Page 11 of The Black Lion
“You should have made sure I was actually dead,” he retorted. “Or at least had the balls to kill me yourself. Leaving my death up to the whims of fate was a fatal mistake, brother.”
Will paled, his eyes as wide as dinner plates as several of the crewmen climbed into the wagon along with him and Archibald—whose protestations were muffled by his gag. Drew strode to his horse, lowering Arabella into the arms of his bosun while he climbed astride. Then, she was hoisted into his arms, and he laid her across his lap, cradling her back with one arm and letting her head loll against his shoulder as he took hold of the reins.
The moment her body met his, Drew went hard, his tense muscles thrumming with years’ worth of need. She smelled just like he remembered, and he found it oddly reassuring to realize she still bathed in lilac-scented water and dabbed her neck and wrists with rose oil. He scowled at the elaborate wig she wore and the cosmetics staining a complexion that needed no enhancement. The plump globes of her breasts taunted him at her low neckline, pushed upward by the tight cinch of her stays. Through the layers separating them, he could feel none of her natural curves, but Drew remembered them well, had run his hands along those supple slopes and planes more times than he could count.
That he should lust after Arabella so strongly after she had betrayed him annoyed Drew, and he dug his heels into his mount with far more ferocity than he intended. As the horse took off with the rest of his procession following on horseback or in the wagon, he turned his mind to what would happen next.
While they had temporarily managed to subdue Falmouth’s militia, he had no doubt they would mount reinforcements and begin the search for them. Once word spread that the bandits attacking the colony had actually been pirates—and that those pirates had come from aboardThe Sea Lion—he had no doubt the Royal Navy would become involved, if they weren’t already. He had counted several ships of the line in Falmouth’s port, and expected them to give chase expeditiously. With Rory rendezvousing with him inOcho Rios, Drew wanted to be off this island in less than two days. If the weather held up and rain did not slow their progress through the thick jungle, they could manage it in a day and a half.
Despite needing to keep his eyes sharp for redcoats, Drew was drawn time and again to the woman in his arms. As a boy, he’d never wanted or loved anything more than he had Arabella Baines. While he and Will had been close, Arabella was the only person who understood what it was like to stand with each foot planted in two very different worlds and feel torn apart by them—to be baseborn and scorned, but elevated to a status above others like them and still not have a place to belong.
When he was set upon by a press-gang five years ago and whisked aboard theHannibal, his every waking thought had been of getting back to her. Even while he worked his fingers to the bone, palms raw from the drag of rough ropes and his belly quivering with hunger, Drew had thought only of Arabella—of how worried and grieved she must have been to discover him missing.
Drew ground his teeth as he remembered receiving word of her courtship with Will, and the intimacy that had grown between them in his absence, then of their upcoming nuptials. His jaw ached, and it was a wonder he did not grind his molars into dust as he remembered just how naive he’d been. It had taken him months to realize his impressment hadn’t been some whim of fate, but it never occurred to him that Arabella might be complicit in it. Her marrying Will was proof enough, wasn’t it? With Drew gone, the two of them had been free to take up with one another in the same way Arabella once had with him.
A cloak of black rage fell over him as he imagined her sneaking away with Will to the private expanse of beach bordering Greenhill, Arabella undressing to her shift and letting that whoreson lay his eyes on the parts of her only Drew had ever seen.
His hold on her tightened as he imagined them lying in the sand, kissing and pawing at one another, Arabella panting and moaning her pleasure. Perhaps she’d even let Will fuck her.
The slight form in his arms began to squirm, and Arabella came awake. Drew slackened his grip, but kept her firmly in his lap, the sway of the horse moving beneath them a torment. With each loping step, their bodies rubbed together, the curve of her hip agitating his aching cock. That she could still make him desire her to such madness was yet another transgression she would pay for when all was said and done.
“Drew?” she whispered.
Their closeness brought them nearly nose to nose, and Drew could see the dilation of her dark pupils eating up the deep brown of her irises. He could count the light freckles across her nose, the little spots only slightly darker than her tawny skin. He felt her breath on his cheek, swift and warm, each exhale smelling of cinnamon tooth powder and tea.
“I don’t answer to that name anymore,” he said in gruff tones, turning away and looking out over the horizon. He couldn’t let himself be drawn in by the false innocence in those wide eyes, or allow the love of a young boy to derail the vendetta of a man. “You may call me Captain, as everyone does.”
He felt Arabella looking at him, her eyes caressing his face and taking stock of the differences five years had made in him. That she had hardly changed at all while he was so altered was a testament to all he’d endured. While she remained on this island, pampered and catered to, he had endured a number of horrors she could never fathom.
Drew flinched when her soft fingers caressed his face, raking through the coarse stubble growing along his jaw. He caught hold of her wrist and twisted it behind her back, thrusting her breasts up at the most enticing angle. She gasped, peering up at him with fear in her eyes—fear that, surprisingly, only made him want her more. It made him want to yank up her skirts and pull her down onto his waiting cock right there on the back of this horse.
“Don’t touch me,” he growled, his lips brushing along her cheek toward her ear. “Unless you want me to bend you over and fuck you within an inch of your life, you’ll keep those pretty hands to yourself.”
That slight touch had already made a mess of his senses, along with her scent and nearness. He needed to keep his head on straight until the time was right. Drew had every intention of using the body hidden beneath the layers of pink silk and muslin—a body that now belonged to him. But first, he would get the answers he was due and the vengeance he thirsted for. Then, he would take her and take her until she begged him to stop … then, he would take her some more.
“Won’t you at least tell me what’s going on?” she whispered. “Where have you been? Where are you taking me, and where is Will?”
“The matter of where I’ve been will be revealed in due time,” he replied, releasing her wrist and taking up the reins once more. “As for Will, he is in the wagon behind us along with your father, and you’re all bound for the same destination—my ship,The Sea Lion.”
He glanced down to find her looking at him again, her eyes a muddle of confusion and trepidation. Was she frightened of him now that he was a pirate, or was it guilt over her perfidy that had her so terrified to face him?
“Do you mean to … hurt him?”
Arabella flinched when he leaned closer, nostrils flaring and jaw flexing as he thought of all the ways he intended to make Will pay for what he’d done.
“Yes,” he replied without hesitation, watching her go ashen in response to his revelation. “But, I do wonder, Bella, why you haven’t asked the most important question of all.”
“What question is that?”
“Whether or not I intend to hurtyou.”
Chapter Three
They arrived to their destination late into the night on the day following Arabella’s botched nuptials. They made the journey swiftly through the overgrown jungle ringing Falmouth and the failed settlement ofOcho Rios, which had been abandoned and overtaken by pirates despite the efforts of the Royal Navy. While many places in the West Indies had become dangerous for pirates to tread without fear of facing the hangman’s noose, Jamaica still stood as one of the few places the buccaneers maintained their strongholds—here in the north, and in Port Royal to the south.
Arabella had yet to shake off the shocked daze that fell over her when Drew had manifested before her. Once she’d recovered from the stunning realization that he wasn’t dead after all, her mind had been overwhelmed with questions. Where had he been all this time? How had he escaped the sinking of theHMS Hannibal,which was reported to have gone down in a storm with all hands? What had led to him becoming a pirate—no, not just a pirate, but thecaptainof his own ship?
Most acute of all was her need to understand the changes in him and the reason for his abduction of herself, her father, and Will. Gone was the light of tender love in those golden cat-eyes when he looked at her. In its place was derision and anger, though she did not miss the lust that flared hot when he dragged that unnerving gaze over the flesh at her bodice.
