Chapter 10: Rum and Wounds
The door clicked shut, a sound louder than any cannon report in the dense silence of the cabin. Sera leaned against the heavy wood, the last of her bravado seeping away, leaving her knees feeling unsteady. The room was warm, thick with the day’s retained heat and the familiar scents of aged paper, oak, and him.
Drake stood by his desk, his back to her, staring at a chart as if it held the secrets of the universe. The lamplight played over the tension in his shoulders, the cords of his neck. Without his coat, his linen shirt was stuck to his skin in patches, dirty and torn from the fight. A dark, angry stain of fresh blood had seeped through the fabric around his left forearm.
He didn’t turn. “You should get some rest,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “It’s been a long day.”
“Your arm is bleeding again.”
“It’s fine.”
“You’re ruining a perfectly good shirt.” She pushed off from the door, moving to the small washstand. She poured water from the pitcher into the basin, the splash obscenely loud. She found a clean cloth, the same type she’d torn from her petticoat hours before. “Take it off.”
This time, he turned. His face was shadowed, unreadable. “I don’t need a nursemaid, Moreau.”
“You need someone who can stitch a straight line. My work is coming undone. Unless you’d prefer Reaver to do it? I hear his sewing resembles a starfish crime scene.”
A faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of his mouth. He held her gaze for a long moment, a silent battle of wills in the flickering light. Then, with a resigned exhale, he reached for the hem of his shirt. He pulled it over his head in one swift, wincing motion, the fabric catching briefly on the bandage before he tossed it aside.
The sight was still a physical shock. The man was a map of hard living, of violence survived. Old scars silvered his tanned skin across his ribs, his back. The new wound on his forearm was an angry red line, the neat stitches she’d placed now skewed, weeping blood where he’d clearly aggravated it. But it wasn't the scars that held her attention. It was the sheer, unadorned reality of him, the powerful breadth of his chest, the defined planes of his stomach. The convent’s teachings on modesty evaporated like mist.
He walked to a cabinet, pulled out a bottle of dark rum, and uncorked it with his teeth. Before she could protest, he upended it over the wound, letting the liquor cascade down his arm. He hissed, his whole body going rigid.
“What are you doing?” She was across the room, snatching the bottle from his hand. The smell of strong alcohol bloomed between them.
“Cleaning it.” His jaw was tight, pain etching lines around his eyes. “You’ve done enough stitching for one day, little nun. I can handle the rest.”
“By poisoning it? This isn’t a tavern brawl, it’s a clean incision. That’s just pain for the sake of it.” Her voice was sharper than she intended, laced with a frustration she couldn’t name. “Sit. Down.”
He stared at her, a challenge in his storm-grey eye. The raw, rum-slick skin of his forearm glistened. She didn’t back down, clutching the bottle like a weapon. The air crackled, charged with the memory of her cutlass in her hand, his body moving in tandem with hers.
Slowly, deliberately, he sank into the chair by his desk. A concession. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.
She set the rum aside, dipped the clean cloth in the fresh water, and approached him. Closer now. The heat from his body was immense, a forge radiating in the close quarters. She could see the individual beads of sweat tracking through the dust and blood on his chest, the steady, powerful beat of his heart under his sternum. She focused on the wound, gently dabbing away the rum and blood. Her fingers trembled slightly.
“You were incredible today.” The words were quiet, grudging.
“Brother Marcus would be proud. Or horrified. I’m not sure which.”
“I’m sure the sisters would vote for horrified.”
A small, genuine laugh escaped her. “Sister Agatha would have caned them all for tracking mud into her cloister, then caned me for encouraging them.”
He watched her work, her head bent in concentration. “Why didn’t you tell me? About the training?”
She shrugged, not looking up. “It never came up. ‘Pleased to meet you, Captain, I navigate and I fence.’ It didn’t seem relevant to being a hostage.”
“It’s relevant to being alive,” he said, his voice dropping. “You saved your own life today. Maybe mine.”
