by Merry Farmer
“Stay back,” Penny said with as much authority as she could muster, though she could hear how pathetic her effort was.
The pirate laughed, and as he threw back his head, Penny gasped at the realization that he was actually a she, though she was unsure whether she should be relieved or more worried.
The woman was dressed like a man, with tight pants and a vest hanging loose over the white linen shirt. She took the cutlass out of her belt, waving it flippantly in the air as she began to circle Penny.
“Now, whatever do we do with you?” she asked, narrowing her eyes as she assessed her. “Perhaps I will take you back to my ship as a little gift for our captain.”
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“No? Are you Captain Ramsay’s pet, then?”
“I am no one’s pet,” Penny said indignantly before the woman’s words registered. “Have you taken the ship, then?”
Bright green eyes flicked up and assessed Penny more thoughtfully.
“Are you hopeful that we have?”
“I am not entirely sure,” Penny said honestly.
“The battle continues,” the woman said. “I came to see what riches Ramsay had hidden away. Now come with me.”
“I think I’ll just stay here,” Penny said, though her words were more of a hopeful question than anything else.
“I wasn’t giving you a choice,” the pirate said, hauling Penny to her side as she opened the door. Penny retained a hold on her cutlass, but somehow she knew that the few lessons she had in sword fighting with her uncle years ago would be useless against this woman, who would not only prove skilled but ruthless.
The moment the door opened, Penny was assuaged with the sounds of the battle much clearer around them than they had been in the room, as well as the scent of gunpowder, smoke, and copper. Blood.
The woman gripped Penny’s arm and dragged her down the corridor and up to the main deck, which was surprisingly rather devoid of pirates. Penny swallowed hard and averted her eyes from the few bodies and injured men tossed around the deck, but when she looked across at the other ship, it was full of men battling hand-to-hand.
“Ready?” the woman asked, and then she hauled Penny to her side, shouted “grab on!” and shoved a rope in her hands as she launched them over the edge. At the last second Penny took hold of the rope, and they were soon swinging over the water between the ships to the enemy craft beside them.
The rope was slippery under Penny’s damp palms, but she gripped with all her strength. Ramsay would be in no position to save her now.
They landed on the deck with a thud and Penny, of course, fell to the side, though the woman quickly picked her up and began moving with her, weaving them through the pirates around them.
Penny’s gaze flicked from one man to the next as she tried to find a familiar face, but her time with the crew had been so limited there were none she recognized. Just as they were about to go below deck, she saw a shaved head and called out “Bastian!”
The quartermaster turned, looked at her, swung his gaze to the woman next to her, and then left the man he was parrying to race toward them. The woman pulled Penny in front of her as a shield, but Penny stomped down hard on her foot to loosen her grip, rolling away just in time for Bastian to sink his cutlass into the pirate. The woman dropped down to the deck.
It seemed that it had all happened instantaneously, and yet at the same time had taken hours to occur. Penny stood there, staring down at the woman, breathing hard at the death she had just witnessed, knowing it could have just as easily been her lying there.
She looked up to see Bastian waiting for her.
“Well?” he said. “Let’s go.”
Penny nodded mutely, and they began moving back toward The Raven’s Wing when Bastian’s initial quarry rushed him again, and the two began to exchange blows. Penny was alone once more. She would have to either hide or return to The Raven’s Wing on her own.
She was beginning to receive more than a few glances, and she bit her lip in nervousness. She would have to act fast. Before she could even think, however, one of the pirates rushed toward her with a smirk on his face that she could only describe as evil.
“Ah, a treat!” he cackled as they came closer, but when he reached out a hand to grasp at Penny, she slipped on the slick deck and landed on her bottom just out of his reach. He grabbed for her again, but she managed to roll away from him in her panic.
She was crawling on all fours beside the edge of the rail when the pirate obviously decided he’d had enough. When he snatched at her yet again, Penny flipped around on her back, cutlass still in hand.
And he fell on top of her and right onto the sword.
Penny couldn’t help the scream that emerged, which was stupid, she realized but a moment later, for then many more pirates took note of her, the lone woman on board — as far as she knew, anyway.
She left the sword where it was, for she didn’t know if she could pull it out of the pirate even if she tried, and scrambled backward. She looked frantically around her, seeing a few skirmishes here and there, but more than anything, bodies across the deck, some lifeless, others bleeding.
There was a call of “surrender!” but the handful of pirates who had taken note of Penny didn’t seem to notice — or else, perhaps it was that they simply didn’t care. They circled her — five or six of them, she counted as adrenaline rushed through her anew — the looks on their faces friendly in a way that she didn’t overly care for. She reached for her weapon once more before remembering that her cutlass was currently in the body of a man.
It was then the panic set in.
There was no point in staying put, for they would soon simply close in on her.
She chose to flee.
