 
## **Contents**

Copyright

Author's Note

Other Books by Pam Godwin

Sea of Ruin Chapter 1

Sea of Ruin Chapter 2

Sea of Ruin Chapter 3

Other Books by Pam Godwin

About Pam Godwin

Copyright © 2020 by Pam Godwin

All rights reserved.

Cover Designer: Pam Godwin

Interior Designer: Pam Godwin

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review or article, without written permission from the author.

Visit my website at pamgodwin.com

This novella chronologically falls between Chapters 5 and 6 of SEA OF RUIN.

This can be read before or after SEA OF RUIN.

It is bonus material and doesn't spoil the main story.

SEA OF RUIN is a full-length stand-alone novel.

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I met him on a hot and rainy day.

The clouds hung low. The sea swelled high, and his eyes glinted the stormiest shade of gray.

The moment he stepped onto my ship, his arrogant scowl confessed two things. One, he was rakishly, offensively handsome. Two, he wasn't impressed to find a woman captaining the fifty-gun galleon.

Not that I cared a whit what any man thought.

It was the summer of 1719. The British had just defeated the Jacobites. The French had laid their beloved Jean-Baptiste de La Salle to rest. The Governor of the Bahamas had granted the king's pardon to my old friend, Calico Jack. And a rare few women—yes, the gentler, weaker sex—were joining the echelons of seafaring, hell-raising ruffians who plundered the West Indies.

I wasn't the first lady pirate who feared neither God nor man nor death. And I wouldn't be the last.

With rain slanting off my wide-brimmed hat and soaking through my linen corset and trousers, I blew a blonde curl from my face and cast a fleeting glance across the upper deck.

And stumbled into surly gray eyes for the hundredth time.

Tall and ruggedly lean, the stranger braced his boots shoulder-width apart, flexing power through his warrior stance. Leather straps and steel blades dangled about a trim waist. Brown breeches molded around long legs and tucked into black boots. Within the V of his open shirt, a sculpted, sun-bronzed chest attested to the physical demands of a life at sea.

Oh, he was one of the Brethren of the Black Flag, to be certain. A fearsome pirate, through and through. But there was more to him than violence and mayhem.

The sinuous curve of lips, the casual drape of an arm over the rail, the predatory eyes that tracked my every move... Even at a distance, he positively radiated seduction.

But I didn't need a companion to warm my bed. I had plenty of those waiting in every port. What I needed were more gunners.

He'd boarded the ship with another man, looking for work. Between the pair of them, there was enough well-thewed muscle and youthful stamina to take on the king's navy from a gundeck. By God, I bet they could feed eighteen-pounders into the snouts of iron guns all day without breaking a sweat.

They loitered along the larboard bow, waiting to meet the ship's captain. I wouldn't make them wait much longer. But first, I had to deal with the disobedient crew member staring down at me.

Saunders stood three hands taller than my female height. Despite his oily hair and crooked, sun-blistered nose, he wasn't an ugly English tar. Just lazy and unmindful sometimes.

Today's dereliction earned him a fist across the face as I shouted with all the fury of a disappointed captain. He tucked his bearded chin to his chest and wrung his hat in his hands, his mouth a grim slash of shame.

Further chastisement wasn't needed. He wouldn't be falling asleep during his watch again.

"When this rain lets up," I said, "I want the decks swabbed until they shine like new."

"Yes, Captain."

His eagerness to please injected steel into my spine as I strode through the rain toward the two potential recruits. Keeping my eyes on my boots, I measured my steps to avoid a slip on the wet planks.

Tropical showers fell briefly and often in the West Indies, but never with such churning energy in the air. It gathered like a lightning storm and skated a prickling fever across my skin. When I looked up, a gasp escaped me.

Close enough to touch, I stared into a face that could've been chiseled from rich marble. The shadow of stubble didn't blunt the squared angles. Nor did the fringes of lashes soften the intensity.

This close, his eyes shocked my heart. So pale and luminous, the irises were startlingly, inhumanly colorless.

His hair fell wildly about his shoulders in hues of brown, the top half braided with shell beads and scraped back into a leather queue, lending him an exotic air. Add to that the wide pillar of his neck and a physique stacked with foreboding strength... I'd never met a man as intimidating and beautiful as this one.

It took multiple swallows to clear my throat. "Welcome aboard Jade."

"Jade?" His forehead beetled as he glanced around, giving the galleon a closer look. "Edric Sharp's Jade?"

"She's my ship." Uneasiness swelled in the space between my heart and stomach.

Numerous galleons cruised the high seas, but none so notorious as this one. My father had seized it from a Spanish treasure fleet. For me.

Removing the figurehead, flags, and other distinguishing features made it less identifiable. Hopefully, less of a target for the Royal Navy, pirate hunters, sea marauders—anyone seeking to capture Edric Sharp's only child.

I'd willfully signed up for this life, one that put me on the run. Murder and piracy came with the territory, and I owned that. Just like my father before he died.

Grief trickled through my chest, and my hand fell to the compass at my hip, the last thing he'd given me. I missed him desperately, with an ache that would never fade. But I buried it, deep down beneath the calm of a windless sea, forbidding any vulnerability to show.

"I'm Bennett Sharp."

"The legendary daughter?" Silver eyes narrowed into disbelieving slits. "I thought you were a fantasy, invented by lonely, maniacal men."

"Perhaps I am." I shrugged. "And you are?"

"Priest." He leaned against the ship's rail, scrutinizing me. "Priest Farrell."

I almost laughed. "Does your name reflect your purpose, Priest?"

"Only men who are virtuous serve the Lord."

"You strive to cheat God, then?"

"God, Man, and Devil." His lips flattened. No hint of humor.

"Since I'm none of those three, shall I presume you won't cheat me?"

Now he smiled, canines sharp and white, tensing my stomach.

Charming.

And therein lies the wolf.

The man he'd arrived with made a grunting sound. "He'll bed you, Captain. Then he'll cheat you."

He could try.

"I beg your pardon, madam." Priest held up a finger. "This will only take a moment."

In the next breath, he swept out a leg and had the other man on the deck beneath him, pounding his fists into flesh. The defendant countered with his own punches, and a breath later, they exploded into a full-fledge scuffle.

During the span of the past five years, I'd seen enough bloodletting and carnage to numb the senses. If these miscreants were part of my crew, I would end the dispute and punish them justly.

But since I didn't know them, this was a fine opportunity to appraise their endurance, pain tolerance, and fighting skills.

May the best man win. And perhaps earn himself a job.

I stepped to the side as they rolled, lunged to their feet, and swung again. Each man absorbed and delivered hits in turn. Grunts rent the air. Blood sprayed the deck. But not once did I sense a loss of control. They seemingly fought, not to maim or injure, but to prove a point, as if this was how they established boundaries between them.

They jabbed and dodged, charged and parried, flowing together like water, like they'd done this a million times. Were they friends? Or kin?

Similar heights and builds. The skin on their palms and beneath their collars, where the sun didn't often reach, had a European pallor.

The second man wore his hair unfashionably short, cropped up the sides, leaving a rebellious brown stripe from forehead to nape. Six gold rings adorned the curve of his ear. Not a whisker on his hard jaw.

In snug-fitting breeches and a black tunic, he was as wickedly handsome as Priest. Only, when he stole glances at me, my blood didn't heat as if I'd been pumped full of rum.

Unlike Priest, whose intoxicating gaze made my limbs go limp, my stomach flutter, and my thoughts slide into drunken chaos.

It didn't matter who won this fight, I couldn't invite a distraction like Priest Farrell into my life.

All at once, the rain dried up, and the men broke apart. Chests heaving, knuckles bleeding, they returned to their reclined positions against the rail as if naught had happened. There was no clear winner, but I sensed they'd just settled some private dispute.

"Back to work, lads." I waved off the few crewmates who had gathered to watch the action.

As they dispersed, I became uncomfortably aware of the sun that now baked through the thinning clouds. Or maybe it was the sweltering heat emitting from the two men staring at me.

I focused on the one with short hair and brown eyes. "Your name, sir?"

"Reynolds Farrell."

Same surname. Same accent.

I flicked my gaze between them. "You're brothers."

"We share the same father." Priest spat a glob of blood over the gunwale. "Nothing more."

They didn't look alike. But they spoke the king's English in the same mesmerizing lilt, making the vowels sound rounder, more desirable.

My mother came from England, my father from Ireland. But those weren't the only accents I knew. "You're Welsh."

Reynolds nodded. "And you're from the colonies."

Carolina, to be exact. But none among my crew knew my upbringing. I'd left my mother's landlubbing life behind to follow my father's love for the sea.

I shifted my gaze toward the shoreline of New Providence that lay a hazy distance to larboard. As recent as last year, it had been the home base for over a thousand pirates. But now, even Nassau was no longer safe for my kind.

"Where were you before anchoring in Nassau?" I asked.

"I spent these past eighteen months serving as a quartermaster on a Dutch expedition." Reynolds crossed his arms. "We've been exploring the coastline of New Holland. Have you heard of it?"

My breath caught. "You mean the Southern Land? Terra Australis?"

"Aye."

"That's on the other side of the world!" I couldn't believe it. "What's it like?"

"The land stretches to the ends of the earth, and the creatures... It's like nothing you've ever seen." His eyes glimmered. "There are deerlike beasts that stand as tall as a man and hop on large hind feet, and they have these pouches..." He gestured at his abdomen. "To carry their young."

"Truly?" I shook my head, trying to imagine it.

He dazzled me with stories of colorful birds, lethargic bears, and indigenous peoples who hunted with curved throwing tools that spun through the air and returned to the hunter as if guided by magic.

Then I asked him about his duties as quartermaster, absorbing his answers with blooming excitement. My current first mate was long in the tooth, riddled with health issues, and itching to retire. I might have just found his replacement.

Priest remained silent throughout the conversation, his elbows braced on the rail at his back, and his gaze never straying from mine.

"Why didn't you join the expedition with Reynolds?" I squinted at him.

"I'm a raider." He scoffed. "Not an explorer."

"Yet you don't have a ship?"

"Not presently. When the need arises, I take one under my command."

I heard his meaning loud and clear.

Pirates acquired ships through terror, cannon fire, and invasion. If a raider was well-spoken and authoritative, he could inspire any crew to overthrow their captain and vote himself in.

Priest oozed cunning and authority. God knew I could use his strength on my gundeck, but not at the risk of losing command of my ship.

Decision made, I turned to Reynolds. "If you wish to sail with us, I need a new quartermaster. Wait for me in my cabin, and I'll show you the Articles."

If I had any concern about where his loyalties would fall—with his brother or his new captain—it vanished the moment he strode toward my cabin without a backward glance at Priest.

No love lost.

I nudged up the brim of my hat and raised my face toward the other man.

Priest met my regard. Then he stole my breath, my voice, and perhaps my very sanity.

He was, quite impossibly, even more gorgeous than five minutes ago. Shafts of Caribbee sunlight bore through the clouds, drying his hair and gilding his skin. The bumps and scrapes swelling on his face only added to his rough-hewn allure.

Definition of muscle, tendon, and bone drew my gaze along his body, every inch so enticingly masculine and perfectly sculpted. Those long legs. That serious mouth. Those stormy gray eyes... Sweet sisters of the child Jesus, his stare went deep. Devouring. Dangerous.

He pushed off the rail and erased the distance in two prowling strides. When he stepped into my space, my sharp inhale flooded with the tangled scents of leather, ocean, and something spicier, darker... Something uniquely, sinfully him.

Leaning closer, he curled the heat of his body around mine without touching. My palms slicked. My heart racketed, and a deep swelling throb flared between my legs.

Never had a man's proximity affected me so swiftly and completely.

Get rid of him, Bennett.

"Since I don't wish to be bedded or cheated, I have no need for your services." I leaned back to meet his eyes. "Remove yourself from my ship, if you please."

He stared down the length of his nose, not a trace of surprise or disappointment shining in those beautiful features.

Then he shifted, angled his head beneath the brim of my hat, and drew closer. So close his lips brushed my cheek as he spoke.

"When you change your mind..." His voice was smooth, rich, and deliciously dark. "Reynolds will know where to find me."

I shivered through a rushing torrent of heart beats.

He turned, swung over the gunwale, and descended the ladder to the waiting jolly boat.

When he vanished over the side, all the air—and its unsettling energy—went with him.

The next evening, I sat behind the desk in my cabin, staring hard at my compass as if I could unlock the blasted thing through sheer will alone.