Her fingers stilled. She finally met his gaze. “You were handling yourself.”
“I was distracted.” The admission hung there, stark and honest. He hadn’t been worried about himself. The realization landed in her stomach, warm and heavy.
She looked back at the wound, her pulse thrumming in her ears. She began re-stitching, her movements precise, pulling the skin taut. He didn’t flinch this time. The only sound was their breathing and the distant creak of the ship.
“The man on the beach,” she said, needing to shatter the intimacy. “The one you were meeting. He set the ambush?”
“No. Someone else knew we were coming. His rivals, likely. Or someone who doesn’t want me hearing what he has to say.” His gaze was distant, calculating. “The information is about my brother.”
She remembered the name from the drunk Spanish officer’s ramblings weeks ago. Elias. She simply nodded, tying off the new suture. Her hand lingered on his arm, just below the fresh bandage she was preparing. The contrast was mesmerizing: her skin, pale and soft against the sun-darkened, weathered toughness of his. A landscape she had no chart for.
His free hand came up, his fingers not quite touching the loose tendrils of hair at her temple. “You have sand,” he murmured, his voice rough. “In your hair. From the beach.”
She couldn’t move. His touch was a phantom sensation, a breath away. The cabin walls seemed to press inward. All the unspoken things—the shared violence, the protective fury, the unbearable closeness night after night—converged into a single, unbearable point of tension.
Her eyes snapped back to his, challenging, mirroring the same defiance she’d seen on the longboat. A silent question. A dare.
He moved.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a surge of pent-up energy, a decision made in the space between heartbeats. His hands closed around her waist, and he lifted her from the floor as if she weighed nothing. Her gasp was swallowed by the momentum as he turned and pressed her back against the cabin wall, the solid oak firm against her spine. Her feet dangled, then found purchase on the arms of the chair he’d just vacated, putting her nearly level with him.
His body slotted against hers, one hand still a brand on her waist, the other bracing against the wall beside her head. The heat of him was everywhere, pressed between her legs, a shocking, undeniable intimacy. The rough fabric of his breeches, the hard muscle of his thighs, the solid heat of his chest barely an inch from hers.
She should have been frightened. She was anything but. A wild, reckless adrenaline sang in her veins, the same that had guided her sword hand. Her hands came up, not to push him away, but to grip his bare shoulders, her fingers digging into the hard muscle. Her emerald eyes locked onto his stormy grey one, both wide, both blazing with the same furious, hungry recognition. Neither blinked. Neither would yield first.
The world narrowed to the map of his face: the scar, the silver streaks in his black hair, the lines of sun and wind, the fierce, uncompromising intensity of his gaze. The scent of him—rum, salt, sweat, and pure male heat—filled her lungs.
“This,” he growled, his voice raw, “is a very bad idea.”
“The worst,” she breathed, her own voice unfamiliar to her.
It was all the consent either needed.
The last thread of resistance snapped.
He closed the final distance, his mouth capturing hers. It wasn’t a kiss from storybooks. It was a collision, a claiming, a release of every loaded glance and every guarded touch since the moment he’d pulled her from the sea. It was heat and demand and a shocking, velvet-rough sweetness beneath the urgency. His beard scraped her chin, a delicious friction. She kissed him back with equal fervor, a feral thing unlocking inside her, all her sheltered life and devout training burning away in this single, searing point of contact.
One of his hands tangled in her hair, unraveling the remains of her braid. The other slid from her waist, down the curve of her hip, pulling her tighter against him, erasing any last pretense of separation. A low sound vibrated from his chest into hers.
She arched into him, her hands sliding from his shoulders to spear through the thick hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to her. The careful world of scripture and rule, of safe service and invisible virtue, shattered into irredeemable fragments. This was sin, glorious and consuming, and she welcomed its flames.
He broke the kiss, breathing ragged, his forehead resting against hers. His eye was dark, pupils blown wide. “Sera,” he whispered, her name a prayer and a curse on his lips.
