The Captain of All Pleasures

Chapter 18

For the next couple of nights, Jimmy brought her dinner in, setting the tray down with a flourish. The bratling had changed his behavior toward her so drastically that she suspected he had, in fact, spit in her food before and now felt guilty. He wouldn’t leave her alone, but peppered her with questions. He complimented her and brought her bathwater every day, as well as choice selections of food. In fact, she’d never eaten this well this far out.

The other crewman who weren’t friendly to her weren’t unfriendly either and mainly kept to themselves. Which was fine by her. She already had a crew, a good crew whom she loved. She didn’t need to be welcomed into the fold by this one.

Ignoring Jimmy’s chatter, she scooped up a handful of raisins and thought about her situation. She couldn’t continue with her grudge for much longer. She wasn’t the type to stay angry; she always blew up and then minutes later forgot what the fight was about. And she told herself that under the circumstances, she probably would have believed the same thing Sutherland and his crew had.

Sutherland especially made it difficult. He anticipated her every want. Yesterday when they’d passed a home-bound French steamer, he’d signaled them and rowed over with a crewman to board their ship even though he would lose time. He’d brought back a bag full of fruit for her—apples, oranges, these raisins—for which he must have paid a fortune. She’d had to hide her open-mouthed astonishment, because he’d also brought her a good supply of ink, saying she’d probably want to write her father .

If she had to walk past him, which seemed to be happening more often lately, he would brush by her and put his hand on the small of her back. If that wasn’t enough, he’d let it linger. She supposed that, in each of these ways, he asked for her forgiveness.

Sleeping beside him wore her down as well. Nicole was aware he came in every night, though he hadn’t realized that she woke each time he entered the bed.

She should be angry at the liberty. But as long as he didn’t think she knew, she could just pretend she didn’t and continue to enjoy the warmth he provided in the freezing nights.

But sometimes when he put his arms around her and pulled her to him, his hand would brush her breast. She’d go still at the shock of pleasure. Each night she found it harder not to respond, and it took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to move against his body, so warm and hard against hers. His heartbeat drumming into her back relaxed her guard, lulling her.

When she was recovering, he’d sleep soon after he lay down, but now he stayed awake, tense. A night didn’t go by when she couldn’t feel the evidence of his arousal. He held himself in check. For her. She wished he wouldn’t. She wished he’d pull her to him and touch her as he’d done in the past.

Then the guilt would overcome her. How could she desire him when he’d had her crew jailed? He himself had said that he’d given them no word of her health. Of course they would try to mutiny; they had no idea what he was doing with her. No, she couldn’t let down her guard with him. Any man cruel enough to antagonize her sailors and throw them to the wolves in Cape Town when they reacted could not be trusted.

“Are you all right?” Jimmy asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

She looked down to see that her hands were clenched. “I’m fine.”

Jimmy frowned as he picked up the tray. “Better get this back to Cook.”

When she nodded absently, he carried out the tray.

Suddenly restless, Nicole bundled up in nearly every piece of her clothing, draped a blanket over the whole, and headed out the door. For what seemed like an hour, she stared out at the sea, where the moon’s light flashed over the water. It hung above the horizon as if it were too great and heavy to rise.

“Incredible, is it not?” Sutherland said as he walked up behind her. “It’s as if she’s reluctant to part from the sea.” He stood, making no move to join her at the railing.

She didn’t answer, just battled the urge to sink back into him, into the warmth she enjoyed even now without touching him.

“I think this is my favorite part of the entire journey—these last few days so far south.”

How could his voice affect her so? Why did it tempt her to turn and bury herself against his chest?

She shook her head, reminding herself that he’d hurt her crew. “That doesn’t surprise me,” she began in a waspish tone, “since it’s cold.” If she was cutting enough, would he leave her?

Silence followed, and she almost regretted her sharp tone. He placed his hand on her shoulder.

“You’re shivering. Why don’t you ever wear the warm clothes I set out for you?”

