No sooner had I thought that, then I felt Lucifer’s slick hand on my cock, pumping it smoothly as he shoved himself inside.
“More, please, I’m about to…” I gasped, feeling myself tense around him.
He nodded, looking me in the eyes with that intense ice blue stare. I made a broken whining sound, high and needy, and orgasmed, closing my eyes with the force of it. Lucifer plunged deep into me and filled me, moaning softly as he did so.
Blearily, I opened my eyes again, leaned up and captured his lips in a soft but sloppy kiss, trying to thank him for what he’d given me.
He kissed me back, then gently unwound my arms and legs from around him and pulled out. Both of us sighed a little as the connection was broken. Then he cleaned me with a damp cloth, extinguished the lantern and climbed into bed beside me.
I wrapped my arms around him, rested my cheek on his shoulder and fell asleep almost immediately.
Chapter 9
In which there is some truly awful pillow talk
I woke up before Lucifer did, which meant I got that magical soft moment of watching him.
In truth, it wasn’t a moment I often enjoyed. I usually didn’t wish to linger with my lovers, the morning conversation was often annoying or needy. I didn’t wish to be needed.
Except, perhaps, by Oliver? Well, that’s out of the question for the moment, isn’t it. Besides, it feels wrong to think of him now.
Lucifer’s body was warm beside mine, his chest gently rising and falling as he slept. I let myself take in the pale gold of his skin, the way the pink blush of his cheeks highlighted the sharpness of his cheekbones. I longed to try and recreate the colour with oils. Portrait of the pirate in repose.
I let my eyes drop over the jaw, shadowed and in need of a shave to the planes of his chest, soft lines accentuating hard muscles.
I didn’t dare touch him - it might wake him up and then my moment of quiet observation would be done. I wasn’t quite ready for that.
His shoulders were broad and brawny, making me feel rather inadequate, my own soft shoulders and arms would never hold their own against him. I imagined him overpowering me and felt a flush of warmth straight down to my crotch. Oh yes, any time.
The sheet, which was a surprisingly fine linen, was draped across his hip, covering his cock as if arranged by Michelangelo himself. I licked my lips. Perhaps I could wake him with my mouth?
Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I had to touch him. Gently as I could, I closed my fingers on the sheet and drew it down and off his hip, revealing the thatch of honey blond hair and that glorious cock, resting heavy and full with the morning.
I moved onto my knees as slowly as possible, but in an instant Lucifer woke. He must have had a knife hidden on the side of the bed because with a swift movement I could barely follow he had a blade to my throat.
“Don’t move,” he growled, his voice rasping with sleep.
This eventuality did little to allay the arousal I was feeling and in fact, rather ignited it. Danger was always the most fun.
“Whatever you say,” I said, allowing my eyes to close with bliss as my Adam’s apple brushed against the sharpness of the blade with my words.
The blade was almost instantly gone from my throat. Somewhat disappointed, I opened my eyes once more. Lucifer had pushed his body up into a sitting position, the blade held loosely in his hand. The sheet fell to the side, leaving him resplendent in the little morning light that filtered through the leaded windows.
“Cedric,” he said, as if he’d forgotten who I was or what I was doing there.
“Yes, good morning, lover,” I said, giving him one of my more charming smiles.
Lucifer visibly blanched, his eyes widening with something like horror. “No, you can’t say that.” He glanced down at his state of undress, and then mine and groaned, but not in the way I’d hoped to have him groaning. He hurriedly pulled the sheet over himself like a surprised maiden.
“Really, no need to be so shy,” I said, sitting back on my heels. “I saw it all last night, and my rear still feels the lingering after effects of the pounding you gave it. I’d rather hoped for another round, actually.”
Lucifer shook his head. “This was a mistake, and it cannot happen again, if I were to form any sort of-” He cut off his own sentence, which left me wondering. Had he been about to say attachment?
I didn’t want any sort of attachment, did I? No, of course not. Unless…? No.
I pushed a hand through the curls that had fallen onto my forehead and sighed.
“Don’t be like that again, I’ve told you I don’t want to marry you or anything like that, it’s just good fun while you’ve got me as a hostage.”
He shook his hand. “Last night can’t be taken back, but I can behave as a gentleman from now on.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re a pirate, you don’t need to be a bloody gentleman.”
He looked away and got up, out of bed, holding the sheet in front of him. It was rather ridiculous. He had the blade clutched in one fist and the other twisting the sheet and maintaining his modesty.
“There’s the ethics of the thing,” he mumbled, putting the knife down and reaching for a pair of trousers.
Ethics again. This is getting positively tiresome.
I turned away from him, giving him his precious privacy, and folded my arms. “Fine, I’ll just… I’ll just become very well acquainted with my right hand for the rest of this blasted captivity, shall I? Would that please you?”
I heard him snort delicately behind me. Then the sound of fabric over legs, his trousers being settled into place on his hips, I could just about see it in my mind’s eye. But I wouldn’t turn and give him the satisfaction.
“No, I don’t want to think about that at all, thank you very much. I had rather thought I was doing you a favour, keeping you from the rest of the crew, but now perhaps -”
His sentence cut off abruptly.
