Page 48 of The Black Lion
It wasn’t a question, but she felt the need to reply. “Yes. If I’m right, we’ll welcome our babe this coming spring. How do you feel … Papa?”
A surprised laugh escaped him as he joined his right hand with the left to frame her stomach. The dark ink on his fingers stood out in the moonlight. HOLD FAST. The sight of those words against her pregnant belly made Arabella smile.
“Papa. There’s something I’ve never been called before. I feel … there are no words, Bella. My God, to think you went through that while … you must have been so terrified.”
Arabella braced her hands on Drew’s shoulders and climbed up to straddle him, pressing against his cock. He’d begun to harden the moment she removed her sarong.
“I was, at first. But then, as I already told you, I knew you would come. It wasn’t only me you saved today, Drew. It was our future.”
He held her, hands smoothing up and down her back as she nudged against him, teasing his cock to full mast. “Bella … you shouldn’t. You’ve had a difficult few days, and the babe—”
“We are both just fine,” she argued, reaching between them to take hold of his prick. He was hot and hard for her, pulsing with life and vitality. “I need you to understand that, to feel it … feel me.”
Drew groaned, his head falling back against the window as she fit his head within her entrance and sank down to envelop him, taking his cock deep inside her body. His hands cupped her buttocks, holding her tight to him, but he was otherwise still, eyes closed, lips parted.
“I feel you,” he whispered as she began to move, moaning at the spark of pure ecstasy it created between them. “My Bella … so good … you feel so good.”
He remained passive beneath her, though Arabella felt what it cost him. Drew thrummed with leashed power and tension, his grip on her hips tightening as she rode him with slow circles of her hips. His mouth found her breast, and he suckled, tongue laving her nipple as he moaned his pleasure. She held him to her, taking him, accepting him, loving him with every fiber of her being.
“Tell me you love me,” she urged, needing to hear the words and take comfort in the solidity of their union.
“I love you,” he whispered against her breast, his breaths coming harsher and swifter now, the cords of muscle in his thighs drawing taut as she worked them both toward climax. “I love you more than anything, my Bella.”
Planting her hands against his chest, she quickened her pace, her clit throbbing and her sheath clenching around him as the end loomed near. Drew was moving with her now, his hips coming up off the window seat to meet each of her downward surges. They chased the finish together, Drew covering her mouth with his just as she cried out her release, shaking and falling limp in his arms. He picked up where she had left off, tongue thrusting between her lips and deep, guttural moans echoing in the cavern of her mouth as he followed her over the edge, spilling within her in a hot, liquid rush.
Drew eased out of her body a few minutes later, lifting her in his arms and carrying her back to bed. He laid her down and then climbed in after her, covering them both with the counterpane before pulling her back into his arms. They lay facing one another, breaths slowing in increments until they fell silent and pensive.
Tracing a finger over his chest tattoo, Arabella smiled. “So, my lion, do you think becoming a father will be enough to keep you anchored to the island for a while? I know that onceThe Sea Lionhas been prepared, you’ll be itching to return to your mistress.”
Stroking a stray curl back from her brow, he smiled. “I cannot promise to remain on land forever, but when I do set out it will be for the benefit of my crew and their families. My days of pirating for personal gain are over.”
“Oh?” she teased, tugging one of his locks and twining it around her fingers. “What’s a pirate without his treasure?”
Pulling her closer, he rested his chin atop her head and sighed. “That’s just it. There is no treasure greater than what I’m holding in my arms right now. There is no trinket, jewel, or bauble that compare to you. Besides, I think becoming a father will be its own sort of adventure.”
Arabella blinked back tears as she clung to him, secure in the knowledge that his words were true. He had, after all, crossed oceans to find her and bring her home.
“Aye, Captain,” she murmured. “That sounds like the beginning of the best adventure of all.”
Epilogue
Arabella stretched and yawned, listening in drowsy satisfaction to Drew’s lilting voice as he related the details of his latest voyage—his last until well after the babe was born, he’d promised. She had not begrudged him the trip. News of slavers sailing along the Spice Route had reached him, and what could he have done but go after them? However, not long after he'd pillaged those ships and freed the enslaved, he had sent word that there was another mission he must undertake. He begged Arabella’s forgiveness, but would be away another two months at least. He insisted she would understand once he had explained his reasons.
As it turned out, one of his hauls had included a cache of weapons, mostly guns, for which he had hatched a daring plan. Sailing back to Falmouth, it had been his intent to make contact with the last small faction of Maroons hiding out in the mountains. They had been scattered and mostly disbanded following the Second Maroon War, but hadn’t been completely obliterated. They remained hidden to protect their battered communities from the governor and militia, stripped of nearly everything they had.
Her father’s insistence that their presence in Falmouth and the grumblings of rebellion among the slaves were nothing to worry over came back to Arabella now, and she nearly laughed aloud. As it turned out, there was much to worry over—such as a dauntless pirate captain who had made it his life’s purpose to deal as many blows to the institution of slavery as were within his power.
“You should have seen them,” he said, stroking a hand over her tight, swollen belly. “The man who led me into the mountains was as tall as an oak tree and built like a warrior. He wore nothing but a sarong about his waist, and a brace of blades across his back. His chest was bare, showing his many battle wounds. His skin was the darkest I’d ever seen, flawless aside from the scars, gleaming in the sun.”
“He sounds impressive,” she murmured, though Drew wasn’t actually talking to her.
His head was lowered over her bared stomach, the folds of her sarong parted so he could see and feel the growing mound. She’d grown larger by the day during his absence, and he seemed enthralled by the evidence of the life growing inside her. The babe pitched and rolled as if in reaction to its father’s voice, and Drew smiled at the feel of a foot pressing against his palm.
“There were dozens of them, hidden so deep in the jungle that no one who doesn’t know where to look could ever find them. They kept their guns trained on me while my men unloaded the wagon filled with my gifts to them—guns, so many guns, little one. And cloth for clothing, food, rum, tools. You should have seen their faces when we pried the crates open to show them.”
He looked up at her then, affection softening his features. “I wish you could have been there to see it, my Bella. Their leader turned to me and asked me why I was simply giving it all to them and demanding nothing in return. They were suspicious, and rightly so. They’ve been double-crossed in the past by governors and their treaties. They had no reason to trust me.”
“But they did trust you in the end,” she offered, adjusting her position to get more comfortable.