When my father gave it to me, he said it was a map to the wealth he'd accumulated through two decades of pirating. He also alluded to a key, suggesting that when I was ready, I would figure it out.

Well, it had been five years, and I was no closer to breaking open the compass than I was at age fourteen.

With a weary sigh, I set it on the desk and hunched down to study it from a different angle.

"Is it broken?" Reynolds sat across from me, writing in his notebook.

Over the past twenty-four hours, he'd settled seamlessly into his role as the new quartermaster. After filling that notebook with a list of the day-to-day operations of the ship, he spent the morning recruiting men for the gun crew and handling the collection of food, water, and wood for our impending voyage.

Now, I just needed to figure out our destination.

"The compass works." I rotated it slowly and tilted my head, examining the polished brass edges.

My crewmates understood this instrument meant more to me than anything in the world. But they didn't know it was a map to Edric Sharp's treasure. They didn't even know the treasure existed. I trusted no one with that information—especially not a man I met only yesterday.

But as my quartermaster, he would need an explanation for why I spent so much time in my cabin, attempting to break apart a perfectly good compass.

"My father gave this to me. It's some kind of puzzle."

His eyebrows knitted. "What does it solve?"

The location of unfathomable plunder. Riches beyond what my crew could ever want or need in a lifetime.

More than that, I hoped it led me to a letter from my father, parting words of love, something from him I could absorb into my soul.

"I don't know." I rubbed my head and sat back. "Whatever it is, I need it. We need it."

"May I see it?" He held out a large hand.

My hackles bristled, and everything inside me screamed protectively. I kept my expression neutral, however, and passed it to him with feigned indifference.

He lifted the lid. Fiddled with the navigational needle. Swiveled north to south and back again. "Is there a key?"

"Yes. But I don't know if it's a physical object, a lever, a code, or something else entirely. There's no visible keyhole."

"You're certain it's a puzzle?" He handed it back.

"I'm certain it's more than a compass." I marked the flash in his eyes and his quick attempt to empty his expression. "What are you not saying? Do you know how to unlock it?"

"No, that's not..." He rolled his bottom lip, making me wait through an agonizing pause. "I know of an inventor, a magician of instruments, someone who could decipher whatever that is."

"You say?" I jumped to my feet, my heart racing. "Who? Where is he?"

"She..." He gave me a stern look. "Will not see you."

"Why not? I'll pay in coin. Whatever she wants. Where can I find—?"

"You're not hearing me, Captain. She's extremely private and suspicious. Her interactions are done in secret, and she surrounds herself with viciously loyal guards. I have never met her. I don't even know her name, and if I stepped onto her turf, she would have me killed simply for knowing where she lives."

"If she's such a mystery, how do you know so much about her?"

"I just do." He rose from the chair and paced to the windows behind my desk.

"Someone you know must have access to her. Who?"

With a hand braced on the pane above his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose. Perturbed. Uncomfortable. Definitely avoiding eye contact.

Then it dawned on me with harrowing clarity.

"Priest." I slumped into the chair and groaned. "She receives him."

In more ways than one, I suspected. Any woman with a pulse wouldn't turn away Priest Farrell.

Except me. I'd sent him off my ship, and now... Confound it, I had to find him.

And see him again.

And ask for his help.

At what cost?

My stomach sank. "There's no one else? No other blackguards she'll speak to? What about other inventors?"

"None that I know." He shifted, leaning his back against the windows. "Is this really that important?"

"I've been trying to decipher this thing for five years." I grabbed the compass and stood, my insides buzzing with rising hope. "Where is Priest?"

He closed his eyes through a resigned breath. "I'll take you to him."

Reynolds took me to a brothel.

Beneath a velvet sky of stars, Nassau seethed in the humidity. The stink of unwashed bodies choked the streets. Music and laughter vibrated the air. Horses whinnied in the distance. A fisherman vended his daily catch, and a painted woman lounged on an overhead balcony, her rouge melted and eyes glazed with rum.

Dread twined through my stomach. "He's in there?"

Reynolds followed my gaze to the woman and nodded at the door beneath her balcony. "This is his home when he's not at sea."

I'd left a crew of one-hundred-and-twenty men waiting in the harbor so I could barter with a rogue who lived in a bawdy house.

His own brother had warned me against him, claiming he would cheat me. After he bedded me.

I intended to pay for Priest's help with coin. If he wanted more, I would find another way to unlock the compass.

Island heat rose from the ground in waves, making me sweat beneath layers of skirts and stays. I wore modest attire. No visible weapons. No implication of wealth, crime, or notoriety.

Posters, proclamations, and folklore had immortalized my name. But whenever I went ashore, I ensured no one recognized me as the pirate Bennett Sharp. Very few knew what I looked like. Hell, Priest hadn't even believed I was real.

A grin pulled at my mouth. "How does Priest elude the governor while he's here?"

"The girls in there keep his comings and goings a secret." He glanced up at the two-story building. "They're very protective of him."

"Hiding behind whores. I can't decide if he's brilliant or spineless."

"Word of warning, Captain. He's outsmarted and outlived every person who underestimated him."

"That's the second time you've warned me about him."

"As your quartermaster, it's my duty to protect you."

I took care of myself just fine, but no need to be cocky. "That's why you're going to stay out here and keep watch. If the governor's men come sniffing around—"

"I'll get you out of there." He leaned a shoulder against the door and fixed me with a sobering look. "The king of libertines."

"What?"

"That's what they call him." He gestured at the door and held my gaze. "Don't sleep with him."

I snorted. "Trust me to have more dignity than that."

"You're not the one I don't trust."

Someday, I might be able to return Reynold's trust. But not today. With a brace of pistols under my skirt, a blade strapped to my thigh, and four daggers in my boots, I was prepared to be betrayed.

And I'd stalled long enough.

With a steadying breath, I left Reynolds on the street and opened the door.

A short hallway led to a large interior courtyard packed with tropical flora, seating areas, and half-dressed women. They lolled on satin settees, draped over banisters, and played cards at the tables.

The fragrance of herbs, perfumed oil, incense, and loam tickled my seafarer's nose. So feminine, those scents. So peculiar. I couldn't recall the last time I'd been surrounded by women rather than an unruly lot of sweaty men. Perhaps not since childhood.

A second-story mezzanine overlooked the courtyard on all sides. To the left, a curved staircase led to the upper level, where dozens of closed-off rooms stared down over the balustrade.

As I stepped into view, every pair of kohl-smudged eyes shifted in my direction. I didn't have to wait for the madam to announce herself. She emerged from a lush chair in the corner, shimmering head to toe in a beaded gown of burgundy.

The bodice cut deep enough to tease out the tips of pink nipples. Ironed black ringlets piled high on her head, and the red stain on her lips accentuated her porcelain skin.

About a decade older than my nineteen years, she was pretty in a delicate way. But I recognized the toils of a hard life behind those green eyes.

"I'm Harriet." She held out a dainty hand, palm down, expecting me to kiss it. "Welcome to the Garden."

I refused her limp wrist and took in the surrounding greenery and blooming petals. A garden, indeed.

When I turned back, I found her examining me with an unnerving expression. "What are you looking at?"

"My apologies, but you are so..." She trailed a finger down her neck and toyed with her velvet choker. "Beautiful doesn't properly describe you. Heavens, you possess a..." She blinked slowly, staring. "A rare, natural, untamed beauty."

I raised my brows. "Um—"

"Your hair goes on forever. All those curls... Like golden fire. Oh, and those ocean eyes, graceful neck, tiny little waist... Mercy God." Her hands fluttered, stroking the air around my body. "You're magnificent beyond what any man could ever imagine a woman to be."

A soft smile made its way to my lips before I caught myself. "I'm not here to work for you."

"No, of course not." Her cheeks flushed, and she pushed back her shoulders. "For you, I would offer the best flower in the Garden."

Though I'd taken a woman to bed a time or two, I preferred men. And I never paid for companionship. "I'm looking for Priest Farrell."

"Aren't we all, my dear." She made a tittering sound and coughed into a gloved hand.

"Which room is his?" I hardened my voice, scanning the circle of balconies overhead.

Calm and collected, she didn't tense, blink, or give anything away.

I spun toward the staircase, resolved to search every room until I found him. But before I made it across the courtyard, a throng of women beat me there.

They stood together, blocking the stairs. More spilled in from the top and gathered on the steps. In various stages of dress from nude to fully clothed, they stared silently, stoically, united in their purpose.

I could remove a blade and cut my way through the horde. But once they saw the weapons beneath my skirts, my anonymity would be compromised. The moment I spilled blood, they would alert the governor.

I also needed to consider Priest. Terrorizing his pretty whores probably wouldn't incite him to help me.

Flexing and releasing my fists at my sides, I turned back to find Harriett's calm countenance inches away.

"I'm here to request his help." I plucked a coin from the dimity pocket hidden under a slit in my skirt and pressed it into her hand. "I mean him no harm."

"Who?" She stared at her palm, unmoved.

I gritted my teeth. "The king of libertines."

She smiled at that and tucked the coin between her breasts. "Left at the top of the stairs. Third door on the right."

A mix of relief and aggravation coursed through me. If his pet name was a code word, Reynolds should have just said that.

I went up the stairs.

The women returned to their business, disappearing within shadowed rooms. When I reached the third door, it opened.

A blond woman stepped out, clutching a blanket to her nude body. Smears of rouge and lip stain ran across her cheek, and her hair tangled into knots around pale bare breasts.

Her gaze flew to mine, and she smiled with a shyness that didn't belong in this place.

A shiver of disgust clenched my stomach. But there was something else, something irrational and unwanted tightening my chest.

I couldn't think about him touching this woman.

Or any woman.

No, that was absurd. Expecting to find him alone in his room was absurd. Feeling anything for this man was horribly, embarrassingly absurd.

He lived in a brothel. They called him the goddamn king of libertines, for Christ's sake. Jealousy was so far out of the realm of reality. What the devil was wrong with me?

The blonde scurried away, leaving the door cracked open.

I slid a dagger from my boot, if only because I needed something to squeeze. Then I strode into the bedchamber.

Darkness engulfed the perimeter. The aroma of rum and arousal invaded my nostrils. A candle glowed on the bedside table. More flickered on the dresser and windowsill, casting dim light across the bed.

Two nude bodies lay tangled amid the twisted counterpane. Slender, soft, female bodies.

Several paces away, a chair faced the bed at an angle, and in it sprawled the king of libertines.

I couldn't help but shudder in the presence of the shirtless, silver-eyed rake. The chiseled V of his chest offered so many ridges, valleys, and shadowed indentations I had the sudden urge to run my hands over him. And my lips. My tongue.

A flash of heat struck low in my belly.

His legs stretched out before him, long and muscled, encased in tight breeches that stopped at the calves. With no boots or woolen hose in sight, it felt strangely intimate to gaze upon his bare ankles and feet.

I was no blushing virgin, but my encounters with men rarely involved the removal of clothing. A quick poke against a wall or over a table suited my needs. I never had a desire to see a man in only his skin.

Until now.

The front flap of his breeches lay open, revealing a trail of dark hair that led to the long, thick outline of him beneath the fabric. I wished the covering was completely untied so I could glimpse that impressive bulge in the flesh.

As it were, I saw enough. His waist was lean, his abdomen hard and flat. With the chest and arms of a gladiator and the silken lashes of nobility, he was entirely too pretty to take in all at once.

The corner of his mouth crept up. A mouth Prometheus must have fashioned from satin and sin. His smirk emanated sheer masculine arrogance, and I felt myself tensing, my heart thrumming hotly as if preparing for battle.

No matter how much he rattled me, by God's teeth, I refused to look away.

Neither did he.

The languid dip of his eyes put me in a trance. Everything else faded to black—the room, his whores, my rationality—until all that remained was him and me and the shimmering, scorching energy between us.

After the span of several breaths, his brow pleated, and his lips slipped into a frown. Whatever this was, he felt it, too. And he was as confused by it as I was.

"Are you the reason he hasn't touched us since his return?" A husky voice drifted from the bed, breaking the spell.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's been two days." An auburn head popped up from the tangled bedsheets. "He's only watched us from that chair with his beautiful cock in hand." She pouted her lips. "We knew something was wrong."

"She's the reason, all right." The other woman sat up, her eyes huge and round as she ogled me. "Look at her, Cheri. Isn't she the most stunning creature you've ever seen?"

