Trade Winds Page 18

  “Fallen? Overboard?” He made both the words into queries, as if they’d make some sense to him that way. Strangely, his confusion was comforting. She lifted up a few inches, so she could look into his eyes again.

  “My real parents, before Guypa and the Arawak or Wayland Gaverly ever knew me, weren’t having an easy life in England. They decided to make a new start in the Indies. We”—she vacillated, feeling a physical pressure in her chest as the images reeled in her memory—“had almost arrived when pirates raided the ship we were on.”

  “Pirates,” he repeated, though the last note of it trailed off as full comprehension dawned on his features. “The Moonstormer.”

  “Aye.” No matter how determined her effort, she couldn’t keep the bitterness from tainting the affirmation. “Even after robbing the ship, the monster set fire to it. I was separated from my mother in the chaos. I tried, but I couldn’t find her. There was so much smoke, and it was very dark. When the deck tilted, I slid into the water. I came up in time to see her shadow along the deck, just before the fire—”

  “Stop.” It was a husky command. “Don’t go on. You don’t have to.” He pulled her back against him with a fierce embrace. “Christ, Golden.” The tumult of his heartbeat boomed in her ear. Golden closed her eyes, hardly daring to believe what the turmoil of her mind was confirming to her.

  She’d never dreamed this moment would come. She’d never imagined, in her craziest fantasies, there would be a time when this pain inside her, this persecuting hate, would begin to heal. She always supposed she might come close, when she at last stood over the Moonstormer’s lifeless body—but that wasn’t the answer at all, was it?

  No. It wasn’t.

  Healing had come to her in eyes of blue and a smile that stole her breath. It had walked into her life on towering legs, then enveloped her in arms that treasured her, protected her, even shook as he physically agonized for her loss. Healing was in the thundering heartbeat at her ear, in the tender feeling of his words.

  Healing wasn’t in bearing her hurt. It was in sharing it.

  “Sweeting?”

  His voice came through the chaos, resonant and smooth. He cradled her closer.

  “Thank you,” she at last whispered, never meaning anything more in her life. Then she kissed him. She did it softly at first, brushing reverent, breeze-light caresses over his mouth as if crossing herself before prayer. Soon, she craved to offer him full supplication. With her body formed to his, she offered her mouth completely to what he would do with it.

  Oh, what he did with it. After a few urgings of his lips, she parted her lips for the hot, undulating possession of his tongue. He pressed at the back of her jaw in a silent command for her to open wider. She obeyed without hesitation. Deeper into his spell she tumbled, rejoicing in the rough, low growl he poured into her mouth then vibrated into her body. His inner panther broke free as he rolled her back against the pillows. He tumbled with her, pinning her beneath his dark, burnished, magnificent body.

  He wrapped a hand in her hair to position her lips for another full-mouthed kiss. His tongue stormed hotly into her once more, delving deeper and deeper until all she could do was mewl her gratitude, sigh her surrender.

  “Christ,” he grated, finally dragging up for air. “I want you again already.”

  “Then take me.”

  He gave her a gruff laugh. “My brazen little savage.”

  She answered with a long breath of pleasure as he prodded his thick, demanding length into the folds between her thighs, thrusting deep and long into her again. His groan harmonized with her cry, their passions singing and soaring.

  “I need to be deeper.” His cobalt gaze stamped the demand into her heart. While he kept her stare a prisoner, he scooped both hands beneath her hips to shove her body tighter around him.

  She gasped and shuddered. He filled every quivering inch of her sex, dominating her flesh with his heat and hardness. She was split into two. She was shattered into a thousand. Were those pillows at her back or clouds? Was she alive anymore? Did she care?

  Her world was him. Conquered by him. Filled by him. Surrendered to him like a shore to the tide, a dandelion on the wind. She was vaguely aware of her throat vibrating on noises. Whimpers. Sighs. The worshiping mantra of his name, over and over on her lips, until he whispered hers back.

  “Golden.” It vibrated in her ear. “You’re beautiful.”

  “Love me,” she demanded. “Love me hard and hot.” The faintest smile touched her lips. “And that’s an order.”

