Shopping for a gun in Florida was no chore at all. The gunsmiths offered a variety of firearms for all occasions, from a Ferguson rifle to Brown Bess muskets to pistols of all sizes.
“That one,” Jack said, pointing to a handgun on display.
“An excellent choice,” the gunsmith said, pulling out a small pistol. “This one has, as you can see, two barrels, allowing for two shots without reloading.”
The shopkeeper was startled when it was Sophia who took the gun in hand, examining its workings and weight. But he was an experienced salesman, and this was Fernandina, so he didn’t bat an eye when she took the pistol, shot, and powder behind the shop to try it on the range he’d set up for this very purpose.
“It handles well, Jack,” Sophia said, after getting two shots into the target pinned to a pine tree. “You try it.”
Jack wasn’t impressed with the firepower of the pistol, but he acknowledged if Sophia was ever to shoot someone, she’d be going for accuracy rather than range.
“It isn’t too heavy for you?”
“I would not want to keep it tied to my garter, but I think I can carry it in a reticule or pocket without strain.”
“We’ll take it,” Jack said when they returned to the shop. The pistol came in its own traveling case, fitted to hold all that a shooter would need to keep the gun in good working order. Soon they were back out on the street, blinking in the bright sunlight, Jack carrying the box cradled under his arm.
“Sophia, have you ever been out in a small craft?”
Sophia looked at him, a questioning expression on her face.
“Much of the traffic here is waterborne. I would like to teach you how to sail, so you’ll be able to help me if we take a boat out.”
“Sailing…” She thought that over, then smiled up at Jack. “That would be fun to learn, Captain.”
Jack nearly dropped the pistol box. That girlish, open smile did things to her kitten face. It made him wonder who Sophia Deford would be if she’d grown up in a less ramshackle household, one where she’d had the opportunities and future other young ladies had.
They both turned as someone hailed them.
“Still here, Captain Burrell?”
“Oh, Captain Aury,” Sophia said, twirling her parasol, “I just could not wait until St. Augustine to shop! You have so much merchandise here! Everything a lady would need for traveling through Florida.”
“Very true, madam, Fernandina is a popular spot for merchants. And our prices are better than in St. Augustine because my Republic of Florida values trade and doesn’t wish to hinder it with unnecessary taxes and tariffs.”
“Indeed, it is a paradise for a lady who has been at sea.”
Aury smiled at her, but then turned back to Jack. “My offer is still open, Captain Burrell. I could use a man of your skill and intelligence.”
“You flatter me, sir, but my priorities now are to see to my lovely wife. In fact, she was saying she would like to learn to sail. Is there a shipwright you can recommend who might have a lively little sloop suitable for a lady to handle?”
Aury thought for a minute and said, “You might try Raul Rodriguez down at the harbor. I heard he came into possession of a handsome craft a few weeks back and is trying to sell it. Just do not ask too many questions about where he obtained it.”
“I know better than that, Captain,” Jack said. “Thank you for the advice.”
“One more word of advice,” Aury said. “There was someone asking about a Miss Sophia Deford about a fortnight back. I understand from Captain Roberts that is you, Mrs. Burrell.”
“Was it Weasel?”
“No, but I heard Weasel Wesley and his companion headed out to St. Augustine, and that Weasel’s friend was on crutches. I trust they will not bother you again.”
“I believe he and his friend have learned I am not a man to trifle with,” Jack said, ignoring the sidelong glance his wife cast him.
“Indeed, Captain Burrell is everything I could desire in a husband,” Sophia said.
Jack wondered over hidden meanings in that statement, but then the ruler of Fernandina was bidding them adieu, strolling off with his bodyguards to inspect his tiny kingdom.
Sophia and Jack walked on.
“I am convinced the stranger asking after me was Lord Whitfield, since he was asking for me by my maiden name. But now he also knows we are together.”
“And married.”
“Yes.” She looked up at him, and then cocked her head to the side. “Why are you not wearing your eyepatch?”
“Do not worry about my eye. It is none of your concern.”
“I would think that would be exactly the kind of thing a loving wife would be concerned about. What if you were blinded and I had to take care of you for the rest of my days?”
