Under Her Brass Corset (6 page)

“No, it’s working perfectly,” he yelled on his way back to rejoining her.

When the ship rose off the surface of the water and made her sway, she staggered into him.

“What’s going on?” She half turned, gripping his shirt to steady herself. “I’m seeing things that aren’t possible.”

“We’re flying.” He answered as if it were a natural occurrence with any sea vessel.

The hum and rattle and hiss of the sail’s steam engine accompanied the popping canvas sails bowing into a new position. Folded out like huge kites, the big wings swept them magically off the water and into the air.

“Oh my,” she gasped, looking over her shoulder at how far they rose above the ocean. “Dirigibles float like big balloons, but your ship actually sails on the wind.”

“It does help to have the augmentation of steam to push us up and propel us forward fast enough to glide on the air currents in the same fashion as birds do.”

Abigail glanced below at the spitting and sputtering apparatus. “What if it stops working? Do we fall from the sky?” Her life looked bleak, but she had no wish to die because of her foolish quest for a fortune.

“Like a rock,” he answered seriously.

At her uncontrolled small squeak, he grabbed her hands and held them tight to his chest. Amusement finally emerged from the depths of his blue eyes.

“A small jest,” he said, giving her a contrite smile.

“That wasn’t funny. Not amusing in the least.”

“I know, and I apologize. Forgive me?”

She nodded, not having the energy to be angry. A light-headed happiness also got in the way, and she blamed it on the liquor. After the amount she drank the night before, she should have known her body would not tolerate more in such a short time.

“The shape of the sails will hold us up,” he explained. “Now come, let me show you more of how it works.”

Something in his attitude had changed the moment she stopped treating him as a villain. His behavior became animated, his voice energetic.
A boy with his toys,
she thought.

He steered her to the ladder, and she waited while he went down several rungs and then jumped to the main deck. She started to descend backward. When she was halfway down, he grabbed her by the waist, lifted her off and lowered her to the deck as if she weighed no more than a feather. If that weren’t enough, he took her hand and hurried her across the length of the ship to the stern.

“See the steam?” In his exuberance, he squeezed her hand and continued holding it. “That’s modernization before your very eyes. Below is the boiler room. There is a furnace with a tank attached. It heats the water inside and turns it into steam. From there a series of things happen to condense the steam and vary the pressure within the engine. Then a cylinder housing a piston releases a condensed stream of the steam. Combined with the atmospheric pressure, the lever moves the piston up and down and turns the gears above, below and in so many directions, it’d be hard to list all the ways in which I use the harnessed power. You’ll just learn them over time.”

The captain’s face beamed with pride. His infectious smile spun her thoughts away from her sickness and sheer delight bubbled inside her. She tore her gaze from his profile to look over the side with him. Cloudy puffs of white moisture spurted from holes in the wall of the hull.

“It’s magnificent,” she sighed. “You’re a genius.”

There was no other way to describe his success. Nor did she want to explain why she let him keep holding her hand. All her distrust in him shifted into the least of her worries. Filled with a desire greater than she had ever experienced, she sought to indulge herself.

He released her hand, and she placed her palms on the front of his chest. She fondled the buckles on his shirt and curled her fingers beneath two. Seeking his mouth, she tugged his tall frame down to her.

“You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever known, Captain Blackthorn—creative beyond expectation. You fascinate me.”

“Is that so?” His breath came closer, heating her lips.

He cupped the side of her face, and she nestled her cheek into his caress. She had deeply regretted backing from the kiss they’d shared at her house. It was a mistake she wanted to rectify. This was her second chance. She pulled on him with resolve, ignoring his slight resistance.

“Yes,” she murmured, longing to know what it would feel like to be loved by him. “Yes, very much so.”

Jasper brushed a kiss against Abigail’s puckered lips. Her pleased hum drew him back for a longer kiss. He felt her right hand slide higher on his chest above his heart. A slight pressure of her fingertips made his skin bristle with goose bumps. Then her touch traveled over his shoulder and glided behind his head.

