Steaming Desire - Melissa Young

Chapter Ten - Blake

Our captain at the helm gave them another nudge and I had to hold on to a thick rope so that I wouldn’t fall backward. Tapping my foot with a new kind of impatience against the shiny floorboard under me, I threw a glance at the old man by the door. He took three unsteady steps toward me and nodded.
   "Are you sure that this is the ship?" I asked him the question that had been circling around wherever he went. No one on this boat wanted to storm the wrong boat and possibly kill some crew members just to get the conclusion that the king wasn't on it.
   Neither of us wanted to experience that, especially since everybody on our ship was paid by the hour. The Mailum Kingdom placed a lot of money into the search for our king and his best friend. Nobody wanted to declare the king dead, so instead of writing the doomed paper, they had placed a budget that seemed a shitload to the people but wasn't that much for the biggest kingdom on earth.
   "And how did the person that kidnapped them look?" Yet another question that seemed to follow the poor port owner around, the exact question that everybody had chosen to see if he told the truth. The control inquiry would most likely be even more effective if he didn't have to answer it at least seven times a minute.
   The man sighed and told me the exact same thing he had been telling everyone. "She was tall with a green cloak and an attitude that could break ten grown men in half, and I am sure that this is the ship." I nodded, deep in thought. If I hadn't been on a mission, I would allow myself to see her in front of me.
   She sounded exactly like my type of woman, the type that would break when she didn't get what she wanted. Another woman that would shout my name when I buried my cock deep inside her. If I ever got the chance, I would show her how to behave. It was quite an exciting thought that made my cock twitch in my black, leather pants. Focusing on the task at hand and away from the woman I hadn't even met, I would never give in to a sweet temptation if it was on the wrong side of the law and that stood final.
   We steered in beside them and I got ready to get the two ships together. Standing in the net with a thick rope in my hand when I threw myself toward the mizzenmast of the ship Bianca. It was written on the hull on the dark blue paint in shiny silvery letters. The name seemed to be the one thing that had been updated in the last fifty years, everything else was either chipping or rotten.
   My feet landed with a loud thud in the crow’s nest. The splintering, chalk dotted wood under my feet felt more like a rubber mattress than anything else, and it made me worried on some levels. Pointing my attention to the bearded man that had his eyes focused on me, I gave him a confirming nod, and he turned to our crew, screaming orders.
   A cool breeze blew through my messy burgundy-brown hair and into my T-shirt. A shiver ran down my spine when I looked down and realized that I stared straight into the pipe of a gun, great. I drew back and stood as far away from the maniac as the small platform allowed.
   "We just want to talk," the captain of the ship Mawes shouted from the boat behind me. I knew, without looking, that his eyes were on me. His vision glued to me like the eagle on our flag during hunts. The back of my foot hit the wooden barrier between the crow's nest and a forty-seven feet fall that would result in a certain death.
   I threw a quick glance at the main deck and started to count the crew. Seven including the man in the net, I thought to myself, an easy number for the thirty people on our ship. Counting the people on our ship again, I realized that half of our crew was nothing more than a royal search patrol, they had no idea how to fight and had mostly just taken up a hell of a lot of space on our way here.
   I also noticed that eight of the people were witnesses of the kidnapping. I had protested when the head of the search had insisted that we bring all the witnesses, even the ones that weren't sure of what they had seen. There would have been too many on the ship for it to hold the weight, so the Captain had the brilliant idea to throw half our original crew off the mission, a good crew that knew how to maneuver a ship and how to fight with a sword. I cursed The Captain in my head for having such a weak spot for the people over him authority wise, a decision he was going to regret in about a minute when we were forced to fight them.
   I was suddenly hyper aware of the disadvantage we were in. Even if our crews matched in number, I could tell they were far more experienced than us, even before we had a ship full of innocent individuals to protect.
   "I know what you want, and it is not to talk," A man wearing a triangular hat scoffed as a response to The Captain. "So if you can get your barrel man from my crow's nest before my crew hurt him, and he gets to move down into a cell, that would be appreciative."
   I was taken aback by the calm tone in his voice. Assuming that he would be angry, but the slow venom in his voice made me think that he knew that he had the upper hand, but how? He had no idea that the crew on our side was useless.
