Against Dark Tides (Beneath Black Sails, #2)

by Clare Sager

He wanted to add another method to those he’d used to show her how truly sorry he was. He wanted to hold her close, to whisper against her skin how wrong he’d been, how he’d do whatever it took to make it right. He would worship her with his body, prove how much he cared, how much she meant to him. Her willing servant.

Oh yes. The rest of the room. That existed, and there were other people in it.

“I don’t need nor want your pity.” Billy’s mouth settled into a flat line and he raised one eyebrow, so close to Vee’s best glare it might have made Knigh laugh in other circumstances. “In fact, I find it rather irritating—the idea that being as you are is the only way a man can be fulfilled, happy, useful.”

“Knigh,” she breathed. And then there was no air between them. He wasn’t sure if he’d bent to her or if she’d tiptoed to him or if they’d both moved in one moment; all he knew was that her mouth was against his.

Disappointing fathers. That was a wound they shared.

“Understanding something isn’t the same as agreeing with it.”

Just because you’re the only one she lets through the door, doesn’t mean you’re responsible for what’s behind it.”

“So,” he said, a half-smile tugging on his lips, “you guess your way through life?” She grinned and shrugged. “An educated guess, sometimes. An informed guess, most of the time. But I can’t know everything, I can’t have every piece of information or predict every possibility.” Her expression grew gentler. “You have to do the best with what you’ve got. That’s all anyone can do.”

She was not nothing. She was Vice. And she was here to call sea and storm to her command.

And I’m no hero, but I’m no villain, either.”

“Of course I did,” he murmured, voice rumbling through her, grey eyes more intense, more vulnerable than their steely colour. “I’ll always come for you.”