Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
I went for the compass.
The instant my fingers pushed past his waistband, I felt brass. He jerked back, but I held on, yanking the instrument free as he broke away.
With a triumphant shout, I tucked the treasure safely behind my back and darted around the desk, watching him as carefully as he watched me.
He didn’t chase. Didn’t so much as flinch in anger or grimace in defeat.
His inaction might have put me at ease if the guilt hadn’t remained in his expression. Remorse, apology, and again with the pity—it was all there in his luminous eyes.
Why was he looking at me like—?
Realization dumped ice water into my veins, and I swung the compass into view.
The instrument in my hand was the same size and shape as the one I cherished.
But this one wasn’t mine.
“No.” I shook my head and frantically scanned Priest’s rigid stance, even as I knew the compass wasn’t on him. “No, no, no—”
“Shhh.” He held up his hands and took a cautious step forward. “Bennett, listen…”
“Where is it?” A roaring started in my ears, and my heart cracked in my chest. “Tell me!”
“It took me two years to find you, and right now that compass is the only thing stopping you from putting more years between us. I can’t let you do that. You’ve given me no choice.”
Fear and rage burst from my lungs in an earsplitting scream. “What have you done?”
“I’m doing this for us.”
“You’re a dead man!” I hurled the brass impostor at his despicable head.
“Calm down.” He ducked, easily dodging it.
“Spineless dog!” I threw a porcelain platter, and it shattered on the wall behind him. “Heartless fiend!”
“Bennett…” He sidestepped another projectile plate, his reflexes like that of a serpent. Slippery. Venomous. Straight out of hell.
“Tell me where it is!” Blinding hysterics tunneled my vision, ravaging me from all corners and painting the room red. “Right now!”
“Can’t do that, my love.”
I grabbed a bottle of rum from the desk, preparing to fling it next. But as my fingers closed around the glass neck, I remembered my plan.
My breathing tightened with determination. My muscles hardened with focused fury. Where I had compassion for him before, now there was none. I needed him to hurt.
“You know what that compass means to me.” I lifted the rum, swilling it with a calm I didn’t feel. “You wouldn’t have left it in Jamaica.”
“No.”
“You didn’t toss it into the sea.”
“Never.”
Breaking my heart was one thing, but he wouldn’t destroy that gift from my father. He wouldn’t be so cruel. I had to believe that.
Everything inside me relaxed. The compass was on the ship.
But where?
As my mind raced for answers, I straightened my corset, trying miserably to cover my breasts from his humiliating stare.
He knew this vessel from bow to stern. Every alcove and nook. Every shadow and hiding spot. No doubt he’d determined the best location for the compass the moment he’d swiped it in the tavern.
With sleight and quick-wittedness, he probably secreted it away on the upper deck when I wasn’t looking. Or slipped it into a wall on his way down here. Or… I glanced around, deflating at the stockpiles of weapons, cocked hats, rolls of sea charts, maps, and random treasures that cluttered the cabin.
It could be anywhere.
Once I locked him in irons, I would launch an exhaustive search. I would rip up every plank. Empty every chest. Topple over every barrel. If it failed to turn up, I would resort to torture. The psychological kind.
I knew exactly how to break the iniquitous Feral Priest.
“So your plan was to hold my compass hostage. Well done.” I tossed back another swallow of rum, choking on my own bitterness. “What happens next?”
“You’re clouded by anger, far more than I am at the moment. Understandably so.” He ambled to the bookcase, selected the smallest of my three hourglasses, and held it up. “This one measures fifteen minutes?”
“Ten minutes.” I squinted at him, burning to punch his perfectly composed face.
“Good enough.” He carried it to the bed and sat on the edge, testing the flow of sand between the glass globes. “We cannot have a fruitful conversation until we work out this tension between us.”
“I will not—”
“Quiet!” The explosion of fury in his voice stopped my heart. Just as frightening was his ability to return to a placid tone. “Since you seem unwilling to abandon the discomfort beneath your skirt, I’ll remedy that particular reluctance by offering an agreement.”
I tightened my hand around the rum bottle—the weapon I would use to best him. “Go on.”
“I’ll give you pleasure, a worthwhile release, without the benefit of my own.” His gaze softened. “I owe you that much.”
A sting pricked my throat. Oh, how I loved and hated him. I focused on the latter. “I’ll have no part of that indiscriminate member between your legs—”