Gentle hands urged her back to the bed, to spread quivering thighs for an extremely personal view. “Let’s take a look, okay? Up with you, girl.”
Woman.
Though women probably didn’t freak out over spilled semen in such epic proportions.
“Let me guess.” Eugenia winced when ungloved fingers slipped inside her to poke around. “You’re a gynecologist.”
“Midwife.” Said with such pride. “There, I feel it… your cervix is soft. You’re fertile. Now you wait. Should it take, you and Brooke will deliver a couple months apart.”
Brooke? She’d been back a day and it was already confirmed she was pregnant? And of course the old hag was in on the whole fucked-up enslavement of her own sex!
“You’re so goddamn lucky you’ve gone through menopause.” Shoving Joan away, pulling bedding over her body because this could not stand, Eugenia went from desperate to furious. “Enough with the madame act. How do the other girls keep a baby out? There has to be some post-apocalyptic trick, right? Some chant? Poison tea?” Woman-to-woman, she called her out for Joan’s part in all the ugliness. “For the love of God, don’t let him do this to me! I will not go to Level 9.”
A watery drip of what had been left inside her leaked out. Anger morphing back to horror as she looked down as if she might see old semen run its course despite the blanket covering her nakedness. “It’s still coming out.”
Smelling like the enemy, having memorized exactly how he tasted, Eugenia shivered, clutching the bedding closer as if it might shield her. “How could I be so stupid? He planned all of it. John’s attendance at dinner the same night Brooke returned. Did they keep her roaming the woods until my cycle entered a fertility window? Did the men hide packs on corpses with food and water for Brooke? Leaving a trail to the pretty ship’s lights, struck up to welcome her home… so I might see and be manipulated into giving him exactly what he wanted?”
Hands before her, Joan shook her head. “You are an extremely intelligent young lady, which is why we both know what you’re saying is crazy.”
No, it wasn’t. The captain was that smart.
Confirmed when a roguish viper wearing nothing but a towel spoke from where he watched his script play out. “But accurate.” Glancing to the older woman, he said, “Joan, thank you for bringing her things. Please lock the door behind you.”
Which the woman did immediately, an ominous click following her exit.
There had to be a way to outthink this, some strategy on the chessboard before the timer clicked and Eugenia lost her chance to take the king. Yet… the feeling of betrayal?
Hurt.
She had trusted Aaron in a really fucked-up way.
“Good morning, Eugenia.” How normal a greeting. One he had offered her since their first meeting on the ship. Polite, with that cowboy swagger and smirk.
“This is…” Blinking like mad, calculations running wild in her overtaxed brain, looking anywhere but at him, she held up a hand. “I just need a moment to think.”
Yet he sauntered closer, the towel dangling dangerously from his hips. “You don’t have to love me back. But you do need to understand that I will never let you off this ship. I can’t. The world doesn’t deserve you.”
How funny, she could still laugh despite all of it. Though it came out choked in an embarrassingly high pitch. “And you do?”
Knee to the bed, he proceeded to edge all the nearer. “I gave you six months to come to terms with what we both know I wanted. Six months in which you maintained chastity until you told me, dead on, you were ready.”
Twisting the situation much? “That is not what I meant and you know it!”
“Yell at me, brandish those claws, but hear this. Before witnesses, you accepted me. Obeyed when ordered to go to my rooms, to wash up, to wait for me naked.”
What the fuck did any of that matter? She’d done it for the tickets. “And?”
“You went.” Spoken softly, simply, as if he was trying to lead her to some preconceived outcome. As if everyone else knew something she didn’t.
“Jesus, Aaron! Just stop! This is not a fucking game of chess.” One hand holding the sheet, the other tearing at her curls, she felt embarrassingly overwrought. “You screwed me for tickets! I let you do whatever you wanted, did whatever you asked. Tickets you now owe me. And I will get more—from every last piece of shit you have working on your boat until I have paid your imaginary debt. I will deepthroat like the fucking champion I am! And when I get off, unlike Brooke, I won’t ever come back.”
Drinking her in, the captain took a deep, rib-expanding breath. “We never negotiated a price; therefore… I owe you nothing. Also witnessed.” With a hard look, he added, “Don’t give me that wide-eyed fury. You’ve been here long enough to know how the game works.”
“You cheated! Which, in the effort of full disclosure, is gutting, Aaron. Well done.” But there wasn’t time to worry over that. Besides, what was one lost night? Virginity aside, she’d get over it, because there was a whole life that still needed to be lived. “You’re not the first opponent who couldn’t win fair and square, and now I’ll make it damn clear before any services are exchanged exactly how much I cost. Maybe I should thank you for telling me before another of them tried what you pulled. I don’t have the time to waste.”
Calm despite her temper, he shook his head. “Not one of them will touch you.”
She too could be cocky, flipping her sex-mussed curls over her shoulder. “Of course they will! I’m propositioned for sex more often than I’m offered a hello.”