   My eyes drifted from our deck to theirs and noticed a slight similarity that only a trained eye could spot. The big crowd of Mawes stood fairly still, but everyone that wasn't a trained crew mate had a slight restlessness to them with a small wobble sporadically.
   That must have been why the captain of the ship Bianca was so calm in his statements. But there was something that still bothered me about the boat on which my feet were standing, the same wobble was visible in their crew.
   It made no sense, I took one more good look around the rotten deck and noticed another contributing factor, only one of them stood completely still. I took a better look at him…her? Squinting to see better and sure enough, the first mate was a woman.
   I could tell that she was the first mate without a problem by the way others seemed to draw themselves to her and even her posture, the shining confidence, seemed to run like blood down her spine. I found myself intimidated by her, and especially since I was on the other side of her.
   Even the captain of the dangerously broken ship seemed to trust her with his life. It was quite impressive to see such trust between individuals, they must have been a crew for at least ten years.
   "I know what you want as well, and I can tell you right now that it is a myth," our captain didn’t have the same cocky aura that the man under me seemed to overuse.
   He stated the words in all its simplicity in hope for a resolution. "Killing our king won’t give you anything else than a lifetime in prison." The man scoffed before he turned on his heel to show that he was in charge. Was he really turning his back to danger? He walked over to the woman, who still stood tense and still. Leaning close to her ear, her eyes never left our ship, and it made me nervous.
   "If you are here to fight for what you want, let’s fight and see who comes out of it alive," the woman’s voice clanged loud and beautiful but with enough authority that nobody would ever feel confident enough to sit on her. So their captain used a channel for his speech, another sign of power. Our captain shifted where he stood, showing obvious signs of discomfort, but didn’t let his eyes drift away from the man's back.
   "If that is what it takes to get our king back, I will do anything to get him back to the castle." A low chuckle echoed from the man beside the beautiful woman, and I had the feeling a fight was going to break out in the next few seconds.
   "Prepare to die," a deep and rough voice told me.
   I snapped my eyes to the man in front of me, the same man that just hung in the net. Throwing myself backward, to the killing fall, without thinking in hopes of finding a rope, my arms swung in front of me in a furious search of something to grab. I found, too late, that the crew on this ship had an incredible order, with their ropes firm against the masts. Cursing myself for not checking before, I decided to jump forty-seven feet straight down.
   The chance of landing in the water was also long but gone, so my one chance of surviving this stupid ass fall had to be grabbing the rope where it had been tied.
   I breathed in the, most likely, last breath I would ever take. Reaching out for the thick rope and through a miracle got it between my hands, squeezing it with all my might. It burned and stung my palms when I continued to fall at the same speed.
   Someone drew a sword under me, but I didn’t pay much attention to the familiar sound other than to acknowledge it. I was so close to the deck now that I started to make up a handshake with the grim reaper, when my grip paid off with sudden intensity. I started to slow down until I got close enough to the ground to let go.
   My kneecaps stung from the impact as I landed feet first on the soft wood. Looking up, I realized that I stood less than a foot in front of the magnificent woman.
   Her hair was so red, it could be compared to hot lava. Her eyes were the dark clouds in a thunderstorm, and her body resembled a goddess if I ever saw one.
   She held a sword in her hand. It was long and sleek with a slight bend at the end of it, but what stood out the most had to be the tip of it that was pressed into my cheek, the well-balanced blade splitting the skin open per the woman’s demand. The beauty's eyes turned into thin slits when she waited for her captain’s order.
   "Kiara," the man behind her whispered. She pouted, and her forehead turned into a big frown that did nothing but served to make her more adorable.
   "Yes, sir." The furious, gray eyes lit up when the captain gave her an order she would enjoy obeying.
   "End him." It was more of a hiss than a whisper, and the sound served to send a spiral of shivers up and down my spine in an endless loop. Her lips tugged into a wide smile when the sharp blade swiped over my cheek. It stung for a second, but it wasn’t that bad.
   I took a step back and drew the long sword from the holster by my hip, and it clanged with a clean sound when it collided with hers. Her eyebrows lowered, and she took a fighting position, eyes twitching to somewhere behind me and back. The action was odd, but not worth my time.
