Chapter 10
They’d stayed in the gardens until twilight had crested the watery horizon, turning their navy blue world into an aquamarine sunrise. For reasons he still couldn’t quite understand he’d been loath to leave their oasis. No more maidens had come, and for a while, it’d felt like the world had been theirs alone.
But eventually he’d seen her fatigue, the way she’d rested her head upon the stamen. All the gold flakes in her hair, and the way the lights had glowed, she’d appeared angelic and he couldn’t make sense of the soft feelings she inspired in him.
The woman made him laugh with her nonsensical rambling. But more than that he felt like he’d known her forever. And not because of Talia, it was just easy to be with Trishelle. She understood the mask he wore, could describe it so perfectly, that he sensed perhaps she wore one too. It made her sympathetic in his eyes. The realization of that broke him out in a cold sweat and finally spurred him on to head back to the ship.
And though perhaps he understood her better, he wasn’t ready to ask her to stay. Not even close. For her to stay he’d have to love her, and for him to love her would mean allowing himself to open up to that possibility. And he simply couldn’t do that. From now on he’d keep himself at a distance, he had to.
But for all that, he could readily admit that he enjoyed her company. And that was a rare thing for him, very rare indeed. So how could he protect his heart while enjoying her company? That was a question to which he had no answer.
“Sir,” Smee came up behind him, “you should head below deck, the men are set to sail soon. You’ve not slept all night.”
He rubbed his brow. She was in his room, in his bed. He’d had every intention of being honorable, leaving her the room, but his bones ached and his head throbbed. The night had been long.
Returning to Seren had brought him the peace he’d sought. He’d laid Talia to rest last night. Danika had been right to bring him the woman, Trishelle had done in one day what a hundred years without Talia hadn’t been able to, and that was that she’d shown him reality. He’d been grieving a ghost. Talia would never return. Could never. Though her soul lived on, the maiden herself was gone.
He shook his head. “I will use your room,” he said, and then clapping his first mate’s shoulder, nodded a thanks.
“Aye, captain. I’ll wake you when we cross the drop.”
Heading below deck, he walked toward Smee’s cabin. He couldn’t help but glance at his door. Perhaps he should just check on her, make certain she was well, didn’t need anything.
All excuses and well he knew it, but that didn’t stop him from turning and making his way to his room. She didn’t even stir when he opened the door, she was flung across the mattress, breathing softly. Her face was lax, her breathing calm and again a strange fluttering took residence in his chest.
She was beautiful, curvy in all the right places. Full breasted, and hippy. He’d always enjoyed a woman with womanly curves. Her pink lips were slightly parted and he moistened his own, wondering what it would feel like to taste her the way Sircco had.
It’d bothered him to see her in his embrace. Not out of jealousy, truly, but more so because he’d ached to sample her wares. To taste the honey of her skin, nip at the sensitive flesh of her throat, and sink himself deep inside her slippery, wet folds.
Growing hard, he rearranged himself. He couldn’t sleep now and didn’t relish the thought of her staying in this cabin alone, there were too many men aboard this vessel. The thought of anyone walking in on her, seeing her this way, it filled his gut with heat. He walked in and closed the door.
Going to his desk, he sat and pulled out the drawer, grabbing a bottle of scotch and a cup—his old friends. Trishelle had marveled over the chest, at the ability to make clothes from air, but he much preferred the desk to the chest. He’d taken it from a warlord in the farthest northern realm of Kingdom. The moment he’d learned that with the mere opening of a drawer copious amounts of liquor (whatever the hearts desire) appeared, he’d known he had to have it. It’d been a simple matter to acquire the piece, though fierce on the battlefield, the lord was no match for him in cards.
Pouring out a dram, he knocked it back, then took one more just to help ease the ache in his balls. He’d bedded wenches aplenty, had his pick of women. Perhaps when they landed at their next port of call, he’d suss him out a trained whore. Anything to help ease the ache she’d created in him.
But even as he thought it, he couldn’t break his gaze from her face, the curve of her check, the length of her pale, white neck.
“Waxing poetic about a lass, the depths you have sunk to, James,” he chuckled beneath his breath. Leaning back in his chair, he kicked up his legs, crossed his booted feet on the desk and closed his eyes.