The Pirate's Tempting Stowaway (15 page)

She wrapped both fists around Steele’s linen shirt and pressed her lips to his. Kissing him was more than relief and emotion. It was a revelation.
 

Steele had never been playacting. He was no gentleman. He fought with the same savage honesty with which he kissed. He was Blackheart the pirate.
Her
pirate. And today they’d fought the enemy side-by-side.

As a team.

Chapter 17

Long before the last of his crew had finished securing the jolly boat and cutters back onto the
Dark Crystal
, all Steele wanted to do was drag Clara into his cabin, close the door, and not come out until morning. If ever.

Unfortunately, there was business to be taken care of first.

He smiled at the two swabs that had left their posts instead of staying behind to watch over the ship…and Clara. “You’re sacked.”

Instead of making futile excuses, both boys hung their heads in shame. Good. They were an embarrassment to the crew. If they couldn’t be trusted to follow orders, they had no business aboard his ship.

Clara’s mouth fell open, and she whipped toward Steele, likely to spout some sympathetic nonsense.

He captured her in his arms and stalked through the rows of men and toward his cabin without another word.
She
had long since proven her willingness to forswear her own life for all sorts of noble, foolish reasons.
 

Steele had no such inclination.

He hauled her down the hatchway, flung open the door, and swung her inside. With a satisfying click, he locked the door behind them. Then he turned to corner Clara between his body and his bunk.

“Y-you can’t just
sack
them.” She stared at him in consternation. “They helped bring up the treasure.”

He prowled closer. “They left
you
. You’re more important than treasure.”

She shook her head. “Never mind a stowaway. Those boys wanted to come to their captain’s aid. To serve the commander of this ship. They went after
you
.”

He pushed her onto the bunk and covered her body with his. “You’re more important than me.”

“You’re wrong.” She gripped his hair and pulled his mouth to hers. “Nothing is.”

He kissed her. Nipped her. Claimed her with the ferocity of his kisses. As much as this impossible woman could be claimed.

His heart clenched. The only thing she’d ever done with consistency was surprise him. He’d recognized her voice in the cavern, but the shadowy darkness had prevented him from knowing which side of the resulting muzzle flash she’d been on. He had felt
fear
, damn her. For a heart-stopping moment, he had thought he’d lost her forever. He cupped the back of her head and drank in her kisses.

She was finally in his arms, and his blasted heart still raced. He was furious at her and half in love with her. She was unpredictable and utterly magnificent. She was the wildest adventure he’d ever been on.

“You saved my life today,” he growled against her mouth.

She licked his lips. “You saved mine. Now we’re even.”

He ripped open her ruined dress. It was already coming apart at the seams from whatever ungodly scrapes she had got into between being left safely behind on his ship and then dropping by a secret lair to fire her pistol at a band of pirates. Perhaps if he tore all her clothing apart, he could get her to listen to him. Follow simple orders.

Perhaps not.

He pinned her wrists over her head and lowered his mouth to the bodice of her linen shift. His breeches tightened as his tongue found her straining nipple. Waiting for him. Begging to be touched. The thin material of her chemise molded to her breast as he laved, but it was not enough. He wanted nothing between them.
 

He caught the top of her shift in his teeth and jerked down the low bodice to expose her breasts. They were as irresistible as she was. He cupped them, teased them, employed his mouth and his fingers until she grasped his hair in her fingers and arched up to meet him.

She held on tighter as he yanked the hem of her shift up to her thighs. He could smell her arousal, knew his own was jutting against her hip in eagerness to sink between her legs. Not yet. Soon.

He slid his fingers into her slick heat, stroking her in demanding, relentless patterns as his tongue and teeth teased her nipples.
 

“I want you. Now.” She scratched her fingernails up his shoulders, either trying to pull off his shirt or drag him to her.

He sank two fingers in deeper, and captured her gasp with his mouth. He wanted her like he’d never wanted anything in his life. And he would have her. His pulse raced. He broke the kiss only long enough to whip his shirt over his head and hike her flimsy chemise up to her hips.

“Stay put,” he told her with a wicked grin. Then he lowered his mouth to her cunny to pleasure her.

She was sweet and salty and intoxicatingly responsive. His fingers found his own member as her legs tightened about his shoulders. He released his cock into his hand, gripping and stroking it with every lick of her sex.
 

Her legs began to tremble. Arrogant victory ripped through him. She was his, and his alone. His tongue commanded her body. Giving. Demanding. Forcing her to surrender control. To give herself over to him completely.

She gasped as her muscles convulsed in pleasure. He continued his teasing assault, viciously pleased to be the cause of her orgasm. It wouldn’t be her last.
 

The night was just starting.
 

Before her tremors subsided, he lifted his mouth from between her legs and sank his throbbing cock into her wet core. Bliss flooded him. And hunger. Her hips rose to meet him, welcoming him in deeper with every pump of his hips.

