Page 9 of Maggie and the Pirate’s Son (Brides of Chattan #3)

Chapter Eight

F irst watch passed far more pleasantly than Maggie had anticipated. With most of the crew in bed and under the shroud of darkness, she could finally let down her guard a little. It was a tremendous relief to speak candidly, almost flirtatiously, without fear of being observed or overheard.

Bash had been terribly forward, standing so close to her. Maybe he’d forgotten she was a lady at all. Or perhaps it was her—a moth responding to a flame she hadn’t realized was burning, because she basked in his warmth and his nearness as though she hadn’t been held in a lifetime. It made her mind drift to places she oughtn’t go.

Frigid she might be, but they hadn’t been all wrong about her. She was wanton. She craved touch. Connection. A kind smile, a warm hand—she had shivered from the chill, and his arms around her felt like heaven. Alone in the dark, she wasn’t even ashamed to admit it. There was risk in speaking her truth out loud, the words others had said about her, but Bash didn’t push her away in disgust. Quite the contrary.

Despite her exhaustion, she would have willingly stood in his arms like that until the sun came up, but when the bells were rung for second watch, he practically dragged her to the hatch, down the companionway, and into his cramped quarters. When she moved to curl up under his desk where she’d slept for the past week, he caught her wrist, stopping her.

“We can both fit,” he said, eyeing her uncertainly before glancing back to his canvas hammock.

Maggie very much doubted it, but then she’d never lain in a hammock before. Perhaps it was deceptively spacious, perhaps like sleeping on a cloud. It seemed a very grave waste to sneak aboard a pirate ship and never try out a hammock, and she was desperately tired of lying on the hard floor. Even so…

Bash pulled his shirt over his head in one fluid motion, baring not only his bronze chest and the trail of dark hair that led to his waistband, but a ropey scar on his bicep that made her suck in her breath.

“Mags,” he breathed, sitting down in the middle of the hammock and drawing her close. “We can both fit.”

She stood between his legs, staring into the dark pool of his right eye. Brazenly, she flipped up the patch since he had not, a little surprised when he sat still and let her. Emboldened, she gently traced his cheekbone, avoiding the jagged scar. For days she’d been curious whether the eye was damaged from whatever encounter had scarred his cheek. Now she could see nothing but perfection as both eyes reflected back the starlight shining through a tiny porthole.

As if reading her thoughts he whispered, “It helps me to see,” turning his cheek a fraction as if to kiss her fingers.

She reached to flip the patch back down, but he stopped her. “No,” he said. “I want to see you.”

Something about his scruffy face and earnest voice struck her with a desire to kiss him, too, and instead of being troubled by the notion and dissecting its meaning at length, she gave into the novel urge.

In her younger days, Maggie had longed to be kissed. Every boy she met was evaluated based on the shape and plumpness of his lips. She had lain awake, night after night, imagining scenarios, tracing her own lips with an inquisitive finger. She’d begged Jory to describe kissing the Shaw Wretch, and though her cousin had been stingy with the details, Maggie gathered Finn wasn’t stingy with his tongue.

She’d spent hours scouring Ellen’s early letters, too, for details of the MacKenzie’s lips, hidden as they were beneath his bushy beard. To her own horror, she’d even once dreamt she let the MacKenzie’s younger cousin kiss her. Even more mortifying, her dream self had enjoyed it.

Then, all too soon, her wedding day had arrived, and with it, the moment Maggie had longed for. But when Jeremiah pecked her lips with his, poking her in the eye with his nose, everything changed. His kisses weren’t the stuff of daydreams. By turns dry and perfunctory, they were otherwise so wet and sloppy she thought only of drying her face on her sleeve. Every time seemed dutiful and calculated, but poorly executed. Rather than excitement or lust, kissing elicited calculations. When would it end so she could breathe again? Could she wipe the spit away without drawing his wrath?

After Jeremiah’s accident, gentlemen came to call. Every bachelor and widower on the island paid their respects, along with a handful of brazen schoolboys. Maggie sent them all away without even a cursory glance at their lips. She had put all manner of romantic notions behind her.

Now, in the dimly lit alcove, Bash’s lips looked imminently kissable, even as he licked them nervously.

Quickly, and before she could lose her nerve, Maggie pressed her mouth to his, knowing full well what assumptions he might make, what liberties he might expect to take, knowing—but allowing herself a moment’s grace not to worry—and then she promptly sat down beside him on the hammock nudging his thigh with her knee. “Scoot over a bit? ”

He pushed her back to standing and swung a leg up into the hammock so he could recline on his back with one foot still on the floor. Then he tugged her hand to him and, bracing herself on his shoulders, she awkwardly straddled him for a moment as she clambered ever-so-gracefully to his side, the memory of his hard length emblazoned on her skin.

The whole hammock rocked so that Maggie fell against him, and they swung wildly until he threw his leg back over the other side to stabilize them while she scrambled to settle in. Were it not for his strong arms around her, she might have flipped right back out onto her head, but soon she found herself lying on her side, head on his shoulder, facing him as they swayed gently in the darkness.

