Thousands

by Pepper Winters

  I swallowed my groan, doing my best not to slap myself in the face.

  Fucking great. She just admitted she’d been processed for a crime.

  The M.O. gave me a snide look. “Aiding and abetting criminals now, Mr. Prest? This just gets better and better.” He strolled forward, his notebook clutched self-importantly. “What else are you hiding around here?”

  “Nothing to concern you with.” I crossed my arms. “Look, just book me and—”

  “He’s only trying to protect me,” Pim offered, stepping forward to meet the officer in the middle of the bridge. Buttons and monitors flashed from the control panel, painting her nightgown in an array of colours. “He saved me and is taking me back to my mother in England.” She threw me a quick glance as if to reiterate privately that she had no intention of being left behind in the UK while I sailed away.

  I was glad because just the thought of her leaving buckled my knees—even while I was fucking furious with her.

  “Well, isn’t that noble of him?” the officer asked even though he looked at Pim as if she’d told a silly bedtime story. “How about you give me your mother’s name, address, and that police record you mentioned, and we’ll see if that’s enough to clear you for passage.”

  “And if it isn’t?” she asked, crossing her arms like a brave, stupid girl.

  The guy narrowed his eyes, looking over her head to me. “If it isn’t, someone might be arrested or worse—his boat confiscated.”

  Oh, hell no.

  I’d pay any fine—shit, I’d even spend a couple of days in the slammer. But take my boat? I wouldn’t survive.

  My body turned brittle with aggression. Images of throwing these men off the stern and chopping them into sushi with the propellers filled my head. “She’s telling the truth. I’m taking her home. Nothing more. Nothing less.” I glanced from the M.O. to Pim, glowering at her spitefully, doing my best to put her in her place.

  All of this was her fault.

  If she’d stayed where I’d told her, this wouldn’t be an issue. She’d disobeyed me, and goddammit, she’d pay once we were no longer under inspection.

  Crossing my arms, I took back my power as ruler of this yacht. “Does the coastguard make it their duty to board at four in the morning?”

  “The world never sleeps, Mr. Prest. You know that.”

  “I do, but a simple radio call would’ve sufficed.”

  “We did. Can’t blame us if that message was never passed on.”

  I glared at Jolfer who shrugged with a tight nod. I might be the ruler of this vessel, but he was the captain. I trusted him to deal with things like radio conversations without micromanaging. Besides, at four a.m., I should’ve been asleep and not peering at the horizon waiting for an attack.

  I sighed, accepting defeat. “I’d say this was a pleasure, but I’d be lying again. I’ll ensure to log Ms. Blythe correctly. Anything else?” I repressed the urge to tap my foot one, two, three. Or wring his puny neck.

  “Yes, there is something else. I think a routine inspection is in order, don’t you?”

  I swallowed my groan. “Nothing new to see.”

  “Oh, I beg to differ.” He smiled coldly. “I never like to miss out on an opportunity to inspect yachts as nice as this under the call of duty.” Discounting me, he pointed at Pim. “Relay your details to my colleague over there, Miss.” With a pompous smile on his weather-beaten face, he rubbed his hands together. “Now, captain. Pass me the logs and unlock all the doors. Let’s see what you guys have been up to since our last visit.”

  * * * * *

  Three hours.

  Three long, interminable hours for the coastguard to finally satisfy their curiosity.

  Staff members returned from the safe room and confirmed their right to sail against the log we’d supplied each port we frequented. Maritime officers ticked their names off a register and verified their passports and visas were still up to date.

  I stayed with Pimlico as she handed over her release from the Monaco Police and the signed statement proving no crime was lodged.

  Jolfer showed our previous itineraries and activities while yet another team of inconsiderate men all puffed up on fake power thanks to their uniforms invaded every room on the Phantom.

  Meanwhile, I waited for the accusations.

  Sure enough, around dawn, I was summoned to a meeting with the head M.O. as he listed the extra weapons I’d installed and hadn’t advised.

