“Then kiss me. Prove to me that you’re not so rigid that you can’t let go once in a while.”
“We’re not alone. There are people around,” I hissed, glancing around us. Aft, a couple of men had their backs to us as they coiled ropes, while fore, one of Corbin’s crew was taking sounding readings. Below decks Leeward Tom, Barn, and Bas had gone to rustle up some dinner, but they could pop up at any moment.
“So?”
“So, I don’t intend on putting on a bawdy show for your men and my cabin boy.”
“No sense of adventure,” he said sadly, shaking his head. “And here I thought I had a gutsy wench, an audacious, bold woman who sneered at adversity and who would never back down from a challenge when it was presented to her—”
I had a quick look around to make sure no one was looking our way; then I flung myself on him, digging my fingers into his hair as I smashed my mouth against his, my body instinctively rubbing itself against him as I kissed him with everything I had, and boy, all of a sudden did I have a lot.
“Do you always hum when you kiss?” Corbin asked my tongue, which had pretty much gone to his mouth for a sleepover.
“Hmm?”
“You’re humming.”
I retrieved my tongue and pulled back enough so I could see him without my eyes crossing. “I am?”
“You were.”
“Oh. I thought I was just making happy noises.”
He pulled me up close to him and brushed little butterfly kisses around the corners of my mouth. “You did it before, too. I don’t mind it; it’s nice, but I just wondered.”
“Have I proven to you the unplumbed depths of my audacity, braveness, and inherent dashing abilities?”
“Not yet. Kiss me some more, and then we’ll see.”
Normally, I dislike being given orders, but this once I let it go and kissed him until his teeth rattled. I was just getting into it, adding a little hip action against him that had
him
humming, when a soft popping noise, followed by a bemused chuckle, ruined everything.
“Splice the main brace! Looks like things have progressed nicely while I’ve been away. Quick work, Corb. Are congratulations in order? Am I allowed to kiss the bride? Or perhaps things haven’t gotten quite that far. Have I mentioned that I’m an ordained minister in an Internet-based religion? It’s legal for me to marry couples in thirty-five states, you know. Including California.”
“Ack!” I yelped, jumping back from Corbin, my cheeks firing up with a blush at the thought of someone witnessing us going at it. It was one thing to kiss him in front of a computer character that wouldn’t think anything of it, but another thing when there was a real live audience watching.
“Oh, Holder, no, not you,” Corbin groaned, rubbing his forehead as if he had a headache.
“Bad timing, eh? My apologies, lass. If
someone
had left me a note telling me not to jump on the ship, I wouldn’t have disturbed you two—”
“Do you still have the virtual reality unit on?” I interrupted, feeling my rudeness could be explained away if he could just get us out of there. “Can you log off?”
“It’s too late,” Corbin said, shaking his head.
“Maybe not. Maybe we can still get out. Maybe there’s time,” I told him.
He shook his head again. “I know how Paul thinks. The trap would have snapped shut the instant the log-in was complete.”
“What trap? What does Paul have to do with anything? What are you guys talking about?”
“Can you leave?” I asked.
Holder looked mildly insulted. “I apologized already—”
“What Amy wants to know is if you can log off. I can tell her the answer, though.”
“You two have been dippin’ into the rum keg, haven’t you?” Holder reached up to his temple. “Since it’s obvious three’s company here, I’ll be on my . . . hmm.”
The hope for escape, which had flared for a moment or two, died a sad, lonely death.
“What’s going on here, Corb?” Holder asked, his fingers dancing around either side of his head in a fruitless search for the virtual reality glasses.
“You’re trapped here the same as we are. I’m almost completely certain that Paul has launched an entrapment module to lock players into the game. And I was about to seduce Amy, which, going by the look she’s giving me, is now off,” Corbin said.
“I’ve said I’m sorry about the interruption, but I had no way of knowing. Entrapment mod, eh? Bit beyond my range of expertise, but I suppose it’s possible. That does, however, bring one question to mind,” Holder said, looking thoughtful.
“How are we going to get out?” I said, nodding.
“What sort of code did he use to trap us, and can we break it?” Corbin suggested.
