Page 13 of The Withering Dawn (Wicked Tides)

I closed my eyes, a wonderfully warm shiver moving down my body like Nazario’s kiss had healed another unseen wound inside me. I kissed him back, cupping his cheek in my hand.

When he slowly pulled away, I felt as if I’d been fed a taste of ripe fruit only to have the rest of it taken from me before I could truly savor it. When he untucked his hand from under his head and gently took my chin in his fingers, a ripple of heat I had only ever felt around him stirred in my chest.

“You were meant to take the bed,” he whispered.

“I am used to a floor.”

“Hmm. That was not the point.” He sighed, adjusting his position a bit. “You spoke with Cathal for a long time.”

“I was learning about you and your crew.”

“Were you? And what did you learn?”

“I learned that you could have so easily become a villain and instead you are this. Kind beneath the ruggedness and the scars.”

“Do not think me righteous. I am a villain to plenty of people.”

“Not to me.”

As the ship rocked on the gentle tide, the window let in a stream of blue moonlight that swept across Nazario’s face, lighting up his earthy eyes.

“Have mercy, Aeris. You are beautiful,” he said as if seeing my face for the first time.

“What if it is what I am that makes you say that? Perhaps I am seducing you and I do not know it.”

The thought was perhaps more unsettling than it should have been, but I found myself feeling disappointed over the idea that Nazario’s feelings could never be genuine.

I wished I understood myself better. I would have needed a mother for that. A skryll of sirens like me. Anything.

But I never had any of those things.

“I am deeply sorry for what Antonio did to you,” I said, wanting to tell him something meaningful in case he was soon to come to his senses. “You came to my rescue even if you did not mean to. I wish to help you get the vengeance you and your crew have been seeking.”

“Is that all?” he said with a hint of playfulness dancing across his eyes. “If you were to die tomorrow, would there be nothing else you want?”

“Am I dying tomorrow?”

“We are always dying tomorrow, mu?equita. We all…”

I stared at his lips moving but could hardly hear the words coming out of him anymore. I knew he was saying things that were profound and worth my attention, but urges I’d never experienced made it hard to listen. I breathed him in, savoring the subtle scent of him, and felt my core swell with heat.

I knew what I wanted.

I wanted him.

Even if he denied it, I could see his truest form and he was a good man. No matter what bad deeds he might have done in his past, he was good. His core was good and I longed for a taste of that.

“Touch me,” I said, my cheeks instantly growing hot at my own words.

He stopped talking and turned to me as if my words had not quite gotten to him.

“What?” he asked.

“If I am to die tomorrow, I wish for you to touch me.”

“You have not known any man’s touch to be pleasant. Why would you want to be touched by one?”

“I don’t want to be touched by any man. I want to be touched by you.”

“You know what you are asking, yes?”

“Yes.”

His eyes wandered for a moment. “Do I know what you are asking? How is it a woman like you understands this desire after the way you were raised?”

“I read a book, once,” I shrugged. “One I wasn’t supposed to have. There was romance and love and—”

“Love?” he raised a brow. “That is much different than—”

“I know,” I cut him off, not wanting to sound na?ve, despite how na?ve I probably was. “But I still want this.”

I sat up on my elbow, leaning over him and fixing my mouth on his. I was surprised by my own forwardness, but Nazario’s words were repeating over and over in my head. We are always dying tomorrow. He’d teased my curiosity and perhaps I was being foolish. Weak. Maybe I was confused, but I did not care about any of the maybes.

When Nazario opened his mouth for me, I kissed him deeper, dipping my tongue into his mouth the way he had done to me. He moaned softly, his hand hooking the back of my neck before he rolled me onto my back, leaning over me. Only moments ago, I would have been content if that kiss was all I ever got from him.

But now I wanted more.

And by the way he slowly ground himself against my hip, he wanted more, too.

I considered that I truly was just a monster unknowingly luring Nazario in, but a selfish part of me that had never existed before didn’t care. I craved him. I craved his touch and his heat and the sound of his voice and his scent.

