The Raging Fury, RPS - A "The Jealous Sea" Story, NC-17
Fandom: RPS
Title: The Raging Fury (a thejealoussea story), Part One
Pairing, Characters: Steve Carlson/Maia (OFC), Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gerard Butler, Christian Kane/Steve Carlson, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3559
Summary: Captain Christian Kane released Steven, left him a broken man. All that remains him is the life away from the ocean, from the pirate. He should be pleased, happy. He should find contentment with his wife and the children fate has afforded him. And yet, Master Steven Carlson finds himself wondering if he will ever feel pleasure again.
Warnings: Mostly in this part I must warn for the aftermath of a bad breakup...the bad breakup of a twisted, bad relationship...as well as possibly for the het.
A/Ns: Once again blame credit for much of this goes to havenward and my Twitter-Kin and the entire crew over at comment_fic who enable me so very well. I should also point out that much of this arc is already written and it does not go to happy happy joy joy places. There will be tears before this arc is done.
The bruises were gone from his skin, the wounds healed, scars the only reminders Steven carried from his ordeal.
The only reminders anyone other than Steven could see at any rate.
He moved slowly down to the beach, alone in the early day, when the sun was still lazing behind thick clouds in the distance and the night had not yet withdrawn completely.
The water was calm, nearly still. He had not seen the sea in the months since his return, though he could feel her in his veins, calling him. She whispered in his dreams, luring him out away from the land, from the life he clings to, beckoning him to abandon reason and throw himself after the man who had thrown him away.
It was over. The pirate was done with him.
Steven had finally broken, finally given him what he wanted, finally submitted so completely that Christian Kane had won. He should be pleased, relieved…to no longer fear the sight of sails on the horizon, to no longer face the degradation and humiliation that the pirate demanded of him, to no longer be slave to the sadistic whims of a godless man and the forbidden pleasures of his body.
And yet…
It shamed him. It robbed him of the simpler pleasures a man of his position was entitled to, the warmth of his wife's bed, the touch of her hand.
He hid it well, for she was with child and his duties as a husband ran to caring for her condition more so than sharing her bed…but that too shamed him, for he knew the child she bore was not his. He knew shame there as well, for giving her to the pirate, for sitting by her and watching him with her, craving his touch more than hers.
Steven walked to the water's edge, paying little mind to the waves lapping around his ankles. Birds flew overhead, calling out to him, as they soared out over the sea. He wondered if he would damn himself anymore than he already had if he were to walk out into the cold heart of the ocean and let her have him.
But that would leave Maia with nothing, his son alone in the world. Steven could not in good conscience do that to his family. After a long moment, he turned and started the long walk back to his home, leaving behind him the sand and the sea and the call of birds and with them a measure of himself.
"They say he sprang from the sea." Jeffrey said jovially as he sat back in the seat and Maia passed him a glass of brandy.
Steven glanced up at his wife, and aside to the other captain joining them. He did not want to be talking about the pirate, not in front of Maia especially. Her hand smoothed over the round of her belly and she smiled softly at him. "I shall leave you to your drinks and talk of pirates and business." She kissed the top of his head and withdrew.
"I understand you have fallen victim to the pirate yourself, Master Carlson."
Steven looked back to the new Captain, recommended by Jeffrey and hired to man the ship that said pirate had stripped of cargo and personnel before leaving Steven alone on board.
He swallowed a mouthful of brandy and tried his best not to react. "His men at least, Captain. I never saw him." Kane had taken his men so no one would contradict the story, leaving Steven some measure of his dignity. If it were known that the pirate had been aboard when Steven was captured, it would be known that Steven submitted, for no one lived who did not submit.
"It is said he leaves his ship for days at a time, and no one knows where he goes." Captain Phillips said. "There is said to be some pretty thing that catches his attention and brings him to shore."
Jeffrey snorted and puffed at his cigar. "It is also said he goes into the ocean and communes with his mother. I think he just likes to toy with people."
"You've met him, what is he like?" Phillips asked and Steven stood, moving to refill his glass to cover his sudden nervousness.
Jeffrey shrugged and drank from his own glass before answering. "Fought like hell on earth. Killed without thought. I came very close to seeing my last the day I saw Christian Kane in the flesh."
