“Well…aren’t you going to tell him?”
“Hmm.First I need to ask you some questions.”
“You do?”
“Aye.”
“All right.Ask away.”
“If we do this…thing…with Domingo again, I need to know that the event won’t change our relationship to each other.We are still married.Simply because I want to include another man in our coupling on this occasion, doesn’t mean I will be open to fucking men willy-nilly in our rooms whenever you’re bored.”
“Me?”Dinesh said.“You are the one orchestrating this, not me.”
I inclined my head.“True.However, I don’t want this to give you the impression that I will always be up to tup another man together.I suppose what I’m saying is that I don’t want this to become a regular thing.Once in a while, and in this instance, to support what we have decided needs doing from the situation of my nightmares, and because I do like Domingo, and we both find him to be beautiful and, ahem, adventurous, and enormously skilled.And because the last time we were together was ruined in the end by our hasty escape from Tortuga.Andbecause of the recent situation with theEloise, which frightened and upset me and caused me to have to save you all again, which in fact is vexing and exhausting.”
“I think we understand each other, and the exceptional circumstances that make this particular instance acceptable.”
“Aye.”
“So?”
“So?”
“Well, for fuck’s sake, go and get him.”
I blinked.“Should we…not make a plan…of some kind?”
“Rooster, I don’t want to write an essay about it,” he said.“Get him here, and we shall figure it out.”
“All right,” I said, walking past Dinesh.
“And Rooster,” he said, as I pulled the door open.
I glanced back.
“For God’s sake, make sure he leaves that bloody bird in the galley.”
I flashed him a smile.
I’d assumed I’d have to travel all the way down to the kitchens to find Domingo, but he was hanging about at the bottom of the stairs.
“Well?”he asked, brown eyes wide with expectation.
“I’ve been sent to fetch you, good sir,” I said, with a bow.
Domingo grinned and took my hand, and I pulled him along.
Squid, who was stationed in his usual spot outside our chambers, now holding Pearl’s leather lead as I expect the captain had asked him to mind her for the next few hours, eyed Domingo with an indecipherable expression.
“Hello, Squid,” Domingo said.
“Any weapons on you?”Squid asked shortly.
“Only my astonishingly sharp wit,” Domingo stated, eyeing Squid with suspicion.
“Oy, what’s going on with you two?”I asked.
“Absolutely nothing,” Domingo stated with some bitterness.
