I knew every cable, spar, and inch of canvas she carried. Every day I toiled as hard as her hardest-working crew member, proving I deserved to be her captain. After commanding her through years of cruises, with prizes and booty to show for it, I’d more than earned my position among the crew and thereby their respect.

Priest’s return to Jade jeopardized everything. He cared more about satisfying the urges between his legs than the common good of my ship and her mates.

The one-hundred-and-twenty-man crew was always spoiling for a fight. That worked to my advantage as long as the fight wasn’t against me. But if Priest undermined, manhandled, or challenged me in front of them, I would appear weak.

A weak captain fell in disfavor, and a democratic crew wouldn’t hesitate to rid themselves of the weakness and vote in a new leader.

Rallying that kind of mutiny was my husband’s specialty.

Through cunning, charisma, and clever language, he knew how to talk his way onto a ship, inspire the crew into throwing their captain overboard, and coerce them into voting himself in as the ultimate authority. Once he grew bored with his conquest, he moved on to the next one.

Three years ago, he boarded Jade intending to do exactly that.

Then he met me.

Somewhere between his shameless flirting beneath the ratlines and my orgasmic gasps to God against my cabin door, he decided he was more interested in my body. And my heart. Both of which he consumed, betrayed, and irretrievably lost.

Now he was back to reclaim and repeat.

I would let him believe he won, let him get physically close enough to lower his guard. Then I would clap him in irons and throw him in the hold.

As Reynolds rowed us into the shrouded safety of the sea, Priest’s steady gaze never strayed. He watched me with the focus of a hunter, heating my blood and affecting its flow through my veins.

“I’m sorry about Charles Vane.” Deep, predatory, and unapologetically lustful, his voice purred across my skin.

That voice, by Christ. It caressed me in places I gave no license to touch, and that enraged me beyond reason.

“You’re not sorry.” I flexed my hands, my breaths seething. “You knew I would come out of hiding for Charles and jumped at the chance to use my grief for your own gain.”

“I’m resourceful.” He wet his lips. “And truly, I regret the way Charles died. I would’ve preferred to execute him myself.”

He’d always despised my relationship with Charles, specifically the part where I gave Charles my virginity.

Priest’s jealousy had no restraint or shortage of skill with a cutlass. As several maimed men had discovered, anyone who touched me without Priest’s consent lost their hands, their tongues, and the flesh between their legs.