I was lost in our kiss until Nazario’s hand ventured away from my neck and gradually started to move to my chest. I had never really developed the same swollen breasts that other women had, but he explored me anyways, his palm cupping my humble mound. I whimpered softly, lifting my hips toward him in hopes that he wouldn’t stop.

“You should not be asking this of me,” he whispered against my lips. “You do not know me at all.”

“I know you will not hurt me.”

“How can you know that?”

“I feel it.”

He drew back his head, peering deep into my eyes as if searching for a lie. When he didn’t seem to find one, his expression softened.

“You will tell me to stop the moment you do not like something.”

I nodded, my mind briefly bouncing back to the moment Philip thrust himself upon me. He did not get past my clothes, as sparse as they were, but his intent had been enough to cloud my otherwise numb thoughts. But the way Nazario touched me—the manner that he spoke to me—felt worlds apart from that incident. They were different.

“I am not as fragile as I seem,” I assured. “I want to be touched like you would touch any woman.”

“You are not any woman.”

“I… I’m sorry. I know what I am. I just meant—”

“I mean you are not any woman. And you do not want me to touch you like I touch any woman. Trust me.”

His eyes strayed from my face to my dress as his fingers nimbly began to loosen the laces that kept it so haphazardly secured to my slim frame. Pushing the fabric away, he dipped his head toward my chest and kissed me just above the sensitive bead of my nipple.

“Tell me what you wish to feel, mu?equita., and I will make sure you feel it.”

You’ll feel it. You’re going to take my cock so deep in your throat that you’ll choke, you siren witch.

My eyes opened and whatever pleasant anticipation I was feeling fled my body. Nazario kept kissing my bare skin, his hand traveling down my hip to my thigh, but all the warmth and eagerness fled my body. I slowly sat up on my hands, forcing him to move aside.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Different. They were different. I’d only just told myself how different Philip and Nazario were and yet his foul voice was in my ear like a hungry parasite, making my body feel slimy and unwell.

But I still wanted Nazario.

I could feel him staring at me, but I dared not look at him for fear of letting him see something ugly in me. Something sickening and undesirable. Eventually, he laid back down, expelling his breath loudly.

“We should sleep.”

I finally glanced back at him as he settled against his pillow. After a few moments of gathering my nerves, I laid beside him, trying to figure out what had changed. I still desired him. I still wanted to feel his touch, but my body protested.

Utter confusion consumed me as I tried to close my eyes and rest.

I rolled onto my side, my back facing him, and stared at the door, shoving my thoughts down into the dark chasm where I usually put them when they were being too insistent. That familiar sense of numbness washed over me and eventually gave way to sleep.

I woke with a weight across my chest, pinning me to the floor, but it wasn’t unpleasant. I peeled my eyes open and found Nazario’s face mere inches from mine, blanketed in early morning light from the window. He had that crease between his brows again. His arm was across my body, holding me close to him, clinging to me. The rapid, harsh beat of his heart reached my ears. I lifted my hand and smoothed it over his forehead, trying to relax his brows in the same way I had done last night. He twitched subtly at my touch. I didn’t have enough time to react before he sucked in a ragged gasp, his hand shooting up toward my wrist.

His eyes burst open and the moment he saw me, he froze, becoming fully aware. When he realized what he’d done, he groaned tiredly and released me, rolling onto his back and pinching the bridge of his nose.

I was saddened to feel the warmth of his body leave my side.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he said, climbing over me to stand. “I am not used to sharing a bed with anyone. Or a floor, for that matter.”

I watched him grab his shirt off the back of his chair, but instead of putting it on, he turned to look at me, sweeping his hair back from his face with one hand. He raised a brow and then ran his free hand across his body, from his chest to his stomach.

“I am in one piece,” he said. “You did not eat me.”

I frowned, cocking my head, but the way Nazario smirked made me think he was waiting for a reaction.

It was a jest…

I forced a faint smile, trying to engage, but the attempt felt awkward.

