The town council met in my business chamber every Friday at ten o’clock. I’m sure in other parts of the world a tavern wouldn’t be thought appropriate for such a meeting, but in the pirate port of Nassau we didn’t have such high standards. After the leaders of the various businesses had discussed the matters of the day, it was quite common for them to follow with a visit to one of the rooms with a girl.
I led Sam to the chamber and shut the door behind me. It was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long.
I was proud of my meeting room. While Tom was alive I hadn’t been allowed to attend the meetings, and the room had reflected the all-male presence there, with its burgundy drapes, dark carpet, heavy table, and dour paintings on the walls.
I hadn’t exactly fitted it with lace curtains and painted it pink, but I had given it a female touch, and I thought it was the better for it. The long table and chairs down the center were the same, but I’d replaced the carpet with a light brown one, re-papered the walls with a plum-and-cream striped paper, and changed the drapes to light cream ones. I’d taken down the dark portraits and replaced them with beautiful landscapes painted by a local artist.
“Nice,” Sam said, turning around to admire the place.
“I think so.” His compliment pleased me. I walked to the end of the room, where my desk sat across the top of the table, forming a T shape. It was my father’s, and he’d brought it over from England after he’d decided to settle here. When Tom died, it was the first thing I’d brought in, needing to make the place mine.
Sam followed me and ran his fingers over the wood. “English oak. It’s beautiful.”
I’d forgotten he lived aboard a ship—he would know the color and feel of all kinds of timber. Sailors often spoke about wood as if it were still part of the tree, a living thing, carrying in it the kiss of the sun and the breath of the wind in the branches.
“They’ll be here soon,” I said nervously. “Perhaps you should get behind the curtains.”
He picked up a paperweight and turned it over in his fingers. “I don’t like skulking.”
“Sam... you promised. You said that the council won’t let you stay.”
He gave me a moody glare. “Maybe if I—”
I gasped as the handle of the door turned. “Shit! Sam!”
In seconds, he’d dropped to the floor and crawled under my desk.
The door opened and several men walked in—the blacksmith, and the owner of the timber yard. I snapped my sagging jaw shut and walked forward to welcome them, trying not to think about the lusty pirate currently secreted beneath my desk.
“Gentlemen.” I gestured for them to take a seat, and welcomed the others as they began to turn up. The girls brought in teapots and plates of freshly-cooked biscuits, and everyone sat, ready to begin the day’s business.
Henry Cook was one of the last to arrive. I smiled and gestured to a spare chair, trying not to let my dislike show on my face. He was tall, although not as tall as Sam, with odd, pale eyes and a dark, greasy wig that looked as if it had never been washed. I felt a sudden wave of relief that Sam refused to wear a wig. Later I might be able to slide my fingers into his long locks and see if they were as silky as they looked.
I shook my head, trying to shake thoughts of him out of my mind, and sat at the head of the table, taking great care not to look down as I tucked my chair under. I could feel him there, though, firm against my knees and feet. I crossed my legs at the ankles, and felt his hand rest there, warm on my lower calf. I was tempted to kick him away, but his touch was gentle and reassuring, so I let it stay.
“Gentlemen,” the mayor said, ignoring the fact that not only was I present but they were all currently sitting in my tavern, “the first item on the agenda is current steel prices.”
It was always this way, and rarely did they raise any issues that were of interest to me, but when Tom had died I’d offered the council one free visit a week with a girl for each member, and that had been enough to keep them holding the meeting at the Twisted Lime. That way I felt I held some small standing in the town, and so far everyone had been respectful enough to let me keep the position.
Still, I found the meetings boring, and my attention soon turned to the feeling of Sam’s hand on my ankle. His thumb stroked my calf, and as I settled back in the chair and prepared myself for the usual thirty minutes or so of dull conversation, Sam’s hand crept up my leg to my knee.
I didn’t react, but my heart began to beat a little faster as he stroked up and down the lower half of my leg, slipping his thumb behind my knee to brush the sensitive skin there. It had been an eternity since I’d had a man in my bed, and even longer since anyone had touched me with anything like the gentleness Sam was touching me with now. My lips parted, and I began to drift into a hazy dream world as his hand covered my knee, then slid slowly up my thigh.
The climate in Nassau was generally hot and sultry, and the only clothing I wore beneath my gown was a linen chemise. The touch of his fingers on my bare thighs sent tingles skittering through me.
The rogue... I knew I should kick out or reach down to slap his hand away, but the sensation was so beautiful that I didn’t want him to stop. I felt him shift beneath me, moving between my knees, and then he put his hands on them and pushed them apart.
