As the sun dipped low over the mouth of the harbor, the harbormaster’s wife sent Viola a written invitation. She was drawing her new gown from the packaging, its fabric stiff from pressing, when the note arrived with another. By the light of a lamp she perused it, her palms damp against the paper. Joining them to dine that evening would be six other guests, including two naval officers and their wives.
She unfolded the other message, from Aidan.
A knock came on her cabin door. She opened it, and felt like a perfect fool. How could it be that she could simply look at Jin Seton and her knees weakened?
He wore a coat of simple, elegant cut that fit him as though tailored for him. His shirt, cravat, and waistcoat were white and neat, and his handsome face clean-shaven.
His gaze flicked over her. “You are not yet dressed for dinner?”
“I am not going,” she blurted out, clutching her hands behind her, the letters crunching together. “I-I…”
He lifted his brows.
“I have another appointment this evening,” she said. “With-”
He held up his palm to halt her speech, the wounded palm she had insisted on doctoring so she could touch him again. In her hurt and indignation after he made his intentions clear to her that morning, she had not realized why she insisted. But she understood herself somewhat better now. And she knew that she could not accompany this man to a dinner engagement with strangers and acquit herself properly. She did not remember how to. In point of fact, she had never learned it. But she knew, simply by looking at the easy set of his shoulders and his stance, that somehow this former pirate did know. He would have no trouble making himself an equal of the harbormaster’s other guests, if not indeed their superior in dress and manners.
“You needn’t explain,” he said. “Your business is your own. I will make your apologies for you.”
“Thank you.” She chewed on her lip. “I think.”
The corner of his mouth lifted slightly and Viola’s whole heart turned over, colliding with her stomach and making her a little nauseous.
“I don’t know what ‘make your apologies’ means,” she admitted.
“I will invent a plausible story so as not to insult my host and hostess with the announcement of your untimely absence. I suspect you wish to remain in his good graces.”
“I am sorry. I had a prior dinner engagement with… with Mr. Castle, at the hotel. I hadn’t the opportunity to tell you earlier.”
He nodded. “I wish you a good evening, then.”
“He has arranged rooms at the inn for us all, you know.” She gestured with the wadded up letters. “For the Hats and me. And you. He hopes that you will accept his invitation for a comfortable chamber, since he cannot offer us hospitality at his house as we-as I expected.”
He tilted his head. “Am I to understand that if I refuse and remain aboard, you will consider it mutiny on the wager?”
She couldn’t resist a grin. “Most certainly.”
“Then rest assured, I will be at the inn tonight.” He turned, then paused. “But not as Mr. Castle’s guest. I will hire my own room.”
Her pulse skittered. “You carry a great deal of pride along with that arrogance, don’t you?”
He regarded her for a steady moment. “Pride has little to do with it. Good night, Viola.”
She stood for a silent minute in her doorway, listening to the creaking sounds of her ship, largely quiet in the absence of most of her crew. Then she packed a small bag. She had no plans to dine with Aidan. His missive only begged her to take up his offer to rest in comfort tonight at the inn while he tried to clean the house sufficient for her return to the farm shortly. She suspected the Hats would be at the hotel too, and probably dining there as well. But she doubted Aidan would call upon them, not after his promises this afternoon. He had seemed so sincerely sorry for his mistake and so ready to make a fresh start of it with her.
She would go to the inn, indulge in a bath, and wash her hair with soap. Then she would sleep in clean linens on a dry mattress and in the morning wake refreshed. For with the morning came the end of the wager, and she must be fully prepared to argue again with Seton when he demanded she return to England.
This time, she intended to win.
At the dress shop she had also purchased a new shift, one that cinched around the waist with a thin cord and laced up the front with ribbons. In her small, simply appointed bedchamber at the inn, she bathed, then donned the new garment. She combed her wet hair and it sprang into loose curls, but refused to dry completely in the humidity that rose at nightfall on the tropical island. Tendrils stuck to her brow and clung to her neck.
She went to the window and opened the shutter. Breeze stirred in her hair and against her shift, brushing the crisp linen over her breasts. The sensation of Jin’s mouth on her, sending heat through the fabric of her shift, came to her with a sudden weakening of her limbs, then warmth between her legs. She was still tender there, but abruptly the tenderness throbbed. With only the slightest suggestion, her body was eager for him again.
It was unnerving. And… delicious.
