All the Stars and Teeth (All the Stars and Teeth, #1)

by Adalyn Grace

“Are you flirting with me? It’s a bit hard to tell, considering how terrifying you are.”

Bastian snorts. “Just take it. I saw the way you scarfed these things down last night.” “You were watching me all night, then?” Bastian rolls his eyes when I ask this. “You flatter yourself. In that crown of yours, you were hard to miss.”

He may have been handsome beneath the glow of the stars, but here in the sun he’s glorious and comfortable. He must know every inch of Keel Haul.

Even if you never use it, it’s still forever with you.

“The world doesn’t work with only your eyes, Princess. There’s truth in more than what you can see.”

It was the excitement of travel. Of sailing. It’s not the way I imagined it, but I’m living a dream I’ve had since the first time I saw the ocean. “You’re a natural,” Bastian says. “You even woke with the sun.”

A pirate has no right to look so handsome.

Bastian has his body protectively around mine within a second. His warm chest presses against my back, steadying me, then he slowly eases his foot beneath mine and guides it back into position. My face goes hot as his hand sets on my hip, making sure I’ve caught my balance.

“Relax.” His words are a mere whisper; they buzz pleasantly against my neck as the wind knocks wispy curls into my eyes. “We’re climbing up the windward shroud, the weather is mild, and you have a handsome and experienced pirate to look out for you. You can do this.”

The ocean below twinkles as if dusted with millions of crystal shards. Bastian and I are side by side with the seagulls, so close I could reach out and snatch a fish from one of their beaks. They squawk at us, either welcoming us or offended by our presence. A laugh rattles me when Bastian squawks right back at them.

I turn toward the pirate. His eyes are mirrors of the twinkling ocean as he stares far into the horizon. His chest is still and his breathing easy, relaxed. I understand why he’s made the ocean his home. It’s marvelous and uninhibited. Tangled in the ship’s rigging and overlooking the sea like its figurehead, a small part of me can’t help but wonder what it must be like to live like this. To go wherever you wish, day after day.

Despite how much the memories make me ache, recalling those stories also makes me smile. When I was a child, I loved listening to them every night before bed. But as I grew older, that stopped being enough. I no longer wanted to listen to them; I wanted to live them.

It’s a long moment before Bastian twists himself in the ropes, flipping his body back around. His smile is nothing like the cocky one he usually sports. It’s soft. Gentle. A little sad.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let them touch you.”

Bastian’s skin is smooth as I cup his face in my palm, trying to draw his attention to me once more. He’s eyeing the water with an animalistic hunger that sets nerves crawling along my skin. I try to ignore why this makes me so anxious as I lean in and press my lips to his.

Bastian’s quicker to respond than Ferrick. His hand slides from my thigh to my waist, and then to my shoulder. He grips it tightly, crushing me to him. My entire body swells with warmth and I find myself kissing him back with the same urgency. Bastian’s other hand rests on my back and beneath my shirt, caressing my skin. His tongue brushes mine, tasting me, and chills pulse through my body like electricity. This is how a kiss is meant to make me feel.

“You think a mermaid’s enchantment can really be broken so easily?” Vataea angles herself toward me, laughing. “The kiss only works if the enchanted one has romantic feelings toward the person who kisses them. I figured you’d snap one of them out of it if you were lucky. You are far luckier than I thought.”

I lean back on my hands. After our kiss, Bastian said he’d been thinking of Vataea, not me. But I broke his enchantment all the same.

The pirate is a di...

He lifts a brow. “Now, now, Princess. There’s no need to be so forthcoming. If you want to accompany me into the captain’s quarters, you need only suggest it.”

There’s something richly satisfying in giving all of yourself up to an act of creation. It’s like magic. It demands your focus and requires a small piece of your soul to complete.

Bastian leans around me to eye the desk. He’s close enough that his chest presses against my back as he breathes, and the warmth of those breaths tickles my cheek.

There’s a split second where the air shifts. I turn to catch him looking at me, and when I think he might turn away, he doesn’t. His grip tightens on the chair, and I think of the way those hands felt as they held my hips tightly to him. The way his lips felt against mine when we kissed, and how I didn’t want it to end. Perhaps he and I want the same thing.

