Breaking Waves

He turned and turned and turned, the smoke and the heat staining the bare flesh ruby gold and glistening. Lina watched as he lost himself in the work, the silent will focused on a simple motion. Calm, an eternal shore for the seas of the world to crash against and never erode, stalwart, everlasting, rooted and still. The world stood quiet in his presence, conceding that it was too chaotic for his existence and politely excused itself to attend to other matters. That stillness entered her own body as night slowly fell and the sky came alive with twinkling stars up above. Even the wind slowly died down and left a thin blanket of residual heat to rise from the earth.

The pig was done by the time the stars came out. They ate with their hands, slowly pulling pieces of meat from the bone. Soft and tender, almost melting within their hands. Salty and sweet and juicy and smoky. They ate in silence. It was fine for Lina. They were eating. It was not time for talking and since they were out in the wilderness, they needed to be alert for something that wanted to steal their food, or more importantly, their rum. It was surprising almost, their shared hunger. Between the two of them, they ate the whole thing. More flesh tearing and ripping and rending and it was nice, that shared filling of need. Lina was proud that Gregor ate her bounty and Gregor was grateful for the meal. It was nice, simple even. The sensations of the palette eased the presence next to him and he could just focus on eating. It was fine. This was the way things were supposed to be. There should be more people around to take the attention away from him. But that was fine. It was all fine.

Lina stood after they discarded the scraps, the bones, the bits of flesh and tissue that refused to sate them. They had enough under the darkening sky, and it was time to watch the fire slowly die down and then it was time to sleep. But they could drink the rum as they watched the fire and that was Lina's favorite part. That slow burn down her throat to cut away the heaviness of the meat and fat and the creeping warmth that flowed up from her core. She would like to get drunk now, under the stars, belly sluggish with boar meat and drift away into sleep. Then she caught Gregor's grand ritual of rising from the earth and realized there were other things she wanted to do.

Momentum and power and flow in such a simple action, like a rockslide condensed to not even a second. His core tensed and she could almost feel the shockwave of the action that took him higher than her peak.

"Rum?" she asked hopefully as they trundled through the brush back towards camp.

Gregor just grunted and nodded in the dimming light, the moon and stars taking his entire face into the abyss of shadow. It was fun to watch the light dance with his movements, shadows mingling with his runs, almost as if something were moving beneath the skin. She wanted to touch him, to feel the soft down of his body, the unyielding give of flesh and muscle, to trace the divots and valleys and roads across his frame. But she also wanted to get drunk and that seemed to be more readily available than a game of poke and prod and fondle. Gregor was the one to break the seal on the barrel of rum and the spiced aroma hit him full in the face. Taswell's stash then, something strong and hard and made to give people regrets the next morning. But it would undo the knot in his core and that was more than welcome.

It burned as they both drank and it cleared the mind of the inhibitions, of the illusion of control, of what should and shot not be. There was just heat, from the fire, from their full stomachs, from the baked earth returning heaven's gift. Heat and mindless bliss as lights danced in the sky. Consciousness faded in and out, only the sharp crackle of firewood intermittently bringing them back.

During a bout of awareness, Lina came to know two things. The rum was gone. That was terrible. And there was a hand on her bicep, slowly massaging the muscle. That was nice. She looked down to see it was Gregor's hand, rough calloused skin pale as moonlight, finding the scars and tracing their paths, up and down, up, and down, gently, silently gliding over her dark skin.

She looked at him and finally caught a glimpse of blue eyes and suddenly, she was hungry again. But Gregor took the eyes away from her and even took the hand caressing her arm. That was terrible too. What started as a great day had taken a horrible turn where everything pleasant and good was taken from her. Lina did not like it when things were taken from her. She shot out her own hand, gripping Gregor's wrist and pulling it back to where it could touch her.

He resisted and it became apparent that Lina would have to work for this. That was fine. Her drunk mind had focused on the lack of touch and now she would crack open the world and let it bleed out so long as Gregor kept touching her and pawing her and lighting her skin on fire with his digits. And he still resisted, pulling away to retreat to somewhere dark and still and silent and Lina wanted to go there with him.

"Stop," Gregor whispered, and Lina did not let go.

"Why?" she said.