"As ethereal as a sea queen." The redhead crawled across the bed toward me, wearing only stockings. "Won't you join us, love?"

"Get out." I tightened my grip on the blade and pointed it at the door.

The women exchanged looks. Then they turned to Priest.

He rose from the chair and tightened the laces on the front of his breeches. "Good night, Cheri and Amelia."

His large hand slipped around mine, and in the next breath, I was being pulled from the bedchamber. Caught in his iron grip, I stumbled to keep up with his long-legged strides.

Was that not his room?

Cruising along the mezzanine banister and veering off around the corner, he dragged me to the back of the building. I could've freed myself with the blade at any time, but curiosity kept me compliant. For now.

From a small table, he snagged a lit candle in a tin holder and carried it into the last room. I staggered in with him, whirling and breathless.

The tiny windowless space struggled to accommodate two trunks and a single mattress that didn't seem big enough to support his muscled frame.

Backing up, I bumped the farthest wall in three steps. "This is where you sleep?"

Alone?

"Yes." He closed the door and set aside the candle.

I held my breath, waiting for the words, I knew you would come, or something equally condescending. But he remained silent, reclining against the wall, watching me with those silver hawk eyes.

Would he stop me if I tried to leave? He wasn't blocking the door or setting off my instinct to fight or flee. Instead, he regarded me with such intense focus I couldn't remember why I was here.

"Are you planning to use that?" He glanced at the knife in my hand.

"That's up to you."

He grunted, a deep, tantalizing sound that made my insides feel weightless. "Cheri and Amelia are right."

"About what?"

"All of it. Jesus Christ, Bennett, you're gorgeous. Astonishingly, unreasonably so." He studied me from beneath the heavy mantle of a perplexed brow. "Looking at you brings me more pleasure than anything I could experience in this house."

Assuming he'd sampled every flower in the Garden, he'd probably grown bored and thought I would be an entertaining challenge.

My blood simmered, and I glowered at him, trying to maintain my anger. But I couldn't. He seemed genuinely baffled by his reactions to me.

"Tell me why you're here." Suspicion threaded through his Welsh inflection.

Lowering onto the narrow mattress, I propped a boot on the wall and sheathed the blade. Then, for no logical reason, I let my skirts drift a little higher, recklessly showing skin above my knee.

His gaze homed in, and his jaw set.

Don't tease the wolf.

I straightened the hem.

From my dimity pocket, I removed the coin purse and compass and set both on the pallet beside me. "I want access to your instrument inventor."

Gray eyes sharpened. Then they widened, and in an abrupt transformation, he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

The rumble heated through me, arousing me, and that pissed me off. "Care to tell me what, pray tell, is so damned humorous?"

"When you followed me in here—"

"You dragged me here."

"Just so. There's only one reason a woman puts herself in my bed."

I sprung from the mattress so fast my head hit the wall. "Damnation!"

Another gravelly laugh, his eyes shining with amusement. "You are delightfully unexpected, Bennett Sharp."

What was it about this man that made my skin hot and my knees weak every time he smiled?

"On the ship..." Blood pounded through my temples. "You thought I would change my mind and seek you out because I wanted to bed you?"

"Women are woefully predictable." He pushed off the wall and leaned over me. "But you came here for something else, hm? An inventor?"

"Yes."

The room was too small, and he was standing too close, smothering me with his addictive male scent.

My lungs constricted, and I inhaled through my mouth. "How do I convince your...the inventor to receive me?"

"You can't. She despises women." He grabbed the compass, inspecting it top to bottom. "Why did you bring this?"

"It's a puzzle." I walked him through the same story I'd given Reynolds, keeping the details short and ambiguous.

He tinkered with the dial and hinges and handed it back, his stare disconcerting. "Is it a puzzle or a map?"

"What do you mean?" I pretended ignorance as my gut twisted into knots.

"Your father celebrated a long, illustrious career of raiding. Where is his plunder, Bennett? Are you hiding a ship full of riches? Or did he hide it and give you an encrypted map of its location?"

Sickening dread spiked through me. "He lost everything when he died."

Could he read the lie on my face? I met him stare for stare, relaxing my features into a mien of apathy.

Whether or not he believed me, he let it slide. "The woman you seek is reclusive, distrusting, and exceedingly particular in matters of detail. But I know her demands, and she always receives me."

"Where?"

"She inhabits a small island off the southern coast of Hispaniola." He lifted the coin purse from the bed, poked through the gold pieces, and gave it all back. "Take me to her, and I'll get your compass unlocked."

As tension fell from my shoulders, new worries piled on.

"Is this not enough coin?" I held out the purse.

"I'll handle her payment."

"How? What does she want?"

"Nothing you can give."

My attention dropped to his groin and flicked away, my stomach souring. "You sleep with her?"

"She requires one night." His gaze caressed my face, burning, penetrating.

Gnawing unease gathered at the base of my spine. "You trust her?"

"I've used her several times to decipher a tabula recta, a scytale, and various other tools designed to protect secrets. When I find a strange device among the spoils I take, she's the only one who can open it. She's discreet, and she's never cheated me."

In my mind, I pictured a withered old crone hunched over a stone table in a cave. Then I imagined him bedding her, and the visual shattered apart.

"Is she...?" I toyed with the tie on the coin purse. "Is her price tolerable?"

"She's beautiful."

He said it without lust in his voice or heat in his eyes. No eagerness. No passion. I searched his expression for abhorrence or dread and didn't find that, either. He seemed oddly indifferent about it all. As if copulating with this woman was just a means to an end.

It bothered me. Worse than that, I wanted to call the whole thing off. But if he didn't mind the cost of her services, why should I?

"What about your payment?" I shoved the coin purse against his chest.

He didn't grab it. "It'll take a week to sail there. We should get going."

Bending over his sea chest, he fished out a cutlass, shirt, boots, and multiple daggers. The weapons went on his waist, strapped in place by leather belts. Then he donned the boots, the linen shirt.

Watching him dress in the confines of his bedchamber, I couldn't have moved if I'd wanted to. Powerful muscles flexed with his movements—the bulges along strong arms, the squared bulk of shoulders, the ridges of ribs and abs. There was so much man within my reach. I swear my skin was shrinking too tight, and my nipples threatened to rip through the corset.

When he finished, he stood in the candlelight like a bronzed, battle-ready titan. My limbs went weak.

It was impossible to not think about the pleasure that body could bring when he looked like that. When he looked at me like that. Like he could turn my entire world inside-out with just one thrust.

Liquid curls of heat rolled between my legs.

"I'm not paying you with my body." I proffered the coin purse again.

"Do you pay your other crewmates with your body?"

"You say?" Indignation steamed from my pores. "Absolutely not!"

"Do you pay them with coin?"

"When we take a prize vessel, each man receives a share of the spoils as his due. You know how this works."

He pushed away the hand holding the coin purse. "Then why, madam, are we having this conversation?"

Because he was the most confident, enticing, uncommonly handsome libertine I'd ever met. The raw, uninhibited magic I felt with him wasn't one-sided, and I didn't know if I was strong enough to keep this partnership out of my bed.

Returning the purse and compass to my pocket, I breezed past him and out the door. The sound of his footfalls followed, slow and graceful, shivering up my spine.

I'd come here to request his help, and he agreed to give it without compensation. But in truth, he'd procured precisely what he'd sought aboard my ship yesterday.

A position on my crew.

I just hoped this transaction wasn't more than either of us bargained for.

The next morning rode in on a tropical trade wind. My hair whipped around my arms as I leaned against Jade's mighty foremast, watching the whitecaps sweep by and feeling damned excited to have a destination at hand.

After we weighed anchor last night, Priest met with my African helmsman, Jobah. Over a spread of maps, lobster chowder, and ale, they chartered our course to Hispaniola.

The din of bare feet padded behind me as the crew scrubbed away the night's spume. Overhead, canvas danced in the wind, and beyond the oaken bows, the sunrise reflected against the water in ripples of salmon and silver.

Glittering silver. Like his eyes.

It could be argued that Priest was the most alluring, extraordinarily handsome man on the planet. But it didn't matter. Within a week, he would be in another woman's bed. It was in my best interest to stop thinking about his eyes, his beauty, and his gravelly Welsh cadence.

"Did you raid the cabin boy's wardrobe?"

I froze. And melted. God, that voice—dark and silky and so very near. I didn't need to turn around to confirm his proximity at my back. I felt him there, his heat enveloping me like an embrace.

My blood hummed, and my breaths wheezed as if I'd scaled the shrouds a dozen times. As my head tried to float away, I registered the question he'd asked.

Cabin boy's wardrobe?

I wore faded brown trousers cut off at the knee, black boots, and an ivory shirt tucked into a leather belt. The only impractical accessory was the choker at my neck, fitted with the jade stone my father had given me.

My attire made it easier to climb ratlines, scour decks, and swing my cutlass in battle. No one, especially not this man, could make me feel inferior for dressing how I wanted.

I whirled on him. "If you have a problem with—"

"Christ, you're fierce." His gaze traced my face, fixating on my mouth as a primal sound vibrated in his chest. There was so much longing, so much danger in that growl, it tangled my thoughts. "Fierce, ravishing, glorious in ways no other woman could duplicate... That doesn't begin to illustrate the sight of you."

I dissected his words, looking for trickery. "What are you doing?"

"Enjoying the view." He prowled around me.

"Stop."

"Stop enjoying?"

"Stop looking."

"You realize every man on this ship spends a great deal of time looking and enjoying and pleasuring himself to images of your arse in those trousers."

If that were true, they never let it reflect in their interactions with me. They respected me.

The only eyes that leered on this ship were stormy gray and rude as hell. If I exposed a scandalous curve or hint of flesh, those eyes homed in and stared.

The wind snatched a tendril of his masculine scent and teased it past my nose, further irritating me.

"Damn your eyes, you indecent bastard." I shifted to the starboard bow and leaned against the rolled-up hammock that protected the deck from enemy shellfire.

He joined me there, forearms on the rail beside mine, his body angled toward the sea. "You walk around with a perfect round backside in tight breeches, and you call me an indecent bastard? You're torturing your crew, Captain."

Silence stewed between us while I debated knocking him into a cocked hat.

Then an unrepentant grin stole across his lips.

He was teasing me?

My muscles loosened, and I stifled my own grin. "You aren't supposed to notice a captain's arse."

"Is that right?"

"Of course. Everyone knows a superior arse of any shape or size is meant to blend in with the overall power of a captain's impressive authority."

He blinked. His mouth twitched, and there it was. That seductive smile with all its lethal teeth, sculpted curves, and mesmerizing twists.

This man was going to ruin me.

I let that sink in, sobering as I recalled Reynold's warning. "How do you plan to cheat me?"

"I changed my mind about that."

"Really?" I said dryly.

"I boarded this galleon with the intent to overthrow her captain and take her command. It's what I do." A frown formed on his forehead as he watched me with quiet assessment. "Then I met you and lost interest in taking your ship."

"Because I'm a woman?"

"No."

"Because I'm Edric Sharp's daughter?"

"No."

"Then why?"

He caught a wisp of my hair and rubbed the strands between finger and thumb, his expression pensive.

"I want to know you." He let the wind tug my curl from his hand. "I want to see your command as a captain and hear your mind as a woman."

He could've said anything else, any variation of excuses and falsehoods to explain away Reynold's warning and make me feel comfortable about his presence here.

But his answer scared me. Shook me to the core.

That was how I knew he'd spoken the truth.

"Captain," Reynolds said behind me.

I turned to find my quartermaster glaring at Priest. My attention darted between them, my senses picking up on their usual hostility. But Reynolds remained silent, the moue of displeasure on his face fading away. If he'd heard Priest's confession, he accepted it as I had.

"If you're ready to break your fast," he said to me, "the cook prepared a meal in your cabin."

"Thank you." I looked at Priest. "Have you eaten?"

Over the next hour, the three of us shared a hearty breakfast of salt fish, buttered eggs, and ship biscuits while discussing Nassau's political atmosphere and the downfall of the king's pardons for pirates.

No matter our backgrounds and motivations, we agreed wholeheartedly on the value of rebellion over the traditions of society. It was the pirate way. While Nassau succumbed to British rule, we would never surrender with it.

Reynolds eventually left the cabin to oversee the operations of the ship, leaving Priest and me deep in discussion. We talked about our adventures at sea, our favorite ports, and our bloodiest battles. We talked about many things, so incredibly riveted in what the other had to say neither of us seemed capable of pulling away.

