The Captain

Chapter 1

London, England

Be they powerful dukes or dashing captains who sailed the seas, lusty women would happily fuck them all the same.

Captain Jeremy Tremaine knew this firsthand; he’d once belonged to the latter category.

After a recent violent and vicious battle at sea had left half his face riddled with nicks and burn marks, though, Tremaine made an entirely unexpected—and extremely pleasant—discovery: Lusty women were even hotter for a fellow with scars.

Amused by that realization, and presently benefiting from such happy knowledge, he reclined in bed, resting his head and back against the headboard as he took in his latest lover, an accommodating bit of fluff, as she stripped for him.

The voluptuous widow, without a shred of innocence and with a reputation for being ruthless in bed—and in other ways—was his perfect match.

At this particular moment, as she drew off her filmy garments, one after another, she also proved entirely too eager.

Baroness Featherstone eased her wet, translucent chiffon neckline down, cupped her bountiful breasts, and plucked her nipples.

Over the crystal rim of his snifter, Tremaine dispassionately noted the hungry way his companion eyed him. Bored, he took a swallow of his whiskey. “You don’t leave much to the imagination, sweet,” he remarked.

Her big, crimson-painted lips formed a perfect and clearly practiced pout. “You are displeased.”

“No.” In order to be displeased, he’d have to care, even in some remote way, about her or anything. He didn’t. “I’m bored.”

Bored.

Tremaine’s jaw flexed convulsively.

That’s precisely what he’d been since his career as a privateer had gone down in literal and figurative flames. Tremaine’s erection instantly wilted, and his fingers tightened reflexively about his glass.

An even hotter spark gleamed from the wanton’s eyes. “A challenge, then, Captain Tremaine.”

“I don’t bother issuing challenges in bed. Either you’re worth a fuck or you’re not.” He delivered that blunt truth passionlessly. “So tell me, Lady Featherstone, are you? Worth a fuck?”

“Yes!” she exclaimed with such eager desperation it annoyed rather than enticed.

As unconvinced as he was bored, Tremaine tossed back the rest of his whiskey, grabbed the decanter, and poured himself several fingers.

All the while, Lady Featherstone’s eyes remained upon him. An even wilder lust glittered in her sultry gaze.

The baroness moved her hips like one stretching in a bid to ease the growing ache between her legs. “Please.”

The prospect of being left wet and wanting clearly roused the beauty to greater depths.

He quirked his lips in a cool, mocking grin. The false expression was the closest he came anymore to actual amusement. The closest he’d come since the greatest betrayal, which had left him . . .

Lady Featherstone slowly tugged the laces on either side of her waist, and those fastenings gave way so that the pale-silver chiffon fabric fluttered open.

Less bored, he gave the naked widow another look. “Pretty.”

“I’ll please you,” she purred, fingering her nipples.

Tremaine didn’t say anything in return. Instead, he continued to watch her.

Holding his stare, the widow pinched and tugged hard at her small, rouged nipples. All the while, she fondled herself and did so with an increasing violence.

Tremaine rolled his head in a circle, stretching the muscles. With glass in hand, he climbed to his feet and headed to the throne-like chair so he could better watch her performance. From under hooded eyes, Tremaine leisurely sipped his drink and evaluated the show she put on for his benefit.

She liked it rough. The wanton, experienced Cyprians always did. That’s why he’d never understood the fascination too many rakes had with seducing and deflowering weepy, virginal misses.

He took another deep swallow.

Lady Featherstone’s harsh breathing filled his chambers. Her gaze grew glassy, and he knew the minute he’d become a secondary player in her performance.

With long, talonlike fingernails, she edged her gaping peignoir downward, working it lower and lower. Down past her enormous hips and thick thighs until the translucent garment lay in a gossamer heap at her feet.

To steady himself, Tremaine finished his whiskey.

Lady Featherstone swayed her hips rhythmically from side to side in a musicless dance and rocked against the air like some pagan fertility queen.

His cock stirred.

Tremaine contemplated her naked form with new interest.

Enormous creamy white breasts. Big hips. A luscious arse. Fleshy thighs. The baroness was his type in every way. Not only her voluptuous body beckoned him but also her carnal hungering. Lady Featherstone was a lust-filled match for him.

Having detected his appreciation, her eyes grew heavier. With a coy smile, she pulled even harder at her nipples.

“Would you like a taste?” She was already sauntering over.

Tremaine patted the arm of his seat. “How about a feel?”

She danced closer. As she approached, she set her hips to swaying, dragging his gaze to the bare mound between her thick thighs.

