There was no excuse, for in her heart she knew that she had allowed it. Fascination had held her still, and a simmering curiosity had swept her into its grip while his heat had seeped into her, leaving her without sense or reason and scarce able to breathe.
He was a pirate, a cur. Then what was she, she wondered with humiliation, that she could so easily crave his touch, rather than despise it?
She stiffened her shoulders and raised her chin. “Do it!” she snapped out. “If you intend to rape me, then do it now! Let’s end this torment!”
A single dark brow shot up and his lip curled into a rogue’s smile, a quick, handsome smile that caused a new shimmering to take hold deep within her. She would shame him! She would make him feel less than a man, and surely he would leave her be!
“Pardon?” he said politely.
“I said do it! If you intend—” He stared at her so boldly! The words began to falter on her lips. “Do it! I have had it with this constant torment!”
“You’re inviting me to rape you?” he said pleasantly.
“Yes! No!” she cried in dismay, and it didn’t matter at all, because suddenly he did sweep her off her feet, and with long strides he bore her toward the waiting bunk where they had lain together so many nights now.
She fell upon her back, and he was over her. Her heart thundered and her breath came too quick and panic seized her. She hadn’t shamed him in the least!
“No!” she cried, struggling fiercely. But his thighs, hot and strong as steel, locked around her, and laughing, he grabbed her wrists. She tossed, she writhed and arched, until she realized that her movement brought them into close contact. She railed against him with a new assertion that he was the absolute worst of the sea slime, but then she realized that he wasn’t moving anymore at all, that his bold rogue’s smile still touched his features.
“Alas! And I thought that I had disappointed you!” he cried passionately. “How would you have it now? Clothed, or unclothed. It can be done either way, I assure you. Shall I rent and tear fabric? How shall I manage this?”
“What?” she gasped.
“Ah, such a quandary, my dear love!” He adjusted his weight, straddling over her firmly. With one hand he pulled her wrists high atop her head, leaving the other free to taunt her. He touched her cheek and she twisted her head, trying to bite him. “Ah, careful, love!” he growled out, his smile fading, tension riding high within his features as he lowered his face close to hers once again. “Careful, careful love!” Then he cupped her breast, the heat of his hand defying the fabric that lay between his hand and her flesh. She spat out an oath and he laughed, taking his leisure, amused as she writhed and thrust against him. “Shall I take it slow, my dear? Tease and taunt and relish every movement you make against me?” His fingers found her nipple and she gasped and swore again, yet felt a rush of color flood her cheeks as she felt the peaks of her breasts grow pebble-hard to his touch. It was not the man, it was not an attraction, it was surely a response just like—
“Stop!” she hissed.
“How shall it be? There’s fast, there’s brutal. I could thrust you up against the wall and lift your lovely thighs about me and have done with it all in a matter of minutes!”
He no longer stroked her breast. His weight shifted again and he was leaning atop her, his fingers tugging upon the hem of her skirt and bringing it high against her thighs. His touch roamed intimately against her and she cried out, squirming to escape him, yet bringing herself intimately against his touch. Her cry suddenly changed to one of desperation as she felt the total heat and power and strength of the man. His heart was thunder, his pulse ticked mercilessly. She had perhaps asked for rape, and he now seemed obliged to have it all as she had challenged him.
“Please …!”
“Please? Please shall I continue? Shall it be rough and tumble? Or shall we try seduction?”
She closed her eyes, gritting her teeth, and trembled suddenly. “I shall see you hang!” she whispered.
She heard a curious sound. She opened her eyes carefully. He was laughing again, watching her. “You are a challenge, love. A definite challenge.” He leaned close to her. “But I promised you once, lady, that it will not be this way, though I am ever more convinced that the time will come when we will lie together.”
His face was so near, his whisper touched her. His eyes sought out hers with such a startling silver glimmer that she felt her protest die within her throat. She wanted him away, and that was all. For whatever else he might be, the Silver Hawk was an exceptional man. Honed and muscled and bronzed and fine, and able to awaken her from a maiden’s innocence. She could deny it, but it was true.