Then he was kissing her again, deeper, slower, a tasting exploration that made her knees dissolve. He walked them backward, away from the wall, until the backs of her legs hit the edge of the grand four-poster bed. He tumbled with her onto the velvet cover, a tangle of limbs and desperate hands, the world reduced to the dim lamp, the groaning ship, and the astonishing feel of his skin under her searching palms.
Outside, the watch called the hour, a distant, mournful sound in the vast dark. The sea flowed on, indifferent. But within the wooden hull, in the captain’s quarters, a new and treacherous current had been unleashed, one that would navigate them into waters far more dangerous than any storm.
But within the wooden hull, in the captain’s quarters, a new and treacherous current had been unleashed, one that would navigate them into waters far more dangerous than any storm. His mouth was a heated brand trailing from her lips to the frantic pulse at her throat, each open-mouthed kiss a promise of ruin. Sera gasped, her head pressing back into the velvet, her fingers clutching at the scars on his back as if they were lifelines in a surging sea.
Her dress, already stained with the day’s violence, was an intolerable barrier. He dragged the coarse fabric up her legs, his calloused palms rasping over her thighs, and she lifted her hips in a mute, desperate plea to help him. “Off,” he growled against her collarbone, the word more vibration than sound. She fumbled with the laces at her bodice, her usual dexterity gone, until he shoved her trembling hands aside and ripped the garment open with a sharp tear of fabric.
The night air kissed her bare skin, raising gooseflesh. He stared down at her, his breathing harsh, his gaze devouring the sight of her breasts rising fast, the pale, untouched expanse of her stomach, the thatch of auburn curls at the junction of her thighs. “God. Fuck,” he whispered, the oath reverent. He palmed her breast, his thumb rough over her nipple, and she cried out, arching into the touch.
“Drake.” His name was the only prayer left in her.
“Tell me to stop.” His voice was strained, a fraying wire. He lowered himself, the hard, hot length of his cock pressing against her inner thigh through his breeches. The evidence of his want was terrifying, thrilling. He was giving her this one last exit, this shred of chivalry he probably didn’t possess.
She answered by hooking her leg around his hip, pulling him closer, grinding herself against that demanding ridge. Her green eyes were dark, fearless. “Don’t you dare.”
A savage sound escaped him. He kicked his breeches down, freeing himself. He was thick and heavy, ruddy and straining, and a primal flicker of fear darted through her. He saw it. He stilled, his hand coming to cradle her face. “Look at me.” She did. “It’ll hurt,” he said, no gentleness, just fact. “Then it won’t.”
She nodded, gripping his shoulders, bracing. He kissed her again, deep and drugging, as he positioned himself. The broad head of his cock nudged at her entrance, slick with her own unexpected wetness. He pushed forward, a slow, inexorable invasion. The stretch was immense, a burning, tearing pressure that made her eyes water. She gasped into his mouth.
He froze, buried just past the threshold, his entire body trembling with the effort of holding still. “Sera.” Her name was a question, a check-in. She could feel the thin barrier give way, a sharp, bright pinch swallowed by the overwhelming feeling of being filled. She nodded again, a sharp jerk of her chin, and dragged her nails down his back.
That was all he needed. He began to move, shallow, careful thrusts, letting her body adjust to the invasion. The burning receded, replaced by a deep, stretching fullness that felt less like violation and more like a claiming she had authored. A choked sound, part sob, part moan, escaped her. He swallowed it, his tongue tangling with hers.
Then her hips lifted, meeting his next tentative stroke. A shockwave of sensation, strange and brilliant, erupted from her core. She did it again, seeking that feeling.
He broke. “That’s it,” he rasped, his control evaporating. He drove into her fully, a deep, punishing stroke that shoved her up the bed. She cried out, but it was not in pain. The feeling was everywhere, the slap of their skin, the creak of the bed, the rough growl in his ear as he muttered filthy things. “Take it. Take all of me, you fierce, perfect thing.”
