Chapter 16 #2
“No way!” The blond man laughed, leaning his body away from her. “I don’t think my toes have healed from the last time we danced.”
“I promise I’ve improved since then.” Her face held innocence behind that smile of mischief.
When Alister saw Pierre was still going to deny her, he slapped the man on the back so he’d fall forwards off the barrel. That gave her the opportunity to drag him through his protests to the middle of the deck.
“Better you than me, lad!” Alister shouted when Pierre turned his head around to scowl at him.
Pierre was hesitant at first, trying to keep her at arm’s length. When he finally realised she didn’t intend to hurt him for once, his face grew into a beaming grin. Out of everyone she’d danced with, Pierre held the most skill, and he was finally able to show it off.
The man had danced with many women to woo them into letting him up their skirts... for free.
Alister would have been bothered by how closely they were dancing, but he knew Rosetta would never allow him to touch her. Pierre also wouldn’t disobey his order. He liked to push the boundaries just to nettle Alister, but he knew it was all in jest.
By the time Alister was three quarters of the way through his newest bottle, he could feel his body swaying a little more. Too many more and he feared he wouldn’t be able to stand.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been like this at sea.
Since rum did little to alter his state, it was odd to feel the boat rock under his feet and not feel steady like he usually did. He thought the barrel he was leaning against was the only thing helping to keep him upright.
Just as he considered finding a place to sit, looking around for what was available and what would be comfortable, he felt someone lifting his hand with the bottle in it.
He turned his gaze forward once more to find Rosetta pulling him. Shaking his head, he pulled his arm back. “Dance with the men, lass.”
“But I’ve never danced with you before.”
She grabbed his wrist this time and started to tug heavily.
“Aye, that’s because I don’t.” Despite his protests, she managed to wrangle him to his drunken feet and pull him a few steps. He dug his heels in. “Nay, Rosetta.”
Seeing he wasn’t going to go much further, she lifted his arm for him and twirled underneath it. His elevated mood soured instantly.
“You don’t have to do anything, then,” she purred, before twirling the other way.
He grabbed her forearm and pulled her closer to his chest to yell directly at her. “I said nay!”
There was a rough break in the music and a partial silence of chatter from the loud, growling sound of his shout.
Alister didn’t dance. He wouldn’t jump around like a foolish monkey on the deck of a ship. He enjoyed watching his men do it, but he refused to participate.
He expected her smile to fall; instead, it deepened from something that had been humorous to an expression almost sweet.
She allowed him to grab her the way he did since he wasn’t hurting her. “Didn’t you like the chocolate?”
It took him longer than it should have to realise why she was asking him. I did. He sighed in defeat. She was asking him to trust her, and Rosetta rarely asked him for that.
“Fine, lass. Do what you want.” If she wanted to dance with him while he stood here doing nothing because he wouldn’t participate, then so be it.
With a nod, she took his near-empty bottle from him and passed it to Naeem. She received a full one in return and gave it to him.
Where do they keep getting these from? Why did Alister keep getting them?
Deciding he didn’t care, he chugged a small amount while she used his other arm to dance. She twirled underneath it with a giggle. The sound lessened his annoyance.
She spun out and then used her momentum to curl his arm around herself when she spun back in. When her shoulder was against his chest, she reached up and kissed his cheek.
His brows shot up in surprise.
She started moving around him and he felt one of her hands dip into the side of his doublet to slip underneath his tunic, caressing up the side of his torso directly against his skin. It slipped over his lower back, making it straighten in reaction, before her hand fell away.
“Have you been having a good night?” she asked quietly when she came back around to the front of him. She grabbed his hand while placing her other around his neck.
She stepped side to side, but she scraped her nails through his hair from his neck to halfway up his scalp before his bun got in the way.
His body’s reaction to her nails was intense.
One of his feet stepped back as a wave of goosebumps prickled down the side of his body and made his legs go embarrassingly weak.
“Aye.” He shuddered when she did it again, and he had to right his footing once more. “Had been.”
She brought her hand from his neck to run it down his chest, brushing over one of his nipples in the process. She placed her hand on his side and made him spin in a circle with her.
