Free A Pirate of her Own by Kinley MacGregor Page B

happened .
    She was ruined.
    By now her father would have been up for hours
    and was no doubt scouring Savannah looking for her. He had no idea where she was, or when she would return.
    “Oh no,” she repeated.
    The permanence of her predicament hit her like a shot. This was really it. There was never any going back to the life she had lived before.
    Serenity prayed for courage and strength to face her future—to face the stinging gossipmongers who would follow her for the rest of her life. Even now, she could hear the vicious comments made about Chatty.
    That’s the James girl there. She’s the one they caught kissing that young boy down at the lake. Little harlot. That’s what happens when a woman starts talking social reforms for women. Benjamin should have taken a strap to his wife and never let her fill her daughters’ heads with such tripe. I pity that poor man, left behind to cope with the mess his wife left him.
    How many times had she heard a variation of that story? And how many more times in her life would she hear the new one?
    That be the poor James girl there. She done run off with pirates in the middle of the night….
    She had brought it on herself, and it would haunt her forever.
    Serenity pushed herself out of bed and quickly dressed. There was no need in moping around and bemoaning her fate. She had chosen this course and it was time to follow it wherever it led.
    And right now her rumbling stomach wanted it to lead to a kitchen somewhere. She unlocked the door and tripped over a lump.
    Only, it wasn’t a lump.
    The Sea Wolf had slept at her door.
     
    Morgan came awake with a curse and a mouthful of pink silk. A sudden sharp pain stabbed his side as limbs and silk engulfed him.
    “What the devil?” he asked. His hand brushed up against something warm and velvety. Something that felt incredibly good against his palm.
    “Captain Drake, remove your hand from my thigh this instant!”
    It was a wonderful wake-up surprise to find the woman he was dreaming of sprawled in his arms. Serenity’s outraged voice brought a rakish grin to his face. Before he could curb the impulse, Morgan ran his hand over the cool silk stocking, along the sensuous curve of her leg, feeling the supple muscles and delicate softness. But what he really wanted to do was cup the inside of her leg, especially the soft, warm juncture of her thighs.
    What he wouldn’t give to trail his lips over the soft flesh. To peel back those stockings and…
    “Captain Drake!” she shouted, shoving the hem of the dress down over his hand and forcing him to withdraw it. Her cheeks were flaming red. “Release me.”
    “I believe you are the one holding me down, Miss James.”
    Not that he minded. With Serenity lying atop him, he was tangled in her skirts and enjoying the press of her breasts against his chest as she struggled to right herself, all the while choking on indignation.
    His grin widened. Oh, her outrage was delightful. He knew his smile infuriated her, which amused him all the more.
    With one sharp elbow in his side, she pushed herself to her feet. “You are the devil!” she snapped, turning about in a huff.
    Morgan’s laugh rumbled deep in his throat as he rose to his own feet and watched her head for the main deck. “You’re wrong, Serenity James,” he whispered. “Were I the devil, you wouldn’t have gotten away so easily.”
     
    Serenity didn’t slow her pace until she saw Barney shouting orders up to a crewman in the crow’s nest.
    “Excuse me, Mister…” she paused as she realized she didn’t know his last name, and calling him “Barney” seemed just a little too forward.
    “Pitkern,” he supplied for her. “They call me Mr. Pitkern, lass. Now what can I do for you?”
    It was then that she noticed the crewmen had all stopped their labors and were now staring straight at her. The two men behind Barney had stopped scrubbing the railings and water dripped from their sponges. Even their bawdy singing had