“Sophia, I have no doubt if I were blinded you would direct me to the edge of the nearest cliff and then encourage me to take just a few steps forward, rather than care for me all your days.”
She didn’t argue this. “Nonetheless, I believe as your wife I should know these things about you.”
“Let us make a trade. When you agree to perform all your wifely duties, I will explain about my eyepatch.”
“That is not likely to happen, Captain.”
“I suppose part of it depends on how much curiosity a little cat like you has,” was all Jack said. He took her by the arm and directed her down to the harbor, where he found Raul and his sloop.
It was indeed a trim little craft, with a snug cabin that would benefit from a good airing. The sails were in reasonable condition given the boat’s history. Raul agreed to let them take the boat out into the harbor to check its seaworthiness. Jack climbed aboard and gave Sophia his hand to lift her over, looking critically at her dress.
“Your clothing is fashionable, but hardly appropriate for handling a boat. We will have to do something about that. I also suggest going barefoot aboard ship. You will find it easier to maintain your footing than you will in those boots.”
“If it is all the same to you, I will wait to untie my garters until we’re out of sight of the docks.”
Jack said nothing to this but set sail and began the lessons.
“There’s a lot to know about a small craft, Sophia, so pay attention. We only have the one mast on this sloop, and this sheet—”
“That is a rope. A sheet is on a bed.”
“No, aboard ship a rope to trim the sail is called a sheet.”
“Then what do you call the bed linens?”
“That isn’t important! Now, pay attention!”
“I cannot call it a rope?”
“Not where I can hear you.”
He knew it was complicated for a beginner, and it took hours of work aboard ship to turn a land lubber into an able seaman. He had confidence in Sophia, though, there was nothing slow about her.
“Wait a minute, Jack, this rope…”
“Sheet.”
“Aaaargh!” she said, but then stopped. “I have an idea. If I make a drawing of the rigging, I can memorize it.”
Jack thought about this for a moment.
“The only way I know how to sail is by doing, Sophia, but if you think it would help, when the boat’s brought to the Jade you can make a drawing of it.”
Jack brought the craft back in and Sophia climbed out of the boat and shook water out of her skirts.
“I do not suppose you are so upset over getting your dress soaked that you are prepared to call off this crazy quest?”
Sophia poured some water out of her shoe and looked up at him, one pale eyebrow raised.
“So far in your company, I have survived robbery by a highwayman, kidnapping off my ship, marriage by a pirate to a pirate and being accosted by villains in an alley. Do you really think I would let a damp skirt keep me from continuing?”
“I was afraid you would feel that way.”
* * *
By the time they were aboard the Jade, the sun was setting, and Sophia went below to finish packing for the trip on the river.
She smiled to herself as she looked at the items spread out on Jack’s bunk, wondering what to bring, what to leave behind. When she’d set off on this trip she’d pared down her possessions to those things she’d need aboard ship and in America. Now she was paring further, and in an odd way it was a liberating feeling, not being tied to what she once thought necessary for her daily life.
The cabin door opened and she whirled around. Jack stood there with a bundle of clothing in his hand.
“You could knock. What if I was changing clothes, or washing?”
“What if you were?” Jack said. “While we are traveling you can forget about any missish notions of privacy or modesty, Mrs. Burrell. We will be in close quarters in the future and that means there will be few secrets between us.
“Here is something to pack. Since you are skilled with a needle, you might want to put yourself to work on this while we travel to St. Augustine.”
He passed her the bundle, and she opened it to find clothing sized for a boy. There were two calico shirts, a wool jacket with a ripped shoulder, and canvas trousers frayed at the bottoms.
“You need to be dressed properly for hauling lines and handling the boat, and this will give you more freedom of movement.”
Her eyes rose and locked with his, and she knew they were both thinking back to when she’d stolen his clothing to give her freedom to make her escape from the cave in England.
The silence lengthened between them. His hand reached out and touched her hair, escaping from its knot atop her head and curling around her face in the moist air.
“You will need a hat. You are not used to the tropical sun.”