And so began our voyage.

As hours rolled into days, our conversations grew closer, looser. Effortless. We talked over shared meals, laughing and arguing about everything. We talked when I made my rounds on the upper deck, strolling side by side in the salty air.

Each night, he left me at the door of my cabin and slipped away to sleep in the crew's quarters, only to return before dawn with breakfast and more conversation.

By the fifth day, I knew more about Priest Farrell than any person I'd met in my lifetime. I knew where he came from, who his parents were, his childhood, his biggest regrets, greatest fears, deepest desires, and somewhere along the way, I shared all of that with him, too.

We weren't that much different, he and I. He regretted the deaths of friends, feared the loss of freedom, and desired companionship with people he could trust with his life.

The more we talked, the more I was drawn to the man beneath the gorgeous face. I'd never felt compelled to tell anyone about my upbringing, my grievances, and my darkest thoughts. Yet I found myself divulging the strangest things, craving every conversation, and missing him the moment he left my cabin at night.

He never touched me intimately. But I sensed the need in him, the desire to know me in that way.

As the days passed, I craved him, too. I ached for him to kiss me, restrain me, and claim me whether I consented or not. I couldn't stop my thoughts from going there, plunging into the darkest places while he sat beside me day after day, looking at me the way he did.

He needed to just put himself inside me, into the hungry wet heat of me, and stroke himself there until this tarnal infatuation went away.

But we didn't talk about that. Nor did we discuss the woman he would bed when we arrived at our destination.

On the sixth night, Jade reached landfall beneath the escort of a pale, bloated moon.

The sight of the small island's shoreline should have filled me with unbridled excitement. I'd never come this close to discovering the secret of my father's compass.

Instead, the looming finality of my time with Priest sat like a hot boulder in my stomach.

He walked beside me on the upper deck, hands clasped at his back, lost in his own thoughts. But his gaze never strayed far, always shifting in my direction, reaching, touching, knowing.

"You're quiet." As he tipped his head, moonlight pooled on the planes of his chiseled face.

"So are you." I rested a hand on his forearm, bringing our stroll to a stop in the shadow of the mainsail. "We need to talk about tomorrow."

"Why?" His mouth flattened into a hard slash, the anger in it taking me by surprise. "Are you going to turn this ship around and forget about the compass? Or do you want to hash out the details of what I'll be doing in her bed?"

I jerked away and pressed a hand against my constricting chest.

He gripped my chin and forced my eyes back to his. "We can't discuss tomorrow without talking about us."

"Us?"

"This." His hands slid into my hair, bringing our foreheads together. "Our connection. The mysterious alchemy of it. The goddamn energy crackling the air."

My breath hitched as he grabbed my hips and hauled me against him, lining up all our intimate parts. Paralyzing heat spread downward, fanning through my body with diabolical precision.

"I know you feel it, Bennett. I perceive its effects on you—the desire, the uncertainty, and most of all, the fear of this thing we're becoming."

We were becoming one. A single, inseparable unit. A mating of souls.

And I was sending him into the clutch of another woman's body.

Chaos erupted between my ears as I tried to rein in my jealous rage. "You and I... We just met. This is—"

"It's terrifying, I know." He dipped his head and set his mouth upon the crook of my neck, roving at leisure, his tongue leaving wet trails of heat on my skin. "I never would've believed what could change in a week in your company."

"What changed?"

He stared down at me, flexing a strong, irritated jaw. The intelligent eyes that seemed to see straight through me said what his mouth didn't.

Everything had changed.

Our mission.

Our motivations.

Him and me together.

A rollicking song broke out behind us. The deep voice, thick with drink, sang in tune while stringing together verses with improvisations. A fiddle joined in, probably the young sailor I always saw trailing after Reynolds. When a bone whistle struck the chorus, the decks boomed with life and commotion, every seaman singing along, many of them dancing.

Their gaiety melted the numbness in my feet, and soon I was smiling with them, humming along with the rhythm.

Without warning, a muscled arm hooked around my back, and I lost my breath as Priest twirled me across the deck. He caught my hand in his and yanked me close. Then we spun again, moving to the music, stomping our boots, and laughing uncontrollably.

Rowdy tars gathered around us, clapping and chanting. Even Reynolds got caught up in the revelry, singing at the top of his lungs.

Over the past week, the crew had taken a liking to the king of libertines. It shone on their faces whenever they talked to him, and now, as they encouraged him to swing me faster across the planks.

We danced through several more songs, pounding our boots until the seam on his ripped.

He stopped, bending at the waist and laughing as he pulled his boots off in pieces.

When he straightened, half-lidded eyes found mine. We panted from exertion, our heavy exhales mingling, coming faster, harder, building toward more.

"You need new boots." I grasped his warm hand and turned toward the companionway to my cabin. "Come with me."

Down the ladder and through the passageway, I didn't slow until I reached my chamber. He followed me in and leaned against the closed door, watching me with a guarded expression.

He wore no boots, no gold jewelry, no fancy clothing or extravagant accessories. He didn't own a ship. Didn't keep the prize vessels he stole. I'd seen the tiny space in the brothel where he slept. It barely accommodated a pallet, let alone a trove of riches.

I leaned a hip against the desk and crossed my arms. "Why do you raid if you don't care about wealth?"

"This lifestyle offers..." His focus darted through the room as if searching for the answer. "There's a promise of...this journey into the unknown that..." His gaze landed on mine. "I'm only now beginning to appreciate."

"You are an explorer."

"I'm not interested in the geography of the world."

"No, you're looking for the meaning."

So was I.

Could it be that we found that meaning right here, sparking in whatever this was that drew us together?

My lungs tightened, and I turned away, contemplating his boots and the reason I'd led him down here. After an endless minute of inner conflict, I stepped to the armoire and removed an old pair of jackboots.

"These belonged to my father." I set them in his arms. "If they fit, you can have them."

He blinked slowly, staring at the worn leather, knowing full well what the boots meant to me. Throughout our conversations, I'd shared stories about my father, my memories of him in those boots, and the details of how I acquired them when he died.

His hands caressed the leather and laces with reverence as he pulled them on, adjusting them around his knees.

"They fit," he said, his voice beautifully husky, silver eyes questioning.

I nodded, my chest warming with the rightness of it.

"Bennett..." He moved fast, too fast, coming right at me.

Fear and desire crowded in, and I stumbled back, my hands flying up in defense. He caught them, pinning my arms to my sides.

"Be calm." He made a shushing sound, trapping me with muscle-corded heat as he flattened my body against the wall.

Then he lowered his head and traced my lips with the tip of his tongue, teasing, tasting, and bursting pleasure through my belly. Warmth tingled through my limbs, my fingertips, and into my breasts, hardening my nipples.

He pressed deeper, opening my mouth fully, his hand cupping my head, his other at my waist, and I fell into heaven. With a kiss that decimated all others, he plundered my lips, caressing and licking and driving me mad with yearning.

I came alive. Everywhere our bodies touched, I burned. Burned beneath the bruising pressure of his mouth. Burned against the hard length of his need. Burned with the knowledge that I shouldn't, couldn't go through with this.

He'll bed you. Then he'll cheat you.

Don't sleep with him.

But not even Reynold's warnings doused the fire consuming me. I was lost in this man, my hands clawing muscle as need sang through my breasts and pooled between my legs.

My entire being clung to the slide of his hot mouth, to the weight of his sculpted body, to this inexplicable connection that sank through flesh and bone and bound our souls into one.

"Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, Bennett." He fisted a hand in my hair and kissed the corner of my lips. "We're leaving this island."

I went still, panting against his mouth. "The compass..."

"It comes with a price." He released me, his hands falling to his sides as he glared with all the condemnation of an enraged god. "Have you forgotten what I must do to unlock your precious puzzle?"

"You know it's not just a puzzle."

"Edric Sharp's plunder..." he breathed, eyes wide. "So it is a map?"

"You didn't know?" My hands fisted. "You were bluffing?"

"I was guessing."

"A plague take you, Priest." I groaned, pulling at my hair. "God, you make me crazy."

"What happens when you find his pilfer?"

"I've dragged this crew across the West Indies for five years looking for a treasure they don't even know exists. If we find it, we'll split it, just like every other prize. Since you're part of this crew, you'll get your share."

A week ago, I entered into a partnership with the king of libertines. If this was a romantic relationship, I would never share him with another woman. But it wasn't, and I refused to stand here and demand commitment and monogamy from a man I just met.

Maybe he did care about wealth. Perhaps he was looking forward to bedding this beautiful, reclusive woman again.

I unhooked the compass from my belt and handed it to him. "The choice is yours."

He stared at the instrument, curling his fingers around it. Though it looked small and delicate in his huge palm, it'd been the biggest, heaviest thing on my mind since I took command of my father's ship. It still was. Only now, it was no longer the most important.

Gray eyes locked on mine, holding me in place, making me wait. I fought an exhausting mental war, trying to interpret the minute shifts and tics on his face before he broke eye contact.

His expression shuttered as he wedged the compass into his waistband. Then he turned and left the cabin, shutting the door with quiet, heartbreaking finality.

I cried myself to sleep. It was a very un-captain-like thing to do. But dammit, I was a woman first and foremost, and my heart wanted something greater than chests of gold and bloody battles.

I wanted Priest Farrell.

As the first rays of dawn brushed the windows of my cabin, I pondered my selfishness with a clearer state of mind.

Choosing Priest meant choosing my own desires over that of my crew. But if I didn't fight for him, what was the meaning of all this? Why fight at all, if not for each other?

If I let him go, I didn't deserve him in the first place.

Hot, silent determination saturated my soul as I slid from the bed, still dressed in yesterday's clothing.

At the door, I found Reynolds on the other side with a platter of salt fish. "Is Priest awake yet?"

"He's not here."

"What?" My blood turned to ice.

"He left for the island last night." Stepping around me, he set the food on the desk. "I thought you knew."

No, no, no. He was supposed to leave today. Why would he sneak off in the dark?

She requires one night.

God help me, he'd gone to her—worked up from our kiss and angry from our conversation.

I was too late.

Was he still in bed with her now? Waking her with his beautiful mouth and talented hands?

Nauseating pain crashed through me. I staggered backward and spun toward the windows, hiding the anguish on my face.

How could he do this? After the profound week we shared together, how could he run into the arms of another woman?

No. This was my fault. I'd shown him my grief over losing my father, poured out my heart about the compass. Priest didn't bed her because he was a lusty, shameless rake. He did it because he knew how badly I needed that map.

I couldn't even let myself imagine the possibility of him running off with the compass with no intention of returning. He wouldn't do that. Not to me.

Pushing down the agony, I squared my shoulders and strode through the cabin. "When did he leave?"

"A few hours ago."

Only a few hours? He hadn't been with her the entire night? My pulse quickened. Maybe I still had time.

"For what it's worth," Reynolds said from the doorway, "he wasn't himself when he left. He seemed...troubled."

My stomach hardened as I strapped on my cutlass, pistols, and daggers.

"What are you doing?" He leaned against the door, tugging on his earring.

"I'm going after him." I stormed toward him, bracing for a fight. "Don't try to stop me."

"I'm not." He smirked, stepping to the side. "I'm getting out of your way."

By the time I reached the upper deck, the sun was cresting the eastern edge of the island. I raced to the larboard bow, frantically scanning the dense foliage that fringed the shoreline.

"Did Priest take a jolly boat?" I asked a nearby seaman.

"Yes, Captain."

I squinted at the shore, unable to see a boat beached on the sand. Where the devil did he go?

We carried other boats on Jade's stern, so I hurried to the ladder there and swung a leg over the gunwale to start my descent.

"Captain!" Reynold's voice rang out behind me. "You're not debarking alone!"

I didn't need a damned guard. Shifting my weight, I stepped onto the top rung.

And stopped.

Far down below, a boat rocked in the water beneath the ladder, and it wasn't empty.

Stormy gray eyes stared up at me. Eyes that glowed with an intensity that scorched my skin, even at this distance.

I felt like an iron cannon was perched on my lungs. I couldn't breathe, couldn't move. I couldn't do anything but hold his gaze as he leaped onto the ladder and scaled his way up.

My heart hammered as he grew closer, the details of his appearance growing sharper. Red stains oozed from multiple tears in his shirt. Blood dripped from a cut on his cheek.

Needles pricked my throat. What happened to him? How badly was he hurt?