  The fine was substantial. The slap on the wrist fairly painful.

  Throughout the inspection, I managed to keep my body still and straight—belying the twitching rage in my gut. My fingers, however, weren’t so easily tamed, and to anyone watching, they would’ve seen the musical notes and cello strings I practised to keep my brain focused and not spin into directions I couldn’t control.

  Around seven a.m., Pim noticed my forever moving hands. Her lips pursed, her forehead furrowed—not just watching me strum out a chord but studying me as if trying to crack the answers to tricky questions she burned with.

  I still couldn’t talk to her without wanting to throttle her, so I jammed my fingers into my pockets and strode to the other side of the bridge where a rookie guard was trying to tabulate the crew lifeboats ratios and determine if it was up to code.

  By the time we’d been well and truly trespassed over, Pimlico was issued a temporary pass to enter England with the proviso that she speak with immigration the moment she disembarked and applied for a passport replacement.

  She agreed, but I had no intention of marching her to a stuffed-up shirt in an office and wasting yet another day of our life waiting for forms to be filled out.

  We had things to do. Places to go. People to visit. There wasn’t time for any deviations to my plan.

  Already, my stomach roiled at the thought of our first appointment when we arrived on Great Britain soil. I still hadn’t told Pim I’d spoken to her mother. And now, I didn’t know if I would be apologetic if she was mad or glad because if she gave me attitude, I would finally be able to let loose the anger caused from her being so damn reckless.

  My nostrils flared as my temper fired hotter. It was probably a blessing this rigmarole had taken three hours. It should've given me plenty of time to cool down and see her valiant arrival as idiotic but good hearted. Instead, it only made me worse because I wasn’t able to yell at her in company.

  All I knew was she’d put herself in harm’s way. What if it had been the Chinmoku? What if she’d run directly into a bullet meant for me? What if they’d fucking killed her right in front of me? Didn’t she see I put her somewhere safe so I could be who I needed to be? She made me weak, and that could never be tolerated where my past was concerned.

  Ever.

  My temper vibrated thicker and crazier the longer the coastguard took. When they finally signed off, nodded their approval, and got the fuck off my yacht, I was a goddamn mess.

  Standing on the bow, I kept my fists tight against my thighs as the police boat pulled away in a wash of froth. The Phantom towered over their piddly excuse for a craft, casting them in a shadow from the new sun.

  Pim sidled up beside me, shielding her eyes with her hand from the new day’s glare.

  The second, the very fucking second, the coastguard was far enough away from my territory, I snatched her wrist and dragged her across the deck.

  “El—” She tugged, tripping and skipping at my pace. “What—”

  “Not one word, Pimlico.” I managed to bite. “Not. One. Word.”

  Staff saw us coming and veered in a different direction. Jolfer spotted us and held his tongue. Selix narrowed his eyes but gave a firm nod.

  Everyone knew Pim was in deep trouble.

  Even her.

  She fell quiet as I dragged her past lifeboats and rigging and on-deck spas. I didn’t stop until I reached my bedroom. Stony silence was our method of communication as I yanked open the sliders and tossed her inside. Spinning around, I slammed the doors closed, e
ngaged the lock, pressed the button to turn the glass opaque, then stalked her. “You crossed the line, Pim.”

  She backed up, her bare feet scrambling. Green fire burned in her gaze, trying to deny her sin but knowing full well what she’d done. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Her toes did their best to glue into the thick carpeting, refusing to run from me, but her body continued swaying backward as if my temper buffeted her like wind. “I was worried about you—”

  “And I was worried about you. That’s why I put you in the safe room.”

  “But you were in danger. If those men had come to hurt you...I couldn’t have hidden in a room while they kill—”

  “You think so little of me that I’d be the one to die and not them?”

  She froze, her mouth parted. “No...but it’s dangerous. I can’t stomach the thought of you being hurt.”