"And yet, you survived." Captain Phillips said.
"And the story of how has grown so much with each telling, I doubt even Captain Morgan knows the truth any longer." Steven said, his eyes skipping to Jeffrey.
"There is little to tell, aside from a fight that should have killed us both." Jeffrey answered. "I was fortunate to have a good crew and a cargo that was worth more to the pirate than I might have been."
Steven inhaled sharply, sudden memory filling him. He turned away to hide the way his body reacted. "My cargo, if memory serves," he said sharply.
"Which you would have lost anyway. At least my way I kept your crew alive."
There was a vague accusation in his words, that Steven was responsible for the death of his crew, but Steven couldn't fault him if he felt that way. He drained his brandy and turned back to his guests. "But come, perhaps our new captain would rather speak of things other than the bane of my existence. Perhaps we can discuss something more pleasant, such as the new shipments I have been promised by my partners in London."
Both captains seemed to relax as the conversation turned and Steven exhaled slowly, letting the tension drain from his body as thoughts of pirates were replaced with thoughts of beautiful silk and other cargo.
When at long last the two men left, Steven was drained. He had only been back to actively engaging in business for a little over two weeks, forbidden before that by his loving wife and the doctor who had been treating him. He had yet to actually go in to the office, and hiring the new captain had been the most he had yet accomplished. Fortunately he had a good manager at the office that kept things running smoothly, and Jeffrey had stepped in to help manage the shipping portions of the business while he was down.
He closed the door behind them and wearily climbed the stairs, thinking that his bed would be a welcome comfort as thunder rumbled through the skies. Yet, even as he stripped down to his undergarments he was drawn not to the bed, but to the balcony doors.
Steven drew a robe around himself and opened the doors, stepping out into the cold night. A storm skittered across the horizon, rolling ever closer to land. Steven stood watching the dark black clouds speared by lightning and swirling on the winds.
Maia slipped in beside him, her arm around his waist, her smile soft and loving, her stomach round with child. "You shouldn't be out here, Maia. It's cold."
"Then come in with me." Her hand, so small, so frail, slipped into his and tugged, drawing him inside. She let go long enough for him to close the doors against the storm, then drew him to the bed. "Lay with me." It had been a long time since they had done more than touch, light kisses, hands on shoulders.
He smiled for her and nodded, slipping out of his house slippers and sliding into clean sheets to hold her, his hand settling over her stomach.
It wouldn't be long now, the child would be born. Steven closed his eyes, remembering that night, when his worlds collided and he had had them both in this bed. Even now, with the child between them it was almost like having Christian there with him. Steven sighed softly, listening to the storm as it reached land and kept on blowing, swallowing their house and cutting them off from the world.
He imagines he sees the ship whenever he rode near the docks, the faces of men aboard familiar and haunting. Steven half expected to hear that voice, feel that hand whenever he was alone, or when he was lost inside a crowd on the streets.
He was watched by the king's men. He saw them near the house, near the office, inspecting his cargo. They had questioned him several times about his disappearance, about the loss of his men, about how it is that he is still alive.
The lieutenant suspected him still, despite the wounds he crawled home with, or perhaps in part because of them. He was a man determined, his passion to be the man to capture the pirate intense. It was a relief, he insisted to himself, that Steven no longer need fear him, for the pirate has left him.
And yet…He stood on the docks, at night alone, hands in his pockets, watching the distant line where the sky kisses the sea. He walked out to the bluff near his home and watched early in the morning as the sun rose and the skies lightened, as if waiting for The Shadow Queen to appear.
He wondered, on the night that Maia gave birth, if somehow the winds would take him word and he would come, not for Steven, but for the child. Deep inside he knew the pirate would not, even if word reached him. There was a hole in Steven's stomach all the emptier for the knowledge.
He scribbled words onto parchment, but burned it in the next moment. They were weaknesses, desires. He craved the cruel hand, the burn of his knife, his lash. As sick and wrong as that might be. He woke hard from dreams of being bound and bent to his pleasure, of kneeling at his feet and taking his cock into his mouth.
In a moment of weakness he scribed words onto paper, two words, simple, words that would not, if found by the wrong people, give him away. Catherine Christina..
