Chapter 16
When Rosetta entered the room behind Alister, she immediately moved to retrieve her sewing instruments from the small chest of her personal items. She came to kneel in front of him, using the cloth to clean his wound as best as she could.
She used the flame to burn the tip of her needle, threaded it, then got to work sewing him up after his half-hearted protests. The injury was just below his ribcage on his right side. It wasn’t too large or deep, but it was enough to concern her.
She could tell by the scars on his torso that he had cauterised every wound he’d ever gotten and never tended to them properly. He had shallow, white streaks all over his chest, stomach, shoulders, and arms.
The way she was doing it would cause less scarring.
Every time she pushed the needle in, he would take a swig of rum, as though he was trying to drink courage. He didn’t move, but she did hear him hiss out a breath through clenched teeth.
She tied the last knot and used the knife to separate the needle from the thread.
“There, was that so bad?” she asked, placing the implements on the table.
“Aye, can’t say I’m partial to how that felt,” he answered, pulling on his skin to better examine the stitched wound.
“You’ll heal quicker like this. So even if it hurts now, it’ll hurt for less time.”
He looked at her, still kneeling between his knees, and gave her a grimace. “Is that even true?”
A quiet laugh fell from her by accident.
“Yes.” She brushed the backs of her fingers over a scar that ran from his sternum all the way to his navel. “You also won’t have such a deep scar.”
He has so many of them. She’d never seen a body this riddled.
“Don’t give a damn if I’ve got scars, lass.” He went to take a drink, looked at the bottle, then tipped it upside down. He placed the empty bottle on the table carelessly. It fell to its side and rolled. “Doesn’t hurt so bad anymore, either.”
She fingered a scar across his chest and the pectoral muscle beneath it seemed to leap to her touch.
This was the first time she’d seen him without a shirt on and she was able to see his torso in all its strength and glory. She quietly admitted to herself that she was enjoying the view. Rosetta didn’t mind the stain of blood still on him, either.
His chest was covered in black curling hair that made his tanned skin seem pale in comparison. There was even a treasure trail of it running down his navel to fade into his breeches. His stomach was made of defined muscles, his torso thick with them.
“Why didn’t you stay on my ship?” His tone wasn’t as sharp as it was before. She thought perhaps her touch was easing his anger.
She sifted her fingers through the hair on his chest, letting her eyes drink him in without a care that he might want her to stop.
“It was a Western trading ship. I knew they’d have nutmeg, and I told Mr Darkley about the wonders of it. Wanted to see if they had some before your men ransacked the kitchen and made it impossible to find anything.”
Things often got lost in raids once everything got piled into the cargo bay.
What one man thought was treasure, another thought was trash.
Seeing this man half-naked, for example, his chest and torso on show for her, was a treat she wanted nothing more than to savour.
Another woman with a soft and fragile heart may have found him unsightly.
She couldn’t stop touching him even if she tried.
“You disregarded my orders... for a spice?” His voice held disbelief, and her gaze darted up to meet his confused expression.
She shifted her attention back down to her hand as she deliberately brushed over his chest to almost knead it, flicking one of his nipples along the way. Both his hands twitched, like they wanted to turn into fists.
“I thought it was safe and that you’d rounded up all the traders.” She gave a shrug, bringing her hand back over the sensitive little point to see his hands clench. “Didn’t mean to disregard it.”
Her hand started trailing over the scar that ran down his side and over his hip. It brought her touch dangerously low on his stomach. She even fingered one of the deep V lines that ran diagonally down his hips.
“You’re giving me ideas here, Rosetta.” Her eyes darted back up to his face to see him searching hers. He didn’t often call her by her name, but it made the corners of her lips curl upwards every time. “Not really in a magnanimous mood at the moment.”
When she looked down, she could see the bulge of something slowly growing in his breeches.
“I guess you were trying to save my life.”
She brought both her hands to the waistband of his pants and scratched her nails up his hips lightly. His stomach dipped, clenching, and that bulge suddenly got bigger.
“And I am already on my knees.” She placed her hands on the buttons of his breeches, then paused when her gaze found his wound. “Are you alright?”