“Why,” Holder said simply. Both Corbin and I stared at him. He made a little grimace. “Why would he want to go to all the time and effort to write a mod like this? There’s got to be a purpose behind it, right?”
“I never thought of asking why,” I said slowly, glancing at Corbin. He shook his head.
“Neither did I, although it does lead to some interesting speculation,” he said thoughtfully.
“Cap’n? We be on the leeward side of the island,” Bald Bob called down from the crow’s nest. “Be we puttin’ in to shore?”
“Aye.” Corbin glanced at me, taking one of my hands in his. “I had thought of just whisking you away to my island paradise where I could ply you with fruity tropical drinks and seduce you in my own good time, but somehow, I don’t think you’ll let me do that.”
I gave his fingers a little squeeze before releasing his hand. “You’re learning quickly, Corbin. Tempted as I am by the thought of getting to know you better in a tropical paradise, I’d like off, if you don’t mind. I’ve got lots of things to do here, so I think Bas and I had better be on our way. What can I do to help find this Paul person?”
Corbin frowned. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t yanked that admin panel out. Now we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Paul’ll probably be doing his best to blend in, appearing as much like a computer character as he can. I’d suggest you talk to people, Amy. Talk to as many townspeople as you can. The more he talks, the more likely he will be to slip up.”
“That makes sense. I’ve met a lot of people here, and I will definitely chat up everyone I can, but surely there’re more people in the game than are on this island?”
“There will be in the release version, but for the beta testing, only Turtle’s Back and Mongoose are inhabited.”
“Corb and I will check everyone on Mongoose,” Holder said, his normally jovial face taking on a hard glint.
“Yes, we will. There are fewer people on Turtle, so if you can make a point of talking to them all, we should be able to sniff Paul out.”
“There’s nothing else we can do to find him?” I asked Corbin, frustrated at the lack of solutions facing us.
“I wish there was, but without that admin panel, we’re more or less blind. Talking to everyone is the only way, unless Paul decides to show himself, which is highly unlikely.”
“Aye, he’s a clever one,” Holder added. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he turns out to be the person no one notices, the quiet, unassuming one apparently going about his daily business without bothering anyone.”
“He well could be,” Corbin agreed.
“Luckily, most of the men come to Renata’s house,” I said thoughtfully. “It shouldn’t be too difficult for me to talk to all of them, quiet ones included.”
“He might not be a man in the game,” Corbin said. My eyebrows did a surprised little swoop upward. “He might decide that hiding out as a woman is safer than being a man. So talk to the women, too.”
A little chill went down my back despite the balmy evening breeze. What if Corbin’s ex-partner was one of the women in Renata’s house?
“All right. I’ll drop everything to talk to every single person on Turtle’s Back.”
“Well . . . it may not be the best idea to drop everything,” Corbin said slowly, rubbing his bristly jaw.
“We want to get out of the game,” I pointed out.
“Yes, we do, but Paul is clever. Really clever, Amy—I’ve known him for a long time. If the three of us make it obvious that we’re hunting for him, or know that he’s behind the entrapment, then he’s going to make it harder for us to find him.”
“Ahhh,” Holder said, enlightenment dawning in his eyes. “I get you. And it wouldn’t surprise me to know he had a contingency plan in case he finds out that we know what he’s up to.”
“Aye, it wouldn’t surprise me, either.”
I frowned a little at Corbin. “So, you’re saying we have to keep playing the game in order to not let on to him that we know he’s behind it all?”
“I think it would be best,” Corbin said. Holder nodded his agreement. “Paul will know sooner or later that we’re savvy to his plans, but I’d prefer it be later than sooner. Besides, he may well have a scenario running.”
Holder groaned.
“A scenario?” I asked. “What’s that?”
“A series of events that have to happen in order for the storyline to advance. Our game scenarios are all reward-based, which means if you succeed at a task or event, or even level of experience, you are rewarded by some means. The act of you succeeding pushes the scenario along. We’re working on tutorial scenarios now, but Paul was hard at work on advanced game-play ones when he left.” Corbin looked very serious, driving home just how helpless we were.