Even though he had told her that no woman was worth much in silver or gold.
Yet he was going to let her go, she realized. He was not going to rape her. He had never intended to do so. He had merely meant to taunt and torture and tease her and provide himself with vast amusement.
“Oh!” she cried, squirming furiously against him again. “I, sir, will never come to you!” she promised him. His eyes flickered a silver warning and her voice fell to a quiet tone, but still, her words did not falter, and she was glad of it.
He said no more but released her and climbed off the bunk. He walked to his desk and searched through some papers there, speaking to her with his back to her. Skye lay still for a moment, afraid to move. Then she rolled to the edge of the bunk and sat there, smoothing back her hair and keeping a very wary eye upon him.
“I will be gone for some hours, probably late into the night. You will not be alone.” He swung around suddenly. “New Providence is a dangerous place. Keep the drapes closed while we are here. Do not seek the deck, for no man will take you there.”
She did not respond to him. He spoke to her sharply, very sharply.
“Do you understand me?”
Her eyes flashed angrily but she answered him very sweetly. “Why, Captain, your every wish is my command.”
“Lady, trust me, you do not begin to know the depths of my temper, but I promise that you will know my wrath and know it well if you do not heed my warnings.”
“What is there to heed!” she cried, leaping to her feet. “You will lock me in here, and your men will not let me out! Why bother to threaten me!”
He strode the few steps toward her, pulling her back into his arms. His lip curled as she jerked upon her wrists to free herself from his touch. He shook her suddenly, fiercely. “I know you, my love!” he said curtly, his eyes meeting hers as her head fell back and her hair cascaded around them both. “I know you, and I am never quite sure how I should be dealing with you. Warnings are no good—only threats seem to avail.”
She stamped on his foot as hard as she could. For a moment she was vastly pleased, for the taunting smile left his lips and his face paled with the pain. Then she screamed, for he quickly sat down upon the bunk, dragging her along with him—over his knee.
“I’ve thought all along that you really need a good thrashing!” he swore.
“No!” Skye screeched, straining to raise herself from his lap. She bit his thigh. His hand landed harshly upon her posterior section and she cried out, tears stinging her eyes with the humiliation. She twisted around in time to see his hand rise again. “Stop, please!”
“You bit me! You stomped on me, and then you bit me! Apologize!”
“I can’t!”
He was about to pull her skirt up for more intimate contact with her flesh. Crimson, Skye squirmed her way from him so that she fell to the floor at his knees. She stared up at him, dazed. “Please, stop!”
“Apologize!”
“All right! I’m sorry that I bit you!”
She lowered her head, despising herself for having apologized to a pirate. He stood up, and she saw his boots as he walked by her.
“I’m sorry I bit you!” she cried out, adding softly, “I wish that I could have boiled you in oil.”
He was back beside her, lifting her chin. The silver in
his eyes danced and the devil’s smile was back upon his lips, so sensual that she trembled with warmth even as she swore that she hated him.
“I cannot wait to return,” he told her very softly. “We can explore all of these secret yearnings of yours.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but he had already turned away and was gathering his papers again. He swung back to her, his eyes narrowed. “Behave, Skye. I am warning you.” His long strides brought him to the door. He swung about and stared at her hard one more moment, and then he turned to leave. She never heard the doors close with such a shattering force before.
Despite his warning, or forgetting it, Skye leaped up and raced to the window seat at the port side of the ship which faced the island. She hesitated there, wondering why he was so determined that she not open the drapes, then she set her hand upon the material, just to peek out. She shivered slightly. They were close to the shore, and she could see a great deal very clearly. All manner of persons lined the docks! Fishermen hawked their catches while a curious array of men and women walked the streets. Two scantily clad women looked down from a shanty balcony to beckon laughingly to a tall lad below. Barrels lined the steps before the thatch-roofed dwelling. Arm in arm, a man and woman lumbered along, then fell, drunk, upon each other in the street. Dandies strutted about in brocades and velvets. They wore knee breeches and silver-buckled shoes and silken hose and scarves and magnificent plumed hats. And yet some of these very dandies walked with near-naked seamen. They wore eye patches, and many a man had a stump for a leg.
