Sleep would not come. She lay on her bed in her ugly brown dress, staring into the sweltering darkness and holding back tears. Weeping would not help. It would only prove that she was as foolish as any other woman.
But she was not like any other woman. She was Violet la Vile, captain of her own ship and fifty men wholly devoted to her, privateer for the state of Massachusetts, and strong and clever enough to manage this as she had managed any number of scrapes, mishaps, and setbacks in her years on the sea. The woman who had sunk the legendary Cavalier would not crumple into a ball and cry herself silly simply because the man she had loved for a decade and intended to marry had kissed another woman-a modestly eligible maiden-in full view of anybody, including her. She would rather die.
But it hurt, and she hated that it hurt. In one instant, her future had changed, but her past had changed as well. All those times he promised her marriage, had he never intended to honor those promises? Had she been the greatest fool alive after so many years to believe he ever would? Worse yet, had her father known this all along? Had he given Aidan the money that allowed him to leave the ship so that Viola would not continue to hope on girlhood dreams?
She stared dry-eyed into the darkness, chest and throat tight, containing the sobs. When she heard the shouts, she thought they were in her imagination. But they came closer, more strident.
She darted from the bed to the window. In the distance, not more than a league away, a cane field was lit up bright red, smoke billowing into the midnight sky.
Throwing her sash across her shoulder and shoving her feet into her slippers, she bolted out the door and down to the veranda.
Pandemonium reigned. Men ran in every direction, dragging a pair of oxen, a mule, yelling to one another, Seamus and Aidan’s voices shouting orders above it all. A donkey brayed, the air thick with a sweet smokey odor.
Aidan came toward her and grasped her hands.
“Violet, you must go inside and tell Mr. and Mrs.- Ah.” His gaze shifted over her shoulder. “There they are. Thank you, Seton.”
Viola turned and met Jin’s gaze. Miss Hat’s ghostlike hands clutched his arm as he drew her onto the drive, her parents before them garbed in nightclothes like their daughter.
“What is happening, Mr. Castle?” Mrs. Hat demanded. “Are we in danger of being overtaken by fire here?”
Aidan shook his head. “Not at all, ma’am. I assure you, my men are doing all that is required to contain the flames. Often we burn the stalk tops in the field in order to expedite the harvest. We are accustomed to this.”
“The entire stalks are burning, Castle, and your men’s alarm is clear,” Seton said evenly, releasing the girl into her mother’s keeping and moving toward Aidan. “Who would have reason to have set this fire?”
“Those damned laborers, trying to threaten you into further privileges.” Seamus swung over to them. “That’s who’s done it. My cousin’s fool notions have gone and burned down all we’ve accomplished here.”
“It is only one field.” Aidan raked his hand through his hair. “The men are watering the ditches. It will not spread.”
“Every word that trips from your tongue may be gold to our family in England, Aidan, but here you’re wrong.” Seamus spat the words, his cheeks crimson. “If you used slaves like everyone else, this would not have happened.”
“I will not use forced labor when there are men willing to do the work for wages. I will not.” He spoke as though something were trapped in his throat.
Seamus swept his hand toward the burning field, the brays of the animals and shouts of men all about in the sweltering night air, sticky, acrid smoke clouding all. “You can see they are willing, can’t you?”
Jin’s attention shifted behind Viola and he moved past her. She turned. Little Billy ran toward them from the direction of the outbuildings, Matouba’s barrel shape trotting in his wake.
“We seen them, Cap’n.” Billy’s eyes on Jin were eager. “We seen them light it, then run.”
“Where have they gone?”
“Headed up the road,” Matouba intoned.
“North? Toward the port?”
“Yessir, Cap’n.”
“What are those men saying?” Aidan was stripping off his coat, his gaze shifting from the flames licking closer to the yucca trees between the field and the garden.
Viola touched Matouba’s sleeve. “Why would Mr. Castle’s hired laborers have run to the port? If they set the fire, why wouldn’t they remain here and pretend innocence?”
“ ’Cause they ain’t the hired laborers, ma’am.”
“What do you mean they aren’t the laborers?” Seamus spat.
“Them’s sailors, sir,” Billy said. “Talking Dutch, they was, just like them boys loading that sloop earlier today at the dock.”
“Good God.” Aidan’s face blanched. “Perrault.”
