attention absorbed by his friends as they bantered back and forth.
Amid the noise, Priest leaned down against my back and gripped Ashley’s hair.
“She didn’t tell you, did she?” He pressed closer, making sure Ashley could read his lips. “She’s mine, Cutler.” He thrust, jarring me against Ashley. “My wife.”
I sobbed harder, forcing the sounds and faking the tears. But the pain was real. I knew what it felt like to be betrayed and didn’t wish that on Ashley. I never wanted him to learn about my marriage like this.
It could’ve been avoided. I should have told him when I woke on the beach or in the lagoon or while we were still on his ship. There’d been hundreds of opportunities, and I’d put it off like a coward. I was wretched.
His eyes shifted to mine, and what I saw there wasn’t resentment or hatred. His gaze moved over my face, warm with understanding. He looked at my shirt, the jade stone at my throat, and returned to my eyes.
I knew in my gut that he was thinking about the conversation we’d had when I was clad in another man’s shirt.
“Do you still love him?”
“Who?”
“The man who wore this shirt.”
“Yes. I still love him, but I’m working on rectifying that.”
“He betrayed you…He bedded another.”
“Bedded and loved.”
I gave him a discreet nod, silently telling him that Priest was indeed the man who’d betrayed me, the one I still loved.
He turned his attention to Priest, and they exchanged a look I couldn’t read at this angle. Maybe not at any angle.
Where was the animosity? The possessive, primitive chest pounding? This was certainly not the time for that, but what passed between them was something akin to an alliance.
Ashley’s hands jerked beneath me, the motion of his wrists confusing. One arm slid upward. The other remained stretched toward our legs. Did he…?
Good God, he’d removed his restraints. My heart panted. Not only that, he held something in the hand that fisted between my breasts. The weight of Priest’s body kept us pressed together, and flattened along the center of my torso lay the broad, curved shape of steel.
Thunder drove through my veins and crashed in my ears. Priest had given Ashley a blade. It must have happened when he’d untied his breeches. He kept knives beneath his loose shirt and all those belts. It would’ve been feasible to slip one out and pass it between my legs.
That was why he wanted Ashley’s hands there.
Priest continued the pretense of violating my body, stirring a crescendo of huzzahs and applause amongst the unruly onlookers.
With his voice smothered by the noise, he met Ashley’s alert gaze. “Just like our ruse with Arabella.”
I stopped breathing. Arabella? Ashley’s sister?
Ashley’s eyes glittered with comprehension. Good for him because I didn’t understand any of this. God’s teeth, Priest knew Arabella?
My mind spun. He and Ashley shared a history and a plan I wasn’t privy to.
“Give him your hands,” Priest breathed at my ear and pushed off my body with a pained roar.
My heart beat in rapid-fire as I shoved my wrists toward the knife Ashley held between us. No one noticed, for all eyes tracked Priest’s strange grunting and stumbling beside the bed.
He tucked himself into his breeches, groaning as if the action pelted him with agony.
The pirates fell quiet.
“You dinna finish.” Madwulf’s skeptical voice broke from the crowd. “What’s wrong with you, lad?”
“Nothing,” Priest snapped, fumbling with the laces at his groin.
I realized that the grinding friction against my backside hadn’t made his body respond at all. Hard to orgasm without an erection. I didn’t believe for a minute that he couldn’t perform in front of an audience. Something else was going on. Was it related to the burn scars that covered one side of his body?
“Captain…” The ogre stepped forward, staring at Priest’s lower regions. “It’s his pisser.”
The rope around my wrists frayed and fell away. Hallelujah. Now that I was free, it would only take a second to go for Priest’s blades on the floor.
“Show us.” Madwulf stood and prowled toward Priest. “Let’s see your cock.”
“I’m not showing you a tarnal thing.” Turning away, Priest continued to clumsily lace his breeches, deliberately drawing out his efforts.
Madwulf motioned to the ogre, who trained the flintlock at Priest’s head. Priest’s flintlock, which wasn’t loaded.
Priest had planned for this.
“Open your breeches.” Madwulf glared, his face turning crimson.
Beneath me, Ashley’s empty hand moved between our hips. He inched it out and to the side near the wall. Wait, no, it wasn’t empty.