Chapter 5: Morning's Reckoning
The first thing she felt was warmth. A deep, solid heat along her back and legs. The second was weight—a heavy arm draped possessively over her waist, the calloused palm splayed flat against her stomach. Isolde’s eyes flew open.
Dawn had broken, filling the captain’s quarters with a pale, watery light. It streamed through the row of portholes, etching lines of gold across the rumpled wool blanket and the dark wood of the four-poster bed. She was still in his bed. She was curled against him, her spine fitted to the hard wall of his chest, her head tucked under his chin. In sleep, his hold was absolute.
The memory of the storm, of her own terrified flight to his room, crashed back with a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the shared blanket. She had asked for safety. He had given it, along with a promise that now felt like a coiled spring in the quiet room.
She had to get out.
Moving with excruciating slowness, she tried to ease his arm from her waist. His fingers twitched, curling slightly into the linen of her shift. She froze, her breath held. His breathing remained deep and even. She tried again, lifting his wrist with both hands. It was like trying to move an iron bar. She managed to shift it a few inches before his arm suddenly tightened, pulling her back flush against him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was a sleep-roughened murmur against her hair. He wasn’t fully awake, but his grip was deliberate.
“To my own room,” she whispered, staring straight ahead at the velvet bed curtain. “You’re awake. The storm is over. The… arrangement is concluded.”
“Is it?” He nuzzled the nape of her neck, and a violent shiver racked her. “I didn’t hear a thank you.”
“Thank you,” she said, the words brittle.
“Not good enough.” He shifted, rolling onto his back and taking her with him, so she was half-draped across his chest. She pushed against him, but he simply locked his arms around her, holding her in place. The morning light was stronger now, illuminating the stubble on his jaw, the relaxed, predatory ease in his eyes as he looked up at her. “I kept my promise. I was a perfect gentleman. Well, relatively. That deserves a reward.”
“A reward?” she spat, the fear morphing into a sharper, more familiar anger. “I am not a prize to be paid out for your basic decency!”
“Basic decency is throwing you a dry blanket and leaving you to shiver alone. This,” he said, his hands sliding up her back, “was charity. My charity. And I want a taste of it back.”
His meaning was clear. The air between them crackled, charged with the unspoken words from the night before, with the memory of his kiss, his hands, his promise that she would beg. This was a skirmish in that same, terrible war.
“Let me go,” she said, her voice low.
“No.”
She struggled in earnest then, a frantic, uncoordinated push and heave. It was useless. He was too strong, the bedding tangled around her legs. Her efforts only made her more aware of the hard muscles of his chest and stomach beneath her, of the disturbing heat building between them. Finally, breathless, she went still, her hair a tangled curtain around her furious face.
“What do you want?” The question was a surrender, and they both knew it.
A slow, dangerous smile touched his mouth. “I want you to stop fighting me for five minutes. I want you to admit you’re glad you came in here last night.”
“I will not.”
“Then we can lie here all day.” He shrugged, the movement shifting her against him. “I’ve got nowhere else to be. Do you?”
She glared at him. The sounds of the waking ship filtered down—shouts, footsteps, the creak of ropes. Soon, someone would come looking for him. The thought of being found like this, tangled in the pirate captain’s bed, was a new kind of terror. Her social ruin would be absolute, irrevocable.
“Please,” she said, the word ash in her mouth.
“Please what?” He pushed, his eyes glinting.
“Please let me up.”
“Wrong answer.” His hands came up to frame her face. His thumbs brushed her cheekbones. The tenderness of the gesture was a lie; his gaze was uncompromising. “Tell me you were glad for the warmth. For the safety. It’s just a truth, Isolde. Tell the truth.”
She wanted to refuse. Her pride screamed for it. But her pride was currently pinned under a pirate. The practical, survivalist part of her mind, the part that had learned to navigate court politics, took over. It was just a truth. A small, pathetic truth. What did it cost her?