Life was hard enough before he had approached her on the street—before he had felt the sweetness of her kiss. After leaving her asleep in her parlor, he had given up the chance of another opportunity to taste her lips. Little did he know then that she had enough fortitude to come looking for something she thought was hers. The Crystal Compass, a onetime burden to conceal, had given him an unforeseen opening to experience the hungry passion in Abigail’s embrace.

“More,” she whimpered when their mouths parted.

“I’m not sure we should continue this.” He swept a loose curl out of her face and brushed the lock over her ear.

“Oh, I think we should, Captain.” She rose on her toes, stretching to kiss him again. Unable to reach, her mouth hit his chin.

“Abigail, you’ve had too much to drink. I’d be a cad to take advantage of that and I don’t want you to regret—”

“If you don’t kiss me, Captain, you shall be the one with regrets.” She stroked his cheek and traced a circle around his mouth. “You don’t strike me as a man who lets an important moment pass you by.”

“No, I don’t.” He cupped his hand against the back of her head. He pulled her to his mouth and devoured her breath. Tilting and turning his head, he sealed his lips to hers as if he had a lifetime to make up for. He plied her soft mouth with greed and excitement. Her tongue coiled around his as their licks moved as fervently as their hands. She raked her nails against his scalp. He rolled his palms around her back. It took much self-restraint for him not to tear her clothing away as she writhed against him with unspeakable eroticism.

Abigail was the first to draw back. “Captain, I need a bit of air.”

“In good time.” He leaned in and gently bit her bottom lip.

Then he kissed his way around her face, nuzzling his nose against hers. He held her close, enjoying the feel of her small frame expanding and contracting with each breath. He traveled across her cheek, along her jaw, beneath her chin and drew in a breath to capture the rosewater scent on her skin. The carved shell cameo pin sitting centered on her ruffled collar prevented him from nudging the fabric away to kiss lower.

“Don’t stop,” she murmured.

He licked her neck lightly and whispered in her ear. “You’re a wonderful delight, Abigail.”

Her humming approval encouraged him to continue. He sucked and nibbled her earlobe and teased her with flicks of his tongue along the rim.

“It tickles,” she squealed, turning her head and looking up at him.

Her gorgeous brown eyes twinkled as if someone had sprinkled stardust in them. He caressed her cheek with the back of his hand, loving the silky texture. Then he stroked beneath her chin. The ruffle on her blouse hid her neck. He slid his fingers over the fabric and touched the bare spot of her chest.

While under the effects of the liquor, she would not ask him to stop anything he did. He knew that, and he had to be her strength.

“Look at how blue the sky is.” He turned her away, and let her rest back against him, his arms around her waist.

“It’s so beautiful up here.” She ran her hands back and forth over his arms. “Do you think we can reach heaven?”

“I think what you want is well beyond the reach of this vessel.” He pressed a kiss to the side of her head.

She pushed his hands away and he reluctantly let go.

“My father is in heaven.” She stepped forward and leaned over the rail. “It would be nice to see him again.”

“You will, one day.” It made him sad to think of Abigail as anything but alive. She had such a vibrant personality. The world would be a sad place when she was gone.

“But not for a long time,” she continued, then hiccupped and lost her balance.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her back from falling over the side of the ship and plummeting to her death well before her time. Oblivious of the danger she was just rescued from, she tried to lean over the rail again.

Jasper stepped behind her, placing his hands on her hips for safety.

“I just know he’s reunited with my mother,” she said on a sigh, leaning back against him.

Until today, it was merely a theoretical position he had held since the day she was born. Now it was hands-on, just the way he had dreamed in more recent years. Her father, William, had jested that Jasper was her guardian angel, a definite stretch of the term by most people if given the knowledge of his pirating ways years ago.

“I’ve missed her,” she said. “But never so much as now, when I haven’t my father around to tell me about her.”

