Under the Lash (5 page)

Anjel was surprised at how fervently she was protesting his advances. Granted, he had just given her more than enough cause not to be very happy with him, but she was pitching a fit as if she had her virginity to protect, which was highly doubtful. And he was even more certain that she was simply a very good actress when he deliberately slipped his middle finger between those warm, plump lips to find it immediately bathed in her juices, so much so that he couldn’t control his own groan.

He had had precious few experiences with women whose mouths said, “No, no” as they were being taken to task by his firm discipline but whose bodies betrayed them in the end, and he was always amazed and grateful when he came upon one. Although his mother had seen to it that he was brought up a gentleman – and he himself had taken it a step further in that he tended to treat every woman he met as if she was a high born lady – and he would never subject any lady to his fists as he knew some men did, he was also unable to deny the fact that he found taking a female over his lap and blistering her bottom to be unbearably exciting. Everything about it called to his very maleness, and he even enjoyed the inevitable comforting that he knew would follow afterwards.

This little baggage, however, hadn’t really had the chance to see any side of him but the disciplinary one, so far. Considering that he hadn’t expected to alert anyone to their presence once they came ashore, and was inestimably angry at himself for letting her get to the point that she could ring that bell – even if it was only once – thus endangering his life and the lives of his men, he had to admit that deciding to kidnap the chit might not have been the smartest of moves – especially since seamen were notoriously superstitious and the presence of a woman onboard ship was seen as a portent of bad things to come.

While he’d watched her sleeping, he’d engaged in a bit of debate within himself, between his baser instincts and his better nature, but this had sealed her fate and his. After discovering the secret of her treasures, he knew there was no way he was going to be able to let her go.

Rory might not be too happy to hear it, since as a second son he was always looking for ways to make a pound or two, but the Turks were going to have to do without this one.

She was his.

He snorted softly to himself. As if there had really ever been any doubt, especially from the moment he saw those layers of burnished gold hair.

“Well, what have we here? It seems that someone has been protesting entirely too much about her spankings, especially considering how much the rest of you seemed to have enjoyed it.”

Enjoy it? Was he out of his mind? She hadn’t enjoyed even the slightest bit of it! How could she? She would swear she could still hear the sounds of sizzling flesh from her behind!

Knowing that her protests would get her nowhere, and bound as she was to obey him or feel more of his horrible belt – or even nearly as bad, his palm – on her upturned backside, Cassie didn’t think she could produce any more tears, yet still they came. She couldn’t help but castigate herself about how could she have been so stupid as to have left the protection of the house and decided to wander, alone and in the darkest of night, around on an island she didn’t know?

But her thoughts – even of protest – came crashing down around her the moment that bold fingertip of his found a portion of her anatomy that she had barely known existed, and claimed it for his own, using her own slickness to its best advantage against her, rubbing incessantly and slowly dragging its rough surface around and over the top of a spot she’d never touched herself, much less allowed anyone else to.

And it was making her at least as crazy as she’d thought he was. The way that finger danced over the raw nerve it had discovered had her wanting to move even more desperately than she had when that hand was dead set on blistering every bit of her. It made her feel as if every inch of her skin had shrunk in around her, as if she was going to burst somehow but she had no idea how – or why – and the feeling just kept getting worse. And not really worse – although she would have preferred that he leave her alone – because it felt better than almost anything else she’d ever experienced in her life, and she was horrified to realize that she really didn’t want him to leave her alone, not now. Not until she discovered what these strange, unsettling, insanely pleasurable sensations led to.

She was struggling frantically in the wake of his teasing, and he knew immediately what he had on his hands: a professional who had never experienced the full pleasure of her womanhood. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an unusual situation. Anjel adored women, and had learned how to be a good, attentive lover from some of his mother’s friends, a fact that he was very careful never to let his innocent Mama realize.

But they had taught him well, and he had, of course, applied his knowledge freely, not censuring himself or changing his style because he was lying with a woman who had sex for a living. Nowadays his reputation preceded him, and he couldn’t get most of them to take any money when he finally bid them a long, luxurious adieu, although he always managed to hide a generous amount somewhere in their room...or in some cases, on their person.

Perhaps past abuse had prompted her to demure so stridently, and lack of knowledge of just what delights awaited her at his hands would be more than enough to have put up such a valiant struggle trying to keep him from delving into that most private garden.

As he nonetheless continued to stroke her there – where she was most a woman – he also leaned down on impulse and kissed that lovely seared posterior of hers, unable to keep himself from doing so. He wasn’t kissing it better under any circumstances, but rather branding her even more fully as his own than he already had.

When he could tell by the way she was panting and moaning that she was very close to her own end, he stopped and pulled her skirts back down, then deposited her gently – on her back – on the bed. He reached for the strip of fine linen he’d created last night and tied her legs well together again, envisioning how much she must ache for a release she really had no idea about, and went to retrieve her bloomers.

But instead of staying where he had put her as he expected her to do, the determined little cuss had managed to lever herself up and onto her feet, and was in the process of trying to hop across the floor while he’d had his back turned to her.

She had only gotten about two hops away from the bed, but he was still amazed at her determination to be rid of him. Apparently she had no idea of what awaited her if she made it outside that door, either, so he scooped her up into his arms long enough to deposit her back on the bed. Seeing that she was lying on arms that were tied behind her back, and knowing from personal experience just how uncomfortable that position could be, he rolled her away from him and loosed her arms, intending to rearrange them so that they were – conveniently – bound to the bedposts, instead, which he determined would be at least somewhat more comfortable, despite the fact that that would force her to put her backside in more contact with the bedclothes, but he hoped that uncomfortable reminder might help her keep her station in mind for their next encounter. He couldn’t be spending all of his time looking after her. He had a ship to run.