She closed her eyes, unable to bear his searching look. “I was glad,” she whispered. “I was cold. I was scared. I was glad not to be alone.”
There. It was out. A humiliating confession.
For a long moment, he said nothing. She could feel the steady thump of his heart under her ear. When he spoke, the mocking edge was gone, replaced by something quieter, more unsettling. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
His hands slid from her face, down her arms, coming to rest at her waist. He didn’t let her go, but his hold changed. It was less a restraint, more an embrace. “Now for my reward.”
Before she could react, he rolled again, reversing their positions in one smooth motion. Now she was on her back, looking up at him as he braced himself above her, caging her in. The dawn light haloed his dark hair. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird.
“You said you wouldn’t—”
“I said I wouldn’t be the first to cross the line,” he interrupted, his voice a low hum. “I’m not crossing it. I’m just… walking right up to the edge.” He lowered his head, his lips a breath from hers. “This is the reward. You stay still. You let me have this. And then you can go.”
Every instinct told her to turn her head, to knee him, to scream. But the scream would bring the crew. Turning her head would be a denial of the deal she’d just implicitly made. She was trapped, not just by his body, but by her own admission, by the brutal economy of favors he’d established.
She stared up into his blue eyes, seeing her own reflection—wide-eyed, flushed, defeated. She gave the smallest, barely perceptible nod.
His kiss was different than the night before. It wasn’t a claiming of storm-wrought passion. It was deliberate. A slow, thorough exploration. His mouth moved over hers with a devastating patience, coaxing, tasting. He didn’t force her lips apart; he waited until, with a soft, involuntary sigh, she relented. Then he deepened the kiss, and the world narrowed to the slick heat of his tongue, the scrape of his beard, the solid, overwhelming reality of him.
A hand came up to cradle the side of her neck, his thumb stroking her jawline, holding her gently in place. The other remained planted beside her head. He was keeping his word. He was letting her have the illusion of choice, even as he stole the breath from her lungs.
And God, it was stealing. He was taking something, and she was letting him. A strange, heavy lassitude spread through her limbs. The fight was gone, burned away by a spreading warmth that pooled low in her belly. Her hands, which had been clenched at her sides, uncurled. One of them fluttered up, coming to rest uncertainly on his shoulder. The muscle there was hard as rock under his shirt.
He made a sound of approval, a low vibration in his throat, and the kiss softened, became almost sweet. It was the most confusing part of all. When he finally broke away, they were both breathing unevenly. He rested his forehead against hers, his eyes closed.
For a few heartbeats, there was just the sound of their shared air, the distant cry of a gull.
“Your reward is collected,” he said hoarsely, pushing himself off her. He sat up on the edge of the bed, his back to her, running a hand through his hair.
The sudden absence of his weight and heat was a shock. She felt cold, exposed. She scrambled back, pulling the blanket up to her chin like a shield, her lips still tingling.
He stood, not looking at her, and walked to the washbasin. He splashed water on his face, the droplets catching the light. “You should go,” he said, his voice now flat, controlled. “Before the watch changes.”
It was a dismissal. She slid from the bed, her legs unsteady. She glanced at the door to her ravaged cabin, then back at his broad, tense back. A tumult of emotions choked her—shame, anger, a bewildering thread of loss.
She fled without a word. The latch of her own door clicked behind her, a feeble barrier. She leaned against it, sliding down to the floor, her fingers pressed to her swollen mouth.
In his room, Rhys stared at his reflection in the small, spotted mirror. He looked exactly the same. But he felt scraped raw. He could still taste her, feel the rapid flutter of her pulse under his thumb. She’d kissed him back. At the end, she’d definitely kissed him back.
He swore, violently, and drove his fist into the bulkhead. The pain was clean, simple, and clarifying. It didn’t help. The promise he’d made echoed in his skull, a self-inflicted torture.
Not until you beg for it.
He was starting to fear it was a promise he couldn’t keep.