Viola shook her head. “Isn’t that your neighbor?”
“Goddamn, Aidan!” Seamus swore. “See what I’ve told you? You there!” he shouted to a pair of men running toward the burning field. “Soak the heap rows. Those sparks mustn’t reach the house.” He ran off.
Jin moved toward the house. “Have you the horses?”
“Yessir,” Billy piped. “At the road.”
Viola called after him. “Where are you going? Why does Billy have horses? If we have a horse we might be able to-” Smoke clogged her throat. “What are you doing?”
“Collecting my effects,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Good God, we’ve got to get this under control.” Aidan’s voice shook. He turned to her. “Violet, I must ask you to look after Miss Hat and her parents. They are unfamiliar with this sort of trouble and I do not wish them to panic. That would only make matters more difficult for me.”
“Aidan, why do you believe your neighbor has a hand in this?”
“Violet-”
“Tell me.”
“The native Curaçaons of these islands speak Dutch. Perrault is the only planter in this region who uses their services, trade sometimes. If these men say that Dutch speakers set the blaze, they could be Curaçaons in his pay.”
“Why would he want to do that? Does he dislike you?”
“My dear, this is not important now. I must ask you to take the Hats inside and calm them. Do this for me, please.”
Viola looked into his pleading hazel eyes and her heart thudded dully.
“I am going to the port. Matouba and Billy believe these men headed there. The sloop we saw earlier anchored in the harbor could be theirs. If the April Storm can stop them from escaping and I can bring you proof of your neighbor’s crime, you will be glad for it.”
“No, Violet. That is no business of yours. Leave it to those men and help me here instead. Miss Hat is a fragile thing, innocent and so young. She needs your comfort.”
She pulled free, sobs gathering in her throat that she swallowed back.
“I’m sorry, Aidan. They must get along without me.” She pivoted and strode toward the house. As she reached the veranda, Jin came out, buckling a belt slung with pistol and cutlass about his hips. His gaze flashed over her gown.
“Aren’t you coming?”
Her battered heart climbed into her throat. “I’m coming.”
“There is no time for you to change.” He passed her and headed for the drive. “Can you ride astride in that?”
She sucked in acrid air. “Of course.” She ran down the drive after him.
The arsonists had not counted on being followed. As Viola flung herself from the horse she shared with Billy, her skirt in tatters she’d torn in order to ride effectively, voices came to her across the docks. They were laughing, their movements relaxed and unhurried, as though satisfied with work well done. And they were speaking Dutch. She moved forward.
Jin grabbed her wrist, staying her in the shadows of the building.
“But-”
“Billy,” he whispered, releasing her. “Run to the tavern. Get the men. Then get to the April as quickly and quietly as you can.”
“Yessir.” The boy ran off.
“Good thing we ain’t at anchor.” Matouba barely stirred air with his deep tone. “But there ain’t a lick o’ wind tonight.”
“We’ll prime the guns,” Viola whispered, “then we will threaten them. If they don’t surrender, we will fire upon them from the dock if we must.”
“Get ourselves thrown in jail, shootin’ from the wharf,” Matouba muttered dolefully.
“It wouldn’t be the first time for you boys.” Her blood ran with nerves and pure energy. She glanced up at Jin and her insides tangled. A half smile quirked his mouth. His gaze remained on the sailors at the small vessel getting ready to make way in the middle of the night like thieves. Or like arsonists not worried about being discovered.
But the Curaçaons readied for putting to sea more quickly than they expected. Lit by several lanterns, the little vessel’s deck was perfectly visible to them across the docks. By the time she, Jin, and Matouba had made their way through the shadows to her ship, then silently aboard, the Curaçaons were already pushing away from the opposite dock.
“No,” she whispered, running down the stairs to the powder magazine, her shredded skirts flapping around her thighs. “They won’t get away. I won’t allow it.”
Becoua rushed down behind her. “Evening, Cap’n,” he whispered, then another dozen of her crew, scurrying across the decks in the light of the half moon, working swiftly to prepare the cannons. But they stank of rum and swayed as they slid the iron balls into the guns’ muzzles and fixed the fuses. Drunk. On furlough, drunk, yet they had come.
She scaled the companionway to the main deck again. Below her, a gunwale creaked as a sailor slid it open too swiftly. The sound ricocheted across the harbor.
