Page 82 of Saving Sophia

I squirmed in my seat, my heart thumping, his touch setting fireworks off in my brain.

“As for the things in that store, they’re just ideas, baby girl. Options,” he said. “We choose what we take home and what we leave on the shelf.” He made it sound so simple. Maybe it was.

“It does sound like a field trip is in order, though,” he added with a squeeze to my thigh. “Maybe we could find a cat o’nine tails, like Captain Harlow keeps threatening Ruthie with.”

My eyes widened, and my mouth dropped into a thrilled little O.

The most recent chapter we’d read taunted me in my dreams. Only, the captain in my dreams had cashmere gray eyes, a goatee, a dimple in his left cheek, tousled hair the color of wet sand, and demanded I call him Daddy.

In fact, his outfit almost reminded me of the captain’s pirate garb, and I swirled my tongue along my teeth, imagining him in a heavy leather buccaneer coat with shiny round buttons and a red pirate sash. It was almost too yummy to contemplate.

“Speaking of the dashing captain and his naughty prisoner”—he tapped a few buttons on his phone— “I got it on audio so we could listen on the way.”

I clapped my hands in pure delight.

“Where were we at?” he asked.

“We just finished the part with the fancy meal at the captain’s table, when Ruthie stole the knife and stashed it under her skirt,” I answered. “He just stripped her down and tied her to his mast,” I added in a big whisper.

He grinned at me as the narrator’s voice came out of the speakers:

“You’ll not break me,” Ruthie cried, fear and fire flashing in her ocean blue eyes.

“I don’t want you broken,” Harlow replied, dragging the leather down her camisole-clad back. “Just chastened enough to stop defying me.”

Her treasonous body arched in response to his touch as the boat rocked beneath their feet.

“You plan to return me to Lord Borthwick,” she snapped. “I’ll never stop defying you.”

“He’ll pay handsomely for you,” the captain agreed, ever the pragmatist.

“Not if I am marked by your whip,” she said, desperate to convince him.

“True.” Harlow squinted at her, considering. “But he may thank me for taming you for him.”

Her only response was to spit at him over her shoulder.

Captain Harlow seized her hair and exposed her neck, his lips against her ear as he whispered, “Enough games, little pet. I’ll take you right here, tied to my mast. I’ll free the pirate vixen inside your heart and make you mine for all time. If you live with the flaccid Lord Borthwick for a thousand years, you’ll spend every day of it pining for my hands on your backside and my sword inside your sheath.”

Ruthie gasped at the crudeness of the man pressing against her, at the rough scrape of his beard against her tender skin and the wild way her heart beat at his words. She desperately hoped, despite herself, that he would do exactly as he threatened.

“But, Sir,” she whimpered. “Your crew. They’re watching.”

Captain Harlow let out a dark, ominous laugh. “Sweet little pet, I’ll fuck you right here, in front of my crew, and you will beg me for more.”

“We’re here, sweet girl.”

I jumped at his words and looked around. “We were just getting to the good part,” I complained.

His lips twitched up, enhancing that dimple, but he didn’t say anything.

He helped me out of the car, and I realized I had dressed like a Little but had no idea where we were going. What if his surprise was to take me to the opera? Or a shopping mall? Or dinner with Aunt Carol?

He won’t let you be embarrassed, the little voice in my head assured me.

I took a deep breath to relax.

And smelled salt in the air.

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