The Pirate's Heart

by Bethany M. Sefchick

  And she had liked those things.

  Well, most of them anyway. Katherine took no joy in killing, but consoled herself with the knowledge that she had done what was necessary to survive. The killing had not been a capricious act, but rather one of self-preservation. For if Jack died, then what became of her? She shuddered to think.

  So the tears she had shed earlier were not just over the life she had taken, though that had certainly been a large part of the issue. The tears had also fallen because she was changing into someone new. Someone she didn’t recognize.

  There had been a time when Katherine had believed she had no tears left. In the days after she learned of Daniel’s death at sea, she could never imagine a time when she would cry again. His death had changed her.

  Now, his unexpected reentrance into her life was changing her again. The girl who had been kidnapped on the beach back in Barbados only a few days ago was gone now. Just as the Daniel who had left Bridgetown six years ago was gone as well. So Katherine cried for that part of herself.

  She also cried for the loss of her innocence. Oh, physically she was still innocent, though she doubted she would be for much longer. Rather, it was more of the innocence of spirit. Despite her years and despite everything she had endured, in some ways, she had still been a child. No longer. Whatever innocence she had left inside of her had died the moment she put on those breeches. She had taken something forbidden and made it a part of herself.

  And surprisingly felt all the more powerful because of it.

  In short, she felt as if she was a woman. Not a young lady.

  There was a difference. A very big one. She had not imagined it would be so.

  That, Katherine supposed, was why women were kept so sheltered, so far away from the world of men. If women understood what kind of power was possible for them once freed of propriety’s constraints, they would no longer be content to do needlework and darn socks or take up watercolors. They would want some of that power for themselves. After all, she now did.

  And that was what terrified men, she decided. The idea that if women could have power, they would. And that they would like it. That they would want more, just as men did.

  Did Daniel, Jack, or whoever he was just now, feel that way? Katherine had no idea, though she hoped not. After all, he had given her a choice in clothing. She had a feeling a more traditional pirate, if there were such a thing, would have simply tossed her a scandalous ballgown and been done with things.

  She was still stewing over the matter when someone knocked at the door.

  “Enter,” she called out, the rusty saber once more by her side.

  “It’s only me.”

  Katherine frowned when Jack entered. “You’ve no need to knock, you know. This is your cabin.”

  “So says the woman with the saber.” He glanced at the weapon she still held clutched in her hands.

  “Sorry.” She placed the old weapon back beside the table. “I fear that I am yet a bit out of sorts.”

  Jack leaned back against his desk. “Killing a man will do that to you.”

  Despite her vow of acceptance and her new-found knowledge, Katherine winced at his words. “I did not mean to do that.”

  “Yes, you did,” he insisted, “and the sooner you accept that, Duchess, the sooner you can move past it.”

  “I already have moved past it.” Tossing her head defiantly she crossed the room to stand toe to toe with Daniel. Or Jack. Or whoever this man was in front of her. Her emotions were in so much turmoil that his high-handed manner just now nearly sent her over the edge. “I accept that I killed a man. I accept that I did it to save your life. But that does not mean I meant to do so or that I enjoyed it. My original plan was to wound, not kill. But he turned around. That is on him. Not me. I am not that sort of woman, one who seeks out thrills or is so brazen. I am a lady. I am not a harlot. Or…or…or that sort of woman!”

  Katherine prayed that Jack – for she recognized that she needed to remember to think of him that way – could not tell that she was lying. For some reason, despite her new-found power, a part of her still wanted him to see her as a lady. She also did not want to have this conversation with him. These realizations were too new, too private.

  Yet somehow, she understood that he would push her. Or at least try to. Daniel always had, and that part of him seemed to have remained within his new persona. Therefore, she had to be stronger.

  “Do you really believe that, Duchess?” Jack asked, as if taunting her. “Honestly?”

  “I do.” Had she not just had this discussion with herself? Yes! Yes, she had! More to the point, she did not want to discuss this any longer.