“Oh, aye,” he said with a hint of humour, the anger in his eye fading into something much more dangerous. “It’ll fix me right up. Call it an addition to your healing penance.”
Rosetta raised up on her knees to press her lips to his stomach while her hands worked on undoing the buttons holding his breeches closed.
Her body reacted swiftly to her own actions as she stroked across one of his scars with her tongue. She brought it over his nipple like she had with her fingers and the exhale he gave made her belly clench low with a shuddering flip of desire.
She was growing more excited by the minute at the idea of touching him. She’d given herself an excuse to do so, to give him a reward for protecting her, like she’d needed something to convince herself she could.
Just as she was about to dip her hand inside his breeches and pull out what she had wanted to taste for so long, there was a knock at the door.
Both their heads turned.
“Alister,” Pierre said from the other side, the handle of the door starting to turn. “Are you alright? Heard you were–”
Alister shot forward and grabbed the empty bottle to throw it at the door that was slowly beginning to open. She was thankful the widening gap faced away from them.
Glass shattered across it, and it suddenly shut.
He turned his head back to her. “You were saying?”
She stifled the urge to giggle and slipped her hand inside. She gave his hardened shaft a stroke as she freed it, making it jut up from between his hips.
Her blood heated as she stared, licking at her lips.
She didn’t know where she wanted to start.
Everywhere seemed to call for attention.
The pink, broad head with the little slit at the top and its flared rim.
The two thick veins on either side of it.
Even the ridge underneath seemed to beg for her to cup it with her tongue.
“You look hungry there, lass.”
She was. She was giddy at the prospect of what she could do to him.
She cupped the side of his cock, barely able to fit her hand around it, as she leaned in to press her lips to the other side. She kissed it, rubbing her lips over it as she travelled from the base all the way to the rim of his cockhead before going back down the other side.
Using his fingers to comb through her hair, he grabbed a fistful as she pressed featherlight kisses sporadically over him. Only when he let out another deep sigh, his cock pulsating in her palm, did she swipe her tongue across the tip. Then she gloved it with her mouth, sucking firmly on the head.
She twirled her tongue around it at the same time, and his head fell back against the chair. She met his gaze with her own and curled her lips up into a smile at his expression of bliss.
She slid her mouth down further, and his nose crinkled as he groaned.
When the tip of his cock pressed against the back of her throat, she drew up, only to push back down. Every time she brought her mouth away, she cupped her tongue underneath the length and slipped it forward as she pushed on.
She was slow at first, but the faster she went, the harder his hand gripped the armrest of the chair. His other hand fisted her hair tighter, pulling harder on the strands, and his abdomen dipped whenever she hit a particularly sensitive spot.
Placing her arms on his lap for better purchase, she stroked the base of him as she moved her mouth. His hips started to twitch, almost as though he was absentmindedly thrusting them. Rosetta got her first hint of salt.
When she did, she pulled away to trail her tongue over him, letting her teeth catch on the head to add a different sensation. He let out a puff of breath – almost like a pent-up sigh – as she took her mouth away, like he’d needed a moment of relief.
“Fuck, Rosetta. Were you a whore before you were a pirate?” he asked, then she halted whatever else he intended to say by dragging her tongue over one side of his sac.
She took his words for what they were, a compliment, and brought one of those little orbs into her mouth to suckle on it.
Watching this masculine, arrogant man shudder, his muscles jerking, made her grin up at him.
Ho! Ho! I’m really enjoying this.
She moved onto the other, rolling her tongue this time to feel it move, and he bounced his leg like he couldn’t stop it from quaking.
She started to stroke him as she flicked her tongue back and forth, and his face crinkled up into a furrow like she was torturing him... but she knew he was loving it.
Without warning, he pulled on her hair to release his sac from her tight suction, so she trailed kisses back up the side of his thick, throbbing shaft instead. It was hot to the touch and so engorged; no doubt it ached terribly. She could feel it pounding in her palm with deep pumps of his heart.
“You know,” she said between kisses with a hint of humour in her voice, making sure to look up at him. “You’re pretty sensitive.”
“Oh, aye. That might be because you’re playing with my cock.” He made it seem like what she was doing was different from what he was used to.