  Mast gave her a heated laugh. “Naughty vixen.” He kissed his way to her breasts as he began pumping his body into hers with urgent, unyielding passion. “My naughty goddess.”

  With those adoring words filling her ears, she let him take her past the veils of his mystery, past the boundaries of her own sanity. Pulses of blinding, burning heat built and pushed at her mind, her body, her soul. As his white-hot release gushed inside her again, she broke apart and sizzled, the fleeces of her dandelion now rising to the sky and bursting into stars.

  Three bells. It must be nine thirty. The conclusion took root in a foggy corner of Mast’s mind at the same time he opened one ear for the normal sounds of the ship at this time of night.

  Everything seemed quieter than usual. The men had been high as monkeys on sugar cane about their dramatic victory over El Culebra, and he expected some kind of lively banter from the fo’sicle, if not full-nigh music and laughter.

  But then the crack he allowed in his eyes jerked all the way wide.

  The light beyond the window wasn’t moon glow. It was the blush of the rising sun. It was five thirty. In the morning.

  “Good God,” he mouthed. Since turning to life on the sea he hadn’t slept a whole night through since—

  He couldn’t remember.

  He made his way out of the bunk as fast but gingerly as he could. His intentions weren’t all selfless. Aye, Golden needed her rest, but there were other reasons he wanted to slip out alone. He had to sort some things through, alone and carefully. Those things tumbled one after another to his mind as he watched her while he dressed. They developed into thoughts that rushed his soul with frightening urgency.

  He needed some air. Preferably cold and bracing. Definitely now.

  An all-too-familiar coastline loomed off the port bow as he strode up to the quarter deck and studied the log.

  “New Providence already, Robert?”

  The bulky man turned his head at his captain’s voice and grinned. “Aye. And as smarmy and wicked a port as ever, from the look of things.”

  A nerve jumped in Mast’s jaw as he nodded. “I hate to put in at all, let alone here. But it’s only going to be for the day. You know how underhanded Carlos likes to be about things. We may have damage we don’t even know about yet, and I hate—”

  “—to take any foolish chances.”

  Dinky joined Robert in that moment to finish the familiar refrain for him. Mast snorted and swore at them, then gave Robert a hearty whack on the shoulder.

  “Excellent time, Master Gunner. Get some sleep before we put in.”

  “Willingly obeyed, Captain.”

  “Rob, one last thing. I’d appreciate your eye on Ben while we’re in New Prov. His affinity for the gaming taverns has grown lately, and the last thing we need as a send-off is trouble from that rabble from the Blue Gull Inn.”

  “Understood,” Robert replied. “Noticed the same thing about ol’ Bennie myself when we sat that storm out in Jamaica.”

  Mast expressed his appreciation of that with a quick nod. “Sleep well, Rob.”

  “Right,” the burly man replied with a sardonic brow, making obvious reference to the fo’sicle’s round-the-clock disorder. “In that case, I’ll take your bunk.”

  “You won’t get near my bunk and that’s an order.”

  Robert shrugged and laughed as he descended toward his berth, but when Mast turned to Dinky, he instantly knew his first mate didn’t share the
mirth. Dink’s green eye challenged him without a blink. The formidable eyebrow above it cocked like a facial question mark.

  Mast frowned. “What the hell are you looking at?”

  Dink gave a soft pop of his lips before answering, “I’d say a man who actually slept in his bunk last night.”

  Mast hastened his gaze to the deck. He scowled again as he did. Was he actually shuffling his damn feet?

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” A laugh bubbled from Dink’s throat. “Scale and fry me whole, I’m right!” He flung an enthusiastic punch into Mast’s shoulder. “Ya stubborn mudhen, I knew Golden would be the one to melt ya down!”

  “Dink—”

  “Spit ‘n’ damn, this is splendid!”

  “Dink—”

  “I shoulda known somethin’ was up when I didn’t see her up here nippin’ at both ends of yer dander. Guess the spitfire’s a bit fizzled this mornin’, eh?”

  “Dink, goddamnit, listen to me!”

  He hated becoming a damn dragon with his best friend. He hated it even more when he became the focus of that friend’s most ornery glare, no matter which color it came in. Dink’s eyes were equally dark with ominous intent, anyway. Mast turned sharply from him, bracing himself against the rail, yearning for some magical infusion of his vessel’s steadiness.

