“Please, sweetie, you don’t have to pretend here. We’ve all fucked him dozens of times. The first time, you always get the tongue thing. A glass of wine. What music did he have on?”
“PJ Harvey.”
Slurping up a noodle, Chloe asked, “Who’s that?”
“It doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t. It never would again.
Prepping another bite of good noodles in bad broth, Chloe said, “Just do the week. Let him tie you up if that makes it easier. Let him fuck you a little too hard. And move on. It’s only six more days.”
“You have got to fucking be kidding me…” Bondage was his thing? How cliché for a pirate.
“He really didn’t fuck you.” And the whole table, Joan included, stared.
“Oh, we fucked all night. So much fucking. Didn’t you see me walking funny?”
“Jesus, are you in for it, kid.” Pink-cheeked and teasing, Chloe added, “I’d bet tickets he’s breaking you in. Considering the size of his uncut cock, he probably needs to. No reason to damage the merchandise.”
Which wasn’t funny at all.
“You know I’m joking, right? I mean about the damage part. We all agree, and he keeps a tally if we're willing to take that beast the old-fashioned way or down the throat. A little lube, a little wine, and he’ll get it in. Brace, think of England, and let him finish.”
“That is… extremely unsettling. Especially as you are not British.”
Chloe shrugged a pretty, uncovered shoulder. “Britain is gone. As is Japan, the Philippines, South Africa, Alaska… The only way out of this is getting to the Pacific and finding a sailboat to Russia.”
Scientifically speaking, the woman was spot on. The heat melted ice, exposing fertile land. A person just had to cross a radioactive ocean, pay the mafia, sail thousands of miles, and show up old and ready to die.
“Six more nights, and then I won’t have to go back again for at least a handful of months.”
It was the quietest of the women, a practical girl, who asked, “Don’t you like it in there?”
“I liked medical school and my fiancé and my future. No, the fact that he plays music and rubbed my feet doesn’t cut it.”
In chorus, the entire fucking room erupted. “He rubbed your feet?”
“Don’t think he did it out of some kind of… whatever. I outplayed him in a word game. That’s all.”
And with that one flippant reply, half the room turned frostier than a glacier; the other kept staring down at their noodles.
They couldn’t possibly be jealous? “I didn’t fuck him.”
“You should have! Now it’s going to be so much harder for the rest of us!” Brooke—Brooke, who was days away from earning her freedom—shouted.
“I’m sorry?” Not that Eugenia was, but what on earth was someone to say to that?
“Just let him have sex with you. No more of this Joan of Arc shit. We are tired of trying to live up to your crusade! None of us want to whore, all right?”
“You have a choice in who you let into your bodies! Like me, you can refuse.”
The quiet one again, Jessica. “I’ve been here three years. What do you know?”
“I know that he’s told me my debt is twenty-million, and that I would not be able to fuck my way out of that hole even if I tried.”
And that shut up the table but did not stop the squinty-eyed consideration of Joan.
Chapter Seven
There was no music on night two. But there was more wine.
“The girls told me you were going to tie me up and fuck too hard.” She raised her glass but refused to drink. “Apparently, you also have a large penis. I'd love to know how many tickets it cost you to bribe them into making that comment.”
Clinking her glass and taking a sip of burgundy, he asked, “Do you like large dicks?”
“No. I like nice men.”
Hand scrubbing a stubble-free cheek, he said, “Then you’ll be disappointed.”
“You shaved… and you’re dressed practically in a suit. Couldn’t find the jacket?”
That caught him, right with his palm to his outstretched neck.
And the moment was too good to pass up. Eugenia slid closer to stroke where his shirt sleeves were rolled up and a muscular forearm was on display. “And look how pretty you are in a white button-down and slacks. I’ll tell you what, sugar. One fuck for a scented candle, some Chapstick, and five-thousand tickets? I’ll even throw in some foreplay, wine, and music before I grease up the ol’ strap-on and I work it in.”
Her game backfired when he caught up a handful of hair and held it to his nose. “You know why foreplay is not allowed.”
Looking from side to side, night two of the grandeur of the captain’s apartments was far less impressive. “But it happens here. I’ve heard all about that thing you do with your tongue, you dirty slut.”
Smirking, melting into her teasing, muscular chest on display where he failed to do up the last buttons, and disgustingly brazen, he hummed. “Consider it a perk of leadership.”
“Used goods aren’t really my style.” She looked down to his tented slacks.
He bantered right back. “Two virgins does not a good sexual experience make.”
On that, he was wrong. She’d had plenty of intensely fulfilling sexual experiences with Li Wei. “Sounds like your first time was a bit underwhelming. And not that I’m ever discussing my sexual history with you, but you seem smart enough to grasp that there are a lot of creative things partners can enjoy that don’t involve penetration. Considering that you’re basically a pimp, I’d have expected you’d do more than doggie style night in and night out. You’ve made sex a chore for all parties involved.”
The smile he gave her was legendary. “Well, well, the women have been talking.”
Taking her first sip of wine, she followed with, “Apparently, you’re uncircumcised. I commend your parents. I think it’s a barbaric practice.”
He mirrored her sip. “What else did they tell you?”
With a sigh, she took her place on the couch, legs crossed at the knee—a thing her mother would have corrected at once. Ladies cross their legs at the ankle. And stretched back against the pillows until her face pointed up at the ceiling. “Between you and me, I think two or three of them are sweet on you. The rest are angry with me for not fucking you. Unfortunately, they didn’t believe it when I lacked the details. You should have prepared me with a speech. The bondage fetish would have been useful to know.”
Unlike the previous night, he left his couch to plop down at her side. “Are you asking me to tie you up?”
“No, thank you.” If his sitting so near was some kind of test, she was not going to scoot. Not when they had an agreement. “Repetitive doggy style also sounds extremely boring.” Head lolling so her gaze might leave the ceiling and meet his, she asked, “It must be, right? Why not change it up. Laziness? Disinterest? Don’t take this as a compliment, but the man who came up with all these twisted rules that make up the society on this ship… his lack of sexual creativity is a bit disappointing.”