The Maid and the Cook Ch. 01

His words about the cat raised a worry she'd put aside much earlier in the day. A problem made far thornier after the way he'd cornered her before evening meal.

"Mr Bone ... where will I sleep?"

Blue eyes came up to meet hers again at this, interest in the cat forgotten at once. The frank consideration in his gaze surely added colour to her cheeks; men did not look at Brigit O'Creagh this way.

He rose from the stool, his ascent taking what seemed like days. She was reminded again of his size. Weight on his good leg, his eyes travelled in a deliberate, earthy path from her face all the way down to her feet and back again. He took a slow, rolling step in her direction.

"That is a very good question, Mrs O'Creagh." He'd pulled back the pace of his speech to a languorous crawl. His next step followed with the soft rap of wood on wood. Brigit wrestled with the urge to shiver.

"I've been asking it myself since the captain saw us in the council chamber." His words came low and laden with insinuation as he closed the remaining distance between them with a lazy fluidity. She felt her hands draw back to rest on the edge of the block behind her, for what purpose she didn't know.

Are you going to vault backward over the bloody thing, girl?

With a final step he had her trapped again between his broad frame and the infernal cutting block. He looked down at her then with a maddeningly placid expression and a single arched brow.

"Where will ye sleep? Brigit?"

They were close enough now that his words vibrated from his chest into hers, and she was very aware of the rise and fall of her breasts as they pillowed above her neckline. From his vantage point, there was no way he hadn't noticed.

"I ... I don't ... " she stammered, unable to form a coherent answer, held in thrall as she was by this man.

"We'll worry about that matter in a moment," his voice was pitched for her ears alone, "but first ... "

Before the startled squawk of protest left her throat, Bone had gripped her about the waist with both hands and hoisted her bodily up and backward. She now sat atop the cutting block.

Another step brought him right up against its edge, and when she gaped down at her new position she saw that she hadn't the presence of mind to draw her legs properly to one side. The cook stood between her knees, and there would be nothing for closing them. Even an attempt would merely squeeze them against his hips.

This man wanted things from her. Things, Brigit admitted, she might even be willing to give, but her insides tightened with panic all the same. Pirates didn't earn their reputations through acts of charity and kindness. And a ship wasn't a very large place to run, if he was bent on doing her harm.

He leaned in, hands on either side of her knees, eyes hooded with ... With what? Was that ... desire? She wasn't sure. It wasn't the usual revulsion or loose tolerance she caught in the eyes of the few men who'd bedded her in the past. Cautious as a fawn at a forest's edge, she attempted to draw him out.

"But first?" her eyes were wide, holding his, her body tense and still. What would he do? Would he hurt her?

"First," he said, in tones that spoke of endless time to spare, "I have another question I'd like answered." Their noses were nearly touching now, but she didn't want to draw away. Her heart hammered wildly in her chest.

"What's that?" She was almost inaudible, her words falling like feathers on the ruddy beard brushing at her chin now. She blinked at him. Their lips were so very close.

"Brigit ... " he lay her name down as the lightest caress, and closed his eyes.

His mouth was on hers in a blanket of warmth. Not demanding, or lewd. A question. An offer.

She accepted.

A further tilt of her neck and she moulded her lips up against his. A low groan rumbled up from his chest and it carried the song of a man left hungry for far too long. The deep, male sound of want made her breath catch, and the parting of her lips seemed a signal to him.

His tongue slid over her lower lip, another request for permission, and she opened, letting him in. For the briefest moment she was stunned. These were not the sort of kisses she'd received from other men. In fact, those had hardly been any sort of kisses at all. Her worries disintegrated under the mouth of this pirate standing between her knees, and she felt an appetite swell up in their place, tight and full to the point of bursting.

Brigit answered him back in kind, tasting, pushing up into his mouth with her own tongue. This brought another growl from the man, and as they pressed in to sample each other, she felt a heavy hand glide up the back of her neck and lace into her hair at the nape. Another languorous stroke of his tongue at that same moment brought her attention to the heat simmering between her thighs.

A heat that was lodged against the waist of a man who seemed intent on consuming her whole.

