The Pirate and His Siren

Chapter Eleven

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KYNAN

T he crew is flushed with excitement after winning all of my siren’s coin, and begin to play their instruments and sing bawdy songs while passing around the last of the grog.

I left Flinders and Roberts to join Luarna up on the upper deck, resting my head in her lap and listening to them while she strokes my hair.

“Would you ever sing for me?” I lift my head back to look at her. Everyone knows a siren’s song is the most beautiful sound one could ever hear.

Her hand stills. “No, I would never… I have never done that to you. Nor any of my lovers. I wanted them all to be willing.”

I raise myself and twist around to face her, pressing my growing erection in between her thighs. “I thought you already knew I am willing. Didn’t I show you that twice this morning?”

A cheeky grin spreads across her face, her arms winding around my neck. “Oh, I know. You’re more insatiable than I am. ”

“When I have a gorgeous woman in my bed, of course, I’m going to continuously fuck her.”

Her smile stills. “It’s not just that. If I sing to you here on the boat?—”

“Ship,” I correct.

She raises an eyebrow at me before continuing, “Ship… then anyone within hearing distance will be compelled by me.”

I draw back, making her arms drop away from me, my jaw stiff from clenching it so hard. “Aye, I don’t like the fuckers even looking at you, so I definitely don’t want them to be drawn to you.”

“So, we’re in agreement.” She walks her fingers up my chest. “I don’t ever sing onboard?”

“Aye.” As much I want to hear her song—I covet wanting everything from her—I’m not inclined to share her.

“Do you dance, lass?”

“Oh no, it’s bad enough I had to learn how to walk on these spindly limbs. There’s no way I can do that.”

“Well, then, maybe it’s about time you learn.”

“No, no,” she protests, tugging on my arm with enough strength to dislocate it from its socket. “You can make me do most things, but don’t make me dance.”

I’m loathed to admit that I’m beholden to cave into her. Give her what she wants and also keep my arm intact.

“Fine.” I sit back down next to her. “What else will you have us do?”

Her smile returns and lights up her face, making my heart do that strange thing again. Luarna leans back against me, and my arms automatically wrap around her torso. “Let’s just sit back and enjoy the crew’s entertainment.” She tilts her head back to look at me. “You know, they’re not half bad.”

“Aye, it’s because the ones who can actually sing are doing it. The others will be shunned if they tried.”

“You truly care for them, don’t you?”

“Aye.” I rub the backs of my fingers over the exposed skin of her arm.

“Roberts and Flinders are like brothers to me. We met when I was fourteen. Roberts was the same age, and Flinders was a year younger. A trio of ragamuffin teens. The crew is my extended family.”

“How old are you then?”

“I’ll be reaching my thirtieth birthday next quarter.”

“Same age as me.”

“What about you? Your family?”

“Not much to tell. I have a mother and my friend, Ikina.”

“You don’t miss them?”

“Ikina, I do. Not so much my mother. She’s not the loving sort. Mostly cold and distant. She never hugged me.”

“Aye, I never got hugs as a child either. Hard to get when you’re an orphan of the streets.”

She places her arms over mine, tightening my hold around her. I can sense she wants to console me, but doing so would open a gate my siren is unwilling to enter.

The territory of love.

But it is in this moment, holding her in my arms, my heart swells, and with the moon overhead basking us in its silvery glow, I know I’ve fallen.