His words were prosaic, but his voice was husky and his touch lingered, feeling a curl between his fingers. His eyes darkened in the dim cabin light, and when she moved her head back there was a moment of resistance before he released her. She knew she should step back, away from him, but her feet detached from her brain and wouldn’t move. So when he moved closer, framing her face in his sea-roughened hands, she only stood there, waiting, watching as his head moved closer in to hers.
A gasp of sound escaped her lips before his mouth came down on hers, sealing whatever protest she was likely to make, but Sophia stood there, the clothing fluttering to her feet. Her empty hands reached up and were now full of Jack Burrell, his broad shoulders filling her grasp, the warmth of his body flowing into her as he pulled her closer into his embrace.
His mouth moved gently across hers, not forcing its way, but teasing, first one corner of her lips, then the other, the ticklish kiss making her smile, and then catch her breath as he eased his tongue inside.
His rumbling noise of satisfaction when she opened to him brought her hands up around his neck, threading through his sun-streaked hair, pulling him down, but Jack hooked one hand beneath her hips and pulled her up off her feet, up against his body where she could feel him pulsing against her belly, a throb answered by a pulse deep inside her.
He effortlessly held her up as his mouth moved on hers and she wanted to feel him against every inch of her skin. His kiss ignited sparks within her, pulling at her, drawing her out. She wanted it to go on forever. No, she wanted him to walk back the few steps to his bunk and lay her down there, his body covering hers and pressing her down to where she wouldn’t have to plot and scheme for a few stolen moments.
But Jack pulled his head back, and looked down at her, his eyes glittering in the dim light, and his breath coming harsh from his lungs.
He eased her back to her feet and reached up to take her arms from around his neck. It was a good thing the bunk was behind her, because Sophia sat down on it with a thump, her legs like a quivering jelly. Her shaking hand rose up to touch her swollen lips and she saw a brief flare of something in Jack’s eyes before he pulled himself up and calmly said, “I will see you at supper, Sophia.”
He turned and left the cabin, and Sophia stared at the space where he’d been moments before.
That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was the one who walked away and left him frustrated and dangling, not the other way around.
She pushed herself off the bunk and tiptoed to the door, but she didn’t hear any laughter on the other side. Jack may have won this round, but he wasn’t hanging around to gloat. One could only hope he was in as much discomfort as she was.
She shook her head and looked at the clothing, but glancing up, she caught her reflection in the mirror, her flushed face, her hair coming loose to fall around her shoulders. She looked wanton, and ready to join Jack in his bunk.
She scowled at her own image and an idea came to her, remembering her flight to Portsmouth. It was only good sense, she told herself as she took her hair down from its pins. If you were going to dress like a boy and travel in this oppressive heat, it would be one less worry.
The silvery mass flowed over her neck, and before she could harbor regrets, she took up her knife and hacked it off, feeling behind her to get close to the nape of her neck. Then, using a smaller pair of embroidery scissors, she snipped away until a cloud of fluff drifted down to the deck.
When she thought she’d done enough damage, Sophia roughly worked her hands through her hair, shaking out loose remnants and using dampened hands to finger-comb what was left.
She felt free and light-headed, and not just because of the lost tresses.
“Oh my,” she whispered, her regrets behind her as she lookded in her mirror. A gilt cloud, like thistledown, wisped out from her face. Small curls sprang out across her forehead and tickled the tops of her ears, and the way she looked now was a pleasing combination of innocence and sophistication. When she shook her head, the hair moved freely and lightly. She laughed aloud. The short hair made her look far younger than her twenty-five years. There was much to be said for playing the boy, she thought, and hair will grow back in time.
She swept up the hair and tossed it out the window, then examined the clothing before trying it on for size. This, too, was a sensible idea, and she had to admit she was looking forward to the freedom that came from wearing breeches. It had been a long time since she’d worn boy’s clothes to muck out the stables…or worn the clothes of a hoodwinked highwayman.
A few strategically placed pins showed her where she could nip in the waist on the trousers, but she left the shirts loose so she wouldn’t have to bind her breasts. It would also leave the impression she was a lad not yet grown into his clothes.
For now, this new look suited her sense of adventure. She idly wondered what Captain Burrell would think of how she looked, and told herself it didn’t matter.