“Then we have to do this scenario thing that Paul set up in order to . . . do what?”
“Get to whatever point he has set as the goal of the scenario. And knowing him”—Corbin shot a significant glance at Holder—“I assume that has him triumphing over us in some way. If we haven’t found him by that time, I’m almost a hundred percent certain he’ll take that opportunity to reveal himself.”
I made a face. I didn’t like the sound of that. “Man alive. So we go on playing the game and talking to everyone in hopes we find him before that time?”
“Unless someone has a better plan?” He looked at me and Holder. We both shook our heads. “Then that’s the game plan. Ha. No pun intended. Are you ready to leave?”
“Oh, yes, please.”
Corbin gave his men the order to put in to shore, and without further ado, carried me to shore in the waist-high water so I wouldn’t get wet.
I melted a bit at that gesture, I don’t mind admitting.
“If you follow that path through the trees, you’ll come to the high point of the island,” he said after setting me down on a small crescent of white sandy beach enclosed by a thick stand of trees. Although the moonlight was bright, he handed both me and Bas oil lanterns.
“Do you know the path, lad?” he asked Bas.
The boy looked almost cheerful as he considered the dark, uninhabited side of the island. “Aye. I’ve come this way afore, lookin’ for owls.”
“Owls?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Aye. They be right bad omens. To see an owl is to see yer own death,” he said with a ghoulish glint in his eye.
I looked at Corbin.
“What?” he asked. “I can’t help it if the kid has a fascination with death.”
“You programmed him! You’d just better program up a child psychologist when we get out of the game,” I warned, then waved at where Holder and the rest of Corbin’s crew stood clustered at the rail of his ship.
“Don’t forget to kiss her!”
Holder bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Oh, for God’s sake . . .
shut up
!” Corbin yelled back.
I giggled. Bas rolled his eyes and stared up the dirt path, Bran the raven squawking as he ducked low beneath a branch.
“I apologize for Holder,” Corbin said, looking embarrassed. “If he wasn’t my oldest and closest friend, I’d kill him.”
I laughed and leaned forward, brushing my lips against his. “I don’t remember the last time I saw a man blush by moonlight. It’s very romantic. Almost romantic enough to turn my financial analyst’s soul to thoughts of a more carnal nature. Thank you, Corbin.”
It was his eyebrows’ turn to look surprised. “For what? Creating the vehicle that would leave you helpless in a world you want to escape?”
I rubbed the tip of my nose against his. “For making me play. I think you and Tara may be on to something. Let me know if you find your ex-partner.”
His jaw went tight. “I will.”
“Good.”
I started to turn away but stopped when he said, “Oh, Amy?”
He was on me before I could ask what he wanted, his mouth hot and demanding, and I didn’t for a moment think of protesting the arrogant gesture; I just melted into him and enjoyed the most blatantly sexual, erotic kiss it had ever been my pleasure to receive. When he was done, I stood breathless, staring in wonder at his lips, my mind stripped completely clean of all thoughts but how I enjoyed the kiss . . . and how much I wanted another one.
“Just a little something to remember me by,” he said, gently turning me toward the path and giving me a swat on the behind.
“Somehow, I don’t think remembering him is going to be a problem,” I muttered to myself as I watched him wade out to the ship. “No, the problem is what I’m going to do to stop thinking about him long enough to do my job.”
Chapter 10
Oh, here is love, and here is truth,
And here is food for joyous laughter. . . .
—Ibid, Act II
I was in the square the following afternoon—trying not to notice how the gleaming blade of a newly crafted sword hanging in the open doorway at the blacksmith’s shop looked just like Corbin’s eyes when he was kissing me—when an odd figure skulked into view. The man was dressed in a ragged collection of ill-fitting garments: yellow striped knickers, rags strapped to his feet in lieu of shoes, and a long, knee-length red jacket tied around the waist by a dingy white sash. But it was the battered green tricorn hat, the eye patch, and what looked like a poorly stuffed green and blue parrot attached to the shoulder that caused pretty much everyone in the square to stop talking and stare at the bizarre sight.