  “Why do I not believe you?” His voice took on a silky, seductive quality again. “It is perhaps because, despite the fact that you are a lady, make no mistake of that, you also became aroused last night when I had you over my knee, your reddened arse bared for all of my crew to see? Would someone who does not seek out thrills, who craves to be more than just a bit of feminine fluff, have reacted in that fashion?”

  “I’ve no idea!” Actually, Katherine had a fairly good idea what the answer to that question should have been. But Jack was baiting her, urging her to argue. Just as Daniel always had. And just then, despite her misgivings, she craved more of this interaction between them. For the first time in six long years, she felt alive and despite her silent vow moments ago that she was not ready to reveal this new part of herself, she knew she would anyway. Just so she could continue to feel the rush of pulsing life in her veins. “But what if I did become aroused? It means nothing!”

  “It means you are waking up, Duchess,” Jack corrected smoothly. “Both your body and your mind are slowly awakening to the true power you possess and learning how glorious it would be to wield that power. How freeing. How…seductive.” He all but purred the last word and Katherine felt her heart flip over in her chest.

  “You are wrong.” No. She would not admit this. Not now and not to him. Not when it would give him even more power over her.

  Jack shook at his head and pointed to the dressing table. “Look at yourself in the mirror, my dear Katherine. Out of all of the dresses you could have possibly chosen, you picked the most scandalous one! Scarlet red and cut so low that your magnificent tits are all but completely exposed for me to enjoy. Not that I really expected otherwise, even though there are other, far more modest frocks in that trunk. Truly, I half expected to return here and find you clad in breeches again.”

  “Do not think for a moment that I did not consider that option!” she shot back. “They are rather comfortable!”

  Jack had the audacity to laugh at her! “And the shirt you wear with them allows you to go about as bare-chested as any man, those luscious tits of yours on display. You liked the men looking at you today, didn’t you, Duchess?”

  “No!” Even though this man was her old friend Daniel at his core, he had changed. He was more Midnight Jack now than anyone. And while she might have admitted her secret thrill to Daniel, she would not do so to Jack. “I am not that sort of lady! I don’t…I have never…”

  “Yes, Duchess, you are that sort of lady and you always have been. Don’t forget that I know you, Katherine,” he hissed, his tone full of wicked promise and heat. “Do you think I was blind to the fact that you wished to fuck me all of those years ago, just as much as I wished to fuck you? I wasn’t. I only withheld myself because I did not want you to regret your actions or cost you your family. But I wanted you and I knew you wanted me in return.”

  Katherine pursed her lips together in a sign of obstinance. “We were young.”

  “A poor excuse and you know it. We wanted to fuck each other,” Jack whispered as he slid his body around hers, beginning to trail his fingers over her as he liked. “We still do. Remember, I know you far better than anyone else ever has or ever will. I know what kind of heart beats in that chest of yours and I know that it longs for adventure. I know it longs for me. I know you, Duchess. Never f
orget that.”

  “You don’t know me!” Katherine snapped, now toe to toe with Jack, doing her best not to be affected by his touch and failing miserably. “Not any longer!”

  “I know you used to like to be touched here. Just like this.” He reached out and traced a single finger down the column of her throat to the shadowy valley between her breasts – a place he would not have been able to reach had she not chosen this scandalous gown. “Do you remember, Katherine? That day on the secluded beach just before I set sail for England? How you bared your tits to me, though you claimed it was an accident? How you asked me with your eyes to take you? To take your innocence with my cock? Do you remember how much you wanted me that day?”

  “A…a youthful mistake,” she replied, even though she could not hide the way her body shuddered at his touch, slowly coming alive for him.

  “You wanted me to fuck you,” Jack replied, moving so close to her now that he was nearly pressed against her, his finger still lightly caressing the side of her breast. “Do not deny it.”