That was a lie. She wanted Jack Burrell’s eyes to bug out of his head when he saw her. She wanted the upper hand again.
Calm. Control. Those were the keys to success in this venture, she mused as she donned her dress again. Then a rap on the door distracted her.
Mick entered and Sophia felt a loosening of some of the guilt she’d had since she landed the boy in trouble.
“Mick! I am pleased to see you released from your prison. And,” she hurried on before he could speak, “I owe you an apology for the role I playing in getting you in trouble.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Mrs. Burrell. I shoulda known better. The Cap’n was right to do what he did,” he finished, defending his hero. “Cap’n always says, a man takes responsibility for hisself and don’t blame others for his problems.”
Sophia thought about how Captain Burrell still blamed her for his being left penniless and at the mercy of press gangs, but wisely said nothing.
“Cap’n said you might want to dine up on deck tonight, ma’am. It’s cooler up top. And I like your hair that way, ma’am! You look as shiny as a half-dime!”
“Thank you, Mick.” Sophia smoothed down her skirts and went to leave the cabin, stopping when she saw him reaching down the musical instrument.
“What is that? Some kind of mandolin?”
“No, ma’am, it’s the Cap’n’s banjo. Maybe he’ll play it for us later, which would be a right treat. You can’t help but grin when there’s a banjo playin’.”
The sailors stared at her when she went abovedecks, but Jack just looked at her and grunted something about her haircut being “practical.”
Sophia ignored him ignoring her, or at least told herself that’s what she was doing, and joined him. Despite the smells that sometimes drifted over from the harbor and from the town, it was more pleasant eating in the open air than in the cabin where heat built up during the long afternoon.
Their final supper in Fernandina offered fresh bread from town along with mullet and pork stew. There were melons, but Sophia did not eat them, though she partook of the greens and sidemeat, stunned to find the food searing her tongue after her first incautious bite. Jack explained the datil peppers seasoning the greens were a highly prized product of St. Augustine and offered her more pepper sauce.
“No, thank you,” she wheezed, grabbing for her mug of coffee.
He just smiled, the rat.
The sloop was tied alongside the Jade and some of the sailors were standing at the rail, commenting on the boat’s lines.
“What are you going to name your craft, Mrs. Burrell?” Jack asked.
“Hey, now, Captain, it’s bad luck to rename a ship!” protested Crawford.
“Cap’n makes his own luck,” Mick defended him stoutly. “That’s why they call him ‘Lucky Jack.’”
“Here I always thought it was because he could get under the skirts of every gal he—oof! Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am,” Crawford said, punctuated by a blow to the ribs from Mr. Rice’s elbow.
“Why, I had not thought about it,” Sophia said. “My own boat to name.”
“How about ‘Fool’s Gold’?” Jack suggested.
“No, that’s a name to inspire ridicule.” She thought about it for a moment, tapping at her lower lip.
“I have it,” she said, looking at Jack. “Gambler’s Luck.”
“One might say a skilled gambler makes his own—or her own—luck.”
“Exactly.”
“While normally I wouldn’t say it’s a good idea to rename a boat, given the questionable provenance of this craft it’s a prudent step. That name may inspire us, or at least bring us closer to our goal.”
Mr. Rice joined them and he and Jack carried the conversation, discussing careening the Jade up in Georgia while they took what Mr. Rice insisted was their wedding trip. Jack didn’t correct him, since it was a more plausible and safer explanation than what they were really up to.
“Why Georgia, Mr. Rice?”
Rice looked at her in surprise. “Because that’s where the Burrells live, up near Savannah. Hasn’t Jack talked with you about his family?”
Sophia rescued Jack from what could be an awkward conversational pitfall. “We have been so busy that we have not had time to do much chatting, Mr. Rice. One of the purposes of this trip is to allow us to get to know each other better.”
She thought Jack muttered, “Heaven help me,” but ignored him to smile at Mr. Rice.
He looked at her thoughtfully.
“I hope that works out for you, Mrs. Burrell. Captain Jack’s a fine man, and worth getting to know better. Even if you two got off to a rocky start, there’s no reason you can’t make a go of it.”
