable port.”
She turned her face to the side and caught up his thumb, nipping at it. “I already don’t want to leave, Mr Bone.”
A surge of feeling welled in his chest and he brushed it away with a jest. “Oh? So there’s no reason to truss ye up with a bit of line, just to be sure ye won’t run off?”
“Well”—her eyes shone impishly up at him—“at least not today.”
Admit defeat now, John Bone. She’s got ye wrapped up in a tidy little package.
“Are ye ready for dice tonight?” He made to change the subject, loosening his arms to let her step back if she would.
She didn’t.
“Oh yes,” she said, those dimples he so liked deepening in her cheeks. “I have to see whether you can look Mr Hawke in the eye or not, now!”
It would be some feat, he allowed, but he’d have to try or she’d be taunting him the rest of the way to Nassau.
As if you’d mind.
It was true, he was growing to like her taunts. He was growing to enjoy a great many things about Brigit O’Creagh.
* * * *
Here the cook was again, offering her his hand as she stepped up through the hatch just behind him.
Where does a pirate learn manners?
Brigit took hold of the broad, warm fingers and levered herself up the final two steps onto the main deck. Evening meal and the straightening of the galley were behind them, and the promised dicing beckoned. She stood at his side now in the night air, but he didn’t release his grasp.
“Now Brigit,” he said, leaning in as they made their way along the deck, “these are not bad men, truly, but they are a bit rough. I wouldn’t be expecting fine language or graceful conversation from this lot, even if their own mothers showed up on the quarterdeck.”
She laughed as they strolled in the lantern light towards the raucous sounds of gaming men. “Do you worry about my tender ears, John Bone,” she said, tilting her face up to direct the teasing words at him and no one else, “with all your talk just hours ago of me taking your cock?”
The massive bald man at her side sputtered and coughed his way into a deep chuckle at this, and squeezed at her hand anew as they approached the small, but noisy gathering. “Christ, girl,” he said as he pulled himself together, “my face’ll be as red as my beard. Ye may be worse than half the men.”
“Then we shall get on well, Mr Bone.” She gave him a final reassuring smile. It was endearing the way he fretted over her meeting the crew outside the routines of meal serving. Brigit had already seen all these men as she filled their cups in the galley, twice a day for the last three days. Though now, she supposed, there was leeway for them to speak more freely with her and Bone, with no plates of food keeping their attention, and no queue for them to hold up with chatter.
The men had circled a number of smallish crates ‘round the pool of light at the foot of the main masts for seats, while a larger crate stood as a gaming table in their midst. As Brigit and the cook approached the edge of the circle, the first men to notice them took up cries of welcome, the loudest of which came from the sailor in the garish coat. Mr Grey, if her memory served her.
“Ho there!” he called out, setting his mug down as he stood. “Here’s our cook!”
The rest of the eyes turned in their direction then, and Bone volleyed greetings back and forth with a few of them as Grey gestured to a vacant crate which seemed to have been reserved for him.
“Now here’s the purse you lads want to empty,” the little rooster of a man continued as Bone took a seat. “This one almost never joins a game! And if you’ve seen him part with a coin on shore leave, you’ve seen one more thing than Simon Grey.”
The cook made a rude gesture at the master gunner and both men laughed as Grey sat again to take up his mug and watch the game.
Die made their dull, bouncing clatter atop the central crate, tossed first by the slender Mr Hawke and then by another sailor of about the same age whose name she couldn’t remember. The nameless man looked at the pips that landed face up and swore. Hawke clapped his hands together with a bark of laughter at his obvious win and offered to roll again.
Brigit stood at Bone’s shoulder now, the only one present still standing. As her eyes made a second, more careful pass around the group, she noticed there was not a single unoccupied crate. Of course the crew hadn’t thought of her. She shrugged.
They’ve already seen you in his bed. He won’t mind.
Picking her skirts up to avoid stepping on them, Brigit moved around his bent knee and sat herself squarely atop John Bone’s good leg.
“There was nowhere else for me to sit,” she said, answering the startled jump of his brows.
“Will there be a proper introduction of the cook’s new mate, Mr Bone?” The voice came from the man who’d been losing half his purse to Hawke, now seated and lifting a cup.
The cook shifted and slid an arm around her waist, his hand coming to rest on her hip in a not-so-subtle display of possession. “I’m sure you’ve all met the widow’s maid as you’ve come through the line for yer last few meals. Captain’s sent Mrs O’Creagh to work in the galley for now, considering her lady won’t be needing her for a time.”
“Did he send her to sit on your knee as well, then?” This from Simon Grey again, to a round of laughter as Bone tugged her closer in his lap.
“Mrs O’Creagh.” A few of the men acknowledged the introduction with her name and a nod before settling back into to their conversations and drinking.
The jocular mood of the crew put Brigit at ease, and she found herself quite comfor
table this way, with the side of her body wedged into the crook of Bone’s arm. Someone had handed him a drink and he took a long pull, offering it to her as he finished, though she shook her head to decline.
From her perch on his thigh, she cast her eyes around the group, trying to remember names to all these men as she went.
Simon Grey had already made his presence known. It was hard for a body to forget such a loud voice from such a short man. Seated to his right was the cocky William Platt, who smirked at her without a hint of shame, elbows on splayed knees, hands holding a mug, before he went back to half-listening to Grey and watching the next round of dice.
Leaning against the main mast, which stood just afore the boisterous gathering, was Hezekiah, the bosun, as dark a man as Platt was pale, arms folded over his broad chest and grinning from ear to ear at whatever rude jest the gunner was making now.
Henry Adams, the cooper, was speaking with a look of complete seriousness on his face, and great sweeping gestures of his hands to a younger sailor who sat next to the carpenter, Mr George. The rotund, pasty Adams was the one with all the ‘pretty words’, according to Bone, but Brigit was sceptical.
This is the man who sings?
She’d believe it when she heard it.
The man he spoke to was listening intently, leaning forward with furrowed brows, and Brigit watched as not once, but two or three times, the carpenter’s hand moved to light on this man in some discreet way or another. Winters. That was the other man’s name. She cocked her head, reading something out of the lack of distance between the two men’s crates, the way the carpenter’s eye travelled down the deckhand’s back.
“John,” she murmured into the cook’s ear, “Are Mr George and Mr Winters …?
“Aye, Mr George most certainly.” His words were quiet and amused, pitched for her alone. “And I suspect Winters as well since the two of them last went ashore.”
Brigit let the thought steep for only half a moment before moving on. It would be difficult enough to remember all the names without also having to remember who did what with whom.