Under the Lash Read online

  Cassie was surprised and horrified to realize just how quickly – even after a very thorough punishment – that part of her awakened again to almost the same fever pitch she had been at when he’d left her bound and splayed on the bed. And try as she might, she couldn’t seem to ignore it. There seemed to be a curious – and alarming – mixture within her body of the pleasure she was feeling from the hard length of him beneath her spread legs and the stingy ache of her backside which her body reminded her of, too, with every little movement.

  He served himself generously from the platter of ham, cheese, and coarse white bread, laying a veritable spread on the plate in front of them, then pouring a primitive mug of ale and a beautiful silver tankard of what she recognize by the smell as rum.

  But before he allowed either of them to eat one morsel, though, he startled her by grabbing the collar of her dress and ripping it violently down the front, then did the same with the chemise beneath, rendering her almost as naked on top as she was beneath her skirts.

  Cassie’s hand came up to stop him automatically, but hovered there indecisively when he caught her eye with a warning look.

  He kissed her bright, rosy cheeks almost tenderly while ordering in a hoarse, stern tone that belied that tenderness as a figment of her imagination, “Clasp your hands in your lap and don’t move them again or you’ll think the rest of today’s attentions were merely love pats.”

  She sucked in her breath at that pronouncement and did exactly as she was told. Tears welled up and overflowed down her bright cheeks, but she didn’t want him to see them, so she kept her head down, her hair falling like a curtain between them before he used his big fingers to brush it back.

  Anjel could see the dark splotches of her tears on his pants, but decided not to make anything of it. The sooner she accepted her fate, the easier it would be for her. He presented a good sized piece of sharp cheddar to her, and she dutifully opened her mouth.

  “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.

  He was pleasantly surprised when she waited until she’d swallowed before she answered him. Manners like that were rare in common women. “Cassandra Solange Con– ”

  “That’s enough, Cassie. My name is Anjel, but you are to refer to me as Sir, when you’re given permission to speak.” He didn’t really care to know much beyond her first name. He was certainly never going to meet her father, not that he was particularly worried about the idea that the gentleman would call him out in a duel over his daughter’s honor even if he did. The idea was absolutely preposterous.

  Her head tipped down again and he could hear her snuffling through her hair until he lifted her chin with his finger. “Am I that unpleasant to look at?” he asked teasingly.

  Unfortunately, he was not. It would have been much easier to hate an ogre, but although he acted the part, he didn’t look it in the least. The truth was that she found him too damned good looking, but she wasn’t about to let him know that.

  Even in these dire straits, Cassie couldn’t let the opportunity to prick his ego a bit go by without comment. “I suppose not, if one likes an unprincipled, lawless man who preys upon innocent women, Sir.”

  She saw his jaw clamp shut, and even this early in their relationship she was learning that that was not a good sign. “I was asking for your assessment of my looks, not my character.”

  “And are you so lacking in self–confidence that you would ask your captive to give her opinion and also expect her to say anything but exactly what you want to hear for fear of physical reprisal, Sir?”

  Damned the woman for the shrew that she was! She even managed to make the name “sir” sound like an insult! She had one of the sharpest tongues he’d ever encountered. Few people on this Earth would address him so, and she was the lowest of the low, and therefore, supposedly, if she had half a mind, the least likely of all of them to want to stir his ire.

  Especially considering the already dreadful condition of her backside.

  After offering her several more slices of both ham and cheese, as well as a couple good bites of well buttered bread, and ale she swallowed gratefully this time, although not without a grimace, he asked, “Where are you from? Your accent certainly isn’t that of a San Miguel native.”

  “I’m from England. Holtshire, to be specific, Sir.”

  “Isn’t that fairly far up north, near the border?”

  “Yes, it is, Sir.” She wasn’t sure whether she should be pushing to tell him the truth about who she was – an Earl’s daughter – or if that information was more likely to get her killed outright or ransomed and then killed or something of that alarming sort. He certainly looked Spanish, and Spain was no friend of the English, in any matter, although his speech was extremely cultured and he spoke with no trace of a Spanish accent. He was a puzzle, but not one she was much interested in solving.

  He was becoming intrigued, wanting to find out more about her background, but just then they were rudely interrupted when Rory burst through the door with what was apparently such a hot commodity in his hands that he then proceeded to place directly in front of him while Cassie spent the entire time trying to hold the four pieces of clothing she’d been left with in the front together, lest he – or anyone else – see more than she would prefer.

  But that just got the backs of her hands slapped and a warning look that had her dropping her hands and her eyes to her lap.

  “Cook made a pudding for you out of the berries we found on that last place we...uh... explored.” He meant “raided” but didn’t want to say it in front of Anjel’s guest.

  “Thank you, but you needn’t have hand delivered it, you know,” Anjel commented wryly, under absolutely no illusions as to why Rory had suddenly appeared at his door bearing gifts.

  And if he elbowed his Captain any harder while ogling Cassie as if she were the dessert he much preferred to any sweet, he was going to find himself flat on the floor with several teeth missing in short order.