“Oh, is that why you place them on the bed?” she asked without feigning interest.

“Yes. I, uh, didn’t know how to go about getting you to wear my things.”

“In the future, don’t waste your time.”

He exhaled. “Nicole, I want you to know,” he said haltingly, “that I am sorry for the way things have been between us. I would change the way I’ve treated you if I could.”

When she said nothing, he turned her. “I know you might hate me, but we’ve got something between us that can’t be ignored any longer. Don’t you feel how right this could be?” he asked as he gently stroked her cheek. His eyes, glowing silver in the moonlight, mesmerized her with their intensity.

She looked away and attempted a casual tone. “You make it sound as if we have no say in the matter, as if it’s something out of our control.”

“That’s how it’s felt to me. Even when I believed you’d harmed my crew, I still wanted you no matter how hard I fought it.”

He was describing the same feelings she had. The involuntary ones that made her forget about her crew—about Chancey.

She stiffened. “Too much has passed between us. It’s too late. If you feel bad about how I’ve been treated here, then make it up to me. By leaving me alone.”

The next morning, Derek was resolved. The night before, she’d told him, clearly told him, that she wanted nothing to do with him. Her body, rubbing against his till dawn, relayed a different want. If he had to win her on that level to have her completely, then he would. He’d use every night to overcome her objections until he could claim her days.

As on most mornings, he spent his time watching her from the bridge over a cup of coffee. Her looks charmed him, cheeks rosy from the crisp breeze, braids peeking out from the floppy hat she was never without.

She walked across the deck to Jebediah. Approaching Jeb was a first, and could she be…? She was wearing Derek’s sweater.

His thick, favorite, obscenely expensive sweater.

Well, he’d told her to wear his clothes, right?

These were good signs. Apparently Jeb thought so, too, because after nodding emphatically to her, he tore off to the galley as fast as his old body could creak along. Minutes later, he’d retrieved bait and fishing tackle and set her up at amidships. She said something else to him, and when he walked away his chest was puffed up in pride. A smile creased his old face.

She’d chosen to throw out a line right when the fishing would pick up again, now that they were finally traveling more to the north, and that impressed him. He was content to watch her from a distance as she took out a small fish for bait, cut it, hooked it, and then…slowly ran her slimy hands down the front of his sweater. He could swear that the scales embedded in the fine fabric shone in the sun. Casually, she grasped and cast her rod.

How could she—? But that was fine. He could get past cut-up fish on his clothing if it made her feel better.

She leaned over the rail. He worried, even though he knew he shouldn’t. She had shown again and again how perfectly she walked the ship. So why was he storming across the deck?

As he approached her, he could hear her calling enticingly down the side of the ship, cooing down at the water.

“He-ere fishy, fishy. He-ere fishy.”

His lips twitched.

“Fishy want a tow?” she asked playfully, bowing over the side of the ship.

When he reached her, he looked out to see a shark diving and swirling around her bait as if trying to decide about it.

“How will you get that thing aboard?” he asked. “It looks to be quite large.”

She didn’t appear surprised that he was there. She gave him an impatient sigh and pointedly glanced at the rod and reel she held. Speaking in slow tones as though answering a small child, she said, “When the fish takes the bait, I will begin to turn this crank until it’s raised to the deck. It’s magic,” she breathed sarcastically.

“Fine, fine,” he said with a grin. “He just seems a little large for you to reel in.”

Irritation made her face tight. “I have taken a lot from you, and I’m so tired of you always underestimating—” She didn’t get any further because the tip of the rod was now pointing straight down and jerking her forward.

“Damn and blast you, Sutherland!”

But he was already behind her, with one hand grabbing the back of her trousers and the other reaching over her for the rod. He steadied it against the first surprise she’d had and held it as she wound the crank. And grew amazed. She repeatedly, expertly let out line before quickly reeling it back in. She knew how to tire the shark, so it would be easier for her to pull him in.