Her fingers gripped the windowsill and she gazed out at the sparkling black water of the bay. The April Storm’s masts towered the tallest; no other vessels in the port tonight to match her in size, though there were plenty of other newer ships and boats.
She stared at her father’s old brig across the moonlit water, the familiar pain of fading grief hovering like a shadow inside her. The ship should be scrapped, in truth, but she hadn’t the funds for a new vessel. Without the April, she would be without employment except on another captain’s vessel. That was not an option, of course. Women aboard ships served one role-whore.
She would have to take at least four or five hefty prizes to even begin to imagine purchasing another ship of the April’s size. But prizes were scarce these days now that the wars were well and truly over up north. If she remained in these islands she might take a Mexican or Cuban pirate or two. But against that sort of enemy she was just as likely to get herself killed-or worse-especially in unfamiliar waters.
She needed that ship sitting in dry dock in Boston. Jin Seton’s new ship. She needed him to lose the wager.
He had been irritated with her earlier in the day because he desired her. Clearly. This she was not fool enough to mistake. But he did not want to desire her. Because perhaps he desired her too much? More than he wished? To the point of falling in love with her and losing the wager?
It seemed unlikely. He could have been peevish because of exhaustion, like her. But perhaps not. Perhaps she could still win. Perhaps, if she gave him one more taste of her, he would finally fall in love.
She could at least try.
Her fingers around the edge of the shutter quivered. She drew out her father’s old watch, the gold chain long since traded for some necessary ship supply. Ten o’clock. He must have come to the inn by now. But she’d no idea which room he’d taken.
Her pulse raced. She couldn’t simply go to his room and seduce him. Could she?
She could. If she knew which room. But she couldn’t very well ask the innkeeper.
She went to her bed and curled up on the mattress, her whole exhausted body jittering with nerves. A solution would come to her. She closed her eyes to think. Instead, she pictured his mouth, then for good measure his hands and jaw and eyes. Then she thought of how he had looked at her and touched her like he couldn’t get enough of her. And how she never wanted him to release her. Never wanted it to end. Never…
She awoke with a start to voices in the corridor. The lamp still flickered on her bedside table, but the candle on the mantel had burned to a stub. She shook herself awake and listened.
Her insides melted, then tensed. It was he. And Mr. Hat?
She stole off the bed on silent feet and pressed her ear to the door. A giggle welled up and she stifled it. For pity’s sake, they had attacked each other on a canvas-draped stairway the night before; she needn’t really skulk around at this point.
But tonight was different. Tonight if she went to him and he accepted her, neither of them could claim it was a lustful inspiration of the moment.
No female voices met her strained hearing, only the two men. But she must be certain of what she would be walking into, and she could not delay; it sounded as though they were bidding each other good night. She flicked open the bolt on her door and with trembling fingers turned the knob and peeked into the corridor.
From ten feet away his gaze came directly to her. Then he returned his attention to Mr. Hat.
“Good night, then, Seton. Pleasure making your acquaintance.”
“I wish you and your family a safe journey, sir.” He turned and walked down the corridor to the door at the end, drew out a key, and went within. Mr. Hat disappeared up the stair. Viola closed her door, returned to her bed, and sat on the edge of it. Her hands shook. Her entire body shook.
It was nothing like the night before. She couldn’t do it.
But if she did it, and she won the wager…
Her lips even quivered now, and her lungs seemed to be doing odd, unsteady things. She lowered her toes to the floor, the soles of her feet, her heels. She unbent her knees and went to the door.
Down the corridor lit only by a single sconce in the stair below, his chamber seemed miles away. But she was Violet la Vile. She’d been the one to give herself that name, of course, but it stuck because she’d taken several fat prizes right away. And before that she’d helped her father take any number of enemy ships as well. She had sunk the infamous Cavalier, for pity’s sake! She could conquer its master.
She strode to his door. The knob turned in her hand. Without knocking, she went in.
He sat in a chair by a small table, his sharp gaze fixed on her, his injured hand holding a book, his other wrapped about the hilt of a dagger in the process of drawing it from his boot.
“Don’t throw it!” she gasped. “Though I suppose you might wish to.”
Slowly he withdrew the weapon and laid it on the table. “Not at the present. Although there have been moments.” He set down the book and rose to his feet. He had removed his coat and waistcoat, and a pair of suspenders hung from his trousers. He wore no neck cloth now, the button on his shirt unfastened. Golden candlelight revealed every perfect sinew of beautiful man. She found it difficult to breathe.