Draping his shirt over his shoulder, he began gathering his thick hair into a low ponytail, tying it off with a strip of red fabric. My eyes roamed over the perfectly sculpted contours of his body from his broad shoulders to the narrow taper of his hips. His pants hung low and I followed the lines that plunged into his waistline, my heart beating a little faster at the thought of what was beyond it. He had a few scars on his work-hardened body, the most notable ones being on his forearms and along his biceps in rows, which seemed odd.

And I wondered how many were there because of Antonio.

My fists curled against the sheets beneath me when I felt a burning anger toward someone I’d never met and that was new to me. It didn’t make sense. I wasn’t there to see any of it and yet my teeth were grinding imagining what I’d do if I saw the man that had hurt so many young boys. I had never thought of myself as a killer, but perhaps I could be. I’d already killed two men. Although, just because it was easy didn’t mean I enjoyed it.

I lost myself for a moment in the foreign thoughts before my eyes climbed again to see Nazario staring at me.

“What has you so tense?” he asked.

“The man who hurt you. Will you kill him if you find him?”

“As thoroughly as I can. Would you not do the same to the men that hurt you?”

I shrugged one shoulder, imagining myself returning to the island from which I came only to slaughter every last man who had kept me chained, beaten, and starved. But then I thought of the time I would waste getting there and the effort it would take to murder dozens of men, and I didn’t feel I had the stomach for it. I just wanted to stay away.

And then I looked at Nazario and the anger I felt over the things Cathal said made me more vengeful for his sake than my own and a strange, second-hand desire to get revenge filled my thoughts.

“Do not look at me like that,” he whispered. “It weakens me.”

“Like what?”

“Like you see all of me.”

“I don’t see all of you. But I feel you. It is an Yri trait, I was told.”

“You keep saying things like that and I’m beginning to believe you. Is that why you said the doctor was a sick man? Because you could feel him, too?”

I nodded. “And it is, perhaps, why my gut told me to come aboard this ship.” He narrowed his eyes, canting his head to one side. “I know Antonio haunts you. I want to help relieve that burden. I believe you to be a very good man under your hunger for revenge.”

He scoffed, shaking his head. “How can you know that when my hate for the man is all I have?”

“It is not all you have. I’ve seen you weep over Oliver and protect your men. You took mercy on me so I know you’re more than your hate.” I stood off the floor. “Otherwise, I would not…” I hesitated, wondering if I should swallow my next statement. But his voice rang in my head again. We are always dying tomorrow. “I would not be drawn to you this much.”

My heart did a backflip in my chest at my confession. My cheeks felt like they were on fire again and I blinked, trying to relieve a slight stinging sensation in my eyes. I wasn’t sure why my body was acting that way after a few simple words, but I felt like I needed to get out from under Nazario’s gaze before I saw him judging what I’d just said. I headed for the door, completely unsure where I would go, when he caught my wrist. I turned back to face him, pressing my lips together with embarrassment.

He was staring at me, mouth open like he wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. It was then that my eyes found the little scars on his arms again and something tickled my thoughts about them. I reached up, my fingers lightly tracing a row of them on the inside of his bicep.

“How did you get these?”

The question diverted his attention and he released me, looking down at his arm.

“Those were a dozen weak moments that I’ll never forget,” he exhaled. “I imagine you know what it is like to be numb. I see it on your face all the time, this unwillingness to feel your own thoughts.” I nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. “These were my attempts to feel something. Anything.”

“Did they work?”

“Not long enough for it to be worth it,” he smirked, making light of it.

I couldn’t imagine wounding myself so I could feel. I felt too much. For a long time, I just wanted to stop feeling so I could find peace, so I forced myself to.

“What thoughts stir behind those eyes when you stare off like that?”

“I spent years trying not to feel anything,” I said. “And yet you’ve spent years trying to feel. It’s strangely fascinating.”

Our eyes locked and for once, I wished I actually could read minds. Nazario was thinking quite hard on something and I wanted to know what it was, but then he blinked, as if coming out of a daze.

