Sea of Ruin (Sea of Ruin, #1)

by Pam Godwin

“What will you show me?” My voice rose through several octaves. “Love?” “Yes.” “Love doesn’t betray.” That familiar pain announced itself in the cracks of my voice. “Why did you do it?” “Believe me…” He dropped his head back on his shoulders and breathed out through his nose. “It wasn’t on purpose.” “Oh? It was an accident, then? How does that work? Did you fall out of my bed and accidentally land in someone else’s vagina?”

“I will not interfere. But I’ll tell you this.” He leaned in. “Hear him. Listen.” “I do, Jobah. He speaks in lies and manipulations.” “Listen to what he’s not saying.” I narrowed my eyes. “What do you know? Did he tell you—?” “I visited him this morning.” He held up his hands. “But if I knew his secrets, you would, too. You have my loyalty, Captain.” I nodded, trusting him implicitly. “Whatever you have planned for him, be gentle.” Jobah straightened, his expression somber. “Hurting you has already caused him the greatest pain.”

“It doesn’t matter how far we fall, how much pain we inflict, or how dark it becomes in the ruin. I’m going to be with you, waiting for you, loving you, forgiving you. I’m never letting go, Bennett. Never.”

“I’ve never met a siren, but you must be of the same ilk or nature. Unchristian, mysterious, dangerously enticing… If you think to lure me with those eyes and enchant me to shipwreck, you have the wrong sailor.”

“I never imagined,” he murmured, “that a view could pertain to the sense of touch. Yet when I look at you, I don’t just see beauty. I feel it.” The compliment shocked my eyes open as each word sank beneath my breastbone and saturated the spot where I was the softest and easiest to injure. “Seeing you like this…” He shifted, leaning along my side and taking in my form. “It’s a feeling of such…relief. Like stepping into the rain after years of drought.” His gaze strolled along the length of my body, his voice deepening. “The untamed serenity in it, soft as velvet, gentle waves of perfect beauty, glistening with life. One look is a shower that washes the senses anew.”

Over the next two nights, he repeated his erotic performance on the balcony, unaware that he had an audience. I watched from the shadows as he grunted and trembled and squirted his seed into the wind. Then I fell asleep to the soothing cadence of those cock-stroking fingers in my hair. Sinful. Resplendent. Undeniably wrong. I could spend an eternity with him like that.

“You are so gratifying to the senses. So clear and absolute.” A kiss at my hairline. “Unrestricted. Unconditional.” His lips brushed across my cheek. “Ripe with temptation. Fit for eating.” He touched his forehead to mine, breathing heavily. “You’re so damn stunning it hurts.”

With each passing second, my intent to win his love felt less like a devised plan and more like a fate I couldn’t stop or control. I needed his affection. Not to use as a means to escape. I didn’t want to escape Ashley Cutler. I didn’t want to betray him or lose him in any capacity. The greedy, unreasonable truth was I wished to keep him and hold him just like this every night.

We’re not equals. Those words were for him. He clung to them, desperate for the reminder, because he knew where this was headed, and he had about as much power to stop it as I did. Fated. Destined. Whatever name I gave it, I’d felt it the day we met. But awareness didn’t make it hurt any less.

“You’re the glue, Bennett. The reason we’re here. Think about it. Ashley and I fell in love with the same woman. Was that coincidence? Or something more profound? You know what I think?” He traced his thumb along my bottom lip. “You’re the overruling destiny that he and I have been traveling toward our whole lives. Our paths forked, veered, crossed, and forked again a dozen times. And here we are, right where we started. With you.”

“So I left. Joined the Royal Navy, much to the despair of my parents.” “And me. I demanded he stay.” Priest lifted on an elbow and curved a hand around my waist. “We fought about it. Beat the hell out of each other right here in this room.” He cut his eyes to Ashley, narrowing them to slits. “He fucked me that night. It was our first time…” His nostrils widened. “The prick fucked me and walked out. I didn’t see him again for a year.”