All went perfectly still atop the sloop thirty yards away. A shout in Dutch carried over the black water. Then movement, and more shouting.
“Orders, Captain?” Jin said at her shoulder.
Viola’s pulse raced. She must do this. She must show Aidan what she was capable of. She might not be a fine lady whose hand he would kiss, but she possessed her own talents. She could not fail in this. “Do you speak Dutch?”
“I believe we have already passed the moment for that.”
The crack of cannon fire, the fast hiss of shot, and a yardarm on the April’s mainmast erupted in sparks and smoke.
Her ship came alive. Jin shouted orders, the men ran to stations. Cannon blasts split the thick night with smoke and more heat. Flames leaped and were swiftly doused on both ships, sailors cussed, and the April Storm’s guns blazed again and again, the sloop’s smaller battery echoing.
But within minutes Viola knew it was already too late. The sloop’s sweeps cut the black water fast as dolphin fins, getting her under way swiftly as only a small vessel could without the wind to assist. She headed straight toward sea. Cannon shot flew, canvas on the April’s deck caught fire and plummeted, tumbling down the stairs to the gun deck in a flurry of sparks.
Alarm bells across the main street split through the pounding blasts. The port officials were awake.
Soon enough, Viola could do nothing. Moving out of range of even her long nines, the sloop sent off a final round of shot into the water between them.
“The men are ready at the oars,” Jin said calmly beside her. “Insufficient numbers to make any speed and man the guns at once. But do you wish us to make pursuit?”
Viola clutched the rail, the sloop’s lanterns fading into the dark. “Damn it.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“No!” She swung around to him, heartbeat pounding. “Of course not. We could never catch them. What do you think I am, an imbecile?” She pivoted to scan the deck strewn with debris, pocked in places by shot and burn marks. “Damn it.”
“She is not badly hit. The men will clean her up within a day.”
She knew this. The sloop had not tried to do damage, only to distract while they rowed away. At the mouth of the harbor the faintest flicker of white told her the Curaçaons had found wind and were hoisting sail. The arsonists had escaped.
Commotion sounded at the gangplank. A man wearing a hastily donned coat and a gray wig askew, his shoes unbuckled, clambered onto deck flanked by two soldiers uniformed in red with muskets at their shoulders.
“Where is the master of this vessel?” the bewigged man clipped with the persnickety officiousness only an English port official could manage under present circumstances.
Viola went forward, stomach tight, schooling her voice.
“I am her master. What can I do for you, sir?”
“You?” He took in her tattered skirts, then looked over her shoulder. “Is this the truth?”
“This is Violet Daly, sir, master of the April Storm out of Boston,” Jin said smoothly, his English accent particularly pronounced.
“Does she know she has won herself a fine of one hundred and fifty pounds firing within the limits of the harbor?”
“I would not be surprised if she suspected as much.”
“Bloody hell, man. Does she think she can blast away in the middle of the night without attracting anyone’s notice?” He swept his arm toward the clusters of people gathered across the street. “She’s woken up the entire town! Frightened my wife clear out of her nightcap.”
“Miss Daly had reason to fire.”
The port master finally turned his attention on her. “It had better be a dashed good reason, young lady.”
Viola’s belly twisted. No man spoke to her as though she were a little girl, especially not in the wake of the second greatest heartbreak of her life. No man.
“A sloop full of Curaçaon arsonists has escaped your port.” She controlled her tone with effort. “Not two hours ago they set fire to Aidan Castle’s fields. We chased them here and attempted to waylay them despite the dead wind.”
His eyes were wide. “Arsonists? And after all that firing you failed to catch them?”
She pinched her lips. “No doubt if we’d had you aboard to man the guns we would not have, sir. I am terribly sorry you arrived late.”
The port officer blustered. “Now see here, young la-”
Jin stepped forward. “I suspect you are eager to return to bed, sir. Perhaps we could postpone this discussion until morning. I am certain Miss Daly will be happy to oblige.”
“Stay out of this, Seton.”
“At least someone aboard this ship is speaking sense,” the port official clipped. He poked a forefinger toward her. “I will expect you at my office by nine o’clock, miss. And if I hear you have absconded during the night, I will not hesitate to send out a vessel after you to collect that fine and have you imprisoned.”
