Page 84 of Paid to the Pirate

No. We were but a few years apart in age but leagues apart in life experience -- save whatever she’d learned aboard a pirate’s ship for the past year and a half. Charlie possessed no ability to read and had little experience with the world outside her small town orThe Dark Blade.

What would she look like if her hair grew out? What did she look like underneath those breeches?

What to do with her now?

How could I have mistaken her for the past year and a half? Those full, pink lips and those high cheekbones. The way she moved.

It moved things inside me I’d hated to admit. I’d resented those thoughts, late at night in the darkness of my cabin. It hadn’t stopped them.

Now I understood.

Charlie made fools of us all, but no one more than me. If I didn’t punish her, if I didn’t reassert my authority, it would weaken my command. If that happened and someone like Robert organized a mutiny, she’d truly be in trouble. Even now, I could easily guess which of my men would be glad if I commanded she was to be raped and thrown overboard this night.

Charlie gave me no choice but to punish her. Loudly. Thoroughly. Shamefully.

And truthfully, my fury was glad for it.

Chapter 37

Colt, the past

“What are you going to do to me?” she demanded, after I marched her to my cabin. Following my rescue, it seemed some of her spirit returned. I think Charlie was more frightened of the men above than the one in front of her.

I’d change that soon enough.

“I’m going to punish you as a woman is to be punished.”

At her widened eyes I realized she thought I meant something else entirely. It was with both cruelty and kindness that I clarified, “Relax. You can keep your breeches on for your spanking.”

Ah, there was the terror I desired.Though I wasn’t sure if her horror was more from fear of the impending pain or humiliation.

“Don’t you dare lay a hand on me,” Charlie ordered, backing up.

“Oh, I’m going to lay my hand on you. Forcefully. Repeatedly. Until you scream and cry loud enough for every man out there to know you’ve been suitably punished for your actions. Enough to satisfymethat you’ve been sufficiently punished.”

“I will never cry for your satisfaction,” Charlotte declared, her laughter an attempt at boldness.

I grabbed her arm and she squealed.

“I do love a challenge,” I said, easily throwing her across my ample thighs.

She yelled but I ignored her, staring at the rounded bottom before me.A girl’s rear.She bore somewhat undernourished hips, but her backside was ample enough to punish. With relish, I raised my hand high and smacked it down. The pleasure hit me like a shot of whisky to my brain. Charlotte yelped at my force, kicking fruitlessly to free herself.

Smack.I struck again. And again. Occasionally my fingers curled as I struck, grabbing the meat of her arse. The pleasure of punishing Charlotte was so intense, I grew focused on nothing but her rear and her grunts. It was hard to judge if she’d had enough as her breeches blocked my view. When Charlotte’s shouts of protest morphed into cries of pain, I stopped, curious.

Some instinct made me abruptly draw Charlotte up into a sitting position on my lap. Perhaps shocked, she didn’t move. Wide, wet eyes stared at me, but there was more defiance than contrition in them, telling me I’d stopped too soon. I also doubted anyone had heard her.

“Why did you hide the truth the day we found you?” I asked. I desperately wanted to know everything that went on in her head. All she hid, all she had ever thought. I wanted to examine it, shape it, mold it, play with it.

“And what would you have done if I’d confessed I was a girl? Raped me?”

“My men do not rape,” I stated. “You know this. Their needs are seen to at every port, even if it cost them the better portion of their wages. I see that they have it.”

“So I’d have been left on my own? Too old to be adopted yet an orphan at the mercy of a town that hated me? You’d have left me to starve and die!”

I raised my brows. “So you’d rather your fate on this ship?”

“I’d rather you spared my father, you murderer!”

---