Demons & Pearls (The Razor's Adventures Book 1) (8 page)

After several intolerable moments of this, I decided enough was enough. I tossed her off, spun her around, and put my boot square in her arse, which sent her sailing across the floor. I’d lost my hat in the scuffle, and when I swung around to find it, I also found who I believed to be the tavern owner about to bash in my head with a plank of wood. I ducked his first swing and recovered my hat, but he came at me again. Just as my head was inches from being splattered amongst the gathering mob, I was scooped up and tossed over the shoulder of none other than Big Red.

He flung me up there like a sack of sugar and ran out of there before the tavern owner could even raise the plank again, but I was full of steam and still had a barrel of fight left in me. I kicked and screamed and beat on that broad back of his until I thought my hands were broken, but he didn’t stop. Every step he took was like two of any normal man, and my thumps and blows were no more painful to him than the rain drops that started to beat down on us were to me.

“Put me down!” I shouted over and over, while those we passed in the street cheered and laughed. The further he strode, the darker it got.  Suddenly, I felt dizzy with fear. The idea that he could kill me, or worse, struck me so hard in the head that I froze. Visions of his meaty hand I’d watched over and over again stroking that red beard transformed into two giant paws wrapped around my scrawny neck until I was dead. What terrorized me the most was that he didn’t utter a sound—not even a grunt or a heavy breath escaped him.

I was so paralyzed with fear that I hadn’t even noticed we were now completely alone in the dark. I finally awoke from my nightmare when he lifted me from his shoulder and launched me like a rag doll off a pier, where I landed like a bag of rocks in the harbor.

Chapter Eight

~A Man Among Men~

The Captain’s coat already weighed me down bone-dry, but when I hit the water, it pulled me like an anchor beneath the surface and beyond to the depths below.  Just as my lungs were about to burst, I felt a hard tug on my arm and a few seconds later, Big Red and I broke the surface.

I gagged and barfed as I was, yet again, pulled over his shoulder.  But this time, with the added weight of the harbor water, the big man struggled a bit. I even heard that grunt I was waiting for as he hurled me onto the pier and then pulled himself up. I was lying on my stomach where he tossed me, still gasping for air, when I felt him turn me over.  He began pushing down on my sternum until the final burst of rum and sea water spewed forth from my mouth.  Then, he tipped me onto my side and slapped me hard on the back.

I wanted to scream, but all I could do was cough and suck in the damp night air. I opened my eyes and watched as he fished something from the water, shook it, and then dropped it on the pier next to my head. “Yer hat, young man.” Were the first words he muttered.

My chest heaved, and out of nowhere, I began to laugh. I laughed so hard my body shook as I hacked and coughed in between. “What are you, some hell-hound…come to do me in and lost your nerve?” I struggled to get the words out but they found the way.

“Hell-hound, aye? Naw, just a sailor doin’ his best to help a man in need.”

I pushed myself onto my elbow and slammed my hat on my head and said, “A man in need? In need of what, a trip to the locker?”

“Ye didn’t make it all the way to the locker, now did ye? I just figured a nice swim would cool ye off. It was getting a little too hot in the
Gull
, and since I’ve seen young fellas like yourself done in over some tavern whore, I wasn’t of a mind to see blood tonight.”

He crouched down and took me under the arms to pull me to my feet, but I shoved him off. Since I’d not only managed to fool that trollop and everyone else in that tavern, I wasn’t about to ruin my good disguise by having Big Red catch a handful of tits. “I can do it myself…when I’m ready.”

“Have it your way, lad,” he said.  He tipped his hat to me as he took it off and removed his saturated vest. He drew his once billowy white shirt out from his breeches as if pulling a sail and shook it out. The rain shower was brief, and the thick, hot air had now been soothed to a warm and tender breeze. I sat there and watched in what little light the stars provided with their reflection on the water as he peeled that big ole shirt away from the peaks and valleys of his flesh. Then, he crossed his arms, grabbed the material from the bottom, and whipped it up and over his head.

“What are you doing now?” I asked from below him.

“I don’t much like the feeling of my clothes wet and stuck to my skin, but I do enjoy a midnight swim.” He winked.

Looking up from where I sat stood a man—calm, secure and now removing his belt and boots. I slammed my lower jaw shut just as he leaned forward to undo his breeches when, like in the tavern, he caught me looking.

