Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163328 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 817(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
This was wrong.
I didn’t have to battle my body’s reaction to the sensual pain. My brain took over, shutting down pleasure centers, stiffening my joints, and tensing the muscles between my legs.
As if Ashley detected my mental retreat, he pulled back, his hand hovering in the air. Blue eyes smoldered beneath feathery black lashes, sparking as he took my measure.
“You can fight it.” He straightened and cleared the rasp in his voice. “But your body is still a whore.”
“So is yours.” I directed my gaze at the sizable bulge in his skin-tight breeches.
The corner of his mouth rose. The tiniest twist.
“Why?” Goddammit, I hurt. Everything pulsed and scorched as if doused in liquid fire. “Why hit me there?”
“Because I can.” He drew in a lung-filling breath and shouted, “Sergeant Smithley!”
My eyes widened, and my pulse raged. “Don’t send me back down there. I can be reasonable.”
“You’re incapable of being reasonable or civilized. But while you’re on my ship, you will meet the minimum standards of courtesy.”
He stepped back, capturing my swinging leg and hooking it over the rail. Once again, I sat on the balustrade at a backward angle. I immediately squeezed my thighs together.
At the sound of the exterior door opening, he folded his hands behind him and tipped his head, his eyes trained on mine.
Two chambers away, beyond his broad frame, a silhouette appeared in the dining cabin. The movement inched into the day cabin, and a shaft of moonlight illuminated Sergeant Smithley’s blank face.
He paused there as if he weren’t allowed to enter the sleeping chamber. “Yes, my lord?”
“Should something happen to me…” Ashley kept his back to the soldier and his gaze pinned on mine. “If I fall ill, become injured, or perish, what have you been ordered to do with Miss Sharp?”
“Return her to the hold, my lord. She shall be transported to England with or without you.”
“Very good, Sergeant. That will be all.”
The soldier slipped out of view without a glance in my direction. When the click of the door sounded his departure, Ashley picked up the knife.
My heart rate spun as I tried to piece together what was happening. If he meant to kill me, he wouldn’t have called in his sergeant to prove a point.
Dangling me in front of Madwulf MacNally, baiting me into a fistfight, hanging me over the sea, and summoning his sergeant—every action had been calculated.
He was establishing boundaries.
Stepping into me, he pushed his hips against my clenched knees and positioned the knife at the knot on my wrists. “Open your legs.”
In one tingling swoop, the command heated me with arousal and chilled me with dread. I couldn’t fight him on this. If he intended to sever the rope and not my hands, he needed a closer angle.
I spread my legs.
“Good girl.” He straightened the shirt over my knees without looking and stretched over my inclined body. “Grab hold of me.”
He cut the knot.
As it unraveled from my arms, he didn’t touch me or try to prevent me from falling. He gripped the rail on either side of my hips, forcing me to reach for him. And reach I did. Clinging with arms and legs, I wrapped myself around the formidable pillar of his rock-hard frame.
“Remember this, Bennett.” He turned his head, feathering his lips against my ear. “I am the only thing standing between you and Madwulf. Turn a weapon on me, and your time on this ship will be spent on your back beneath the hunger of forty unwashed men.”
The wind grabbed my hair and tried to wrench me out to the sea. I dug my fingers into his muscled back and pressed my face against his chest, absorbing his words and cleaving to his strength.
He didn’t need to keep me in restraints. Didn’t need to guard his weapons. Didn’t need his soldiers to thwart my actions. He imprisoned me with a solid, genuine threat.
“You can wander freely.” His mouth moved against my cheek. “I’ve been very clear about what will happen if you attack me or any man on this ship.”
My stomach hardened.
He gripped my arm and pulled me down from the rail. My legs wobbled as I stepped into his sleeping chamber, looking for a place to sit.
A privacy screen concealed the washbasin and chamber pot. A chair sat beside the armoire. Within the wall across from that was a vaulted chamber made to enclose the overstuffed mattress on three sides.
The air smelled like mint and cedar and cleanliness. Every breath I took was too intimate, too masculine, too him. Where did he expect me to sleep?
My gaze flitted to the bed and jerked away.
As much as I needed to collapse, I chose to stand. “How did you recognize me?”
“I didn’t.” He set the knife on the small table beside me.
I sagged beneath the throbbing accumulation of the day’s injuries with no desire to look at the knife and even less desire to use it.