  “It’s not so splendid,” he uttered. “A bloody mess is a hell of a lot more like it.”

  A half beat of silence passed before Dink sighed as well. His breath resounded with heavy knowingness. “Told her about everything, did ya?”

  He repeated his friend’s hard exhalation. “No.”

  “No?” Dink snorted. “Then where’s yer mess?”

  Mast lifted his head, looking but not seeing the rising blush to the sky. “I wanted to tell her.” The amazement in his voice was a new and strange sound. “Hell, Dink. I wanted to tell her everything. Badly.”

  Dinky lifted his head toward the horizon with a determined glint to the features that had seen a hundred ports and enticed three times that figure in women. Mast had seen that look nearly as many times, and like before, found rough comfort in it.

  “Masterson Stafford.” His tone was carefully calm. “We’ve been friends a long time, and sea mates longer ’n that. I’d be a green-noddied fool not to notice just how different this voyage has been, or that ye’ve chosen not to tell me why, either. Don’t go throwin’ a bloody shoe; ya should also know by now it’s perfectly dandy by me. Ya got yer reasons for yer secrets good ‘n’ fine.” His features deepened into a brood. “Especially if Lord Wayland, Third Earl of Whatever the Hoochie, is involved the way I think he is.”

  Mast tensed. He’d avoided that name since rising this morning, pounding thoughts of Wayland to the safe fringe of his mind. But the moment of truth was here. Now the confusion and the remorse were poised and ready to pummel him. He shut his eyes as the cold, hard blows sunk in.

  “I wish your instincts were off for once, Dink.”

  “So what the hell if they aren’t? M, I’d think you’d’ve notice by now, but Golden is not her father. That spitfire is a person all by herself—hell, sometimes a coupla people by herself—and in case ye left half your head behind on Saint Kitts, she’s crazy about ya. I’ll tell ya somethin’ else, ya ugly bovine, ya feel the same way back. Try twistin’ that around yer thick noggin’, aye?”

  As if Mast hadn’t tried ramming that into the black sanctuary in his brain, as well—precisely because of what the confrontation did to him now. Because of the images that invaded him, body and soul. Visions of panting coral lips and the tongue beyond them, tasting like honey and life and woman. Of whispered entreaties, unbridled sighs, and pleading cries that counted his conquering strokes to her body. Of breathtaking nudity, endless legs pulling him closer, arms around him, body spreading for him. Of giving in and giving up and giving more, even more; always craving more…

  “What the hell does that have do with it?” He snapped out a halt to the maddening torture.

  His first mate pierced him with an exasperated scowl. “Mast, ya bedded the woman. In yer case, this equals the exodus from Egypt.” He slammed a hand on Mast’s shoulder. “Now I’m not sayin’ there’s anythin’ wrong with that. But considerin’ it all the same, why don’t ya take a chance on trustin’ someone—and let the truth off yer chest fer once?”

  He whipped his gaze over the water. “That’s out of the question.”

  “Bloody fuck, man! Ye’ve kept it a secret long enough, M! I’m sure England is grateful but—”

  “It’s beyond that now. Far beyond it. It’s out of control.”

  He clenched and unclenched his hands as he turned and began to pace the deck. “We planned it all so simply, Dink. So blasted easily, without a care. You remember, don’t you? You and I, practically preening when George’s men selected us. Us, of all the brigs traveling to the Indies, were going to be the messengers of England’s ‘most private and important’ communiques in their ‘great Caribbean conquest.’ And then our already huge heads swelling beyond control when we came up with just the plan to accomplish that.”

  He shook his head. Those days of his arrogant youth still seemed so near. “Do you remember?” he echoed more to himself than Dink. A mirthless laugh soughed off his lips. “We were so damn proud of the scheme. ‘Why not fly a pirate jack from the mast instead?’ we suggested. ‘Bloody brilliant!’ they answered. ‘Better yet, we’ll create a whole mystique,’ we said. ‘We’ll make up stories, tell tales in the taverns, let gossip carry us into legend status. We’ll concoct such a magnificent monster, nobody will come near us or England’s confidences.’”