She gasped suddenly, realizing that the finery was most probably ill-gotten gain. These were not gentlemen that she observed, but pirates, and probably the very worst of the lot. The Silver Hawk had come here to do business.
Just as the thought passed her mind, she drew back quickly, letting the drapery fall.
A longboat was moving out, away from the ship. The Silver Hawk was within it along with a dozen or so of his men. She had no desire to be caught by the man. She did not know quite what he would do to her, but she did not care to discover what it might be. Not after everything that had just passed between them. He would do anything, she thought. Dare anything …
He would come back. To her. No matter what she did. And she did not know how long she could bear the emotions and sensations that he brought raging within her.
She inhaled deeply, thinking of the island.
The lure of the place fascinated her. She waited impatiently, biting her lip, until she was sure that the longboat had reached the docks. Then she looked out again.
A second longboat had left the pirate ship. There were a good forty or so of the Hawk’s men going to shore. She didn’t think that he sailed with a crew of more than fifty or so. Few men would have been left aboard.
The Silver Hawk must have believed that no man would molest his property in the pirate haven.
Skye drew the drapery once again. The sun was setting, and the shantytown did not appear so tawdry or so dangerous. Someone was lighting flares to line the docks and the distant beach.
The longboats had reached shore. Someone came up to the Silver Hawk, offering him a silver horn to drink from. There was suddenly a burst of revelry upon the shore and men crowded around him.
She let the drapery slide back into place. A slow, burning heat had set fire deep inside of her, and she longed to leave the Hawk’s cabin. Leave this atmosphere dominated by his presence. Her cheeks flamed as she remembered his words that he might decide to keep her. Then he had told her that no woman was worth much in silver or gold.
Perhaps all pirates felt that way. Somewhere here she could strike a deal. She could promise a sailor a huge quantity of money for her safe passage to Williamsburg.
But she couldn’t even leave the cabin! she reminded herself. She was locked in. But she wasn’t alone. Someone was with her. She knew it. Robert Arrowsmith? She hoped fervently that it was that young man left behind to guard her.
She was being absurdly reckless! she warned herself. She was waltzing into danger. The island was not populated by gentlemen. It was inhabited by cutthroats and rakes. They might not offer her help, but only the gravest danger!
But what danger could be greater than this she already faced? Lying with a man who threatened her with much more than the sins of the flesh as night after night passed by. Oh, indeed, he threatened her very belief in herself, he threatened her dignity and her pride, and assuredly, her very soul.
She leaped to her feet and paused a bare second. Then she hurried to the door and knocked strenuously upon it.
She would see him hang! she swore to herself. Indeed, she would see the Silver Hawk dance from a rope, so help her God!
The pub was called the Golden Hind in honor of a man that many of their brotherhood deemed to be the greatest pirate of them all, Sir Francis Drake. It sat far back from the market; to the left lay the sands of the beach and to the right were the docks where a man could purchase almost anything he desired. A ship could be repaired here, knives could be honed, weapons acquired. Flesh could be bought as easily as a fillet of fish, and even a murder could be negotiated if a man so desired. But there was honor among thieves, for the men here had their own twisted code of ethics, and upon the island, a pirate’s property—stolen though it might be—was sacred.
Usually. But private wars did arise.
And this night, since his adventures with One-Eyed Jack, Silver Hawk knew he might be called upon to defend himself. He had, however, made his intent to take the Silver Messenger clear, and so he was the man with the right to the spoils. Jack was the offender, and a man was expected to slay an offender.