He could literally feel her thoughts. He hugged her closer, knowing there was nothing in the world that could lessen the pain of losing a loved one. He had his own share of grief. Many years had passed, and the ache still clung to his heart like a festering boil. Some days he was maddened by the memories of a life he no longer had. Other times, like now, when he had the illusion of forming a special bond with Abigail, barely a sliver of his past crossed his mind. If he thought for a minute that divulging the secret of his immortality would help her, he’d do it. But there wasn’t much about her mother, Elizabeth Thatch, that he knew. He had spoken to her so infrequently as Elizabeth had made herself scarce when he was around as if she should not be present when men talked.

“I don’t feel well.” Abigail burped.

He imagined if she hadn’t been drunk, she’d want to die from mortification by the unladylike sound.

“You should lie down.” He tried letting go, but she didn’t budge.

“I don’t want to miss this.” All her weight rested against him.

“We’ll spend many hours in the sky, don’t worry.” Jasper scooped her up.

Instantly she wrapped her arms around him. She gave a last glance at the sky and sighed. Then her attention swung to him.

“Will you kiss me again?” Her lips brushed his cheek.

“Maybe later.” He shivered slightly at the ticklish wiggle of her fingers twirling his hair.

“That’s such a long time away,” she groaned.

He moved cautiously, careful not to bump her into the doorways or walls as he carried her down to the lower level of the ship.

“Will you sleep with me?” Her finger glided around his ear and caught the hoop of his earring.

“I regret I can’t.” He nudged the door open to his cabin and carried her to the bed.

“Never?” She hiccupped as he laid her down on the bottom bunk.

“We’ll talk about the subject another time, when your thinking is clearer.”

“I’m thinking very clearly, Captain, sir. I have dozens of thoughts rampaging through my head, yet each one is as lucid and succinct as the next. I want you next to me, touching me everywhere like a plundering pirate. Then I want you to make me beg for the feel of you on top of me and in me. And if that’s not clear enough—” she lowered her voice to a whisper, “—I’ll give you instructions as to how we can both reach a state of—”

Jasper took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he thankfully watched Abigail drifting off to sleep midsentence. He didn’t know if he was going to survive another second of her intoxicated sauciness. She made him ache inside. Not that it was a new condition. The way the woman looked at him sometimes made him tense—hard all over.

“Get some rest.” He pushed her hair off her face. “In a few hours, you’ll feel much better.”

With her eyes still closed, she managed to capture his hand in hers. “Don’t leave me, Jasper.”

Like music to his ears, his name spoken by her rushed a thrill deep into his bones. However, it was the sadness in her tone that forced him to sit on the edge of the mattress. “Shush now, close your eyes and sleep.”

“I don’t want to be alone,” she murmured drowsily. “I hate being alone.”

He continued to slide his hand over her head, stroking along her temple, lulling her to sleep. Familiar with loneliness, Jasper took another deep, cleansing breath. Not something easily achieved. Abigail had made the feeling of isolation worse for him. Her presence weighed heavily on his thoughts. He’d let her dig up the treasure to satisfy her curiosity and then he’d return her home. In the end, he would be alone again. A fate he hated more every passing day.

Abigail’s grip eventually loosened and her hand slipped from his. She rolled on her side toward him and, half-asleep, attempted to get comfortable. No longer trapped to stay, he got up from the bed.

“I’ll land the ship and be back. All right?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.” Her sleepy moan told him she’d probably not notice his absence.

“Abigail?” he asked, testing her comprehension.

“Hmmm?”

“Abigail, are you awake?” He waited a few seconds, and then bent down and kissed the side of her head. “I promise you, Abby, you’ll never feel alone as long as you’re with me.”

Jasper straightened and watched Abigail snuggling against the pillow she hugged. He hadn’t realized how alone she’d been until then. But it made sense. Over the years, all he’d witnessed of her social life were coworkers at the museum or friends of her ex-fiancé, Randolph Humphries. With her parents dead, she
was
alone. He felt responsible, obligated to see to her happiness. Just how he’d go about doing that and keeping his distance from her was his biggest problem.