She clamped down on the retort that rose to her lips and nodded. With another skeptical pass of his gaze over her garments and a shake of his head, the port officer turned and strode from the deck, the soldiers in his wake.
She rounded on Jin. “What do you think you’re doing, speaking for me?”
“Assisting you.”
“I didn’t need your assistance.”
The half moon glittered in his eyes. “Humbly, I beg to differ.”
“There’s nothing humble about you, you arrogant-”
“Perhaps you would rather continue this discussion in the morning as well.”
“Damn it. One hundred and fifty pounds.” She hadn’t fifty pounds aboard ship let alone thrice that. She headed for the stairs to the gun deck, to refuge in her cabin, the one place that belonged to her, where no man could insist she do as he bid.
The fallen sail blocked the steps.
“Get this out of my way,” she shouted to the nearest sailors. They bent to it, but slowly, weary from the battle or too much drink. Her gaze traveled around. The lot of them stood glassy-eyed and slump-shouldered. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew they were as disappointed in the failure as she. But it was more than that. Becoua’s dark eyes looked so soft gazing upon her, almost…
It could not be pity. She would not stand for it to be pity.
“No.” She swept her hand across her vision. “No! Just go. Get out of here, off this ship until I tell you to return.” Her hands shook. She was exhausted from the ride on the horse, the emotions, the entire day filled with far too many feelings. Her lungs ached and she wanted to be alone. She must be alone. “All of you, go!” She pivoted to Seton. “Except you.”
She could not throw him off the ship. She still had one day. She might yet win the wager. She had no idea how. He was immovable. He would not be won over by her seduction or frustrated by her incivility. He would not be moved by her at all.
He was watching her now with his unreadable blue eyes, standing perfectly still while her men filed from the ship in cowed silence. Little Billy came last and she stopped him.
“Why did you bring horses to Mr. Castle’s farm, Billy? Why were you and Matouba there tonight at all?”
He shrugged. “Cap’n bade us, ma’am.” His footsteps descended down the gangplank. She sucked in the night air, trying to breathe, the sensations streaming inside her alien, like panic but deeper and cold.
This was wrong. She should be hot with anger and betrayal, she knew, filled with the heat of fury. This was worse. She had felt it only once before, months after Fionn stole her away from England, the day she finally understood that he would not take her back home, no matter how she pleaded.
She moved again to the companionway. The main topsail had fallen, twisted in its lines and far too heavy for a lone soul to move. She grabbed at its bulk anyway, pulling and tripping over the scalded ropes and her ripped hem.
“Viola, let it be. Or allow me to call some of the men back to move it before you injure yourself.” His voice cajoled. More pity, from the most unlikely source.
The cold dug deeper.
“Damn and damn!” She cut her arm through the air as though she held a cutlass and could slash at the ruined canvas. “Damn! Give me your sword.” She flattened out her palm.
“You don’t need a sword, and you don’t want to cuss like that.”
She whirled on him. “You have no idea what I want.”
“I do.” His eyes said a great deal more. He had seen them in the garden. He had seen her cry. He understood. His face cast in moonlight was a portrait of sheer male beauty and unwavering certainty.
Viola’s heart thudded in her constricted chest. She wanted the hurt to go away and she wanted him. Him. Not Aidan. She wanted Jin Seton so much she could taste it.
“You don’t know anything. You can’t.” She hadn’t even known until now.
He regarded her so steadily. “She is an infant,” he said quietly. “Why would you want a man who wants a woman like that?”
Her breath failed. She turned and stepped down onto the sail. It sagged, her shoe slipped, she grabbed the rail and propelled herself to the lower deck. He came after her easily, as though he climbed over fallen sails draped across companionways every day. Which possibly he did, or had done at one time in his life, a life about which she had heard more from others than from him.
“Viola-”
“Look who knows all about what I want, the man who pretends he has no interest in kissing a woman after he has clearly demonstrated that he does.”
In the new dimness of the cabin deck, his eyes darkened. “Now you are acting like the infant. Castle might set up an entire nursery.” His jaw was taut. Was she affecting him? Nicking his pride, no doubt.
She wanted to hurt that pride. Because she hurt more than she could bear.
