air and hear the thunder of the surf against rocks. Men on the deck of the ship wore white shirts and bent over ropes. One man standing on a small piece of raised deck wore a dark coat, a strange pointed hat, and had long black hair. He must be the captain.
“Come on,” Wendy said, tugging on her sleeve.
Dragging herself from the scene, Star turned and followed the group past a wide staircase and down a hall that led to a kitchen.
For such a big house, the kitchen wasn’t much. Not that it was small; it was bigger than her last apartment in Atlanta. But she’d expected more.
“Jesus,” Kyle said. “This refrigerator’s older than my grandmother.” He yanked the handle and the door creaked open. “And it’s empty.”
With her stomach growling, Star got into the swing of things and started opening cabinets. Inside them, she found a variety of what must be expensive china and antique pewter, all of it dusty. Captain Benjamin Bartlett didn’t appear to have many formal dinners.
“Hey, over here.” Wendy held open the door to a pantry.
“Not exactly overstocked.” Star examined cans of soup that could have been left over from World War II.
“At least it’s food.” Wendy tore open a box of breakfast bars and passed them around. In a matter of minutes, the four of them had polished off the box.
“What else is in there?” Kyle pushed Wendy aside. She elbowed him playfully.
With her immediate hunger satisfied, Star wandered back down the hall. What kind of man lived in such a strange place?
Captain Benjamin Bartlett. His name bounced around in her head, spoken in his deep, commanding voice.
Jack slapped her ass as he passed her. “Let’s check out the rooms. I want to get out of these wet clothes. And a hot shower doesn’t sound too bad, either.”
Star followed, agreeing with his assessment of a hot shower.
Benjamin stood in the tower at the casement windows facing west, searching the woods through the rain.
He thought about his unexpected guests. He’d considered tossing the troupe out. He should have. They were obviously vagabonds, and most likely thieves. But something about them, especially the smaller female, intrigued him. She’d stood up to him when the others backed down.
She reminded him of Jeffery Veech, his midshipman from long ago. Both were slight, both had startling blue eyes, and both were surprisingly fearless. She, however, was unmistakably female.
Star. Who named a child Star?
A fresh downpour blew in, blocking off his view from the tower and rattling the panes on all sides. Deciding the night called for a pipe by the fire, he started down the tower stairs.
But he didn’t stop at his study. For whatever reason, he was drawn to the first floor, curious about how his guests fared. He still had another hour before dawn. Perhaps, if they were awake, he’d pass the time conversing with them. He rarely spoke with anyone these days besides Abby and, occasionally, Cassandra. He’d found his brief conversation with them somewhat confusing, and that bothered him. Cassandra constantly warned him about losing touch with the present.
Moving through the front hall, he doused lights left on and followed sounds of mortals to one of the guest rooms. He raised his hand to knock, but froze. Through the half-open door, he could see his visitors, and remained unnoticed because of their activity, no doubt.
The tall blonde, Wendy, lay on the canopied bed completely nude, stretched out between the two men, both also nude. With her back to the door, she kissed the fair-haired man, Jack. The redhead, Kyle, watched as he held his swelling phallus in his fist.
“What the hell are you doing?” Kyle asked over the top of his two bedmates.
Star rose across the room. “Hey, I don’t know shit about these things.” She motioned over her shoulder to the fireplace where crackling and dancing light indicated a small fire.
She wore a tight black shirt and pale blue underwear. Benjamin admired the slender sturdiness of her bare legs as she walked around the bed and stood with her back to the door. Her skin was darker than he’d realized, the color of smooth cherry wood, sanded and oiled. And her shoulder-length hair had dried to almost the same color.
Kyle put his hand on her thigh and drew her to him. “Come on, Star, we got some catching up to do.”
She drew her shirt off over her head and tossed it to the floor. Her right shoulder blade sported a tattoo of a blue star. Muscular shoulders narrowed to a slim waist and then widened only slightly to her hips. She stepped out of her underwear to expose smooth, round buttocks to Benjamin’s appreciative view.
He eased back into the shadows.
Besides being fearless, she was more attractive than he’d realized. His body reacted to the sight of her in spite of his recent activities at the Tangled Net.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” she said, climbing onto the bed to straddle the man’s legs. “We’ll get there.”
Kyle’s cock rose from between Star’s thighs and she gripped it in one hand. Holding her arm steady against her leg, she rose slowly and eased back down.
Her partner’s head went back and his chest rose. “Shit, that’s good.”
As she continued the slow, deliberate rhythm, the couple behind her moved so that Jack rose up above Wendy on straight arms. Once he’d mounted his partner, Jack leaned over and kissed Star.
The intimacy of this strange encounter drew Benjamin in. He heard the wet sound of mouth on mouth, and almost felt the warmth of Star’s thighs hugging Kyle’s hips. When she guided his stiff cock into the depths of her cunt, Benjamin barely bit back a groan.
Star arched her back as she slid down the full length of Kyle’s cock.
Rolling back around to the empty, dark hallway, Benjamin closed his eyes and released his being, letting his senses float into the room and across the bed like an invisible fog.
The scent of sex coiled through him, inviting him in. Star’s body heated as she rode Kyle’s hardening phallus, drawing the young man to the edge of control. Kyle’s fingers dented the flesh on her hips. Beside her, muscles in Jack’s shoulders and back roped as he pounded harder, pushing Wendy up against the headboard.
Raw, animal need charged the air with energy that Benjamin sipped like fine brandy.
Wendy grunted her release as Jack pushed her to a climax with a half dozen long, hard strokes, then he withdrew and rose to his knees, facing the remaining action. He stroked his glistening cock in one hand.
Star continued her steady rhythm. The heady scent of her juices made Benjamin’s mouth water, and the beat of her heart tingled against his incisors. He wanted to taste her, the one thing he couldn’t do from this distance.
Kyle arched his back. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming.” He gripped Star harder, pushing and pulling in time with his own need, until he stilled.
Jack crawled around between Kyle’s