The loud whirring of an engine woke Abigail from a dead sleep. She sat up, startled and disoriented. The noise of rain in a tunnel came from the direction of the drain closet. She rubbed her eyes and stared at the spray of water hitting the opaque glass door of the tiny room. Someone moved about inside.

Her mind replayed what she remembered before she fell asleep. Unfortunately, her murky thought processes were slow, sorting and replaying memories. Then she had a flashback of the amazing sight of the endless horizon—the view from the clouds as she stood at the rail of the flying ship. But something wasn’t right. She heard running water. If they were flying, then they couldn’t take on water.

“Captain Blackthorn, are we sinking?” Abigail jumped off the bunk.

She froze at the sudden stop of the clanking machinery. A hiss of steam spurted from around a brass fitting. The mirror and all the glass windows fogged over.

“Bloody hell,” the captain grumbled from behind the opaque glass.

She hurried to the drain closet. “Captain, is everything all right?” she asked as she swung open the door.

“Clearly it is not.” He stepped out of the enclosure, dripping sudsy wet, and oh so very naked.

Startled by his au naturel appearance, Abigail stepped back out of his way, powerless to speak. She considered averting her gaze by closing her eyes, except the artistry in the man’s body had her awestruck. His tattoos held her spellbound.

“Damn contraption never lets me finish,” he complained, seemingly oblivious to her stunned expression.

When he marched over to the silent piece of equipment and stooped down, he mystified her further. She remained mute, unable to ask why he would work on his gadgetry in the nude.

The captain tinkered with the apparatus as if it were a common practice. Not the fiddling with machinery, but the doing so in front of someone while naked. Her slight discomfort with the situation, however, didn’t stop her from looking at him. She scrutinized the markings on his skin. She already knew of the Celtic knot on his wrist. Most of the other markings were symbols and ancient writings. It was the rosebud on his leg that held her attention the longest. Void of a vine, the flower held the striking likeness to the one she had on her thigh. She mindlessly glanced down, wondering how it was they had a similar design, when she noticed her missing clothing.

“I’m not dressed!” she gasped, barely able to get words out.

The captain looked back. “You’ve enough on for decency. Now would you hand me that wrench?” He pointed to a shelf above.

“I’m in my knickers and chemise. What did you do to me?” she said, appalled that he’d taken advantage of her.

“I made you comfortable to sleep, nothing more. Now the wrench, if you please, Miss Thatch, then you can put on all the clothes you want.” His crankiness defused her outrage and she stepped forward to reach for the tool.

“It still wasn’t a proper thing for you to do,” she explained. “A gentleman would know that.”

“Proper?” He looked at her again, his brow arched in surprise. “Miss Thatch, there was far more I could have done, and by your permission too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t think you’d want me to repeat your requests of me. Now please hand me the wrench.”

Her head abuzz with the memory of her dreams, she cringed at how she’d begged the captain to kiss her. Had she asked for more?

“It’s too high,” she said, straining to reach, not wanting to discuss her sexual desires any further.

“Never mind then. I’ll get it.”

Inadvertently, she glanced down. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw more than expected. Every extremity on the man exuded masculinity. What hung heavy between his legs gave her no reason to allow an exception.

The captain rose from his squatting position without noticing her stare. She stepped back out of his way while he grabbed the wrench. He hunched back over the engine. It left her to study him. Compelled to look at every line of rippling muscle on his frame, she watched sudsy bubbles on his shoulders roll down his back. They followed his spine right into the crack of his— “Oh my!” she exclaimed under her breath.

And to think he thought
her
intriguing. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat and exhaled slowly. Then turning to the closet, she stuck her head inside.

“What were you doing in here?” She looked up at the pipes, only dripping now.

“Bathing.” He continued fiddling with the engine, tapping levers, turning gears, basically tinkering.

She distanced herself further from his naked niceness and stepped into the closet to examine it. A few drops of water hit her in the head. She found a cake of soap on the floor by her foot. Suds surrounded it. She bent down and picked the soap up, feeling the slickness against her fingers. It never occurred to her that the closet was a shower.