“Arrogant bastard.” She barely whispered it. But in the stillness of the low-ceilinged deck, the word was crystal clear.
His eyes sparked, fire igniting in them. Her stomach sickened. She couldn’t believe what she had uttered.
“Forgive me, Jin. Please.” She pressed the back of her shaking hand over her mouth.
“For what, acting like a child?” His voice was low. And in response, finally, the heat rose within her.
“A child? Is that the best I can do?” The sensation of defeat tangling with desire overwhelmed. Her palm covered her eyes. “Oh, this is not at all what I-”
“This is idiocy.” He grabbed her wrist, slung her against his chest, and kissed her. He kissed her not tenderly but as he had in her cabin, claiming her mouth entirely. Fierce and hungry and with perfect possession, he demanded that she not resist.
She couldn’t resist. It was all she wanted. But this time she did not want it to end so swiftly. Ever. She kissed him back no less urgently, allowing him to mold her lips to his. She felt his strength, tasted his hunger, drank him in like a drug, hot and damp with smoke and pure need.
He broke the kiss, lifted his head. Her hand trapped in his grasp between them knew the hurtling of her heartbeat, or his. His gaze glittered like shattered glass traveling over her features, desire heavy in it. But uncertainty too, or perhaps a question. In the stillness, only their uneven breaths met the creaking of planking.
She could not bear the paralysis. She reached up, ran her fingers through his hair, and indulged in the simple ecstasy of touching him. A sigh quavered in her throat.
He gripped her hand tighter.
She went onto her toes, pulled him down, and he kissed her again, beyond pleasure, beyond sense, without hesitation and with one apparent object, to make her submit. She did, willingly, happily. His hand came around her face, his fingers on her jaw, the pad of his thumb pressing at her chin, and Viola found her mouth opening. Then his heat, his tongue, and her tender flesh that he claimed, fast, deep and urgent.
He dragged her against his body, his hands moving now, touching her neck, shoulders, the curve of her waist, then over her behind. She moaned, warmth bursting inside her as his big hand cupped her, then slipped behind her thigh. Heat wrapped around them, sinking into her body, beneath her skin, burning into their kisses. He pulled her knee alongside his hip and tugged her to him, his arousal coming against her. She moaned. Holding his face between her palms, wanting his tongue in her mouth, she drew him in. How could it feel this good yet she still wanted more?
She struggled against him, needing to be closer. “You said you had no intention of kissing me again.”
“This is not kissing.” He pushed her against the rail and moved hard against her soft inner thigh. His hand sought her breast.
“Oh, God.” She had wanted him to touch her like this for weeks, his hands and arousal feeding hers. She ached with it. But it was almost too much, too sublime to have his hands on her so intimately, to be pressed to his body so thoroughly and insane with need. She tore at his coat and he shoved it over his shoulders, his shirt damp and clinging to his muscles. She wanted to climb up him, to climb right inside him. She twisted her foot around his ankle and her skirts snagged. She teetered. He caught her and bore her down to the canvas-covered steps beneath him.
He took her mouth again and his hand moved fast along her thigh, yanking up her skirts. His haste and purpose did not surprise her. She wanted it too. She arched into him, gasping in breath, and he pulled her against him. His tongue stroked hers then thrust inside her, his fingers clamping around her knee.
He separated their mouths. “Viola.” An utterance, hard and taut. “I will not force you. Open up, or I leave.”
Her knees were welded together. What was she doing?
“Off the ship?” Her voice shook.
“You wish.” He caught her mouth and she sank into his kiss, into the fear and certainty that kept her knees locked, the alarm that everything was changing in this moment.
“I don’t wish.” She fought to meet his kiss closer, biting at his lips with little nips and sucking. She could consume him. She wanted to be consumed by him. She was frantic for it. “Not at this moment, that is.” An inelegantly hasty amendment. But he seemed to approve of it. His hand stroked along the crease of her thighs. And so she gave to him her body, because it was what he expected and what she wished, an aching for union. Simply, she could no longer bear to remain apart from him.
She parted her thighs and took him between and, trembling fiercely, felt him at her entrance. He came into her in one thrust, hard and thick, with a groan of pure masculine pleasure. She fought for air. Her fingertips dug into his shoulders. She was stretched too hard, too tight, and it hurt. But it hurt to perfection. He moved inside her, pulling out, then stroking in again.