The moment she reached him, he rewarded her latest efforts and cupped her between the legs. “Very lovely, sweet,” he praised, petting her.

Lady Featherstone straddled his thigh and rocked her hot, soaking cunny against his hand.

He chuckled. “Why do I suspect, sweet, you scandalize some poor innocent maid and make her see to the task of shaving you?”

His latest lover lifted her hips. He wasn’t a complete bastard; he slid two fingers inside, giving her some of what she sought.

Some.

Breathlessly, she rode his hand. “Mary pretends to be innocent.”

“People aren’t innocent,” he said bluntly.

She laughed throatily. “My, you are as cy-cynical as they s-s— Yesss,” she hissed, as he lightly grazed that tenderest spot which sent all women over. “But yes, I agree. She is fucking the same footman as I, and I know she secretly loves touching me.”

“Ah, and why shouldn’t she?”

He played with her, and then when the baroness’s speech dissolved and her body became agitated, he eased up, keeping her from what she craved.

No, Tremaine could say with an absolute certainty that there existed, within everyone, only the thinnest layer of innocence, and each person, through ultimate acts of treachery, broke that flimsy thread.

The man who’d ultimately betrayed him had slipped in, dragging Tremaine out of his night’s bedsport and back to that uglier, darker place. A fresh surge of hate sent a wave of physical lust coursing through him.

Mistaking the sudden tensing of his body, Lady Featherstone flared her eyes. “You like that, do you, dear man?”

I’ll have vengeance.

A sultry, practiced laugh eased past Lady Featherstone’s lips. “You’re thinking about it, aren’t you?” she incorrectly surmised. “My maid touching my cunny, quivering until I finally allow her permission to slip her coarse fingers inside me and make her stroke me until I come.”

His breathing grew shallower. He’d allow that the vision she’d painted hadn’t been the one he’d been thinking about, but it was almost as pleasureful.

Almost.

“And then I have her lick the mess she made off my cunny . . . just like I do after her sweetheart services me.”

Now that managed to catch all of his attention.

Lady Featherstone laughed another one of her practiced, sultry sounds of mirth.

The widow was arrogant. Too arrogant.

To teach her who was in charge, Tremaine withdrew his fingers.

She cried out in response. “Please!” she panted like a bitch in heat. “Please, do not stop,” she entreated, her voice quivering with the same terrific tremors that racked her unsated body.

Alas, he’d already allowed her entirely too much power.

Despite her protestations, Tremaine unceremoniously lifted her off him and set her on her feet.

He headed over to the half-empty bottle he’d left on the mantel, tugged off the stopper, and tossed it onto the marble ledge. It hit with a noisy clink.

“I’ve been bad, and you’re cruelly punishing me for my transgression,” she said, her voice the epitome of a pout. “I will make amends for my offenses.”

Tremaine swiped the bottle from the ledge and turned, resting a shoulder against cool stone.

“You take this as cruel punishment, madam?” He eyed his next potential mistress with cynical amusement. “Trust me, the people who bear the brunt of my wrath not only clearly know it, they live to regret it.”

The fire in her eyes burned hotter. “You are a wicked man, Lord Tremaine,” she whispered breathlessly, fingering her cunny.

Tremaine took a swig from the bottle.

When the lady’s show to lure him back failed, she abandoned her efforts at self-stimulation.

Lady Featherstone glided over. “Tell me,” she purred. “How do you punish those who cross you?”

Those who crossed him.

Another ripple rolled along his tensed jawline.

Captain Arran McQuoid.

A man he’d called “brother” and “best friend” had been the latest but—given the savage nature of Tremaine’s work—certainly would not be the last.

A hot, seething fury sizzled in his veins.

How would he punish Captain McQuoid?

Tremaine’s gaze locked on a point across the room in a sightless stare.

It would be merciless, violent, and unforgiving. He had doled out such a fate aboard his ship with foolish mutineers. He’d exacted it on the vessels of pirates whom he’d boarded.

His fingers tightened reflexively upon the neck of his bottle with such force that the crystal exploded, like the windows and wood of a seafaring ship struck by cannonballs in the heart of a battle.

Tremaine narrowed his eyes. Soon, when the time was right, he would make his former friend Captain McQuoid—and the traitor’s entire family—regret crossing him. Nay, betraying him.

“Ohh, my.” Lady Featherstone’s sex-starved whisper pricked through his consciousness.

As she collected his bleeding palm in her smooth, pale-white, unblemished one, he looked on, bored and distracted.

She lifted her eyes, as cynical as his own. “You are as barbarous as they say, Lord Tremaine.”