Her head was swimming when Bone drew back from the kiss, and when her eyes came open to meet his, she found them searching her with a desperate fever. She had no words and could merely stare at him and attempt to breathe.

Brigit had never been made to feel this way by a man. The strands of white threaded through his beard, the extra lines at his brow that weren't on the faces of the younger men she'd dallied with, did nothing to quell the spiralling tension at her centre. The more deliberate way he handled her, perhaps a result of his age, possibly even heated her further.

He can take whatever he wants, at this point.

Whatever he sought he appeared to find, because he descended on her again, this time urgent, greedy. His mouth pulled at hers, tongue inviting her in, drawing small, frustrated sounds of need from the back of her throat to join his own. The hand at her neck trailed down along her back before the cook returned his palm to the block, bracing himself on both arms once again.

Her jaw received his kisses now, and then her ear, her neck. She tilted her head away, giving him better access, and her lips parted as he took it and moved lower, lapping at the hollow of her throat. Somewhere in the fog of sensation, she noticed her knees were not merely parted by this man who was fast devouring her sanity, but that she'd shifted subtly on the block to fit her hips directly against his obvious arousal. Layers of skirts and petticoats, a set of breeches and a shirt, were all that lay between them.

Brigit hated the captain a trifle less now, for having handed her off to this cook.

He was nipping at her collar bone, lips and teeth tracing a fiery path, and his right hand was back, urging the fabric of her sleeve further down over her shoulder. A rough thumb smoothed over the top of the crease where her arm met her body, and his kisses moved from there to her neckline. Between her thighs, a dull, warm throb made demands.

"Mr Bone ... " his name came without thought, a sigh as her own right hand smoothed up over the arm left supporting the big man's weight.

"John ... if ye like ... " he said, amid intent nuzzling and lapping at her flesh.

So. John Bone it was. Pirate aboard The Devil's Luck.

He buried his face nose-deep between her breasts where they were piled high together by her stays and inhaled, letting out a groan of approval before his eager mouth set to work there as well.

Pirate. Cook. I don't care what he is, so long as he doesn't stop.

The man setting her body aflame soon became dissatisfied with the limitations set by her bodice and, with a grunt of frustration and a sharp tug, brought the entire affair some inches lower. Her remaining intact sleeve slid off its shoulder with the movement, and the bones of her stays prodded down into the meat of her hips. But now her breasts were completely freed and none of that mattered.

Bone righted himself and held her at arm's length for a moment, taking in her freckled curves with those blue eyes of his. The pale pink of her nipples darkened, hardening under the raw need in his stare alone.

"Mmm. Look at that," he said the way a man might appraise a holiday feast. Brigit watched him chew at the inside of his lip and give a soft, disbelieving shake of his head before he bent to her once more, making new claims on her exposed flesh.

"John!" the newly-learnt name burst out of her with a gasp as he took one of her nipples into his mouth, plumping the breast around it with a warm squeeze of his hand.

Hot, wet suckling drew her in, and a hand moved over her other breast, palming its weight, brushing its stiffened tip with an idle thumb. Just as her head began to loll back in indulgence, however, she felt him pull away and stand again.

She opened her eyes to find him grinning down at her.

"Stay where ye are, Brigit O'Creagh," he admonished in a lusty taunt, flashing his teeth at her, "Don't. Move. Not one inch."

He left her dishevelled there, hair mussed, bare bosom pointing at the ceiling of the galley, while he stole through the pantry door on the aft wall. Crockery rasped over wood and paper crinkled from somewhere in the little room as the cook rummaged about.

Brigit sat with her thighs splayed under her skirts, feeling wanton indeed without the distraction of wandering male hands or a mouth to make her forget her lewd position. Her nerves nearly had the better of her, and she was a heartbeat away from hopping down when Bone reappeared with a sly smile on his face.

A squat, stoppered clay jar fit just in his palm and he held it up to her as he made his way back to the block. He came between her knees again and set the jar down on the cutting surface beside her hip, prying out its wide cork as he went.

She peered down into the container and saw it full of something glossy and amber-coloured.

"What's this?" she asked him, curiosity and apprehension bubbling away inside her.