“No.” She clutched at him. “Oh, God, no.” It hurt dreadfully, but not her body. Her body tumbled, overflowing with pleasure that shut out the momentary discomfort.
This pain within was worse.
He went still, breaths rough and fast, his hands tight around her hips holding her to him. “Viola.” He spoke against her cheek. “It is too late for ‘no.’ ”
“No. Yes. Yes.” She thrust to him, gasping at the mingled pleasure and pain. Unmoving, he kissed her, fusing them again in this manner as though he would be inside her as she longed to be inside him. Then, releasing her mouth, he took her.
She had thought she understood. She had done this before.
But not this. With every thrust into her he forced her pleasure, moving in her so that she must take her pleasure on him. Hips low, he guided her on him with his hands, again and again making them one, harder, deeper with each joining until she whimpered with her rising need. It came so swiftly, the quickening, the tight building of sweet tension she had only ever felt alone, that she never knew she could feel with a man. Fast and overwhelming it took her. She gulped in air, arching desperately against his thrusts, crying out sounds. He bore her into the canvas, palms flat to either side, and she shook with her release as it came, as his muscles hardened. He dipped his cheek to hers, forcing himself inside her, and she couldn’t get enough, the power of his body, the stumbling pleasure in hers. When it came again, she gasped, shouted at the beautiful, rippling contractions. He caught her hand-her hand-held it tight, and came inside her.
His chest moved hard against hers. She sucked in air, gulping from the delectable shock of his release within her. Nothing had prepared her for this, for him. The laughter of sheer euphoria bubbled up in her. And song, but her throat was parched and she cradled a pirate between her thighs, so singing seemed not quite right. She had never known it could be like this. Or that reclining on a canvas sail on a companionway could prove so uncomfortable after a time.
He pulled away. She drew her knees together and opened her eyes, and made herself drunker yet on the sight of him. Rivulets of moisture ran along his jaw, another droplet clinging to his taut collarbone, then sliding down his chest to be lost beneath his shirt. The linen clung, revealing every contour, every perfect detail of man.
He fastened his trousers and extended his hand. She stared up at him.
“Come.” He curled his fingers in a gesture of encouragement, not insisting, but his gaze scanned her, peculiarly bright.
Viola’s throat was like parchment, possibly from all the moaning.
“Where? What do you want?” she croaked.
He leaned down to her and curved his hand around her face. He passed the pad of his thumb over her tender lower lip and spoke close, his breath a whisper across her flesh.
“What do you think I want?”
She swallowed hard. Holy Magdalene, she wanted it too. Again. Immediately. She felt wonderfully satisfied, yet hunger still ground deep in her simply from looking at him.
His fingers curled around hers and he grasped her hand. “Come now.” He backed off and her knees shook like canvas letting fly. Now, after all her gyrations beneath him, she could not move.
A crease formed between his brows. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. No, perhaps.”
His jaw tensed, a flash of alarm darting across his handsome features.
“You-” He took a hard breath. “You have done this before? That is to say, I did not-?”
“No.” Her face flooded with heat. “You did not. And yes, I have.” She wished she were wearing breeches, pistol, and knife. She felt utterly exposed, utterly foolish, and utterly at a disadvantage. “Only not for some time now. And not quite like that.” Not by far. How could she have made love several times with the man she had adored for years, and yet doing it once on stairs with this man drove the memory of everything that had come before clear out of her head?
A slow grin curved his perfect lips. “No?”
She frowned. That he might very well have done this plenty of times before did not sit well with her.
“A little unsteady, are we?”
“Don’t laugh at me, Seton.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Because if you do, I’ll stick you through with my-”
“I am flattered.”
“Don’t be. I meant I have never done it on stairs. My legs have gone all pins and needles.”
“Of course they have.” He didn’t believe her. With good reason. “Still flattered.”
“You are beyond arrogant.”
His smile flashed quick, utterly disarming, and of course stars sparkled across her vision. She was an idiot.
“Can’t help but be. Now come.” He drew her up until he held her waist. “I am of a mind to merit more flattery before the night is out.”
Her body hummed in his hold. He really intended to do it again. She gripped his arms to remain standing. Her legs felt more like jam than pins.
“Need some assistance getting there?” he murmured.