Tonight the Golden Hind was in raucous full swing. Fiddlers played upon a dais, rum flowed freely, and it seemed that the best names in the business were all in attendance. An up-and-coming man who was rumored to hail from Bristol—Edward Teach, who was known more notoriously as Blackbeard—held court at a far rear table. A man nearing forty, or so the Hawk determined, he was known for being ruthless, though not so deadly as the late Captain Kidd. Anne Bonny, her youth fast fading, sat nearby with her own grouping of louts. Whores freely strode about, pocketing the loot tossed about by the drunken pirates.
William Logan, a lean, mean bastard with blackened front teeth and a steel claw for a right hand, sat at a table with a few of his henchmen. A dark-haired whore perched upon the arm of his chair, but Logan gave her little attention. He stared broodingly at the Hawk.
“There’s one to give us trouble,” Robert Arrowsmith murmured as he entered at the Hawk’s side.
The Hawk shrugged and took his place at a center table along with his men. He frowned, noticing that a man hastily entered the establishment and came up to William Logan, stopping by his side and speaking hastily. It disturbed the Hawk, though he wasn’t sure why. Some sixth sense of danger sounded an alarm, but he held his ground.
What was going on? The question would have to wait.
Captain Stoker, sometimes called the “governor” of the island, sat before him and his men. He was an older man, bearded and graying, but he was built like an old Saxon warrior, and had a body to reckon with in a fight. He was grave as he spoke to the Hawk.
“There’s some as don’t like the idea o’ Jack bein’ dead, and you know that rightly. We’re not out to murder our own number, Hawk, and that’s a fact, it is.”
The Hawk leaned across the table, skewering a piece of roasted lamb from a trencher in the center. His eyes met those of Captain Stoker. “Jack was well aware that the Silver Messenger was mine. I laid claim to her back here in March, the very day we learned that she had set sail from England!”
“Jack spoke of it first—”
“Jack mentioned the ship, sir. He was interested in the Spaniard, La Madonna, out of Cartagena, at that time!”
“Still—”
The Hawk slammed his knife, meat and all, into the table, and stood. “Listen to me well, me hearties!” he called, his voice ringing out. The music cease
d. In seconds, the room came silent. Every man and woman looked at him, some with trepidation, and some, the Hawk knew, like Blackbeard, with interest. Some would respect his stand, and some would whisper behind his back. “One-Eyed Jack is dead, that is a fact, and that he died by my sword I do not deny! But I did not seek his death, he desired the fight, for he disturbed what he knew to be my intention, my prize. He died in combat with me, and me alone. He died by the very rules we all know here within our hearts. If any man here—or woman”—he interrupted himself, bowing to Anne Bonny—“cares to dissent with my words, I am ready to listen. Face me now, for whisperers will know my wrath!”
A fist slammed against the table. William Logan stood. The Hawk faced Logan. They had grappled once before, in this very room. Logan had wanted an English ship, and the Hawk had seized it first. They had dueled here with cutlasses.
And Logan had lost a hand before Captain Stoker had stepped in to end it all.
Logan wanted blood now.
“The ways that I sees it,” Logan said, “Jack was already aboard the Silver Messenger. He had claimed the ship for his own. He had done battle, and he had taken the prize.”
The Hawk planted a boot atop a bench and leaned forward casually. “He knew the prize was mine. The ship was not secured when I came aboard. Jack could have given way, and sailed clean and free. He chose to fight. And he died.”
“So you’re saying, Captain Hawk, that one of our brotherhood has the right to another prize?”
“It was my prize.”
“His prize—that you seized from him.”
“The overfine logic is yours, sir.”
“What’s logic?” a drunken whore whispered, and hiccuped.
Logan bowed low to the Hawk. “Logic, sir! As you will have it!” He turned, and with his men in tow, he exited the establishment.
No one else moved for quite some time. Then a young pirate, an Englishman, rose and spoke quietly. They said that his name was Richard Crennan, but whether that was true or false, no one knew. Men left their homes to seek their fortunes, dreaming of riches. Most of them thought to return to their homes one day, and so they seldom used true names, or gave out true facts regarding the towns from which they had hailed.