Bone pressed his forefinger into the jar and came out with a smudge of the stuff coating the tip. He lifted his hand between them, the raised finger poised to touch her lips.

"Open," he instructed her.

Brigit screwed up her face. He simply expected her to put whatever this was in her mouth on faith?

"Go on," he gave her an amused half-smile, "It won't be bad, I promise ye."

Narrowing her eyes at him, she decided to trust. He'd shown her only pleasure so far. She let her jaw relax and her lips parted. Bone slid the finger inside. As it came in contact with her tongue, sweetness flooded her mouth.

Honey.

His grin grew wider as he saw the recognition on her face. Brigit closed her lips around the treat he offered and used her tongue to clean the rest of the sticky goodness away, slowing down her movements while she held his eyes with hers. She knew just what it would look like to him, and this small display made some of her boldness return.

A controlled hiss from the cook told her his imagination had conjured the only possible image it could, and he pulled back the finger with a wet pop.

"My private store," he explained with a grin, "so don't ye be telling anyone about it, Mrs O'Creagh."

She chuckled at this. Tales of this moment from her to anyone else in the crew would be unlikely, to say the least.

The hand went again to the jar, and this time his thumb came out bearing the honey. In a deliberate move, he cradled her breast and transferred the sweet glaze in a smudge over her nipple. Mischief alight in his eyes as he watched her reaction to this move, he did the same in turn to the other.

Are all ships' cooks such decadent madmen?

"Now," he said, eyes on his handiwork, "what finer thing could a man ask for?" With a satisfied nod to himself, Bone fell to her upturned breasts once more.

His first exploratory taste of them, she discovered, had been a mere shadow of the attention he gave to her now. The tight, honeyed bud was pulled into his mouth, gently at first while his tongue rasped away the sweetness he'd laid there, but then more insistently as he worked to clean away every trace.

The sight of him at her breast was not to be believed. He looked a different man entirely than the imposing pirate she'd first seen in the council chamber. Not fearsome at all now that his eyes were closed in pleasure and quiet rumbles of appreciation drifted up over her moistened flesh.

Brigit bit her lip as her eyes moved down to his shoulders, their depth from front to back making her want to knead and push at them. The awkward young men who made up her limited past experiences had been all elbows and shoulder blades. John Bone was a great, solid beast of a man. A man whose weight she wanted to be smothered in, who made her want to roll about like a cat in heat. She would've been massaging and pawing away at him, if only she had hold of her faculties enough at the moment to do anything other than limply support her weight on her arms and be savoured.

When she thought there could truly be no more, he moved to the other side and began the process anew, relieving a second sensitive tip of its sugary coating. The suckling at this side grew almost painful as his mouth demanded more of her. The first nipple he'd worked at had been damp and cooling in the air of the galley, but now he took it up between his fingers, rolling and tugging at it. The parallel sensations were dragging urgent whimpers from her now.

"Please, John ... " the words tumbled out of her, though she didn't know precisely what it was she wanted from him. Only to beg perhaps. Beg for more.

Hearing his own name seemed to further stoke the fires of his kisses, and he carried them scorching up along her throat again until his lips found their way to hers. His mouth demanded for a final, clear moment, that she truly acknowledge what was happening down here in the galley of The Devil's Luck.

And what was happening was that she wanted this man, this pirate, to sweep her up and carry her along to all the forbidden places she'd never been.

He appeared to be well on his way to doing just that.

Righting himself, he rested his forehead atop hers and moved broad palms to grip her lightly just above either knee. She angled her head back to look up at him, thoughts spinning even as her breath slowed.

Before today, Brigit couldn't have imagined that blue eyes would remind her of fire.

With a squeeze of his thumbs, and a sliding shift of his hands a mere inch higher on her thighs, John Bone made his most dangerous promise yet. She exhaled in a silent groan that threatened to turn her nearly wrong side out. The bare hint of a smirk on his face spoke of wickedness to come.

"Care to show me what you're hiding 'neath these skirts, pretty girl?"

The coarse edge on his voice teased and suggested, made the floor seem to drop away, leaving her falling, untethered.

What else could he teach her, down here in the dim light of this galley?

