Jack growled under his breath. They were laying odds upon if she would succeed in killing him. His mouth dug down, and he swore that the little witch was going to regret her quick temper—he would make sure of it, even if it was the last thing he did, and it just might be. He backheeled the door and shut out prying eyes—they did not need an audience. Rising to his feet, he planted his shoulders against the door, blocking off that avenue of escape. Marie stood by his desk, the spent pistol lying on it as she raised its twin.
His anger turned to ice water in his veins. “Do you want to pull the trigger, sweeting?” he asked, his voice deceptively soft.
“Get out, Jack, I mean it.” Her grey eyes flashed in the ill-lit cabin, her face half concealed in darkness.
“I’m not leaving, Marie.” He pushed off from the door and stalked towards her, and to her credit, she didn’t retreat. Marie was many things, but she had never lacked courage.
“I’ll shoot you!”
Was it just his imagination or did her voice waver ever so slightly?
“It’s the only way you’ll stop me,” he warned, closing the distance, and the muzzle pressed into his chest.
Her hand shook, and for a moment she just stared wide-eyed at him. He dared her to pull the trigger. With a speed that took her breath away, he latched his hand on her wrist in a brutal grip and swiftly disarmed her. Marie retreated, rubbing her wrist, and Jack made safe the pistol, surprised.
“No shot, Marie?”
Her mouth whitened in a mutinous line, and his temper cooled a fraction, him realising she had not meant him harm, had just been trying to frighten him into an early grave.
“You’re losing your touch, sweeting.”
Now the little witch was grinding her teeth. “Leave…me…alone.”
Jack did no such thing.
He towered over her, leaning into her space, and sucked all the air out of her lungs and replied to her in kind. “Not…going…to…happen.”
Her finely boned face turned up to him. Her pupils dilated, and her breathing shallowed, then a shadow crossed her face, and she shied away.
“We have several things to discuss.”
“Like what?” she snapped.
“Like where the hell have you been?” he demanded, more harshly than he intended. “Why did you disappear?”
“Go to hell!” she snarled, her arms wrapped tightly about herself. Anger and righteous feminine fury poured off her in waves. If she were a cat, her back would be arched, her claws bared, and her fur bristling.
“I mean it, Marie!” he thundered, and she flinched from the roar but tilted her chin in defiance.
“Do not raise your voice at me, Jack, I am not one of your crew!” she blasted back in his face.
“No, you are my wife,” he spat in return. Breathing hard, Jack shook his head, fighting to rein in his own mounting temper. There would be no talking to her in this mood, she would just dig her heels in.
Reaching for patience he didn’t feel, he tried a different tack. “You struck me in front of the crew,” he ground out steadily, holding her gaze until she was forced to look away, her cheeks stained with a pink flush. “You know better.”
The guilty gesture was fleeting and disappeared when Marie lifted her chin and shook her hair off her face. “You deserved it,” she growled, edging away from him and around the table.
Jack bit back a chuckle—as if putting that bit of driftwood between them would save her. He followed, his movements slow and leisurely, reminiscent of a jaguar on the prowl, the muscles of his thighs braced to pounce. “Don’t you dare lay a hand on me, Jack Hunter,” she warned, her delicate nostrils flaring.
For a moment, Jack fully believed that if she could breathe fire, he would have been incinerated.
“I will gut you while you sleep.”
He grinned, and Marie visibly swallowed. “My dear, don’t you remember I never back down from a challenge?”
He found comfort in the old dance that had marked their marriage falling back into the easy rhythm like nothing had ever changed. Jack’s gaze narrowed. Marie shifted uneasily, hinting at her internal battle of fight and flight. No, she hadn’t forgotten, and it had cost her many a sore backside. He decided to prod her further.
“Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can either come to me now to show me what a good obedient wife you can be, or…”
Her eyes flared when he said ‘obedient’, and Jack fought a grin, he bet she wished him to perdition at this moment. “…you can fight me, though with nowhere to run, it is a lost cause. I’m faster and stronger than you, sweeting, and you always lose.” He smirked, part of him hoping she would give him the excuse to manhandle her and tie her down. To make sure she wouldn’t escape him again.
