Their next kiss went on for who knew how long, but eventually they were interrupted by the bright light of a torch being shone up upon them from somewhere down in the water.

  They broke apart and Amanda squinted down into the light trying to discern who it was that had disturbed them.

  “Shipment of wine for The Black Dog,” called up a voice.

  Then the torch was turned away and Amanda could see that a long, wide boat stacked high with barrels had pulled up alongside them.

  “More wine?” she asked Sirius. “Is this for..?”

  He simply nodded and yelled down to the newcomer, “We’ll be right with you.”

  The barrels were large, much larger than the others they had on the boat. Sirius told her to wait and then he went off to fetch some crew.

  She was confused when he returned however, because despite what he'd said earlier about making sure some of the men remained sober, he'd brought with him the likes of Dickie and Crawly and a few others who were far more likely to drink until they passed out and all of whom were already sufficiently sloshed.

  Shiv and Neko joined them as well, and after payment was made to the wine delivery guy they all set about moving the barrels below deck.

  Despite their intoxication, they made good time and soon everything was loaded.

  "Now crack the lid off," Sirius instructed Crawly as he pointed at one large barrel. "We need to move all of these"--he pointed at a stash of smaller barrels--"into these." He pointed to the newer barrels. "Any wine that can't fit you can drink or pour into any empty barrels we have."

  “We can drink it? As much as we want?” Crawly asked, blinking as if he hadn’t quite heard the captain correctly.

  “As much as you want,” Sirius replied. “Just make sure every barrel is full once you are done and that all the small barrels are inside a larger barrel.”

  The men got to work on that and even Amanda helped for a little while, mostly with the shifting of spare wine. It tasted a lot better than the human stuff. The conversation and banter was vibrant on account of the alcohol but the men did their jobs well. Part way through, Sirius nodded for Amanda, Shiv, and Neko to follow him to the ship library.

  “I don’t understand,” Amanda remarked once they were all there, doing her best to act more sober than she now was. “I thought you wanted sober men who aren’t likely to talk to move the barrels?” She understood that he was concealing the blood inside wine barrels and making them look like they contained only wine but it would only work if no one blabbed about it in the town bar later.

  “They’re unlikely to talk about it if they’re too drunk to remember it tomorrow,” Neko answered with a grin.

  “It was Shiv’s idea,” Sirius added, “And if we hit port early enough tomorrow then they’ll all be asleep and a different crew can offload the regular stuff. That way we can avoid the risk of any mindwalkers figuring out what we’re hiding. The only people awake who will know will be us four.”

  “Which brings us to the obvious problem,” said Shiv.

  Amanda paled. “Are they likely to have mindwalkers?” If that was the case, it was more than just the blood that would be an issue surely?

  Shiv shrugged. “Not usually, but we’ve already been flirting with the law a bit this trip. It might make us a target for a deeper check. Good mindwalkers are expensive so the worst you might get from a regular inspection is some surface level exploration if they have one there at all. Thus, as long as you aren't actively thinking about what you’re hiding you’re all good. Usually we bribe our way into missing the random checks unless we know we’re good. Sets an expectation you know. But we kinda missed the boat on that this trip. The guy we were supposed to pay hasn’t shown up, probably because we were late.”

  Sirius jumped in then. “Neko can be off duty tomorrow but it looks weird if Shiv and I aren’t overseeing the trades. I doubt we’ll get anything like that sorcerer we had today but I am a little worried.” He held up the mindwalking charm and directed his next question at Amanda. “You think this would help? Maybe we can redirect their attention during inspection or have them think everything’s okay?”

  He obviously hadn’t told Shiv or Neko about the infusement since they were both looking confused.

  Amanda shook her head. “It depends. Using a mindwalking infusement is risky. All it would take is one borrower to pick up on it and then maybe they’d take a closer look. There’s not enough magic in there to mindwalk a whole bunch of people. Unless you want to pull a sort of distraction technique like we did back when we were fighting the crew of The Slicer? It’s still a risk though and mind manipulation is a whole lot less subtle than reading is and there’s no way a borrower wouldn’t notice if you did it directly to them.”

