Page 71 of Paid to the Pirate

What we shared was unlike anything I’d ever felt.

Colt clasped my wrists in one of his hands, restraining me.

What was he doing? Why?

“Real? How would you know? Have you been whoring so much with the scoundrels passing through your inn these past two years, that a few tumbles in a captain’s bed made you believe it was love?”

I wailed, throwing my head back. Colt seized the top of my shirt and ripped it in two, right down the middle. My hands flew to hold the shirt back together. Colt fisted my hair instead, yanking it and causing the pins to fall.

“I could take you now and you’d love it, wouldn’t you, you filthy whore? After I’m done I could invite my men in here to take their turns.”

I barely heard his horrible words above my sobbing. “Please…”

“Say the word and I’ll drop you off at the nearest brothel. You haven’t been used too much; you can still fetch a good price. Even better if you let ’em treat you as rough as I have. Let ’em know you like it. Many men will want to rough up a pretty little thing like you.”

Impossibly, I wept harder.

“Let me know if you’d rather I deposit you at the nearest brothel, instead of back with your Daniel.” With obvious disgust, Colt shoved me off his body and I crumpled onto the hard floor, weeping pathetically.

“Makes no difference to me,” he declared, as calmly as if he discussed selecting one pair of breeches over another. I’d broken to pieces, never to be reassembled, and the entire matter hadn’t even made a dent in his day. “I have the truth from you now, Charlotte. You’re only weeping because you’ve lost. And if there’s more to it than that… well then. You have my pity at least. Pity for what an easy mark you’ve become.”

“It was real,” I babbled, over and over. “It was real to me.”

Colt shrugged, turned, and opened the door.

I didn’t think I could fall any lower, but I was wrong.

Lunging for Colt a second time, I screamed while attacking him, “I’m not a whore! Liar! It was real!”

The more my fists flew in pathetic attempts to injure him, the harder he smacked them away and eventually, he clamped my wrists. Using my own flailing against me, Colt spun me around, locked my arm behind my back, and gave me a shove so fierce I was sent sprawling. Pain erupted on my palms and knees, but I didn’t care. I lost the will to battle Colt and crumpled into a pitiful ball.

“Put her in the brig,” I heard Colt tell someone. I hadn’t even realized we had company. “If she wakes in the morning ready to behave like a lady, she can leave. If she attacks me again, she’ll stay there until we reach land.”

Crying into my hands, I felt Conks touch my elbow and help me rise on wobbly legs. I barely had the strength to stand or walk, but I didn’t have the strength to refuse the guidance either. I certainly had no power to fight Colt again. I did not struggle as I was led to the brig. In that moment, I could have been led off the plank and I wouldn’t have protested. My heart may have already taken such a plunge, right to the bottom of the ocean. That was what it felt like -- as if my heart was drowning, screaming in pain, but the rest of my body was above the surface and wouldn’t let me die, forcing me to live in continual, unbearable agony.

It was real, it was real.

It was real… to me.

I didn’t even make it to the brig’s hammock. When the metal door closed behind me with aclank,I crumbled to the floor, covering my face and wailing.

I did not move all night.

Chapter 32

Charlotte

What would become of me now? Could I convince Daniel to want me?

I did not need to ask the question,did I want him?The answer was no. I didn’t want anyone but Colt. Not this Colt, the one who cruelly tore my heart from chest. I laughed, mirthlessly. I wanted the Colt who cruelly tore my innocence from my body. Who tore screams of pleasure and pain from my lips.

Perhaps Daniel was right and I was no better than a whore. Maybe it was my nature. I knew nothing of my previous desires. Maybe the strumpet lurked within and I’d only needed Colt’s hands to coax her forth.

Because I was a wretched thing. And my wretchedness wasn’t from my wanton nights with Colt.

It was from his rejection.

Now, nothing was left for me onThe Dread Night. Yet I couldn’t face Mrs. Penningham with what I’d become, leaving me nowhere to go. Maybe Daniel would still want me if I hadn’t disgusted him enough on our last meeting. I could beg and plead; tell him I’d been deceived.

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