She looked to ponder it a moment, and he placed the root on the table between them.
“The choice is yours, m’dear.”
Marie’s eye’s narrowed, and Jack held his breath. There were times he loved her predictable temper. This was one of them.
“Go to the Devil!” She blindly fumbled on his desk and, seizing the first thing that came to hand, hurled it at his head!
Jack ducked, and it shattered behind him, drenching him in the process, and he shuddered at the cool liquid spilling over his head and down his back. The little firebrand… What a waste of perfectly good brandy.
Straightening, he slicked back his dripping dark head of hair and chuckled under his breath. “Big mistake, wife.”
She shouldn’t have goaded him, Marie thought ruefully. She wiggled, testing the bindings that kept her pressed flat and held immobile against the desk. Curse seamen knots, they didn’t give an inch. She turned her face to the side, her cheek resting upon the cool surface, and she shivered, replaying events to see if she would have outwitted him. Every scenario she ran ended in the same results. Jack had twisted and in one seamless move pinned her to the desk with laughable ease, his palm on her back, applying pressure when she fought to rise. With her trapped, Jack had bound her hands and stretched her flat over the table, looping another rope through her secured hands and then fixing the ends to the table legs. She was no longer able to flee, and he had set about securing her, another tightened about her waist, forcing a feminine grunt past her lips. It appeared he wasn’t done and, grabbing the single pillow from the small bed, he stuffed it under her hips, blunting the hard, unforgiving edge of the table off her pelvis. Her face heated with anger and humiliation, Marie was forced to arch her back, raising her rear as if offering up her backside for his discipline, stretching the material of her trousers across the generous mounds.
His free hand reached underneath her, tugging her trousers loose to bare her and thrusting her back into the present.
“Jack!” she squeaked, shifting her weight from foot to foot to defy his attempt to undo her belt.
Her trousers slid down her legs and pooled around her ankles, belying her protest. The cool air hitting the backs of her legs, his hands moved over her with a familiarity, rough and callused. Her cunny readied for his possession, longed for it even while she hated herself for her weakness.
“You’re a mighty fine woman, Marie, that hasn’t changed,” he said gruffly.
She could feel his eyes burning into her, sweeping over her body in an intimate caress.
“There are many things I wish we were doing right this moment, but you know I can’t let you striking me go unanswered,” Jack said behind her, the fine hairs on the nape of her neck prickling. “In front of a pirate crew? They will be challenging my captaincy unless I deal with you now.”
He brushed an errant curl off her shoulder, and she all but jumped out of her skin. His hand trailed down to cup her bottom, leaving a taunting, tingling sensation in its wake, roughly fondling the globe. Marie bit her lip and squeezed her thighs tighter together in a pitiful attempt to hide her growing arousal.
“This is not the reunion I wished for.”
His palm cracked across her vulnerab
le buttocks, and she cried out, having forgotten just how hard his hand was. She wrapped herself in a cloak of righteous anger cloak, bolstering her defences. The cabin echoed with the sound of flesh striking flesh punctuated with her little whimpers. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry; she’d cried enough tears over this man—he didn’t deserve any more.
He paused, and she thought she had won, that she had outlasted him. She panted, her hair in complete disarray, and her spirit soared in triumph.
The clipped staccato of her husband’s footsteps against the wooden boards indicated he was moving around the desk just out of her periphery. Marie started when he crouched so he was at her eye level, the bonds still firm.
He tucked a stray tendril behind her ear. “And what now, my love? Do you regret striking me?”
The pad of his thumb smoothed along her cheekbone, roughened from years at sea. Her heart thudded into her breastbone. Dear sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he was so close, just within reach. Marie ached for him to mount and claim her body, so hot, wet, and willing. She squeezed her muscles tight and shifted her hips against the table, but it did nothing to relieve the burning arche between her thighs.