“Yes, in fact.”
His mouth quirked up at one side. “You absolutely do not want me to carry you.”
“Absolutely not.” She would rather die. “We could remain here?”
He laughed outright. Then he drew her arms around his neck, turned, and reached to the backs of her thighs. “Up you go, then.”
Viola jumped onto his back and laughter spilled from her throat as she clenched her knees to his sides and hooked her arms around his shoulders.
“I am offering you perfect opportunity to strangle me now, of course,” he said, moving toward her cabin.
“Perhaps later. I have need of your services at the present.”
It was not a long walk, a mere ten yards. But in the corridor leading to her cabin, where he had first looked at her as though he would kiss her, then had not, Viola’s patience disintegrated. She nuzzled his neck, then reached for his face, his jaw. The flavor of his skin, the rough texture of the day’s whiskers, sent pleasure rushing about her midsection again. She turned his face to her and nearly climbed over his shoulder to meet his lips, perfect lips she wanted attached to hers again without delay. He gave her what she wanted for far too short a time. Then he pulled her around off his back and set her on her feet before her cabin.
She went inside and sat to remove her shoes. Peeling off her stockings, she glanced up. He stood in the doorway, his gaze fixed on her writing table. On it sat one item: the spyglass he had borrowed that day that seemed ages ago, that she taunted him about, teasing that he had stolen it. And he had replied that he did not take that which was not his by right.
Finally he lifted his gaze to her. The heated look of the lover was gone. Now the cool crystals were pensive, sober. And oddly assessing.
Chill skittered down Viola’s spine. So many times during their journey he had looked at her so from across the deck. Never when they spoke, though, and never when he stood so close. Because it was a gaze of distance-not of feet or yards, but of a much more profound distance. When he looked at her like this, the loneliness within her blew like the wind off a Maine whaler.
“Tomorrow’s interview with the harbormaster is bound to be uncomfortable,” she said to break the silence and chase that distance from his light eyes. “I don’t have one hundred and fifty pounds.”
He moved into the cabin. “Here, or at all?”
“Here and at all.”
“I have assets on Tobago. I will lend the sum to you.”
“You have one hundred and fifty pounds? On Tobago? Whatever for?”
“Moments such as this.”
Which recalled them quite abruptly to this actual moment in which their intent had nothing to do with pounds and port officers, only with each other.
Viola tried to speak. Her throat clogged. She made a second somewhat more successful attempt.
“Jin, I cannot accept-”
He pulled her off the chair into his arms and bent his head. “It is nothing.”
“But one hundred and fifty-”
“It is nothing.” And then their lips met again, despite the distance and the money and her astonishment, or perhaps because of them. They kissed as though they had not before, and then as though they could not cease, hands and mouths lost in a need both sublime and violent. Clothes were swiftly discarded-her gown, his shirt, her petticoat. But the removal of her stays proved too much for them both. He put his hands on her unconfined breasts, she moaned as he caressed her through her shift, and quite abruptly there seemed no more leisure for dithering with garments. He dragged her to the bed beneath him, hungry on her mouth as though he had not already satisfied himself in her tonight. But this need pressed inside her as well, and she did not wonder at it.
She ran her palms up his back, smooth, damp skin and muscle, and flattened her body to his-breasts, belly, hips-to feel him everywhere on her. He wanted her, clearly, as she had never known a man could want a woman in a single night.
But she had wept in front of him, because of Aidan.
She broke her lips free, sweeping her fingers through his hair and holding him away. Dear Lord, he was beautiful, his eyes liquid with desire, his perfect mouth hers if she wished it.
“Are you doing this from pity? Because of my tears earlier on the veranda?”
He covered her mouth, parting her lips and making her want him inside again so fiercely. He was hot and unbelievably skilled, and tasted like danger and deliverance at once.
She pushed him away. “Are you?”
“What do you think?” His hand came around her breast, his fingers sure.
She moved into him. “I don’t know what to think.”
“Then, yes.” He bent and through the thin fabric of her shift took the peak of her breast into his mouth.
“O-oh, God.” Her whole body shuddered. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I did not want you like this before tonight.” He pushed her shift to her waist, dragged her thigh around his hip, and came intimately against her. “This is about pity.” He pressed her into the mattress. His thumb stroked across her nipple, then around it, driving her mad and desperate for more of him. “I pity you, Viola Carlyle, and wish only to give you comfort.”