I bit my lip to stop myself exclaiming, and held my breath. His hands stroked up my thighs, gentle and soft, and I tingled all over, my nipples tightening beneath the bodice while muscles I’d forgotten I possessed clenched deep inside.
He stroked down, up, down, up, going further up each time, and then he rested his hands on my inner thighs right at the top and pushed them a little wider.
The mayor was still droning on, with the blacksmith and some of the other shop owners interjecting from time to time, and nobody was looking at me. Thank the Lord, I thought, because I knew my cheeks must be flushed as my face felt hot, burning with embarrassment and desire.
Sam touched his thumbs to the base of my mound and stroked up, lightly at first, and then again pressing more firmly, spreading the moisture I knew must be there up through my folds.
I suppressed a groan, unable to believe he was doing this to me right in the middle of a public meeting. The man had no morals, no decency—and yet I couldn’t bring myself to scold him for it.
I felt him slip his right thumb down and slide it inside me, pushing it deep until the base of his thumb met my thigh, and then he removed it and brushed up to my clit and circled the pad over it.
I caught my bottom lip between my teeth, knowing I couldn’t close my eyes or they’d all think I’d fallen asleep, but my eyelids were growing heavy with desire, fluttering as he continued to stroke me.
He had to stop soon, didn’t he? Surely he wasn’t going to carry on until I...
He shifted beneath me, and my thoughts shuddered to a stop as I felt him press his lips against my thigh.
No...
He kissed there, then up a little higher, his tongue coming out to lace against my skin in between each kiss, moving closer and closer to the top of my thighs with each press of his lips.
The mayor had stopped speaking and Henry Cook was talking now, complaining about some fight that had broken out the day before in the square. I couldn’t concentrate on his words though because Sam’s lips were still moving, kissing slowly up my thigh, and then I felt his hot breath between my legs.
I had to stop him. I couldn’t sit in a town council meeting and let a pirate perform oral sex on me. But Lord help me, I couldn’t stop him—I felt myself moistening, swelling in anticipation of his tongue.
And then he did it—he leaned forward and brushed his tongue up from my entrance to my clit in one long, slow lick.
I covered my mouth with my hand to stop myself moaning. No man had ever done this to me. I’d seen it enough times in the private rooms to know it happened, but Tom had never been interested in giving me pleasure, and this first sensation of a man’s warm, wet tongue on my most intimate area almost made me cry.
Sam stopped and brushed his hand along the outside of my thigh in a strangely reassuring manner, almost as if he was aware it was the first time someone had done this for me. Then he lowered his mouth again, and I felt the soft, sexy swirl of his tongue over my clit, the sensual, slick slide of it down into my folds.
My eyes were open, but only just, and my gaze grew unfocused as all my concentration centered on the amazing sensations radiating throughout my body. My limbs released the last dregs of tension, and my thighs relaxed, falling open to welcome his touch.
He continued to give me long, slow licks, following them with a tease of my clit with the tip of his tongue. At the same time, he inserted two fingers inside me and began to stroke them in and out, pressing firmly against the front wall of my vagina.
I’d rarely had an orgasm with Tom—if I’d had one it had been more by luck than skill, and I couldn’t believe Sam was paying me such attention with no thought to his own pleasure.
I felt my climax building and panicked, knowing I couldn’t come in front of the town council, but it was too late, too late, and the tension spread throughout me, culminating in strong, exquisite clenches of my internal muscles around his fingers.
“Oh!” I said out loud at the final, intense pulse.
As one, they all turned to look at me.
Sam withdrew his fingers, and I was sure I heard a stifled chuckle beneath the table.
I pushed myself upright and moistened my lips with the tip of my tongue.
“You wanted to add something, Mrs. Woodville?” asked Henry Cook, his pale eyes narrowing.
I cleared my throat. “My apologies—I just meant to say I agree with the mayor that there should be a guard placed on the storage facilities at night. I’ve had two thefts of wine from there.”
“Thank you,” the mayor said. “Then the motion is carried. We will organize a guard forthwith.”
I leaned back, relieved that I appeared to have covered myself.
Beneath the table, I felt Sam’s hand rest on my calf. I kicked it away, and this time I heard a definite chuckle.
I ignored him, though. The meeting was drawing to an end, and the council members were putting away their notebooks, their eyes brightening as the time approached for them to claim their weekly prize with the girls. I rang the bell on my desk, and almost immediately the door opened and a line of my girls walked in. The men chose their partners and exited the chamber bound for the girls’ rooms.
Only Henry Cook remained, shuffling papers on the desk and refusing to look up until the last man had left the room.
The door closed.