“Do you know how dangerous that was, in front of a pirate crew?”
She did, but she would gladly take another musket ball before she told him that. She shifted her gaze away, afraid he would read the truth in it.
Jack gently grasped her pointed chin to turn her face back to him. Twisting her head, she snapped her teeth. It was only Jack’s quick reflexes that saved his thumb from being mangled.
He scowled at her, and Marie stared defiantly back unblinkingly, Jack’s temper flashing in his eyes, his jaw rigid.
“Very well, we will continue.”
Even as he moved somewhere behind her, Marie craned her neck trying to catch a glimpse of him, but he stayed just out of her sightline. Dread and apprehension dripped down each vertebrae of her spine.
“Jack?” she called, fighting past the lump in her throat. “What are you doing?” She trailed off, unable to fight off the wave of vulnerability crashing over her. Marie flexed her fingers; she hadn’t used to fear Jack, but so much had changed. She fought to keep the rising panic at bay. In this position, Jack could do anything he wanted to her, anything at all… She closed her eyes. And she wouldn’t be able to stop him.
His warm palm rubbed the small of her back, and she sagged with relief at the comforting gesture.
“I’m right here, just preparing something that will make you think twice.”
Something cool was dragged through her nether lips, and Marie jerked her haunches in surprise.
“What is that?” It circled her pleasure pearl with increasing pressure, and a gasp burst from her lips. Over and over, her flesh tingled and plumped. She slid her eyes closed; she had never thought to feel this again.
“Ginger,” he replied shortly, seeming intent on his task.
Marie’s pearl grew and pulsed, the sharp spicy scent of ginger swamping her senses. She caught her full bottom lip between her teeth to keep from begging Jack for more, to keep her hips still and not lift them to offer her charms. Sweat dripped down her shoulder blades and soaked into her shirt, her skin becoming flushed and overheated. Dragging it to her back passage, he nudged the tightness of her forbidden entrance. Marie whipped her head up, the erotic spell shattering.
“No, Jack,” she snarled, twisting and churning her hips to prevent his intent. “I will not allow you.” There was an ominous silence behind her, and she closed her eyes at the blunder she had just made.
“Allow?” His soft voice signalled danger and made her quim quiver. It was crushed velvet brushing across her nipples, tantalising her frayed and raw emotions. “You are my wife,” he bit out, each word ringing in her ears. “It is my duty to discipline my wife as I see fit, and there will only ever be one captain in this household, and that is not you, m’dear. It is time you remembered your duty to obey your husband, and that doesn’t include running off to sea.”
“I didn’t even notice the difference,” she spat out flippantly over her shoulder, though the caustic lie burned a hole through her tongue. Her jaws cracked in a yawn and, Marie continued, uncaring that she was digging a bigger hole for herself. “One empty berth is as good as another, seeing how you rarely satisfied me even when you were ashore; I was more than used to taking care of my own needs.”
He chuckled, a low, deep rumble in his belly. “Oh, firebrand, do you really want me to make a liar out of you?”
The heat of his chest suddenly seared her back, and her shoulders tensed.
“You’ve always found pleasure in our bed-sport, whether rough or gentle. I’d wager a king’s ransom that even now your nipples are aching, and your sweet, little cunny,” his voice dropped to a low rumbling purr, “will be weeping and begging for my attention.”
That part of her clenched and bucked with happy anticipation, and Marie scowled at the dark wood. Why did he always have to be right? She squeezed her thighs tightly together in a pitiful attempt to hide the evidence and alleviate the nagging ache undermining her defences.
“Nope,” she lied, wriggling her shoulders to relieve the tension in the muscles. “I don’t want you anymore.”
Jack tensed against her back as if she had struck him again. “We’ll see about that,” he growled in her ear, delivering a punishing nip to the lobe with his blunt teeth and forcing a yelp from her lips. “This ginger root in going up your arse no matter what, Marie, but it will go easier if you cooperate.” He rose, leaving her bereft of his blanketing heat and weight.