He stuck the note into the cargo, told Captain Morgan that if the pirate attacks, he should do as he had before, let him have the cargo, save the men. It had been a long time since Kane had struck one of his ships, since the very day he was released. He couldn't imagine the pirate wouldn't strike again soon.
He watched Morgan sail out of port, and stood there long after he was gone, watching another out in the harbor. He half imagined the ship out there is his, colors hidden, the pirate watching him as he stood at the wheel. Steven wandered along the dock his eyes watching the distant ship as it skirted along the edge of the harbor and turned slowly back to sea.
"I dreamt you were here, that you came to me." Steven murmured, as though Christian might hear him...or perhaps because he knew the pirate would never know, because to admit this would invite ridicule, punishment.
Steven's face flushed with shame and arousal mixed together, the perfect definition of the pirate always made him feel. He turned from the water, starting when he found Lieutenant Wethington watching him. "Good evening Master Carlson."
"Ah, Lieutenant. Good evening."
"Whatever finds you so late down here?"
Steven smiles, though it's strained. "I stayed to see Captain Morgan off."
"And yet a while longer. I see they've cleared the harbor."
"Yes, well, I will confess a love of the night air and the sounds of the sea. But you are quite right, I should be getting home."
"Yes, indeed. To that beautiful wife and your darling children."
"Good evening then, Lieutenant."
Steven felt his eyes all the way back to his office where he locked up and fetched his horse that the stable boy had already brought for him. Guilt and shame warred inside him on the ride home, but the fled when he slipped in the front door to find Maia had set aside dinner for him and was waiting, Catherine asleep at her breast.
Two weeks later, Jeffrey limped back into port, his crew decimated, the cargo lost. The captain himself was wounded, carried off the ship by crew. Steven stood on the deck in the early morning.
The mast was cracked, the sails shredded. The lower decks were flooded and she was still taking on water. Steven ran a hand over the rails as he walked toward the captain's quarters, where, to hear the crew tell the tale, Jeffrey faced down the pirate himself.
Steven could almost feel him there, in the small space that still smelled of gunpowder, strong enough that Steven could see the cannon smoke, feel the shake of the ship as heavy lead ripped through her. Musket balls had torn through the wood of the door, signs that the crew had defended their captain.
Christian had shown no mercy here. Jeffrey had paid for his life with his surrender. It had only barely been enough.
Steven closed his eyes, imaging Christian here, holding a sword to Jeffrey's throat, staring him down while his crew cleaned out the hold.
"Nasty business, piracy."
"Lieutenant." Steven drew in a breath and turned. "Perhaps this will be enough to waylay your notions that I have conspired with pirates? I have lost a large sum of money in this, and nearly my captain and friend."
"Yes, so I've been told." Wethington looked nearly pained to admit it. "My man tells me the ship is a loss."
"Likely. I shall have to make due with the other now, at least until I recoup some of my losses."
"Your captain, this is not the first time he's walked away from a battle with Kane."
Steven did not like that tone. "Certainly you can not think Jeffrey conspires with them. He is barely alive."
"And yet, he lives." Wethington raised an eyebrow. "I shall have to question him closely."
Cold anger leeched into Steven's veins. "You will do no such thing." He stepped in close, keeping his hands at his sides to keep from striking the man. "Not while he lies at death's door. I will send for you when he is well enough to speak. Until then I expect you will leave the man to his recovery."
"As I did for you, Master Carlson. Of course."
Steven stormed away, slamming his office door closed when he reached it, only to open it again and call for his manager to ask after Jeffrey, then to call for the boy to bring round his horse. "Tell the doctor that when he is well enough to be transported, he is to bring the captain to my house where he can be watched over."
Steven figured at least that way he could run interference with the lieutenant, and offer Jeffrey some privacy. The captain had been alone with the pirate in the end, and from the stories the men told, for quite a bit of time. Steven knew the damage Christian could inflict in that time.
It was not the end of the looting. Indeed, it seemed to set off a rash of incidents, violent, bloody battles, ships burned with all hands aboard, raids on villages in the middle of the night.
As the summer burned hotter and hotter, so did the fury of the pirate, and as if in echo, the fury of the sea as well. Summer storms battered the coast, giant waves swept people out to sea, never to be found again.
