LITMIR.BIZ

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every safety rule in the book—once he’d decided on a solo trip he didn’t have much choice. Fortunately, much of his work could be done snorkeling. When he did have to dive, he was extra careful with his equipment, and only allowed himself to stay down very limited amounts of time. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but he thought he could make it work. He’d already used up rolls of film and a big chunk of the memory of his digital camera.

      “So what are you, some kind of hermit?” Adam was still looking around the shelter, like a detective collecting evidence.

      “I’m here doing research,” Ian said.

      “What kind of research?”

      “Adam, don’t be rude.” Nicole put a hand on her companion’s arm and smiled at Ian. A smile that made him a little dizzy. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you,” she said. “But we’d better get back to our ship. We didn’t mean to disturb you.” Her gaze flickered over the towel, and laughter danced in her eyes. Then she turned and led Adam back across the rocks and into the jungle.

      When he was sure they were gone, Ian sagged onto the wooden crate that doubled as a chair. So much for thinking he’d be spending the summer alone. Not that he was complaining about the woman. The thought of three months in a tropical paradise with her made him grateful Danielle what’s-her-name had dumped him.

      Was Nicole the woman the Jamaican had predicted—the one whose goal would be to wear him out? The idea was intriguing.

      Of course, there was the matter of her disgruntled boyfriend to deal with. Yes, definitely a problem. Then again, Nicole might grow weary of her academic pirate’s ill temper. Or decide she preferred dark, scholarly Englishmen.

      And it might snow here tomorrow, too.

      With a groan, he stood and attacked the washing with renewed vigor. But he kept the towel around his waist, just in case. It figured the only beautiful woman to show up on this deserted island was already attached to someone. So much for the Jamaican woman’s prediction that he’d meet a great seductress. Nicole had been friendly, but there was nothing overtly seductive about her, beyond the gorgeous figure, great hair and beautiful smile that would have attracted the attention of any man.

      He finished the laundry and hung it to dry beneath the shelter, out of the reach of the birds, then looked around for something else to do. He could take his notebook and cameras and finish cataloging the plant life in the north lagoon, but he’d learned to avoid that sort of work in the hottest part of the day. His second day here he’d almost succumbed to sunstroke in the intense heat and humidity.

      Better to take it easy for a couple of hours. Maybe catch up on his reading. He turned to the crate of books he’d brought along with him—a cookbook, a first-aid guide and half a dozen tomes on the ecology of the Caribbean, the subject of his doctoral thesis. But discussions of the life cycle of coral or poisonous plants of the South Seas held no appeal to him this afternoon, distracted as he was by memories of Nicole and Adam.

      He spied a paperback among the books and drew it out. Confessions of a Pirate Queen was written across the front in bold red print, above a painting of a scantily clad woman on the gallows. He grinned. His buddy, Bryan Peachtree, had given him the book when he’d learned of Ian’s plans for the summer. “If you’re going to Passionata’s Island, you should read this,” he’d said with a wink. “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

      No doubt some lurid soft-porn epic, Ian thought, settling into his hammock beneath a nearby pair of palms and opening the book. Bryan’s idea of a joke. But since his encounter with Nicole had already put sex on his brain, why not?

      BACK AT THE SHIP, Nicole prepared lunch while Adam checked his diving gear. “Why were you so rude to Ian?” she asked. “Now he’s going to think we’re ugly Americans.”

      “Judging by his reaction to you, I doubt ugly is the first word he thinks of.” He spat into his snorkeling mask and rubbed the saliva around with his fingers.

      “I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about you.” She slapped cheese slices onto bread and began slicing an avocado. They’d be out of fresh produce before long—except coconuts, of course. And maybe she could find banana trees somewhere on the island. “Why were you so hostile to him?” she asked.

      Adam set the snorkeling mask aside. “I guess I was looking forward to having the island to ourselves,” he said. “How do we know he’s not another treasure hunter, out to beat us to the find?”

      “Isn’t that the way these things work—finders keepers?” She handed him a sandwich, then took hers and sat across from him. “Who owns this island?”

      “The British government. They’ve talked about building an airstrip here for years, but nothing’s come of it.”

      “That treasure’s been down there for three hundred years. Are you sure no one’s recovered it before now?”

      He nodded. “Pretty sure. It’s hard to keep a find like that secret.”

      “Then there’s no reason to believe Ian’s after it, or that he even knows about it.”

      “Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll try to be nicer to him next time we meet.”

      “We should invite him to dinner,” Nicole said. “I’ll bet he’s lonely.”

      Adam laughed. “Did you see the look on his face when he saw you? Pretty impressive boner you caused.”

      She stuck her tongue out at Adam, but she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t a little bit flattered. Seeing Ian’s reaction to her had given her an inkling of the power Passionata was talking about. And Ian was a very good-looking man. Someone who could make her time on the island that much more interesting.

      “What are you going to do this afternoon?” she asked Adam, changing the subject.

      “I’m going to do some snorkeling, try to pin down the most likely location of the wreck. I’ll take the Zodiac out. Do you want to come with me?”

      She shook her head. “No. I think I’ll stay here on the yacht and read. I came to relax, after all.”

      “Okay. But tomorrow I want us to go diving.”

      “We can do that. Tomorrow.”

      After lunch he inflated the Zodiac, fired up the motor and took off across the lagoon. Nicole brought her book out onto the deck and pulled a chaise into a shaded spot under the canopy. At last she could continue Passionata’s adventures, and learn more about her approach to male/female relationships.

      The story has been told of how I and my crew, like the Sirens of legend, would lure sailors to the rocks and their undoing. When these lonely men, long at sea, would spy our fair forms reclining near the sea, most seductively arrayed and beckoning, they seldom resisted long. Even after word of the hazard we posed passed among the sailing crews, they were loathe to avoid us. Indeed, it is said many sought us out, though their defeat was inevitable.

      What has not been told—until now—is what happened to those men who survived the wreck and battle. The fate of those who became our prisoners. The bravest and best of these became our slaves and courtesans. They served at our pleasure, as women have been made to do for centuries. But this time the women were in charge, and the men were at our mercy.

      They were wont to resist at first, but soon learned the futility of this. And more than a few discovered a taste for subservience. For though they had been raised to always be in charge—in control—they discovered the erotic nature of surrender.

      The chapter ended, and, breath quickening, Nicole turned the page and found the narrative interrupted by a note from the editor.

      Though Confessions of a Pirate Queen first appeared as a serial printed in the London Times in 1715, the following portion of the original manuscript was deemed too obscene for public consumption, and was unknown for more than two centuries, until an original of the entire document was discovered in the London Times’s archives in

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