Bash’s hand came up to cup her face, and he ran a thumb over her cheek where his own scar would have been. “All right?”

“Mm,” was the only reply she managed, though she was desperate to ask how he’d acquired his scar, and when.

He ran his hand down her neck to her shoulder, and he was right there, smelling like citrus and salt, his breath tickling the tiny hairs that framed her face.

“You should unbind,” he whispered. “It can’t be good to leave that on all the time.”

Probably true, but was it worth the risk?

Searching her face, he seemed to know exactly what she was thinking.

“No one will see,” he breathed, stroking her upper ribs with his knuckles.

Then he pressed his forehead to hers, and Maggie couldn’t stop herself. She leaned forward and kissed him again, the soft, long, lingering sort of kiss she’d always dreamt of.

He was warm and hungry, and his breath hitched as he kissed her back, his tongue darting out to taste the bevel of her lips, until she opened them wider to let him in. He nibbled her bottom lip and then sucked on it tenderly, and dear merciful Jesus, this was what she’d always imagined kissing was supposed to be like, and more.

He kissed along her cheek, her jaw, and down her throat, and then his fingers found the edges of his cravat wrapped around her, and when he loosed it, she gasped in relief over and again, her chest heaving with each breath as he unwound the fabric beneath her shirt.

She threw her head back, drawing each new breath like it was her first, and he continued to kiss her neck and shoulder, leaving her mouth free to gulp in lungfuls of air.

Maggie was dimly aware that Bash had one hand fisted in her sark, but she jumped when the hand traveled to her belly and then up to cup her breast through the linen. Every possible emotion flooded her, leaving her wet and wanting, tears springing to her eyes.

Jeremiah had never touched her like this, like he wanted to worship at the altar of every inch of her with every inch of himself. But when she realized the hardness digging into her leg was Bash’s erection, her breathing sped up for another reason altogether, and her vision began to cloud.

She hadn’t been thinking clearly—about any of it. Regardless of what her body seemed to wish, she decided long ago she wanted no part in the marital act, not ever again. Not even with Bash. He was still a man, she’d do well to remember, and judging by the rest of him, it would hurt as much as it ever had.

He must have sensed the change in her because he pulled back. “Mags?”

With conflicted tears in her eyes, Maggie turned her face away, into his shoulder, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He ran his hand over her arm again, then cupped her chin to make her look at him. With an agonized voice he asked, “Did I do something wrong?”

She shook her head and tried to whisper, “No,” though she doubted he heard it. “But I can’t,” she said, trying to sound strong, trying to find the words to explain because even she didn’t understand what she meant. She could. She had . And just moments ago she’d thought she might again, but she was afraid, and she needed to make him understand.

Bash simply kissed the crown of her head and rolled onto his back, one arm crooked behind his neck.

And just like that, something expanded in Maggie’s chest until it burst, and she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted anyone or anything, even as the tears continued streaming down her face.

“Shhh,” he soothed. “Just sleep now.” He kissed her cheek, chastely, and held her tight to his side. “Just sleep.”

With her hand upon his ribcage, she could feel his heart racing deep inside, her own speeding up to keep pace with his.

Lying so still it hurt, Bash willed his heartbeat to slow and his prick to stand down. He hadn’t brought her to the hammock intending anything more than a restful night’s sleep. It pained him to think of her in a pile on the floor while he and every man aboard enjoyed so much better.

He’d sworn to himself he wouldn’t touch her, sworn it to Dutch, as well, but then she kissed him, and his brain turned to rum sloshing in a barrel, and he’d pawed at her like a feral dog.

Christ, she was intoxicating. Every brush against her soft skin made him feel like he was caught in a raging storm. And, though he’d never lain with a woman—how could he, when Mad kept him practically a prisoner of this floating dungeon?—he’d found himself wanting desperately to please her.

She had responded to his caress like a dying person, starving for the food of touch, and he’d grown so hard that one errant finger could have brought him to completion.

And then she’d cried.

Because what lady would want to be mauled by a scarred and stormy sailor, especially a pirate with no prospects beyond the hangman’s noose? She had trusted him to keep her safe, and now she must surely fear all the strings which could so easily be attached.

Her tears dripped down his neck, tickling him as if they were his own, and he rolled over to face her again, rubbing a hand up and down her back. At least tears meant she was finally getting enough to drink.

“Mags,” he whispered, and after a moment she lifted her eyes to greet his. “I’m sorry for whatever it is,” he said, and she offered him a watery smile before kissing his shoulder and then his neck, and then his cheek, right where the captain had flayed him with a belaying pin when he was eleven.

She kissed along the scar, a warm trail on either side of skin which was somehow sensitive yet registered no touch. Then she found his lips again, and he kissed her back, hungrily, greedily, trying not to press his starving prick against her belly. He ran a hand lightly down her back once more and she shivered.