“Why did you leave your door unlocked?”
“I did not realize that I had.”
“You didn’t?”
“I am tired. And distracted by thoughts of the evening I have spent. The day.” He seemed perfectly sincere. As always. Except that morning when he’d sounded strange, panicked almost, entirely unlike himself.
“It wasn’t because you thought I would come?”
A glint of wariness entered his eyes. “Why are you awake? You look as though you have been sleeping.”
“I do?”
He gestured. “Your hair.”
She patted a hand to her head. Curls jutted out at an angle and she could feel a bald spot, dried like that during her doze, no doubt. Oh, God. She had no idea how to lure a man in this manner. She’d never had a mother to teach her, or anyone.
But she had her instincts, and from living with sailors for years, she did know what men liked most about women. Her hand slipped to her throat and she untied the bow, then drew the ribbon through the holes and parted the linen.
“Then don’t look at my hair.” Her voice quavered. She shrugged her shoulders out of the fabric and allowed the sleeves to sag at her elbows. She stood bare-breasted before him, her heartbeats fast. But now she was no longer shaking. Instead, she was certain.
He didn’t move. Nor did he so much as glance at her breasts. But in his ice eyes, illumined with firelight, heat flickered.
“Viola.” His voice was low. “No.”
She gulped. “No?”
“You will not achieve what you wish with this.”
He understood that she still hoped to win the wager, and he was refusing. But the desire in his eyes like blue flames did not dim, and the taut line of his jaw and the tensed muscles in his neck and forearms suggested he was not averse to temptation.
She took in a breath of courage. Another. Then, lifting her hand, she trailed a single fingertip down the gully between her breasts. Aidan had once asked her to touch herself. She had not been able to do it, too ashamed of the request and her inability to please him simply by being naked before him. But now, beneath Jin’s gaze, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide her fingers around the curve of her skin and circle the nipple. She must please him. She wanted to please him. And it felt surprisingly good, slightly wicked yet honest.
He came to her.
Standing close, he drew her hand away and said in a beautifully husky voice, “Allow me.”
Then Viola began trembling again, but softly, a waiting anticipation of pure, delirious desire. Barely touching her, he drew one sleeve from her wrist, then the other. The heat of his body caressed her skin but her nipples were firm, as though she were quite cold. His attention moved to the cord at her waist. With careful movements he untied the bow and loosened the gathered fabric. He bent his head and seemed to inhale deeply, his chest rising, then slowly falling. Her eyelids fluttered. She wanted him to touch her so much. Her nipples inches from his shirtfront felt tight and tingling.
Finally, gently, he urged the shift over her hips. It crumpled on the floor. She wore nothing else; she’d been ready for bed.
She reached for his waist to tug his shirt free and he pulled it over his head. Viola got dizzy. Quite dizzy and quite weak in the knees again. She’d barely seen him the night before in the darkness. Now the golden light on his skin and glimmering across his wide shoulders washed her with need. She reached for the bulge of his arousal beneath his trousers. He grasped her hand.
“No.”
“No, again?”
“Not yet.” He spoke quietly. “Slow down.”
But she wanted to touch him. She ached for it. “What happened to ‘on my terms’?”
“That was last night. Tonight you have come to me. You have put yourself in my hands voluntarily. Tonight is on my terms.” He stroked the backs of his fingers across her cheek, then the spot beneath her mouth where she was marked. “Do you know how beautiful you are? With all your clothing on.” His voice seemed to smile. Then it dipped low again. “You needn’t remove it to entice.”
“Men look at me with lust in their eyes.” And they believed themselves in love, because they did not know any better than to confuse one with the other. She was counting on that now. She tilted her face into his touch, her eyes drifting closed. “But men are in general lustful creatures.”
“Indeed they are.” His fingers trailed along her throat, down her neck, sending shivering tangles inside her.
She whispered, “The way you look at me is different.”
“Is it?” His knuckles skimmed the curve of her breast.
“Ye-es.”
He bent his head and with his fingertips stroked her breast slowly from the swell and around the peak, then his palm encircled her. But still he did not touch the hungry crest. “How do I look at you?”
“I don’t know.” Her breaths stuttered. “I don’t-” She arched into his touch. “Oh, Jin, I-” He passed the pad of his thumb across the peak, only once. “Ohh.” Her whole body shuddered. She grabbed his arms to stay upright. “Do that again.”
