The Merman and the Barbarian Pirate (17 page)

Out of the water, he felt graceless, like a beached whale. Did Kemp think him ugly like this?

Kemp stared, staggering back to clutch the spokes of the ship's wheel. "In all the seven seas of this world," he breathed, "nothing compares to you. You are beautiful."

Raef's throat felt tight, but he managed a shy smile. From the east, the sun's first beams struck scarlet across the ocean, and shards of agony seized and split him. For the next few moments, everything went hazy. When his right mind returned, he remained lying on the deck, his head and shoulders in Kemp's lap. He was human and he was freezing. He clenched chattering teeth and wriggled his toes, trying to warm them, though his embarrassment soon scorched. He was naked in from of this pirate again. His golden locks pooled near Kemp's groin.

"That was quite a show," said Kemp, smoothing Raef's hair and picking out a shred of weed. "What other magic can you mer perform?"

Raef frowned, trying to concentrate on the question rather than let his mind disintegrate at Kemp's touch. "Not much. Beyond, uh, the ability to shift, we mer have magical talismans—objects that can call upon greater elemental powers when one asks them to. But they're very rare." Galyna's trident was the only such talisman possessed by Raef's tribe, though there were others out there. "I've seen pictures and I learned about them and their different uses in the schoolroom. I don't have any other magic personally, I'm afraid."

"You're quite magical enough. My last cabin boy couldn't do what you just did."

Cabin boy? Raef squirmed uneasily, prompting Kemp to stop stroking him. He pushed himself into a sitting position, and flexed his knees and ankles. "I-I didn't sign up to join your crew. I'm just here to look at that sketch again." Was he? Raef hardly knew.

"I understand," replied Kemp, getting up. "But the berth remains open, lad, and I think you'd fit in well. We're all good friends on the
Alice O'Shanty
."

Raef would like to be Kemp's good friend, but daren't show himself as too eager. He'd not had too many friends, and even with Ali, he'd kept many of his secrets tight. Anyhow, it was impossible to consider Kemp in the same category as Ali. Ali had never given him piercing looks that made his flesh tingle.

Kemp leaned back against the mainmast. The rising light gilded his ebony hair, the tips of those long lashes, and a rush of affection nigh overwhelmed Raef. Gods, he'd missed this man. He'd dreamed of Kemp the past two nights. Loneliness had tortured his days even worse than the long summer weeks he'd pined after Haverford. Having had such good company simply made being on his own all the more painful. Unsettled to the point of confusion, he met Kemp's kind offer with a glare. "Maybe I'll stay for a bit."

"Splendid," said Kemp. "When you're ready, I suggest we find you some clothes and discuss everything over a hearty breakfast. Does that suit?"

Raef's stomach rumbled at the prospect, and he couldn't maintain his glower. When Kemp offered him a hand, he took it, letting Kemp draw him to his feet. "Yes, thank you," he said coolly. "I'd like that very much."

Kemp conjured breakfast in his cabin on a tiny galley stove, producing coffee ground fresh from the bean and herring sizzled in butter. The loaf of bread tasted delicious. Raef dressed himself in some knee breeches and a loose shirt, then sat on the edge of the bunk and chewed pensively, exploring each unfamiliar flavor. Kemp retrieved Haverford's waistcoat from where it had been hanging out on deck.

"It's a little stiff from the salt," admitted Kemp, holding up the garment, "but it'll still look fine on you, if you want it."

"Yes, please." Kemp laid the waistcoat over a chair and settled down to eat next to Raef. A narrow channel of air flowed between their thighs and heated fast. Raef tensed further.

This was… awkward.

He felt like he'd known Kemp for a lifetime, and Kemp regarded him fondly. In reality, they were little more than strangers. While Kemp ate the herring using fingers and neat bites, Raef gathered his thoughts.

"Captain, I beg your pardon," he said, "but I don't understand you at all. I mean, you don't keep anything you steal, so you're not a very
bad
pirate." Kemp arched his brows. Raef wished he would stop running his tongue over his lips, catching the juices and melting butter. Memories of that kiss flooded back, and it was a struggle to articulate the rest of the enquiry. "I mean, you're not a very good pirate. No, um, I mean, from what I've seen you're good at being good, and excellent at thieving, but bad at being vicious and mean. Which is what pirates should be excellent at, 'til you get caught and hanged. Not that I'd want that for you, of course. You know, us mer call you kluggites, because an ugly name fits such a coarse breed of men. But I can't think of you as a kluggite anymore, and … Why are you laughing at me?"

