Chapter 1 #2
Worse. Polite Society—and impolite society—had absolutely no idea of the depth and breadth of Tremaine’s evil.
“Do not call me that,” he coolly ordered. First and foremost, he was a master and commander.
His vessel, Triton’s Mistress, just happened to lie in broken, burned pieces upon the ocean floor, and Tremaine’s pirating days had been brought to a stop—at least, for now.
For the first time since he’d entered his rooms and found the lush widow barely clad in his bed, the confident beauty faltered.
“My apologies, Tremaine,” she whispered, mistaking the reason for his upset. She trailed her fingertips over his naked chest. “I continue to displease you. You must punish me.” Batting her eyelashes, she promised with her eyes all manner of delights.
He chuckled. Catching her arse in his hand, Tremaine sank his fingers into the supple flesh.
Lady Featherstone gasped and tilted her hips at him. “Please!”
“As pretty as you are when you beg,” he taunted, “the truth is, you want me to be rough with you.”
“No!” she exclaimed, entirely too quick in her denial.
Women like Lady Featherstone were just like Tremaine, so bored by life that only brutality and wickedness could rouse something even remotely close to feelings within them.
He gripped her tighter, until her feigned protestations died on a desperate moan.
Spreading her legs, she availed herself of his thigh and ground against him. “Why must you make me wait for you, Tremaine?” she panted.
Tremaine wasn’t a selfish lover. Any woman who shared his bed didn’t leave without an earth-shattering climax that left her limp and fully replete.
Neither, however, was he altruistic. His pleasure came first, before all others’, always.
Tired of Lady Featherstone’s desperate attempts to get herself off, he once more set her away.
She wouldn’t do.
Tremaine went to collect his shirt.
“No!” she rasped. “Please, let me take you in my mouth.”
It wasn’t the first time a woman had begged to suck his cock. That plea had the same effect it always did.
Tremaine considered the door he’d been about to send her packing through. As it turned out, he had somewhat of a heart still. He reversed course for the armchair positioned at the fireside.
“Don’t make me regret this, sweet,” Tremaine warned, loosening his placard. He freed his massive erection. “Or else only one of us is going to get off this night. And let me spare you the suspense: It won’t be you.”
The lady gave a juddering nod, but by the way she gawked at his enormous cock and licked her lips, he wagered he could have just asked for her soul and she would have given it all for a taste of him.
The moment he sank into the folds of the leather chair, the lady’s catlike eyes grew feral. Like a lust-crazed animal, she dropped to all fours and crawled over to him. When she reached Tremaine, she sank back onto her haunches, lifted obedient eyes to his, and waited.
Pleased with her obsequiousness, Tremaine tangled a hand in her silky red tresses. “Open wide, sweet,” he murmured, already guiding her head down.
Lady Featherstone immediately opened and took him deep—even deeper than he’d dreamed.
His eyes slid closed, and he welcomed the wet heat of her skilled mouth.
Tremaine settled in while the lady set to work.
She sucked him eagerly, moving up and down on his shaft, swirling her clever tongue around Tremaine’s thick crown.
Surrendering to her ministrations, he dropped his head back, letting it fall against the top of the chair. “You are good with your mouth, after all,” he murmured in praise.
Moaning, she took him deeper. The low reverberations of her desire made his cock tremble.
His chest rose and fell hard and fast, but he was a master of discipline. Certainly, no woman could ever make him lose control. No. For him, sex was only at its best when it straddled that point between pleasure and pain.
Determined to make the moment last, he exercised restraint while she continued drawing him deeper into her throat.
With each downward glide of her hot, slick mouth, he lifted his hips to meet her, slowly at first, then with a driving force that sent her into a greater frenzy.
Suddenly, she came off his length but quickly shifted her attentions to his ballocks. She opened wide and took them in her mouth.
“Bloody hell,” he gritted out, massaging her cheeks and jaw. “You are a clever thing.”
She also deserved a reward for her impressive efforts.
Tremaine reached down and slipped four fingers inside her soaking cunt.
“Look at you.” He chuckled. “You’re about to come, and from nothing more than sucking me off.”
At that vulgar charge, Lady Featherstone’s entire body trembled. She released his aching ballocks from her mouth and, with renewed zeal, returned to sucking his member.
From out in the hall, a faint groan cut through the noise of his and the lusty widow’s ragged breathing.
Tremaine tensed.
Bloody hell.
The baroness, on the other hand, remained blissfully ignorant.
Click.
