His Wicked Kiss (22 page)

How he was going to keep his hands off her, he did not know, but Jack clung to his earlier decision to resist temptation. She was luscious, yes, and could breed him strapping sons, but lust aside, she was not at all what he had in mind.

When it came time for him to take a wife, he would choose someone docile. Someone tame. Someone who’d never dare question him, but would follow his orders as assiduously as if she were but an extension of himself.

Eden Farraday was altogether her own person. Her own delightful, artlessly innocent, sensuous nymph…

Bloody hell.

It was most irksome, his constant awareness of her, cloistered away in his cabin. Her presence somehow permeated the ship: a change in the air. It all felt so odd.

Annoyed at himself for his failure to maintain his policy of cool indifference, he huffed and scowled and did his best to work off his preoccupation with the tantalizing female by hard physical labor on deck, and when that didn’t do the trick, by exhaustive practice with his fists, pounding his thick leather punching bag into oblivion—but it was no use.

It was almost as if he could smell her, so near, her dewy-fresh, vanilla-orchid scent. It was driving him mad.

What was this ridiculous reaction? She was just a girl, like any other. Well, except for her eccentric ways, all those wonderfully odd little quirks…
Oh, God. What the hell is wrong with me
?
He had left a dozen more beautiful women than her without a backward glance.

But that was just the point.

Stuck out at sea and sworn to protect her—as if he didn’t have enough already to worry about!—there was no escape from Eden Farraday.

They were in the middle of the bloody ocean; it was not as though he could carry out his usual tactic of moving on in his nomadic way before anybody got too close.

On the contrary, for the next few weeks, he’d be sharing very close quarters with her, forced into intimate contact.

The worst part of all was that he could not even manage to feel properly angry about the way she had invaded his space and installed herself in his inner sanctum. He was baffled, but the region of his solar plexus tingled even now with eagerness to get back to her. This was insane.

He had not experienced such absurd reactions to a female since he was a witless lad of seventeen, agog over stupid Maura Prescott. No one had gotten to him since.

Thrusting the stowaway out of his mind for the umpteenth time, he went to put the fear of God in Ballast.

He found the unruly gun captain in the sickbay, where the surgeon had just finished putting ten stitches in his tattooed forearm, which
Eden
had sliced. When he was satisfied that the gunner was cowed by his threats and promises of doom if he even looked at Eden, Jack returned to the main deck to ask around for any articles of ladies’ clothing on board for her to wear.

He was hoping one of the officers might have bought a dress for a wife or sweetheart back home, but no such luck. The only gown anyone could find for her was a glittery bluish-green thing that the crew always made the newest midshipman wear as a joke during the bacchanalia of King Neptune’s Court that occurred at each equator crossing.

It was more a Carnavale costume than a proper lady’s gown, but it would have to do for now.

“This trip just keeps getting stranger,” Trahern mumbled, shaking his head as he eyed the dress.

“I’ll have Martin sew her some decent clothes in the days to come,” Jack mused aloud. “We’ve got several bolts of fine cloth in the hold. Can’t have her freeze to death. Getting colder as we move north.”

Trahern nodded. “Jack?”

“Hm?” he asked, distracted from hazy images that had begun to dance inexplicably in his brain—visions of himself doing all the sorts of things with his little future sons that no one had ever bothered to do with him.

He blinked them away, irked with himself anew. “What?”

“You won’t… hurt her, will you?”

He lifted his eyebrows. “Christopher.”

“I know you want her. It’s just that she’s been so sheltered, Jack—”

“Don’t worry, man! As I said, she’s under my protection. The crew can think what they please, but you know me better than that.”

“Just checking.”

“Hell, I’m the one you should fear for,” he added in sardonic reproach. “I’m putting my life in her hands.”

“What do you mean?”

“I left her in there with my sidearms and my knife.”

“You did?” he exclaimed. “How could you of all people forget a thing like that?”

“Who says I forgot?” He flashed a wan smile. “If she feels at all threatened, you cannot doubt she’ll use them. You saw what she did to Ballast.”

Trahern snorted. “He deserved it.”

“Aye. Which is why I shall give the lady no cause to shoot, stab, disembowel, castrate, or otherwise maim me.”

“Well, you always liked living dangerously. By the way, I noticed you didn’t flog Ballast for his offenses,” Trahern said after a brief pause. “I was wondering why.”

