Free How To Seduce A Pirate (The Hawkins Brothers Series) by Alexandra Benedict Page B

Mama?”
    “Nothing’s the matter, squirt. I’m just tired.”
    “It’s late,” said Alice wisely.
    “It is. I’m sorry uncle James had to wake you, but I needed to tell
you something . . . I love you, Alice.”
    “I love you too,
Mama.”
    “Give me a hug and a kiss, squirt.”
    Alice leaned forward and pecked her mother’s lips.
    “Take her,” said Mirabelle, choking on tears.
    James collected his niece and headed for the door. He paused, then retraced
his steps and pressed a kiss to his sister’s ashen brow before he quit the
room, moisture glistening in his eyes.
    Once the door was sealed, Mirabelle let out a wretched sob.
    No, she can’t
die, thought Quincy. She can’t die. Not again.
    “Mirabelle, no!
Don’t go! Stay, Megan!”
    “Quincy.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to kill her. Megan, I’m sorry!”
    “Quincy, wake up!”
    Quincy bolted upright, covered in sweat, his lungs starved for air.
In the dimness, he was disoriented, the movement beneath him waves? No, a bed.
He was in a strange room but his furniture was the same. Where was the light
coming from?
    He searched the chamber. A candle. A burning candle. In the hand of a
woman.
    “Who are you?”
    “It’s me, Quincy.”
    Her voice was familiar. He couldn’t see her face, so twisted. He
rubbed his sore eyes. He was in hell. How much opium had he taken? He couldn’t
remember. More than usual, though. He couldn’t wake up. The nefarious shadows
stretched toward him, reaching for him.
    “Stay away,” he snapped, his breathing ragged. “Don’t come near me.”
    “All right,” the feminine voice answered.
    The light retreated into the distance. The darkness swallowed him.
    “No! Come back,” he beseeched.
    The light returned.
    “It’s a dream, Quincy,” the gentle voice assured him. “Wake up.”
    He tried. He grabbed his head, crushing his skull.
    The light landed on the bedside table. A warm body settled behind
him, and a set of strong yet slender arms reached around his chest and
squeezed.
    He released his head, spinning with grotesques images and voices,
and leaned against the soft and comforting figure, passing out.
    ~ * ~
    Quincy squinted at the bright light. He shut his eyes again, his
head throbbing, his limbs trapped, tangled in bedding and some other infernal
restraint.
    He sighed and shifted his arse when tender fingers stroked his
cheek. His eyes shot open, blinded by sunlight, but after a few dazed moments,
he focused on the room—and the heavenly body wrapped around him.
    He heard a heart pounding beneath his ear, loud and steady beats,
like the hypnotic drum of a jungle tribe. A pair of soft breasts cushioned him,
while artful hands wandered over his naked back in sensual caresses. As soon as
a silky leg slipped between his thighs, Quincy jumped from the bed.
    He reeled, his head pulsing, his thoughts mashed and entwined. He
couldn’t unscramble them and set right what had happened, but when he stared at
the woman in his bed—his wife —he groaned.
    Slowly she sat up, unperturbed, her night rail seductively askew. She
wrapped her arms around her raised knees and smiled. “How are you feeling?”
    “Like shit!”
    Quincy staggered as he grabbed his trousers off the floor and
crammed a leg into one of the openings. He trembled at the thought that he’d
bedded the wench. And he’d no bleedin’ memory of it!
    “You really have a beautiful arse.”
    He hardened at the provocative compliment and stuffed his other leg
into the breeches before buttoning the flaps.
    “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded, confronting her.
    Her long, unfettered tresses, fiery in the morning light, spilled
over her shoulders. The green in her eyes glowed bright, like a meadow after a
rainfall, while her skin flushed with rose color, making her more beautiful
than a nymph—and more tempting than sin.
    “Don’t you
remember?” she asked in a quiet, almost sensitive voice.
    No, he didn’t
remember. He didn’t