“Forgive me,” he finally spoke. “For acting frustrated last night after you grew nervous.”

“Oh.” I tried to recall, but I was too flustered.

When he took a small step toward me, my pulse kicked up like I’d just been startled from my sleep.

“I am not upset,” I said.

“You should be. But perhaps it was for the best that we went no further. You do not need a man like me being the first to touch you like that.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I am not very good at being gentle. And for you, Aeris. I would never want to be anything but gentle.”

“You said to speak up if anything displeased me.”

“Yes.”

“What would displease me?”

He groaned like thinking of the answer to that was frustrating. “I can get carried away.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you do not,” he smiled. “I would not want you to.”

Feeling let down by my own foolish curiosities, I lowered my head with acceptance. Nazario hooked his knuckle under my chin, raising it so he could look at me like hanging my head disturbed him.

“Do not be sad over this. I am no great loss, I promise you.”

“Then why does your rejection sting?”

Immediately, I pressed my fingers over my mouth, wondering why I would say such a thing. It sounded like something the women on the island would say because they were lonely and their husbands were busy indulging in other wives or whores, for which they would repent the next day. It was a desperate statement.

“Rejection?” Nazario said. “You think I am rejecting you?”

“No, I—"

He pulled me in, devouring the rest of my sentence with his mouth. Instantly, my hands gripped his waist to stay upright, my head swimming at the suddenness of the kiss. Gods, I enjoyed it, though. I moaned against his lips, warmth flooding every vein until my skin prickled with awareness. I lifted on my toes just to get closer to him, my body yearning for more, despite how little I knew of what more there was. I’d seen men ravage their wives. I’d seen women pleasure themselves. I had seen all manner of crude displays because my presence was barely noted most of the time.

But I knew that was not all there was. There was romance and pleasure and passion in the world if the few books I read were any indication.

I kissed Nazario deeper, my fingers trailing along the grooves of his hard stomach. When I got to his bellybutton, he gripped my waist, hoisting me onto the edge of his desk like I weighed nothing. And of course, I probably didn’t. Not to him. He’d spent the previous day moving cannons with his bare hands and I was barely putting weight back on my bones.

As his hands gathered the fabric of my skirts, I leaned in and kissed his collarbone, my tongue licking over his heated flesh. He groaned softly like my touch burned him but in a way he liked. He gently pushed my knees apart, stepping between them. A brief but startling image of Philip forcing his hand up my skirt made an unwanted appearance behind my lids again. I sucked in a gasp and opened my eyes, reminding myself that Nazario was the one touching me. Not that greasy man with sour wine on his breath.

Nazario quickly put his hand to my cheek and stopped all advances.

“Perhaps not, then,” he said.

And my soul shattered. He inched away from me and I grabbed hold of him, desperately shaking my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It won’t happen again. I just—”

“You think you have angered me? It will happen again. Many times. As it happened to me many, many times over the many years between now and when I fled Antonio’s manor as a boy.”

“I am well. And I want this, Nazario. Please.”

His gaze dropped to my hands clutching his wrist and then slowly, he turned his body again and stepped between my thighs, his fingers dancing along the sensitive flesh of my bare leg.

“Promise not to bite out my throat,” he said.

Another joke, I assumed, but all I could do was nod. His fingers continued to glide over my leg and then slowly started to move down to the inside of my thigh. Cupping my face with his other hand, he tilted my head up, his lips feathering over mine.

“And do not close your eyes yet, mu?equita,” he whispered. “That prick and all those like him live in the darkness when your eyes are closed. But I want you looking at me.”

I nodded again, my breath stopping in my throat when his touch began to climb, getting closer to that unbearable heat between my thighs. I bit my lip just as his fingers found my center wet and needy. My cheeks grew hot at the realization, but rather than pull away, he hummed approval, parting my lower lips just to run his fingers against the tender flesh of my sex. I sucked in a slow, shuddering gasp.

“That is encouraging,” he said against my mouth, sliding his fingers upward until he reached the top of my slit where I was growing agonizingly sensitive.