The rumble of the engine whirring into operation didn’t startle her as much as the cascade of water suddenly pouring out of the pipes. She sprang up with a gasp. The captain stepped into the closet and prevented her from leaving. He pulled the door closed, trapping her in the confined space with him. Water soaked her.

“Don’t want to get the cabin all wet now, do we?” he commented.

She nodded, agreeing mindlessly, his proximity tightening her insides in a most delicious way. He flipped a lever, which shut off the pressure that forced the water out the pipes. Without the spewing moisture hitting her in the face, she was able to wipe her eyes and look higher than the captain’s magnificent chest.

His gaze met hers. He cupped her chin and lifted her face more as his neared. The warmth of his breath tickled her cool, wet skin and then his lips touched hers gently. She held steady, curling her fingers into fists so her nails dug into her palms. The sting kept her from rushing to grab him. The last thing she wanted was to scare him off.

His kiss swept across her cheek, delicately skipping toward her jaw and then beneath. She turned and tilted her head back, angling for him to sear a path down her neck. His thoroughness went beyond imagination. The inching along of his suckling lips moved up and reached her earlobe.

“You’re so amazingly special,” he whispered. “I have trouble keeping my hands off you.”

“Have I asked you to?”

The heat of his breath funneling into her ear made her shudder. She let her moan of pleasure slip free. Now he had more than a hint of her desire. Her attraction for him went beyond her curiosity of his eccentricities. From that chivalrous act on the street when he rescued her stuck boot to his comforting embrace at her ransacked house, she felt connected to him. But then there was the niggling problem of the way he had deceived her. She shouldn’t have ever succumbed to his tenderness.

“You are a wonder, Miss Thatch,” he murmured. “As curious as a kitten and as spirited as your grandfather.”

She didn’t question his reference to her grandfather. She never knew him, so it was unlikely he did either. “Are you implying I’m too audacious with my actions?” She jerked back against the glass door of the shower closet, shocked out of her forgiving laxity.

Did he not like brash women? Were they threatening, intimidating, unnerving? She shunned her self-conscious doubts about her character and focused on the captain. Maybe by making him uneasy she’d feel vindicated for the way he tricked her.

His gaze dropped down to her soaking wet garments. “You are aware I can have my way with you at any time, aren’t you?” His grin widened.

“You wouldn’t!” she exclaimed with false bravado.

At the thought of his mouth nibbling and sucking on her breasts, her nipples puckered.

“It’s what a pirate does, me beauty. We take whatever pleases us.” His voice took on the grizzled tone of what she imagined a pirate might sound like.

He brushed a sweeping circle around her mouth, and pulled her bottom lip down with his thumb.

Of course she had concerns about her situation. Not for what she thought he might make her do, but for what she might beg of him. She couldn’t let that happen.

“Yes, I do believe your only goal is thievery,” she said. “But not of my virtue. You want the treasure for yourself, and I’ll tell you right now, if there is a treasure, then it rightfully belongs to me. You broke into my house and stole the Crystal Compass, and that’s stealing.”

“Aha!” The captain startled her.

She thought he might call her on not being a virgin. Her mind whirled with excuses for a couple of seconds before anger took over at the thought that she might need any. It was none of his business what happened in her past.

He stepped back the few inches the small shower closet allowed and put his hands on his hips. “You called it the Crystal Compass. So you do accept the device is mine.”

Abigail let out an inaudible hiss of air when she realized the captain wasn’t referring to her state of chastity. “I accept it
was
yours. Unclaimed for fifteen years
is
abandonment. Therefore, lawfully it belongs to the finder. However, I’m willing to compromise. Once I find
my
grandfather’s treasure, you can have back the snow globe, Crystal Compass or whatever you want to call it.”

“And what of your cousin’s claim? Blackbeard is his grandfather too.”

“He can only speculate his kinship to William Thatch. I know mine by the fact I have his letters, his journal, his map and that snow globe.”

