14
Ashley
Something very soft hits me in the face.
I’m so tired that I consider ignoring it completely. Last night, Poseidon pulled me out of bed and threw me over the side of the ship. I’m proud I didn’t scream on the way down and only breathed in a little ocean water before I got myself back to the surface. It was choppier last night, less predictable, almost like he increased the difficulty of the sea to test me.
Who knows? Maybe he did.
The soft thing is completely over my face, making it hard to breathe.
I roll over onto my back and lift it away. A sun dress with an ombré pattern, white running down to blush-pink. Poseidon stands at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, sea-green eyes impatient.
“Where did you get this?”
He quirks his lips. “Would you believe me if I told you Amazon Prime delivers to the ocean?”
I sit up and bury my face in the dress. Compared to the linen and canvas I’ve been wearing it feels like the clothing of angels. Jesus, I took all my nice things for granted. For so long. The shame of this makes my face heat. Lucky for me, it’s hidden behind a cute, soft sundress. “No, seriously. Where can I get more of this?”
“Get dressed, princess. Let’s go shopping.”
I lift my head from God’s own perfection in a mass-produced dress and stare at him. “Say that again.”
“I’m leaving the ship in ten minutes. Be on the deck, or no shopping.” Poseidon gives me a pointed look and leaves.
The mad sprint to and through the bathroom takes less than five minutes. I have nothing but the comb, so it’s fast. The sundress hits at the ankle in a delicious flow of fabric. Given my complete lack of underwear, I’m surprised he didn’t choose a shorter dress. Then again, it doesn’t get much more embarrassing than not being able to swim in front of a pirate.
Poseidon waits on the deck, and when he sees me, light flashes through his eyes like a secret in dark water—gone in a twist of silver. A glance down my front confirms that he can in fact see the shadows of my nipples through the white top of the dress.
“I hope we’re not swimming there. Otherwise, I’m going to be putting on a show for the cashier.”
“You’re already putting on a show,” he says as I meet him at the railing of the ship. “Don’t fall in, and you should be fine.”
“Fine?”
“Dry, at least.”
We climb down the side of the ship and into a dinghy tied to the ladder. Poseidon sets us free and aims us over shallow turquoise water toward land.
Toward close land.
At the sight of it, tears come to my eyes. This isn’t home, but it is a place where I can get my legs under me again. I brush the tears away before he can see. Poseidon brings us up alongside a narrow dock and loops the lines onto the dock cleats. He sticks a hand down to help me out and lifts me onto the dock. I touch one single step on the way up.
“Oh, it feels so good to be—”
I don’t finish the sentence because I’m falling. The dock tilts to the side, taking my balance with it. Poseidon stops my inevitable headfirst crash into the dinghy with one big hand and an enormous laugh. The heat of his palm through my dress shouldn’t matter. He touches me all the time. Instead of doing nothing, his touch brings me back to the bed and the ball and the chain and the pull of it on my ankle while he fucked me with thick fingers and drowned me in his eyes.
“Don’t tell lies.” Poseidon puts both hands around my waist and centers me in the middle of the dock. Unsteady wood rocks beneath my feet like the deck of the ship. “Being on land is a curse.”
“We’re not on land yet.”
“Close enough.” He circles my wrist with two fingers and presses his thumb into a spot below my palm, his other hand on the small of my back like he’s going to escort me to a ball. “It goes away faster if you keep your head up and walk.”
So I lock my eyes on the small town springing up from a hillside in front of us. It looks old. Plaster buildings in different colors wind around a center street. A stone fort presses itself to the blue sky at the top of the hill. People move back and forth in the street. Their voices come to us on the breeze. I could be arriving at a destination vacation, it’s so vibrant and beautiful. Only I wouldn’t be land-sick—is that what this is called? Land-sickness?—on a destination vacation.
And there wouldn’t be skeletons.
Hanging bones make me stop dead at the end of the dock, one step away from earth. How did I not see them before? Cages, hanging from the wall of the fort. Bones inside, bleached white from the sun. Poseidon follows my gaze and tugs on my waist to get me to take another step.
“It’s an old pirate town. Those are warnings.”
I swallow against a newly dry mouth. “Pirates built the town?”
“Pirates were frequent visitors.”
“And they still are.”
A grin as sharp as a slash flickers across his face, leaving traces of amusement in his eyes. “Less frequent now. But a reminder of the consequences for stealing never goes out of style.”
We move off a narrow beach and onto a cobblestone pathway that widens into the center street of the town. Poseidon lets go of my wrist, and I don’t fall. My balance is back. The feel of the earth under bare feet gives me a rush of courage.
Almost as soon as I feel it, his hand is back on my wrist. I follow his tight grip up his arm to his eyes, which have gone dark, like the ocean at night.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I wasn’t thinking about anything.”
“You know I would catch you.”
I do know this. He’s not any less fast or strong on land. I take a step toward him so there’s no tension between us—so he’s not holding me in place. I’m not poised to run.
He holds on for several heartbeats longer—heartbeats that get faster with every thud. I’m not sure it’s about running, that wild energy. Or the skeletons. It’s my own body working against me. Or with him. I don’t know.
Poseidon takes his hand away, but doesn’t give me any more space. “Clothes first.”
A shop midway down the first block turns out to be a low-ceilinged boutique with a blue plaster front and an interior that reminds me, weirdly, of Poseidon’s quarters on his ship. The knotted wood here is a backdrop for dresses and tunics and a shelf full of the softest black leggings I’ve ever felt. I can’t stop touching them. Can’t stop running my hands over the fabrics and tugging the dresses to hear the way the hangers click against the racks. It slows my heart rate. Releases my mind from a pressure I didn’t know was there. It’s some time before I become aware of the voices.
Poseidon speaks with the shop owner in Spanish. She’s tall and beautiful, and when I finally surface from my shopping haze, embarrassed to be so taken with this thing he’s doing, I see for the first time that she doesn’t seem afraid of him.
It’s like they know each other. Or have met before. I pull out a dress from a rack, a light, floaty thing that reminds me of the sundress I’m wearing, and try to ignore the strange jealousy burrowing at the base of my throat. It makes a certain kind of sense. I should be jealous of her. I’m a pirate’s captive, and she owns her own store.