“I don’t mean to be like this.”

“Do not apologize.” He stroked his fingers through my slit again and then circled them lightly around the sensitive bud, making me tremble. “There is a dark part of me that hopes you will never be like this for another man.”

His thumb pressed against me and I whimpered, arching against him. Nazario was uncovering more about my own body than I knew myself. As he drew tight circles around my swollen clit with his thumb, his fingers ventured lower, dipping into my untouched entrance. He held my gaze as if searching for regret or hesitation and though my nerves were shaking nervously, I did not want him to stop.

“Have you ever touched yourself?” he whispered.

“Once,” I admitted. “Briefly. I was caught. Jacob…” I swallowed, finding it hard to speak as Nazario explored me. “He hit me between my legs with his belt until I couldn’t feel anything at all for many days.”

His hand stopped moving and a glint of ferocity shone behind his hazel eyes like the hot sun off the edge of a knife. I leaned away from him for a moment, a hint of fear making me want to recoil until I realized the anger wasn’t at me.

“Tell me to wash those memories out of your mind,” he said.

I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant, but the way he said it made me putty in his hands, so I nodded.

And as if my nod was the command he sought, he slid one long finger into my channel. My mouth fell open with a slow and sensual gasp. His eyes glimpsed my lips, mimicking me as if he could feel exactly what I was feeling.

Excitement. Timid, unbound excitement. My eyes fluttered closed and he pumped his finger once, pushing it deeper.

“I know it is hard to keep your eyes open,” he chuckled. “Do what you feel is right.”

I looked up at him like I’d broken a rule, but he was right. The more he touched me, the harder it was not to lose myself in him.

“And if I see something I don’t want to see?” I asked. “Like you said?”

He lightly kissed the corner of my mouth, inserting another finger and stretching my walls just enough to distract me from any unwanted thoughts. I sucked in another breath, my hips shifting on the table as if to seek him out.

“I won’t let you,” he whispered, thrusting gently as his thumb continued to massage my clit. “Close your eyes, then, but the moment you feel yourself going somewhere else, open them and see that it is me. My fingers inside you.” He leaned in, kissing me and saying against my lips, “My lips on yours. And I want you to chase your pleasure. This part of you is meant for pleasure. It is meant to be savored and appreciated, not tortured and punished.”

I let my eyes fall shut, bracing one hand behind me as I clung to his neck with my other.

“You are so observant,” he continued, curling his fingers upward as he moved them in and out of me, finding a tender spot inside that made my body shudder with delight. “I know you’ve already memorized everything about this room. Every color and smell. Every sound. Tell me, what is your favorite?”

“You,” I gasped, an unfamiliar tightness gathering deep in my core. “You smell like black tea and rum.”

His hot breath cascaded down the side of my neck. My head fell back to savor the feeling and I sighed at the touch of his lips on my exposed throat.

“What else?”

“Oak. Your room smells like oak and parchment. And…” I moaned softly, writhing against his touch as the knot in me began to tighten, teasing something I hadn’t felt before. Something I wanted to chase but was also afraid to catch. “Your voice.”

“What about my voice, mu?equita?” he rasped, pumping his fingers faster.

“Your accent is poetic. It calms me, even if you are not trying.”

His teeth grazed my ear and I whimpered, arching toward him again and searching for some kind of relief from the tension building inside.

“What do you see now when you close your eyes?”

I turned my head to look at him, our faces so close, my lips whispered over his cheek.

“Exactly what I want to see,” I said. “I see you. As long as I can hear you. Talk to me. Please.”

His eyes were hooded and dreamy. For a moment, he stopped moving his hand and a brief sense of frustrated desire provoked a needy moan that I barely knew was coming from me.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath, kissing me once before his mouth moved to my jaw and down the side of my neck again. “I want you to know pleasure. I want to hear you try to say my name as I take your breath away.”

His other hand wrapped around my waist, his fingers curling and biting into my side as he dragged them over my hip and along my thigh. His body was filled with tension. With restraint. I wondered what he would be doing to me if he was not controlling himself like he was and for some reason, the thought only added to the swelling pleasure in my core.