“If I do,” he said, soft amusement in his voice, “do you think you can remain standing?”
“If you do,” she replied, “I will try.”
He did so again, and again, the rasp of male callus against female tenderness sublime perfection, so simple, sending pleasure through her whole body. With such a slight caress he made her into liquid longing for him.
“I don’t know that I can continue standing after all,” she said on a rush.
He lifted her like a child and took her to the bed. No teasing, no laughter, no shame that she could not manage the journey of five feet’s distance by herself. Nothing to prove. He removed his boots and as he did so his gaze traveled over her body, his breaths obviously fast. She reached for him, and he for her, and their mouths came together.
It was as before, the closeness and completeness, like their first kiss, beautifully familiar in its newness. His hands scooped around her head, holding her to him, and she gripped his shoulders and opened and allowed him entrance. He did not tease her, but gave, the pleasure of his tongue meeting hers, his teeth coaxing on her lips. His fingers curved around her jaw, touching her face, exploring as though he would feel their kiss in this manner too. The heat of his palm slipped to her throat, then her shoulder, and he followed with his mouth. She clutched his arms and with each caress she trembled and wanted more urgently for him to press her back onto the mattress and come inside her. She inched her knees apart, hoping she would not be required to tell him she could not wait, to beg. Then his tongue stole around her nipple, and quite swiftly begging seemed like a perfectly reasonable option.
She moaned, his tongue stroked, and she surrendered all hesitation, all concern for what she should or should not do. She slid her fingers into his hair and nothing mattered but this. Nothing but his perfect mouth seducing her, the hot, singing readiness of her body, and a desire beyond anything she had ever felt to make love to a man.
She slipped her fingers over the hard ridge beneath his trousers. He grabbed her hand and pulled it to his lips. His eyes were aflame.
“Don’t,” he said harshly against her palm.
“Don’t? But-”
He captured her mouth with his and she feasted on him, the taste of him and heat and his hard body beneath her hands. He grasped her shoulders and lifted her onto her knees and kissed her again, and again. His hands swept down her arms to her waist, encompassing and spreading heat. Then he touched her. He touched her and her world ended and began at once.
He had not touched her there the night before. Their coming together so swift both times, like summer storms breaking, had not truly allowed for it. Now to have him touch her so intimately, she was changed.
She had never thought much about the womanly parts of her body. They were to be used as any other parts for their proper purpose-for pleasure with a man, certainly. But she had never known what it felt like to be worshipped.
Gently at first he caressed her, and she trembled, and their mouths stilled upon each other’s. His breaths came unevenly like hers. Her face tilted upward, eyes closing, and he stroked deeper. She whimpered from the pleasure that made her need more with each stroke, from the certainty of his touch. In that touch he must know he could control her, command her in this manner, know that at this moment she would do anything he asked. She pressed into him, lost to his caress, and did not care that she had lost.
“Viola, open your eyes.” He spoke at her brow, his deep voice taut. “Look at me.”
Her eyelids fluttered, heavy like the aching pleasure mingled with desperation in her body. “Yes,” she sighed, working her hips against his hand. She whimpered, with each caress needing him inside her, seeking for him. “Why?”
He impaled her upon his fingers.
“Oh! God.”
He thrust again, a hard, sublime possession. “I want you to see that it is I giving you pleasure.”
She moaned and rode his fingers, pushing him deeper, wanting him deeper, everywhere inside her. She sank her hands into his hair. “Of course it is you.” She kissed him, but the need was too much, too painfully good in its intensity. She jerked her hips to him, his fingers a sweet agony in her. “Jin, take me now. Now. I cannot bear it any longer.”
“You will bear it.”
“No.” Would he deny her?
“You will not only bear it,” he said huskily, then finally-dear God, finally-pressed her back to the mattress. “You will ask for more.” Meeting her desperate thrusts with his hand, he parted her knees and took her with his mouth.
She did not ask for more.
She begged.
She pleaded.
Upon an astounded, needing sob she cried for more. For she had never known this. She had never known any of that which he so beautifully gave her body. Yet each time he brought her to the edge, each time she thought he would give her what she craved, he did deny her. With his tongue hot and soft and devastatingly good he made her wild, with his fingers plunging inside her he made her helpless, until the pleasure was so great and continuous that only one wish tumbled to her lips.
“Please.” She gripped the bedclothes. “Let me give to you too.”
That seemed to decide the matter.
