by Addison Cain
Looking at the knot binding her wrist, in no mood for fighting, she sighed. “I’m not sorry, and you won’t do it again, because I’m asking you not to.”
Taking her chin so she might be made to look, his wicked tongue traced his lips in a perfectly filthy way. “Is it a real ask or are you being coy?”
“It’s a real ask.” She could not take another orgasm like that.
“Can I come on your tits?”
Had he really just asked her that? After all he’d done? And was he already unbuttoning her dress? “Go come on Faith’s tits.”
“So that’s a yes.” Popping the top button of his jeans, he shucked them off while somehow still managing to find his balance atop her. Then reached right on in and scooped out her breasts, Sandwiching his ridiculous cock between pale mounds.
Leaving Eugenia with a view of tan erection poking from squished boobs. His glans exposed as the foreskin caught with each thrust. As he fucked her breasts, unabashed, nothing but a beast.
Muscles rippling, he let go. He enjoyed. Watching her, clenching his ass to move his monster through a fleshy grip, base to tip… so near her mouth she could almost taste him.
In no way in a rush, he enjoyed her.
“Open.”
Why on earth she did, she couldn’t say, jaw wide as he splashed the first spurt of his spend on her waiting tongue.
The rest was smeared between her tits, slicking his way as his eyes rolled back and his back arched.
It was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen in her life.
His total loss of control.
On the last pulse, the one that came after all his seed twitched between her mashed cleavage, he looked down and said it again. “I love you.”
And it was too much. Tasting come for the first time in six years, remembering how much she loved it. The intimacy of accepting something a little dirty on her lips.
“Hey.” Stroking her cheek, the captain murmured, “It’s going to be okay.”
Terrified, because it never would be, she said, “I don’t think it is.”
“You’ll see.” After a sexy smile, he reached over, untying one sailor’s knot and then the next. Rubbing her wrists where they were red. Kissing her fingertips. “I’m going to do the tongue thing again, nice and slow.”
Which seemed a particular mercy, her clit throbbing to be touched after that show. The traitor.
Her ankles still bound, her thighs forced open, he ate her pussy for ages. Nice and slow, her fingers in his hair, his grip cradling her hips. Riding his mouth, she took as he had taken.
The second climax washed over her—difficult, beautiful, dangerous—undulating from core to toes. The hardest she’d ever come.
Legs set free, he scooped her into his arms, rubbing her back and hushing her when the occasional sob escaped. The harder she fought to hold in the sound, the more often breath stuttered and her tears leaked free.
He told her to just let go, promised her that he’d help her through it.
She didn’t let go. No, she fought all she felt. So it burst out on its own until she was completely wracked by sobs.
While he whispered secrets to her in the dark—secrets about life, about the nature of humankind, about how he’d never, ever let her go—she fell asleep.
Utterly spent, hollow, and overfull.
Chapter Fifteen
“Those things I mentioned. The things to make you happy…” Kissing behind her ear, urging Eugenia to wake with the heat of his body and the attention of his mouth, the captain said, “Today, I’ll introduce you to the children.”
Like a bucket of cold water to the face, Eugenia’s heart picked up, her body tensed, and any hint of lazy drowsiness evaporated. “You’re going to take me down to Level 9 and lock me in.”
He didn’t deny it. “I should…”
Considering Eugenia’s standing agreement with Joan, her sharp, twisting fear should not have been allowed to leave her shivering. But if Joan was lying, and Eugenia was conveniently stashed away, it would only be a matter of time before the captain fished another pretty girl of a certain age out of the water. And where would that leave her?
It would leave her locked in a glorified breeding pen.
Candlelight dinners and orgasms—pockets of solace—didn’t last. Nothing that had passed between Aaron and herself could be real. She knew that, yet when they were in bed, it was easy to forget. He was right. She was starving, and between the enlivening arguments, there had been something almost peaceful.
“I thought you’d at least wait until I was pregnant before you dumped me in your hellhole.” Not that she intended to let that happen. Yet… she’d been unable to stop him from ejaculating inside her. She even enthusiastically participated in sex despite knowing what he’d do when his climax was reached.
Being alone with him was doing things to her mental state that were both dangerous and unsettling.
It was confusing her.
When he moved inside her, when he said sweet things, it was almost like she could forget the rest of it—exist only in the moment and pretend the other moments didn’t matter.
But they did matter.
On Level 9, women were truly separated from any hope of freedom. Eugenia could see it in her mind’s eye—the final door slowly closing before her. If she didn’t run before he dragged her down there, she’d miss her chance to find the good place waiting out there.
And when she ran, she’d leave those women behind… knowing she’d abandoned them to save herself.
It wouldn’t be the first time. After six years, the things she’d seen, each time adrenaline had pumped her legs to run faster, run farther, to not look back.
She felt it then, the skin-stinging anxiety that had become her new normal since the bombs. The shame.
As if he too felt the sting, the captain rolled away, leaving her body bereft of his heat and weight. Heading to the bathroom, he called over his shoulder. “No, you won’t be permanently locked in. You’ll learn the ropes of Level 9 in the day. Your nights will be spent in this room with me.”