  “Exactly!” I roared. “Don’t you think it’s the same for me? To know I’m putting you in danger just by having you in my life? That I can’t offer you a safe future until I’m done with my past?” I paced, doing my best not to grab her and shake her hard. “This isn’t your battle, Pimlico.”

  “It is, though, because I’m with you now, and I won’t let you face things alone.”

  “Never say that.” My eyes turned to snipers. “The mistakes I’ve made are not yours. Got it?”

  “But—”

  “No buts! You disobeyed me. I put you somewhere safe, yet you scampered off as if you could protect me. That’s my job, Pim. Not yours. You obey me. You do as I say.”

  “My safety is not your job, Elder.” She huffed condescendingly. “And if you believe I’m going to obey you on everything...well—”

  “Goddammit, you test me.” I fisted my hair, taking my violence out on myself and not her. “If you were my staff, I’d fire you for being insubordinate.”

  “Good job I’m not your staff.” Her chin cocked, baring her teeth. “I wouldn’t work for a man like you.”

  “Good job,” I copied her, lowering my jaw, already cursing myself for this. For letting myself get so wound up, my control was seconds away from snapping. For letting myself get so obsessed with obedience, I was about to break every fucking rule and go past scolding her as a naughty child to punishing her entirely as a woman.

  Like a woman I was in love with.

  A woman I wanted to sleep with.

  A woman I tried to deny myself over and over only to break because I couldn’t fight her influence anymore. I couldn’t stomach her infection on my carefully structured life.

  “Good job what?” She scowled, her throat working, belying her fight with the truth. The truth that she was scared of me. As she should be.

  “Good job you aren’t my staff.” My voice was thick molasses with an edge of razor blades. “Otherwise, you could sue me for what I’m about to do.”

  Her breath came quick and shallow. “What are you about to do?”

  “I think it would be called employee sexual harassment.” I stalked her, coming to a stop before her locked limbs and bristling uncertainty. Her cheeks pinked with a mixture of defiance and terror. She swayed toward me even while leaning away; a strange light lit her from within.

  Incredibly, her fight and fear morphed into recognition, melted into acceptance, and solidified into determination.

  Her entire body went from fight to invitation in a matter of seconds.

  The fact she could stand me down while my temper threatened to do what other yelling abusive males had done, then somehow switch to crackling lust and utmost trust broke the rest of my control.

  I launched myself at her.

  She didn’t run.

  She was weightless as I crushed her to me.

  She was eager as my mouth slammed on hers and every last thought exploded into nothingness.

  There was nothing else but me and her.

  No coastguard or Chinmoku or staff or dawn or dusk or anything.

  Just her.

  Just Pim.

  The noise in my brain gave up a million things at once, zeroing in on the one thing it wanted above everything else but had been so vehemently denied.

  The chains on my fingers fell away as I cupped her breast. The ropes around my tongue fell away as I kissed her deep. The padlocks around my cock didn’t stand a chance as I turned rock fucking hard and ground myself against her soft, warm belly.

  She gasped as I manhandled her to the bed.

  Her legs twined with mine.

  We stumbled.

  We kissed.

  We groped.

  I grabbed her from the floor and toppled onto the mattress.

  We fell together. Her beneath. Me on top. Collapsing in a pile of messy, desperate limbs. Everything was on fire. Everything was in pain. Aches and bruises—torturing desire crippling every inch as my lips dominated hers, and her hands skated down my back.

  Passion I’d never let myself indulge in set us alight and made us burn. Blaze. Cremate beneath the mastership of longing.

  Her legs parted, allowing me to slot against her. Her back bowed as my hips arched into her, pressing everything I wanted to give her into the one place I couldn’t stop craving.

  Her fingernails sliced over my spine, making my skin char beneath the white t-shirt I’d thrown on at the first sign of the coastguard. My track pants did nothing to stop the heat in my balls or restrain the need swiftly spiralling out of control.

  I was past common sense or rationality.

  I had no impulse supremacy or dominion over my unbreakable rules—they’d all turned to useless dust.