Christ . She was going to be the end of him, he had not one single doubt.

“How did your husband pleasure you?” he asked, shy and confused, but eager to learn, to understand, quite willing to follow her lead.

She stopped kissing him then and pressed her forehead into his chest breathing heavily. If he weren’t lying in a hammock, he’d kick himself right in the arse, bastard and fool that he was for bringing up her dead lover now.

But she surprised him once more, this girl, so full of depths and eddies. “How? He didn’t,” she whispered. “Not even once.”

Was that why she’d cried? A sick sort of rage flooded through Bash at that cold pronouncement, that he, a fumbling gelding, might have more concern for her pleasure than the man sworn above all to cherish and keep her. If the man wasn’t already dead, Bash would steal her away and challenge the bastard to duel.

“Never?” he repeated, and she shook her head, burying her face as though she had aught to be ashamed of. “Then it’s high time someone did,” he breathed, stifling his rage as far down as it would go. “If you’ll allow me?”

She faltered again, just a little, her lips pressed to his heart. “How?” she whispered again, her voice almost imperceptible.

“Is that a yes?” he clarified.

“Yes,” she said, and then, “Yes, please.”

“I’ll stop at your command,” he whispered, and then pushed up her shirt to suckle her breast, licking circles around the little pebble, while stroking her hair, her back, her perfect, round arse.

She responded at once, gasping and arching to meet his lips and his touch, and when he brought his hand around her pelvis and dipped into her waistband, her breathing sped up and he had to kiss her to sequester the tiny moan that escaped.

Over the years, his shipmates had told innumerable tales of lovers and whores, of women who liked it rough and those who required a gentler hand. Bash had listened to it all, learning to distill truth from fantasy. With the softest touch his calloused finger had ever attempted, he petted and stroked his way to her center.

The girl was wet, which he understood to be crucial, and he listened closely for changes in her breathing as he explored, searching for the magic spot men liked to brag of finding, like buried treasure all their own. When he grazed it, she arched into his hand, and he kissed her fiercely to swallow her cries, holding on tight lest she roll right out of the hammock and bring the crew crashing in on them.

He teased her soft curls and the slit beneath them, always returning to the treasure, then receding again when her whimpers grew high pitched, lapping at the spot like a tide-washed shell on the shore. All too soon she began to tremble, and he cupped the heel of his hand against that same delicious pearl, maintaining pressure as she shuddered in his arms until finally she lay still, breathing heavily against his sweaty chest.

Only then did he notice her arm around him and the raw burn from where she must have clawed his back. The sting was a delicious reminder of the ecstasy they’d just endured.

“Is that what it’s supposed to be like?” she gasped.

Bash knew well enough some men were callous and others were fools, but even the selfish ones knew that attending to a woman’s pleasure would only increase his own. How could any husband be so inept with a wife this pretty and full of life?

Had she lied about being married and widowed in some misguided effort to protect her virtue? Was she actually as inexperienced as he, and more so? For his mind was hardly a virgin. A tiny, dangerous thrill fluttered in his stomach.

When her breathing finally returned to normal, she kissed his cheek again and turned to wiggle out of the hammock. Would she sleep on the floor after all that?

“Stay,” he whispered.

“I assumed you’d want…” She trailed off, running her hand down the outside of his breeches. His prick jerked in recognition and she drew back, momentarily startled by the ferocity of his need. Want? Fuck yes. But he’d done that for her and no other reason.

“Stay,” he said again, moving her hand away before he could embarrass himself and foul his breeches.

He could hardly look at her, but her eyes were piercing holes in his skin, so he turned to meet their curious gaze. And then he kissed the hand he’d removed from his very disappointed prick and turned her gently so he could cuddle her close like a pair of perfectly matched spoons, tucking himself away between his legs.

“Mrow,” the cat murmured, padding past his curtain and right up next to the hammock. Bash reached a lazy hand down to stroke the wee beast and pretended to sleep, hoping to conjure a way to keep up their charade forever instead of putting her on the first ship back to Scotland.

Or they could find some remote and uninhabited island. He’d have to consult his waggoner to find the perfect spot. After he fashioned a shelter out of fallen trees, and with no pirate hunters to bother them, they could spend their days fishing and their nights making love upon the sand.

He would teach her the name of every star in the sky, and she could teach him the name of every member of her extensive family, and then they could begin a family of their own—and keep going until they ran out of names of either stars or Scots.

It was a beautiful sort of dream, the kind that physically ached to wake up from, the kind you could never cling to for long before reality rose up to punch you in the jaw.

She was an educated girl with a family and a home. She wouldn’t wish to trade one island prison for another, even if he would promise her the warmth she was chasing. And besides all that, neither the navy nor Mad MacLeod was likely to let him sail away and start a life someplace new.

The sooner he put her on a boat back to Scotland, the better off they’d both be. Best he could do was offer her safety on her adventure and open her eyes to the sort of pleasure she should demand from her next husband.