Page 15 of Paid to the Pirate

I, however, only caused myself greater discomfort as I imagined exactly that -- Charlotte spread upon my bed, leather flicking her most tender regions -- and marveled at the wonder of her getting wet at my hands, my discipline. It gave rise to a strange exultation in my chest.

Storming out of the hull, I found Conks outside the doorway, rubbing his gray whiskers in thought. A man of forty-five, he’d grayed by his thirties, as if his outside matched the maturity of a man beyond his years, the wisdom of the old soul within.

“Keep an eye on her,” I ordered.

“Aye.”

“Some of the crew will be angry. They’ll try to get answers from her themselves.”

“Aye.”

“I don’t want her…” I struggled to find the word.Hurt? Mistreated?Lies. I wanted that, and more. I just wanted it at my own hands. And not… permanent.

“I don’t want her damaged,” I said, as if she were stolen booty.

Maybe she was. Maybe she always was.

“I can’t blame them for trying anything they can,” I added, angrily.

“Can’t really blame her, either,” Conks intoned, hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels.

I shot him a look. Couldn’t I?

“Were she a man, I’d have put her to death already.”

“She might prefer it to whatever you have planned.” Another dark look from me and Conks added respectfully, “Captain.”

I gnashed my teeth. My discomfort might have escaped Charlotte’s notice but I knew it hadn’t escaped Conks’s. He’d grown soft for her. Many had. Many hadn’t. Sorting out who felt what -- what each man wanted to do with her -- was going to be a problem.

Almost as much as sorting out what I wanted to bloody do with her.

Wring her neck. Flog her. Fuck her.

I shook the thought from my head, focusing on the dimly lit hallway. My ship. My command.

Conks had spent almost as much time with Charlotte as he did with Johnson; loved her almost as much.

“Just… watch her,” I said, brushing past him down the hall.

“They’re on your side,” Conks called out, stopping me. I turned only my head, to listen. “Most of them,” he added, ominously.

I grunted my reply and continued through the darkness.

I hadn’t lost control of my men.They are on my side.But what side was I on?

Flog her. Fuck her.

Fuckme.

I stalked up to my cabin. I hadn’t meant to kiss her. Perhaps I belted her harder for my own mistake, to prove I didn’t mean it. If she wasn’t a lying knave I might feel guilty about it.

Maybe that was her fucking plan?

Alone, I slammed the cabin door and fumbled at my lacings. I didn’t even make it onto the bed. Standing with one arm braced high on the bed’s wood frame -- right above where she’d recently bent -- I grasped my cock and pumped hard. I pictured Charlotte spread and moaning, dripping for me. With each pump of my fist, I hated her for it. I thought of punishing her harder; thought of her thanking me for it. I imagined, instead of her cries to the lord, she’d cried my name. Called for me, begged me to take her. I pictured sliding my cock into her tight, wet passage and taking my pleasure with her pain, muting that pain into her pleasure.

Groaning, head thrown back, my orgasm ripped through me faster than a boy at his first tumble. I shot ropes of seed onto the bedding, sullying it.

I wanted to drag Charlotte by the hair back to my cabin and bid her lick it up.

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