5 Hotness with Management
Hotness with
Management
"My heart is pierced by Cupid,
I disdain all glittering gold,
There is nothing can console me
but my jolly sailor bold."
― Old Sea Shanty
HAWK LEFT the cabin - his own cabin! - cursing under his breath.
What the devil was wrong with that Silver kid?
Ever since he’d come into Hawk’s life, about a week ago, his entire world seemed turned upside down. He’d expected the maniac to last maybe a day on his ship before he realized keeping company with pirates was a terrible idea and fucked off.
Instead, he’d somehow wormed his way into the minds of his entire crew. How was a mystery, for Silver had no obvious skills.
Hawk supposed he was pretty, in that really otherworldly way that he could not quite put a finger on.
But he didn’t appear to take interest in any of his crew, only fawning over Hawk himself in such an obvious way that the captain had to assume it had been some half-assed attempt at seducing him in order to stay alive.
And Hawk wasn't about to take advantage of that.
He could only ignore the ridiculous heart-eyes and goofy smiles for so long. Hawk was only human, but god damn he probably should not have let the kid touch him.
He definitely shouldn't have taken his shirt off or let Silver use the oil, but, damnation, it had been far too long.
Having another's hands on his body so intimately had been amazing, despite (or because of?) the fact that he'd been getting poked in the back with what was a fairly sizable boner at the same time.
And then the kid had been so - so awkward! - when Hawk had called him out on it.
Hawk wasn’t one to turn his back and flee the battlefield, but he had hightailed it out of his own cabin so quickly that even Ruiz had to stop and ask him if he was quite well on his way out, as he struggled to pull his own shirt back over his head.
“Fine... I’m... air,” he muttered in response and looked for a place to hide for a while, at least until his own inflammation came down.
When he finally deemed it safe to return to his cabin - his cabin - the room was, blessedly, empty of all strange men. The back storm windows were still open, however, and when Hawk went to close them, the wood slid slickly across the ledge.
"What the actual fuck?" Had the idiot actually jerked off in his cabin?
HIS cabin? Hawk was engulfed in a hot rush of annoyance.
That annoyance, however, was quickly replaced by the memory of Silver's unmistakable arousal pressed against his back and how long it had been since any man had been pressed against him and —
"Fuck," he muttered to himself. Fortunately, the night was late; he extinguished the lamps and turned in to his bunk. Still, his mind was stuck on Silver, and Silver jerking off just feet away from where he lay, and his disobedient cock would not let him rest.
Gritting his teeth, Hawk wrapped his fingers around his cock.
It was a practice that he avoided if at all possible.
It gave him little comfort when his mind constantly and disobediently summoned memories of Lucas.
Memories of that beautiful angel of a man, his soft words and softer lips from which so many beautiful words had fallen.
The way a single smile had been enough to erase all troubles from Samuel's mind.
The afternoons they'd spent, tangled in each other's embrace in his small, sunlit rooms, with nothing and no-one in the world but them.
This time, however, another smile invaded his memories. That lopsided, teasing smile that reached to the eyes bluer than the sea.
Hawk's fingers paused their caress.
He warred briefly with himself, weighing the pain of Lucas' memory against the betrayal of this new fantasy.
Who was this interloper to deserve a place in his thoughts - a place that only Lucas should occupy?
At the same time, it was distinctly easier to just be angry with himself, so in the end Hawk gave full reign to his fantasies.
Well, if Silver wanted him so badly, perhaps he'd give it to him. He'd grab hold of the kid's dark curls and force him to his knees under his desk, force his cock past those pretty, smirking lips. It would keep him quiet, Hawk thought, grinning in the dark.
He rubbed his thumb over the head of his cock, stroking desire down his shaft, tightening his grip. Silver would look good, with Hawk's cock in his mouth. He'd suck just as eagerly as he'd done everything else. He'd groan and swallow him down as Hawk fucked his throat, he'd —
Hawk barely managed to bite back a shout as he came, pleasure briefly and blessedly overwhelming his senses. But as quickly as it had come it was gone again, leaving him with an overwhelming feeling of emptiness and disgust for himself.
Despite his fantasies, Silver couldn't want that. Couldn't want him. Not truly. To imagine otherwise was not only folly, but certainly an affront to Lucas' memory.