His nights were not available. Not when the captain’s presence oversaw the raucous party where beer flowed and women relied on someone to maintain the rules. Not when his rotating schedule existed so he might fuck them all from behind and suffered for it, as he should.
And did he really think he could just throw her in the hole and pull her out at night when he wanted to play with her? Absolutely not! “Who’s going to service Table #2?”
Chuckling from his bathroom, clearly urinating from the sound of it, he pitched his voice so she might hear from the distance. “New girl came yesterday. You’ve been officially replaced.”
It shouldn’t have hurt to hear. It shouldn’t have hurt at all. But it did.
It hurt way down deep.
Cutting the anger and twisting it into sorrow, stealing her fuel for battle.
That was Eugenia’s table, her chessboard, her ongoing fight against the machine. Would the new girl bend over and take it on her first night? Would there be anyone out there reminding the crew how fucked-up the whole show was.
Would the new girl cry when they dumped food on her head?
“How many tickets is she worth?” And how vile was it that she had to ask the man returning to bed that question?
Kissing the tip of her nose, the scowl between her brows, his voice was only consoling. “Not twenty-million.”
There was a rattle behind Eugenia’s heart, a strange fluttering both foreign and uncomfortable. A sensation that only grew worse when she looked him in the eye to suggest, “Give her some time before you put her on rotation for this room. I know you think I’m joking, but you’re scarier than you’ll admit. And don’t jam your fingers in her on her first night.”
Like steel shutters falling to hide what churned inside, the captain went back to the lazing, false cowboy. Utterly guarded, giving nothing away, he toyed with her hair. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
&
nbsp; “I just said what I was thinking.” No lie hid in those words. “And maybe… maybe don’t fuck them so hard. They don’t like it, Aaron. And I know you’re going to say you do that on purpose—”
“Just stop right there. I hear what you’re saying.” By the indifferent feel of him, it seemed he more than heard it.
Breathless in a way that ached, she shook her head. “I don’t think you do.”
“I do. I hear it.” Pulling the sheet over her breasts, he tucked her in. “You’re scared, and you don’t trust me.”
Who would? There wasn’t even a reason to shy from the subject. “I made a mistake trusting John. I won’t make it again.”
Lifting her hands, he kissed her finger. “You’ve been let down. You’ve been hurt.”
So many times. “By you.”
“From your perspective, I’m sure you’ve felt let down by me on more than one occasion,” he conceded. “But I know, I know, Eugenia, it was all done in your best interest.”
They’d always been honest with one another, but that didn’t mean they had been honest with themselves. Eugenia needed him to recognize that. “No, Aaron. It was done in yours. Every favor you ever granted me has always come at a price. Every drop of blood I spilt on this boat was because of you.”
Sprawling at her side, his weight on his elbow, he tripped his touch across her collarbones. “It’s the eternal question of want versus need. I know what you want. My greater concern is with what you need. You often disagree, but here you are, healthy, safe. When the dogs howl, it no longer sends you crashing from your bed. You don’t cry in your sleep anymore.”
At no time was she going to discuss how often he came to sit in her room in the dead of night. Knowing he might have been there more often than she realized… made her uncomfortable. “You’re still the villain in the story. You’re not the hero because I got used to a mattress and shelter. I can decide for myself what I need.”
What she needed was to be away from tender touches and manipulative men with horse cocks and the tongue thing.
Spoken sweetly, as if he really cared for her, the captain said, “Then tell me what you think you need. I’ll listen, and we can discuss.”
Eugenia needed off the captain’s ship to run free without knowing she’d left women behind to suffer. “You should have never told me about Level 9. The reasons you did were revolting, Aaron. Don’t think that I don’t see the unwinnable crusade you’re trying to tempt me with. You want me to fight back so I’ll have a reason to stay. But I can’t save them from you. I’m not even going to try.”
Patient, he stroked her arm. “What else?”
The bait was right there, dangling. An offer to vent her complaints that would lead her nowhere, yet still, she spoke. “You came in me without permission. Held me down afterward so I couldn’t…”
“You knew by that point it was too late. Why should I let you run to the bathroom in a panic? Holding you still meant you had to consider. Which you did. And then I made love to you again, and held you down again. Like the wild dogs that used to send you running into walls in the dark, it’s a matter of adjustment and the slow realization that you are safe and everything is okay.”
There was too much to address in his statement with a single reply, so she changed tactics. “The first night we met, you struck me, put your hand around my throat, and tore my hymen with your fingers. It hurt.”
He took a moment, even looked away as if deep in thought before replying. “My reasons for doing it won’t be adequate, so I concede. I wanted to touch you first, since I knew I’d have to wait to have you brought to my rooms. My reasons were selfish, and I believed John’s graphic details of your sexual history.”
“And right there, you summed up everything that is wrong with the society that you built. You believed John.” Saying so was oddly freeing and equal parts excruciating. The women had no voice, though they were the prize men desperately sought to attain. They had nothing but what the men decided they should have. “Even after the world ended, men have learned nothing. And thanks to you, on this save the human race ship, you created a system that reduced us down to nothing but a commodity. You’re breaking the very women you expect to raise your children.”