She popped the glass door open and stepped out of the closet. The captain followed, pushing the door closed. He pulled a towel off a hook on the wall and handed it to her. She turned away to avoid staring at his incredible nude body.

“There’s dry clothing in a cabinet in the cabin above us,” he said. “Use whatever you’d like.”

Abigail heard the shower door creak open. She peeked over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of the captain’s stunning backside as he moved inside. He turned and reached to pull the door shut. Her gaze naturally flitted to his maleness. She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. His healthy endowment to his masculinity showed his arousal. That sight drew the air from her lungs.

When the door shut, cutting off her inspection, she took a step toward the shower. The notion of getting inside, being close, touching him streamed through her mind. She stopped and watched his silhouette reach up. Her guess that he went for the lever proved right when water resumed spraying the interior of the bathing closet. His humming a familiar tune made her smile. It reminded her of home. And then he stopped and began to sing a different song. The bawdy pirate’s tale changed her mind about indulging in carnal pleasures. When he bent over to retrieve the soap and his bottom splayed against the frosted glass for a moment, embarrassment burned her cheeks.

She fanned her face and hurried from the cabin before she gave in to her desires. She tromped up the steps to the midlevel passageway. Dripping wet, she shed her clothes as she entered the room. She grabbed a sheet of folded linen from a shelf and wrapped it around her body. Then she wandered around the storage cabin looking through everything while plucking the last of her hairpins from her disheveled hair.

The captain said she’d find clothing, but the room held much more than the usual lace-up boots, frilly dresses and satin corsets. He appeared to store his inventions along with practical goods. The copper tub caught her eye. Its monstrous size made it impractical, unless someone planned to bathe right there in the middle of the cabin. Surrounded by bags of flour, rice and sugar, the fixture appeared much like the bathing closet. It too had pipes running along the outside and riddling the inside with holes. Behind it sat a mechanical device with a crank to turn the gears. None of it made sense. She made a note to ask.

As she raked her fingers through her hair, combing the tangled strands back, she thought of Jasper’s tender caresses, his skillful artistry in kissing. On how many women had he practiced the seductive moves? His passion far outdid that of her old beau, reminding her once again there was someone better suited to her.

She walked to the tall cabinet that appeared to be the one in which the captain mentioned she’d find clothing. She opened the doors and an array of colors and fabrics greeted her.

“What have we here?” She lifted out a brass form shaped like a woman’s midsection with half cups for breasts to rest in.

Thin, lightweight, delicate–the unusual garment fascinated her. She held it up in front of herself and looked in the mirror fastened on the back of the cabinet door. Curious to know exactly how it felt, she sat it down and dug through the garments. She found a red-and-white striped skirt and a red silk shirt. In a drawer, she found bloomers and a chemise. It seemed odd that the captain had ladies’ clothing, but she stored the question away with her others.

She discarded the linen sheet and put on the clothing. Other than the loose knickers, the items fit her as if tailor-made. Just the right stitching of darts and seams allowed the blouse to follow her contours like a second layer of skin. Then she picked up the brass corset and held it against her body. To fasten the buckles in the back, she had to lean forward on the cabinet to hold the formed metal in place. She reached back and carefully managed to work each leather strap through metal buckles, fastening them together.

She stood back and gazed at her reflection in the mirror, lifting and adjusting her breasts in the snug form.

“Revealing to be sure.” She shook her head studying how much more developed it made her bosom appear.

“Very nice fit.” Jasper’s voice surprised her, but she didn’t jump.

She quarter-turned and stared at him in the doorway. “You should have knocked. What if I wasn’t decently dressed?”

“I don’t think it possible to see you any less decent than when you were soaked through in my shower.”

He was right. The fabric of her clothes had gone sheer. She looked in the mirror again. “I like this.”

“Then it’s yours.”

She caught sight of his smile in the reflection. “Thank you.” She spun around, admiring the fit. “I feel as if I belong on this ship now that I’m dressed in an apparatus of your making.”