Over the next few days the Occidental Orchid was becalmed in the Bay of Biscay, the weather being too placid for much progress. Aside from a notable morning's robbing of a passing Portuguese brigantine, these were languid days that stretched out for sultry hours, and the Captain had much time to devote to his captive lady.
As she sat, customarily naked, before his dressing mirror one day, brushing out her lengthening chestnut locks, he approached her from behind and placed a splendid necklace of diamonds and sapphires around her porcelain-fair throat. The Captain smirked at the dreamy sparkle overlaying Kitty's eyes, rivalling that of the gemstones themselves.
"You have an eye for a well-cut stone, my lady," he noted. "What would you sell to get your hands on a piece like this? Your mother? Your virtue? Your country?"
"Indeed, Sir, you misread me," complained Kitty. "You vastly overestimate my cupidity."
"I wonder," teased the Captain. "Your sullen little face lit up at the sight of these jewels. Would that I had the same effect."
"Perhaps if I were with you from choice rather than necessity," said Kitty, her mouth set in a prim line.
The Captain leaned down over her, his face resting on her shoulder, regarding their images in the glass, his angular, beaky features beside her delicate ones.
"Could that ever be, Kitty?" he murmured, his voice caught in her neck. "Could you ever choose to be mine?"
Kitty felt a familiar ferment of desire and anger, pride and lust. His arrogance was simultaneously arousing and infuriating; his sure grasp of exactly how to bring her to heel maddened her and yet it was exciting. She had never felt an attraction of this magnitude before. All the well-born eligible young men she had met at Templecombe or the Bath Pump Rooms had seemed just a parade of indifferent marriageable flesh to her young eyes. But Captain Prince was a man. And what a man. He just happened to be a dastardly villain who was wanted in eight countries.
"Why would I choose to ally myself with a ruffian and a blackguard?" said Kitty, tossing her head tempestuously.
The Captain enclosed her with his arms, cupping a breast in each salt-roughened hand and tweaking her nipples in the way he knew sent a lightning rod of connection to her sex. Kitty shut her eyes, furious at her uncontrollable response to his manipulations.
"Because a ruffian and a blackguard is what you want, Kitty. You want a man who can tame you, and that man is me."
Lubricating dampness veiled Kitty's nether lips and upper thighs as the Captain began nipping and sucking on the tender flesh of her neck and shoulder. One hand continued its work at her nipples while the other drifted lower, seeking out the warm nubbin that was her destruction and her salvation when he made it the centre of her universe by dint of skilful touch. Kitty felt herself as a pliant clay which is moulded into shape, fashioned into a pulsing mass of needful sensation by the endless tormenting of his lips, teeth, tongue, fingers, across and around and within her body.
As if from a distance, she heard her voice, whimpering and pleading with him, until he pulled her upright only to deposit her on the bed on all fours, shivering, spread-legged and awaiting his pleasure. The first new sensation was of his fingers, once more parting and playing with her honeyed treasure trove, delving into each crevice with forensic thoroughness while her bottom wriggled temptingly in his face. He determined then and there that he would possess Kitty in every possible way that night, showing her how profoundly she belonged to him and how serious he was in his intention that she should submit to him completely.
He took one finger, coated with her juices, and rubbed it firmly around the tiny dusky pucker that sat between her bum cheeks, keeping his other hand occupied down below. A small squeak issued from Kitty's stunned lips and she tried to move her bottom away from the threatening attention he was giving but he held her in place with a warning pinch on her clit and continued his devilish work.
"Wh-what are you doing?" she asked, confused. "You can't touch me there!"