  Katherine shook her head. “I…I’m not denying it. I simply said that was a mistake.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake.” His voice was silky smooth now, his breath hot on her neck. “It was, however, a mistake for me to refuse what you were offering.”

  “I wasn’t offering.”

  “You were.”

  “I…”

  “No more lies, Duchess. Not now and not ever again.”

  Then he was kissing her. Jack, Daniel, or whoever he was just then was kissing Katherine as if his life depended upon it. And she allowed it. In fact, she did more than allow it. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. So close that she could feel the hard press of his erection against her hip. He felt…enormous. And suddenly, the power and sexuality she had felt earlier in the day roared to life inside of her once more.

  She could no more have stopped that from happening than she could have stopped this kiss. And she didn’t want to.

  “Give yourself to me, Katherine,” Jack whispered around the kiss. “Not because of the kiss but because you want to. Because you want me.”

  She did want him. Whatever his name, whoever he truly was deep inside of his soul – Jack, Daniel, or someone else entirely new – she wanted this man and she would claim him. For who knew what tomorrow would bring?

  Tomorrow she might die as she almost had today. Or perhaps Boucher would capture her and return her to Barbados and directly into Lord Wilds’ hands. What then? Would she be able to live with herself if any of that transpired and she never knew the feeling of this man’s touch upon her body? Especially when she had been presented with the opportunity and then turned him away? No. No, she could not.

  Daring to be bold, just as she had earlier, Katherine reached between them and cupped Jack intimately. “Yes,” she breathed. “I want you. And only you. Jack or Daniel, I care not the name you go by. I just want you.”

  “Daniel,” he hissed as he pulled her closer, the palm of his hand cupping her ass. “In here? Alone? When we fuck? I am Daniel. As I have always been to you.”

  “Daniel,” Katherine agreed eagerly, reaching up to slide the shirt off of his body, making certain to be mindful of his bandages. “Just Daniel. The man I have wanted for so long.”

  He groaned in her ear and with swift, sure fingers, undid the buttons on the back of her gown. “You undo me, Katherine. You always have.”

  Since she had dressed herself, Katherine had not bothered with undergarments so when the gown puddled at her feet, there were no corsets, stays, drawers or other underpinnings to get in the way. She hadn’t even bothered to put on slippers.

  When she was naked before him, save for the ever-present necklace, Daniel pulled back and looked his fill at her. Katherine should have blushed – and she did a little. After all, no man had ever seen her naked before. However, this was Daniel – she could see the difference in his eyes now – and he was the one man who had always made her feel safe.

  “Duchess,” he breathed with what sounded like reverence. “You are exquisite.” With that, he fell to his knees before her, still fully clothed and, with what must have been skill born of much practice, he kissed her most secret of feminine areas.

  Katherine wanted to push him away, for surely no lady allowed this. But she wasn’t a lady. Not any longer and as Daniel parted her feminine folds with his fingers so that he could kiss her there again, this time his tongue teasing her hidden pearl of pleasure so that her knees began to quake, any words she might have spoken died upon her lips.

  She moaned and likely would have fallen to her knees as well, but Daniel seemed to know what she needed. Instead of pressing on, he rose and scooped her into his arms, carrying her to the bed so that he could lay her down, her legs over the side and her feet on the floor.

  “Now, where were we?” he asked as he spread her legs wide, revealing her wet, glistening pussy to his view. “Ah, yes. Just about there, I think.”

  When he drew a single finger through her wet valley, she whimpered. “Daniel.”

  “Shhhh.” He added another finger and she whimpered again, her body beginning to tighten though she had no idea why. “I have waited a long time for this, Katherine. Waited a long time for you. I will not be rushed.”

  “But…” she protested, though once more, she could not speak the words as he put his head between her legs again and began to lap at her quickly swelling feminine lips. “Oh, yes.”

  Despite her aunt’s claim that ladies should not know anything about physical pleasure, Katherine had long ago disobeyed that order, occasionally touching herself as she bathed or in bed alone at night, her mind filled with images of this man and the times they had shared together.

