The Jezebel (Taskill Witches 3)

“It is through our physical union with one another that magic is at its best. When you are grown women and you couple with your lover, you will become more powerful. You will learn more about these things soon, for I will tell you all you need to know.”

It was not from her mother that Maisie Taskill learned, though.

It was from Cyrus Lafayette.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “This is your destiny. You will be a woman and a witch fulfilled, and you must know these things and be ready for them...when the time comes.”

She stared down at the pages, heat burning her skin as she read the passionate words and descriptions, and studied the drawings of lovers entwined. She saw their desire and recognized the exaltation in their expressions as their lovemaking unleashed a new vitality in them. It made her blood heat and her heart yearn for completion.

The words and images were intensely stimulating, and she wanted to know more, but she also dreaded meeting Master Cyrus’s stare, for it embarrassed her that he was there while she read about such intimate things.

He did not leave her side, and the air became heavy with tension.

“If you wish to ask me questions, or discuss anything you read, you know you can.”

“Thank you.” She did not ask questions.

Thankfully he did not encourage her to read aloud, as he so often did.

Instead, she just read on silently, her emotions oddly skewed because she had been thrust into this subject matter while he observed her reactions intently, turning the pages for her as soon as she was ready.

Silently, she would lower her eyelids to the desk when she reached the end of a page, and he turned it to the next. There was no conversation, and she was glad of that, but she could feel the weight of his stare on her all the while, and her discomfort built.

When she reached the end of the document, he closed the book.

Turning her to him with his hand beneath her chin, he searched her face with blazing eyes.

Margaret could scarcely believe he looked at her that way, and a fresh rush of embarrassment took her, flaming into her face and making her squirm in her seat.

Master Cyrus did not pass comment, but his lips curled into a knowing smile, and for some reason it chilled her to the core.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Maisie watched the flex of the captain’s broad back as he rose from the bed.

His naked form was breathtaking.

She had never seen a naked man before that night. In illustrations, yes. She had seen drawings of the male body as part of her studies in witchcraft, but not a real man, not in real life.

Not only that, but his build was so much larger and sturdier than anyone she’d met in the limited but privileged circles in which she moved in London society. His strength must have come from his work aboard ship, she surmised, for his muscles were big and flexed readily as he moved. Many women would find him uncouth, but he stimulated a different reaction in Maisie—an urge to touch and explore his body. The suspicion that she would feel secure wrapped in those mighty arms also flitted through her thoughts. It was not a notion she had encountered before and she wondered at it. Her master had once made her feel safe, but that was with clever, twisted words, not comforting embraces and the vague hope of genuine loyalty that came from who knew where.

Loyalty? I have made that silly notion up in my head, because I crave a protector.

Again she eyed the captain, impressed by his male strength. The rest was but a dream. How easily she had fallen for Cyrus’s promises. It was a long time, too, that she had believed what turned out to be duplicity on his part. She must never allow herself such naivety again. Especially not with a man of the sea. I mustn’t, she told herself. This is merely a transaction of convenience for us both.

When her gaze dropped to the taut outline of his buttocks, she found that the view affected her in a decidedly carnal manner. It made her recall how she had clutched at his back, and the deeper he pushed within her, the lower her hands had roamed, until her nails were bedded in that fine posterior. At that very moment he turned around and caught her looking.

Blushing, she glanced away, but it was too late. Not only had she been caught, she had also caught sight of his cock. Even in its current indolent state it seemed spectacularly large to her, and she could scarcely believe she had survived it.

“You are not used to seeing a naked man,” he commented as he returned to the bed. In one hand he held a dish of water. In the other he had a folded cloth.

“No,” she responded, watching as he dipped the cloth into the water, then wrung it out in his hands. “I have never seen a man unclothed before now.”

Again her gaze was drawn to his starkly male form. What was it about his broad, shapely shoulders that made her hands ache to explore him? There was a dusting of burnished hair across his chest and it narrowed into a line that drew her eye down to his groin. The drawings she had seen in the books her guardian had given her to study about witchcraft and carnal rites never looked as enticing as the captain currently did. Seeing his potent masculinity—even in its dormant state—fascinated her. And he was unashamed. He wore his nudity like the finest cloak. Was it shipboard life that stripped him of any self-awareness or shame, or was he used to a woman admiring him the way Maisie was? Perhaps he enjoyed it.

“You are getting an eyeful now,” he said, with no small amount of humor.

Blushing once again, she looked pointedly at a spot on the wall beyond his head.