Page 38 of A Flash of Golden Fire

“You’re right, what I do for Captain Martinisnone of your business. Now get out of my way.”

“Hanes!”

Hanes and I jumped at the sound of Captain Martin’s stern address. My cock twitched, and it wouldn’t have surprised me if Hanes’s did as well.

The source of my annoyance gazed up at Captain Martin, who stood on the upper deck by the railing like the ex-navy captain he was, commanding respect with his very stance and composure. I struggled to maintain my own at the sight of the man who had spent the previous afternoon doing terrible, wonderful things to me.

“Yes, Captain?” Hanes asked.

“Aren’t you supposed to be directing the crew on the foredeck?”

“Yes, Captain. Beg pardon, Captain.” Hanes said, giving Captain Martin a quick salute and moving on.

“Mr White,” the captain said. “I thought I told you to gather your belongings.”

He spoke in a detached, formal way, in front of the crew—as if we hadn’t been intimate at all and were barely on speaking terms. I knew he didn’t want to bandy about his fondness for me, and that kind of detachment in a man I had filthy thoughts about, one who had been demonstrative in private, was beguiling for some reason.

I smiled. “Ain’t got none but these boots. And my knife.”

His face softened before he nodded. “On your way, then.”

I turned in order to proceed, but he spoke again.

“And put those bloody boots on. I didn’t arrange for those fancy clothes so you could continue to go barefooted. You’ll get a nasty splinter and bleed all over my ship.”

“Yes, Captain,” I said and gave him a quick half smile before I made my way back to his cabin.

Boone saw me coming.

“You again,” he said.

“Yes. You’ll be seeing quite a bit of me, I’m afraid.”

“I figured. After the things I heard in there yesterday,” he said, gesturing at the captain’s door.

I blushed, remembering the noises I’d made and the things the captain had done.

“Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna tell anyone. The captain would have my hide.” He made a flourish with his arm towards the door. “In you go, then. Door’s unlatched.”

“Thank you. And, uh, don’t pay attention to any other noises you might hear in there, right?”

“Of course, Mr White.” He tapped his forehead. “Discretion.”

I grinned, feeling much better about Boone and his presence here. I went into the captain’s rooms, latching the door behind me. I trusted him to keep the rabble out. The knowledge didn’t escape me that I had been part of that group up until yesterday. But the latch on the door to these rooms afforded me a welcome sense of privacy that I’d not had for a very long time. Turned out that when you worked as a lowly member of a ship’s crew, you didn’t get your own space. But as the captain’s houseboy, I would cherish this privilege.

I put my boots by the captain’s chest of drawers, then looked about at his cluttered cabin. To be honest, I hadn’t really taken in most of my surroundings when I’d last been here, being much too overwhelmed with the captain himself and what he had been saying and doing to me. And in the morning, with the reminder of what had happened to my chicken, I’d been preoccupied. I still came over emotional when I thought of having eaten my feathered friend. But I gave myself a silent scolding, because you couldn’t afford sentimental musings when you lived and worked on a vessel like theArrow.

The captain and his officers might think of her as a privateering vessel, but she was a pirate ship, in all fairness, as he had no writ from any king to give him any kind of legitimacy. I didn’t hold that against him, of course, and I appreciated that he put himself and his crew on a higher level than common vagabonds. But pirates were pirates, after all.

The four-poster bed was rather ostentatious, of course, but had practical ramifications and certainly looked impressive.

What a contrast to the accommodations for the crew, which were rope hammocks hung close together in the hold or narrow wooden slabs bolted to the side of the ship, which were barely more than shelves with an edge to keep a body from rolling off.

The stout legs of the bedframe were bolted to the floorboards, which made sense and also helped with vigorous, uh, athletic activity upon the mattress. I gazed fondly at the rumpled sheets, then sniffed the air. Since the windows were shut on a cool breeze, the salty sea air couldn’t hide the tangy scent of our coupling. Did Captain Martin want me to strip the bed and wash the sheets? He hadn’t mentioned it, and he’d listed off a collection of other tasks he wanted tending to. And anyway, we’d likely get up to the same nonsense later, so what was the point?

I gave the air another sniff and remembered the fancy chamber pot, with the hinged lid that fastened shut to reduce spillage in a rough sea. I tugged the porcelain bowl out from under the bed carefully—both of us had pissed before going to bed—and picked it up, holding the curved side to my chest in one arm as I opened the door.

Boone had a hand down his breeches, which he hastily withdrew when he saw me. He needn’t have. Down in the crew quarters, the men fiddled with themselves all day and brought themselves off in the corners, muttering soft words of endearment to the memory of whomever they’d left at home. I didn’t care a whit, honestly.

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