Falling for the Pirate by Amber Lin Page A

his body grew taut, straining to hold still. The skin was so thin, almost bluish, bruised. He couldn’t touch her or he’d take her. He couldn’t have her without ruining her.
    “What you and I did,” she murmured.
    It took him a second to catch up, to register what they had done. Her, straddling him. Him, pushing up into the warm curvature of her body, desperate for entry. What else do you remember? he’d asked.
    His heart began a tribal beat, though he couldn’t have said whether it was prurient interest or horror or fury, or some combination of the three. “Wait. You did that at school? With a teacher?”
    “No! Of course not.”
    “Oh, well then, of course not. Why don’t you explain it for me?”
    “I thought you might react this way,” she said faintly.
    “I’m not angry at you. Damn it, Julia.” It did not escape his notice that he was enraged by the idea of someone taking advantage of her while he was trying to do the same thing. He didn’t care.
    “It wasn’t with a teacher,” she insisted, though she still wouldn’t face him. In fact, she had pressed herself into the linens so much that her voice came out muffled. Especially when she said, “It was another student. I did it with…”
    “Willingly?”
    “What? Yes.”
    “Give me his name—”
    “It wasn’t a boy.”
    It was a little like being hit in the head. The world went silent, her voice replaced with a buzzing sound. His vision dimmed, going dark before focusing on her again. He forgot entirely how to speak or move or breathe.
    “We had a pact not to tell anyone,” she said. “Which I’m breaking now, by telling you, but, you see, I don’t have many memories, at all. So that makes the ones I do have very important. And I wanted to share one with you. It seemed appropriate.”
    “It seemed appropriate to tell me that you gave your female friend at boarding school a climax.”
    “When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem as appropriate.”
    He barked a laugh. Appropriate. God. She was going to kill him. She would say something outrageous, and he would shrug, because that was what he did now, he shrugged.
    But the worst part, the horrible part, was that it did seem appropriate. The telling, that is. Because he understood her well enough to know what she’d been trying to do. She’d been trying to cheer him up after he’d told her about his father’s death.
    And it was working. He’d never felt so cheerful in his life. His chest felt full, almost bursting. There was something like a smile on his face, but it felt stiff with disuse.
    “Have I shocked you?” she asked innocently. The little devil. She knew she had.
    “It takes more than that to shock someone who grew up in a whorehouse.”
    Her eyes grew round. “What?”
    Unfair, he berated himself. He’d said it to shock her, but now that he had, he hated the sorrow and sympathy in her eyes. “I worked in one for a few years,” he explained. “Sweeping floors. That kind of thing. You see a lot, even with the doors closed.”
    “Oh, Nate.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “No more talking. It’s late. Go to sleep.”
    He didn’t really expect her to obey. Probably because she hadn’t ever done a thing he’d told her to do, so far. But she closed her eyes, silent. Well, even if it was pity obedience, he would take it.
    The moon rose, beaming through the porthole, making it brighter than before in the small space. She didn’t move except for the rise and fall of her chest. Asleep. Jesus. He stared at her, acknowledging the truth. He wouldn’t be able to use her for revenge. He wasn’t sure he could let her go, either.
    Because she was too easy a mark. Too weak, too sweet. That was why he couldn’t hurt her.
    He closed his eyes, too, feeling that strange fullness again when he noticed their breathing was in sync. The truth was, he couldn’t master her because he had already been mastered. Couldn’t ruin her when he was already rent apart.
    She had