When he ascended into hearing range, I shouted, "Are you okay? Hurry!"

He took his time, devastating my nerves with his silence. Then he finally reached the top. "I'm fine, Captain. Just a few scratches."

I threw myself around him, hugging his massive shoulders and trying to haul him onto the deck. The effort ended with his arms holding me up as we stood together, chest to chest, locked.

"I couldn't do it." He stared down at me, his face frozen and bleeding. "I didn't even try."

I opened my mouth, failing words as my insides rose and fell in little dips.

"I didn't want her hands on me. I didn't want...her."

"Priest..."

"She's not you, Bennett." Quiet fury whispered through his accent, laced with bewilderment. "I don't want anyone but you. I'm sorry." His gaze shifted, dropping to my weapons and my position near the ladder. "What were you doing?"

"I was going to stop you." I stood taller and gripped the collar of his shirt. "I was going to fight for you like I should have done last night."

I caught a flash of a grin before his mouth crashed over mine. He kissed me right there in front of my crew, his tongue thrusting past my lips and his hands molding around my backside.

Whistles and cheers exploded around us, and somewhere near the forecastle, Reynolds barked orders to set sail.

Priest didn't release me, his breaths panting thickly against my mouth. I felt his desire in the muscled arms around me, in the flexing strength against my body. I tasted him, pressing into him, aching to feel the rigid length of his arousal again, wanting it inside me, craving the delirious pleasure I knew it would bring.

As if reading my mind, he gripped my hand and strode in the direction of my cabin. The crew scrambled around us, towing in the anchor and preparing Jade to sail.

"Why are you bleeding?" I jogged to keep up with his ground-covering gait.

"She didn't like my offer." He stopped at a barrel near the companionway and lifted the lid.

Confused, I peered inside and gasped.

Why was my compass in there?

He reached in and grabbed it. Then he was moving again, dragging me along behind him.

"You didn't take it with you?" I huffed, chasing him down the ladder and through the lower level.

"Too risky. I went there to barter with something other than...myself. Gold coins, ornate artifacts, exotic gems... I even offered her a share of the prize if she unlocked the puzzle." He reached my cabin and ushered me inside. "But I didn't tell her that this was the puzzle." He held up the compass and set it on a shelf. "Now she'll never know what it looks like."

"But what if she'd agreed to your offer?" I shut the door and leaned against it, captivated by his mind.

"I would've returned to the ship and retrieved the payment and the compass."

"Instead, she attacked you?" I stepped toward him and prodded at the cut on his face. "Because you wouldn't sleep with her?"

His shoulder gave a careless shrug. "She didn't want to let me go."

"I don't want to let you go."

"Then don't."

He closed in, and I retreated, taunting him. With a flash of teeth, he pulled off his shirt and kept coming. My back hit the door, and my lungs emptied.

The next breath was his, warm and delicious, on my face, my neck, my lips. His dark aura pressed in, and I welcomed the wildness of it, silently begging for everything he intended to give me.

"You are a unique, stubborn, beautiful woman, Bennett Sharp." He yanked my hips to his, grinding me against his arousal and making me wet. "I look forward to worshiping you, serving your body, and feasting on your cunt until we're both drunk on pleasure."

"You better not—"

"Resist all you want. It won't do you any good." His lips moved so close to mine I felt the heat of them.

"I was going to say..." I grinned. "You better not stop."

Our mouths collided, exploding in a battle of lashing tongues, clicking teeth, and hungry breaths. Our hips met. Our eyes held, and our hands mauled.

Weapons dropped. Boots tumbled. Clothes ripped. Then we were sliding together, nude and gasping, flesh on flesh, touching, exploring, kissing, rocking as one, and miming the movements of copulation.

Spirals of sensation coursed through me, trembling up my legs. "Need you."

"Patience." His palms covered my breasts, squeezing.

Then his hands roved, touching me everywhere before he put those wicked fingers in the place I needed him the most.

"Soaked." He circled my entrance, groaning. "For me."

"Yes, we know. You can gloat about it later. Right now, just..." I cried out at the slide of his touch. "Put it in."

His fingers thrust, stroking me into a vortex of unimaginable pleasure. I moaned and threw my head against the door, riding his hand and needing more.

"This, Priest." I reached between us and gripped the heavy, rock-hard length of him. "Put this in."

He grunted, kicking his hips, his gaze never leaving mine.

"You're going to scream." He lifted me, hooking my legs around his hips and pinning my back to the door.

"Definitely."

He took his cock in hand and met my eyes. Then he fed his thick length into my body.

"Oh, Gahhhhhd! Oh, God. Oh, God," I screamed, liquefying around the unholy intrusion.

The groan that escaped him sounded like a wolf on the scent of a female in heat. The pained growl matched the feral lunge of his thrusts as he pounded me against the door.

"Christ almighty, you're perfect." He slammed himself into me, kissing and biting my lips between gasping words. "Made for me. For me alone."

The deep, gravelly noises he made spun me higher, hotter, wetter. Our bodies slapped together. Our breaths shook, and our hands dug in, climbing deeper, closer, trying to swallow each other whole.

And the best part? His eyes.

Glowing and dilated, they burned into me, never losing focus, never straying from mine.

He watched me as he took us to the highest peak. He didn't look away as we fell over the edge together, groaning and panting and shaking as one.

And he wasn't finished.

Before I caught my breath, he had me laid out on the desk with his face between my legs. Then he took me in the chair, on the floor, against the windows, and finally in the bed.

Entangled in sweaty limbs, stripped to the skin, and deeper still—deep enough to expose our hearts—we were buried so far inside each other there would be no unraveling.

After that, we slept. We ate. We made our rounds with the crew. Then we fell back into bed and into each other.

Over the weeks and months that followed, Priest and I didn't give up on my father's compass. We plotted together, studied maps together, and became addicted. Together. Insatiable. Inseparable. We couldn't keep our clothes on, our hands to ourselves, or our hearts closed off.

What began as an unstoppable explosion of passion forged into something pivotal, essential, and more.

And that was how I fell in love with the king of libertines.

———————————————

This was just a taste of the world and characters in SEA OF RUIN.

The first few chapters of SEA OF RUIN is included at the end of this book.

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One is a Promise

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Knotted

DARK ROMANCE / ANTI-HEROES

DELIVER SERIES (each book is a different couple)

Deliver

DARK PARANORMAL ROMANCE

TRILOGY OF EVE (series is complete)

Heart of Eve

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Sea of Ruin
SEA OF RUIN

CHAPTER ONE

(Five years before KING OF LIBERTINES)

September 1714

Province of Carolina

Charleston. To anyone settling here, it was a dazzling frontier of beauty and opportunity. Its denizens comprised of wealthy planters sailing from the English colony of Barbados and the Yamasee natives fighting to destroy the white invaders.

Then there was me, the bastard daughter of noble blood, willing to do anything to escape this life.

Though I was born here fourteen years ago, I had no interest in the land or its wars. I longed for the sea, to feel the deck rocking beneath my feet, to hear the wind drumming against sailcloth, and to wear salt and spume upon my tattered sleeves.

My mother, however, didn't care a whit about what I wanted.

"Stop fidgeting." She pried my clenched fingers from the rib-crushing bodice of my gown.

Her scowl distorted the stately lines of a face that had once been the envy of high society. Her eyes, cerulean blue like mine, simmered with resentment as she scrutinized the chintz monstrosity she forced me to wear.

"Can I remove the pannier? Please, Mother?" I yanked at the cumbersome undergarment, my voice pitching to a whine. "God rot it, I can't move!"

The hidden wire hoops sat on my hips like bread baskets on a pack animal. I pivoted left to right, taking up three times as much space as a grown man. It would be impossible to mount my horse in this stultifying contraption. Not that the countess would allow me near the barn on this day.

"Really, Benedicta, you're giving me a megrim." She stood a head taller than me, her golden hair pinned into a coiffure of ironed ringlets and ornamented with a plume of feathers. "I spent a fortnight making this gown, and by God's heart, you will wear it with dignity."

To hell with God's heart. I swore in spite of his teeth. But never in the presence of the Lady Abigail.

"I didn't ask for this." I motioned at the gown and the ornate furnishings of my bedchamber. "For any of this."

"I didn't ask for you. Yet here you are, an ungrateful, quarrelsome hoyden, born with both fists clenched."

It was always the same when the countess looked at me. She didn't see her only child, a daughter to love, or a girl with earnest dreams.

She only saw her shame. Her ruination. The reason she was exiled.

Shifting toward the window, I sought a brighter view outside the glass panes. The dawn-lit sea stretched eastward from the sandy shoreline, aglitter with waves I couldn't hear from my bedchamber.

I'd never ventured beyond the port of Charleston, never even stepped foot aboard a ship. But England flowed through my veins. And constricted my chest. Quite literally.

"It's too tight." I reached back, clawing at the stays that pinched my spine. "It hurts to breathe."

"Then don't."

"Don't breathe? For how long?"

"For as long as it takes to secure an offer."

An offer I didn't want.

I endeavored to live on a ship with a crew of cursing tars, not in a house with a line of biddable servants. I wanted to ride a horse with my feet in stirrups, not sidesaddle and upright. I fancied stout ale over watery tea, sword-fighting over sewing, and would rather burn my nose in the sun than sit in a stuffy parlor.

And this gown? I stifled an unladylike grunt. What I wouldn't give for a pair of trousers.

Which was why, as a girl on the cusp of a betrothed marriage, I was undesirable, uncooperative, and entirely unfit for this.

Unfortunately, the countess didn't sympathize with my position or my improper attributes.

With a hand circling my arm, she dragged me to the dressing table and examined my appearance in the mirror.

"Well..." She tilted her head and sniffed. "I'm not a seamstress, but I daresay I've seen nothing so smart outside of London. If you remember your station and keep your mouth shut, the gown alone might win his favor."

My reflection glared back at me, clad in the flounciest, most attention-grabbing dress in Carolina. Striped in shades of pink, the skirt opened in front to reveal a white petticoat trimmed in a dozen too many frills.

The deep square-cut bosom accentuated my lack of breasts and bony shoulders. Trumpet-shaped sleeves caught up at my elbows, which naturally, would be dragged across plates of gravy and sweet cream before the day's end.

But as much as I despised the dress, I understood the necessity of pomp and ceremony and my mother's struggle to achieve it.

The upper class had clothing made for them, and the countess managed to live amongst that charmed circle, despite having no financial worth of her own.

Lady Abigail Leighton, the only child of the ninth Earl Leighton, inherited her title upon the earl's death. But nothing more. When her inglorious affair with a commoner was made evident by my illegitimate existence, she lost her dowry, her family, and her coveted status in the beau monde.

With no support in England, she was forced abroad—pregnant, destitute, alone—and found refuge here with distant cousins. They took her in, and fourteen years later, we remained in their opulent home, made use of their servants, and ate their lavish meals.

But none of this belonged to us. The master of the house, while ever gracious, could toss us out on our backsides without warning or reason.

We were insolvent tenants. My mother's ruined reputation ensured that was all she would ever be unless she found a way to reenter society.

I ran my hands over the gown, gilded in her meticulous efforts. She spun, wove, and fashioned our garments out of necessity. Every spool of thread was a cost she couldn't afford, every cut of cotton a labor of determination, every stitch a stab at a better future.

A better future for her. All I wanted was adventure and a pair of trousers.

She turned at the sound of a knock on the bedchamber door. "Enter."

"My lady." The parlor maid hurried in, ducking her bonnet-clad head as she offered the countess a gentleman's calling card.

Moisture trickled down my spine, and the stays grew uncomfortably tighter. I didn't need to glance at the card to know it announced the arrival of the Marquess of Grisdale.

"I'll receive him in the blue parlor," my mother said. "Prepare the tea."

"Yes, my lady." The maid bobbed a curtsy and beat a hasty exit.

I'd never met Lord Grisdale, but his letter to the countess mentioned I'd caught his eye during one of my visits to the pier.

At age forty-four, the childless widower had the wealth and influence to help Lady Abigail regain her former status. He lived in England and would return there once his business concluded in Charleston.

He was her ticket home. In exchange, she had only one thing to offer.

Me.

My worth lay in my virtue and lineage. It didn't matter that I was merely fourteen or that he was thirty years my elder. If he were the highest bidder for my hand, the countess would eagerly accept.

My breaths quickened, pulling dread down my throat and into my tumbling stomach. I'd overheard the whispered conversations amongst the scullery maids. Conversations about what men and women did together in the marriage bed.

