“No! Only you.”
Hawk leaned closer, his bulk dwarfing Nathaniel. He pulled out almost all the way, then pushed in again with shallow strokes, angling until he brushed the spot that buckled Nathaniel’s knees.
Sparks exploded behind his eyes, white dots appearing as he cried out. With another few strokes Nathaniel spent, spurting and shaking, crying out loudly, pressed to the desk.
Hawk began fucking him powerfully again, their skin slapping in the creaking, swaying cabin. Nathaniel groaned along with him when Hawk spilled inside. Panting in gusts over Nathaniel’s neck, Hawk rested his head, lips at the top of Nathaniel’s spine.
Almost a kiss.
Nathaniel murmured, “Thank you,” and the twin iron grips around his wrists went slack, Hawk’s thumbs stroking the reddened skin. For all his insistence that Nathaniel meant nothing—for all his bluster—he had fulfilled Nathaniel’s wildest desires twice now.
He knew it was unwise in the extreme to underestimate his captor, to allow himself any complacency or sense of security. Yet with Hawk still inside him, lips soft on the nape of his neck, he wondered anew where the masquerade truly ended and the man began—the man he’d glimpsed, who was capable of kindness.
The man who wouldn’t be able to harm him or his innocent sister. Perhaps Nathaniel was hopelessly naïve, but his instincts told him Hawk wasn’t the villain he purported to be. The villain he tried to be.
He squeezed his arse around Hawk’s prick still deep inside him, and Hawk moaned, his hand smoothing over Nathaniel’s hair. Was fucking always like this? Nathaniel had no other experiences for comparison, and surely Hawk had many. But did he always stay close afterward? His other hand was still over Nathaniel’s on the desk, thumb stroking rhythmically.
Nathaniel gasped when Hawk pulled out, the sudden emptiness shocking, his thighs quivering. But Hawk didn’t abandon him this time, and Nathaniel’s heart sang with possibility.
Thick, callused fingers gently pushed the seed back inside where it dripped from Nathaniel’s tender arse. “Only me,” Hawk muttered, still leaning over him, lips by Nathaniel’s ear.
A shiver skipped down Nathaniel’s spine like a stone over a pond’s smooth surface.
Only you.
Chapter Eleven
“Oh! It’s raining.”
Hawk glanced up from his chart, which he had been studying uselessly for almost an hour, trying, and fucking failing, not to be distracted by Nathaniel—Plum—in the corner to his right. Rain showered the glass, and Hawk grunted.
Naked from the waist up in only his breeches, the fastenings under his knees flapping, Plum rose and climbed onto the window seat. He pushed out the glass and curled his feet under him on the cushion, peering out, raindrops splattering his face.
Hawk had awoken that morning with his prick achingly hard, eager for Plum’s tight arse, yearning to hear his moans and soft cries, to give him pleasure. Which was the very reason he’d forced himself up before the change of watch, while Plum slept on.
He’d only returned to his cabin mid-afternoon when Snell had grumbled he was wearing holes in the deck with his agitation. Plum had been exercising his arms, pressing up his weight and balancing on his toes, his bare torso glistening with sweat. His muscles had strained, and he’d grunted as he moved down and up.
Hawk had almost retreated, his prick swelling. But why shouldn’t he spend the rest of the day comfortably in his cabin? Why should he be chased away by his prisoner? Or, more specifically, the hunger for him. It was a mistake to have indulged it, and now he would master it.
He’d sworn to himself he would not fuck Plum again. Would not allow himself to be baited into it as he had the previous day. He’d been doing so well ignoring him, but then Plum had challenged him—and Hawk could admit to himself he had cause, that Hawk had wielded shame as a weapon.
That spirit fired Hawk’s blood, how Plum hadn’t cowered and denied his own cravings but had submitted eagerly. Hawk had lost all control and couldn’t seem to regret it.
But not today. He would prove he was the master not only of his prisoner but his own urges. He would not have him. And so far he hadn’t, though his prick stirred at the mere thought.
For fuck’s sake.
He’d gone months with nothing but his own hand, yet now he seethed with lust. Tupping Nath—Plum, deflowering him, should have satisfied the itch. Banished it. Yet here it remained, insistent as a colony of ants.
The rain came harder now, and he rose to place a bucket on the floor by the port side where it tended to leak. The ship swayed in the waves; nothing alarming, the rain mostly coming straight down, winds manageable.
Back at his desk, he picked up his divider and calculated the distance between Primrose Isle and Nassau, eyes on the chart. Still, for some unfathomable reason, he asked, “Why did the Crown choose Primrose Isle for a new colony? It’s quite isolated.”