She clutched his waist and arched against him, fed by the hard heat of his arousal. A sound of pleasure came from his chest, deep and powerful. Her power over him.
“I think you are lying,” she barely managed to utter, her flesh caught between his and heaven. He captured her hand.
“Of course I am lying.” He guided her between their stretched bellies to his shaft and wrapped her fingers around him. It was satin and rock and more heat than she had ever dreamed. He moved her hand on him, his eyes closed, his jaw taut, and she quivered in every corridor of her being. Then, with the greatest reluctance it seemed, he released her hand and sank his fingers into her hair.
“Viola?” He sounded hoarse.
“What?” she whispered, alone now to caress him as she wished, frightened and dizzy with it.
“Make this happen.”
A breath shot out of her. “I-”
“On your terms. When you will.” His brow strained, the muscles in his arms and shoulders stripped with tension. “But I pray you, do not be long about it.”
She trembled in a mingling of anticipation and bliss. “My terms? Entirely my terms?”
“Yes.”
She released him. “Onto your back, sailor.”
Eyes cracking open, he rolled to his shoulder, and his perfect lips curved into a perfectly breathtaking half smile.
“Aye aye, Captain.” Then he did as he was bid.
She had him then-again-this time on her terms.
Her terms seemed to suit him quite well. But she was his captain, after all, and he owed her obedience. Like the excellent lieutenant he had been in matters pertaining to the ship, he proved his exceptional capabilities in this as well; at some point amid the heated touches and kisses, her terms clearly became his. Or perhaps they had been all along.
When eventually she arose from the daze of pleasure to once more find herself straddling a scoundrel, her body limp with satisfaction, the slight smile again slipped over his mouth, and the stars were no less bright though perhaps a bit hazier.
She snuggled into the crook of his arm, her cheek pressed to his ribs, the scents of cane smoke and salt and man filling her senses and holding at bay the sleep behind her eyes. His breathing seemed to slow, his chest rising evenly. But his hand was splayed against the small of her back and his arm holding her did not relax.
Aidan had never held her. He always left right after.
“You are holding me. You are not leaving.”
His voice came forth as a low rumble. “Too exhausted to move.”
He had not shown any exhaustion minutes earlier when he threw her onto the companionway, then the bed. But men could rouse themselves from the tomb for sex, and the pull of their bodies for each other was extraordinary. Which explained why since meeting Jin Seton she had forgotten to think of Aidan every hour. Whatever lies polite society fed a girl, at least men knew the truth of it: the rutting urge proved more powerful than reason or civility. Thus her mother and father.
She told herself this in no uncertain terms. But within her, mistrust of her own thoughts wound its way about her heart. She smoothed her palm across his flat, hard belly damp with sweat. He seemed to hold his breath, then release it gradually. Viola felt life beneath his skin, the thrum of fiber and flesh, and her heart fluttered.
She swallowed around the prickly sensation in her throat, steeling her voice. “You should leave, you know.”
“I should.” A pause. “Are you ordering me out of this cabin or off the ship?”
The shutter creaked in a finger of hot, tropical air, the nighttime calls of Kabrit bwa thick in the trees reaching out into the harbor, mingling with the gentle lap of water.
“I am winning,” she whispered. “You are falling in love with me.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“But I am winning. And when I do, I will have your new boat and you will go back to wherever you came from and leave me alone.”
He pulled from under her and reversed their positions so swiftly she stared wide-eyed up at him, no time to mask her surprise from the moonlight. His hands surrounded her face; big hands, strong. He spoke looking into her eyes.
“Get this through your hard head now, Viola Carlyle. I will not leave without you.”
Her heart lodged in her throat. “You will be obliged to.”
“I will take you home whether you wish it or not.”
“You will lose, Seton. You are losing already.”
He regarded her for a long moment. Then he did the entirely unexpected. He bent and kissed her, a warm, wonderful kiss intended to please, as though the wager were reversed and he was trying to make her fall in love with him. And it did please.
He drew away, gazed at her for another moment, then released her and lay back.
“Now go to sleep, harpy.”
“Don’t give me orders.”
He chuckled quietly.
He did not hold her now. But he did not leave.