“Go fuck yourself,” Marie snarled, steering herself straight for troubled waters.
“I’d forgotten you used to do that,” Jack said, laying a sharp swat on her rear that had Marie bouncing onto her toes.
“What?” she demanded, straining to catch a glimpse of the miserable bastard who was tormenting her, to better prepare herself for what was coming.
“Get so mad that you lose all sense. Even when you don’t have a cat in hell’s chance of winning, you’ll still fight.”
His hands grasped her inner thighs and shoved them apart, his mouth latching on to her core. The first unexpected thrust of his tongue had Marie bucking with a cry, her foot shooting out and almost connecting with Jack’s chest.
Jack pulled away. “Now none of that, my girl,” he warned and resumed his sensual onslaught.
The rough pads of his fingers rolling over her nubbin, again, and again, sending lightning forks of pleasure through her body. Marie screwed up her face, fighting the sensations he evoked in her. The man knew her body, inside and out, every sensitive point, the pressure that made her crazy. She shouldn’t have challenged him, shouldn’t have planted the idea in his perverted mind—she shouldn’t have wounded his manly pride. Her inner thighs became bathed in her own desire, and every thrust and stab of his tongue, every pluck of his fingers, forced her closer to the precipice. She writhed in her bonds, pushing forward to escape the overwhelming pleasure of his tongue, brought up short when the rope encircling her waist pulled taut and kept her in place. She dangled on the edge, hanging on by her fingertips. She clenched her hands, and her breathing hitched. Gritting her teeth, she fought the rising swell back down. The moment of danger passed; she pressed her hot forehead to the cool wood of the desk, trying to collect her dazed thoughts. But all her mind focused on was her nipples throbbing, her tender nubbin, and the fire that blazed between her legs hotter than a noon-day sun. Not sure how long she could last, at least she was making him work for it.
“Breathe out, Marie.”
Marie frowned. What? The cold, hard pressure was placed back at her rear entrance. Marie opened her mouth to protest, but before she could give voice to it, Jack had buried his head back between her thighs. His strong lips captured her nubbin and sucked hard. Marie was forced to turn her face into her arm, muffling the wordless, warbling cry torn unbidden from her lips. Jack pushed the root
home, and her muscle’s clenched tight around the stem, the bite of pain at the rude intrusion and the hot suction of his mouth flinging her over the edge. Her release caught her with the strength of a riptide, dragging her body through the dizzying pleasure flaring through her. Her back arched to breaking point, and her toes curled, scrabbling against the boards to keep her in this reality. Shuddering, Marie collapsed upon the table, the aftershocks fluttering through her, and she floated outside her body in a mind-numbing haze, relaxed and sated.
Jack’s lips slid over hers, and she allowed her lover entrance, unfurling like a flower basking in the rays of the sun, and tasted her own essence.
“Is your berth still empty now, Marie?” he murmured, his words threaded with amusement.
Marie furrowed her brow, struggling to understand. It came flooding back to her, the tension snapping into her limbs and tensing her muscles.
Heat poured out of the root into her bottom hole, and she gasped, “It’s burning!”, waggling her pinkened rear in the air to disperse it.
Jack chuckled darkly, no doubt utterly unsympathetic to her plight. “It will not harm you. This little trick has been used to liven up old nags or bring spirited wives to heel over the years.”
Marie groaned, the molten heat building in her forbidden passage.
“The more you tense, the more the burn increases,” Jack whispered in her ear, his knuckles rubbing over her cheek in an affectionate gesture. He circled back. “Relax, sweeting, this will be over soon.” The ominous sound came of his thick leather belt slipping out from around his waist, and she knew what was yet to come and tensed her bottom, yelping when the ginger burned and forced her to relax. He chuckled darkly and gave her bottom a fond pat. “You will learn, my love.”
Pirates, Passion and Plunder Page 89