He continued kissing a trail down my chest, tugging the loose neckline of my dress down to expose my breasts. They were small, but he delighted in them nonetheless, his lips closing over one nipple as he sucked and fondled it with his tongue. But he did not stay there long and continued to sink lower, getting on his knees in front of me. I stared down at him as he continued to slowly move his fingers inside me again.

“You like the sound of my voice? Unfortunately, I cannot talk while I’m pressed between your legs.”

When Nazario lifted my leg over his broad shoulder and buried his face between my thighs, my whole dark and dreary world shattered into a million pieces. His tongue continued what his thumb had been doing, flicking and circling my clit until I could hardly get a full breath. My eyes rolled back as I closed them, drowning in my own desire. Unable to stay upright, I fell back on my elbows, my hips rocking in time with his tongue and the thrusts of his thick fingers. I focused on the pleasure. The heat of his breath. The scent of his presence and the sound of his low, approving hums as he devoured me.

The pressure began to build again, tight and unyielding and begging for release. I moaned uncontrollably, my heart leaping like an excited bird waiting to be let out of its cage. Nazario pressed his palm against the base of my belly, his fingers curling upward and sending a wave of ecstasy straight through my whole body. And every time he repeated it, the pleasure built, adding to the tension I feared I would soon lose my grip on.

I reached down, my legs trembling, and placed a hand on his head as if to push him away, except all I did was draw him closer, a sense of mild panic trying to steal my enjoyment out from under me. Nazario only stroked me harder. Faster. I fell onto my back, biting my lip and trying to stifle my cries, but control slipped away from me like the lead ropes on a wild horse. I let out a throaty moan, bowing off the desk as a wave of euphoric heat blossomed through my belly and trickled into every corner of my body like rain through a drought-tortured valley. I was a gasping mess when he finally lifted his head from between my legs, panting raggedly.

He pulled his fingers from my heat and gradually started kissing the inside of my thigh. I still had not caught my breath. Small aftershocks of my release continued to flicker through me as he stood, running his fingers along my hips to my waist. I was delirious, though, and could barely look at him as he slid his hands under my back and lifted my almost lip body into his arms.

That low, handsome chuckle elated my senses as he kissed the side of my head and tugged my dress back over my naked breasts.

“Is that how you wanted to be touched?” he asked.

“I…” I couldn’t get any other words out.

Nazario’s mouth slanted into a devilish grin that set my blood on fire all over again.

“You don’t have to say anything.”

“Does it always feel like that?”

“It can. If the right person is doing it.” He dragged my skirts back over my legs and then pushed a thin strand of hair behind my ear with a quiet sigh. “I would never have called myself the right person, but something about you… it makes me different.” As if that fact saddened him somehow, he looked away, the light from the window reflecting in his eyes and making them look like mossy amber. “We will be at the shores of Dornwich by tomorrow if the winds favor us. I must be a captain today. If you roam the ship, be sure to have Cathal or Aleksi with you, yes? I am not trusting of my other men right now.”

I nodded and as he backed away from me, I felt the warmth of the room get sucked away with him. He grabbed his shirt, throwing it on over his bare chest, and then undraped his red greatcoat from the back of his chair before spinning and leaving his quarters with a reassuring wink.

As soon as the door closed behind him, I hopped off the desk, startled by how weak my legs felt under me. I pressed my palm to my chest to sooth the rapid pace of my heart. Something was coming over me. Heat flowered inside me with every beat and spread through my entire face. I was still shaking and was unsure what to make of it.

Never had I imagined someone touching me like he had. Even when I asked him to, I hardly had any idea what would happen. Now, I found myself pining after a man I hardly knew.

No, that wasn’t right. I knew him very well, actually, even if it had only been a week. I knew his pain. I tasted it. Smelled it. Felt it in my soul like it was mine.

And, from the first moment that I saw him on the Perry Smith, I felt as if I didn’t need my armor when he was near.