He would have stopped her if she hadn’t slipped her hand under his tunic. Most of her actions were covered by his doublet, so no one seemed to notice what she was doing. No one saw the sensual way she was touching him, stroking him.
“How about now?”
She’s playing with me. She hadn’t just invited him to dance; she wanted to flirt with him openly, almost secretly, while surrounded by their men on the deck with them. She wanted to fucking tease him, and it was working.
She let him go so she could grab his hand and twirl underneath it again before bringing herself closer. The way she looked up at him, how her lips pouted into a teasing smile before she licked at them, caught his attention completely.
“Lass...” he warned.
What he was warning her of, he wasn’t quite sure.
I’m too drunk for this. She’d handed him bottle after bottle and now she was playing with him. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He knew what he wanted to do, but he didn’t often draw attention to them like this in front of the men.
She rarely did, so why was she doing it now?
It didn’t matter when they were in port; the men could get their own women. Here, they couldn’t; they were stuck with each other.
It was getting late into the night, and he’d already been thinking about grabbing her, but hadn’t wanted to impose on her obvious fun. He didn’t want to misread the signals she was giving him, but that was impossible to do in his current mental state.
Watching her dance. Watching her occasionally grab a piece of food to eat and then sucking on her fingers to rid them of the juice, her sight occasionally falling to him to give a warm smile. All of it was tantalising to him.
What is it that draws me to her? Why couldn’t he get this seductive little devil out of his mind?
It often felt like she’d somehow burrowed something beneath his skin that made him feel tight with tension whenever she looked at him. Spoke to him. Touched him.
The worst part was that none of it needed to be suggestive.
When it was, when she was purposefully toying with him, it got Alister so twisted inside his mind, he could barely stay in control.
“Yes?” she answered oh so sweetly, right before she placed her hand between them and cupped his sac. She rubbed her hand up his hardening shaft, like she knew she’d been giving him an erection.
A groan fell from him before he grabbed her by the nape of her neck and pulled her in.
Fuck. Something inside him fizzled when he crashed his lips against hers, quickly bringing his tongue forward when she accepted the kiss. He licked across her tongue, needing to taste her as a deep expire fell from him.
She’s got my sail ropes in knots.
He kissed her hard, holding onto her so she couldn’t escape, even though he could feel her lips moving over his just as eagerly. He could taste alcohol from his own mouth, he could taste food from hers, but most importantly, he could taste Rosetta’s feminine sweetness.
Her hair was tangled around his splayed fingers, and he refused to let go of her head as he tried to deepen the kiss by pulling her further in.
He hadn’t realised his eyes had closed under a heavy frown until they suddenly opened when he heard her giggling. Someone, most likely Pierre or Naeem, whistled at them.
Heat prickled the back of his neck, and he broke the kiss, his eyes falling over everyone watching them. Most wore grins and didn’t seem to mind. They were either all too drunk or too happy with their payday to be bothered this night.
He evaded their mirthful gazes by taking a swig of his drink in embarrassment. It turned into him chugging his drink when he felt Rosetta’s fingertips pushing the bottle up to make him finish it.
“Screw this,” he said when he was done, before carelessly trying to throw it into the ocean.
It smashed against the railing instead, making glass shatter into the water. Then he grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and carted her towards his sleeping quarters.
Laughter rang out while hands clapped and fists bashed on the railing or barrels.
“Enjoy yourselves; you deserve it after today!” Pierre threw at them.
“Shut the hell up!” he barked back, before chuckling when he heard her laughing as she swung behind his back.
He had to hold onto the railing connected to the stairs, since his legs felt heavier than they did a second go. He was thankful he did when he almost dropped them both.
He shook his head, trying to clear his hazy mind before stumbling his way to his cabin.
He slammed the door closed behind him and walked over to his bed to toss her down onto it before he actually dropped her. She let out a squeak when she bounced.
He gave a confused grin. “Where’d you get that, lass?”
She had somehow managed to grab another bottle, this one full with a cork in it.
“I think Naeem thought we’d need it.”
She let it fall against the bed so she could reach up and drag him from his feet to kneel above her. The delighted and warm smile she gave him made his mind ache as she brought him closer.