He was no longer capable of rational thought. She had stolen everything from him. He was giving it back.
 

His mouth sought hers, gasping, kissing. Her fingers tightened in his hair and he reveled in every sharp tug, every buck of her hips, every lick of her tongue against his. She was perfect. He drove into her faster, his lungs bursting, his need desperate.
 

“Take your pleasure,” she whispered, wrapping her legs tighter around him. “Make me join you.”

There was nothing he wanted more.
 

He gripped the edge of the bunk and buried himself inside her, telling her with his body, his cock, his kisses, everything he couldn’t even admit to himself. He claimed her with every thrust. She had already conquered him. He was making sure she knew it was mutual.

When her head rolled back and her legs began to convulse about him, only then did he give himself over to release, taking her with him in rhythmic perfection.

As he collapsed onto the bunk, he rolled her on top of him so he could cradle her in his arms as he tried to catch his breath. His heart thundered as if he’d just stormed a ship or discovered treasure. ’Twas how he always felt around her. Galvanized. Off-center. Exhilarated.

In love.

Chapter 18

Clara awoke alone.

Rather than sigh at the wooden ceiling, she smiled and shook her head. There was no sense hoping a pirate might spontaneously turn to romance and domesticity. Although Steele had left her, he hadn’t gone far. She was lying on his bed, in his cabin, on his ship. He’d be back. Eventually. But from the morning sun streaming through the skylight, perhaps she’d be better served going after him.

She cleaned up and donned a fresh gown—a few more days like yesterday and she’d have nothing left to wear—and then poked her head over the hatchway on the main deck.

The entire crew milled in a chaotic circle around six heavy, locked chests and piles of bundled cloths filled with all the treasure that had been openly displayed inside the Corsair’s secret lair. Half the men had mugs of grog, despite the early hour. The other half rubbed their thick hands together as if eager to get their fingers on the additional riches tucked inside the locked chests.

In the center of it all stood Captain Blackheart, an unlit cigar between his teeth and a wicked cutlass in his hand. His eyes softened when he caught sight of Clara, and he motioned her to join them.
 

“A glass of port for the lady,” he barked to the crew at large.

“No, thank you,” she said quickly, as she stepped into the melee. “’Tis rather early for me.”

“Respectable woman,” Marlowe whispered to the boatswain.

“Siren,” Barnaby muttered back.

Steele grinned around his cigar and raised his cutlass. “What do you say we open the chests?”

The men cheered and raised their mugs.

With a whoosh, Steele’s cutlass slashed at the lock until it splintered from the chest. He tossed the cutlass aside and swept back the lid with a shouted, “
Voila!
”

Dust floated up from a thick pile of dull gray rocks.

The only sound was the gentle lapping of ocean waves as the entire ship contemplated the distinctive lack of treasure in silence.

Steele was the first to spring back to life. He hacked open the lock on the second chest, the third, the fourth. Clara gaped at their contents.

Nothing but rocks. Back-breaking quantities of rocks.

“Cap’n?” came Barnaby’s hesitant voice.

“’Twas not the Corsair’s secret lair, but a trap.” Steele’s blade sliced through the last of the chests with little passion. “Every step of the way.”

“Not every step.” Marlowe gestured at the sacks in the middle. “We did get
some
treasure.”

“Pageantry,” Steele spat. “Just like those featherbrained skulls.”

Clara shook her head to clear it. The piles of bones in that cave had scared her witless. “Pageantry?”

“Animal skeletons,” Marlowe explained in a low voice. “Not a human bone among them. It was a ruse.”

Steele cut open one of the sacks with the tip of his cutlass. Doubloons, packets of spices, and a roll of silk tumbled to the floor. “The map was no accident. Neither was this artful array of ‘treasure.’ The Corsair meant for us to steal it.”

“The Crimson Corsair expected you to die.” Clara’s fingers shook. Everything about it was a nightmare. “He wanted his enemies to get caught in his clever wired traps with their tacks and knives. And if that didn’t work, he left men behind to finish the job.”

Steele glared at her for a long, tense moment before his lips curved into a smile. “The Corsair didn’t count on
you
, love, did he?”

Warmth spread through her at the pride in his gaze and she blushed. “He didn’t count on Captain Blackheart and his crew, either. The staging might have been pageantry, and much of the treasure false, but every speck that was worth anything is right here on this ship. Who knows how many others might have received the same map and never made the return voyage home. But not you.” She grinned at the crew. “You left him quite a surprise to come home to.”

“Left his men trussed up like pigs, we did.” Barnaby raised his mug toward Clara.
 

Marlowe pulled one of the heavy stones up from the closest chest and heaved it over the side of the boat. It landed in the water with a satisfying splash. “We won’t even leave a single trace of his
false
treasure. Will we, men?”