Swallow it Down - Addison Cain Page 0,29

owe me so much more, Aaron.”

The cocky bastard smirked. “That lip is going to cost you another ten-thousand tickets.”

“Fuck your tickets! I don’t need them. And yes, you’ll have your favor, though I suggest you don’t abuse it.”

“You know I will, darlin’.” The lazy cowboy act, the accent. All of it a show as he brushed her cheek with his knuckles.

In a way, it was hard to admit she knew him on a level the others didn’t. “I’m going to take Juanita inside.”

“If you need to talk it over, I’m here.”

“Suck the fattest cock, Aaron.”

Sobbing, crying into her shoulder the whole way, a girl—a brokenhearted girl who’d been struck by a brokenhearted boy—wept out her grief.

And there was nothing to be done for it but share the ship’s ugly truth.

Eugenia told her about Neil. Whispered that if she wanted to enjoy her lover, Juanita had to keep it secret like the other girls did. That she’d never have more than a quick kiss and tryst in the hall. That she had to be careful to show him little favor in public. That the captain could never know—and if he found out, her lover was a dead man.

So buck up! Earn tickets with enthusiasm, buy her freedom. Maybe he could buy his; they could leave together. Wouldn’t that be great?

Which, even as Eugenia said it, she knew it would never happen. The game was rigged, and Juanita was too good a treasure to lose. A whore enthusiastic to be fucked, and not just to earn tickets. She loved sex when it wasn’t forced. And who could blame her?

Which led to the thorn ridden path of self-awareness—the real reason Eugenia didn’t like the exuberant new girl. She was jealous.

Of the participation. Of the orgasms. Of any shred of fun others might enjoy when there was nothing but work and service and the never-ending foiled attempts to escape.

Eugenia couldn’t let go or live up.

How clever the captain had been, stroking her when she’d been in his rooms. Growling at her ear that he cared. Urging her to explore her body in private and remember how wonderful masturbation had felt.

The release, relearning her body.

Her own fingers slipping through sensitive labia, twisting over a hooded clit. Until it poked out and she tapped it just like she used to.

How beautiful it was to come.

Every night. In private.

To fantasies dug up from memory. To Li Wei’s sexy body, to his voice, which had grown deeper, his weight more pronounced when it pushed her down in that sleeping bag.

Eugenia touched herself. Fantasized about freedom, equality, a man who loved her. A man near her intelligence level who accepted she was smarter. A doctor…

She fantasized.

Ached for the kind of fulfilment she’d never find the way sweet Juanita had, bent over a table and plowed by the line of eager men for tickets.

Sweet Juanita who was looking at her with beautiful, wet, wide brown eyes. Who needed the comfort of a wiser, older person.

Eugenia had not felt like a person in quite some time.

“The captain is giving you the night off. Have a shower and a good cry. Sleep.” That was the best advice she might offer, leaving an apartment almost as nice as the captain’s to get back to the party.

Pausing outside the door that separated the women’s rooms from the party deck, she found the captain waiting for her.

So she confessed, “I learned something about myself tonight.”

Passing a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other, he asked, “Care to share your newfound wisdom?”

Detached, she told the captain, “No.”

A thing like him wouldn’t understand.

A thing like him should not have reached for her arm and pulled her back. “You did a good thing tonight, Eugenia. I’m proud.”

But anger was the first and only thing she knew. “He hit her because you made him do it.”

“And?”

And what? “I have work to do. Enjoy your nightly show, slaver. Fuck a trafficked person later, tying them up so they don’t look at you while you do it. I hope you hate every moment of it as much as I think you do.”

Chapter Ten

White-knuckling the railing, far above the faded, red nonslip carpet gracing the gangplank, Eugenia strained against the heat of the captain at her back. Saw the way his hands banked hers, and screamed.

Nothing could be worse!

The favor—a few minutes of her time, he’d said.

Where no one could see the pair of them together. Where their view was unobstructed. Where he pinned her mercilessly. Where she was