Beauty and the Buccaneer

By Renee Bernard

Captain Lucien DeVair, known as the Sea Devil, was the most feared pirate of his age but also the most desired by every wench in his path. Unfortunately after bedding a jealous sorceress, he and his ship and crew are cursed to forever sail without making landfall. After over three centuries, Lucien is more than ready to see an end to his punishment and to taste the delights of a willing woman.

When spoiled sorority girl, Shana Turner, takes a tumble off the deck of a cruise ship and lands on a garbage drift, it's fairly clear that fate has taken her down a peg or two. But when she is rescued by an insane albeit sexy man who thinks he's the Sea Devil sailing around the Caribbean on a vintage ship manned by zombies...It's a twist this blonde bombshell just didn't plan on.

Lucien quickly comes to believe that this new modern version of a witch may prove to be his way out of the curse. It's a sexual race to the finish because while Shana enjoys the delicious way he tries to convince her to break the spell that keeps him at sea, his patience is bound to wear thin. It's a fantasy that can turn into a nightmare but for now, she likes having the Sea Devil in hand. (And on top, and from behind, and in the rigging...)

This is a Scorching Tale and Not for the Seeker of Mild Romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Renee Bernard
• Release date: Mar 31, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310583537

Renee Bernard

Renee Bernard is a freelance writer for Romantic Times Bookclub magazine. A Lady’s Pleasure is her first novel. She has also written a story, “Mischief's Holiday,” for the anthology The School for Heiresses. Renee lives in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in Northern California. Visit her website at ReneeBernardAuthor.com.

Book preview

Chapter 1

A re you kidding? You send me out for ice? Is that how long it takes ?

Shanna Turner clutched the small plastic ice bucket and wondered how it was even possible for her perfect life to turn into a bad telenovella script in one unbelievable moment. Jake? Really?

The pair in the bunk made a half-hearted attempt to look guilty but her boyfriend, Jake, apparently couldn’t bring himself to climb entirely off Jennifer, one of Shanna’s least favorite sorority sisters.

Sh-she…came by to…borrow…. Jake’s lie was so stupid that even his dim wit recognized the lost cause and gave up. I guess I was too horny to wait, babe.

Shanna just stood in the cabin’s doorway and glared at her college hero, the president of the fraternity, second string quarterback, marginal student and now, apparently, her ex-boyfriend. "Five minutes. You couldn’t wait five minutes."

She threw the ice bucket harmlessly at the pair, missing in one last cruel twist of a scene gone wrong. She meant to howl in frustration but her voice failed her and Shanna hated the defeated sound of something in between a squeal and a scream.

This is not how I imagined my evening going!

Shanna turned on her heels and began to leave with the last shreds of her dignity dragging behind her.

I guess looks and money aren’t everything, sweetie! Jennifer called out to Shanna’s retreating back before the cabin door shut on the cheating pair of lovebirds.

Shanna kept walking, but she couldn’t seem to walk fast enough. Had she ever really thought Jake was worth it? For all his collegiate popularity and talent for good times, Shanna definitely preferred a little more finesse and more exclusivity in her men.

Faithless bag! I swear I must have lowered my standards to the floor when I thought you were boyfriend material!

She replayed Jennifer’s taunt about money and looks in her head as she raced up the stairs as fast as her high heels would allow to the next deck above. She decided that Jennifer was grossly mistaken. A full-length mirror greeted her as she climbed the last step. Admiring male stares latched onto her from every direction and she responded by pasting on her flashiest fake smile, taking them all in with one sweeping flirty, flip of her long blond hair. Two-carat diamond studs winked at her ear lobes caught the light and flashed in the mirror.

Looks and money are everything, thought Shanna. Her Barbie-doll face, hair and figure would get her any guy she wanted and her daddy’s money would pay for Jake’s re-education on why it’s a very bad idea to piss of Shanna Turner. Jennifer was stupid if she thought she’d moved up the sorority food chain by taking on Jake but it still hurt. Guys are a dime a dozen, and none of them—she looked over each guy checking her out—measured up.

Her reader’s memory was maxed out with all her favorite romance novels for this little Spring Break cruise with the campus Greeks. They just don’t make real men like that anymore, she thought wistfully. Jake is just a victim of industrialization, Shanna decided. Three hundred years ago he would have been a force to be reckoned with, a powerful noble, seasoned by battles, refined by society to treat women like Dresden china, a god in bed.