   She swiped the metals against each other, and the scraping sound got the adrenaline running in every vein of my body. It felt amazing to be back in sword fights and not the shit we had been doing since we joined as the help to find missing people. The worst decision that our captain had made.
   Her feet shuffled toward me and attached our swords. I parried her attack by meeting her with the same amount of force. The sound screeched in my ears at a roaring volume. A few thuds made the wood under my feet vibrate, and I figured that the rest of our crew was aboard. Shouts and clinging swords erupted from the many fights that broke out. Suddenly everybody got busy with a person each. I was almost certain that I had the upper hand since the woman that I assumed had the name Kiara had her focus anywhere but me.
   She looked around on her crew, possibly to see if anybody needed a hand. Every once and again her eyes twitched to somewhere behind me, so I turned us around to see what the hell she looked at. She even began to turn her head toward two doors at the end of the ship. It made me unsure of my tactic until the answer came to me.
   Of course, she watched the doors, the king was in one of their cells. I would have been more concerned if she wasn’t scared that we would go down there.
   "They are inside either of those doors," I shouted, without thinking too much of it. Kiara’s head snapped to me, and she drew back her sword only to swing it forward. I blocked her, but the force of the strike forced my sword back until it was right in front of my face. I placed my palm on the backside of the sharp weapon while pressing it toward her.
   "You are so fucking stupid," she mumbled under her breath, but I still had a feeling that the words were pointed toward me. Her foot flew out and bounced against the railing, the loud thud made the left door open.
   No, the thud didn’t do it.
   A man stepped out with long steps, and a second later he ran. Another man trailed right behind him. The king and his friend, I thought. They sprinted toward our ship, but both of their heads jerked around, as if they were looking for something.
   "Retreat," our first mate shouted at the top of his lungs. I drew back from the violent sword fight and headed straight for the boat.
   My body almost floated toward the end of their ship. I took a leap over the railing toward the ship that moved with extreme slowness away from us with the soft wind. My feet just about took off from the deck before I got hit by something from the side.
   The air, forced from my lungs in a loud sigh that scraped my air pipe. A strong arm wrapped around my waist and two legs held me around the hip. I tried to get away from the person that I just then realized swung in a rope. I squirmed and fought to get away, but they held me tight.
   "Stop fighting me, I am doing you a favor." I held completely still for a second, the whisper was light and sweet like a woman.
   I turned my head and, sure enough, the face of a certain Kiara came into view. My attempt to get away from her grew very wholehearted, since I had a feeling that this woman was the last person I would want to be stuck in the middle of the ocean with.
   "Please," she pleaded, "they are going to shoot down your ship. Do you really want to be aboard when that happens?" I heard what she told me, but not more than a few words sunk in. They were going to shoot down our borrowed ship, the ship full of human beings.
   I doubted any of the people could swim, apart from the crew, they were going to drown. My eyes snapped to the hull of the ship which I swung from and, out of habit, focused on the long cylinders sticking out of it.
   My feet touched down on the ground and my hands were immediately bound back when she let me go. The beautiful, red strands of her hair moved around her face when her feet planted themselves on the soft wood under us.
   Her dark gray eyes scanned the people aboard and seemed terrified by her findings. A loud boom from the underside of the ship made me cry out the agonizing scream that had been marinating deep in my chest. A dark pain pulled through my body, from my heart, the very center of my soul, to the tips of my toes. The seemable black hole in my stomach grew by the second when a big, gray, metal ball tore a hole in the hull of the big ship. The wood caved in from the ear shattering impact.
   "Kiara and Wilson," their captain’s voice called from somewhere behind me. Another grapeshot was fired toward the unarmed ship, and it broke down a few more planks in the fragile hull.
   "Aye, aye, Captain," the two chanted at the same time. He must have given them an unspoken order because, without another word, they swung out on open water, from a rope each.
   I breathed out a heavy breath, they were going to save them all. The heavy clump in my stomach let go for just a moment, but came back just as quick as it left when they started to look around the ship.
   My eyes found the subjects in the exact second that Kiara did. The two men stood in complete stillness by the railing, staring at the boat I was in.
   Kiara took the king's hand, and he followed her, more willingly than I would have thought. Must be because they know that the ship is going to sink. But I couldn't help thinking about how both of the men followed her without a second thought, like it had been their plan all along.
