Page 38 of Pirate's Intent
“Those were lettersyousentmemight I remind you,” she huffed. “So essentially, the plan is to have Big Devil go after my sister so I can get away.” She shook her head. “How could you possibly think I would agree to that?”
“Because the matter is out of your hands.” Before she could respond, he flipped her over his shoulder, slapped her perky arse, and growled, “Now keep yer trap shut or find yerself not tied neatly to a bed but bent over a tavern table used by the lot of ‘em!”
ChapterThree
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HANNAH MUTTERED THROUGHthe swift sting of Luke’s slap on her backside and began plotting while reliving what he had just done to her on the bed. How could he do so little and wring so much sensation from her? The man had the devil in him to be sure. A devil that knew just how to touch her...rub her.
“Blast it,” she cursed.
“Shh.” He set her down in an alley and narrowed his eyes. “Do I need to gag you?” A Cheshire grin curled his lips. “Because nothing would give me more pleasure.”
She had forgotten how he had a way of towering over her and provoking her defiant nature...when he was not luring her with need, that is.
Which made her think of a particular afternoon outside their schoolhouse in Yorktown. They were fourteen, and teasing turned to taunting.
As always, she cut through the woods to her uncle's plantation rather than take the road. And as always of late, Luke was not far behind.
“Why do you walk like that?” he had chided. “You look like you have a stick stuck up your—”
“Hush, now!” She spun on her heel, walked right up to him, and notched her chin, daring him to be any ruder. “A gentleman does not chide a lady on how she walks.”
He chuckled. “Then you best do away with being a lady.” He shrugged a shoulder and casually twirled a stick, insinuating the instrument he thought she had stuck up her backside. “Especially if it makes you walk like that.”
“I walk just fine,” she retorted but wondered what he meant precisely.
Clearly sensing her reluctant curiosity, he stepped shockingly close, had the audacity to rest his hands on her hips then gave her counsel. “Just a bit of loosening up through here would make you seem less...stiff.”
At that moment, with the sunlight streaming through the branches overhead and the heat sultry, something shifted between them. It became less teasing and more taunting on both their parts. Because unlike the lady she was pretending to be, her eyes had dropped boldly to his groin before she peered up at him through her lashes. “I see what you mean about stiff.”
“Do I then?” he prompted, bringing her back to the present.
“Do you what?”
“Need to gag you?”
“I dare you to try,” she taunted, the words coming far too easily.
A devious twinkle lit his eyes. “Try I will then,” he assured. “Later.” He cocked his head. “Or would you prefer it now and be unable to speak with your sister?”
“Rose?” She peered into the alleyway. “Where is she?”
“This way.” He pulled her free of the buildings and through swaths of trees for a time until they arrived on a sandy shore with a small stone dwelling. Thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed in the distance, illuminating Rose. When she headed for her sister, Luke held back in the woodland, talking to a fellow pirate who had appeared.
“Hannah,” Rose cried when Hannah embraced her. “I am so glad you are well, Sister.”
“I told you I would be.” Now to put into action her quickly hatched plan. “How are you, Rose?” Knowing full well where her sister would have hidden the brooch, she squeezed Rose’s waist, unhooked it from the folds, and then held Rose’s shoulders in concern, careful to keep the brooch hidden. “Are you well? Did they hurt you?”
“No, I’m fine.” Rose shook her head. “You?”
“Well enough,” Hannah managed, remembering just how fine she had been on that bed earlier. “Just muddling through.”
“I dare say this is a bit more than that!” Rose exclaimed.
“That would depend on who your hero is,” Hannah muttered, winded as her traitorous mind wandered back to the way Luke had touched her. How her body had wanted more. Far more.
“They’re scoutin’ the shoreline, Cap'n,” a pirate reported to Thomas.