Determining the two she thought would likely be the slowest of the group, she tried to break through the gap between them, but it was no use. She wasn’t exactly swift-footed, nor was she wily. One of them wrapped big beefy arms around her, squeezing her so tightly she nearly gagged — from that, as well as the stench that emanated from him and soon surrounded her.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes, so frustrated she was by her inability to do anything to defend herself, coupled with the knowledge of what was likely about to happen to her.
And then suddenly the arms dropped from around her, and a thud reached her ears. She looked down to see the man who had been holding her was now lying on the deck. When she lifted her head, his companions were all slowly backing away.
Penny turned around, following the direction of their eyes.
There stood Ramsay. His shirt was ripped, his cutlass was dripping with blood, and his hair tangled.
There was murder in his eyes.
Chapter 9
Ramsay had been pleased with his crew. They handily overtook this ship and few lives had been lost in the process. He had killed the captain, who had admitted he had been paid by Portugal to chase down Ramsay. Now Ramsay had given the pirates the option to join him or to go overboard. Most of them would stay, which he needed — for he had a new ship to man, now.
And then he had seen one of the pirates wrapped around Penelope. Her auburn hair and blue dress had caught his eye. For a moment he had wondered what a woman was doing on board this pirate ship until her familiar movements told him that this was not just any woman. She had been taken from him.
He had been filled with a rage unlike any he had ever known.
He tried to tell himself it was because someone had dared to steal something that belonged to him, from right under his nose.
But he was lying to himself. For this was more than that.
She was his, damnit, and no man was going to lay claim to her, nor hurt one hair on her head, nor mar any of the skin on her body.
He hadn’t even thought of what he was doing when he had killed the pirate holding her, nor of how willing he was to do the same to anyone else who laid a finger on her.
“Come here, Penelope,” he commanded. What in the h
ell was she even doing on this ship? He had left her safely ensconced in his cabin.
But then, much had happened since they had boarded this ship.
She still had it within her to give him a look of reproach, but when he crooked a finger at her with stern warning in his face, she reluctantly walked toward him.
“Bastian!” he called. “See to this crew.”
Then he bent, grasped her legs, and lifted her over his shoulders.
She put up quite the protest, but when he smacked her on the bottom, she quickly stopped talking. He took hold of the rope, swung back over to The Raven’s Wing, and then strode below deck to his cabin, not stopping his movements until he deposited her on the bed.
“What do you think you are doing?” she asked, looking up from her prone position. Her hair was spread around her, her eyes on fire, stirring his blood. But then he noticed that her dress was ripped, her cutlass gone, and fear lurked behind her brave facade.
“I’m rescuing you. Again. Is it not obvious?” he asked, hands on his hips as his anger continued to fuel him.
“I didn’t need rescuing,” she said indignantly, to which he arched an eyebrow.
“And just how were you going to fight off six men, without a weapon?”
“I would have outrun them eventually,” she said with a shrug, and he would have laughed were he not so livid.
“You never should have left this cabin,” he scolded her, which seemed preferable to telling her his true emotions — that he was frightened at what could have happened to her.
“I didn’t leave by choice,” she said, sitting up now so that her face was even with his. “One of their crew took me over there. A woman, actually.”
“A woman pirate?”
“Yes.”
He had heard of a few of them, of course, but thus far he had never actually had the chance to meet one. He wondered how that worked with the articles on their ships. An exception to the rule, he supposed.
“Let me guess,” he said wryly, “You bested her in a sword fight?”
“Of course not,” Penelope said indignantly. “She forced me to board her ship and then Bastian killed her.”
“I see,” he said. “So is that your blood?”
“Where?”
She followed his gaze to look down at herself. Her new gown, the fresh one that she had donned not long ago, was now covered in crimson.
Her face whitened and he turned from her to keep from offering comfort. Instead, he went to the washstand to clean off the blood from his face and his hands.
“No,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “A man chasing me fell on my cutlass.”
Ramsay wasn’t entirely sure he believed the story, but then, she didn’t seem one to lie.
“You probably wish they had caught you so that you could be rid of me,” he said in an attempt to distract her, for he thought she might be about to keel over. He supposed it was from watching the man die. He was so accustomed to it now that he hardly thought twice about witnessing death, but a woman such as Penelope had likely never even seen a dead body before.
“Please,” she said with a scoff. “At least I know you would never take my virtue.”
“Would I not?” he asked, stepping closer to her, and her eyes flicked from one of his to the other as he couldn’t escape her gaze any longer.
“You said you wouldn’t,” she insisted, but her voice was unsure, as though she wasn’t entirely in agreement with her words.
“I said I wouldn’t,” he repeated, “unless you begged me to.”
“I would never beg.”
“I disagree.”
He stepped closer now so that he was standing right in front of her.
Why did she speak to him so? He had seen many a beauty, and he couldn’t call her such, but there was something about her that hooked him in.
“You believe you are so feared,” she continued, crossing her arms over her chest, “but I have been here a week and find that you can be rather agreeable at times, when you decide to be.”
“I am a reasonable man,” he countered.
She slid off the bed so that she was now standing.
“You are impossible.”