Lord Grisdale would require me to do that with him, to breed his heirs and service his masculine needs.

The thought sickened me, but I had as much say in it as the nag horse in the barn.

"Heavens, Benedicta. Look at your hair." My mother's voice trembled, a reedy sound of disapproval and sudden nerves. "This won't do, and I don't have time to repair it."

The lady's maid had spent the past hour wrestling my wild blond coils into a presentable pile on my head. The waist-length tresses, thicker and more unruly than my mother's, were already working themselves free from the pins. Wayward spirals sprung in every direction and dangled rebelliously around my ears.

I didn't care about my appearance, but it had a crippling effect on my mother. Her hands balled at her sides. Cords stretched in her stiff neck, and the hope that had brightened her eyes only moments before vanished behind shadows of dismay.

My throat thickened.

Oh, how I wished for her happiness. I didn't know what a smile would look like on her aristocratic face or how the sound of laughter would alter her voice. But maybe it was obtainable.

Maybe if I cooperated. Just this once.

"You mustn't keep him waiting." I leaned toward the mirror and tackled my hair. "I'll fix this."

As I added more pins, she didn't move. Her presence loomed behind me, silent and uncertain.

"Mother?" I glanced over my shoulder.

"This is important to me." Her eyes narrowed.

"I know, my lady."

Her expression softened. Until something caught her attention on my neck.

She reached for it, snatching the thin chain I'd tried to conceal beneath the lace choker. The pendant lay against my spine, hidden by the stays.

"Why are you wearing this?" She yanked on the necklace, attempting to break it.

"Don't." I caught her wrist in a bruising grip, stopping her from harming my most treasured possession.

Her eyes flared, but she surrendered her hold on the chain. "Is that the bauble you received from that savage native last year?"

That was the story I'd given her. She couldn't know the truth about how I acquired it, what it meant to me, or the pledge I'd made to never take it off.

"Yes." I closed my hand around the jade pendant, protecting it from her criticism.

"Remove it."

Never.

"Forgive me." I let my posture sag and carefully arranged my lips around a lie. "I forgot to put it away, but I'll do that—" I twisted the lace choker, pretending to work the chain free. "Blast it, it's tangled."

"We don't have time for this." Livid red rose across her cheeks as she reached for my neck.

"Go." I stepped back. "I'll put everything back in order and join you in a trice."

She glanced at the door and drew in a breath. And another. Shoulders squared, head held high, she composed herself into a portrait of social grace.

"Don't delay." She cast me a withering glare. "And if I see that disgraceful necklace again, I shall tie your wrists with it and have you flogged."

In a swish of lavender silk, she breezed into the hall and shut the door behind her.

A rush of air vacated my lungs, and I opened my hand, cradling the precious pendant in my palm.

Crowned by a filigree band of gold, the green stone was the length of my thumb and half as narrow. Serrated cuts decorated dozens of mysterious facets as if it had been painstakingly sawed from the earth.

I'd never seen anything so unrefined and magical.

As a child of English nobility, I'd been weaned on restrictive clothing, polished smiles, and the art of dissembling. But my heart belonged on a ship with the seafarer who'd given me a jade stone and loved me for who I was. Impulsive. Wild. Rebellious.

I returned the pendant to its hiding place beneath my garments and plastered my curls into a mold of proper English fashion.

It wouldn't kill me to look like a lady. But if the marquess liked what he saw, a wedding would go forth and kill my dreams.

If I sabotaged this introduction, there would be other suitors. Other offers. And a flogging, to be certain.

I could endure the flogging. It was my mother's sadness that knotted my stomach in an endless loop. I shouldn't make her work so hard to be happy. She'd pushed me into this world, and I'd been pushing back ever since. No wonder she never smiled.

With a hard shake of my head, I tested the subdued array of blond curls.

Then I heard it. The distant bark of a dog. I froze, listening with my entire being, as a second dog joined in.

My pulse careened into a gallop.

Could it be? Had I imagined it?

I darted to the window, bumping the pannier into furniture and knocking over a lamp. At the sill, I pressed my brow to the glass and studied the landscape.

Acres of woodland lay between the rear of the estate and the coast. The barking came again, and I tracked the sound to the northern edge of the tree line.

Two hounds raced back and forth, yelping their message, loudly and persistently, as they were trained to do.

His hounds.

His messengers.

I choked upon air.

"He returned." I stumbled away from the window, spinning awkwardly in the cage of my gown. "Oh, Lord, he's here."

If I didn't follow his hounds, I would miss him. If I missed him, more months would pass. More seasons. Another year. I couldn't bear the thought.

My heart labored. If I left, the countess would pound the pudding out of me.

I whirled back to the window and gritted my teeth. "Then a pounding it shall be."
CHAPTER TWO

Knowing full well the consequences of what I was about to do, I should have felt the devil's claws digging around in my stomach. I should have been terrified.

But laughter swelled in me. My cheeks ached to hold it in. The prospect of seeing the only person who ever truly loved me sent my heart into a dizzying whirl.

With no time to spare, I gathered the skirts to my hips and sifted through cotton and ruffles, grunting until my fingers found the buckle at my waist.

When the pannier hit the floor, I tore off the stockings and darted to the bed. From beneath the frame, I removed a linen-wrapped package and carried it to the door.

The master of the house was visiting friends in the New York colony. Since he and his wife traveled with most of the servants, my departure might go unnoticed.

Creeping barefoot into the hall and down the stairs, I evaded detection. Good fortune followed me into the drawing-room, past the study, and through a maze of companionways. Not one person, from footman to butler to liveried maid, thwarted my getaway.

Until I reached the blue parlor and the sound of my mother's voice.

"When will you return to England, my lord?"

"Within a month," he said. "Sooner if there's a wedding to anticipate."

"You won't find a more suitable bride. And since her grandfather was an earl, she has excellent breeding."

"I look forward to making her acquaintance. She was quite stunning from my view on the pier."

Hidden around the corner, I bit down on my cheek.

What could his lordship possibly find stunning about a fourteen-year-old girl?

I hugged the package to my chest, paralyzed by the sudden image of his wrinkly old penis in an unrelaxed state.

Run, Bennett. Go!

The parlor's massive wooden door propped open, giving its occupants a direct view of my path to the main rear exit. But I'd grown up here and knew every chamber and passage.

Veering left, I ducked at the approach of the porter's limping footsteps. Another hallway brought me into the path of a housemaid, and I dashed into a closet. Then I crawled on hands and knees through the busier parts of the estate, following the aroma of plum cake baking in the kitchen.

There, I rose to my feet and peered inside.

Fire flickered beneath the spit. Syllabub glasses sparkled. Mutton stew bubbled in the kettle, and the cook maid—a young native woman—hummed a foreign tune.

Everyone knew servants weren't supposed to sing, hum, or make any noise within earshot of the master's family.

I grinned at her rebellion. With her back turned to the doorway and her pretty voice vibrating the air, she didn't catch my escape through the kitchen and out the servant door.

Morning sunlight blotted my vision, and a warm breeze tugged at my hair, loosening the curls. I squinted in the direction of the barn and listened.

And listened harder.

Damn the silence! Where were those hounds?

Don't panic.

The dogs would find me. They always did.

I bolted across the dewy lawn, tripping over the petticoat and scattering my nerves in a burst of exhilaration.

In the distant field, a tenant farmer lifted his head to watch my inelegant race to the stable. But he wouldn't stop me. No one did as I made a break for an unfamiliar horse that was already tacked outside.

Saddled in the finest leather and tied to a post, the black thoroughbred didn't belong to the estate.

"Miss Benedicta?" The stable boy emerged from the barn and offered me a kind smile. "Do you fancy a ride today? Shall I ready a mare?"

"There's no time. Did Lord Grisdale arrive by carriage?"

"Nah, he came by horse. That one there." His freckled face scrunched as he pointed at the beast I was already mounting. "You mustn't—"

"I'll return it." I stuffed my wrapped package in the saddlebag.

"He'll have my hide!"

"Have my adventures ever earned you a lashing?" With my gaze on the surrounding copse of trees, I tucked the bulky skirts beneath my legs.

"No, but Lord Grisdale—"

"Will aim his strap at my behind." I adjusted my jade pendant to rest against my chest. "Hand me the reins."

He made a show out of dragging his feet, as he so often did when I involved him in my mischief. Then a curse slipped under his breath, decision made. He untied the tether and tossed it to my waiting hand.

"I'll sneak you some plum cake after my flogging tonight." My wink brought twin stains of pink to his freckled cheeks.

Snapping my hips forward, I spurred Grisdale's horse into a gallop.

Within minutes, the pins in my hair surrendered to the wind, giving flight to a tangled mane of curls. At the tree line, I shoved two fingers into my mouth and released a high-pitched whistle.

A racket of noise disturbed the undergrowth. Moments later, the hounds shot out of the woodland and bounded in my direction.

I slowed the horse, exploding with laughter, as paws and jowls scrabbled at my legs. The dogs jumped and licked with vigor, coating my fingers in strings of drool.

And mud.

It was everywhere, blackening the petticoat and streaking my sleeves. Nothing I could do about it now.

"Shear off, you rascals!" I clapped my hands, calling the hounds' attention. "Where is he? Show me!"

Just like all the times before, they took off into the trees, tails up and muzzles down, letting their noses lead them to the rendezvous point.

I gave chase, bending into the pursuit and hugging the trails. At length, I lost track of all the twists and turns and forged headlong into unknown lands.

The terrain grew savagely rugged. Twiggy branches grabbed at my skirts, ripped seams, and gouged irreparable holes in the chintz.

I'd scrounged up a lot of trouble in my life and managed to fight my way out of all of it. But stealing a nobleman's horse and destroying my mother's precious gown? There was no coming back from this.

Maybe I wouldn't have to. Maybe this time he would let me go with him.

My heart rate sped up, filling my chest with giddy anticipation.

He never ventured too close to town, so I wasn't surprised when the journey extended into the next hour. The hounds maintained a frantic northernly pace, sharing my excitement to reunite with their master.

Deep into the woods, the dirt paths grew narrower, choked with foliage and disappearing beneath unexplored wilderness. But I hadn't strayed far from the coast. The scent of brine and tang of salt lay heavily in the warm air, and the resonance of surf thundered over the clap of hooves.

A few minutes later, the trees parted to a view of oceanic blue.

The hounds sprinted toward the shore, kicking up sand in their wake. I dismounted the horse and secured him in the shade. Then I darted out of the forest and into the embrace of uninterrupted sunshine.

The narrow crescent of beach formed an inlet some sixty paces across. On the north side, waves broke in a spray of foam against the base of a cliff. Gulls circled overhead and perched on the rock face. Farther out, past the pounding surf, lay endless swells of water.

There were no ships, no signs of human life, but I felt him. He called to me in the crash of breakers upon the beach and hugged me in the clingy damp wind that whisked across the Great Western Ocean.

He was the sea. Rough. Dangerous. Dependable. No matter how far he traveled or how long he stayed away, he always returned to me.

I scanned the coastline to the south, where it curved out of view. The hounds had vanished in that direction, beyond an outcrop of trees.

Gathering my skirts, I dug my toes into the sand and took off after them. But a few steps in, something stirred in my periphery.

I spun toward the movement and shielded my eyes, squinting at the trees.

Shadows shifted in the woods near the horse. Someone was there, right where I'd been standing.

My lungs compacted as a man stepped onto the beach. A huge mast of a man, dressed head to toe in black.

His hair was red, long around the ears, and wild like the wind. He wore a flowing shirt of silk, knee-high jackboots, and a cutlass that glinted in the sun.

Despite his ignoble attire, he radiated a lord-like bearing. Commanding in stance and purpose, he stalked toward me.

My knees wobbled beneath the storm of his surly eyes.

"A lovely young lass like you should pay better attention to her surroundings." His long-legged strides devoured the distance between us. "You never know what might be lying in wait."

My throat closed, too constricted to squeeze out a sound.

When I'd dismounted the horse, I hadn't examined the perimeter or used my senses to probe for threats. In my excitement, I'd let my guard down.

The curve of his mouth descended, his face carved in stone, deeply tanned and infamously elusive.

The notorious Edric Sharp.

His visage was rendered on newspapers, edicts, and proclamations all over Charleston. They called him a pirate and offered a substantial reward for his capture.

I'd read every account of his description. Some said he was tall and mean. Others claimed he was scarred, bearded, and wore a peruke. Every word and sketched reproduction was created from the imaginations of artists who had never encountered him.

