down to pick it up, but just as she would have fallen face-first on the floor, someone caught her.
She looked up at her savior. The pirate. Damn, he was so good-looking.
“You are so good-looking.” Crap, did she just say that aloud? She thought she had. The words might have been thick and slurred in her mouth, but she did think she’d said them. And he understood, because a big, almost lazy smile turned up his lips.
“So good-looking,” she repeated as if she couldn’t control herself.
She couldn’t control herself. She leaned heavily against him. His arms moved tighter around her.
“Thank you, gorgeousth,” he said, his words sounding as slurred as her own. She felt his hands on her back, sliding downward. And his lips on her neck, warm and wonderful.
She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, loving the feeling of him against her, kissing her. She opened her eyes, focusing just briefly on the industrial fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Then everything swirled and blurred, except the pirate’s pleasurable touch. Then she drifted, lost in a confusing haze.
DUNGEONS AND DRAG QUEENS
DAMMIT, Drake thought, did these bitches have to wake him up the same way every goddamn morning? He was really tired of getting a boot to the ass as a wakeup call. And this kick was particularly forceful this morning. Not to mention whoever did the kicking had an unusually large foot and one sturdy boot.
He groaned, letting his head fall to the side as he struggled to stay asleep, willing his body to just move with the sway of the ship. The longer he slept the less he had to deal with his situation. He made another noise low in his throat. His shoulders and wrists ached from the manacles. But even worse than that was his head—it throbbed, an almost crippling pain ricocheting around his skull. Probably from dehydration and lack of sleep.
But none of this was new; he’d existed like this for . . . he’d lost count of the days. Being held in the dank hold, surrounded by stench and sickness, the days and nights running together. All he knew for sure was it felt endless.
He let his head loll to the side. More aching muscles. More pounding in his head. But even through the pain, he did register that the hold didn’t smell as awful as usual. Nor did he hear the customary coughs and retching of the other prisoners. Why?
It didn’t matter, really. He still felt wretched and he was still restrained. A state that had gone on for an eternity with no end in sight.
Eternity. Eternity?
The word joined the pain in his head, bouncing around, causing no agony, just questions. Why did that word seem so significant? He wished he didn’t feel so miserable and he could focus. Eternity.
Then slowly the explanation came back to him like a floodgate had been jimmied open, and memories rushed in.
The captain of this prison ship was female, and she was . . .
“A vampire,” he said aloud before he could stop himself.
Another kick landed against his backside—this strike even harder than the first.
Shit, had one of the crew just heard him? Did they think he intended to reveal their secret? He knew that would mean certain death, and he had no intention of letting the truth about his captors be known. He didn’t want to die. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be a vampire either. But all he knew at this moment was that he did not want to die.
He needed to be sure whoever heard him knew that. He wasn’t a thief, even though that was the accusation that had brought him to this hideous state. Nor was he a traitor. He’d vowed to the captain he would never expose the crew’s secret if she spared him. Was that why it was quiet down here? Had the crew fed on the other prisoners? Shit, he had to scramble to make sure his confused slip of the tongue wouldn’t be his undoing.
He opened his eyes, expecting his gaze to meet darkness. The fact that it didn’t was almost as disorienting as the complete blackness. He blinked, trying to get an idea of where he could be. In the Captain’s quarters? On deck?
He blinked again. This was not the eighteenth-century prison ship he had been brought to Louisiana on. Unless his captors had miraculously turned the ship into a houseboat, because this was decidedly a house. He glanced around him to see an assortment of what appeared to be sex toys and restraint devices on the faux- marble walls. Okay, it was a strange house, and although he couldn’t say exactly where he was, it was definitely not the ship. He looked down at himself. He wasn’t manacled to the beams above, and the reason he thought he’d felt the rocking of the vessel was that he was dangling in the air. His ass was in a swing of sorts with his arms cuffed together above his head and to the swing itself.
But he was quickly distracted from his own predicament when a small person seemed to scramble out of nowhere, screaming. Really, really loudly. A very cruel joke when he couldn’t get his hands free to cover his already-sensitive ears. The caterwauling certainly wasn’t helping the pain in his head. But more than anything, he hated the fact that he was restrained, bad memories still clinging to him. He tugged at the cuffs binding his wrists, his movements erratic and panicked.
Only when he glared back at the woman, whose screams were not helping his situation, did everything completely fall into place.
“Cupcake?”
The woman stopped looking frantically around and stared at him, then her gaze dropped to what she was wearing. His puffy shirt. Her already-pale face turned ashen, and for a moment she looked as if she might pass out. Then her wide-eyed stare returned to him, roaming down over his body. Her eyes stopped and grew even rounder when she reached his crotch.
He looked down also, and saw that he wore nothing but chaps. And his Old Chap was lying against his thigh for the whole world to see. Or at least for Cupcake to see. Amazingly, her gray pallor turned pink almost instantaneously.
But with her reaction, a sheepish averting of her eyes and the realization that he wasn’t back on Captain Morgan’s Floating Ship of Bloodletting and Doom, he actually chuckled. Being in a sex swing with his Happy Jack swinging in the breeze was not the worst thing he’d ever experienced.
Especially when it was having such an interesting effect on Cupcake, who still averted her eyes—mostly. He noticed she took quick glances every now and then. Which was making old Happy Jack all the happier.
“I don’t suppose you could help get me down?” he finally asked when it became clear that Cupcake had no intention of saying anything first.
She hesitated, shooting another quick glance at him, this one directed at his face. Mostly.
“Presumably you are the one who trussed me up here. So shouldn’t you be the one to get me down?” he said pragmatically.
“I did not—truss—you up there.”
He gave her an amused look.
“Well, I have to admit I don’t remember. Unfortunately. But since I’m wearing no pants . . .” He glanced down at himself. “Well, virtually no pants. And you are wearing my shirt, I’m thinking something happened between us.”
She cast a look down at herself, too, then crossed her arms over her ample chest as if that would somehow nullify the fact that that was his shirt . . . ruffles, lace, and all.
“Some help,” he prompted again.
She hesitated a moment longer, then dropped her arms and let out a sigh. Apparently she saw no other way around helping him, for which he was thankful. His shoulders and arm were killing him. Still, she only took a few steps closer to him, clearly trying to decide what would be the best strategy to get him down.
“You’re not going to be able to avoid getting up close and personal,” he said with a grin, then spread his legs so she could move between them and reach the cuffs.