“That’s not the first time you’ve stopped talking mid-sentence,” I huffed. “It’s hardly gentlemanly, if you must know.”
He didn’t reply, which was strange, so I deigned to turn my head and looked at him over my shoulder.
His expression, which had been one of mild panic previously, was now something more like aghast. His eyes had widened and his eyebrows shot up.
“What is it?” I asked, now feeling suddenly self conscious, as if he were repulsed by my body somehow. I fought the urge to grab something to cover myself with. Ridiculous.
“I didn’t notice your tattoo last night,” he said, quickly looking away.
“Tattoo? I don’t have a tattoo,” I said. “I might be wayward, but I’m not reckless. If I had a tattoo and my father found out he’d disown me.”
“Uh, yes, you do have a tattoo,” Lucifer said. “It’s gigantic, on your back.”
My blood went cold. I had felt that strange discomfort on my back when I’d woken up a few days ago…
“I don’t have a tattoo,” I said, although my tone was a lot less certain. “How could I have got a tattoo without knowing about it? That’s preposterous.”
“It’s here.”
To my surprise, Lucifer moved closer behind me, knelt on the bed and placed a finger on my shoulder blade. This had been what I wanted, him to touch me, but now there was little pleasure in it. His finger traced a line down and across my spine, up to my other shoulder blade and then down, sketching some huge design over my back and down to my waist. Impossibly huge.
“What? I can’t possibly have a tattoo that large, what does it depict? What does it look like?”
He dropped his hand down and swallowed. “I’m not sure, it’s strange, made of black lines that swirl and… perhaps it’s a dragon? I don’t… It gives me a peculiar feeling.”
I turned to look at him, absolutely perplexed. “I don’t understand.”
“You really didn’t know you had a tattoo?” Lucifer tilted his head to the side, peering into my eyes. I met his gaze and
shook my head.
“Of course I didn’t. I’m a gentleman, we don’t get tattoos unless we serve in the Navy and even then, they’d be very small indeed.” My back had been sore after the night at the club, that had to be the explanation. I swallowed, smiled a smile I didn’t feel and tried to respond brightly. “I expect it’s some kind of stupid prank the Hellfire club pulled on me.”
His eyes widened again. Damn, they’re quite green this morning, fresh Spring growth on an oak tree.
“Yes, the Hellfire Club, you were there a few nights ago. Fuck.” He got up off the bed and strode to the door.
“How did you know that?”
“I tried to find you there, but they wouldn’t let me in…” He opened the door, then looked back at me. “Stay there, put some clothes on your lower half. I’m getting Dante.”
“You tried to find me there? What?”
He locked the door behind him. He’d left his knife on the little shelf beside the bed, but there didn’t seem to be much point in my trying to arm myself with it. Lucifer could easily overpower me and Dante could probably do the same with little trouble. Besides I was on their ship, and didn’t particularly want to get away…
I found my trousers and pulled them on.
Chapter 10
In which a tattoo is examined
Lucifer was gone long enough that I got bored and went looking through his cabin for a mirror. His face was always clean shaven, he must have a mirror somewhere about the place. I found it in the corner, in a box with a shaving kit that I recognised as being from a gentleman’s clothiers in London. One of the ones I had frequented, in fact, while I’d been living there.
But they’d never serve a pirate… probably he had stolen it from someone else.
I’d investigate it more fully on another day, but for now I was too curious about this purported tattoo on my back.
Holding the mirror in my hand, I tried to angle it over my shoulder, but turning my head and getting the mirror so that it would reflect my back was blasted difficult. Finally, I managed to catch the sight of an unfamiliar black swirl on my shoulder, which was enough of a shock for me to drop the damn mirror, which promptly slid under the bed. I was down on my hands and knees, reaching my arm under to get it back when the door opened and Lucifer and Dante walked back in.
I considered abandoning my quest for the looking glass in order to face them, but decided they’d be quite happy to enjoy the view of my arse in the air, so I took my time retrieving it.
Finally I emerged, turned and gave them both a toothy smile. “Hello lads.”
Dante, who was pale at the best of times, had gone positively ghostly.
“Did you say the Hellfire club?” Dante said, in his curiously low register.
“Yes,” I said, standing up. “After months of being obvious, dropping hints and parties and generally making a nuisance of myself, I finally got an invite, and they do this! An absolute outrage, is what it is.”
“Turn around,” Lucifer said, in that no-nonsense tone that made my knees go weak and wobbly. I turned. They both moved closer to me and I closed my eyes, imagining two pairs of hands on my body, two mouths on my skin, two…
“I believe I know what this symbol means,” Dante said. “And it is not good news, at all. Captain, perhaps we could have a word separately?”
“No, I want to know,” I said, turning back around. “It’s my skin, isn’t it? If it means anything at all, I should definitely be included in the conversation.”
Lucifer and Dante exchanged a look, turned on their heels and left the room, closing the door behind them. Indignantly, I made to follow them but I was too slow, and as my hand closed on the doorknob I heard the turn of the key in the lock.
I kicked the door and then regretted it immediately, as I hadn’t put any sort of footwear on and stubbed my toe rather painfully.