And even when the door opened, Lady Featherstone, panting and moaning as she feasted on his cock, stayed oblivious to the intrusion.
Lord Cassian Kilmartin, Tremaine’s first mate and now temporary man-of-affairs for Tremaine’s brother, took in the scene with much amusement. “Your butler had the gall to inform us you weren’t taking visitors.”
The baroness stiffened. To her credit, she didn’t stop bobbing on his length. Instead, she threw herself deeper into her efforts.
“Don’t let Povey hear you call him a butler,” Tremaine warned. No retired sailor would take to being referred to so, even if that was the role he now served.
Tremaine angled his lover’s head, helping her to take him even deeper. His breath caught. God, the lady was even better than he’d earlier credited.
“A ducal summons?” he asked, his breath surprisingly even.
“Of a sort,” Kilmartin continued, like it was the most natural thing in the world to hold a meeting while another man had his prick sucked. “His Grace is here.”
That gave Tremaine pause. “Here?” he sought to clarify. Whenever his big brother wished to speak, Tremaine was the one to answer that call at the ducal holdings in London.
“Yes. There’s a matter of some importance he needs to discuss with you.”
Clearly as deviant as Tremaine, Lady Featherstone seemed even more aroused at the prospect of his leaving and hungry for the challenge of keeping him at her side.
The clever lady played with his ballocks and took him deeper, all the way to the back of her throat.
This time, Tremaine’s breath caught sharply. He lifted his hips.
He glanced pointedly at the beauty still managing to work magic, even while he and his number two addressed ducal business. “You’re certain it cannot wait, Kilmartin?”
“I am afraid not.” Nor, by the regretful look Kilmartin cast at the woman so diligently attending to Tremaine, was the gentleman’s commiseration feigned. He looked squarely at Tremaine.
Tremaine tensed.
The eager wanton between his legs instantly forgotten, he narrowed his eyes in an unspoken request for clarity.
Kilmartin held his gaze and gave another slow, meaningful nod. Taking the cue, he turned and excused himself from the room.
Squeezing his eyes shut, Tremaine gritted his teeth and spent himself in Lady Featherstone’s mouth. He ground himself against her face, hissing and muttering praise, until his climax washed all the way over him.
As soon as he’d finished, he withdrew from Lady Featherstone’s mouth and gave her a pat on the head. Climbing to his feet, Tremaine stuffed himself back inside his trousers.
The baroness’s eyes bulged like those of a foreign crab he’d once seen during a foray into the Caribbean Islands.
“You c-cannot leave me,” she sputtered, wiping at her mouth, still slick with cum.
Tremaine dragged his shirt overhead. “Business calls.”
“How dare you?” she cried. “I have worked so hard to please you and I am desperate for you, and you’ll just walk away from me.”
He sharpened a warning gaze on the careless widow. “Madam, I can walk away from anyone.”
As a man whose only love was and would forever be the seas, it was what he did. It was what he’d always do. By the way she demurely lowered her eyes, she realized she’d gone too far with her pitiful tantrum. His newly cloying bed partner gave an uneven nod.
“But Tremaine,” the baroness implored. Still on her knees, she turned her palms up in supplication. “Surely you know I ache for you.”
Tremaine flashed a cool smile. “You ache for me, or you ache to have your lust slaked?”
The wicked glimmer returned to her coy eyes. “Why can’t it be both?”
He’d no loyalty to a lover, either. As such, he appreciated that honesty and silently committed himself to allowing the determined beauty another audition.
“Lord Kilmartin is in the hall. If you are interested, he can be of service.”
He caught the way her face fell.
Given the reason for his brother seeking him out, at this hour and with this urgency, there could be no doubting the only thing of interest from this point forward was the information he’d come to tender.
Before he left, she called out once more. “Are we done for the evening, Lord Tremaine?”
His fingers on the door handle, Tremaine paused and cast a questioning glance back. “We are.”
She lifted her head in acknowledgment. “Please inform Lord Kilmartin I’m ready for him,” she advised, all business.
With a nod, Tremaine quit the rooms.
The minute he closed the door, Kilmartin greeted him with a grin. “She looked every bit as good as she’s purported to be.”
“Better,” Tremaine confirmed, shoving the rest of his shirt inside his waistband. “She is in need of servicing and decided you will do nicely.”
Kilmartin’s brows climbed with interest. “Hmm.”
“Where is my brother?” Tremaine asked, righting his garments.
“In your office.”
Bowing his head, Tremaine had started to go when he caught Kilmartin eyeing his door.