He’d always been curious about how she’d survived in the ruthless world of sailing, and he thought her actions here were an insight. She might not have great physical strength, but he’d wager she always found ways around that.

Although he felt unneeded, he stood behind her, grabbing the rod if she got a tug, receiving a glare over her shoulder each time.

Nothing could have moved Derek at that moment. He basked in the scent of her hair in the cold air and how her body warmed his front when he wrapped his arms around her. He caught himself thinking that he should prolong this as much as possible, but he could feel her body tiring.

Surprisingly, she’d gotten the shark to the side, but looking at its size, he didn’t believe she could haul it aboard by herself. He peremptorily took the rod from her, braving her initial one-handed slaps and pushes. He finished reeling the flailing shark up to where a crewman had a grappling pole ready.

When their catch lay safely on the deck, his gaze locked with hers. Then, seeming discomfited, she turned her attention to the thrashing beast, kneeling down to scan it with a wide-eyed scrutiny.

He could feel her exhilaration. She’d probably caught a hundred of them, but her eyes were snapping and bright with excitement, her lips unconsciously drawn up at the corners. And she blushed, probably after noticing the way he kept watching her.

He knelt on the other side and couldn’t resist asking, “Still think you could have taken him?”

She blew a curl out of her face. “I admit, if I’d hooked it off my own ship, I would have cut line and fished for smaller.”

He smiled, and could swear an answering smile shaded her lips. She stared at his face, then his lips, before appearing flustered and looking down.

Without warning, he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up. He tugged her toward his cabin, past the seemingly uninterested deckhands, only pausing to tell Jeb to have the catch cleaned for dinner.

He’d been pleased just to be near her this morning, to share her company. After this calm weather they were enjoying, they’d probably encounter a storm before long and he’d be needed on deck soon, but holding her and then seeing her face flushed with pleasure had been too much. He wanted her. Needed her. Now.

However, he had a plan he wouldn’t deviate from; he would be patient. He’d force himself to simply talk to her and possibly gain her trust.

He looked down and found her wide-eyed at his behavior. Damn it, his high-handedness had startled her. They’d had a rocky start, to say the least, and he needed to be careful with her. Easing his cabin door closed behind him, he politely motioned for her to sit with him. Seeming too curious to resist, she slowly removed her hat and edged onto the seat.

“There’s been a…misunderstanding between us. I don’t want to rehash it, but we need to come to some kind of terms,” he said in a tone that was too commanding even to his own ears. Her face grew tight.

Excellent opening. Charming .No wonder she avoids you .

“Hmmm, misunderstanding.” A shadow crossed her features. “You make it sound so light, when in fact it was hellish for me. Not knowing about my crew, mourning my ship.” Her eyes glistened. “That ship was my home.”

He moved to touch her, and though she shied away, he could swear it was less than before.

The look in her eyes tore at him.

“I spent a good portion of my life on the Bella Nicola and almost all of it with that crew. They were my family, since all I had was my father. And now, now it’s worse,” she said as she swiped away a tear that had fallen, “I know what you’ve done to them.” Her voice grew choked. “Mutiny is a hanging offense.”

Derek made a low growling sound as he stood. “If you are worried about your crew, I left orders for them to be freed a week after we sailed.”

Her eyes opened wide, then narrowed in disbelief. “You ordered them…released?”

“I did.” He saw her indecision. “I would’ve done it sooner, but I didn’t want them to come after you.” When her look of indecision began to fade, he said, “I swear to—” He didn’t get a chance to finish because she was on him, stretching up to him, standing on her toes to get her arms around him. When he reached down to her, she grasped his head in both hands and planted smiling kisses all over his face and neck.

She drew back. “My crew’s safe? They were released?”

He nodded. “Have you thought this whole time that I would have them tried for mutiny?”

She closed her eyes briefly.

“My God, you must have thought I was a monster,” he said as he ran a hand over her hair. “I guess I didn’t give you much reason to think otherwise.”