“My God, woman, you are the devil incarnate.”
She placed her hands on her hips and arched an eyebrow defiantly.
“If anyone in this room is the devil, I hardly think it is me.”
He chuckled lowly, for she was right, of course, and as he did, he took a few steps toward her, bringing his index finger under her chin. He tilted her head backward until she had no choice but to stare into his eyes. The spark he saw in hers set the fire of desire that had been smoldering within him ablaze.
“I will not kiss you,” he said, pleased when disappointment flared in her eyes, “unless you kiss me first.”
“I will most certainly not,” she said, but her efforts to fight him were becoming weaker as her voice had lost its affirmation.
“No?” he asked, leaning in closer so that his lips were but a breath away from hers.
“No,” she said, but then her eyes fluttered, showing the battle waging within her.
“I’ll tell you this, Penelope,” he said now. “You are trying my patience. But I have found that you are a woman worth saving.”
“Oh?”
“Aye,” he said. “For I cannot recall the last time I wanted a woman as badly as I want you right now.”
Her pink lips formed a round O at his words, and she leaned back for a moment, staring at him as though to assess whether what he was saying was true.
He knew the moment she released her inhibitions as she took a deep, shuddery breath, closed her eyes, and then leaned in and kissed him with more passion than he could ever have expected was within her.
While it wasn’t the first time their lips had met and he was so far from a virgin he could hardly remember a time when he didn’t know what it was like to have been with a woman, her touch shocked him to his very core.
If her movements and her responses were not so inexperienced, he would have wondered whether she was the innocent lass he had taken her to be.
Her hands were pressed flush into his chest, and the way she was leaning into him, the tops of her breasts spilling out of her ill-fitting gown moved over his flesh, exposed from tears in his shirt.
Battles enlivened him. It was why he knew he could never quit this life, for to do so would mean ceasing to exist altogether. But being with Penelope only heightened all of his responses that had already been spurred to life through his defeat of the pirates who had dared to challenge him. The captain had said his name was Morrissey, his ship The Widow Maker — but Ramsay had laughed at him, telling him that to create widows you would have to kill married men, of which his ship was rather lacking.
Now he had a new ship, a new crew, and a willing woman in his arms. What more could a man ask for?
He was asking for too much, came a niggling voice from the back of his mind. Penelope was more than a willing woman. She was a woman who stirred up emotions within him that he would prefer to remain buried. She evoked in him the urge to possess. To protect. To care. He couldn’t afford to care, for anyone or anything.
But he also couldn’t push her away. His need for her was too great.
At that moment, his decision was made, and no longer was she the aggressor, for when Ramsay wanted something, he took it wholeheartedly. If Penelope Carstairs was foolish enough to have kissed him, then she was going to see all that he had to offer.
His arms wrapped around her, lifting her so that she straddled him. He walked her backward toward the table, sitting her bottom upon it as he cupped her head, angling it so that he had better access to plunder her mouth with his tongue. She had quite obviously never been kissed by another, but he was going to ensure that she would remember this encounter for the rest of her life.
She moaned, which only further fueled the desire that was already pumping through his blood like adrenaline before a bat
tle. He attempted to push the sleeves down her arms so he could better access what was hiding under her bodice, but she wouldn’t drop her arms from his neck.
Impatient, he took the material in each hand and ripped it down the center, destroying the already-sullied gown.
“Goodness!” she murmured, causing one side of his lips to quirk at the expression that said more about her than she likely even realized.
He nipped at her lips as he palmed her breasts, stroking the nipples, encouraging her to respond with renewed ardor as her hands began roaming over him as though she wanted to respond in kind but wasn’t sure how. She began to stroke her fingers over his muscles. He wanted to tell her to stop, that she shouldn’t be dirtying herself with the blood, gunpowder, and grime that covered him, but he wasn’t strong enough to do so.
She boldly pushed his torn shirt off of his shoulders, until they were both naked to the waist, her skin so pale and so soft against his, tanned from days on deck in the sun, hardened by battle.
He raised an eyebrow in surprise when her hands came to the waistband of his breeches, and she began unfastening him. He expected her to be shy, hesitant, but instead, she enthusiastically pushed the pants down until he sprang free.
“Oh my,” she breathed, and it was then he sensed the slightest bit of hesitancy as she touched him, but soon enough she had palmed him, and now it was his turn to groan at the sensations her inexperienced touch evoked.
He lifted her from the table, then practically tossed her on the bed. He might be a brute of the highest order, but at the very least, her first time would be on a bed instead of rutting on the middle of the table in his cabin.
Ramsay had nearly forgotten the soft cotton of his own sheets after sleeping in the hammock across the cabin for so long, and he quickly disposed of her ruined gown and chemise, leaving her bare before him. He looked her up and down, his breath catching at her beauty. For a moment, he had an urge to tell her to cover up, to leave this cabin and remove all temptation from him. He was not the man who should be taking her.
But she was a grown woman. This was her choice. And if she chose to join with him, then who was he to deny her?