"I'm sorry." Kemp schooled his features back to serenity. "But I invited you here to ask
you
a hundred questions, and as usual, you've got in first. So let me tell you a story, Raef.
My
story."

Raef's noncommittal hum belied his enthusiasm. "That might be interesting."

"We'll start at the beginning then. I was born in a castle on the bleak Northumberland coast, scion of a good family. I was the third son and bound to become a scholar and clergyman." Kemp chortled dryly. "Suffice to say, I didn't live up to my parents' expectations."

Raef kept eating and drinking, but stopped tasting, so absorbed that he hardly flinched at the first sharp hit of the coffee. He'd been a fool yet again for believing Kemp was bad at being a pirate. Now he discovered how this pirate had learned his dastardly art. Kemp had been a restless and naughty child, so at the age of twelve, his parents had revised their plans and he'd been dispatched to join the king's Navy. The boy had yearned for adventure. What he'd received was a life of gnat's-piss grog, biscuits peppered with weevils, and drudgery. So on some distant island, where the sun had beat down on his neck fiercer than any flogger, young Jon Kemp the Jack Tar had jumped ship.

On his first night of his precarious freedom, he'd drank so much rum he'd awoken the next morning in a chicken house—next to a man with golden teeth, a bushy gray beard, and breaths that reeked of liquor the strength of gunpowder. Kemp's feather-covered bedfellow had been Hamish MacLowd, a notorious outlaw of the Spanish Main.  MacLowd had been in need of a cabin boy aboard his ship: the
Alice O'Shanty
.

"But I didn't stay cabin boy for long," said Kemp, his eyes misting as if he reran the gamut of every bygone escapade. "When I attained the age of twenty, old MacLowd was dead, the
Alice O'Shanty
was mine alongside a fleet of six captured ships, and I'd raided every seaport from Reykjavik to Caracas. The ship was so laden with gold, jewels, and uncountable wealth,
Alice
's tailfins scarce cleared the water. I took to burying my treasure, because I'd nothing else to do with it. When I wasn't planting my fortunes, I swived as many lovers as I supped cold dinners." Raef felt a twinge of dismay. Kemp was a pirate, a very good
bad
pirate, so it seemed. "Then everything changed."

Kemp paused to sip his coffee. "Go on," said Raef eagerly.

"We'd hooked near Cape Finisterre, a dangerous shore not unlike this one. I'd heard about a miser who secreted a chest of gold beneath his bed. So we climbed the cliffs and set upon the cottage, but alas, our information as to the whereabouts of this nip-farthing had been sham. Instead, we stumbled on a poor widower and his nine children."

Raef leaned forward, biting a fingernail. He prayed Kemp hadn't committed murder in cold blood. It seemed uncharacteristic of the man who'd shattered everything he'd once believed about pirates.

"They'd not a penny under their leaking roof," continued Kemp. "They were starving, and the wails of the youngest infant pierced my ears
and
my heart, which had felt naught save hollow beats for years. In a fit of what I regarded then as a weakling's foolishness, I gave the widower as much gold as I'd hoped to filch, reveled in their gratitude, and sailed away. On deck, I breathed the salt air like a newborn babe suckling his mother's milk, and then it struck me. I was happy. I'd not felt this free since I was a cabin boy. I live for adventure, for novelty, for
life
, and there's none of that to be found in hoarding. From that day forth, the only souvenirs I keep of my plunder are those you've seen." He rolled up his sleeve and drew his fingers across his tattoos.

As per usual, Raef admired Kemp's steel musculature more than the fineness of the art. "Are you still happy now?" asked Raef, his anxieties mounting without quite knowing why.

Kemp shrugged, rubbing his arm. "I'm no hero, but no law binds me and I live the life I choose with men who choose to live it with me. I seek out cases like Cecilia's, where there are larks to be had making fools of the rich." He scrutinized Raef 'til Raef could no longer bear it and studied his empty platter instead.

"You, however," said Kemp, "are more intriguing than any treasure I've snaffled or split. Your kind hold yourself elusive, and I hadn't a notion you could take on human form. Then again, I did wonder how old Captain MacLowd took Alice as his lover. Most fish lay eggs, don't they?"

"Not all do, but—" Kemp's words regarding MacLowd sank in, and Raef looked up, all else forgotten. "The old captain loved a mermaid?"