“I do now,” she said softly. “I can understand why you were so angry with me. It didn’t look good. But, honestly, I was only back at the casks because I’d never seen iron drums up close.”

He groaned and said in a low, chiding voice, “I can’t believe you were spying in the first place.”

“Well, there was that.” She blushed. “But I never would have come if I didn’t feel so attracted to you.” She stood on her toes again to wind her hands in the hair on his nape. “And I’ve never regretted that night.”

His brows drew together. He couldn’t believe what he heard; he’d always wondered if she, like him, revisited that night. The knowledge that she did made him hunger even more for her, and he crushed her to him. Unlacing her thick braids, he threaded his fingers through her hair while running his lips down her neck. She gasped, then inhaled sharply.

Strangely, she went still, then backed away, grimacing at his chest. Absently raising a finger, she said simply, “Fish.”

He glanced down at his own clothing to find transferred fish slime. With raised eyebrows, he looked up, and was answered with an endearing, sheepish smile.

He couldn’t help but smile in return. “So there is. No harm done.” He strode over to get fresh clothing. When he’d finished peeling off his outer layer and changing, he turned and caught her nibbling her bottom lip, hastily plucking scales from his sweater.

Grinning, he threw her a clean one. “We’ll finish this tonight, sweet.”

Nicole couldn’t sleep with the stillness on the ocean this night. The fog, thick over the lifeless water, amplified every sound. It was that eerie stillness so absolute it presaged only the most violent weather. She dreaded another big storm, but to be honest, her anxiety tonight came not from the coming gale but from Sutherland.

He’d gone back topside today leaving her confused and wanting to sort out her powerful feelings. When he’d revealed he hadn’t hurt her crew, she’d been floundering from her first glimpse of Sutherland’s unreserved smile. Her flustered brain could formulate only one word. Devastating.

She thought he would make love to her tonight. While she was nervous about the actual act, she was calm about the ramifications of it. She’d realized today that her feelings for him went deeper than mere lust. She didn’t know if she could call it love, but whatever gripped her was boundless in its strength.

The door opened and creaked closed. When Sutherland began undressing, even the mundane sounds of his disrobing made her skin tighten and heat pool between her legs. She couldn’t stand another night of this; something had to give.

He’d taught her months ago what it was she desired, and now the craving, the wanting, wouldn’t recede, only kept building. When he sank down next to her and put his arms around her, it took every ounce of will not to turn and place her lips and tongue against his skin.

He pulled her closer, and she worked to slow her breathing, but when his stiff arousal pulsed against her back, her breaths hitched in and panted out.

Tonight was different for him as well. Instead of lying tense beside her for half the night before exhaustion finally claimed him, he moved over her, and with a tiny flick of his tongue kissed the sensitive skin of her ear. She stifled a moan as her body trembled, quivered even more when he skimmed his lips down to where her shoulder met her neck.

What did it matter if he knew she was awake and wanted him? She couldn’t hate him any longer. And without that barrier, she found her feelings rushing in a completely opposite direction. She couldn’t stop this and didn’t want to.

When he grazed the backs of his fingers over the night-shirt covering her nipple, she gasped with pleasure, but the sound made him take his hand away. She wanted to cry in frustration. So many nights like this, so much passion. Not another wasted second.

She grasped his arm behind her and brushed her fingers down it until she found his hand. Before she could lose her nerve, she placed it back on her breast. He sucked in a breath and groaned as he cupped her and thumbed her nipple.

She rubbed up against his front, gladdened by the hard feel of him, aroused by his manhood, impossibly still growing as it pressed against her. She moaned low in her throat. At once, he turned her on her back, covering her mouth and body with his own, moving his hips. When he raised himself on his arms, she looked down and saw his manhood thrust against her and then land over her belly again and again. The sculpted muscles above his groin and banded over his chest and shoulders strained, bulging under her grasping hands.

