My insides flip, as unsteady as if I’m sailing through a storm.

I scowl, keeping my lips shut tight. I refuse to be ridiculed for falling in love with a beautiful lady like Antonia. She’s an upper-class woman with a promising future as the wife of a wealthy man. I’m the lowest class of society and doomed to stay that way.

I’m wrong to keep coming here and playing like this. If I care about her, I’ll let her live a normal life and stop pillaging her home like a scoundrel.

I take the chocolates and crystal pendant and back up toward the door, knowing what I have to do. “My crew is waiting.”

Antonia softens, her shoulders dropping. “Captain Lucia, wait.”

“No. You’ve delayed me for long enough.”

“But—”

I raise a hand, continuing toward the door. “You’re right. I’m a pirate, and I’ve forgotten my place in the world. This is the last time you’ll see me.”

“Lucia, you stop right now,” Antonia says firmly.

I stop. It’s the first time she’s addressed me without my title.

She gathers her skirts, marches forward, and catches my chin in her soft fingers. She guides my face toward hers, and kisses me hard on the lips.

My body reacts without my permission, grabbing her waist and kissing her back.

Then my brain catches up, and I push her away. “What are you doing?”

“The thing you’ve been too shy to do for two years! You keep coming back here, even though I’m certain you can get much better treasures elsewhere, and I have gotten to know you as well as a suitor over this time. I am delighted to see you every time you break my door down, and I want you to see my silk stockings, and I don’t know why we don’t just admit that we love each other!”

There’s a ringing silence. We stand a stride apart, unmoving. Antonia catches her breath like she’s just run a long distance.

Her last words loop in my mind. We love each other.

“You do?” I say, relaxing my grip on my loot.

“Yes!” She bends her knees, like this topic is pushing her to her limits. “You are the most exciting thing to happen in my life, and you make me feel like I have worth, in some strange way. The way you look at me and really see me is like…” She huffs, color rising in her cheeks.

It’s like I’ve been standing on a cliff, postponing the moment I have to jump into the water, but now the last rock has crumbled beneath my boots, and I have no choice but to leap.

I grab her and kiss her, pulling her against me. The chocolates and pendant crash to the floor.

Antonia kisses me back hungrily, her hands moving beneath my jacket and around to the small of my back.

I break our kiss to meet her gaze. “Never speak of this,” I whisper.

“If you insist,” she murmurs.

I walk her back toward the bed, where I push her down and climb on top of her.

She’s an irresistible sight, with her dark hair spread across the pillows, flushed cheeks, and parted lips. Her breast rises and falls, and her eyes… God, those beautiful green eyes.

Her hands link around my neck and I lean down to kiss her. I can hardly bear the feel of her body beneath mine, with her soft curves and her legs parted beneath her skirts.

I reach down and pull her skirts up, tentatively.

“Lucia,” she whispers, breathing faster. She reaches beneath my tunic and caresses my waist, so gentle.

I lift her skirts enough to expose her undergarments—those achingly beautiful silk stockings. They’re the color of pearls. I run my hands over them, memorizing the feel of her legs beneath my palms, before sliding down the stockings and tossing them aside.

Her legs are perfect—even more than I imagined.

“Lucia, I’ve wanted this for so long,” she says, tugging my tunic.

I shed my jacket and remove my tunic, a flutter in my chest. “Me, as well.”

I lay on top of her, kissing her tenderly while sliding a hand between her legs. The sound she makes is so sweet that I close my eyes to savor it.

Her hands trace over my breasts, and she pinches my nipples.

I gasp. “Oh, that feels good.”

She grins. We kiss deeper, moving against each other. The feel of her against my breasts is tantalizing.

“Can I try something?” I whisper.

Antonia nods, a spark in her eyes.

I crawl lower on the bed and lift her skirts over my head, settling into the darkness between her legs.

“Captain Lucia,” she says playfully, “what are you—”

She gasps as I run my hands up her thighs to the apex between her legs. There, I kiss her gently.

She cries out, and satisfaction surges through me. I close my eyes and kiss her again. I lick her up and down, side to side, until she trembles and goosebumps ripple up her legs.

“Lucia… I didn’t know anything could feel so amazing,” she says, gasping.

I lick her faster, lost in the taste of her and the feel of her legs around me. Heat coils inside me.

I push her thighs apart, moving my tongue faster. Her moans grow louder, and soon—

“Oh… oh… Lucia… I…”

She shivers, and calls out loudly enough that I’m sure people must hear us in the streets.

I surface from her skirts and lay beside her, grinning. Her hair is a mess, like she’s been pulling it, and her cheeks are flushed.

“Where did you learn that?” she says, panting.

“I’ve sailed to every corner of the earth, love. The things I’ve heard about on my travels would make you blush. But I admit… I’ve imagined trying a few of those things on you.”

She props up on her elbows. “Oh? What else have you wanted to try?”

I grin and roll onto my back, pulling her on top of me. “If you’re fine with my crew ransacking the town for another hour or two, I can show you.”

~

New story coming in a few days! Get early access (and read it all at once instead of in pieces) at patreon.com/tianawarner