  Sirius nodded and put the necklace away. “Good, I wasn’t really liking the idea of that anyway.”

  Shiv, who had been frowning, spoke next, also at Amanda. “You seemed able to resist that sorcerer’s attempts earlier based on what he said?”

  Amanda sighed. “I’m pretty sure that sorcerer could have read whatever he wanted. I’m not even entirely sure he didn’t, but you’re right that he’s probably the exception. It’s all well and good not thinking actively about the thing you don’t want read but it’s also kind of like trying not to think about a pink elephant right?”

  “So how do you not think about a pink elephant?” asked Neko with a smile.

  Amanda shrugged. “By thinking about a blue elephant. The only trick I really know is to think of something else and thrust those images or thoughts at them, especially if it’s something people don’t want to read. Like if you’re playing poker and have two aces you could try not to think about the fact you have two aces or you could try really hard to imagine you have two queens instead or even better, you think about your opponent’s mother naked. Some people kind of do a bit of both.”

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  Sirius nodded. “Makes sense, and most of the men are experienced enough that they wouldn’t be thinking too much about what they are shipping and more about what they’re planning to do later.”

  “Explains why it’s always novices getting caught,” Shiv added.

  “That and they look more nervous in general,” Sirius agreed.

  “Great!” Neko grinned, “All we have to do is think about that time we found Dickie with that goat.”

  Shiv and Sirius both winced.

  “Dickie and the goat?” Amanda asked.

  “You don’t wanna know,” Shiv replied.

  Neko chuckled and then asked more seriously, “What about lie detection?”

  Sirius shrugged. “What about it? We’re simply shipping fine beverages. As long as they don’t ask for who then that’s the truth of it.”

  “Anything else we’re missing?” Neko asked.

  “As long as nobody’s too nervous, empathy shouldn’t be a problem,” Sirius replied. “And good psychics are basically non-existent.” After some thought he added, “I can’t think of anything else.” He glanced toward Shiv as if to ask ‘can you?’

  Shiv shook his head. “Sounds like we’re all set then.”

  “So what did you think of earlier when the sorcerer was trying to read your mind then?” Sirius asked Amanda when they were in their cabin later.

  “Ah.” She gave a nervous laugh and then sat down the bed next to him. “I might have thought of you naked.”

  “Me? Me naked is what you thought when you needed to think of something other people wouldn't want to see?" He cocked an eyebrow.

  She blushed. "Well, when you put it like that. But I didn't mean it like that and I didn’t get much time to think of anything else. Most people don't want to see a random naked cock right? Even people who like cock... but for me it's an easy image to think of cause I obviously like it."

  "What, random naked cock?" he teased.

  "I..." She opened and closed her mouth several times like a fish.

  Sirius sniggered. Then he lay down on the bed and held out his arms.

  She crawled into them and lay down beside him, looking up at the fake stars on his cabin roof.

  "I kinda missed those stars," she said.

  "So did I," Sirius added. His fingers gently stroked her arm.

  She lay like that, peaceful and half asleep in his arms as his fingers tickled her skin. Each little movement of his fingers he moved them a little further in and a little further south, like a sailor testing the water. She wondered if he’d seen how much of the wine she’d had. It hadn’t been that much by her standards but she knew his were a little different. He had been pretty distracted at dinner though and later when she’d tried some from the barrels. It was just enough to put her in a happy sleepy kind of state. His tickling fingers were doing a good job of waking her up and she certainly more than half-wished for him to continue. There was something else she should mention before things got too steamy though. Before he wound her up too much.

  “Just so you know, I ah, got my period today so if you’re thinking of sex there might be a little blood.”

  His fingers stopped their movement. “How much blood?” he asked.

  She laughed softly at his cautious tone. “Less in a few days. Not that I’m opposed if you’re trying to start something. Just giving you fair warning.”

  "Hmm, perhaps we can just cuddle. I need to get more condoms anyway."

  Amanda snuggled against the warmth of him. Then she had a thought. "I could get some tomorrow. I was going to ask what the schedule was and if there would be time to grab some things in Scarlett during the day?"