  He froze his steps then. Hardened his fists to ice. Then concluded with dread that curled all the way from his gut, “And we’ll call him the Moonstormer.”

  The sun reached tentative amber fingers over the horizon. They touched Mast’s face but all he felt was an inundating need to run from them, like a vampire hiding his vile secret from the living world.

  “We should have seen, Dink.” The raggedness of his voice didn’t surprise him. “We should have known what would happen…what the others would do.”

  “The others?” Dink’s interjection was thick with perplexity. “The others who? Or what? We should have known what would happen? Stafford, yer not makin’—”

  “Murder.” He whipped a glare back at Dinky. “Does that make enough sense? Aye, Dink, pillaging, burning, and murder—right before Golden’s eyes. She was eight fucking years old. Her parents, her security, her life—incinerated while she watched from the back of that dolphin. And all blamed conveniently on the Moonstormer.”

  Dink’s tawny brows jumped. His square-shaped jaw did a terse dance. “Hell,” he finally stammered. “So…all the things we hear in the taverns…all the elaborate stories we thought were rumors—”

  “Aren’t rumors. Somebody, somewhere on this goddamn ocean is making the Moonstormer a reality.”

  “No wonder Golden went half-harpied on us in Saint Kitts.”

  “Her hate is well-nourished. She’s been carrying it for twelve years.”

  “Twelve—” The man grimaced then spat into over the rail. “God’s sweaty, stinking balls. Are ya tellin’ me there’s a bastard who’s been terrorizin’ like this for over a decade?”

  “And getting away with it in the name of a pirate that doesn’t exist.” His fury coiled through him as it had last night after Golden’s confession. Slowly. Steadily. A branding iron of rage straight into his mind and his will.

  “We gotta do somethin’.”

  “Something, Mister Peabrooke, is only to be the beginning.”

  “Sounds like ye’ve already been brewin’ a plan.”

  “A plan needs a direction. And we don’t have a direction until we have information.” He nodded toward the shore. “Fortune’s smiled on us in that regard. We start here. Today. We unearth every corner of this hellhole if we have to—but we do it discreetly.” After Dink gave a gruff nod of agreement, he went on
. “Twelve years ago or not, an entire ship doesn’t go down without someone remembering it, especially in New Providence.”

  Dinky’s lips twisted beneath his beard as he surveyed the bustling crowds along the docks. “Agreed, though it’s gonna be a bit like huntin’ for dirt in a dung pile.” He snorted. “New Providence. Pirate Republic, my arse. More like a Derelict’s Dungeon.”

  “We’ll turn the shithole inside out if we have to.”

  Mast looked to the hatch of his cabin as he vowed it. The words were as much a pledge to the woman that slept there as a statement to his friend. As the first full patches of morning light winked through the shrouds, he finally smiled. Beneath his breath, he issued another promise.

  “I can’t start to thank you for last night, hellion. But I vow one thing to you before this mess is over, with every speck of the little honor I may have left in my body.

  “The truth. You’ll have the truth about the beast who took your parents, Golden. With his guts on my sword or his head in my hand, you’ll have the truth of him.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  “New Providence! All lines secure at New Providence, Captain!”

  Rico’s bellow was the first thing to greet Golden as she pushed open the hatch into the mid-morning sun. She hesitated in the aftermath of the hail, smoothing the front of her simply-cut light-blue gown for the hundredth time since she’d finally decided it was just the right thing to wear today. She checked her hair for the two hundredth time.

  She faltered again. Was it the right thing? Did she look all right? Nay, she wanted to be better than all right. She wanted to be perfect.

  She wanted Mast’s eyes to darken to black, bottomless desire when he saw her. She wanted him to growl at her in longing, to spread his brawny arms and haul her to his side. Then she wanted to look up at him in the glorious Caribbean sun, taking in the wonderful planes of his face as the wind rustled his inky sea of hair. And he’d gaze back, with openness and trust at last. They’d smile because of the difficult secrets they’d shared last night. They’d also smile with the memories of how they’d twined their bodies until the only music in her head was the sound of his voice gasping her name over and over again…