He was more handsome in person, more menacing. But I wasn't afraid.

I was awestruck.

Sand crunched beneath his boots as he paused within arm's reach. I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

A muscle bounced in his stony jaw. Then it spread to his lips, twitching at the corners. I waited for a break in his expression, and when a smile finally lit his eyes, I pounced on the seaman's massive chest.

"Father!" I embraced his wide shoulders, squeezing with all my might.

"Aw, Bennett. I missed you." He swung me up into the safety of his arms and buried his scratchy cheeks in my neck. "You must be more vigilant. Anyone could have sneaked up on you. Have I taught you nothing?"

"Forgive me. I was overcome with excitement. That's no excuse, but Father, it's been eight months. Please, don't be upset with me."

"Never, deary. Never that."

I leaned back to reacquaint myself with his hardened features. My hands went to his jutting jaw, my fingers curling around the squared edges. All blunt angles and sun-darkened skin, his face still held its youth. And it's smile.

That infectious smile widened, tickling wiry whiskers against my palms as I traced new crinkles around his wise eyes and touched the familiar gold ring in his ear.

His arms hugged me tighter, thick and muscular, and his boots spread wide beneath me as if bracing against the roll of the sea even now.

He was every inch the seafaring knave. An unrivaled buccaneer. Ruthless. And rich, if the lore could be believed.

I knew the truth about his conquests and could recall every prize he'd won and lost. His treasure was greater than anyone could imagine.

"Have you brought me more tales from the high seas?" I tugged at the collar of his shirt, searching in fear of finding fresh scars.

"Indeed. I have much to tell you, my beautiful girl."

I lowered my feet toward the ground, wriggling in his arms. Before my toes touched the sand, I spotted a dark presence over his shoulder, approaching from the beach.

The man appeared out of nowhere, sneaking toward us on silent feet. With a bandoleer of guns slung across his chest, he stared at me with eyes too jaded for a face that was nigh twenty years.

My hackles went up, and my stomach bottomed out.

But Edric Sharp hadn't taught me to tremble in the face of danger. No, he'd taught me how to fight with my fists and wit, a flintlock and blunderbuss, and my personal favorite, his cutlass. I could feel it now—the grip of the hilt in my palm, the clang of metal against metal in heated clicks, and its reliability in battle. A blade never misfired.

Without a quiver of hesitation, I grabbed the cutlass from my father's sash, swept behind him, and thrust the sharp point at the enemy. Then I charged.

The man halted, his wicked eyes growing wide at the sight of me. I must have been a fright in tattered chintz and disheveled hair whipping around my ferocious expression.

His alarm was his folly, and I used it to cleave through the sash of his bandoleer and relieve him of his weapons.

"Stand down!" I swung again, slashing a hole in the sleeve of his shirt.

"Damnation, girl!" He held up his hands and hissed at the rip on his arm. "What are you doing?"

"Deciding which part of you I shall cut next." I jabbed the cutlass toward his nether regions.

His huge hand landed on top of my head, holding me away as he parried the stroke of my blade.

"Unhand me, sir." I thrashed, trying to dislodge his immovable grasp. "Do it now, or I'll lop off the dull, inanimate fellow between your legs."

"Captain," he said in a bored tone. "Call off your hell-born blowsabella before she hurts herself."

"Bennett, lower the blade." My father chuckled, his eyes gleaming with amusement. "That's my new quartermaster."

"What?" I withdrew the cutlass and jerked away from the man's grip. "How? Where's Kirby?"

"He lost his legs to chain-shot. And most of his internal organs, I'm afraid."

"Oh."

My insides clenched as I pictured an explosion of smoke and cinder, thousands of pounds of red-hot iron, and blood-soaked decks littered in dismembered limbs. I'd never experienced such brutality, but I'd lived every gruesome detail through my father's stories.

Most days, I believed Edric Sharp was invincible. But sometimes, when I stared at the sea from my bedchamber, I feared the next fallen buccaneer would be him.

"Where are those dogs?" He strode away and whistled for the hounds.

"So you are the reason the captain shortened sail and hove to?" The new quartermaster collected his guns, eying me sidelong. "Can't convince him to drop anchor in Nassau for a night of drink, but he'll put two-hundred leagues beneath her keel to see his brazen little she-devil."

I sucked in a breath and stood taller. "You don't know me."

"You're all he talks about."

"Then I'm at a disadvantage because I don't even know your name."

"Now you fancy an introduction?" He clicked his tongue. "Have you no contrition for attacking me?"

"No." I met him stare for stare, despite the height he held over me.

"You don't mince words, do you?"

I rested the cutlass on my shoulder. "I save the mincing for tangible things."

"Quite so. Point established." A rakish smile stole across his lips. "The name's Charles Vane."
CHAPTER THREE

My father jogged toward the beach to chase his hounds, leaving me in an incommodious stare down with his new quartermaster.

I fought the urge to cross my arms over the revealing bosom of my gown. Charles didn't rest his gaze there, but he was looking at me, scrutinizing and assessing my unsightly appearance.

"Did you come from a party?" He canted his head, and a lock of black hair fell from the defined V of his widow's peak.

"No." I stabbed the cutlass into the sand and leaned on the hilt.

"Did you roll in every mud puddle you could find on the way here?"

"I'm certain I missed one."

He glanced between his ripped sleeve and the soiled rags of my dress. "Are you in the habit of ruining fine garments?"

"Are you in the habit of filling perfectly good silence with tedious questions?"

"Not usually." He scratched his whiskered face. "You're nothing like the well-bred ladies I've..." He cleared his throat. "Spent time with."

"I should hope not." My cheeks heated at his meaning. "I'm not a strumpet."

His gaze dipped to his boots, and the corner of his mouth lifted. "God save the man who sets his sights on you."

"Speak plainly, Mr. Vane." I anchored my fists on my hips. "What are you saying?"

"You're Captain Sharp's daughter."

"Yes, she is."

I jumped at the growl in my father's voice and found him standing a few paces away, watching me.

The hounds bounced around his legs and nipped at his fingers, but he paid them no heed. Prowling toward me, he searched my eyes, and what he saw there made his expression grow dark, overcast, heavy like rain clouds.

I knew that look, and it hurt my heart. "Don't say it."

"It's uncanny how much you resemble her."

"Please, don't—"

"It's true, lass."

I released a sigh. The truest truth was that he still loved the countess. It was an eternal love, as deep and ungovernable as the ocean.

But she wouldn't have him. Not when she was carrying his child. Not after fourteen years of letters, in which he offered her marriage, wealth, and undying devotion.

"Do you still write to her?" I curled my fingers around his callused hand.

"Aye." His gaze slipped to Charles and shuttered before returning to me. "Naught has changed."

"Maybe she's not getting your missives?"

"She's getting them. My courier waits as she reads them, shreds them, and hands back the pieces without response." Pain flashed in his eyes. "Has she still not given you my identity?"

I shook my head.

She never mentioned his name. Not once. Whenever I asked who fathered me, she punished me with her silence. If she knew about our visits... God's blood, would she have him marched to the gallows and hanged? I didn't know and couldn't risk it.

So I never begged him to stay. Instead, I voiced my usual demand.

"Take me with you."

His expression blanked, and he released my hand. "No."

"Please? I can't go back. Not after what I've done!"

"Listen, Bennett. Stealing a horse is one thing. In time, Abigail will forgive you. But pillaging the king's ships is something else entirely. There's no forgiveness in my business, and the sea is no place for a child."

"I'm fourteen!"

"She needs you." He brushed a springy curl from my face. "I would not steal you from her."

"Steal me? She's trying to get rid of me."

He went eerily still. "You say?"

"She's arranging a betrothal. If she succeeds, you'll be visiting me in England. And that's if I can sneak away from Lord Grisdale."

His nostrils pulsed with a furious snap of breath. "Who?"

"A marquess of the realm. Deep in the pockets. Gray under the wig. I stole the old lobcock's horse and—"

"Slow down." His hands flexed, and the vein in his forehead looked ready to pop. "Did you say gray?"

"Well, I haven't confirmed that detail because I missed our introduction. But the rest is true! He's a whole decade older than you!"

In a blink, his eyes lost their humanity, the depths sinking into an abyss of malice and ice.

A shiver rippled down my spine as his entire demeanor took on that coldness. Rigid shoulders, white-knuckled fists, uncompromising scowl—he no longer stood before me as my father, but rather as the infamous captain of an eighteen-gun warship.

His blade-sharp eyes cut to the tree line behind me. "That's his horse?"

"Yes."

"You stole it?"

"I was in a hurry."

He glanced at Charles, and a hint of pride softened the edge of his anger. "Already pirating, this one."

"And thrusting blades at devilishly good-looking rogues." Charles arched a brow at me.

I winged up mine in return. "Careful, Mr. Vane. One might think you enjoyed it."

"She makes a point, Charles." My father's voice grew quiet. A deep, bone-chilling kind of quiet. "Around my daughter, your eyes are for decoration only. If you use them on her, I'll carve them out and feed them to the gulls."

Charles looked away with a grimace. "I'll head back to the ship and give you some privacy."

"Good plan. Return for me at dusk."

The bothersome yet curiously droll quartermaster ambled toward the south side of the inlet. When he vanished beyond the outcrop, presumably where the jolly boat waited, I turned back to my father.

He stared out at the sea, his eyes a turbulent aqua green. The line of his jaw was so unyielding I could've sharpened a blade on it.

"You're angry with the countess," I said.

"Rightfully so." He scraped a hand through the thick tousle of his red hair. "She's stubbornly ambitious, stubbornly independent, stubbornly beautiful..." He blew out a breath. "Just flat-out stubborn."

"If I stay here, her stubbornness will send me to England."

"Don't concern yourself with that."

"What does that mean?"

"I'll deal with her." He paced toward the woods and picked up a fallen branch from the ground. "Your skill with the cutlass needs work."

He tested the weight of the stick and tossed it away to grab another.

With my thoughts still whirling around his plan with the countess, I wasn't prepared for his attack.

He lunged, wielding the stick like a sword, and swept my feet out from under me. I landed on my backside and rolled, all flailing limbs, tangled skirts, and curse words. He swung again, and I dodged, flinging myself toward the cutlass.

With the hilt in my grip, I rose into a strike. He blocked. I slashed, and for the next hour, his training distracted me from stolen horses and betrothed marriages.

As the fire-orange sun hauled itself across the sky, sweat pooled beneath my stays, and the wind blew knots of curls across my face. I clawed the wild tresses out of my eyes until my tangles had tangles.

My father went through multiple sticks, each one hacked away by the blade of the cutlass.

"You've been practicing." He dropped another broken branch and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Only with wood." I gestured at the chopped twigs around his boots. "If I had my own cutlass..."

"I would give you my finest blade, lass." He tapped my nose. "But Abigail would discover it."

"How are you going to deal with her?"

A strange expression creased his face, and he looked away. "What I have planned for her isn't proper for your ears."

"I don't understand."

"Would you like to hear about my latest prize?"

"Yes!" I bounced on my toes and dropped the cutlass. "Was there a battle?"

"Many battles." He laced his fingers through mine and led me to the shade of the woods.

Lowering to the ground, he gathered me on his lap and told me every heart-pounding detail of his attacks on the king's warship, a French brigantine, and numerous merchantiers.

"Then, two months ago, I encountered a Spanish treasure fleet. Twelve ships in total." His eyes lost focus. "We were outgunned and would've never attempted something so dangerous, but there was a deadly storm on the horizon. We waited in safe waters for the tempest to take its toll. Then we moved in, attacking the battered ships and claiming their salvage."

"They fought back?"

"The storm did. I thought it had passed, but a surge unlike any I've seen followed in its wake. I lost my ship." At my gasp, he pinched my chin and smiled. "I seized a new ship that night."

"You did?"

"Aye. A Spanish galleon. She was neither broken nor sinking like the others in the surge." His expression glowed with veneration. "She was spitting fire and laughing at the storm."

He explained how he rallied his surviving crew and boarded the fifty-gun galleon, even as his own ship was swallowed by the king tide.

I committed the particulars of his ambush to memory, hoping one day I might have a need for such knowledge and become half the wise, courageous captain that he was.

"What did you name her?" I asked.

"Jade." His gaze lowered to my necklace. "She's a beauty, she is. When I saw her, I knew I had to take her. For you."

"For me?"