"She left him in the end for another human," said Kemp. "She married a fellow from the Emerald Isle, hence her surname, O’Shanty." That made sense, as mer never had more than one name. "But MacLowd took it all in his stride, and named this ship after her anyway. It's not hard to believe he lost his heart to her. You merfolk are… extraordinary."

Kemp was cool as morning dew, while Raef's breaths quickened, sweat prickling on his palms and under his collar. He couldn't believe Kemp was no hero, not after Kemp saved him. But that barely mattered. A new idea was taking hold, one that shocked and thrilled him in equal measures. He'd not come back here expecting love. However, he could learn much from Kemp about his human form—and his urges toward other males—if he could just be a little bit more
like
Kemp.

Could Raef share some pleasures with Kemp without falling in love? Could he move on to quest for the real thing after enjoying himself a little? With Kemp close, he found he wanted to try. Gods, he
needed
to try.

"So now it's your turn," said Kemp, placing his coffee mug down on the boards. "What's your story?"

"I … uh … there's not much to say, really. I left my tribe because I didn't fit in, and I've not spent much time in my human form prior to this last week." After dipping to avoid eye contact, Raef fixed on Kemp's luscious mouth again. Bad idea. His fluster rose toward panic and a feral hunger reared within. "I… don't quite know what I'm doing here, and I've not even a clear idea what human friends get up to, let alone lovers. But I think…" He gave an anxious cough. "I'd like another kiss."

Kemp's smile proved as devastating as it was welcoming. All Raef's reservations liquefied, inundated by physical desire. He flung his arms about Kemp's shoulders, Kemp enveloped him, and their lips met.

Tongues clashed and curled about each other with the zeal of flashing cutlasses. Raef worked the kiss as hard as Kemp did. He savored the rasp of Kemp's stubble, the skim of teeth against sensitive flesh. Arousal zinged through his body, blood flooding to his hardening loins. Kissing with an enthusiasm that budded and bloomed, Raef rubbed his body against Kemp's, needing to be closer. When they broke the kiss, both gasping for air, Raef climbed onto Kemp's lap so he straddled him.

"Oh God, Raef." Kemp moaned into Raef's mouth, foreheads touching. Raef's mind had turned numb. His bodily urges drove him, and his prick ached, hard and full. He scrubbed himself against Kemp's stomach, rucking up the fabric of the shirt. Then he groped for Kemp's member. He
had
to feel it. As he traced the thick length through Kemp's breeches, an insatiable itch built in his loins. If he didn't scratch it, he'd expire. Kemp cupped his buttocks and squeezed, pitching his arousal onto a whole new level. He wanted Kemp inside him, but that prospect terrified him. He needed to surrender, to be possessed… but no, he mustn't. He mightn't be able to save himself from giving away too much.

Before anxiety could slacken his pace, he buried his fingers in Kemp's sleek hair and littered Kemp's jaw and neck with more kisses. He stooped to lick Kemp's throat, the curls of hair at Kemp's open collar, and those tattoos. The taste of sweat and salt was more delicious than even in his dreams. He silently cursed that either of them wore these silly clothes. He wanted nothing between them; to explore Kemp's everything. Kemp reached for the laces at the front of Raef's breeches, fingers brushing Raef's cock, and the last of Raef's wits fell apart. He stopped kissing Kemp, threw back his head, and emitted a wanton cry.

"You want this?" asked Kemp.

All he could do was nod, fixing deep in Kemp's gaze. Kemp grasped Raef's cock and started to pump, sparking a divine friction, a spiraling flight of ecstasy.

The intense shocks of pleasure jolted Raef's tongue. "Yes. Yes!"

He screwed his eyes tight, vanquished by the sensation. He daren't look at Kemp anymore, because he'd want to—need to—shout of love. While he wouldn't do that, he was flying with the skylarks, riding a breakneck wave, all thanks to Kemp. And then there was more than a hand about him. Somehow, some way, Kemp had freed his own iron-hard member, rubbing it against Raef's, and the heat soared. Explosive currents raced through him. His balls turned to stones. Raef rocked against Kemp, pleasures he believed unassailable bettering by the moment. Then he shattered and burst, a storm swell dashed on the cliffs, annihilated by a tide of exaltation. Kemp's cock convulsed beside Raef's, and a satisfied moan shuddered from Kemp's core. They flopped forward against each other, entwined and panting.

Yes!
Raef's senses staggered.
Yes, I think I love you.