“See something ye like, laddie?” he asked.  He raised one of his wide red eyebrows at me and stopped before letting his breeches drop.

I covered my awe of his form with a shake of my head and a grunt—his form which nearly glowed in the low light in those concealed corners of skin that never see the sun. “No…no, sir.”

“I was startin’ to wonder if ole Lilly girl was right about ye.” He laughed a soft and rolling chuckle. “Don’t pay that girl any mind, lad,” he said, and he waved his hand at me. “She’s a pushy one that one is. I don’t like ‘em shoved down my throat, either.” On that word, he let go, and I instinctively covered my eyes and turned away. “Am I that ugly?” He continued to laugh as he released that wet, wavy red mane of hair from a leather tie and deftly sorted it out with his fingers. “Well, I suppose you could be right about that,” he said with a sigh.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. He took the wind out of me again for a moment, until I took my first deep breath since before I’d gone into the drink. Then, I blew it out slowly to relieve the pressure of my fluttering heart so he wouldn’t hear it. I drew in another, as he laid his clothes out on a piling to dry. From the corner of my eye I was watching him again.    But this time, I watched his naked body shift and curve from every angle, committing it to memory. I was no longer conducting research of men to impersonate. I was admiring the finest damn man I’d ever laid eyes on and wishing I wasn’t playing at being one.

“You swim?”

“I was making a joke there, lad—apparently not a very good one,” he said as he walked the ten feet or so to the end of the pier and sat down with his toes dipping into the water. Looking at him from the back was almost as good as looking at the front. From behind, his arms appeared thicker than my thighs, and beneath the skin of his pale back, I could see the faint muscular definition of years of hard work. As he leaned his upper body weight back on his hands, the swells and prominences of his arm muscles moved like waves beneath the starlight, and that magnificent head of hair lay in damp swirls between his mountainous, broad shoulders.

“Are ye a sailor, lad?” he called back to me. I was trying to decide what to do. I couldn’t wait to run back to the McCormack’s house and share every last bit of this with the girls but I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to move. I could have sat there all night and just watched him and listened to him. It was then that I decided that was exactly what I was going to do.

“Ivan,” I replied.

“What’s that?”

“The name is Ivan. Ivan Razor.”

“Good name, lad. Rasmus Bergman, but my mates call me Razz. You, may call me Captain Bergman.”

“You’re a captain?” I gasped, and I clambered to my feet and extracted myself from the heavy coat.

“Aye. I…lost my other ship not long ago and not far from here.”

“Lost it?” I asked.

“So, you didn’t answer my question. Do ye sail?”

“I have sailed. I sailed here from America, and from London to America before that.”

I did my best to sound brave, as if I had the experience, but something told me he could see right through me. I imagined he could see me swabbing decks on the
Demon
and feeding chickens in Charles Towne. I wondered if he could also see me killing. He leaned back and looked at me over his shoulder and gave me that eyebrow again to confirm it. “What are ye lad, fifteen?”

“Eighteen,” I shouted back. “I mean to say…eighteen, Captain.” I swallowed hard and looked away.

“My arse you’re eighteen.  What I meant to ask was, do ye know the ropes? Can ye sail?”

Here was a man, naked as a fish in the sea, yet he was still completely a man.  As I stood there in my wet boots, waistcoat, and breeches, I was still no more than a bold and careless girl playing dress up. The very spirit of his existence was a man. His masculinity was a tangible feeling, just being near him. I told him the truth. A man like Rasmus made it impossible to lie anymore tonight—at least about sailing.

“I know a bit about it. I worked on the ship that brought us, I mean me…to Jamaica. I swabbed and tarred the decks. I raised sails—with the other mates, I mean. I learned a good amount in those few weeks.”

“That’s a good start, I suppose,” he said.  He stood and walked to a small sloop that was tied off on the opposite side of the pier. “I’ll be right back. Don’t run away, son,” he said as he gathered the still wet clothes and climbed aboard the sloop.