Jack just shook his head. “I worry you are a hopeless romantic, George. This is not one of those novels you like to read.”
Rice colored up like a radish but said no more on the subject, instead switching to talk of selling the goods that the Jade carried in her hold.
After the supper dishes were returned to the galley, Mick brought Jack the instrument from his cabin. The banjo had a circle body, open in the back. The strings traveled up a long neck, and he spent a few moments adjusting them and tuning the instrument.
The banjo sound reminded her a little of a guitar, and a bit like a harpsichord, the jangly notes bouncing along as Mick joined in on a tin whistle, and Mr. Rice showed hidden depths on the spoons, his forehead gleaming with sweat as he kept the rhythm.
Sophia recognized one or two of the melodies—“Shady Grove” and “Soldier’s Lament” being popular back home as well—and soon her own foot was tapping along with the melody.
She saw Jack glance down at the toework and then he flashed his grin at her, the smile that changed him from the grim vessel’s master to the lad who used to sing along at his family’s musicales.
She couldn’t resist smiling back.
“Banjo affects you that way,” he said, his fingers flying over the strings. “Can’t play gloomy music on a banjo. Though you can go for a different sound,” he said, easing into a familiar, lilting melody she recognized as “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire.”
“It is an intriguing instrument, Captain, and it suits you. Have you had it for long?”
His fingers moved into a slower tempo, a more plaintive melody than what had played before.
“I got this banjo off one of my crew during the war, a Negro sailor named Reuben.” The slim fingers continued to move along the neck of the instrument, his other hand strumming at its drumhead. She thought that would be all Jack would say on it, but he continued speaking. “Reuben was hired out to me by his master. That was how some men did it during the war, they would hire out their slaves as crew, and then sit home, fat and sassy, while the man risked his life for pay that would go into his master’s pocket. Reuben was a good man and a good sailor. He was also a talented musician, and showed me how to play.”
The fingers moved now into a faster tempo, and Rice and Mick kept up.
“Once you live alongside a man, fight alongside him, bleed alongside him…you see things differently. Reuben’s master didn’t like it when his slave didn’t make it home. He thought I should have taken better care of his property. I explained to him that his ‘property’ saved my life, taking a bullet meant for the ship’s captain. After that, I didn’t take any more slave hires.”
He rested the banjo across his lap, and lightly ran his fingers over the strings.
“That’s all the music for tonight, lads. It has been too long since I have played and my fingers are feeling ill-used.”
The men went back to their tasks or their leisure time, and Sophia went below.
* * *
Jack told himself earlier this new tactic in the ongoing battle with Sophia Deford Burrell would work to his advantage. Now, he wasn’t so sure of himself. Yes, his kisses seemed to throw her off balance, but that wasn’t doing anything for his peace of mind.
She, no doubt, thought cutting off her hair made her look like a lad. She was wrong. It made her eyes look larger, her cheekbones more dramatic, her lips lusher. More than ever she looked like a wicked little cat plotting mischief. A very beddable little cat.
He hung the banjo back and tried not to listen to Sophia moving about his cabin, preparing herself for bed. He’d told her it would be different on the road, and he told himself she would have to come to him. You lured a kitten with treats and coaxing, and that was still his plan.
But if there was one thing he’d learned during the war, it was that a plan only worked until the action started, and then you had to be ready to make changes while shot flew across the deck.
Sophia had given him that quizzical look again when he stepped into the cabin wearing his eyepatch. He knew she was consumed with curiosity, and wondered how far she would go to get the answer. As far as his bunk?
With the cabin plunged into darkness, Jack removed the eyepatch to watch the nightly show of Sophia climbing into her hammock. She was more adroit than she had been some days past, and he couldn’t say she wasn’t a fast learner. But it was still an entertaining show, and he wanted to enjoy it for as long as he could. In the meantime…as long as it was her choice to join him in his bunk, he was confident she would not kill him while he slept.
Fairly confident.
“Mrs. Burrell?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“If you come to my bunk, I will explain about the eyepatch.”
There was silence from across the cabin, and he saw her stir, setting the hammock to swaying. He swallowed, his mouth gone dry.