He kisses me, drawing his body firmly around mine. His lips aren’t soft. They’re rough and imploring, continuing where we left off. He tastes of salt. I drink him in, winding my arms around his neck, through his hair, over his shoulders. He shifts so he can wrap his arm around my back and pulls me from my chair with a quiet grunt.

against the wall, his hand wrapped in my hair and his lips roving my neck. My body is so warm I fear I might melt right here, pressed against Bastian’s chest.

I catch his jaw and bring it back to my lips, tasting the salt, the sunlight, all of it. All of him. I’ve kissed many boys before, but none of them felt like this. None of them made me fear my heart might burst through my rib cage and combust from working so hard. I don’t want him to pull aw...

There’s a matching hunger in his eyes as they roam my body, his chest rising and falling quickly from shaky breaths. Desire pulses within his stare when his eyes reach mine, but he forces it back and plasters a grin onto his face.

The taste of salt remains on my lips even when Bastian and I eventually make our way back to the deck. The memory of his hands on my waist, fingers curling against me, still burns my skin.

I smack him lightly on the shoulder, then fall in to hug him tight, laughing because I can’t find my breath and words don’t satiate me. Nothing I say will do justice to the overwhelming pleasure swirling inside me. There are no words for the satisfaction of the sea’s salt on my face and the brine in my lungs.

Bastian knows. He doesn’t need words, because he knows the feeling well. I recognize it in his lopsided smile.

The others are directly behind me. “Is everyone doing all right?” I ask. Bastian responds with a breathy laugh. “Couldn’t be better. I’ve got a nice view.” Though he can’t see it, my eyes practically roll straight out of my skull to compensate for the heat that warms my cheeks. If this space were any larger, I would have turned and punched him on the shoulder. “Enjoy it while you can, pirate.”

“It’s beautiful,” I tell him. His eyes flicker briefly toward me, throat bobbing as he nods.

But even our idols—even those we want to love and trust more than anything—can let us down.

I press my lips to his, and at first the kiss is tender. But as tears begin to wet his cheeks, that tenderness gives way to something raw and passionate. Something almost desperate.

When Bastian knots his fingers into the back of my curls, his touch is electricity. I shiver each time his thumb strokes the back of my neck. Falling back in the cot, I make fists in his shirt and pull his body on top of mine. His lips are rum sweet as I drink him in, nodding permission when his fingers hesitate at the edge of my tunic. When his hazel eyes catch mine, my body ignites. Bastian’s hands are warm and rough as they slip beneath my tunic, roaming the skin of my stomach. Exploring the curves of my hips. My eyes flutter shut as his lips find my neck. He alternates between peppering soft kisses and gentle bites. I hold him to me, one hand wrapped around his back and the other curled tight in his chestnut waves.

I want this. I w...

There’s a heat in my belly that pushes me forward, guiding my fingers to the buttons of his shirt. He makes no complaint as I fumble to undo them. The moment it’s off, he slides down so that his lips are on my hip bone and I have to grip the cot to steady myself as they rove lower and lower, until he’s kissing the skin of my thighs. His fingers slide beneath the band of my pants and I tense, not realizing I’ve hardly been breathing this whole time. Bastian pauses immediately, warm eyes flickering to mine as he draws back up and plants a tender kiss to my lips. It’s the taste of rum on them that...

I catch his hand in mine and draw it to my lips, kissing his palm. His fingers. Knuckles.

He drops his forehead onto the top of my head, words muffled in my curls. “We’ll do this together.”

Because when he touches me, it’s like I’m myself again, if only for a moment.

Bastian’s careful not to touch the cuts in my palm as he curls his fingers around my hand. He squeezes it, just once. A soft pulse to remind me that he’s there. I allow my fingers to do the same, lacing around his

Both his hands close to encompass mine. He brings them up to his lips and kisses the tips of my fingers.

He lets go of my hands to cup my face instead, and draws my lips to his. All our adventure. All my dreams of protecting my kingdom and family. It’s all led to this moment. I’m closest to my old self when I’m with Bastian. Never has a man had such a hold on me, and never did I want one to. But I can’t deny that when I’m with him is the only time I’m calm. It’s the only time I feel ready to take on the challenges ahead of us. I pull him tight, seeking solace in his lips. In the hands that graze my face and warm me from the sheets of rain and the air’s harsh bite. I hold him as close and as tightly as I can, a part of me wanting nothing more than to live in this moment forever.

Supported by Bastian, I make my way through the doors of my home.

I turn my head, watching the soft rise and fall of Bastian’s chest as we lie in the gardens, the place where everything first changed.