The tension in my limbs loosened. The ice in my veins thawed, and the shreds of my reason disintegrated as I sank into his splendor. His addictive taste, his confident touch, his throaty sounds, his salt-water scent—all of it would forever reside among my best and worst memories.
I could’ve spent an eternity feeding on his lush lips. The seconds in which we fell into effortless passion would’ve required weeks with anyone else. Our bodies came together in a mutual grind. Hearts finding the same beat. Tongues sliding in sync. Breaths melding as one.
He broke the kiss.
I followed his glance to the side, watching as he flipped over the hourglass, initiated the trickle of sand, and slid a hand beneath the skirt of my shift.
With a single finger, he traced my thigh from knee to hip before sinking between my legs and tunneling directly into my soaked heat.
I ceased breathing, and my pulse ran away from me as erotic tingles swept through every inch of my body.
He slowly eased out and drew an unhurried circle around my entrance, once, twice, igniting spasms along my grasping, greedy muscles. Then he plunged that finger again, groaning when he felt how hot and tight and wet and needy I was. I might as well have been a virgin, given the way I responded to his intrusion. It’d been so damn long since I’d been touched.
This was dangerous. Insane. Unsound. And so very right.
I had years of regrets, but denying myself one last ride on his experienced hand would not be one of them.
And so it began. In and out, around and around, he fingered me with a skill of a libertine. I liquefied around every curling pull and moaned with every leaden thrust, sagging against the pillar of his torso as shivering bursts of pleasure wound me tighter, hotter.
I was slippery and unashamed, and he was the intoxicant, spinning me and drowning me with his mastery of my body. Relief was so close I could feel the shimmering, taunting edge of it.
At the centrum of the sensations was his mouth—his hot, treacherous mouth moving against mine in a languorous slide of damp flesh and heated breaths. He tasted like the ocean, deep and turbulent, liberating and comforting, familiar and sacred. There was a time when he’d represented all those things.
Sinuous pressure coursed through me, gathering around the stroke of his finger. But a peek at the sandglass filled me with dread. Such an insignificant amount of grains had passed through.
“By my estimate, that’s one minute down.” He crooked his finger inside me and dragged my lips back to his, panting hungrily. “Nine more to go.”
He didn’t need ten minutes to give me a release. He could do it in two. But outlasting the clock wasn’t my aim.
With his breaths crashing against my mouth and the impossibly long, swollen length of him pressing against my inner thigh, it was time. He was mindless enough, his guard effectively compromised as he closed his eyes and drove his finger deep into the drenched folds of my flesh.
My throat constricted as I put my lips at his ear and whispered, “Let this be a lesson in betrayal.”
“Wha—?”
I shoved his chest with all the strength in my arm and smashed the bottle of rum against the side of his head. Through a spray of liquor and glass, the world stood still as he stared at me in disbelief.
Then he slumped like a sack of grain. His back hit the mattress. His body went limp between my legs, and blood spurted from the jagged wound near his temple.
He was unconscious.
The rancid taste of grief flooded my mouth. My sinuses burned, and fire scorched the backs of my eyes. What kind of woman hurt the man she loved?
“I’m so sorry.” I lay my cheek on his chest and released a choking cry of relief and agony.
I cried for the marriage I’d bungled so miserably. For the man whose faithlessness had taught me a hard lesson in trust. And for the love I was letting go after so many years of holding on.
It was time to move past this. Time to find the compass, lock my demon in the bilge, and hold him captive until he was as finished with me as I was with him.
Wiping away tears, I stretched toward his face and kissed his slack lips. It hurt to do so.
It hurt to climb to my feet and not kiss him again.
It hurt to turn away and straighten my undergarments. But I did it.
I put him behind me, pulled in a deep breath, and shouted for my quartermaster.
“Strip him.” I cleared the nervous jitter from my voice and gave Reynolds my back, leaving him to deal with Priest’s unconscious body. “I want him naked and defenseless when we lock him in the hold.”
Where did I put my favorite shirt? Ah! There. I snatched it from the floor and pulled it on over my linen corset.
“Naked?” Reynolds asked behind me. “You sure, Captain?”
“Yes.”
Was I? Seeing Priest without his breeches wouldn’t exactly help me let go and move on. But I wanted his humility. I needed it.
“Nudity doesn’t affect my brother like normal folks.” He shifted, creaking the boards with the sway of the ship. “If anything, it gives him more confidence. Especially around you.”
“He hid my compass, Reynolds, and you’re going to search every crease and crevice, starting with the ones on his person.”
“He did what?”
As I updated him on Priest’s latest treachery, I exchanged my slip for a pair of trousers and laced on my knee-high boots.
Fully dressed, I turned to find Reynolds bent over the nude, unmoving form on my bed. “Tell me you found it.”
“Not the compass. But Captain… He was hiding something else.”
The caution in his tone drew me closer. When I reached his side, my mouth dried. My eyes grew hot, and I shook my head, unable to make sense of the ravaged body before me.
From hip to ankle, Priest’s flesh rippled and warped like melted leather. Dear God, his entire leg was unnaturally bubbled, hairless, scarred.
Burned.
He’d been burned so horrifically and completely on his left side it made my leg throb in sympathy.
“How?” I clutched my throat, recalling the flawless lines of his physique from two years ago. “When?”
“Not recently.” He rolled Priest onto his unmarred side and leaned down for a better look. “He’s fully healed.”
It was a wonder he’d survived the trauma. The burns all but swallowed his leg. He’d clearly lived through it, but at what cost? Had he endured the agonizing recovery alone?
I should have been there for him, taken care of him, for no rational reason I could name. He didn’t deserve my help or my sympathy.
“Put his breeches back on and tie his hands.” I couldn’t look at his ruined skin. Not because it made him less beautiful. But because his suffering made me feel like a failure, like a worthless, absent wife. “I’ll interrogate him once he’s secured in the bilge.”
Reynolds followed my order, restraining and heaving thirteen stones of listless muscle and menace over his shoulder.
I led him out the door and grabbed the first crew member I spotted—a rangy, malodorous, unwashed cabin boy.
“D’Arcy, assist Reynolds down to the hold.” I gave the stinky boy a shove, hurrying him along. “And call for the surgeon. I want Mr. Farrell’s head wound examined before the last bell of the dog watch.” My next order came with all the bark of my mother’s condescending voice. “Then you will find some clean clothes and a bucket to wash yourself.”