All who relied on the ocean for their livelihood were strained, even the navy had record numbers of deserters as ships were dashed, cracked open by cannon balls and ramming.
For a time, Steven was not the object of the Lieutenant's incessant monitoring, he was far too busy dealing with the pirates themselves. It was in this time that Steven relaxed, for while the seas were treacherous, he was not called away from the family he had somehow managed to hold onto despite everything.
Ambrose was a precocious toddler, with a mop of soft blond hair and startlingly blue eyes. Steven watched him take his first steps and heard him say his first words, all the while cradling the tiny daughter he was coming to consider his own more and more. He let his managers handle the business, withdrawing into the soft world of family and considering moving them all back to England where he had lived as a boy.
Nearly a year passed in this way, his quiet only inflicted upon by various needs of business, signatures and such that required his attention.
It was the boy's third birthday when Steven was drawn once more out of his cocoon. They were just settling in to dinner when a frantic pounding came on his door. Steven motioned Maia to sit and went himself. The weather was atrocious, dark furious clouds beat the ground with rain and lightening and thunder competed with one another to shake the ground.
Standing on his door, dripping wet and sporting bloody wounds in his shoulder and thigh was the pirate's first mate. Steven felt his blood boil with anger as he shook his head. "No. You have no business here. He set me free."
Gerry's eyes were cold steel. "And yet you are his man still. I only need shelter until the storm passes. I will be gone with first light."
"No." Steven pushed him back when he would have come in. "Not in my house."
"Steven?"
"Go back to the table Maia, I'll only be a minute."
"He will thank you for aiding me." Gerry said, making Steven freeze. "You know he can be a generous man."
His insinuation was enough to make Steven soften, the idea that Christian might see him again, touch him again. "Not in my house. The stables. They will be warm enough." Steven turned back to where Maia still hovered near the door into the dining room. "Make up a plate, Maia. We have a guest."
"Shouldn't you invite him in?"
"No, he is not the kind of man I wish in my house, a vagrant, but not soul should be out on a night like this. I will settle him in the stables. It is warm enough and dry." Steven left her to gather food and went to put bandages and clean shirt into a bag. He took the plate from her with a kiss. "I'll be in in a moment, my love. Eat."
He found Gerry sitting on the low cot the stable boy sometimes slept on. "Here." He shoved the plate at him and threw the bag onto the cot. "Bandages for the wounds, and a clean shirt, so you don't leave my house looking like a brigand in the morning."
"Thank you."
Steven stopped at the door and turned back. "Tell him…" He shook his head and changed his mind. "I'm going inside my house to my wife and my children now. I expect I won't see you again."
Maia was on the stairs when he came in, shaking off the rain. Catherine was asleep on her shoulder and Ambrose was dragging his heels. "Papa!" he yelled when he spotted Steven, pulling away and leaping at his father. "No bed."
Steven chuckled. "I'm afraid that it's time, Ambrose. We wouldn't want you to turn into a goblin, would we?"
"You shouldn't tell him such stories." Maia chastised as they headed up the stairs.
"He's a tough boy, he can handle it, right?"
"No goblin." Ambrose declared, shaking his head. "Bed."
"See, and he understands why he has to go to bed."
"You are incorrigible."
"Let us get the children to bed, Mistress Carlson and I'll show you just how incorrigible I can be."
No sooner were they both in their beds then Steven put both hands to her waist, pulling her from the nursery and into his bedroom. His mouth was insistent on hers, drawing out a gasp when he released her long enough to begin removing his clothing.
"You certainly are amorous this evening." Maia commented, though she was loosening her own clothing as he dropped his to the floor.
"I wish to make love with my wife, in my bed and perhaps fill her belly with another child."
She blushed, melting into his arms when he took her in them and turned her toward the bed. He kissed over her lips, her chin, down to her neck where she wore his pearl. He kissed up to her ear while his hands untied the ribbon, tossing the necklace carelessly toward the bedside table. "You are mine, Maia…my love, my wife, mine forever and always mine."
"Yours, always, Steven. Always," she assured as he laid her down, her body opening under him, her breath gasping out as he took her, the litany in his head repeating "mine" over and over…though it was the pirate's voice and not his own.
