The Captain of All Pleasures Read Free Page B

she screamed just once before she reached the steps. She knew no one was coming to her rescue. Tonight her survival was in her own hands.
    Fast as Nicole flew to the stairs, the big brute was faster, and she managed just three steps up the companionway before he leapt for her legs. Catching her ankles in a manacle-like grip, he snatched them back viciously. She felt weightless for a fraction of a second before she crashed against the stairs in a jarring bounce. Stunned, she scarcely registered the pain as the wood shoved into her stomach and chest, wrenching the air out of her lungs.
    Over her violent gasps, she dimly heard the scarred man yelling at them over the din of screaming animals. The pain ebbed and her sight blurred…until Clive hauled her back down, dragging her limp body toward him, one hand over the other snaking higher up her leg.
    Fight, damn it, fight! With a hidden reserve of strength, she kicked forcefully, her heel catching the man squarely in his foul, soft mouth.
    Blood spurt. He howled in pain, yet managed to keep one hand fisted around her leg. Another furious kick connected, loosening his hold, and she pulled at the stairs above with all the fading power left in her arms.
    She’d broken free. She’d—
    â€œI’ll shoot you if you try that again.” The words accompanied the rasp of a pistol hammer being cocked.
    She craned her head back over her shoulder. The scarred man had a gun trained on her. Shaking, she looked back down at Clive, who rose to his feet and staggered toward her, his bloody face split into a gruesome sneer.
    One glance into his pebbly eyes, seeing the frenzied rage directed at her, decided her fate in a flash.
    Ignoring the gun pointed at her back, she sprang to her feet and bolted up the stairs, pumping her arms for speed, knowing she was too weak…too slow.
    Halfway up, she felt rather than heard the click of the hammer. A shot roared through the shadowy hold.

Chapter 2
    D erek Sutherland was an angry man.
    Those who knew him well, and they were few, feared he wasn’t many years away from becoming a bitter man. The events of the last four years did seem to guarantee his descent in that direction.
    Late on this cold and bleak night, in addition to being angry, he was drunk. As was usual.
    In truth, only one thing was out of the ordinary. He’d begun sobering up, an inconvenience he hoped to remedy soon in a nearby tavern. Lengthening his strides, he weaved his way through the broken crowds that populated the docks. He made his way easily even with the influx of people the race had drawn, since most wisely gave him a wide berth when he came near.
    This wasn’t only because he was a large man, standing a head taller than most out here. Nor was it that his hard face evinced the anger he wrestled with more and more each day. It was because he’d become a man who had nothing to lose, making him the most dangerous kind. And it showed.
    He wasn’t unaware of his effect on those around him—for years it’d been this way. In fact, only a handful of people didn’t back down from him. One of whom was Amanda Sutherland, his mother—which was unfortunate, he thought, as he recalled this latest meaningless evening at the Sutherland London town house.
    He’d been about to leave for the night when she’d summoned him into her deliberately feminine sitting room. He didn’t have to guess what course the conversation would take and only wondered that it had taken her this long to approach him yet again.
    When he sauntered in, he’d forgone planting a kiss on her offered cheek, and ignored the brief flash of hurt in her eyes. He moved straight to the least-delicate chair facing her and settled uncomfortably in the small seat.
    Crossing his long legs at the ankles, Derek drawled, “I can’t imagine why you would want to see me, Mother.”
    She pursed her lips at that, but after painstakingly smoothing her crisp