“You know you want to know the answer, little cat. How terrible would it be to find out?” he said, easing himself off the bunk. He walked silently across the deck to the hammock and when he stood alongside, her eyes flew open.
“Is it not rather late to be chatting, Captain? I thought we had laid to rest the issue of whether I would sleep in your bunk.”
“Laid to rest. Now, there’s an interesting choice of words…”
She blinked, her eyes not accustomed to the dark, but he could see her clearly, a stray glimmer of starlight on her hair, the lashes shadowing the large eyes. Her movements set the hammock to rocking again, and he put one hand beneath where the hammock dipped lowest, steadying her.
“Careful now, you don’t want to tip yourself out.”
“I have no fear of that if you go back to your bunk!” she whispered fiercely.
“In due time, Mrs. Burrell,” he said. “But for now, I suggest you grasp ahold of your bed. Any sudden movements and you could hurt yourself falling.”
She was about to respond to this when he put his finger across her lips and she went silent. He left his finger there, against that warmth, feeling the brush of air from her heightened breathing as he stroked across the pouting softness. Her brows drew down in a frown, and her eyes shifted as she tried to make out his form in the cabin’s darkness.
“You are naked, aren’t you?” she said in a husky voice.
“Your quickness of mind is one of the things I most admire about you. Yes, I am naked. You are not. However, I can remedy that.”
He loomed over her, and with a snap of his fingers flicked open the button at the top of her nightrail while she grasped the hammock’s sides. She tried to squirm away, but her situation was too unstable and in quick time the buttons were open down to the waist, and he could see the white flesh nearly glowing in the shadows.
“Careful. If you try to stop me, you could find yourself falling out.”
“I am not coming to your bunk, Captain Burrell!”
“I am saddened to hear that, Mrs. Burrell,” he said, rewarded by her intake of breath when he ran his finger down the center of her body, from just below her throat to where the cloth stopped his hand from going farther. “Perhaps though, I can convince you to change your mind.
“Or,” he said, using his one finger to move the cloth open, “Maybe there is a game that can be played outside of my bunk. No, I’m warning you from long experience, don’t move like that, you will spill yourself onto the deck.”
He shifted his stance and came into contact with a hip dipping low in the hammock, and pressed himself against her. It felt splendid and relieved some of the pressure building up inside him, that fleeting sensation of her softness against him where he was aching and hard. But it wasn’t nearly enough, he knew it wouldn’t be enough until he was so deep inside her she was screaming out his name in ecstasy.
Rocking himself against the cloth separating the two of them helped though, his hand on the other hip steadying the hammock so the delightful friction wouldn’t cease.
In the meantime, he was trying to focus on showing Mrs. Burrell some of the delights awaiting her if she joined him in his bunk. She watched him use his free hand to pull up her gown and explore the body displayed for him in the hammock like a sweet in a candy shop. Her skin glowed alabaster where the starlight caressed it, and the nipples on the exquisite mounds under his gaze were larger than he expected, so much so he touched one to make sure it was real, an action that caused her to rock the hammock in a dangerous manner, so he pulled her tighter against him and covered her breast, the center pressing up warm and hard into his palm.
She still wasn’t speaking, and that in and of itself was a blessing. He kept that thought to himself as he lowered his head to see if she tasted as piquant as she looked.
She did. She tasted of springtime violets and starlight and sweet berries, all in one compact package he was beginning to suspect was exactly the right size, the way her waist fit his hands, the way her delicately rounded limbs were squirming in the hammock. She was urging him on with her small sighs and whispers as he explored every inch of her exposed by her open night clothes. His lips trailed across her breast and his hand ruched up her nightrail. His fingers toyed with the damp curls at the apex of her thighs, but then he wondered if they were as pale as the hair on her head and he just had to have a closer look. To his delight they were, gossamer in the dark cabin, so pale he could barely see them against the skin they hid. He used two fingers to part them for a closer look, and her thighs clamped around his wrist
“Jack! You must stop—” But her protests trailed off on a moan when he blew on the fine hairs, using his finger to tease at her entrance, encouraging her to release his wrist.
Instead, he nearly flew up to bang his head on the deck above when she used her free hand to grab him.
