Page 70 of The Sea Witch
Grime from the day rinsed off her body. As a pirate, there wasn’t much time or means for luxuries like a soaking tub, so she had to take what delight she could from this smaller indulgence. What a series of calamities the day had been.
Including the kiss.
She touched her lips.
A knock sounded on the door, and she dropped her hand from her mouth. No sense in dwelling on something that couldn’t go further.
“Enter,” she called.
“Luna said I was to come back and—Jesus God.” Ben’s strangled voice carried across the cabin.
He’d turned his back to her, facing the now closed door. His back and shoulders were ramrod straight.
“You’re a veteran of these seas for many years,” she said wryly. “Surely you aren’t shocked by the sight of someone bathing.”
“It’s thewhothat’s naked from the waist up that has ensnared my attention.”
If he couldn’t control himself at the sight of her partially nude, well, that washisconcern. Besides, he was manacled, andher dagger was close at hand. Should he get too free with his hands, stabbing him was always an option.
With a shrug, she resumed bathing.
“The course has been set?” she asked.
“We’ll arrive at the island in three days, barring inclement weather.” His voice was gruff. “Luna’s an excellent navigator. She’ll get us there.”
“A prize, that Luna. Earns her share and a half. I’ll never let anyone take her from my crew.”
A strained quiet descended, interrupted only by the sound of her dipping the cloth in water and abrading it across her skin. Even Samuel had walked out of the room whenever she bathed. “Shameful,” he used to say, his hand over his eyes. “Where’s your modesty? Your self-respect?”
“But you’re myhusband,” she’d answer.
“Eve,” he’d mutter as he fled, and she’d stare down at her nude body, the Massachusetts cold pebbling across her pale vulnerable skin.
Ben still faced the door.
Briefly, she considered sending him out of her quarters. Yet she’d had enough of enforced modesty.
She tugged off her boots and then, after a moment’s hesitation, shucked her breeches. The air in her cabin pressed dense and warm on her now completely naked flesh.
She washed her sex, her movements quick and impersonal. Ithadbeen a long time since she’d given herself a release, and the rubbing of the cloth on her cunt made hot sensations rocket through her—but he didn’t deserve the honor of watching her pleasure herself.
Still, even with his back to her, his arousal was hot and sharp, a whetted edge.
Once she was satisfied that she’d gotten herself clean, she grabbed a fresh cloth and washed her face.
“Those markings on you,” she said in the silence.
He said nothing for a long while. Then, “I wasn’t born with them. They appeared when I was nine.”
“Appeared.”
“After... an attack.”
“The octopus,” she recalled. “In the dream.”
Again, he did not speak. Uncertainty thrummed. He didn’t know if he could trust her.
Finally, he said, “Father was at sea and my mother was always distracted when he wasn’t home. As though part of her was on the waves, with him. There were tide pools near our home in Port Royal. I loved to go to them and be amongst the sea creatures that lived there. I would roll my breeches up and wade around, looking at the corals and fish and all manner of things living there.”
