Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
A shiver raced down my spine as his knuckles dragged down my body, leaving a trail of heat in their wake.
How could such a simple touch unravel me?
I hated everything about him. His arrogance, the all consuming need for control, how he looked at me like I was already his to ruin.
Yet my body betrayed me. My godsdamned nipples tightened painfully under his gaze.
A slick ache built between my thighs that made my face burn with equal parts shame and defiance.
He thought he could intimidate me, bend me to his will like he did everyone else on this cursed ship. I was not some trembling maiden to be conquered.
Instead, I leaned into his touch, letting my bodice slip lower down my arms. “Is that all you’ve got, Captain?” I whispered. “You call me a beast, and yet you touch me like I might shatter.”
His eyes darkened, stormy with hunger and the restraint I was dying to see him lose. A low growl vibrated from his chest as his large hand cupped my breast, his thumb circling the aching peak. Pleasure sparked within me, sharp and bright, pulling a soft gasp from my lips.
Silas’s head dipped down to my neck, his breath hot against my skin as he murmured, “Oh, I will make you shatter, Beastie.” His teeth grazed that sensitive spot beneath my ear as his other hand slid down, gripping my hip hard enough to bruise, then lower, bunching the fabric of my underwear.
“Keep pushing and I’ll show you exactly what a filthy pirate does to a defiant little witch. ”
I should have pushed him away. I should have remembered I was here to find the Stella Mortis, not to let this monster set my blood aflame. But the challenge in his voice, the way his fingers teased the edge of my control, made something wild and reckless surge inside me.
Emboldened by whatever demon he awakened inside me, I reached between us and palmed the rigid length of him through his trousers, gasping at the way he felt in my hand.
“Then show me,” I breathed, stroking him with a boldness I’d never possessed before. “Or have you no bite?”
He cursed, low and filthy, and in one swift motion yanked my skirts higher.
Two thick fingers dragged through my slick folds, circling my entrance.
I gasped as he pressed one inside me, stretching, filling, curling against a spot that made my vision blur.
The fullness was overwhelming, foreign, and so good it terrified me.
The captain of the Mourning Star was fucking me with his fingers, and I wanted more.
“So wet,” he rasped, adding a second finger while his thumb rubbed tight circles around my clit. “Dripping for the monster who dragged you onto this ship. Tell me, Corynne… do you still think you can win this game?”
I rocked against his hand shamelessly, tightening my grip on his cock, the heat of him searing me through the fabric. Pleasure coiled tighter and threatened to pull me under.
“No one’s ever—I’ve never been touched like this,” I whimpered. “Silas!”
Everything stopped. His fingers stilled deep inside me, his body rigid against mine, his breath hot and ragged against my throat. For one endless heartbeat, I felt the thunder of his pulse where we touched.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
Silas withdrew slowly, almost gently, and stepped back.
The loss of him was immediate, and it took all I had not to reach out and pull him back against me so he could finish what he started.
The sudden emptiness left me aching and exposed, trembling on the blade’s edge.
He turned away with a savage curse, and I crossed my arms over my bare chest, mortification flooding in.
He raked his fingers through his hair, his taut shoulders flexing as he vibrated with barely leashed control.
“Put the shirt on, Corynne.” He tossed it to me from where it fell to the floor, but wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Humiliation burned hot in my cheeks. Anger was boiling close beneath it. I yanked the oversized linen over my head, the fabric swallowing me whole. It carried his warm, masculine scent with it and the throbbing between my legs worsened, which pissed me off even more.
“I didn’t ask you to stop,” I said quietly.
Silas whirled toward me, eyes wild and jaw locked tight, the prominent bulge in his trousers impossible to ignore. Yet he stayed rooted behind the other side of the desk like it was the only thing keeping him from me.
“You should have told me.”
“Told you what, exactly?” I spat, pulling the hem down over my knees, my anger doing a poor job of covering the hurt underneath it. “That I’d never let a man touch me before you threw me on a desk and decided to have at it?”
“That’s not—” He stopped, his jaw working. “I wouldn’t have—”
“Oh please, like I’m some unwilling damsel in distress. And you wouldn’t have what? Touched me? You seemed rather hell bent on doing so a moment ago.”
“I wouldn’t have gone that far. Not without knowing.”
“Oh, because you’ve got some sort of damned moral high ground now, eh? You can fuck a filthy whore, but not a virgin?” Or was he suddenly growing a conscience and couldn’t fuck someone he intended to murder?
“I didn’t fuck her,” he ground out.
He moved farther away, putting as much space between us as the cabin of his ship allowed, but I was no fool. I saw the way his gaze lingered on my flushed skin, on the way my thighs were still pressed together from the lingering ache.
His breathing was ragged and, just when I thought he would either scream or start throwing shit again, he wiped one hand down his face. “You can sleep in here tonight. I’ll send in the physician and we can begin our work again in a few days.”
“I don’t want—”
He turned and strode to the door.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me!”
“Goodnight,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Get back here—”
“Goodnight, Miss Godwin.” The captain of the Mourning Star didn’t look back as he walked through the door and shut it behind him.
The heavy click of the latch echoed in the space around me. I sat there, drowning in his shirt and in the ghost of his touch, aching in ways I’d never felt before.
He’d stopped, whether for me or for himself I’d never know, but the bastard had still managed to leave me burning.
The worst part? Some traitorous piece of me wanted him to come back and finish what we’d started.
I’d come aboard the Mourning Star afraid of the beast. Now, standing in the wreckage of his cabin, I was beginning to think the man was the more dangerous of the two.