"She's yours, Bennett. I'll captain her until you're old enough to decide."

"Oh, Father!" My heart burst from my chest and soared with savage joy. "There's nothing to decide. I want to be a buccaneer like you."

"You're too young to know what you want."

"I'm old enough."

"But not too old to sit on your father's lap, are you now?"

"Just so." I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and burrowed into his hard chest.

"Someday you might wish to travel to England in your own right and follow your mother's dream." He chuckled. "God knows, you would make a meal out of the beau monde."

"No, thank you. I wish to follow you."

"I'm honored, lass, and should you choose the sea, you have a ship. But I fear that path might end with your neck bent on the gibbet."

My breath stilled, and a metallic flavor rose beneath my tongue. "What about your neck? You could be captured or killed in battle. I can't lose you."

His gaze sank into mine. "Such big grown-up worries in your child's eyes." He ran a thumb across my cheekbone. "I'm careful. Which is why I cannot visit as often as I'd like."

I didn't remember the first time he came to me, but there wasn't a day I didn't know him. He'd always been a part of my life. My very own secret to cherish and protect.

When I was younger, he visited more frequently and stayed longer. Sometimes months. But as his reputation grew, so did the risks. Now I was lucky to steal a few hours with him each year.

"I have something for you." I jumped up, retrieved the linen-wrapped package from the horse's saddle, and proffered it to him.

Nervous energy flapped beneath my breast as he unfolded the cloth and removed the gift.

"The natives wear these on their feet." Crouching beside him, I traced the deerskin coverings. "The women scrape and smoke the skin to make it feel soft like this."

The shoes were gathered at the toe and sewn above and behind with a raised flap on either side. Colorfully dyed porcupine quills and white glass beads decorated the folded edges in artistic designs.

"Exquisite." He removed his jackboots and slipped the shoes onto his bare feet. "A comfortable fit. I shall wear them every night and think of you."

My heart turned over so hard I felt it in my throat.

"How did you acquire such a thoughtful gift?" He guided me back onto his lap and stroked my hair.

"The servants make them. The cook maid is always kind to me, and she traded them for a spool of ribbon. I was discreet."

"You did good."

I snuggled into the warmth of his embrace, perfectly content and blissfully happy. I loved him so deeply and so completely. It went against logic that my mother could not.

"I've been stowing my prizes in a safe place over the years." He kissed my forehead. "Enough riches for you, your children, and your grandchildren."

"I don't care about that."

"You will. I want you to have this." He removed the compass that hung from a chain on his belt. "It's a map. When you're ready, you will follow it and claim what's rightfully yours."

"A map?" I cupped the gold casing and lifted the lid to reveal the navigational needle within. "I don't see a chart."

"It's there if you know how to unlock it."

I turned it over in my hands, rubbing the polished surface. "Is there a key?"

"You already have it. Start and end north. When you're ready, you'll know what to do."

"I don't know how to decipher riddles." I handed it back to him. "You could just take me there now. Kidnap the countess. You love her. We could be a real family and live off your treasure."

"A child's fairytale. Life isn't so simple."

"It could be."

"Not for us." He threaded the chain of the compass around the sash on my gown, securing the instrument to my waist. "When Abigail was exiled from English society, it destroyed something inside her. We're from different worlds, she and I. Imagine her living with a criminal, always on the run and in fear of capture. It would suck the life out of her." He wet his lips. "If I could, I would give up the sea and stand beside her in society. But I'm neither a nobleman nor a law-abiding man. That path was never an option."

"But she was with you once."

"In secret." He grunted. "When she was young and blinded by love."

Blinded by love.

The sound of that made me feel warm all over, and I smiled against his shoulder. "If I ever marry, he will be a man of your fortitude and spirit. A man who loves me above all else. Only me. And we shall be blinded by our love for life and beyond the ends of the sea."

"Accept nothing less, Bennett." He lifted my chin with a knuckle. "Promise me."

"I promise."

His eyes glittered with approval, his voice a deep well of affection. "That's my girl."

A few paces away, the hounds lounged in the shade. Seagulls cawed overhead, and late afternoon sunlight sparkled on white-crested waves.

He would be leaving soon, and his impending absence built a burning ache behind my eyes. Anguish coursed through me, so internal, so deep, it embedded itself before rising to the surface.

After a lifetime of goodbyes, I'd learned how to cope. To smother the hurt. Crying never took the pain away.

"Tell me another story about her." I lay my cheek on his chest, relishing his scent of leather and salt. "Like the day you met."

"You've heard that one many times."

"I wish to hear it many more."

"Very well." He settled into a sprawl with a tree at his back and his arms holding me tight. "I spotted her from the ship deck I was scrubbing. The sun was so bright that day, high in the sky and heavy with heat. But it wasn't worthy in the light of her radiance. She stood on the dock, glowing in ivory silk, so fair and arresting I couldn't feel my legs."

I devoured every word as he told me how he approached the noble maiden, whisked her away from her chaperon, and fell hopelessly in love with the Lady Abigail Leighton.

A poor Irish seaman and a beautiful English countess. It was my favorite fairytale.

He always ended the story on their first kiss, but this time, his tone was different. Harder. More determined. "I couldn't let her get away."

"You couldn't?" I leaned back and searched his flinty expression.

"She's had fourteen years to move on, and she hasn't." He lifted me from his lap and stood.

A question wasn't voiced, but it was there, flickering in his eyes.

"No, she's not happy." My heart skipped a beat. "It's not me that she needs, Father. She needs you."

"Aye." He paced along the tree line in his deerskin shoes, each step growing faster and more resolute. "I want you to return to the estate." His gaze turned to the sea, where the horizon darkened with the approach of dusk. "I'll come for you tonight. For both of you."

Exhilaration and confusion tangled through me. "I thought living with a criminal would suck the life out of her?"

"Is she living? Does she smile? I will put life back into her!" He bared his teeth. "By God and the devil, I will spend every last tarnal breath in my body making her happy."

An overpowering sense of hope welled up in my chest. "I believe you."

"I love you." He pulled me against him and lowered his mouth to the top of my head. "I've committed a lifetime of crimes and paid dearly for them. Fourteen years without my girls. There is no greater punishment."

"It ends tonight?"

He released me with a wolfish grin. "Yes, it—"

A deep, threatening growl erupted behind me.

I spun toward the hounds and found them standing, noses pointed toward the shore and hackles up. My father went still, his hand locked tightly around my arm.

The dogs exploded into snapping snarls and took off toward the southern end of the beach. They sprinted around the copse of trees and out of view as their barking rose in volume.

My scalp tingled. I'd never heard such ferocious sounds. "Has Mr. Vane returned?"

"That's not Charles." He hauled me toward the horse and lifted me onto the saddle, his voice low and urgent. "Return to the house at once."

"Father, what is it?"

He untied the reins and removed a sheathed dagger from his belt. "No matter what happens, keep going." With a grip on my wrist, he wedged the sheath into the sleeve of my gown, concealing it beneath the fabric on my upper arm. "Do not turn back."

In the distance, the barking grew feral, high-pitched, and terrifying. My belly twisted into knots, and my lungs couldn't take in enough air beneath the vise of my stays.

"Go!" He slammed a hand onto the horse's flank, sending me into the woods.

I grabbed the reins and adjusted my balance before twisting to look over my shoulder.

He was gone.

My hands trembled, and a fiery pang stabbed beneath my ribs. I tried to ignore it and focused on controlling the horse.

Until startling, pained cries rent the air.

The cries of a dying dog.

My heart stopped as a second agonized yelp echoed through the forest before fracturing into whimpers. Then silence.

The hounds. Mercy God, what happened to them?

What would happen to my father?

Panic surged, freezing muscles and locking joints. Only my pulse hammered wildly as the horse raced onward, hurdling fallen trees and putting more distance between me and my entire world.

I couldn't leave him.

No matter what happens, keep going.

I trusted him implicitly and had never disobeyed him. Never.

My jaw clenched. He'd told me once to trust my instinct, and right now it was screaming at me to go back.

I pulled on the reins, and with a savage howl, I turned the horse about.

How many minutes had passed? How many kilometers? Too damned many, and I experienced every one of them in breathless agony as I galloped back to my father.

Nearing the beach, I approached slowly. The sound of the crashing surf reached my ears, bringing with it the din of voices. Stern, commanding voices.

Dozens of them.

My heart thundered toward hysteria as I nudged the horse closer, quietly picking along the brushwood and squinting through the trees.

When the sea came into view, I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Redcoats.

They swarmed the shore, their distinctive regimental facings gleaming white against the darkening sky. Armed with rifles, some mounted horses. Others invaded on foot as they overtook my father with fists and guns and sheer numbers.

There were too many to count, and he went down fighting and spitting blood.

Sticky nausea filled in my belly, clotting with fear and helplessness. My lungs ached to contain the wheeze of my breaths, and my fingers and toes shook uncontrollably. Why the rest of me refused to move, I couldn't fathom. I was paralyzed.

When his body fell limp beneath their strikes, they grabbed his arms and lugged him toward a waiting cart. His head lolled between his shoulders. The deerskin coverings on his feet dragged through the sand, and something inside me broke.

His jackboots lay just beyond the tree line, and a few paces from there was his cutlass, the blade sharp, lethal, beckoning.

With visions of rescue and bloodshed in my head, I inched the horse toward my father's weapon.

Until a twig snapped behind me.

"Benedicta." The familiar masculine voice sent a chill through my veins.

No, no, no! God damn me and the devil, too!

How would I explain my presence here, sitting astride a stolen mount, while planning an attack on the king's soldiers? I would be arrested alongside my father, unable to save him.

I swallowed, caught up my breath, and schooled my features into that of a well-bred maiden who would have no association or attachment to Edric Sharp.

Then I turned in the saddle and met the ratlike eyes of the Marquess of Grisdale.

————————————

Praise for SEA OF RUIN:

"Sea of Ruin is precisely what I LOVE in Dark Romance. Elegant writing that paints a romantic picture, swoon-worthy anti-heroes who make aggression oh so seductive, and a plot that balances on brutal and breath-taking. Couple that with well-researched history and pirates...yeah, it's a five pieces of eight gold stars from me. LOVED IT!" ~ Pepper Winters, New York Times bestselling author

"Pam Godwin consumed my heart and soul through the brutal beauty of Sea of Ruin. I was enthralled, not only by the authentic vocabulary and historic references, but by the sheer wonder of this unique tale and the characters like no other. Sea of Ruin is an epic novel that goes far beyond five stars. I give all the gold doubloons to this story, one that will forever remain in my dreams and nightmares." ~ Aleatha Romig, New York Times bestselling author

"Pam is one of the most masterful writers I have ever read. Skillfully executed, penned to perfection ... Sea of Ruin will leave you breathless. Bennett, Priest, and Ashley are my new obsession, and this is sitting at the top of my 2020 favorite list! READ. THIS. BOOK!" ~ Jewel E. Ann, USA Today & Wall Street Journal bestselling author

To keep reading SEA OF RUIN, CLICK HERE.

LOVE TRIANGLE ROMANCE

TANGLED LIES TRILOGY

One is a Promise-FREE

Two is a Lie

Three is a War

DARK COWBOY ROMANCE

TRAILS OF SIN

Knotted #1-FREE

Buckled #2

Booted #3

DARK ROMANCE / ANTIHEROES

DELIVER SERIES

Deliver (#1)-FREE

Vanquish (#2)

Disclaim (#3)

Devastate (#4)

Take (#5)

Manipulate (#6)

Unshackle (#7)

Dominate (#8)

Complicate (#9)

DARK PARANORMAL ROMANCE

TRILOGY OF EVE

Heart of Eve-FREE

Dead of Eve #1

Blood of Eve #2

Dawn of Eve #3

STUDENT-TEACHER ROMANCE

Dark Notes

ROCK-STAR DARK ROMANCE

Beneath the Burn

ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

Dirty Ties

EROTIC ROMANCE

Incentive

DARK HISTORICAL PIRATE ROMANCE

Sea of Ruin

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author, Pam Godwin, lives in the Midwest with her husband, their two children, and a foulmouthed parrot. When she ran away, she traveled fourteen countries across five continents, attended three universities, and married the vocalist of her favorite rock band.

Java, tobacco, and dark romance novels are her favorite indulgences, and might be considered more unhealthy than her aversion to sleeping, eating meat, and dolls with blinking eyes.

EMAIL: pamgodwinauthor@gmail.com

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