At least it allowed him to sleep, though his dreams were troubled and provided him little rest at all.
It wasn't enough, Mara thought angrily as she righted her room, that she had to worry about her idiot brother off on some pirate ship with one of the most notorious captains in Port Royal. No, now she had to worry about the fact the brothel’s former owner had run off with its former madame.
Mara was secretly relieved to see less of him in her life, but he’d been predictable.
Far more predictable than the people the pirate captains had “promoted” to take his place: the bumbling thug Alex Duprez and his spitfire slip of a companion Roxanne O'Toole, whom rumor had responsible for the untimely death of more than one pirate who'd crossed her.
Between Duprez's muscles and Roxanne's temper, Mara couldn't help but think that her life was going to get far more complicated than she'd ever wanted it to be.
The brothel was under new management, and so, as always, Mara would have to make do. Exchanging one useless dotard for two unpredictable new bosses wasn't exactly a gift, but it was, if Mara had her say about it, an opportunity.
Mara ground her ass back against some dirty pirate with good coin and regarded her new bosses from across the room of the brothel, speaking heatedly to each other over a bottle of wine.
Duprez was frustrated, that was easy to see, even though he did his best to hide it.
He had good reason to, with the girls taking full advantage of the change of management to pocket as much coin as they could.
She smiled despite herself. A man like that would drive himself mad, thinking that a bunch of whores had gotten the better of him.
Roxanne, on the other hand, made no attempt to disguise her frustrations. It was a problem she couldn't fight her way out of, and that would be just as maddening to a woman like her.
Clearly it wouldn't be long before they gave up on running the brothel all together. Especially with some subtle encouragement from Mara.
Behind her, her charge suddenly reached up to roughly grab hold of her naked breasts, pulling her down hard onto his erection.
His fingers dug into her skin, yanking at her nipples painfully hard.
Mara cried out at the unexpected rush of pain, eyes watering.
Instinctively she brought the heel of her boot down hard into the instep of his bare foot, wrenching herself from his embrace. "Hey! Hands off!"
"You fucking slut!" Enraged, the man slammed her back against one of the brothel’s pillars with enough force that Mara found the wind knocked out of her.
Too late, she realized that he was far stronger than his rather pudgy exterior had led her to believe.
His filthy, callused fingers closed tightly around her throat.
"Who the fuck do you think you are, huh?
You need a lesson in manners, whore? I'll give you a fucking lesson! "
Mara tried to shove at his chest, head spinning. Why wasn't anyone doing anything? Surely Elizabeth - but Elizabeth wasn't here. Elizabeth had never cared about her. Elizabeth had left her alone.
A spike of panic surged through her as his fingers tightened around her neck. She had to - she had -
Suddenly, her attacker jerked rigidly. His fingers dug briefly, painfully into her throat. He coughed, blood splattering from his lips onto her face, and fell forward, crushing her against the pillar.
Mara caught a glimpse of Roxanne's face, cold and hard and strangely satisfied. The woman grabbed hold of her assailant’s shirt and yanked him back to fall heavily to the floor where he lay still, blood pooling underneath his body.
"Jesus Christ, Xanne!" Duprez stood up from the table so fast his chair fell over backwards.
"He deserved it." Roxanne calmly wiped her sword on the dead man's shirt and sheathed it again.
"He was a paying customer!"
"He was aiming to damage the working girls.
" Roxanne's eyes glanced over at Mara, lingering for a moment.
They were a startling shade of green, Mara realized as she struggled to catch her breath.
Turning on the heel of her boot, Roxanne strode back to the table and sat down again, refilling her cup of rum as if she had not just murdered a man in broad daylight.
"And you're just going to leave him there?" Duprez looked a bit like a fish out of water, movements helplessly flappy. Mara reveled in a little amusement as the world gradually stopped spinning.
"Ain't my job to get rid of the trash."
The exchange birthed a sudden idea in Mara's mind, brilliant as lightning. A realization. She'd underestimated them, Duprez and his angry jezebel of a partner.
She'd have to manage them very closely, of course.
But since her failure with Elizabeth, Mara had become very good at managing people.
She'd simply have to determine how best to manipulate the both of them, like she would with any other mark.
And from what she'd seen of them so far, it wasn't going to be a challenge at all.