He yanked the knife away as Priest strode toward him. Their eyes connected, their postures hard and combative. But as Priest raised his hand, it wasn’t to hurl a punch. His fingers curled around the back of Ashley’s neck and dragged their foreheads together. “Perhaps I should have said this years ago.” Priest closed his eyes and released a breath. “I didn’t know how to put it into words.” “Don’t.” Ashley gripped Priest’s shoulders, neither pushing nor pulling, as he gritted his teeth. “Don’t do this.” “I don’t know what to call it…this invisible thing that wraps so tightly around us. All I know is that I want to protect it, guard it with my life, and never let it go. This isn’t something that needs mending or burying. It’s raw and honest and perfect, and you damn well know it.” Priest leaned back enough to hold Ashley’s gaze. “I love you.”

My pulse quickened at his somber tone. “Are you going to regret this?” “What I’ve given up is a lot.” He gripped my waist with both hands and placed a kiss between my breasts. “What I’ve gained is precious. Inestimable. A value too great to measure.” He exchanged a fond look with Priest and returned to me. “Thank you for helping me understand that.”

My chest lifted on a thrill of pleasure. I commanded the ship. Ashley commanded the bedchamber. Priest, on the other hand, was a man of many talents. Skills that had been earned through his roles as a footman, gunner, pirate captain, husband, and libertine. But the one he favored was his position as Groom of the Chamber. He’d taken care of Ashley for years and was blatantly clear about his intentions in doing the same for me. He was the backbone of our three-part relationship.

“After everything we’ve been through, I already consider our triad a binding union. She’s our wife. Yours and mine. If you need a formal declaration, I’ll give it.” The corner of his mouth crooked as he looked at me. “She’s Mrs. Cutler, Mrs. Farrell, Captain Sharp, Benedicta Leighton…” “Goldilocks.” Ashley studied my face. “I love you. Be my wife.” “Already yours. Your wife, your lover, your captive, a pirate who loves both you and your best friend above all else. And we shall be blinded by our love for life and beyond the ends of the sea.”

That night, I watched them reach for each other. Not out of anger or aggression. They came together in a language of closeness, tightening their arms around a bond that had been forged through twenty years of trials and loyalty. As their hard, muscular bodies joined and moved as one, I was awestruck, mesmerized, unable to look away. They took turns inside each other, stroking, grasping, mating. They tried to draw me in, but I found an inordinate amount of inclusiveness and pleasure in watching them. It was profound, poignant, deeply beautiful.

The oil portrait blurred behind a sheen of searing tears. Priest and Ashley held the painting as I wiped my face and chased the moisture from my eyes. Then I soaked in the image with my heart in my throat. A young Lady Abigail Leighton perched upon a bench that was entirely too elaborate for its woodland surroundings. Edric Sharp leaned against a tree at her side, wearing a flowing shirt of silk, knee-high jackboots, and a cutlass that glinted in the sun. At his feet lay a sleeping hound dog.

My mother’s gown possessed the lavender hues and delicate ruffles she favored. Where she was painted pale and lithe, my father bore the freckled complexion and muscled frame of a seafaring Irishman. He looked so young. So in love. His face tilted downward, smiling upon my mother as if utterly distracted by her, the painter’s presence forgotten. My mother’s pose on the bench was relaxed yet stately, her eyes pointed at her lap. “Look at that, Bennett.” Ashley hovered on my other side, his finger motioning at the spot I’d just discovered. My mother’s hands surrounded a small bump on her lap, the fabric of her gown stretching over the roundness beneath. No one would notice that detail in a passing glance, but it was there, declaring the year it was painted.

Grief was the reason my chest felt too tight. But joy had a hand in that, too. My father hadn’t just given me a memory that wouldn’t fade. He’d gifted me with a glimpse into something that had been kept from me my entire life. Not once had I ever seen my parents together. Until now.

“Get down from there,” he ordered in his imperious tone and tightened his hold on my ankle. “My heart can’t take another second of your balancing act.” “But you’re so good at saving drowning women, my lord.” I hooked an elbow around a shroud, kicked my free leg beyond the gunwale, and leaned far out over the waves. “Will you put that fine-mannered mouth on mine and give me air?” “With pleasure. After you come down from there.”

I loved them more because they loved each other. What we had was rare. We were magic. No one understood it, and nothing could touch it. I would protect it with my life.

“The three of us together cannot be stopped.” A savage glint lit in Priest’s eyes. “We’re an exquisite force of destruction.” I couldn’t agree more. Love prevailed, not in the windless calm of life, but in the ruin.