Jack had a strong stomach, but any man of feeling regarded with deep distaste if not repugnance the occasional necessity of doling out harsh justice at sea. On the other hand, Trahern was right. Flogging was standard procedure. The men knew the consequences of insubordination, and so, by now, the whole crew knew that Cap’n Jack had let Ballast off light—this time.

Jack looked at him ruefully. “I didn’t want the girl to hear the screams. She’d only blame herself.”

“Maybe she should.”

He frowned, shaking his head. “She’s an innocent. She’s been through a hard enough ordeal.”

Trahern stared at him.

Jack shrugged, abashed after his heartfelt assertion. “Anyway, she taught Ballast a lesson, herself, I’d say. He needed ten stitches, did you hear?”

“Yes, I heard.” Trahern studied him with a faint smile of amusement tugging at his mouth.

“I’m going to bed,” he announced.

“Good night, Captain. May God keep you safe in there.”

Jack laughed idly, gave him a farewell nod in answer, and headed for the quarterdeck, tossing the glittery gown for
Eden
over his shoulder.

He prowled into the moonlit day cabin, savoring the light breeze coming in off the stern gallery. As he approached the locked door to his sleeping cabin, he paused, wondering if he really should sleep elsewhere.

He could, he supposed, sling a hammock here in the day cabin. He turned to peruse the sturdy hooks sunk into the beams overhead.
Hm
. Privacy was always in very short supply at sea. If he did not share a bed with her, word would soon get around. What would the crew have to say about that? He could practically hear them already.

If Cap’n Jack hadn’t bedded his little jungle flower, then maybe he wasn’t staking a serious claim on her for himself. That could lead some to believe the wench might be fair game, after all. No, the only way to stave off such dangerous murmurings was by the two of them sharing his bed.

Besides, why should he be inconvenienced and have to change his habits just because the girl had stowed away? His adventurous mode of life had taught Jack to sleep, as they said, with one eye open; the only place he felt truly comfortable enough to close his eyes in deep rest was behind that barricaded door.

Most of all, he’d already decided that nothing was going to happen between Eden and him. He was not Ballast. He could control himself. Besides, he still had many questions—

Admit it. You just want to be with her
, his thoughts interrupted, mocking him.
You big fool. You like her company
.

So what, anyway, if he felt drawn to her? he thought, bristling defensively. Anyway, it was probably due to the respect he had for her father, nothing more.

Or perhaps it was due to the fact that she was one of the few people Jack had ever seen who knew as much as he did about loneliness.

That was when he realized that he couldn’t leave her in there all by herself, day and night. She’d lose her mind. She had already been starved for companionship when he had found her in the jungle. His nonexistent heart clenched, recalling how she had been too vulnerable even to hide it.

Hurt that innocent?

Why, if she thought him capable of it—if Black-Jack Knight was indeed that far gone, a damned soul, lost to honor—then he’d rather she shot him when he walked through that door.

His expression stoic, Jack took out his keys and began the great unlocking.

In the silence, every iron bolt with which he’d protected himself for so long seemed to slam back into its housing with an echoing, fateful
boom
.

As he gripped the doorknob and took a deep breath, he almost wished she’d hit him in the head with some hard object the moment that he stepped into the room.

Knock him out cold.

Unconscious, he couldn’t possibly give in to the urge to ravish her.

He needed a wife, yes, but Eden Farraday was too much of a threat.

Alone in Jack’s berth, Eden huddled close to the wall, her eyes wide, her heart pounding with violent force as she watched the seven locks slowly turning all down the barricaded door.

A little moonlight shimmered into the dark space of the sleeping cabin. It gleamed on the wicked iron cannon and danced tauntingly on each metal bolt as it came undone.

Eden
clutched the covers to her chest and swallowed hard.

She did not know what was going to happen to her tonight, but wearing nothing but the captain’s shirt, wrapped in the sheets that still bore his scent, her fate already seemed sealed: deflowerment at the hands of that very dangerous ex-privateer.

Earlier, in the afternoon, she had managed to get some sleep, but by nightfall, with the expected hour of her captor’s return drawing near, she had come wide awake again. There was nothing to do except wait and listen with growing anxiety for any sign of his approach.

The ship was full of strange noises: creaks and pounding footfalls across the decks above, ceaseless waves slapping the hull. She thought she’d heard the mournful singing of a whale echoing through the night some time ago.

Then she had heard it—and her seething thoughts broke off abruptly—firm, steady footfalls coming closer.