Title: The Raging Fury (a thejealoussea story), Part One
Pairing, Characters: Steve Carlson/Maia (OFC), Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Gerard Butler, Christian Kane/Steve Carlson, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3559
Summary: Captain Christian Kane released Steven, left him a broken man. All that remains him is the life away from the ocean, from the pirate. He should be pleased, happy. He should find contentment with his wife and the children fate has afforded him. And yet, Master Steven Carlson finds himself wondering if he will ever feel pleasure again.
Warnings: Mostly in this part I must warn for the aftermath of a bad breakup...the bad breakup of a twisted, bad relationship...as well as possibly for the het.
A/Ns: Once again blame credit for much of this goes to havenward and my Twitter-Kin and the entire crew over at comment_fic who enable me so very well. I should also point out that much of this arc is already written and it does not go to happy happy joy joy places. There will be tears before this arc is done.
The bruises were gone from his skin, the wounds healed, scars the only reminders Steven carried from his ordeal.
The only reminders anyone other than Steven could see at any rate.
He moved slowly down to the beach, alone in the early day, when the sun was still lazing behind thick clouds in the distance and the night had not yet withdrawn completely.
The water was calm, nearly still. He had not seen the sea in the months since his return, though he could feel her in his veins, calling him. She whispered in his dreams, luring him out away from the land, from the life he clings to, beckoning him to abandon reason and throw himself after the man who had thrown him away.
It was over. The pirate was done with him.
Steven had finally broken, finally given him what he wanted, finally submitted so completely that Christian Kane had won. He should be pleased, relieved…to no longer fear the sight of sails on the horizon, to no longer face the degradation and humiliation that the pirate demanded of him, to no longer be slave to the sadistic whims of a godless man and the forbidden pleasures of his body.
And yet…
It shamed him. It robbed him of the simpler pleasures a man of his position was entitled to, the warmth of his wife's bed, the touch of her hand.
He hid it well, for she was with child and his duties as a husband ran to caring for her condition more so than sharing her bed…but that too shamed him, for he knew the child she bore was not his. He knew shame there as well, for giving her to the pirate, for sitting by her and watching him with her, craving his touch more than hers.
Steven walked to the water's edge, paying little mind to the waves lapping around his ankles. Birds flew overhead, calling out to him, as they soared out over the sea. He wondered if he would damn himself anymore than he already had if he were to walk out into the cold heart of the ocean and let her have him.
But that would leave Maia with nothing, his son alone in the world. Steven could not in good conscience do that to his family. After a long moment, he turned and started the long walk back to his home, leaving behind him the sand and the sea and the call of birds and with them a measure of himself.
"They say he sprang from the sea." Jeffrey said jovially as he sat back in the seat and Maia passed him a glass of brandy.
Steven glanced up at his wife, and aside to the other captain joining them. He did not want to be talking about the pirate, not in front of Maia especially. Her hand smoothed over the round of her belly and she smiled softly at him. "I shall leave you to your drinks and talk of pirates and business." She kissed the top of his head and withdrew.
"I understand you have fallen victim to the pirate yourself, Master Carlson."
Steven looked back to the new Captain, recommended by Jeffrey and hired to man the ship that said pirate had stripped of cargo and personnel before leaving Steven alone on board.
He swallowed a mouthful of brandy and tried his best not to react. "His men at least, Captain. I never saw him." Kane had taken his men so no one would contradict the story, leaving Steven some measure of his dignity. If it were known that the pirate had been aboard when Steven was captured, it would be known that Steven submitted, for no one lived who did not submit.
"It is said he leaves his ship for days at a time, and no one knows where he goes." Captain Phillips said. "There is said to be some pretty thing that catches his attention and brings him to shore."
Jeffrey snorted and puffed at his cigar. "It is also said he goes into the ocean and communes with his mother. I think he just likes to toy with people."
"You've met him, what is he like?" Phillips asked and Steven stood, moving to refill his glass to cover his sudden nervousness.
Jeffrey shrugged and drank from his own glass before answering. "Fought like hell on earth. Killed without thought. I came very close to seeing my last the day I saw Christian Kane in the flesh."