His pace became relentless, each thrust hitting a spot inside her that sparked lightning. Her innocent body learned greedily, her knees falling wider, her heels digging into the backs of his thighs to pull him deeper. The coiling tension she’d felt since the beach, since the fight, since his first smirk, was tightening impossibly in her belly. She was sobbing his name now, a mantra against his sweat-slicked shoulder.
He shifted, reaching between them, his thumb finding the swollen bud of her clit. He rubbed rough, perfect circles. The world fractured. Her climax tore through her with a silent, seismic violence, her inner muscles clamping around him in rhythmic pulses that milked a raw, shouted curse from his throat. He pistoned into her twice more, deep and final, and she felt the hot rush of his release filling her.
He collapsed atop her, his weight a solid comfort. Their hearts hammered against each other, a frantic, slowing drumbeat. He rolled to his side, taking her with him, still joined, not willing to sever the connection. He pressed a kiss, startling in its softness, to her sweaty temple. Neither spoke. The lamp guttered out, plunging them into a darkness fragrant with sex and salt. Exhaustion, profound and absolute, pulled them under.
Dawn painted the stern windows in hues of pearl and rose when she awoke. She was alone in the tangle of sheets, her body a canvas of delicious, aching reminders. She stirred, wincing at the soreness between her legs. The scent of warm water and lavender cut through the cabin’s musk.
Drake stood by a large copper tub that hadn’t been there before, steam curling around his bare torso. He’d shaved. The sharp line of his jaw was clean, the silver in his hair more pronounced against the damp. “Get in,” he said, his voice morning-rough. “It’ll help.”
He helped her from the bed, his hands impersonal, practical. She stepped into the blissfully hot water, sinking down with a sigh. He knelt beside the tub, took a soft cloth, and soaked it. “Here,” he murmured, his gaze averted. He pressed the warm, wet linen between her legs, a gentle, medicinal gesture meant to soothe the tender flesh.
The sensation was not medicinal. The heat, the pressure, the memory of what that part of her had done and felt just hours before, ignited a fresh, shocking wave of want. A low moan escaped her. His eyes snapped to hers. The practical detachment in them evaporated, replaced by a hungry recognition.
She saw the moment he understood. His gaze darkened. Without a word, she turned in the water, presenting her back to him, bracing her hands on the copper rim. An invitation as clear as any words. A challenge.
“Sera,” he warned, but his hands were already on her hips, slick from the water.
“You owe me a debt,” she whispered, looking back over her shoulder, her hair sticking to her wet shoulders. “Collect it.”
He made a sound like he’d been punched. He was inside her in one smooth, practiced push from behind, the water sloshing violently over the sides. The fullness was immediate, easier now, a breathtaking possession. He groaned, his forehead dropping between her shoulder blades. “Christ.”
His hands slid around her, one cupping her breast, rolling her nipple, the other slipping down through her curls to find her clit. He worked her with knowing fingers, his thrusts in the water a slow, deep, mesmerizing rhythm. “Is this what you wanted?” he breathed into her ear, his voice wrecked. “My hands on you? My cock in you?”
“Yes.” The word was a hiss. Her body was a instrument he played with devastating expertise, each stroke building on the echoes of the night before. Her innocent, newly-taken flesh clenched around him, learning the cadence of this joining, riding the rhythm he set. The pleasure was sharper, brighter, layered with the certainty of what was to come.
She came first, a shuddering, silent release that squeezed a ragged groan from him. He followed, his thrusts losing all finesse, becoming hard, desperate jerks as he spilled into her again, his teeth sinking into the muscle of her shoulder in a final, claiming bite.
They slumped together, leaning over the tub’s edge, panting. The water grew cool around them. He nuzzled the mark his teeth had left, his arms wrapped tightly around her. A profound, unsettling quiet settled in his mind, a harbor after a lifetime of tempests. He knew, with a certainty that chilled his blood, that this woman was going to be the death of him. And he found he no longer cared to sail away from it.