“I don’t gag, milord,” I murmur, placing another spoonful in his mouth. “I swallow. Everything.”
He chokes on the stew, and I smirk with satisfaction.
“I think we should discuss the matter of my compensation,” I say primly, while he coughs and splutters. “Dolomon, what’s the going rate for pleasurable company?”
The navigator turns around. His doleful expression makes it clear he’d rather not be dragged into this conversation. “I wouldn’t know, milady.”
“Oh please,” I say. “You’re a pirate. Captain Neelan must know—or is it just ‘Mr. Neelan’ now?”
Neelan doesn’t turn from his place near the helm, but he replies, “The price depends on the woman, and the port you’re in.” He names a few cities I’ve never heard of, and a price to go with each. “Mind you, that’s for a lady of your caliber, serving a pirate captain and not a king.”
He’s trying to control himself in Locke’s presence, but venom leaks into his tone. I’m fairly sure that by “a lady of your caliber” he means someone ugly and distasteful. I don’t challenge him, though. I mull the numbers he quoted in my head, wondering what services are included in those prices. Since I left my family and lost everything I’d brought aboard theWending Willow, I’ve had no money of my own. The prospect of earning some is a tempting one, especially if I don’t have to do anything but pretend to be the Pirate King’s woman.
Locke seems to have recovered from his choking episode, and he grips my inner thigh, sliding his hand up so sharply that I gasp. His fingers stop right at the edge of the little black pantalettes, and despite my rejection of him earlier, lascivious warmth wakes in the tender space between my legs.
The two men at the helm are talking about a slight course correction now, ignoring me and Locke, though I’m conscious that anyone on the decks or in the rigging can look over anytime and see me, perched in the Pirate King’s lap, feeding him his dinner, enjoying—I mean,enduringhis touch.
Locke leans forward, his lips at my ear, his breath stirring the loosened strands of my hair. “Seems unfair,” he murmurs. “I’m saving your life, and I must pay you for benefits I don’t receive.”
“It was your idea,” I breathe. The planes of his warm, solid chest are so temptingly close, bathed in sunshine, so hot and smooth—just the right amount of dark hair in the right places. His lips look soft, pliable, damp and salty from the stew—they part, revealing his white teeth as he smiles.
My skin flushes all over. I can’t keep my breath and my pulse from quickening when Locke rubs his thumb over my inner thigh.
I almost squirm, but I manage to distract myself by thinking up new epithets for him. “You’re a detestable outlaw,” I whisper, while he keeps stroking my leg. “You’re a stinking, dastardly, loathsome eel. A ruffian with a rancid heart.”
He slides his warm palm down to my knee and back up again. Why does that firm caress feel so good? I ache to press my legs together, or to press his fingers against me—
“So I’m to pay for pleasurable company, and receive verbal abuse instead, is that it?” he murmurs.
“Sounds about right.” I’m nearly shaking now. How does he do this to me? I try to summon my boldness from earlier, when I thrust the spoon against the back of his throat—but I can’t, I can’t, because his knuckles are grazing the inside of my other leg now, and he’s not touching me anywhere illicit but he’slookingat me with eyes of frosty moonlight, and I’m a scorching furnace of desire only he can quench.
I want to ask him to stop, but that would mean admitting the effect he has on me, after I claimed I didn’t want him.
He said he didn’t want me either. I have to remember that this is all part of the ruse, part of showing the crew that I’m his prize, that he hasn’t gone soft, that he’s merely a king taking his rightful share of the available spoils. I’m the damn spoils—oh gods—he’s nuzzling my cheek, brushing soft lips against my earlobe.
“Locke,” I whisper. “Can I still call you Locke? Or is it Ruen? Or—milord—” I gasp as he kisses the sensitive skin right below the corner of my jaw.
“Stop talking, Nick. And stop clutching that bowl so hard, or it will break.” He takes the bowl from me and sets it down on the deck. Which is terrible, because now I have nothing to occupy my hands, and all they want to do is run themselves over his skin. My hands don’t care that he’s a murderous ruler of pirates with a cruel streak to his sense of justice.
I lace my fingers together in my lap, but Locke shakes his head. “Relax, love. Women who are paid to be pleasant to men should look as if they’re enjoying it. Lean into me, or kiss me—but no blood magic.” He adds the last bit in a lower tone, while caution flares in his eyes.
“I won’t do that to you unless I have to protect myself,” I whisper, relaxing my body. I hate that my shape fits so perfectly against his chest. I hate that I feel a sense of calm and peace washing over me as my form aligns with his.
My arousal doesn’t dissipate, but it changes from a feverish panic to a soothing silken lust. I want to ease his length out and slip it inside me right now, right here. I want to glide over him and draw him into gentle waves of bliss with me, here on the sunlit deck.
Without meaning to, I sigh against him and relax even more deeply.
Locke abandons the teasing along my thigh and wraps me in both arms, folding me against himself. It’s cherishing, intimate—something more than sexual. I thrill at the speed of the heartbeat I can feel through his chest.
49
For a few seconds we stay like that, locked together in an embrace far too tender for what we’re supposed to be to each other.
Then I tilt my face up and whisper in Locke’s ear. “This doesn’t feel like something a whore would do with her employer.”
He sighs. “You might be right. I may be out of practice.”
“So let me go back to the galley, while you eat your dinner.”