  Anjel sighed, but complied with Rory’s unspoken request. “Robert Alexander Charles Louis Ashcroft, son of the Earl of Ashcroft, First Mate of the Devil’s Pursuits, meet Cassandra Solange, etc, etc, late of San Miguel but born in Holtshire, England.”

  Anjel had to give it to him. When Rory committed, he committed all the way. His only somewhat younger friend straightened to attention, then executed a bow worthy of an audience with a Queen, much less a small town trollop, taking her extended hand and making an elaborate show of kissing the back of it.

  At least his extravagant manner had her lifting her head, but it usually set most common women blushing and giggling like schoolgirls, but Cassie merely nodded and seemed to accept it as her due, not even gracing the handsome blonde with a shadow of a smile.

  Anjel, in this instance, found himself rooting for Cassie and her distinctly cool demeanor. “I think you’ve been put in your place, Rory. She’s the first woman I’ve ever seen – highborn or low – who managed to remain entirely unmoved by your show of outrageous manners. Aren’t they usually groveling at your feet by now, begging for your favors?”

  For her part, Cassie found the beautiful blonde very attractive and his lighter, happier manner quite soothing, especially in comparison to his friend’s brooding and brutal tendencies. But she wasn’t managing very well at handling the one she seemed stuck with, and she had no interest in trying to entice another of these strange pirates to her side, despite how angelic this one looked – and acted – in comparison. Although she didn’t completely dismiss the idea of perhaps doing something to get on his good side so that perhaps he might be of assistance in getting away from the Captain.

  Rory’s blazing smile remained undimmed. “No doubt she’s intimidated by you and your oafish manners.” He flopped down in the other seat at the table without having been invited.

  “Do join us, Rory,” Anjel murmured sarcastically.

  “Thank you. I believe I will.” He began to serve up the pudding, hot and soft, rife with berries of an indeterminate o
rigin. “Pudding?” he asked.

  “I think I’ll pass,” Anjel answered. Rory looked at Cassie’s back questioningly, then back at him. “So will she.”

  “All the more for me, then,” Rory gloated, digging into an enormous portion.

  “Why don’t you go back to bed, Cassie, and make yourself comfortable? I have a few things I want to discuss with my first mate.”

  Cassie gratefully slipped off his knee, then turned to his friend, dropping into a beautiful curtsey in front of him – paying no account to the fact that doing so also presented the thoroughly startled man with a view of her beautifully – if primitively – framed bosom and saying with only the slightest touch of sarcasm herself, “It was very nice to meet you, Mr. Ashcroft.” She wasn’t sure what the proper term of address was; if she should call him First Mate Ashcroft, or Sir or what.

  Rory snapped to his feet in front of her, assisting her up as he replied in all sincerity, “The pleasure was entirely mine, Miss Cassandra.”

  Anjel had had just about enough of their mutual admiration society. “Bed, Cassie. Before I change my mind about whether or not I should reprimand you in front of my friend.”

  She fairly sprinted to the relative safety of his huge bed – wishing desperately that she had another less revealing outfit to change into, but she had no idea where her bag had ended up – while the men continued to speak, sotto voce. Even though she pricked up her ears and did her best to listen in on their conversation, she was only able to pick out a very few words, none of which seemed to mean anything when she strung them together in her mind.

  Soon – much too soon as far as Cassie was concerned – Rory got up to leave, hesitating a moment at the door and looking past his friend to the bed, as if he would say something more to her but loyalty – and perhaps not a small amount of fear for his physical safety – prevented him from doing so. But then he seemed to remember all of a sudden that he was carrying what remained of the dessert in a hot pot and dashed out the door without another glance at either of them.

  Cassie was doing her level best to ignore the fact that they were now alone in the Captain’s quarters again, and she was getting a sense of just exactly what that would mean to her, and she didn’t like it one bit. She feigned sleep, lying on her side, of course – not interested in the least in letting her weight rest on her poor abused backside – but she kept one eye slitted opened enough that she could see him lock the door from the inside, then replace the key back where it belonged – on the long gold chain he kept about his neck. She wondered why he locked the door sometimes but didn’t others. Was his crew really that untrustworthy, or was he going to go to sleep and he didn’t trust her not to try to escape as he slumbered?

  Smart man on both counts, she reckoned.

  Finally, after a few more short stops about the room, he stood at the end of the bed, saying in that impossibly deep voice, “I know you’re not asleep, Cassie. Take your clothes off.”

  Just like that he ordered her to assume a state she hadn’t been in except to bathe since she was a toddler. A state that she had been taught was shameful and inherently wicked, and yet he expected that with just a snap of his fingers she was going jump to do his bidding.

  And with good reason, considering how much she already knew about how the fact that she never wanted to give him cause to punish her again, although it didn’t seem that it took any cause at all, since he’d declared she was going to be spanked at certain times whether she wanted it or not. So with a loud, resigned sigh, she sat up, just about as slowly as she was physically able to, and put her hands to her throat, slipping first one arm then the other out of the rip at the top of her dress with excruciating care, as if it was made out of a material that might dissolve if she moved too quickly.