But he had no sooner freed one of her hands when she used it to clout him surprisingly hard on the ear as she quickly released her other one and began to roll and scrunch herself towards the end of the bed.

“Bloody hell, get back here!” Trying to grab her and hold his ear wasn’t working, so the ear was quickly forsaken. With her hands free, she was even more of a termagant, a veritable whirling dervish of frustrated femininity. He ended up hauling her back to the general area he wanted her in on the bed then just lying over her midsection and letting her beat futilely away on his broad back while he lashed first one wrist to a post and then, after getting up to reposition himself, giving the other the same treatment.

Breathing heavily, he ran a hand through his hair, listening to what he was sure was a long list of curses she was busily heaping upon his head. “I was going to put your bloomers back on for you, but I think that that tantrum lost you the privilege entirely. You’ll be lucky if I allow you to wear them ever again, missy.”

In a fit of pique, he decided to rearrange her legs in a manner that was sure to cause her the most embarrassment, lacing them to holes he’d placed himself in the frame of the bed, arranging her so that her skirts lay back over her stomach and breasts, pretty much obscuring her view of anything but them, with her legs bent and kept in place well back and up. She looked as if she was ready to give birth, but her flat tummy belied that notion entirely.

Instead she was fit for what he intended to do to her next as he found himself entirely unable to keep from touching the downy triangle between her legs. She flinched away from him as best she could, but it was a token measure since she couldn’t go anywhere.

As he fondled her casually, listening to her piteous weeping, he said harshly, “Before you’re in such an all fired hurry to get out of my cabin, you might well think about the consequences. There are nigh on to fifty men on the other side of that door, and none of them – well, with one possible exception – would treat you even half as well as I have. They’d already have raped you every way they could think of, and then they would have passed you off to their friends – at a price, of course, that you would never see any of.

“That is to say nothing of the fact that I now owe you not only your regularly allotted daily spankings, but also a thorough disciplinary session just based on the fact that you boxed my ear. And I haven’t even mentioned the fact that you were so quick to scurry off to warn the townspeople of our presence in that safe little harbor behind the Duque’s mansion. There’s still that to deal with, too, missy. Don’t be thinking that I’ll just forget all about that.

“Especially since you haven’t given me any reason to in the least,” he pronounced, very carefully disengaging himself from ceaselessly worrying that delicious nub of flesh – the one that called out to him to surround it with his warm, wet mouth. But she’d done nothing to deserve such fine treatment, and so he left her there, throbbing painfully on both sides of her lower body but for very different reasons, legs sprawled as if invitation to anyone who might wander in.

Cassie felt only a bit safer to hear the turn of the key when he left, even if he was locking her in, although the Captain left her there, knowing that she had no idea that he possessed the
only
key, and without having reassured her that he wasn’t on par with his men – quite willing to pimp her out for the right price.

Chapter Four

Although he hadn’t literally blindfolded her, he might as well have. Her skirts prevented her from seeing much beyond her own chest. At least if he had seen fit to allow her a little modesty, Cassie might have been able to glean something from the layout or contents of the room that might have helped her escape.

But then she considered his words, and acknowledged the truth of them to herself with a gut wrenching sob. She was well and truly trapped. Damned if she did and damned if she didn’t, and in the worst way for someone of her ilk. She was ruined, and it might as well have been by her own impulsive hand. It seemed that all she’d done since she’d met him was either squeal at the top of her lungs or bawl as if she’d just lost her best friend, but she couldn’t seem to stop doing either.

And to top it all off, all of that almost screaming had dried her throat out to the point that it was nearly as sore as the bottom she was being forced to lie on, and right now she’d give just about anything to have a big mug of even that swill that he had brought her. Anything to give her parched mouth and throat a little relief.

She hadn’t gotten a whit of sleep, but when she heard the ship’s bell ring three times, calling the men to dinner, her body went starkly stiff, knowing that that meant she was due yet another session over his lap.

She wasn’t sure whether or not she should be relieved when she heard the key turn in the lock. After all, she couldn’t really tell who it was that had entered the room, and she damned well knew she couldn’t possibly allow herself to be happy at his return, anyway, considering how abominably he had treated her and was going to be treating her in the near future, but there also might be the possibility of food and water, which she was finding she craved quite desperately.

Eventually, after what seemed like an eon of hearing him – hopefully him, she allowed in the back of her mind – puttering around the room, her skirts were finally removed from in front of her face and she discovered that it
was
him, and that he had laid out somewhat of a dinner service – primitive as it was – on the small table that was lodged against one wall, although she noticed with alarm that there was only one plate on that table. Surely he intended to feed her
something
!

But before he allowed her to get up to eat, he sat down facing her on the bed. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought us both some dinner. I’m going to let you up, but not before I give you the rules that govern your behavior, at least for now.”

Rules had never been Cassie’s strong point, but she managed – barely – not to roll her eyes at him as he continued to speak.

“The door is locked from the inside, so even if you did manage to get past me to the door, you can’t go anywhere.” He seemed to have a change of heart, and then left her long enough to unlock it. “On second thought, if you can get by me, you’re welcomed to have at the crew. I’ve already told you my version of what I think they’ll do to you, but if you think that you could persuade them to treat you any better, then you’re welcome to try.”

She met his eyes, her own full of tears as usual around him, it seemed, and shook her head very slowly and deliberately back and forth.

“Good. Then I’ll take it you will keep firmly in mind that I am the only thing standing between them and you.”