Page 86 of Captive of the Pirate King
“No.”
He urges Caliper forward and we ride out of the stables along a path through the gardens. We leave the estate by a narrow back entrance, and the guard there opens the gate for us without comment or question.
After a jaunt through the finer streets of Ravensbeck, we descend toward the noisier, more densely packed area of town, which spreads outward from the port.
As Caliper picks his way skillfully down a narrow sloping alley, I wrinkle my nose against the stench of fish, grease, and garbage. The alley is a dark tunnel, long and blue-shadowed, with a crack of star-flecked sky overhead—but at the end where it cuts into a main street, there’s orange light sliced with quick-moving shadows. Drums boom through the earth, an unceasing rhythm, and I can hear the faint hectic whine of fiddles and the shrill of pipes. My heartbeat quickens with anticipation.
“Excited?” Locke murmurs.
“How could you tell?”
“Your breathing. I’m intimately familiar with its cadence, you know.” His fingertips nudge at the waistband of my pants, a wordless question, and my pulse throbs harder, in my throat and between my legs.
“Here?” I whisper.
“Why not?”
He slows Caliper to a shambling walk and tucks his fingers deeper into my clothing, skimming along the soft skin of my lower belly and down, down, until he encounters the tender folds of me, the tiny bud that’s already trembling for his attention.
“And how am I to pay you for this?” I say hoarsely.
“I should pay for the pleasure of touching you,” he responds, with a long slow sweep through the crease and a massaging circle at the top.
I arch back against him, and his finger slips inside me. “I hate you for being so skilled at this.” I angle my hips slightly to give him better access.
“Always such a good girl for me, Veronica,” he croons in my ear. “You ride my hand like you need me. Yet you resist me, always—you fight me and turn from me.”
“Because we have different moral codes,” I gasp. “You can be so terribly cruel—”
He withdraws his hand completely, and I whine, empty and quivering with want. I reach down to finish myself, but he grips my wrist. “No.”
I squirm against him, vengefully determined to make him as mad with desire as he’s making me. His breathing quickens, and the hardness at my rear becomes more pronounced. “Gods,” he barks out. “You’re just as cruel as I am, you little vixen.” He drops my wrist and plunges his fingers into my pants again, cupping me and using the leverage to grind my ass backward against himself. Two fingers enter me, exploring, thrusting, and I arch into the friction.
“What do you want from me, Locke?” My thighs are shaking as he pumps harder and quicker inside, then slides out and swirls over me, circling faster and faster.
“I already told you,” he says. “I want to be the only man to touch you like this, for as long as you live.”
“But what does that mean? Am I to be your whore forever, or is there—something more—” But my thoughts are fracturing, slivering into glittering shards of ecstasy. “Locke—milord—” I grip his thighs, pressing backward against him as my nerves flutter and clench. He dips into me, grinding the heel of his hand just where I need it, and I convulse around him. Somehow I manage to let only the tiniest whimpers escape my lips. Locke keeps his hand in my pants, cupping me with a possessive pressure while I pant through the slowing waves of bliss.
We’re nearly at the end of the alley now. Drunken shouts, snatches of song, and the occasional crash or clatter fill the night, a counterpoint to the drums and fiddles.
“There’s no time to discuss it now,” Locke says, drawing his fingers out of my clothes. There’s a rustle of his cloak, and then he wipes his hands on a cloth he took from some inner pocket. “Give me one more night. Tomorrow at the gala, I will tell you exactly what I require of you.” He kisses the side of my neck, and then we break out of the alley into the street.
67
Ravensbeck at night is a glorious cacophony—the glug of rum and ale flowing from barrels into cups, the raucous laughter of revelers, the hails of nighttime peddlers and shop owners hawking their wares. Songs of the bawdiest kind assail my ears as Locke steers the horse through the wild crowd. Some people are dancing, mugs in hand and clothes flapping, while others paw and grind each other against buildings. Drunks and gamblers spill from tavern doorways, clapping each other’s backs or throwing punches. The acrid stench of vomit wafts from an alley, but it’s quickly blotted out by the fatty rich scent of roasting meat from somewhere ahead. Ravensbeck at night is burnt sugar and pipe smoke, hazy lamps and rattling dice, streets glistening wet with splashed rum and bodies undulating to the omnipresent rhythm.
When we turn into Riddle Street, I’m even more entranced. There are shops for piercings and body modifications, shops filled with beads, feathers, wigs, and scarves. Colorful smoke puffs from storefronts advertising magical supplies—love potions, cure-alls, energy restoratives. We pass a sword-swallower, a fire-breather, a knife-juggler, and a woman who can practically tie her body in a knot. One man spins a board that advertises magically enhanced orgasms at “Madam Leonay’s Maidens.”
“Ever been there?” I point to the board.
Locke scoffs. “It’s a trick to lure gullible pirates. I’ve never heard of a mage who could heighten pleasure in that way.”
A jerky motion in a shadowed alley catches my attention. It’s a man, rutting another person against the wall of a tavern—I can’t tell the gender of the second individual, but the globes of their ass glow pale in the light from the street.
“Right there in the open,” I murmur.
“I knew you couldn’t handle it,” Locke mutters.
