Page 13 of Her Perfect Pirate
Chow hadn’t allowed himself that luxury for the entire time he had been on theGhost.But he didn’t quite know how to explain his reason to Rebecca.Not without confessing his soul to her—and he wasn’t ready to do that.
“I’ve never been interested in what everyone else does,” he replied.Then, taking up her hand, he kissed the knuckles curling around his fingers.“Now, Ave Rebecca, it is your turn to tell me about yourself.”
Her mouth opened, as if to spill forth all her secrets, when old de la Cruz called out, “Come dance, lovebirds!”
Rebecca sprang to her feet, tugging him along with her.“Here’s one thing: I love to dance.”
Chow didn’t have it in him to object.He followed her, never letting free her fingers, and they moved into each other’s arms for an Irish-style jig.The men around them cheered—or jeered—before joining in, hopping this way and that to the rhythm of the fiddle and the sway of the ship.
Perhaps it was better he didn’t know anything real about her.This way, she would remain a strange woman who signed on to pirate ships without reason.
This way, he wouldn’t fall in love with her.
Chapter Six
Dancinginhisarmswas so exquisite it was almost painful.Not only because his hands were so firm and his face so handsome and she felt like a belle being twirled around a ballroom.But also because they were dancing as part of something bigger: as part of the night, as part of the crew, as part of the strange little family that gathered on the swaying deck and played jigs to celebrate their freedom from land.
It was magical enough that Rebecca let go of her worries about Captain Boukman, who lifted his heels in fancy footwork alongside the rest of them, and her fears about the future, and even a little bit of herself.She was a dancer; she was Martin Sharkhead Chow’s wife; she was a part of theGhost, just like everyone else on board.
If every night could be like this, Rebecca would never wake up in the clutches of anxiety, wondering whether she would end the day in the same bed.
They danced until the sun completely disappeared and the stars twinkled overhead.The moon was but a sliver in the sky, yet it shone like ivory, bathing the whole ocean in shimmering bands of white light.Fearsome Fred, the bosun, blew into his pipe to sound the switching of the watch, and the men who had been resting below crawled up to the main deck.The fiddler packed up, replaced by Mad Murphy with his wheezing accordion, and Sharkhead’s hand moved from Rebecca’s waist to her palm.
“Come along, then,” he murmured, “it’s time to rest.”
Just that morning, they had still been in the lagoon—within eyesight of land, where Rebecca could flee at any point should she change her mind—and Rebecca had been a mere thorn in Sharkhead’s side.She had known his rank, his gruff orders, and that the other men spoke of him with an equal mix of reverence and fondness.
Now she knew the feel of him inside her.She knew the dazzle that glazed his eyes when he desired her.She knew the name his mother had bestowed on him.She knew hehada mother, one who loved him, and that he was from some corner of England that was strange and kind, just like theGhost.
How much could change, all in a day.She curled her fingers around his and let him lead her below deck.
There wasn’t much hierarchy on a pirate ship, but there was custom, and up until now, Rebecca had been told to hang her hammock at the very back of the ship, beside the livestock pens, where the air stank of animal shit and decaying garbage.It was, she had been told, the fitting place for both the goat keeper and a newcomer, and so she had resigned herself to pinching her nose even in her sleep.
Sharkhead followed her now all the way to the back, and when she went to sling her hammock across its hooks, he pulled it away from her.“You’re my wife now.You’ll sleep beside me.”
The words worked their own kind of magic.Rebecca followed him back to the center of the ship, where the sway of the waves didn’t feel quite as severe.Here was where the old hands bunked: old de la Cruz and Fearsome Fred were already snoring away on the opposite side of the mast.
Sharkhead hung her hammock beside his, inside a little nook created by stacked barrels of provisions on one side and crates of gunpowder on the other.It was far from the privacy of a cabin with a door, yet when Rebecca stepped inside, she felt as if she had bid the rest of the ship goodbye.
There were only the two hooks, however, and so their hammocks were hung directly beside each other.Rebecca climbed into hers first, then held herself still as Sharkhead clambered into his.Their elbows clanged, and he slammed into the ship’s wall as he tried to settle farther away from her.
“This might be more comfortable if we were just sharing one hammock,” Rebecca suggested.At least then they wouldn’t swing into each other like church bells.
“I sweat when I sleep.You’d wake up soaked.”
“Is that why you haven’t had a woman all these years?Because you think you are the only person who sweats?”
She didn’t know why she was teasing him.They only had four hours until their watch was called again.They needed to steal as much sleep as they could.
She liked holding his hand, though, even if the connection meant their hammocks kept banging into each other.
“You don’t sweat like I do,” he said in the same tone that he had used to order her and Mrs.Adams back to shore that first day.
She didn’t intend to permit that tone to remain between them.“Perhaps not.”She moved his hand to sit just inside the upper part of her thigh.“But I get wet in other ways.”
His fingers firmed over her skirts.Rebecca waited, her breath refusing to come, to see what more of a reaction he would give her.It seemed like an eternity before he asked—the words scratching the back of his throat—“How wet?”
She thought of a dozen adjectives to describe the effect the question had on her junction.Soaking, gushing, slick; like a river, like a geyser, like an ocean; hot, eager, insatiable, liquid, impatient, desperate.