“That would be a historically accurate thing to say about the male population in general. But we outnumber you, and I’ve done my best to keep the ladies onboard secure.”
Secure? Is that what he called it? “You whore them out for tattered bits of old carnival tickets.”
“They can say no. You did.”
Her lip shook, because it wasn’t that simple. “You force them to breed on Level 9.”
He didn’t deny it. “Yes. A diverse gene pool and population growth are necessary to keep everyone on the ship alive. Not only for this generation, but for our children’s generation. And so on. The amount of work it takes to keep the machinery operating, to provide food, to protect the borders cannot be managed by a few. If we don’t leave the children a legacy that’s safe and ordered, they will scatter, and the work done here will have been for nothing. If we don’t give them enough diversity in potential mates, it won’t take many generations before the population will become inbred. Not everything can be about you, or about me, or about the women who I have sacrificed for the greater good, or even about the men enslaved by a herd mentality system they cannot break free of.”
“You’re an evil man.” Yet saying so tore her apart. It dragged her shoulders down, stole her gaze from his. It left her sitting up in bed with her knees under her chin as she stared at a boring bit of cruise ship art on the far wall.
Dragging red curls behind her shoulders, he spoke gently. “Make me a better one.”
God, his moves on the game board were expert, Eugenia afraid he might actually win. “I can’t.”
“Then take me the way I am.” Fingertips tripping down her naked spine, he added, “Enjoy a life with me where you will be better kept than any woman living in these times. I will give you children. Many, I hope, because I love kids as much as you do. I always have. Of course, there will be arguments, disagreements, and disappointment before the inevitable acceptance of your new life.”
“No.”
His slow stroke reversed, until his fingers might delve into her hair. Until he might pull her back down into his arms by her roots and make her look him dead in the eye. “Hear me when I say this. I do love you. So much so that your fear is justified. But it is also misplaced. You lack facts and always assume the worst.”
Tucked in his embrace, she arched a brow. “Can you blame me?”
“No.” The captain’s mask slipped, Eugenia viewing a man in torment. “But you can’t imagine how much I wish you’d have come to me willingly.”
She couldn’t bear to hold his gaze when he tricked her into seeing him and not the captain. It produced the worst kind of ache behind her ribs. “You could have asked me—”
“Don’t be coy, Eugenia.” A man could not have looked more lovesick. “I’ve asked. I’ve even begged.”
Why was this killing her? “You said it yourself. Everyone has to pay.”
The verbal gauntlet was lifted, the captain brushing her lips with his fingertips. “And I’ll gladly pay. I’ll take liberties, because I can. I will force you to stay safe on this ship, Eugenia.” Firm, softness turning to iron. Even the quality of his voice became sinister. “I’m not asking anymore. From this point forward, I take.”
And he drove home his point with a fiery kiss.
One that hurt when her torn lip was mashed against her teeth. A searing kiss that set her body aching when his arms squeezed too hard.
And he knew it hurt her.
The captain’s statement was loud and clear; he would hurt her if he had to.
He was the glass in her food she was expected to eat with gratitude. An internal injury that would grow more painful as time passed until the pain in her guts inevitably killed her.
Pulling away, he left her lying on his rumple
d sheets, Eugenia a pile of bruising and aches. He pulled away and went to fetch her aspirin and a glass of water to wash the pills down.
Helped her sit up. Apologized when she touched her stinging lip.
When the glass was drained, she set it on the bedside table. Such a normal thing to do in the most abnormal of situations. “Do you ever miss the howl of wild dogs?”
“No.” He produced a wide-tooth comb and began working the snarls at the ends of her hair.
Testing the swelling around her eye with careful fingers, she let him groom her. “The cracking sound the wind made when it rushed through dead tree branches—I miss that too.”
The comb’s teeth catching on a snarl, he sighed. “There is nothing but death out there, Eugenia.”
That could not be true, not on an intellectual level. Somehow, he had created life here. Someone else out there must have done the same. “Where do you get the meat to feed three-hundred-plus people? The vegetables? Farmland? Pastures? Steak doesn’t magically show up on a boat in the middle of a lake that stinks in the summer and is cold as fuck in the winter.”
The relief in his smile, it made the skin crinkle beside his eyes. “Nets for fish upstream. We rotate crops; men work the fields where we cleared forest to till. The good cuts of meat are only served to the men who earn passage to Level 15. Offal for the women who work there.”
“Because it’s more nutrient dense…” Which explained the mush and the metallic flavor.
“Children and mothers are given a balanced diet. Families are supplied with the best meat and harvest. Not every year is this bountiful. Wild dogs get at our chickens. Levees break or irrigation fails.”
“You have communities off ship?” He’d have to. Otherwise, all their supplies would come from City, and the slave ship wouldn’t be a secret anymore.
Nodding, he explained, “The men leave on rotation. No women. It’s not safe. Believe me when I tell you that. Men in mass, when they find a lady outside the rules and structure… it can get ugly. The woman seldom survives it. And then we have to put down the men involved. There has to be tickets to urge them toward a prize more fun than a few nights raping a stranger to death.”