She entered the lift and dimmed her beauty pageant smile to a regretful pout of rejection for her admirers. Men were such sheep. Modern living has ruined all of them. Lead them around on a leash and the idiots actually liked it. She was born in the wrong century, she decided. Doomed to an eternity of disappointment.

Shanna sighed heavily as the elevator doors opened on the next deck.

What would it be like, she wondered, to have a god in bed?

Her life currently sucked. True. But with each fresh hell, new hope arose and the sooner she shook off Jake, the sooner she could start hunting again. They couldn’t all be losers, could they?

She was fairly certain she could avoid seeing Jake again tonight since he wasn’t likely to emerge from that cabin with Jennifer anytime soon. It was a big ship. Unfortunately, it wasn’t big enough to get away from all of the other people she knew. She’d left half of the group down in the little bar on what she’d cattily christened earlier as the steerage deck, drunk off their asses singing Margaritaville over and over, making up obscene verses when they got tired of the original. The rest were scattered out over every deck. She tried every bar, casino and gift shop looking for a private nook in which to lick her wounded pride. Everywhere she went, Hey, Mija! I heard Jake and Jennifer were getting their wild on down below? Sucks, baby.

She heard the same as she passed through the top deck lounge. Tara—whom Shanna kind of liked but usually tried to avoid because she was one of the world’s worst gossips—waved Shanna over to the cocktail table she and several others from their group had commandeered. Shanna held up one perfectly manicured hand in a hold one motion and stepped over to the bar. She needed something expensive…and toxic to her brain if she was going to carry on a five-minute polite conversation about her latest humiliation with Tara.

Royal Salute, please? Shanna dug around in her purse for her wallet.

The bartender pulled a cobalt blue, porcelain bottle from the top shelf and started to break the seal.

Wait. She was still searching the cavernous bottom of her purse for her wallet and found it. That hasn’t been opened?

We don’t get very many orders for it, he said with a smile.

Royal Salute Whiskey was way the hell too good for this barge and Shanna hadn’t expected they would even have a bottle on the shelf. She wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they’d filled an empty bottle they bought off of eBay with Chivas.

May I? She held out her hand. The bartender gave her a slightly puzzled look, but handed her the bottle. Shanna looked over the seal. It looked untouched. I’ll take it.

Miss? His eyebrows shot up.

Shanna smiled and started counting out bills. How much?

That’s three hundred dollars.

She handed him the exact amount, stuffed the bottle in her bag and walked over to Tara and then kept walking past. She wasn’t going to share. Good for them. Though I expected him to be smarter and take her to his cabin instead of mine. Go figure.

And he’s still living? Or did you feed him his balls?

I’ll feed him his balls later.

Call me so I can watch?

Yeah. I’ll make sure you get a front row seat. She paused for a moment and looked back at Tara. Tara?

Shanna, love? Tara was well past tipsy and smiling at nothing anyone else in the room could see.

There’s more to me than just money and looks…isn’t there?

Always wanting more. Tara shook her head. Why would you need more than money and looks?

Shanna thought about that. So people would like me. For me?

Would people like you if you were poor and ugly? Tara took a slow sip of her drink and kicked off a shoe to tuck her foot under the opposite thigh. The short leather skirt she was almost wearing scotched up an x-rated additional inch. Probably not.

Depression was starting to sink its claws into Shanna’s already tattered ego. Good to know.

Then it’s a good thing you’re beautiful and rich, eh?

Shanna sniffled quietly and continued on her way. "Yeah. It’s a great thing," she agreed.

She wasn’t dressed for it, but Shanna went outside to the bow and sat on a deck chair. It was wet from the salt spray. Shanna didn’t notice. She rooted around in her purse and pulled out her eReader and the bottle of Royal Salute scotch she’d just paid a fortune for at the bar on the Fiesta deck. Her purse was her one deviation from fashion. Small clutches with short straps were the thing these days. Strap over the shoulder, purse tucked up in the armpit, it just wasn’t her thing. Her entire life, everything but the kitchen sink, eventually found a home in her purse. Because this trip was part fun, part class work, Shanna’s father had made her a water resistant version of her favorite style with watertight pouches for all of her stuff.