  She had found pleasure at her own hand and knew what her body was capable of, at least to some degree. Or she thought she was. However, her fantasies paled in comparison to actually having Daniel there with her, touching her, and giving her the pleasure she had only ever given herself.

  His tongue slid through her slickness before dancing once more over the swollen nub that she knew could push her over the edge. But he didn’t stop there. Soon, he slid a single finger inside of her, as if testing her slickness. Or her tightness. She knew that much, at least.

  “So damn tight,” he mumbled as he inserted another finger, quickly followed by a third. “But mine. All mine. And you are mine, Katherine. Only mine. I would kill another man who dared to touch you.” Then, he withdrew his fingers from inside of her, crooking them as he did so while he took her nubbin between his teeth and tugged.

  Katherine hadn’t realized she had been wound so tightly, but at the combined feeling of Daniel’s touches, she shattered. The strange feeling that had been welling up inside of her all day finally surged forward and broke, and she cried out as her body trembled with her release. It felt…good. But it also left her wanting more.

  Her tits still ached, as did her cunt. She was slick between her legs but she could still feel the delicious throb of pleasure between her legs, as if there was more waiting to be unleashed.

  Raising herself up on her elbows, she looked at Daniel who still sat on his haunches on the floor, fully dressed. “Was that all?” she asked. For if it was, then Lizzy and her naughty books had gotten quite a few things wrong.

  “What’s the matter, Duchess?” Daniel teased as he rose to his feet, stripping off the rest of his clothes as he did so. “Something not to your liking?”

  “I just thought…”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Yes?”

  “That there was more.” She knew she sounded like a petulant child, but just then, she didn’t care. All this talk of fucking and how it was all men could think about and that was it? Surely not!

  Then Daniel shed his leather breeches and suddenly, she had a feeling that he had just revealed the “more” part of the evening.

  “Oh.” Katherine bit her lip as she stared at his cock. She’d seen it before, though not
like this. Once, years ago when they had gone swimming in the sea, he’d left off his smallclothes and she had caught a glimpse of Daniel’s cock. But it hadn’t looked like this.

  It had been on the small side then and she’d wondered how a woman could find pleasure or how the mechanics of the act would work for it hadn’t seemed possible. She also wondered how procreation happened if that was supposed to fit inside of her. She had some idea, of course, for she was not that innocent. She had simply expected it would be longer. Not to mention thicker.

  Now, nestled in a thatch of coarse black hair, his cock was hard and long, thick and swollen. Veins bulged along its length and, as he held his member in his hands, it seemed to swell even more. The mushroomed tip glistened and his balls that hung below appeared full and heavy.

  “Yes. Oh.” Daniel grinned at her. “Before? That was just a sample, Katherine, as well as a test. Just to see how naughty you would be. And would let me be.” As she watched, he used his thumb to spread the clear liquid still seeping from the tip of his cock down its long length. “Because you see, Duchess, in my experience, proper ladies, don’t allow men – any man, be they pirate or gentleman – to feast on their deliciously wet cunt as you just allowed me to do.”

  “They don’t?” Katherine couldn’t see why not for it had been pleasurable if not world-shattering as some had described. Then again, her late aunt had insisted that the sexual was something a woman endured and not enjoyed. She’d never understood her aunt’s words, especially not when Katherine had long ago decided she wanted to do those things with Daniel – and that she would most likely enjoy them.

  Still, for a woman who typically thought herself sophisticated and worldly, in the art of fucking, Katherine was woefully ignorant. And Daniel seemed to know that.

  Another grin. “No, they don’t. But you just allowed me to taste your sweet honey with my tongue in your cunt, my dear, which means that you’re likely willing to allow me to do anything I want with you. And, oh, Katherine, there is so very much I wish to do. So many ways I wish to fuck you. You’ve no idea.”