Devour Me. Lydia Parks
a dark oval rug. On the far wall, a giant painting, at least a dozen feet wide and nearly as high, portrayed an old-time sailing ship on a wild sea passing in front of a rock cliff. The sky above the cliff was deep blue and green with a hint of red, like a sunset at the edge of a storm. Every detail was so perfect, Star wouldn’t have been surprised if the ship had started rocking.
Oddly, when the stranger stood in front of the painting, he looked as if he belonged in it.
“You may stay here for the night, as long as you keep to this floor. There are guest quarters at the end of the hall, and I believe you’ll find what you need. I will be occupied until tomorrow night, and by then, I assume you will be gone.”
“Wow. Thanks,” Wendy said, using her bubbly voice.
The man turned to leave.
“What’s your name?” Star asked.
He spun around, glowering.
She barely resisted flinching.
“Pardon me,” he finally said, “Captain Benjamin Bartlett.” He gave a slight bow, then marched across the room to a staircase and climbed it at a trot. His heavy footsteps thudded across the ceiling until they disappeared.
Star turned to find her traveling companions eyeing each other.
Kyle rose from the ground, still rubbing his throat. “Son of bitch,” he whispered. “What was that?”
Jack whistled softly. “This place looks like a freakin’ museum or something.”
Lighting flashed and thunder rattled the windows.
Wendy laughed. “Can you believe this? What a place to break down!”
“I wonder what the rest of the house looks like,” Jack said.
Star found herself drawn back to the painting and walked to the middle of the room to study it. She could almost taste salt in the 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