"And yet, you survived." Captain Phillips said.
"And the story of how has grown so much with each telling, I doubt even Captain Morgan knows the truth any longer." Steven said, his eyes skipping to Jeffrey.
"There is little to tell, aside from a fight that should have killed us both." Jeffrey answered. "I was fortunate to have a good crew and a cargo that was worth more to the pirate than I might have been."
Steven inhaled sharply, sudden memory filling him. He turned away to hide the way his body reacted. "My cargo, if memory serves," he said sharply.
"Which you would have lost anyway. At least my way I kept your crew alive."
There was a vague accusation in his words, that Steven was responsible for the death of his crew, but Steven couldn't fault him if he felt that way. He drained his brandy and turned back to his guests. "But come, perhaps our new captain would rather speak of things other than the bane of my existence. Perhaps we can discuss something more pleasant, such as the new shipments I have been promised by my partners in London."
Both captains seemed to relax as the conversation turned and Steven exhaled slowly, letting the tension drain from his body as thoughts of pirates were replaced with thoughts of beautiful silk and other cargo.
When at long last the two men left, Steven was drained. He had only been back to actively engaging in business for a little over two weeks, forbidden before that by his loving wife and the doctor who had been treating him. He had yet to actually go in to the office, and hiring the new captain had been the most he had yet accomplished. Fortunately he had a good manager at the office that kept things running smoothly, and Jeffrey had stepped in to help manage the shipping portions of the business while he was down.
He closed the door behind them and wearily climbed the stairs, thinking that his bed would be a welcome comfort as thunder rumbled through the skies. Yet, even as he stripped down to his undergarments he was drawn not to the bed, but to the balcony doors.
Steven drew a robe around himself and opened the doors, stepping out into the cold night. A storm skittered across the horizon, rolling ever closer to land. Steven stood watching the dark black clouds speared by lightning and swirling on the winds.
Maia slipped in beside him, her arm around his waist, her smile soft and loving, her stomach round with child. "You shouldn't be out here, Maia. It's cold."
"Then come in with me." Her hand, so small, so frail, slipped into his and tugged, drawing him inside. She let go long enough for him to close the doors against the storm, then drew him to the bed. "Lay with me." It had been a long time since they had done more than touch, light kisses, hands on shoulders.
He smiled for her and nodded, slipping out of his house slippers and sliding into clean sheets to hold her, his hand settling over her stomach.
It wouldn't be long now, the child would be born. Steven closed his eyes, remembering that night, when his worlds collided and he had had them both in this bed. Even now, with the child between them it was almost like having Christian there with him. Steven sighed softly, listening to the storm as it reached land and kept on blowing, swallowing their house and cutting them off from the world.
He imagines he sees the ship whenever he rode near the docks, the faces of men aboard familiar and haunting. Steven half expected to hear that voice, feel that hand whenever he was alone, or when he was lost inside a crowd on the streets.
He was watched by the king's men. He saw them near the house, near the office, inspecting his cargo. They had questioned him several times about his disappearance, about the loss of his men, about how it is that he is still alive.
The lieutenant suspected him still, despite the wounds he crawled home with, or perhaps in part because of them. He was a man determined, his passion to be the man to capture the pirate intense. It was a relief, he insisted to himself, that Steven no longer need fear him, for the pirate has left him.
And yet…He stood on the docks, at night alone, hands in his pockets, watching the distant line where the sky kisses the sea. He walked out to the bluff near his home and watched early in the morning as the sun rose and the skies lightened, as if waiting for The Shadow Queen to appear.
He wondered, on the night that Maia gave birth, if somehow the winds would take him word and he would come, not for Steven, but for the child. Deep inside he knew the pirate would not, even if word reached him. There was a hole in Steven's stomach all the emptier for the knowledge.
He scribbled words onto parchment, but burned it in the next moment. They were weaknesses, desires. He craved the cruel hand, the burn of his knife, his lash. As sick and wrong as that might be. He woke hard from dreams of being bound and bent to his pleasure, of kneeling at his feet and taking his cock into his mouth.
In a moment of weakness he scribed words onto paper, two words, simple, words that would not, if found by the wrong people, give him away. Catherine Christina..