  Anjel was already nude, but some kind of unusual, gentlemanly urge was bidding him to don a nightshirt, which he never wore, and which would have to go hunting through his chest of clothes to find, so he pushed those thoughts to one side. Nightshirts were a waste of material as far as he was concerned, especially since he would have taken it off as soon as he got into bed.

  So he returned to stand at the end of the bed to find that she had just barely managed to slip her other arm out of its sleeve. She apparently had no idea just how completely she was wearing on his patience, but he was of a mind to help her find out.

  Anjel walked up to where she was sitting on the edge of the bed and proceeded to rip the dress entirely, all the way down the front. Then he reached for her chemise, but her hands covered his as she heard herself being reduced to begging, “No, please, I’ll get out of it right away, Sir.” She couldn’t countenance the idea of having to sit around here entirely naked all day. It just didn’t bear thinking of.

  “See that you do,” came the clipped reply. He took exactly one step back and crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her, waiting for her to comply with the order that, as far as he was concerned, should already have been long behind them. “And I don’t want to hear another word out of you.”

  Cassie stood, letting the remnants of her dress fall to the floor, then allowing the chemise to do the same. Without her bloomers, she found herself standing in front of him completely naked, and entirely unable to suppress the urge to cover herself with her hands and arms as best she could. It was then that she realized that she was shaking all over, that the hand that was splayed over her left breast and the one that was doing its level best to keep her womanhood from his demanding gaze were trembling, and not slightly but quite violently.

  “Put your hands at your sides, Cassie,” he said, so softly that it could almost be misinterpreted as tender, “and don’t move them again until I give you permission.”

  Although she was doing her best to obey him as tears splashed down onto her upturned breasts, her limbs seemed to have a bit of a mind of their own, and as soon a she got them where she knew he wanted them, they would creep back immediately.

  Chapter Five

  Anjel took a step forward, closing the distance between them and insinuating himself tightly up against her, his hand spread wide over her burning bottom, keeping her in place, giving those naughty hands nowhere to go to protect her as he lay his body up against hers. It felt wonderful to him to let his turgid manhood nestle against her soft belly, but it surprised him to no end that he couldn’t keep his head from dipping to take a first almost tentative suckle at her left nipple, then her right, switching back and forth between them as if he couldn’t decide which was sweeter.

  Cassie looked down at the dark, devil’s head where it lay against her breast, doing her best to fight the rise of unfamiliar ecstasy that rose with every aching tug of his lips on her already upstanding nipples. It was almost enough to help her to stop trembling, and indeed, concentrating on the unbearable sensations he was creating within her did slow her shaking quite considerably.

  Anjel looked up as soon as he felt her relaxing some, catching the back of her head in his big palm as he held it still for his kiss. It was a softer, more tentative one than he had intended at first, but he found himself softening slightly towards her in the face of her stark fear.

  That wasn’t quite what he had been aiming for. He wanted her to obey him, and he knew that a certain amount of concern about reprisal was necessary for obedience in her just as it was in his crew. But he hadn’t intended on making her quite so fearful. She had been quaking like a virgin with her first man, and that couldn’t be right.

  Anjel kept his eyes locked with hers as his lips descended to hers for the first time, hoping to make it a less aggressive, gentler kiss, but as soon as his lips met hers, he nearly lost all control. What was it about this woman that sent his libido skyrocketing even more than it already was? It seemed he just had to be in her presence and he was alarmingly close to being unmanned on the spot, and kissing her...he never wanted to stop. No woman had ever excited him so, on so many levels. He found her shy reticence in regards to pursuits of the flesh to be quite refre
shing, considering her profession, and she had an indomitable spirit, as attested to by the number of times he had already had to discipline her. She seemed well spoken – what little he’d heard from her, anyway – and very well mannered.

  Perhaps she had been trained to be more of a courtesan than a common whore. That made sense. It would explain a lot of the intriguing puzzles of her behavior, her speech and the quality of her clothes.

  Regardless, Anjel found he was less able to control himself, less patient with her very tentative responses to his more amorous forays. Her mouth was still closed beneath his, and he wasn’t about to put up with that much longer. Instead he slanted his mouth across hers, leveraging hers open, then slipping his eager tongue between her lips to coax her own into heated play.

  As he kissed her, his free hand roamed up the generous curve of her hip, dipping in to the natural curve of her waist to follow the bones of her ribcage to its own reward; her more than ample breast nearly overflowing even his large palm as his forefinger and thumb began twirling a nipple that he was incredibly gratified to find was already hard and he only encouraged to become just that much harder with his almost too rough plucking and intermittent gentle twisting.

  Cassie could barely breathe, especially with his mouth claiming her own so aggressively. And his hand at her breast! She desperately wanted to push it away, but knew that doing so would probably only serve to earn her another trip across his lap, and she was finding that, to her dismay, she was more than cowardly enough that she would do nearly anything to avoid that fate.

  But what was worse was that she quickly realized she had allowed herself the freedom to get to the point where she didn’t want him to stop! In fact, she found her back arching to press herself even more tightly up against him, to encourage that hand to do with her what it would, but to please keep plucking at that sensitive tip, regardless of whatever else he did.