Page 63 of A Flash of Golden Fire

He touched the skin on my hip with his fingers, then glanced at me. “How does that feel?”

“It doesn’t hurt, but then, it didn’treallyhurt before.”

Captain Martin slipped his fingers under the waistband of my breeches and pulled them down. He ran his fingers over my buttock where the scar stretched.

“It’s not over-sensitive anymore. The burn has healed…somehow,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said. As if that was all there was to say. “Go and lie on the bed, Rooster.”

I was more than happy to stop thinking about the scar. The imperfection had been a painful reminder of a terrifying incident, and I wasn’t displeased that it looked to be fading. Even though neither of us could explain how this was possible.

“Aye, Captain.”

I pushed down my breeches and then remembered that I had socks and shoes on. For fuck’s sake. What a production this was going to be. I sighed, then bent at the waist with my arse in the air, trying to balance on one foot as I took off one shoe and sock, while the captain’s soft laughter came from behind me.

He placed his hands on my hips, to steady me I supposed, then pressed his cloth-covered stand against my nakedness. I managed to get the rest of my clothes off, despite my lack of focus on anything but the Captain and his ready prick, and lay down on the bed, gazing up at the captain like a most willing sacrifice.

Captain Martin took his time removing his clothes, gazing at me with iridescent longing, then climbed on the bed and crawled over me. He kissed me sweetly on the mouth, and then he pressed his lips to every inch of that fading scar—soft butterfly kisses that made me sigh with longing. When he’d finished in front, he flipped me over and continued on my lower back and buttock.

He didn’t stop there but had his way with me in a tender, lazy, sensual way that I would remember for a very long time.

*

“Anthony Donatello was an upstanding, competent, and compassionate man,” Captain Martin began. “And I loved him dearly.”

Sniggers and whispers could be heard from the gathered crew, despite the solemnity of the event.

Captain Martin stood by the rail, with an open Bible in hand. All of Donatello’s personal items were balanced carefully on the rail, wrapped in sailcloth and gathered with one of the black ribbons that Donatello had used to tie back his hair. Three cannonballs were in the bottom for weight.

The captain looked up and eyed the men who’d been mumbling.

“Like a brother.”

Silence,cough,sniffle.

“We commend his belongings to the deep in honour of the man we’ve lost,” he said with great solemnity.

I blinked back tears and tried to bury the guilt that threatened to rise inside me. Which was silly, as Donatello had perished at the hands of the attacking vagabonds, and not as a result of my subsequent…spell…or whatever that storm had been.

Captain Martin looked down at the book in his broad hands.

“In God alone my soul finds rest. My salvation comes from him.”

He closed the book, then placed his hand on the wrapped belongings, whispering words that nobody else could hear. Then he soberly pushed the package off the rail. The bag splashed into the waters below as Richard Darcy played a dirge on his fiddle.

The crew had voted for a return to Tortuga, and we were prepared to board and pillage any likely ships we encountered along the way. The recent battle had them spooked, and they needed to prove their might.

*

“Why, Captain Martin, you appear to have put me in a rather challenging predicament,” I said about twenty minutes later as I tested the ropes that bound me.

“Mmm. I’m simply practicing my knots,” he said as he finished and slapped me on the arse.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Why, the fun of it, of course. We’ve had a trying few days.”

We’d not encountered any other vessels as of yet, and the horizon looked clear as far as the eye could see, although rain splattered against the windows of the captain’s quarters. The captain had decided that I needed a proper ravishing and he’d trussed me up good and proper. Only, now, he went and sat on the bed and picked up a large tome, opening the book as if he planned to enjoy the next few hours reading.