He stuck the note into the cargo, told Captain Morgan that if the pirate attacks, he should do as he had before, let him have the cargo, save the men. It had been a long time since Kane had struck one of his ships, since the very day he was released. He couldn't imagine the pirate wouldn't strike again soon.
He watched Morgan sail out of port, and stood there long after he was gone, watching another out in the harbor. He half imagined the ship out there is his, colors hidden, the pirate watching him as he stood at the wheel. Steven wandered along the dock his eyes watching the distant ship as it skirted along the edge of the harbor and turned slowly back to sea.
"I dreamt you were here, that you came to me." Steven murmured, as though Christian might hear him...or perhaps because he knew the pirate would never know, because to admit this would invite ridicule, punishment.
Steven's face flushed with shame and arousal mixed together, the perfect definition of the pirate always made him feel. He turned from the water, starting when he found Lieutenant Wethington watching him. "Good evening Master Carlson."
"Ah, Lieutenant. Good evening."
"Whatever finds you so late down here?"
Steven smiles, though it's strained. "I stayed to see Captain Morgan off."
"And yet a while longer. I see they've cleared the harbor."
"Yes, well, I will confess a love of the night air and the sounds of the sea. But you are quite right, I should be getting home."
"Yes, indeed. To that beautiful wife and your darling children."
"Good evening then, Lieutenant."
Steven felt his eyes all the way back to his office where he locked up and fetched his horse that the stable boy had already brought for him. Guilt and shame warred inside him on the ride home, but the fled when he slipped in the front door to find Maia had set aside dinner for him and was waiting, Catherine asleep at her breast.
Two weeks later, Jeffrey limped back into port, his crew decimated, the cargo lost. The captain himself was wounded, carried off the ship by crew. Steven stood on the deck in the early morning.
The mast was cracked, the sails shredded. The lower decks were flooded and she was still taking on water. Steven ran a hand over the rails as he walked toward the captain's quarters, where, to hear the crew tell the tale, Jeffrey faced down the pirate himself.
Steven could almost feel him there, in the small space that still smelled of gunpowder, strong enough that Steven could see the cannon smoke, feel the shake of the ship as heavy lead ripped through her. Musket balls had torn through the wood of the door, signs that the crew had defended their captain.
Christian had shown no mercy here. Jeffrey had paid for his life with his surrender. It had only barely been enough.
Steven closed his eyes, imaging Christian here, holding a sword to Jeffrey's throat, staring him down while his crew cleaned out the hold.
"Nasty business, piracy."
"Lieutenant." Steven drew in a breath and turned. "Perhaps this will be enough to waylay your notions that I have conspired with pirates? I have lost a large sum of money in this, and nearly my captain and friend."
"Yes, so I've been told." Wethington looked nearly pained to admit it. "My man tells me the ship is a loss."
"Likely. I shall have to make due with the other now, at least until I recoup some of my losses."
"Your captain, this is not the first time he's walked away from a battle with Kane."
Steven did not like that tone. "Certainly you can not think Jeffrey conspires with them. He is barely alive."
"And yet, he lives." Wethington raised an eyebrow. "I shall have to question him closely."
Cold anger leeched into Steven's veins. "You will do no such thing." He stepped in close, keeping his hands at his sides to keep from striking the man. "Not while he lies at death's door. I will send for you when he is well enough to speak. Until then I expect you will leave the man to his recovery."
"As I did for you, Master Carlson. Of course."
Steven stormed away, slamming his office door closed when he reached it, only to open it again and call for his manager to ask after Jeffrey, then to call for the boy to bring round his horse. "Tell the doctor that when he is well enough to be transported, he is to bring the captain to my house where he can be watched over."
Steven figured at least that way he could run interference with the lieutenant, and offer Jeffrey some privacy. The captain had been alone with the pirate in the end, and from the stories the men told, for quite a bit of time. Steven knew the damage Christian could inflict in that time.
It was not the end of the looting. Indeed, it seemed to set off a rash of incidents, violent, bloody battles, ships burned with all hands aboard, raids on villages in the middle of the night.
As the summer burned hotter and hotter, so did the fury of the pirate, and as if in echo, the fury of the sea as well. Summer storms battered the coast, giant waves swept people out to sea, never to be found again.
