a stunned spasm. He loosened his grip on my throat as if he wanted to hear me scream. Then he struck my cunt again, forcefully, brutally, with his open hand, unleashing hell on my tender nub of nerves.
The shirt blocked his view of my nudity, but his strokes aimed true. He hit me over and over, bending into each blow and targeting my clitoris.
His breathing shortened into bursts of grunts, and his pelvis smashed against my trapped leg, grinding his erection as he swung.
My screams came unbidden as I rotated my bound hands, desperate to be freed, buzzing from the agonizing sensory stimulation. And something else.
The fiery heat of his hand made me throb. His touch never lingered, but every time it landed, I anticipated the next strike, the stinging burn, and the deep pulsations that I refused to accept.
Priest used to torment me so beautifully this way. His spanking, choking, biting proclivities had a wicked effect on my desire for him. But that had been in a willing, loving environment. This was not that.
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