Page 21 of Paid to the Pirate

Chapter 14

Colt

Isaid not a word as I dragged Charlotte to my cabin. I wouldn’t give her snake-tongue the opportunity to lie her way out of what she had coming.

I’d stayed away from her all day for the same reason.

Fuck. That was a half-truth. I’d stayed away from her because I needed to clear my head and examine what had happened the night before, to review the events as they unfolded and to look for clues.

I had reviewed the events repeatedly in the privacy of my cabin, as planned. With my hands around my cock.

Unplanned.

It may have made me quicker than I’d wanted when I slammed the door behind us and moved Charlotte deeper into my cabin. I could tell my haste frightened her as I tied her wrists, tighter than necessary, to a beam above her head.

Without preamble, I grabbed the leather crop from my drawers. Meant for the hides of horses, it would do wonders on Charlotte.

“Are you going to beat me into submission each night?” she cried. “Is that your diabolical plan, captain?” Although she’d spat it with defiance, her voice caught at the end.

“Are you ready to confess?” I asked, pausing.

Say no,came an irrational voice in my head.

I shook it away. Of course I wanted her to tell me the truth. Immediately.

Yet something in my chest relaxed when she refused, a tension ebbed and made room for excitement to flow in its place.

“Please, wait, wait,” Charlotte babbled when I fisted the neck of her shirt.

Ignoring her, I tore down the middle of her garment and her breasts spilled forth. Heavy and round, nipples pert and pink. Charlotte tucked her head against her shoulder, hiding. Briefly, I debated cutting the remainder of the garment from her arms, but it hung limp on either side of her torso and wouldn’t impede my strokes.

Of which, there’d be plenty. Breasts, nipples, tight little stomach. All begging to be marked.

I could touch her right now,I thought. She was helpless to stop me. My thumb and forefinger rubbed against each other, pantomiming rolling one of those hard nipples between their grasp. My tongue snaked along the back of my teeth, eager to lick, to suck, to bite.

My desire by her design, no doubt. I could see it in the way she arched ever-so-slightly, as if she didn’t know she was doing it. Offering her breasts to me, to use as I saw fit. Her neck stretched, angling to the side. Like prey having given up, presenting its most vulnerable areas to the predator in submission.

I tilted my own head.

Or was it the opposite… Charlotte stretching to escape, to retreat?

The devil of a woman was always so hard to read.

Who cared what she thought or wanted? I glanced down, knowing what I desired.

I’d never seen her breasts after that day, that fateful day four years ago.

Breasts that weren’t as tempting as now. She’d been a skinny thing, late to fill out. The woman struggling before me now had hips soft and round, breasts curved and swollen. Woman, all fucking woman.

Stepping back before I could do something foolish, I raised the riding crop and brought it down on the top of her breast with medium force, testing. I’d never whipped her there before and didn’t know what would be too much or too little.

Charlotte threw her head back with a yelp as a little pink mark appeared.

“Noo…” she whined, so sweetly.

I shrugged. “We can stop whenever you like. Just tell me what happened.”

Charlotte’s reply was to turn her head to the other side, so I answered by applying my leather to her other breast.

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