“You’re certain you will not mind?” Kilmartin mused.
“As long as it’s not my bed,” he assured, already heading down the hall, “you can fuck her anywhere you want.” He’d no affinity strong enough for any woman to care either way who his lovers bedded.
The other man roared with laughter. “God, you are as heartless as they come, Tremaine. Lord help the stupid, young chit who fancies herself in love with you.”
Tremaine snorted. “I’m as likely to get within one hundred yards of a young chit as Satan is to bed the Virgin Mary,” he called without looking back. With another round of Kilmartin’s loud laughter following, Tremaine headed to meet his brother.
“Someone had better be dying,” Tremaine said the moment he entered his office.
Standing at the hearth and rubbing his hands for warmth, Tremaine’s brother, Hart, the Duke of Hartwell, turned. “Ah, based on your less-than-warm welcome and glower, little brother,” he said with a grin, “you have not had your knob polished.”
“On the contrary.” Closing the door behind him, Tremaine headed over to join his brother beside the leather armchairs near the blazing fire.
Hart gestured to the seats like he was the lord of the household and owner of those chairs.
“Ah,” Tremaine drawled. “Inviting me to sit in my own . . .” He noted his brother’s suddenly grave demeanor and joined him in the open seat. “What is it?” Tremaine asked quietly.
“I’ve received word from the shipyard builders.”
His stomach muscles tightened. “And?”
“There have been some setbacks.”
“Setbacks?” he repeated, knowing he sounded like a bloody lackwit but unable to stop himself.
“The Royal Navy, as you know, is suffering a lumber shortage—”
“Yes, yes,” Tremaine interrupted. “We secured a contract.” His older, loyal ducal brother had used his influence to do so.
“This past autumn, the Earl of Culross’s ship got caught in a hurricane off the eastern coast of North America and sustained some damage.”
Tremaine’s patience wore thin. “How, exactly, does this affect me, Hart?”
“Someone came in with a higher bid than ours.”
“A higher bid?” Tremaine’s brows dipped. “The contract was inked six months ago, and construction on Triton’s Mistress II started immediately.”
Hart nodded.
“Who the hell—?”
“Culross is now working closely with Captain McQuoid.”
At the mention of his former friend and now enemy, Tremaine’s entire body tensed up. “Why the hell are those two partnered?”
Hart rested the heel of his boot across his opposite knee. “Perhaps because McQuoid, though stupid, isn’t so stupid as to not realize the enemy he made in you. He’ll require all the allies he can find at sea, and he knows it.”
Tremaine seethed. “His efforts are in vain.”
“You and I both know that. In time, McQuoid will make that same discovery.”
Tremaine continued to reel from the thunderbolt his brother had dealt. “You are a goddamned duke,” he raged. “How in hell would Westhaven simply bow to a single bumbling McQ—”
“McQuoid’s brother-in-law, Winfield, is the future Duke of Roxburghe.
From what my sources revealed, Winfield used his sway to get Westhaven Shipping to shift your resources over to Culross.
Between that and the hefty fortune paid to Westhaven, they didn’t feel inclined to allow us a chance to outbi—”
Tremaine shot to his feet. “Fuck!” he bellowed.
“McQuoid is merely delaying the inevitable, and he knows it as much as you and I, Tremaine.”
Oh, McQuoid couldn’t even begin to fathom the hell Tremaine intended to rain down. He dragged a hand through his hair.
“I knew you would want to know immediately,” his brother said. “This is a setback, but a temporary one. I’ve already begun reaching out to my contacts.”
Rage and hate thrummed through Tremaine’s being.
“We will figure this out, little brother,” Hart promised.
And as Tremaine and his elder brother shared a like understanding of loyalty, Tremaine knew beyond a doubt Hart would do everything in his power to resolve the matter.
“It will be fixed,” his brother repeated. “In the meantime, you need to just sit tight a bit longer, and . . . occupy yourself here in London.”
“Occupy myself,” he spat, humming with a restless and volatile energy.
“A mistress will help.” Hart paused. “Preferably one who gets you off quicker than whichever widow you were busy with earlier.” In a clear attempt to defuse Tremaine’s rancor, his brother flashed a lighthearted grin.
Yes, a mistress would help.
One who wasn’t upstairs fucking his friend.
Nothing, however, would come as remotely satisfying as destroying Captain Arran McQuoid and, in turn, inflicting the ultimate pain upon every last member of his disloyal, bumbling kin.