I thought I should run away.  Every other thought in my head was to run, and yet I still didn’t. I couldn’t. I wanted more of him. I wanted to listen to him speak. I wanted to watch him stroke that damn beard. God help me, I wanted him to throw me over his shoulder again. My head was swimming, and I was wondering if I’d hit it on something when he threw me in the harbor. Yes, that’s it. I was chewing the fingernails on my left hand and pacing for the few minutes it took for him to jump back onto the pier. He was back, and unfortunately, dressed.

“Shouldn’t ye be getting on home?” he asked, raising one red eyebrow.

“I suppose that would be the best thing to do. I’m getting very itchy in these wet clothes.”

“Show me the way,” he said as he took me by the elbow and pushed me along.

“Wait, you can’t…”

“I’m not going to rat ye out. I just want to make sure you get there in one piece.”

“Captain, sir,” I stopped and pulled my arm free of him. “I got down here in one piece, and I’m sure I can get home the same way.” I was becoming as angry as a hurricane, and quick, but I didn’t know why. I wasn’t sure if it was the way he treated me like a child, when beneath my façade, the woman parts of me were stirring like a cyclone, or because I still had to keep up this masquerade and not have him see me for who I truly am.

“Well then, let’s walk together, and you can tell me a little more about your journeys.”

I walked on. As we made our way through the streets, I was careful not to fall out of character again, and although I strolled as close to the complete truth as I could, I did embellish just a tiny bit. I didn’t dare expose the number of killings I’d done. I didn’t think he’d believe me, anyway.

“Well, we can say goodnight here, Captain,” I said when the lantern light of the McCormack’s front porch was a good, hard stone’s throw away.

“Is that it?” He leaned back a bit and gripped the lapel of his coat. “Beyond this stone wall and fancy gate?” He looked down at me so wide I could see the whites all around his blue irises and his eyebrows disappeared beneath the brim of his hat. “Rough life ye got there, lad.” He chuckled.

“I’m just staying here with my mates until I can find my own place.”

He stroked his beard and appeared to have a long deep thought about something.  Then, he said, “Tomorrow morning at sunrise, meet me at my sloop.”

“Why? Are you planning to throw me overboard?” I laughed. He smiled.

“I was thinking I haven’t anything planned but lying about, so maybe I could do that while ye take my little
Blue Oyster
out and stretch her legs.” He winked.

I bit my lips closed and held myself upright with all I had. “I believe I also haven’t anything worth telling to do tomorrow.”

“It’s settled. Fair winds to ye, lad.” He bowed and turned to go, but then he stopped as I was about to scale the wall and sneak back in. “I almost forgot…” he said as he stepped towards me. I could feel the air around him dart out of his way until he was almost flush against me. He took me by the shoulders and said, “It’s an odd feeling when I’m this close to ye. I don’t believe I’ve ever found myself this close to another man in my whole life that I wasn’t beatin’ the tar out of. What’s even stranger is the peculiar urge I’m feeling at this moment to kiss ye goodnight.”

I shoved off from him and he tugged me back. “I beg your pardon, Captain. I believe we’ve already established that I am not…”

“A man,” he finished for me.  As I gaped at him in silence as he continued, “I was in His Majesty’s Navy, and I’ve sailed every body of water as could keep a ship afloat, lass. I can tell the sexes apart from a hundred yards.”

I lowered my head at the realization that I’d fooled a bunch of silly drunks and a horny tart, but I’d never be able to fool a man like Rasmus Bergman. Not only that, I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to know if that fire in his beard would burn my mouth, and I longed for those meaty paws to stroke me everywhere. His hold on me was so firm that I was stunned at the tenderness in his touch when he lifted my face by the chin with his fingertips.

“I’m not going to kiss ye, lass. I’ve no intention of taking advantage of ye at all, and I meant what I said. If ye plan to carry on as a man, whether or not ye prefer tits, I’ll not expose ye. The way I see it, a woman would have to have a mighty damn good reason to play a man, and I love a mystery.”

Rasmus released me and when he let go, I caught myself on his sleeve to keep from falling. I felt as if he was still holding me up by the chin. “Sunrise,” he said with a nod and walked away.

“Wait!” I shouted after him. “When did you know?”

He turned back to me and said with a smile, “Lilly’s a pain in the arse and a pushy little broad, but she’s the finest set a’ tits in that tavern. There ain’t a red blooded man alive who’d not at least have a little nip of one before he shoved her off. Goodnight…Ivan.”