Cole
Mine. Mine. She’s mine. My heart beats against Lisa’s back.
I hold her, still shaking and breathing heavily. She’s silky and warm, and we breathe together like one being, the movements of the ship underneath us echoing the rhythm.
I allow myself a moment or two more to absorb the delicacy of her body against mine and flow in the waves of softness. Then I detach myself, untie the rope around Lisa’s wrists, and begin to dress.
The experience with her was the most intense I have ever gone through. My time with Duchess Chestwitch does not even compare to the exquisite pleasure I felt with Lisa.
The fresh sea breeze touches my skin, and a cold shiver runs through my body. What I felt with Lisa was so full of light. She took me high, so high I could see the stars and the moon. I worshiped her, as though she was healing water and I was a deathly sick man.
And what I tasted was life.
And I want more.
But there will be no more. She is about to leave me forever.
And I do not want her to stay—why would I? She makes me crave dangerous things. To forget about other women, to want no one but her in my arms for the rest of eternity.
Is what I feel towards her something my father felt towards my mother? I remember the last time I saw him. I was just a boy, getting ready for my first big voyage. His face was too old for his thirty-five years: weathered, wrinkled, tanned like leather. I remember his hunched back, the gray, watery eyes. He always smelled like fish, even after the monthly bathing when my mother scrubbed him clean with lye soap.
“You were born to the wrong family, son,” he had said while we were out fishing on his boat—the most precious thing he owned. “Had I never had you, had I never married your mother, I would be free. But you will end up like me.” He looked at me and my three older brothers, his face bitter. “You all will. You will all find a girl you will be stupid enough to fall in love with, marry her, and then every year there will be one more mouth to feed. Mark my words.”
That was the day I knew I would do everything not to end up like my father. No mouths to feed. No woman to love. No one to tie me down.
These thoughts, these emotions make a cold sweat break through my skin. I haven’t loved anyone since Duchess Chestwitch. I was ready to forget my father’s prediction. When she got rid of me like of an old undergarment, it almost destroyed me. Although later I realized it meant that I was still free. What I feel now, for Lisa, is so much stronger.
It could make me forget my wish to stay free.
It could ruin my soul completely.
I need to keep my distance from her. She will not stay for me. I should have never seduced her. But how could I have known that she would taste so good I could not stop?
My chest is tight, my body still aching softly, I refuse to look at her.
“Let us go down. I got distracted, but I am the captain and I have urgent matters on my hands.”
Her eyes land on me, heavy and wide. Her pain stabs me in the abdomen. But this is for the best. For both of us.
“Did you not feel what I felt?” she says, and it breaks my heart.
“Get dressed. Let us go down.”
She runs her hands through her hair and briefly closes her eyes, then gets up and puts on her small garments.
“Stop being so bossy. Why can’t you just talk to me about this?” she asks. “This has been the most transcendent night of my life. You…you are the most amazing—”
Her words tear me apart. “Please, Lisa. No.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Why not?”
These feelings are an illusion. If I give in, if I allow myself one more step towards her, my heart will fill with her. And when she leaves me, she will crush it into dust.
“I felt such a connection with you,” she says. “It was magical. Didn’t you feel it?”
“There is nothing magical about this, Lisa. I took you on top of the ship, while my sailors could see you. It was a rush of danger combined with skilled lovemaking. That is what you felt. Not magic. Not transcendence. Just good sex.”
I turn around and begin the climb down. “Come.”
Lisa
As soon as we reach the deck, he turns his back to me and walks away, his white shirt flapping on his broad shoulders. I ignore the curious stares of the seamen as well as the question in my head that asks if they are looking because they saw me up there during the most intimate moment of my life or because my clothes make me look like a prostitute in this era. Before, such thoughts would have brought heat to my cheeks. Now, I don’t care.
I grab Cole by the arm and turn him around to face me.
“No. You will not walk away from me.”
He turns and looks at me, his face pained, his eyes dark. Then he blinks and the expression is gone, replaced by a dark look from under his frowning eyebrows.
I swallow. I will not be intimidated anymore. “That was the deepest emotional and physical connection I’ve ever experienced, Cole.”
“I told you—”
“I want to stay longer. Not forever or anything. It’s just… I-I’m not ready to go.”
His eyes widen, and for the first time I see an echo of vulnerability in them. He’s like a lost boy who has gotten a present for the first time in his life. Then the pain returns, and he puts back his stern mask.
“It does not matter. I do not want you to stay. No woman will bind me.”
I swallow. I know he’s just hurt. I know that woman wounded him. I know he’ll need time to heal and will resist opening his heart, and I’m patient.
“Not forever, Cole. Just a little longer.”
His jaw tightens.
“No.”
“You don’t have to commit to me. Just be with me a little longer. My pet hotel is taken care of by my employees for a while, and my cats and dogs are with my parents. I want you, Cole.”
He shakes his head. “You are not the only one.”
That stings. The thought of him with another woman makes me sick. “Okay. I still get one question, don’t I? So, here’s question number three. What are you afraid of if I stay?”
He turns and strides away, and I follow him.
“Cole! Answer me.”
He doesn’t respond, just climbs the stairs to the upper deck. I follow, but the ship shakes, and at the same time a sailor runs down the stairs past me. I try stepping to the side but the wet step slips under me. The ship lurches. I stagger back, but instead of hitting the wooden deck, I fall into the darkness.
A scream is ripped from my throat as I flail. Then my back hits the surface of the ocean with a violent blow, knocking the breath out of me. Water floods my ears and my nose and closes above me.