She reached for him and he came to her, then inside her in one smooth thrust, surrounding her with his body and filling her with his hard heat. She choked back the joy of the pleasure, wrapping her arms about his shoulders. They were joined, finally, fully, and completely motionless save their breaths pressing her breasts against his chest.
He threaded his fingers through her hair, kissed her brow, her cheek, her throat. His hand trailed along her waist, circled a taut nipple, making her gasp and murmur his name and shift against him to feel him more, to revel in his presence in her.
Then, slowly, he moved in her, and he took what gift of pleasure she was able to give him, which as it happened was a great deal of pleasure. For, perhaps predictably (if either of them had paused to waste time predicting), their lovemaking did not remain languorous more than a moment. She drew him in, he sank into her, and they proceeded to prove quite definitively that it did not require a burning cane field, a frantic horseback ride, cannon fire, or even a staircase to inspire them to mate with the urgency of animals and the ecstasy of gods. The bed creaked furiously, she made sounds she had never before heard, he caused her previous gyrations beneath him to seem tame, and when it was over she felt fantastically sated and thoroughly battered. Additionally, four neat pink stripes were rising in welts across each of his shoulders.
“I have wounded you,” she gasped, struggling to fill her lungs.
“You have. Witch.” He seemed to be unsatisfied with the quantity of kissing that had already gone on, and now leaned down to press his mouth to hers again. But the caress of his perfect lips was nearly too much, the sweetly dissipating pleasure within her tender and unstable. Perhaps his excessive sensual teasing had overstimulated her exhausted flesh. But now with the leisure to feel his entire body against hers, again she trembled. Quite fearsomely.
“Your hand is bleeding again.” She stroked her fingers along his arm sleek with muscle. “You will wear a hook after all.”
“It will have been worth it.” He pulled off her and fell onto his back, taking her hand in his. Then for a moment he went very still. He released her hand, leaned over her, and drew a coverlet over her body. Without a word, he settled onto his back again.
She turned onto her side to face him, and curled her knees and arms tight to her. “I am not actually chilled.”
“You are shaking.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Then sleep.” Lit only by the fading lamplight, his face and body were beautiful, his dark hair tumbled across his brow, black lashes low over ice eyes that could glisten with heat. A spot of crimson spread from the center of the single scrap of cloth on his body.
“I would like to tend to your wounds first.”
“They will keep until later.” His voice sounded quiet and deep, as though he were already descending into slumber.
“Don’t you want me to leave now?”
He did not look at her or even open his eyes. “No.”
She sat up, the covers falling to her lap. “I must dress that wound again.”
With an indolent, thoroughly uncharacteristic motion, he swept his forearm in an arc and laid his bandaged hand beside her, palm up.
“As you wish, harpy.”
Tingling warmth scurried around her belly. He seemed… happy. Simply happy.
Carnal pleasures made men happy. Viola knew this as any woman would who had lived among men her entire adult life. Men were simple creatures, most of them, and when they were satisfied carnally-be it on food or a woman’s body-they were content. Still, as little as she understood Jinan Seton, she knew he was not a simple man. Happiness did not, she thought, come easily to him.
She slid off the bed and went to his luggage, where she found what she expected, fresh bandages and salve. Although earlier when she needed an excuse to touch him she’d taunted him about tending his wound, she knew no shipmaster would actually be that negligent. Certainly not this man. She returned to the bed and unwrapped his hand.
He seemed to sleep through her ministrations, although the wound must pain him; it was deep across, though a clean slice. It would heal well. She rebound it, then laid his hand on the counterpane. Next she dipped all four fingertips into the tiny pot of salve, leaned to his shoulder, and painted a path along the tracks she’d dug with her nails. His skin was taut and damp over firm muscle, and she wanted to linger and breathe in his scent, to continue touching him. Instead she repeated the salve on his other shoulder, then drew away.
The caress of linen bandage and warm skin on her naked behind arrested her.
She swallowed through her constricted throat. “You mustn’t use that hand now.”
“Kiss me.”
“I don’t take or-”
“Kiss me, I pray you, Miss Carlyle?”
She bent and did as requested as his fingers skirted the crease between her legs, then smoothed along her thigh to trail away. When she pulled back, his eyes were still closed, his mouth ever so slightly curved upward.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“For the nursing or the kiss?”
He smiled fully.
She pulled the coverlet over them, closed her eyes, and allowed the stars to lull her to sleep.