Ashley has turned herself over, onto her side, one hand on the deck. Slow tears leak down over her cheeks, and then, because hell is real and it goes with me always, she looks at me.
Her blue eyes meet mine and she doesn’t look away.
She does not need her lost voice.
Her eyes ask for me and my entire soul answers. Yes, I will come to you. Yes, I will take you from this place. Yes, I will fix what I’ve done. I can stitch together all the tattered ends and make them whole again.
Nicholas turns and follows her eyes. I don’t care to see what’s in his. It’s worse than hate. Sorrow and wary caution, as if I’m the damaged one, the broken one, and not the woman I whipped for the pain of it.
“Take her to the brig,” I tell him.
We do have a brig, a small one, because this ship is an echo of the past and men are unpredictable in the present. One cell is all I’ve needed in all my years at sea.
Ashley closes her eyes. Lays her head on her hand, there on the deck. She used the last of her strength to look at a nightmare.
Nicholas gets his arms under her and picks her up, keeping his back to me. He speaks to Cook in a hurried, low voice. Like the both of them are afraid of what I might order next.
I have no more orders to give.
A man can only have one great love, and mine is the sea.
I go to the bow of the ship and listen to wind over water and the screech of metal collapsing under manpower. I lose myself in the act of staying on board, of the act of keeping my head above water. The engines engage. They’re done with the other ship now, and we have contracts to meet. All reasons for me to stay where I belong.
I have only ever loved the sea. I will only ever love the sea. I just made sure of that.
I open the box in my pocket and pull out the pearl. It’s flawless, opalescent and precious, and I roll it between thumb and forefinger and think of taking it back where it belongs. To a depth no one else will ever reach.
The sea stirs.
I feel it reach for the ship and push, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The pearl goes back into the box. Back into my pocket. Hidden. Safe.
The shout comes off the starboard side. Behind me, there’s motion on deck, men shuffling themselves into a new formation. Guilt is a slow blade through my gut. I didn’t feel them coming because I was too busy writing hell on Ashley’s skin.
A ship trundles into the pool of light in the water.
A shadow on their bow hops up and waves something over his head. A cell phone. I pull mine out of my pocket. Running footsteps warn me of Nicholas’s approach. He takes it out of my hand and taps at the screen, cursing under his breath. I take it back. I don’t want it.
“We’re closed for business.”
The shadow laughs. “It’s only a trade between friends, Poseidon. We don’t want a fight. Just the girl. We didn’t think we’d find her again.
So her boyfriend’s murderers have been looking for her. So Joseph Donnelly offered a reward.
“No such person on board.”
“That’s not what her father says.” A pause. I back up from the railing. “Hand her over. We’ll split the reward with you.”
The other ship bobs in the water, its running lights blinking at us. Anger bristles on the scraped-raw inside of me. I gesture to Nicholas behind my back. I will shoot this man in the head, and then this game will be over.
Instead of handing me a rifle, Nicholas puts a hand on my shoulder.
I turn to let him see how badly he’s fucked up, and a light gleams in the corner of my eye.
Nicholas is stone-faced. Behind him, Jason is coming up the steps from below, two rifles slung over his back and one in his hands. My first mate makes the smallest possible gesture.
We’re surrounded.
The other ships pop into my consciousness as soon as he does it. Six of them, all around us, all jockeying for Ashley.
Her daddy doesn’t know what he’s done.
Ashley’s never going to speak to me again. She never will, and I shouldn’t care about that. So I’ll put off caring. Until I’m dead, if necessary.
“It’s an interesting proposition.” I’m buying time. A precious few seconds for the crew to pretend they’re oblivious. To stroll casually across the deck. To reach for weapons. “I’ll consider it.”
“Will you?” The dealer on the other end of the line sounds cautiously optimistic. His shadow hesitates, watching.
The water rolls beneath us, dark and waiting. The seconds stretch tight.
Let my crew be ready. Let Ashley be safe down below. Let the sea carry us.
Jason puts a rifle on the deck of the ship and shoves it toward me. It stops underneath my foot.
“Fuck no.” The shadow stiffens at the words. “She’s my hostage. If you want her, come and get her.”
Thank you so much for reading THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA! Poseidon and Ashley’s intense and emotional story continues in A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL. Poseidon’s ship is in peril, but there’s more at stake than their lives.
A man can only have one great love, and mine was the sea.
Until I pulled a half-drowned heiress out of the water. Until I kept her as mine. Until I hurt her to prove I didn’t love her.
Now we’re surrounded. Dangerous pirates want to use her for their own purposes. I won’t give her up that easy. I have a lifetime of treasure to protect. But with the ship going down, there’s only one thing I want to save. Her.
One-click A Deal with the Devil now!
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“Get up.”
Persephone’s eyes snap open at the sound of my voice, wide and terrified. The energy in a tight ball at the base of my gut bursts apart, all static and lightning and anger. She doesn’t know where she is, and now it’s dark. I can see her in the kind of stark detail that makes her panting fucking mouthwatering.
“Does get up mean keep lying there to you? Get up.”
She scrambles, but her arm is asleep or else I’ve scared her so badly she can’t move. “I’m trying.” Her cry reverberates off the glass statue on the top bookshelf. “I’m trying.”
“Get. Up.”
“Why?”
Her gasp blows apart the very last shred of my restraint. It’s been weakened by the drumbeat of my own heart in my ears, by the flames in the fields, and having to touch her sweet body and not fuck her for what seems like an eternity.
I haul her up from the seat by her clothes, the seams ripping in my hands. Straight into the air. Straight up until she’s level with my face, her lips opening and closing. “Because I need you,” I growl into her mouth, and then I kiss her.
Because I want to.
Because I’ve waited.
Because last night, when she turned over in my arms and flung herself into me and kissed me like that, it almost killed me.