She slid her own fingers under his and, without releasing his stare — she didn't know how she'd maintain courage if she looked away — began to gather up the several layers of fabric between her and the intentions of this man she'd known for mere hours.

Inch by inch her hemline rose, until she felt the brush of air against her thighs above the top edge of her stockings. A handful or two of material further, and the bulk of her garment was gathered at her waist. Bone stepped back and she swallowed, fearing his reaction now that they'd come this far.

The first thing he did then was the last thing she expected.

He didn't reach for her secrets now that she'd laid herself bare. He didn't pull back to leer at her, either.

Brigit felt each of her wrists covered by a hand and, with his eyes still on hers, Bone drew his touch in a tortuously slow place up along her arms. Over her shoulders he went, fingertips a whisper, until he cupped her jaw from both sides, thumbs brushing her cheekbones. Tracing over her scars. She wanted to avert her eyes, but found she could not.

Again he kissed her. Only this time, despite the slow care in his touch, Brigit felt the way the tips of his fingers curled under just so, the way the muscles in his arms were tight beneath her hands where they'd risen to rest during the kiss. Here was a man barely restrained, schooling himself to gentility with all of his will. His tension was bleeding over into her, and her toes curled within her slippers.

Were that not enough, as he'd moved close again during the kiss, her newly bared and humming flesh had been pressed right up against the blatant desire tightening his breeches. He was not small.

Brigit whimpered, overwhelmed with the still intensity of the moment, and the noise from her made Bone inhale sharply through his nose as they kissed. He was moments away from losing his grip on control, she could feel it.

One of his hands slid away from her face and moved lower. Her heart sped up. Warm male fingers came between them, setting her nerves on fire. She was soaked, and now he knew it.

Bone pulled back from the kiss, eyes fierce with arousal, and stole his first glance down to where his fingertips slid. He drew his hand back enough to glide his thumb and forefinger together, sampling her wetness and giving a tiny shake of his head. A slow grin spread over his face and he met her eyes again.

"It's almost as if you've taken a fancy to me, Mrs O'Creagh."

Had she not been strung taut as a bow at that moment, Brigit would have laughed. The best she could do was blush furiously.

She almost fell forward when he took an abrupt, long step back from her. In a skilful move, he hooked his foot behind a leg of the low stool he'd sat on before, drew it near, and sat, scooting closer as he did.

His face was just of a height with the edge of the tall cutting block. The one on which she was perched. Splayed. Showing him all of her secrets. She held her breath.

In a sudden move, John Bone took both her thighs in his grip, right where they met her hips, and his face dove straight for her centre. He stopped, however, just short of making contact. She exhaled in a rush of air. Lord, but this man was skilled at toying with her.

One of his hands moved in, and she started a bit when his thumb made the first inevitable contact. He passed over her lips with it, dipping into the moisture he found there.

"I don't think we'll need any honey down here, lass," he murmured.

Turning his head to one side, he set his mouth high along the inside of her thigh and began to kiss and lightly bite at her. The thumb took up a lazy circling between her legs and she found herself mumbling quiet affirmations by the time he'd moved his lips to the other leg.

"Mmm ... yes, John ... please ... "

When he first nuzzled his nose against the modest patch of curls above her sex, she almost didn't notice, floating in a sensory fog as she was. His tongue on her, however, almost had her jumping straight up into the air. Heavy palms at her thighs kept her in place, though, and the pirate who'd seduced her out of her skirts in less than a day began to eat.

Brigit knew of this act, but only from gossip she'd heard from other young women. Mostly the pretty ones who had the faces that could charm a lover into doing anything they wanted. None of the men she'd entertained had ever even asked to do any such thing. More often they seemed to prefer she bend over, face away, and spread her legs in the dark. Hers was not a face men dreamt of.

Now there was light, dim though it was, from an oil lamp in the galley, and what she saw was at the edge of her comprehension.

Bone's mouth was buried in the folds of her sex. His tongue danced and delved and rasped. Every nook, every hidden crevice of her pink, swollen flesh was being thoroughly explored. She felt her hips beginning to roll, an instinctive response to pleasure's pull.