   Screwing my eyes shut when another grapeshot with the royal ship as a target got launched into the cool air. When I could finally open my eyes, the four of them stood on the railing of the other ship. The king held onto Kiara with his arms wrapped tightly around her, it wasn’t a violent hold as much as it was almost loving.
   I furrowed my eyebrows, that couldn’t be right.
   His best friend clung to Wilson but he, apart from the king, looked incredibly uncomfortable. People flocked around the one way from the sinking ship. I couldn't move, frozen to the deck, stilled by the pain I felt for the strangers and my friends.
   A loud buzz of voices broke out when they took off toward us. I tried to take a step forward, but the person that held onto the restraints tugged me back. I recognized myself as desperate, wanting to help the people that couldn’t help themselves.
   Somebody sighed, a heavy sound of disappointment. Four pairs of feet took heavy steps on the creaking deck, and I looked up at them. They looked completely unbothered by the human beings that were just about drowning less than thirty feet away.
   "What now Kiara?" The king whispered, but I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody from the other side of the ship heard him. My body shook with rage at that point when I realized that they wouldn’t help the people that had never done anything to deserve this. I could have understood their motive if they had at least tried to help, but the fact that they just stood there, looking at the destruction in front of them was what made me the most mad. I would really like to believe these people were good, but the way they acted made me think that there was nothing good in their hearts.
   "What the fuck, Kiara." A sudden shout pulled me out of my dark thoughts and I snapped my head toward the sound. Their captain stood right in front of the beautiful woman with his arms over his chest and a cold look in his eyes.
   "You were only supposed to get the king, not his companion too." He let his arms fall before he pinched the bridge of his nose. "That is another mouth to feed, and that is something we can’t afford right now."
   I could see the shift in the woman’s cheek when she bit the inside of it, hard. Her whole body jerked as if an electric shock had hit her when the captain opened his mouth again, almost as if she was afraid of the next words. "How did they even escape? You know what," He sighed and closed his eyes, "take all of them down to the cell and keep an eye on them." Kiara seemed relieved by the order because she breathed out a heavy breath and nodded, what had she expected him to say?
   "James takes Kiara’s tasks while she is under deck." She let out a groan followed by a loud sigh, what the hell was she so upset about? It wasn’t about the people dying from her actions, that's for sure.
   The rough hands of the man that just held the restraints were nothing compared to Kiara's strong hold on the thin ropes around my wrists. The blood drained in a rush from my hands when she tugged me toward the same door that the two men came out of less than five minutes ago.
   Somebody tied the other men up and shoved them along with us. I found myself confused when they followed without a single complaint, perhaps they were just as shattered as me by the brutal murder of all those people. The last thing I saw before Kiara shoved me down a tall staircase was the small bubbling when the ship started to take in water. I knew from experience that once a ship that size started to take in water, it was only a matter of minutes before it got shoved under the surface and if you weren’t out of reach for the enormous pull downwards, you were dead.
   I stumbled inside the door and down the long stairs until I stood in front of a big door with small carvings in the shape of a rose wrapped in diamonds.
   "Get this fucking thing off of me," the friend surprised me by snarling. I turned toward the three people behind me and noticed that both of the men stood with their backs toward Kiara, their hands pulled as far away from their bodies as they went.
   Why in the world would she release them? I had no idea why she would even consider letting them go, but her hands shot out and undid the small knots. I just stood there, mouth agape, what the hell is going on here?
   "Thanks." The other one smiled and rubbed his sore wrists.
   "Let's continue," I hadn’t noticed it before, but the beautiful woman was not only beautiful in the way her hair flowed around her face or when she swung in ropes, she was fucking sexy too.
   I had been so caught up in the scene on deck that I hadn’t even stopped to consider her closely. Her hips and breasts had a delicious curve to them that made me hard. Pull yourself together, Blake, I reminded myself. It was no easy task to accomplish and especially since she was here, in front of my eyes.
   I imagined ripping those ridiculous clothes off her body until they were only shreds of what used to be pirate attire, and she stood naked and bare. Her hard nipples rolling between my teeth while I fucked her senseless. I wanted to hear her sweet moans when I drove my cock deep into her wet pussy.