  “You disobeyed me.” I bit her bottom lip. “You deliberately put yourself at risk.”

  She wriggled beneath me. “I did it because I care.”

  Care?

  Fuck, that word was pathetic compared to the wealth of emotion she caused.

  I needed her. I couldn’t breathe if I didn’t have her.

  Somehow, she knew that without me telling her. Her legs opened wider, her fingernails digging deeper into my back with commands this time and not just reaction. She rocked against my length, moaning softly, sweetly, entirely seductively.

  If she was any other woman, I’d guess it was a coy way of saying ‘take me...now’ but with her background, it could be a cry for help. Even in my current lawlessness, I wouldn’t accept her invitation unless I knew for certain...

  Through the red haze in my brain, I did my best to look at her and not see sex, sex, sex but rather a woman who’d stolen my heart and therefore was owed civility even when I had none.

  Instead of seeing the wide eyes of someone desperate to run away or the white skin of someone petrified, she looked back soft and calm and ready—the exact opposite of how I felt.

  Her hand came up to cup my cheek—shocking me stupid with the tenderness of it. “Elder...you have me. Do whatever you need.”

  I swallowed some filthy reply. Some terrible sentence accepting her gift even knowing how wrong I was to do it but then her eyes filled with pure love, bathing me in redemption and approval.

  She fucking slaughtered me.

  I fell on her, clawing, clinging, mauling, thrusting.

  My lips sought hers again as I ripped at my waistband and shoved my track pants out of the way. I didn’t want to do this so fast, but I had no choice. I had to be inside her.

  Now!

  Tearing her mouth from mine, she wriggled beneath me, hitching her nightgown up over her hips.

  Bare skin touched bare skin.

  I shuddered, my balls clenched in eagerness, and the softest of whispers fell onto my ears as I lined up my erection with her entrance. Her voice entered my skull like spun sugar. “I trust you...”

  And that was it.

  The three little words most men kill to hear. More than ‘I love you’ or ‘I adore you.’

  I trust you.

  Because that one untouchable, highly tangible
notion was priceless and so often undeserved.

  Trust was the epitome of what a woman could give.

  Trust was Pim giving me carte blanche to do whatever I wanted because she trusted me to keep her safe. I could kiss her, fuck her, do all manner of debasement to her, and she’d let me because she trusted me. I could take her swimming at midnight in the big wide ocean with predators beneath the waves, and she would go because she trusted me.

  She would let me lose myself in her and use her mercilessly again and again because she trusted that eventually, I could stop. That I wouldn’t hurt her. That I wouldn’t cross certain boundaries.

  I trust you...

  Christ.

  The furious fire in my blood suddenly clogged my lungs with choking smoke. I coughed with horror, crawling back onto the precipice I’d almost leapt from and collapsed on top of her.

  It wasn’t enough.

  I could still feel every swell of her breasts and every hitch of her breath. I was too close to the warmth and wetness of her pussy.

  Grabbing my waistband, I hoisted my pants up as I rolled off her, landing with my arm over my eyes, breathing tormentedly on my back.

  She didn’t move.

  She didn’t speak.

  The bed rocked as she hesitantly sat up and faced me. “What—what happened?”

  You happened.

  You and your perfect trust happened.

  I couldn’t have her here any longer. The need to discipline and my rage were gone.

  I’m done.

  I sat up in one quick jack knife then leapt off the bed. “Go to your room, Pimlico.”

  She scooted her legs up, sitting on her knees—so similar to the time when I’d first demanded a night with her and spent most of it prying into her brain. Her hands wedged like a bowling ball against her stomach. “Just like that?”

  I looked at the ceiling and not her. “Just like that.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I can’t have you near me right now.”

  Her gaze flew to the wardrobe where I kept my cello. “Are you going to play?”

  The thought of frets and bows did nothing to quiet the chaos in my head. Raking fingernails over my scalp, I shook my head. “No.”