All who relied on the ocean for their livelihood were strained, even the navy had record numbers of deserters as ships were dashed, cracked open by cannon balls and ramming.
For a time, Steven was not the object of the Lieutenant's incessant monitoring, he was far too busy dealing with the pirates themselves. It was in this time that Steven relaxed, for while the seas were treacherous, he was not called away from the family he had somehow managed to hold onto despite everything.
Ambrose was a precocious toddler, with a mop of soft blond hair and startlingly blue eyes. Steven watched him take his first steps and heard him say his first words, all the while cradling the tiny daughter he was coming to consider his own more and more. He let his managers handle the business, withdrawing into the soft world of family and considering moving them all back to England where he had lived as a boy.
Nearly a year passed in this way, his quiet only inflicted upon by various needs of business, signatures and such that required his attention.
It was the boy's third birthday when Steven was drawn once more out of his cocoon. They were just settling in to dinner when a frantic pounding came on his door. Steven motioned Maia to sit and went himself. The weather was atrocious, dark furious clouds beat the ground with rain and lightening and thunder competed with one another to shake the ground.
Standing on his door, dripping wet and sporting bloody wounds in his shoulder and thigh was the pirate's first mate. Steven felt his blood boil with anger as he shook his head. "No. You have no business here. He set me free."
Gerry's eyes were cold steel. "And yet you are his man still. I only need shelter until the storm passes. I will be gone with first light."
"No." Steven pushed him back when he would have come in. "Not in my house."
"Steven?"
"Go back to the table Maia, I'll only be a minute."
"He will thank you for aiding me." Gerry said, making Steven freeze. "You know he can be a generous man."
His insinuation was enough to make Steven soften, the idea that Christian might see him again, touch him again. "Not in my house. The stables. They will be warm enough." Steven turned back to where Maia still hovered near the door into the dining room. "Make up a plate, Maia. We have a guest."
"Shouldn't you invite him in?"
"No, he is not the kind of man I wish in my house, a vagrant, but not soul should be out on a night like this. I will settle him in the stables. It is warm enough and dry." Steven left her to gather food and went to put bandages and clean shirt into a bag. He took the plate from her with a kiss. "I'll be in in a moment, my love. Eat."
He found Gerry sitting on the low cot the stable boy sometimes slept on. "Here." He shoved the plate at him and threw the bag onto the cot. "Bandages for the wounds, and a clean shirt, so you don't leave my house looking like a brigand in the morning."
"Thank you."
Steven stopped at the door and turned back. "Tell him…" He shook his head and changed his mind. "I'm going inside my house to my wife and my children now. I expect I won't see you again."
Maia was on the stairs when he came in, shaking off the rain. Catherine was asleep on her shoulder and Ambrose was dragging his heels. "Papa!" he yelled when he spotted Steven, pulling away and leaping at his father. "No bed."
Steven chuckled. "I'm afraid that it's time, Ambrose. We wouldn't want you to turn into a goblin, would we?"
"You shouldn't tell him such stories." Maia chastised as they headed up the stairs.
"He's a tough boy, he can handle it, right?"
"No goblin." Ambrose declared, shaking his head. "Bed."
"See, and he understands why he has to go to bed."
"You are incorrigible."
"Let us get the children to bed, Mistress Carlson and I'll show you just how incorrigible I can be."
No sooner were they both in their beds then Steven put both hands to her waist, pulling her from the nursery and into his bedroom. His mouth was insistent on hers, drawing out a gasp when he released her long enough to begin removing his clothing.
"You certainly are amorous this evening." Maia commented, though she was loosening her own clothing as he dropped his to the floor.
"I wish to make love with my wife, in my bed and perhaps fill her belly with another child."
She blushed, melting into his arms when he took her in them and turned her toward the bed. He kissed over her lips, her chin, down to her neck where she wore his pearl. He kissed up to her ear while his hands untied the ribbon, tossing the necklace carelessly toward the bedside table. "You are mine, Maia…my love, my wife, mine forever and always mine."
"Yours, always, Steven. Always," she assured as he laid her down, her body opening under him, her breath gasping out as he took her, the litany in his head repeating "mine" over and over…though it was the pirate's voice and not his own.