She unfolded the rubber pouch her phone was in and unzipped it. Everything had to stay dry in sixty feet of water or less—or at least that was going to be the ratings on the products once they were shipped to the dive shops. She dialed his number and waited for it to finish the processing and connect.

What is it, baby? Her Dad’s voice was crisp and clear, and more importantly, concerned. She fought back tears. Where are you? Is the boat docked? Just stay there and I’ll fly out and meet you.

Oh, Dad. Just—just give me a second. She sniffed. She rooted around in her purse a minute more and found her tissues, blew her nose and finally calmed her shaking body. Damn, but she hated being weak like this. No one else could shake her shell this way. Until she’d heard her Dad’s voice she hadn’t realized how upset she was over dickhead. He’s cheating on me.

There was silence on the phone for a minute. This was not one of her Dad’s best subjects. He’d cheated on every wife and girlfriend he’d ever had and now he was on the spot. I’m so sorry, baby.

Awww, it’s okay. I know how you feel about that stuff. It’s not a big deal. I didn’t like him that much anyway, she finished on a shuddering breath.

It stings a little though, huh? He sighed. I’ll fly out, meet you at port in Jamaica. We’ll do the dives together and get your course work done for the nautical artifacts paper you’re working on and I’ll write it off for the dive gear line of purses. Sound good?

That sounds great, Dad. We should be there the day after tomorrow.

I’ll buy you something special.

She wanted to start crying all over again. You don’t have to, she started to protest.

I want to. You just concentrate on having fun until I get there.

Okay, Dad. I love you.

I love you, too, baby.

She touched the screen to disconnect and tucked the phone back into its pouch and exchanged it for her tablet. Feeling a little better she opened the Royal Salute and took a long swig of it straight from the bottle. She then settled back to read. Shanna was studying Art History and Fashion, her two favorite subjects. When the ship made port in Jamaica she was booked for a private underwater tour of Port Royal and a land tour of the recovered artifacts from the sunken pirate city.

Pirates. God, she loved pirates. Her numero uno fantasy man? A pirate. There was something that appealed in a sexy swashbuckler who was mad, bad and dangerous to know. She’d devoured more than her fair share of historical accounts of pirates and had a weakness for them in romance novels. She was reading one now where a very naughty captain was learning how to submit to an even naughtier nobleman’s daughter. She was on chapter three and was fantasizing about what she would do if she could climb into the pages and into that life.

The wind was a steady twenty knots and chilly. After about ten minutes, Shanna was reconsidering her choice of private reading quarters when sounds of metal screaming against metal tortured her ears. She shifted to get up from the damp cold plastic deck chair and pulled her fashionable short linen skirt down to re-cover her rear end—God, she hated wearing thong underwear, but her skirt was so freaking short that she’d die if someone caught a glimpse of her favorite, comfy briefs. Her shirt barely covered her nipples. She had been going for a tasteful bondage-Barbie look tonight and wore what essentially amounted to linen straps. To get into the shirt, she put her arms through two holes, stretching the linen across her nipples, tucked a ribcage strap below for support—not that she needed it—and braced it across her shoulder blades with an eighteen carat gold chain made of tiny shackles—yeah, like prisoners used to wear only cute as hell. At least, she’d thought so when she’d designed the outfit.

She designed a lot of her own clothes. Daddy’s business was manufacturing clothes and accessories. She got first pick of the top designers from New York and California. He thought it was adorable that his little girl still loved to play dress up. She got cart blanche with the head seamstress. She tightened the laces on her strappy, high-heeled sandals over to the edge to peer over the rail.

It was probably nothing. Maybe the crew was adjusting some equipment or something. She peered over and looked.

The crew was dumping a mountain of garbage bags overboard.

Man, oh, man! Would Megan love to see this! Okay, not love—more like enjoy a surge of righteous fury but still… Megan was Shanna’s best friend. Megan was studying Environmental Engineering with a specialty in Oceanographic Restoration. I’ve got to get this.

She wobbled back to the deck chair, switched to the camera setting on her tablet, strapped her bag over both shoulders like a rucksack and teetered back to the rail. She couldn’t get a decent angle. Stairs leading down to the next deck tempted her and she checked to make sure they still had a ton of garbage