“Relax. I don’t mean all the truth. Just that I teased you earlier and should’ve known better because this response was inevitable. What happened in there? How far did—”

“No—we didn’t. I planned to. I sat in his lap, he touched me, kissed my neck, but no clothes came off. I didn’t even kiss him …” She grimaced, the wrongness creeping across her scalp, a slithering echo of FitzRoy’s touch. “I couldn’t go through with any of it.”

Perry nodded slowly, exhaling. “That’s … good … I’ll speak to him, pave the way, then you two can talk”—she grabbed Vice’s shoulders, grip as strong as when she hauled rope, and shook her until their eyes met—“about your feelings, Vice. Understand?”

Her stomach turned, but she nodded anyway. She had no feelings worth talking about. She was fine. She didn’t need help, she didn’t need anyone.

And yet, she didn’t want Knigh to block her out with that empty mask either. Nor was she ready for things between them to be over.

But she didn’t have the words to explain. Even in so few sentences, Perry had summed it up far better than she ever could. Maybe she had panicked. Maybe her attraction to Knigh, the unbearable compatibility of their bodies, had just shaken her with its intensity.

“Thank you, Perry,” she murmured, gaze dropping.

Perry sighed and squeezed an arm around her. “Oh, Vice, what am I going to do with you?”

“Keep picking up the pieces of the things I break?”

Chuckling, she gently pushed Vice towards the quarterdeck stairs. “Wait up there. Let’s see if we can glue this together and get you back into those fine arms of his.”

Wordsmith

Vee paused in the doorway, the sight of her making Knigh’s pulse skip as it always did. Her mouth twisted to one side and her gaze was slow to meet his.

Well, Wild Hunt take him if she wasn’t uncertain. The Pirate Queen, always so bold, so sure, so comfortable and relaxed in herself—and here she stood in his doorway, tentative.

The chair creaked as Perry adjusted her position. She watched Vee with eyebrows raised.

When Perry had first started explaining Vee’s behaviour, he’d been sceptical. But as she’d continued, the parts had slotted into place, connecting with other pieces of the puzzle he already had. With the tragic death of her husband. With her bluster and bluff glibness. With the moments of kindness and gentleness he’d seen. With the way she twisted away from certain topics with a joke.

Considering it all, of course Vee kept people away, men especially. Arm’s length was safer than holding someone close, leaning on them, only for them to disappear.

It made a horrible kind of sense.