He dipped his head and ran his lips over her aching nipples, first one, then the other, wetting the cloth that covered them. It was too much. She couldn’t stop her hips from rising to him. She even thought she might find that overwhelming pleasure at that second—she was so close.

“Nicole, I won’t be able to stop after much longer. Tell me now, or I swear I’ll take you,” he bit out. This time instead of rubbing sinuously over her, his straining flesh caught against the juncture of her thighs, pushing into the cloth covering her, demanding entrance.

She shook her head back and forth. “No, I want you…. I want to finally feel you inside me.”

He hissed in a breath at her words. “There’s no turning back from this.” He lowered his head again to her tight nipples.

“I feel like I’ll die. Please…” she breathed as she undulated beneath him, opening her legs wide for him.

Whatever tenuous restraint he possessed snapped. He groaned, a brutal masculine sound, and ripped apart her shirt. She shook. Lord, his strength, his size —she responded to that latent power emanating from his body even as she feared it. If he was losing control as she was

He teased her with his finger.

Lightly caressing her at first, then gradually stroking her inside, with one finger, then two, and nothing else mattered. Each time he drove into her with his fingers, his whole body rose up over her, his stiff manhood probing against her thigh, as if preparing her for what he was about to do.

But her body couldn’t wait. That delicious pressure gathered within her until she went senseless, sobbing out his name, head thrashing…eventually feeling nothing but the cold air on her tight nipples and the powerful squeezing around his relentless fingers.

“Ah, God, Nicole, I feel you—I can’t stop now,” he said, his voice pained as he put a hand on each thigh and opened her legs wider to him. Her eyes soaked up his every movement. His neck, his arms, even the muscles in his jaw were set with tension. He fought so hard not to hurt her that he punished himself.

“Don’t hold back, don’t…” She raised her hands to his chest and drew her nails down his rock-hard torso. He shuddered. She boldly rose up and grasped his manhood, fascinated fingers smoothing over the taut velvet heat of his skin.

“Nicole, don’t…”

He sounded in pain, but then he made the smallest thrusting movement against her palm and she continued exploring him. She thumbed the slit at the top, and his body jerked. Her eyes widened when the thick tip grew moist against the pad of her finger, and she moaned even before he did. He threw his head back as she continued to run curious fingers over him, running his length, cupping the heavy sack beneath, until he lowered his chin, his eyes coming back to bore into her own.

He pushed her down into the mattress, brushed her fingers away, and gripped himself. Slowly, with a shaking hand, he positioned his rod, running it up and down her flesh, making her even wetter. Hot with embarrassment, she turned her face from him.

“No, Nicole. You’re perfect.” He kneaded her thighs. “Tonight, I’ll kiss you there and show you how much I love your response.”

Her mouth opened wordlessly. Kiss her there…? She had only a second to wonder; then he pushed into her. The unyielding head was inside her, stretching her, coming to fulfill her. He withdrew and slowly pushed in farther.

“Oh, God. Please! Sutherland. More.” How many times he did this she couldn’t know, because the quickening pleasure gathered again….

But there was a sound from outside their cabin, dimly heard by her, a knocking, then a frantic hammering on the door. She didn’t know how long someone had been outside and didn’t care. Her mind was focused on the feelings cascading through her body. The tight feel of him just inside her. The coil in her belly, the beginning tremors inside

Just when she thought he would give her all of himself, he pulled away and rose out of bed. He left her feeling empty, bereft, her body quaking.

“What the bloody hell is it?” he yelled—she had never heard him so angry. When he came back to her, he scooped up her unresisting body to enfold her on his lap. Beneath her bottom, he was hard, and she became confused, not understanding why he hadn’t taken his pleasure with her.

He bent down and dropped a kiss in her hair before setting her on the side of the bed and standing. “Get your clothes on, love, and quickly.” He ran his gaze down her flushed body and bit out a curse. “We’ve got trouble.”