Feeling ignored and mistreated, I crumpled to the ground to nurse my sore toe.
I leaned against the door and silently bemoaned my pathetic state.
“...centuries ago,” Dante said, his voice somewhat hushed, but clear enough. They’d stopped outside the door to talk and miraculously I was near enough to the door to overhear them.
“But what does it mean?” which was exactly the question I had about it as well
“Nothing good,” Dante said, darkly.
“Dante, for the love of … just answer plainly will you? The boy didn’t even know he had it. Clearly something untoward is going on here, and now it’s on my ship.”
There was a sigh and then a silence, and then Dante spoke again. “When I saw it last it was associated with a dangerous and bizarre religious order. A cult, really. Bad people, Gabriel, people who didn’t care who they hurt to get what they wanted.”
A cult? The Hellfire Club wasn’t a cult, it was just a bunch of people having some fun.
Wasn’t it?
“And what do they want? Or, what did they want then?”
Dante lowered his voice and I couldn’t make out the words, it was a gravelly rumble of something. I pressed my ear closer against the door but I couldn’t hear him.
“And you’re saying now Cedric’s involved?”
“It would seem so.”
“And they’re going to try and get him back?”
“I’d wager so.”
Get me back? Wait, that meant someone was still trying to kidnap me, even though I’d already been kidnapped?
Hadn’t someone said there were a lot of people after me, back in Kingston?
I shook my head and huffed out my breath. I wanted to stay on this ship, with Captain Lucifer, especially now that I’d felt his dick inside me. Urgh, I just want it again.
I heard the sound of the key in the door and quickly scooted back from the door, not wanting to be hit by it.
Captain Lucifer strode in and looked down on me, confusion quickly turned into consternation on his fine features.
“What were you… were you eavesdropping?”
I scrambled to my feet, incensed now. “Yes, because whatever it is that you’re discussing does rather concern me, doesn’t it? It’s my skin on the line from this cult or whatever you said it was.”
Dante walked in behind the captain and my mind processed a few more things I’d overheard.
“And what was this about you having met the awful people before? And why did you say centuries? And while I’m at it, who is Gabriel?”
“No, I won’t put up with this.” Lucifer turned and strode out the door again.
Dante lingered for the length of a breath. He gazed at me with an inscrutable look, part fear perhaps? Then he shook his head - resembling a doctor giving some terrible news to a patient with consumption.
My heart was already racing from confusion and fear, and now, with that look my fear escalated to mild panic.
“Wait, Dante, what does it mean? Please!” I tried to step towards him but he hurried out of the room as if I were cursed.
The door locked behind them and I was once again alone.
“Am I actually cursed?” I asked the empty cabin.
Chapter 11
In which Cedric considers
The bastards were gone for two hours.
I have a mystery tattoo on my back, and Dante saw it and was horrified and no one is telling me what it is or what it means.
I’m locked in the cabin of a pirate ship and they’re afraid of me?
I paced the cabin.
I tried to look at my back in the mirror again, but I pulled something in my shoulder and had to stretch it out.
Everything had been going so well. I’d been kidnapped by sexy pirates and now they were what? Afraid of me? Ready to get rid of me? At any rate they were very much not telling me what was going on.
I sprawled on the bed and sighed, wondering what the future held for me. I was relatively sure they wouldn’t just toss me overboard or run me through, Lucifer had mentioned the ransom money plenty of times after all. He wanted to be paid.
My skin, scarred as it was, was still valuable for that, at least.
My fingers twitched, aching for some outlet. Wishing for a paintbrush and colours, or for someone’s body to play with.
I was part way through my twentieth, or perhaps thirtieth heartfelt sigh when the door opened and in walked Captain Lucifer and Dante.
I sat up on the bed, feeling my annoyance rise up within me again. My hands formed fists and I shook my head, feeling my curls fly about my forehead.
“Well, what’s going on? Are you going to tell me anything at all?”
Lucifer strode over to me, his expression thunderous. He stopped a foot from the bed, his eyes blazing. “Don’t you ever speak to me like that again, boy.”
My anger flared into arousal. Captain Lucifer was absolutely gorgeous and the aura of command he had about him was intoxicating.
I swallowed, but didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I feared suddenly that if I angered him further it wouldn’t go well for me.
His angry aura eased a little and his shoulders relaxed.
“We have decided on a course of action,” he said finally. Dante moved through the room, getting closer to the bed. He had an aura all his own, and it was no less frightening - or less attractive.
I swallowed again, my mouth was quite dry. “Yes?”
“We will return you to your family as soon as possible. We’re not so far away from Jamaica, we could bring you back to your townhouse in Kingston.”
My blood went cold. “But, what is the tattoo? Dante, you said you recognised it, and there was something about a cult?”
“The cult who worship one of the old ones, one of the monsters from-” Dante said, his voice rich as chocolate and even more bitter.
“That’s enough!” Lucifer snapped.
My heart sped up and I heard the blood pounding in my ears. “Monsters? What does he mean?”
Lucifer shot Dante a quelling look but he stood up straight. “I think the boy has a right to know what he’s become entangled in.”
Kidnapped by the Gentleman Page 5