Breathing hard, Nathaniel sat back on his heels again, peering up. Then Hawk realized his boots were splashed with spend, white drops stark on the black leather, a bit right over the gold tip of his left boot.
He should have been angry at his prisoner for making a mess on his boots like that, but when Nathaniel bit his lip, a saucy light in his eyes, Hawk found he could only smile and brush his knuckles against Nathaniel’s heated cheek.
Then Nathaniel bent and licked his boots clean of seed, and Hawk groaned, sparks flaring through him like smoldering ashes in a grate poked back to life. He couldn’t possibly get hard again so soon, but his balls twitched at the sweet submission.
Perhaps Nathaniel knew precisely what he was doing and the effect it would have, but it seemed utterly open and sincere. When he sat back up, Hawk brushed his damp hair, and the urge to protect him from those who would shame and belittle him thrummed with every heartbeat.
He pulled up his trousers, leaving them loose around his hips. “Time for sleep.” He eased Nathaniel to his feet, still careful of his shoulder, and when Nathaniel turned to the corner, Hawk tugged him to the bed and urged him onto it, trying to ignore how Nathaniel’s grateful smile wrapped around his heart and squeezed.
Turning away before he could dig himself any deeper, Hawk ordered, “Sleep,” and went to his desk, pulling out the chair, then fiddling with the contents of a drawer. He should shove Nathaniel back into the corner. He needed to collect the ransom and put an end to this.
When the lamp had been extinguished for some time, Hawk stripped off and lowered himself to the bed on his belly, not bothering with the sheet, which Nathaniel hadn’t pulled up either in the humid night.
Keeping his head facing away from Nathaniel, Hawk glimpsed the blanket of stars through the stern windows, open to the night air. He listened to the slap of water against the hull as the ship rocked gently, Nathaniel’s soft, even breathing seemingly in rhythm with the sea.
A shiver skated down his spine, but it wasn’t on account of the breeze. The mattress had shifted, and Nathaniel’s fingertips traced the long scars that snaked across Hawk’s buttocks. Back and forth, back and forth. Hawk found himself answering the unasked question.
“The lash.”
Nathaniel pressed closer, his left leg sliding between Hawk’s. There seemed no sense of purpose to it other than closeness; Nathaniel’s cock was soft against Hawk’s thigh.
Hawk should squirm away and put space between them instead of allowing this entanglement, but his limbs were heavy and warm, and the tickle of Nathaniel’s breath across his shoulder soothed as much as the ship’s easy rocking.
“When?” Nathaniel asked.
Don’t answer. Tell him to go to sleep or you’ll put him back in the corner. Heedless of his better judgment, Hawk replied, “I was a few years younger than you. On a Royal Navy frigate.”
Nathaniel’s hand stilled for a moment before he continued his exploration of the scars. “I can’t imagine you my age. Or taking orders from anyone.”
Hawk had to smile, keeping his head turned toward the stern. Somehow if he didn’t look at Nathaniel, the talking seemed more…permissible. “I didn’t emerge from my mother’s womb a pirate.”
Nathaniel’s chuckle ghosted over Hawk’s skin. “No, I suppose you didn’t.” He still traced the scars. “What was her name? Your mother.”
“Anne.” It had been years since he’d spoken of her, or really since he’d even thought of her. All that remained were fleeting images of dark hair and flour-dusted hands, a short temper, but soothing caresses when Hawk had been trampled by a panicked sheep in the paddock.
Nathaniel seemed to be waiting, and Hawk found himself adding, “She was struck by fever. I barely knew her.”
“I’m sorry. Your father? Was he a sailor?”
“A farmer. Sheep. He loathed the sea, and I wished fervently I’d been born to a fisherman.”
“And what did you think of sheep farming?”
“Fuck, I hated it.” Memories of mud and shit and stinking animals tumbled through his mind. Endless days spent between the boundaries of their land, trapped there while the rest of the world spread out beyond the horizon, out of reach. “The sea was so close I could smell it beyond the cliffs.”
“Mmm. Did you live in the West Country?”
Hawk blinked in surprise. “Near Plymouth. Cornwall, close to Devonshire.”
“I thought I heard a hint of it in your voice. We once had some minor nobility from Plymouth for dinner. Did you have many brothers and sisters?”
“Seven. Sometimes my brother Richard would lie for me and risk our father’s fury when I sneaked out of the pasture to sit on the cliffs. I’d watch the water, fishing boats, and sometimes ships in the distance. I became adept at spotting sails on the horizon. Any flicker of movement, of…promise. It stood me in good stead once I was at sea.”