   What the hell is wrong with me? One second I was deeply worried about the crowd on the sinking ship and the next I thought about fucking a complete stranger? It was impossible to catch up with my own thoughts, especially with images of how I thought Kiara would look completely naked. I decided to stick to the whole worried-about-the-dying-people-track. The same horror that I felt a second ago flooded my heart a second time, and the shattering screams that I had shut from my brain pierced my ears like nothing else.
   I matched them without thinking about it and when my bawling screams started, I couldn’t turn them off. Screwing my eyes shut to numb the pain in my heart, I didn’t want to see the world, I didn’t deserve to see it. I got carried through a long hallway by who knows, while my screams continued to echo through the ship.
   "Please be quiet." Kiara’s soft desire in my ear. But I couldn’t stop, the pain in my chest, still so intense that I started to think that was why I screamed.
   The person carrying me placed me on a hard mattress or a blanket perhaps, it wasn’t important. "We can’t help you if you don’t stop screaming."
   Was she crying? Her voice broke in the way that I would normally comfort a woman with that tone.
   I imagined the boat just outside the hull and saw people drowning in front of me, water filling their lungs until their screams were mere gurgles. The same people that I had just talked to, my friends, colleagues. The crew that could swim was being forced under the surface when the ones that couldn’t try to stay afloat. I think my body curled into a ball without me telling it to, but I am not sure, everything started to feel numb.
   "Why do you never talk to me like that?" A deep voice asked and groaned.
   "Because you are a fucking asshole, and you are not having a panic attack."
   Panic attack? Is that what was happening to me?
   No, she must be talking about somebody else. The male voice snarled, proving her point, and loud steps pierced past my shattering yells. I almost succeeded in shutting out the screams of suffering people outside when my windpipe started to clog up.
   The oxygen got cut off to my lungs, but my voice kept bouncing off the walls when I, in a pathetic attempt, tried to get the screaming to stop. I couldn’t breathe, and my palms felt sweaty, was I dying?
   I tried to cry out the pain, but I couldn’t shut off the nonstop yells. My vision started to go blurry behind my eyelids until the very second something soft pressed against my trembling lips. A disgusted snark made its way to me from somewhere in the room, but I didn’t care, I could breathe. I noticed it the exact moment that my screams were cut off. I opened my eyes to the unfamiliar feeling, I had of course kissed people before, but this was different, sweet. It wasn’t a kiss purely from desperation but from something much, much deeper, desire?
   The person in front of me was just as beautiful up close as she had been from a distance. Her eyelids, thoroughly closed, lip unmoving, possibly to give me a chance to calm down. I didn’t need the time, though, I knew what I wanted. She sighed softly when I started to move my lips against hers. Closing my eyes again and placing a hand on her cheek.
   She opened a small slit between her perfect lips and I gave her a bit of tongue. Kiara answered my quiet strokes with a soft hand on my neck that swept up toward my scalp before she rolled her fingers into my dark, ruffled hair.
   I moaned into her mouth, a rough sound filled to the brim with lust, and sat up. Something struck my brain and that was the one thing I could think of, she is mine, only mine from now until forever. She tasted sweet like sugar, like candy and honey. I placed my other hand on the small of her back, slumped by the way she leaned over to be at my current height. I added a little more tongue and tried to draw her closer.
   "That’s enough, fuck face," the same voice as before snarled in a remarkable tone that made the corners of my mouth lift in amusement. His voice was thick with venomous jealousy, and it made me cocky.
   I enjoyed listening to the small remarks from the asshole when I kissed the woman that soon would be mine. I would gladly take her in front of him just to prove my point, perhaps I would.
   She stood back up a second later, but I had a feeling that the fucker's remark wasn't the cause of the reaction. Not wanting to think about it, but the screams from outside were… gone. I stared at the shining beauty in front of me until something tugged at my still bound wrists.
   "What the hell?" I whispered through my raspy throat. The cold metal of the beams stung on my skin when I was bound around it. I tried to twist myself out of the painful cuffing, but it was no use.
   Kiara seemed to relax in front of me when she was sure that I wasn't going anywhere. It didn't make any sense at all, why she would relax when there were still prisoners loose in the wide open cell.

I apologise for late chapter. Thank you for reading, it means so much to me that you come back each week to read the new chapter. Stay tuned for the next chapter, where Knox gives Blake a piece of his mind. Love y'all.