Page 100 of The Worst of Them

His chuckle rumbled down her spine, his arm firm around her middle as he lifted the rum and drank.

“I think Fay is incredible,” she mused, snagging the bottle from his hand. “The others, too.” She sipped, then set the alcohol aside. Her eyes turned to the stars.

“They are,” Jack said, and she could hear the pleasure in his voice. “They like you. You’re one of us now, you know.”

She laughed once. “Even though I’ve been horrid and sad.”

His cheek pressed against her hair. “We’ve all been horrid for our own reasons. We’d be hypocrites if we minded.”

She nestled deeper into him, warm and comfortable. “I’m glad for it.”

It felt immeasurably lovely to belong with this motley group of pirates and misfits who had walked paths as hard and unexpected as her own. She wondered what it might’ve been like to get to know Jack in the context of his friends before all that miserable business on the Fortuna Royale. If maybe she’d gotten to see him with others instead of being alone with him, they might have liked each other better sooner.

Even as she thought it, she didn’t miss what might have been, nor did she long for it. After all the heartbreak that had brought her here, she was glad she and Jack had managed to fall for each other at their worst. To know someone in that way and still want them, to still be wanted—she wouldn’t trade that assurance for all the politeness and social niceties she might have been offered otherwise, had she married Oliver.

Surely there was darkness in everyone, and Cecily much preferred to see and know it outright than to wonder when it might show its face.

While she was lost in thought, Jack softly swept her hair away from her neck. His fingers were warm, her hair a silky brush against her skin, but she came back to herself when his lips touched her throat.

His name tumbled from her in a gasp, but she didn’t pull away as heat curled through her lower belly.

“Your attention drifts so easily,” he drawled in a near purr, his trailing kisses leaving her no choice but to be present here, on this beach, with him. “I didn’t bring you back here to let you disappear into your beautiful head.”

“Then what did you bring me here for?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

A low, sensuous laugh had her tilting her head to give him better access to her neck. His hand trailed through the short locks of her hair, twisting the strands through his fingers.

He dragged his lips from her neck to her ear. “Jealousy,” he breathed. “You’ve been mine for an entire day, and yet I’ve shared you with everyone for that infernal heist. I’ve patiently coveted your time and attention, and now I intend to make good, selfish use of it.”

His hand wound into the hair at the base of her skull, and he turned her head to bring her lips to his.

She smiled against him, at the way he held her to himself, firmly in control but gentle enough that he would let her pull away if she wished. No part of her wanted him to let her go, but to hold her closer, tighter. She only wanted to be with him, to belong to him, as though it had been longer than a day. It had, if she considered the time on the pirate ship and three weeks spent yearning. Weeks spent wanting him, and now she could have him, he was hers, and⁠—

As though he sensed her thoughts trailing, Jack kissed her deeper, lightly biting her bottom lip in a silent request. She parted her lips, and his tongue swept in and found hers.

He tasted like rum and happiness.

Cecily twisted, reaching to run her hands down his neck, over his shoulders, to the powerful muscles of his arms. She shivered as his embrace tightened around her waist, pulling her closer, and her hand moved back to his face where her thumb smoothed over his scar again and again, claiming it as her own.

“It’s this shirt, isn’t it?” she said, breathless as he kissed her. “Fay insisted I wear it.”

“It’s everything,” Jack panted against her mouth. “Who you are, the way you are, your eyes, your face, your hair.”

The way he said it made her forget, if for only a moment, how devastating it had been to have her hair shorn. “You should’ve seen it before,” she muttered, and arched to kiss him.

But he pulled away, brows pinched, looking at her as though imagining her with hair to her waist. “Before what?” he asked, but there was dark understanding in his gaze, like he already knew she spoke of something that hadn’t been her choice.

“They cut it off in Bridewell,” she told him, her tongue loosened by rum. “Morgyn got them to do it because she wanted to make me cry.” The name tasted less acidic than usual, thanks to the arms wrapped around her.

His gaze was heavy and probing. “Did it make you cry?”

She shifted, letting her head fall back to his shoulder. She stared at his mouth, keen for him to kiss her again. “Yes. But I made their lives ten times worse because I loved my hair, and the cut wasn’t even.” Her hand twirled around her face. “S’why I like it braided, so no one can tell, and I can forget.”

His voice lowered. “At least you gave them hell for it.”

“I ruled their hell,” she said with a smile. “I hurt the guard who did it—shoved my hand in his mouth and tried to rip his jaw clean off. No one came near me after that. Not in prison, not on the ship… Not till I met you, and you weren’t scared at all.”

“You don’t scare me,” he said. He settled his arms over hers, twining their fingers and crossing them over her stomach. “Not even a little.”