  "We'll be going into port proper in the morning. There will be an inspection and taxes to pay and the rest of the day will be moving things on and off the boat. We won't stay in Scarlett long. The plan is to set sail the morning after. I'll probably be busy most of the day but I could send Bruce or someone into town with you."

  She half turned so she could see his face and she raised an eyebrow. "Is Scarlett that dangerous or are you just worried about me getting arrested again?"

  He smiled. "A bit of both. Scarlett's not so bad. It's less rough than Little Rock to be honest but we've already made ourselves known to the royalty and they like to play with people. I think I'm more worried about anyone you might run into."

  "I promise not to set anyone on fire," she replied with a grin.

  At his doubtful look she added, "I'll be fine."

  He looked skeptical but he didn’t argue. His fingers were still gently trailing their way up and down her hip in soft strokes she doubted he was too consciously focused on. It was a nice feeling but her neck was going to get sore if she kept looking at him from this angle so she rolled over proper and propped herself up on one elbow. She was glad when he placed his hand onto her other hip.

  His eyes traced their way down her body and she considered seducing him. He’d sounded more on the fence and cautious than completely off-put by the idea of a little blood. She suspected he’d simply never had sex with someone while on their period before and likely didn’t know what to expect. She could push his boundaries another night though. There was a bit of fun in watching him tease himself like this too, and she had some questions she wanted to ask.

  “How come you’re not more angry with Shiv and the crew for the mutiny? You just let them get away with it?”

  He met her gaze. His fingers ran up to her ribs and then back down again. His eyes never left hers. “They have the right to decide who their captain is. That’s the way it works. And I had words with Shiv. What he did was risky and it may have made some things worse but I understand why he did it. And you getting arrested your first day in Scarlett kind of adds to his case you know.”

  She rolled onto her back and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Except you got arrested for a similar thing twice before so it’s a little bit hypocritical.” She held up her fingers to indicate ‘a little.’

  He breathed a huff of air out of his nose in a gentle sort of laugh.

  She turned her head again so she could look at him in full, although she stayed on her back. The bed was comfortable. More gently and less playfully she asked, “Did the woman you save remind you of your mother? Is that why you tried to save her twice?”

  He sighed and dropped his gaze down toward the bedspread. He shook his head but she didn’t think he was saying no.

  After a few seconds he replied, “I never blamed my mother, not like my sister did. And I guess I can’t really blame that woman either, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know her circumstances. With dad I kind of got it and mum never defended him. She just… he could be a good man. Hell, I think most of the time he was. It’s just that when he wasn’t he really wasn’t. I always thought maybe if we were good enough and quiet enough…”

  “It’s not your fault,” Amanda told him when he’d been quiet for awhile.

  He nodded. Then he shook his head. “I don’t think it made any difference. There always would have been something. No one can be perfect all the time.” He rolled on to his back and looked up at the fake stars. “But my sister sure as hell went out of her way to provoke him sometimes. I don’t know. I don’t blame her either, I just…”

  “Wonder how things would have been different?”

  “Yeah.” He met her gaze again with the barest of smiles. He looked at her like he was studying her face. Then his smile grew and he changed the subject. “You know, technically that pegasus is still mine.”

  She frowned. “What? How do figure?”

  “Well, my men got it back. And you never won our bet.”

  The glint in his eye suggested he was just toying with her. There was no way she was letting him get away with that though. She propped herself up on one elbow and dropped her mouth open. “No way. Double or nothing? I’ll start tomorrow.”

  He snorted. “Bluff.”

  She punched him gently on the upper arm. “It is not!” she replied. At the surprised look on his face she suddenly realised what she’d just done and she backtracked. She’d just hit a guy who had spent most of his childhood getting hit. “Sorry,” she apologised.

  But Sirius just laughed. He shook his head. “I can tell the difference between play and…” He trailed off and then just finished with a sincere and reassuring, “I can tell the difference.”

  She lowered her head and peaked up at him between her eyelashes. The playfulness was still there in his face. She tried to look apologetic but she couldn’t keep a straight face. Not when he was looking at her like that.

  She broke into laughter, which he decided was the perfect time to kiss her.