Beneath Black Sails (Beneath Black Sails, #1)

by Clare Sager

His skin burned. He’d only wanted to catch her for the handsome bounty but now… Barking hoarse orders, he gripped the rail, knuckles aching and white. Now, she’d made it personal.

“Captain Blackwood…” Somehow formality felt safer, but damn it, did she want to be safe? “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re looking at me like you want to kiss me.”

Some felt ashamed of their bodies or hid them or compared them to others—too big, too small, too fleshy, too muscular for a woman, not enough curves. Not her. Just like the reef, bodies came in hundreds, thousands of different forms, and she’d never seen one that wasn’t beautiful.

The sea—the world was no place for dreamers or romance or love or any of it. Her only option had been to become Lady Vice. Who was strong. Who didn’t rely on anybody. Who didn’t love and so didn’t grieve and would not break.