“Sophia! Wha—What are you doing?” he croaked.
“This is a game for two players, Lucky Jack,” she flashed a gleam of teeth at him as she whispered, “and I have the winning hand!”
He wiggled his fingers against her and her mouth opened in an “O” but she didn’t release him, instead, stroking him from root to tip, with a squeeze at the end just behind his crown.
He almost lost his balance, but didn’t give up his grip on her hammock, or on her. If it was a game she wanted, he would oblige her. He could make her come first, she was just a little snip of a thing, a bookshop clerk, while he’d been around the Horn—
“Sweet mercy!” he swore, when she ran her thumbnail up his shaft, giving a flick at the tip, nearly finishing him then and there. He tried to focus on her while distracting himself, reciting the names of the nineteen United States, moving his fingers until he had one easing into her while his thumb toyed with the tight little knot of nerves hiding in her curls, those warm, wet curls making it hard to focus on anything except how her hand was stroking him, squeezing him, applying just the right pressure and then moving down to rub gently beneath his ballsack—
“Ohio!”
He thought she gasped out a laugh, but she didn’t stop fondling him, working him, reminding him in a most dramatic way that he had been at sea a long time and having someone else to do for you was so much better than doing for yourself.
And yet, he tried to stay on task, working his finger into her where she was so tight and hot, and he gasped and hunched over her, gripping her in the hammock while she gripped him and he could feel himself tightening, hardening as he pumped in her hand, holding onto the hammock now with both hands because there was nothing else he could do to stay on his feet, especially when she said in her husky little voice, “Now, Jack, come now!” and his body obeyed her.
His knees gave out on him and she shrieked as she tumbled out of the hammock onto him where he lay on the deck, drained and defeated.
Although defeated wasn’t exactly how he was feeling at the moment, though drained said a great deal about his current condition.
“That was interesting,” Sophia said briskly as she put herself back together. “But honestly, Jack, if you needed some relief, all you had to do was ask. I do not want you so…overwrought on this journey you are unable to function.”
“That wasn’t my plan,” Jack muttered to himself as he pulled himself up and rubbed his aching hip. His darling little wife had already scrambled back into her hammock.
“Good night, husband. Sweet dreams.”
* * *
Bloody, bloody hell!
Sophia’s teeth ground together and she clutched the sides of her hammock, waiting for her husband’s breathing to settle into a regular pattern of sleep. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to be lying awake in this cloth cocoon, aching, because of a buffoon like Lucky Jack Burrell.
She’d been so sure—cocksure—she almost grinned, but she was still throbbing and it bothered her, so sure she’d be able to turn off her feelings, distance herself from what he was doing to her body, but she wasn’t able to do that. Jack made her feel far too much for her own peace of mind.
She heard his breathing settle into a steady rhythm and she knew she’d get no sleep herself if she didn’t do something to assuage the ache between her thighs. Ah well, it wouldn’t be the first time, but it was the first time in a long time she’d wanted to crawl into bed with a man—a particularly annoying man—and let him finish what he’d started.
But that would be giving in, and giving away what she was keeping to herself, her emotions, her needs. Needs and desires led to losing one’s head and to trouble, and that wasn’t going to happen to her again. Not when she could bring herself relief.
She eased her hand between her legs, pressing down and feeling her blood engorged parts twitch beneath the pressure. She stopped when she thought she heard a noise in the dark, but then carefully worked her finger between her still slick nether lips, rocking it back and forth as she bit down on her lower lip to keep from making noise. She tried not to think of Lucky Jack doing this to her, for her, his big hands stroking her and moving her legs wide apart while that part she’d been stroking just a short while ago stroked within her, harder and faster than she was able to do for herself, but she couldn’t stop, not now—
“Ahhh!”
She held herself still, the tension draining out of her and drifting away toward sleep.
“You know, Mrs. Burrell, if you want to be rocked to sleep at night, all you have to do is ask.”
Her eyes popped open and she carefully turned her head, to see her nemesis staring at her, his head propped on one hand.
“But I appreciate the entertainment,” he finished smoothly. “Goodnight, wife.”
“Bloody hell,” that wife snarled.