"Because I don't want to."

"But you did it."

"It wasn't right."

"I'm fine with it."

Gregor tried once again to pull away from Lina's grasp, hauling both of them to their feet. She gazes up at him, defiance and rage burning in her eyes as his started to waver and break.

"I want it," he said.

"So do I," said Lina.

"But I don't know how."

"I don't either."

In surge of strength, Lina dropped, pulling Gregor into the dirt by the fireside. The cooling embers baked her skin, heat lapping at her flesh. She rolled on top of him and he still protested, trying to fight his way out, muscles shifting on muscle to find some configuration that would at least get him some space to still the shakes in his hand and calm the rolling boil of knots and kinks in his stomach.

"We'll figure it out," said Lina.

She pressed her lips into his and tasted him. He tasted of cold things, snow and ice and pine needles scattered across frozen earth. She tasted of smoldering ashes and flamed licked meat and the knot in Gregor's stomach unwound and let everything in his core out.

He wanted Lina and he would be damned if anything stopped him from taking her. Lina grinned and her eyes blazed. She got what she wanted, and it was pressing into her stomach right now.

And it kept going and going and going, reaching past her navel and settling on her abs. Hot, it was hot, and something was dripping on her belly and filled the air with heat and musk and virility and she wanted more. Lina gazed down and found herself staring at a pillar of iron flesh, impossibly thick and red with rage, poking up above the clearly too weak waistline of Gregor's poor trousers.

"Horse," she said and licked her lips. It twitched and the owner shifted. Gregor pushed himself into her lips again, greedily fumbling through her sensations as he pinned her, and she let him pin her. Really, it would be trivial to actually free herself, and the time for that might come later, but now she was content to kiss and lick and suck at his lips as he growled and groaned with his imminent needs. Her breath ran hot, steam and fog from her core boiling through her body and riling up. Gregor grunted and fumbled at his clothes, the belt catching and ripping through the leg and he did not care. Lina took his lapse in concentration and bowled him over, straddling him, and taking the liberty to undress herself as well, her breasts sitting heavy on her chest and taking his attention away from his own body.

Flesh ripped through fabric and found each other with gentle caresses at first, slowly getting rougher and harder with each moment. Strength and power between them finding new ways to knead and prod and move the lines in the skin, connecting them both, brief separations to add just enough chill from the night air to keep everything alight. Lina shimmied down Gregor, tracing her path in the soft down of his body, savoring the slight trembles and quakes underneath her touch. She could do it to him, too, light the body on fire, strike pure lighting deep into his spine with just a hand, a cheek, stomach to stomach, finding where each of their lines, pale and dark, met and separated and joined.

They were both fully naked under the night sky, their fumbling and wrestling serving the purpose well enough that a few more swipes and paws got away the rest of it and left them both for the other to take in. Lina focused on her own prize, hard and dripping with anticipation. The rest of Gregor could wait its turn. She had a beast in front of her. And she was still hungry. His palms found the back of her head and pushed her down, rubbing her cheek against the searing hot flesh. It was bigger than her head, easily, covering at least half of her face. She felt something hot drip from the mouth and settle into her scalp.

She licked it, the trembles and quakes entering her tongue and answered with a shiver deep in her core. Hot breath out, she liked this thing. She liked it a lot, eyes widened joy and ecstasy, the beast spoke of pleasure and euphoria ripping through her as it tore her inside out and shattered the world and still Lina thought that it would not be enough. This was a fun hunger to have, as it shouted that it would never be satiated. Hot salt on skin, past her lips, filling her head with heavy fog of need. Lips to burning skin, again and again, and more of its discharged rained down. Still Gregor's hands kept her in place, licking and kissing and sucking at whatever she could find.

Gregor's mind was white, blank, and void. Nothing mattered, but the next second of pleasure, brought forth from Lina and given to him eagerly. A debt that would be repaid in time, but not now. He needed this, needed more of this on his flesh, more to combat the new coils in his stomach that wormed their way to his limbs, flexing his thighs and his calves and his biceps and forearms in spasming glory. His heart beat out of his chest, trying to shatter his ribs, just as his lungs tried to run his throat ragged with rapid breath. More, he needed more and more, and Lina would give him more, if she just stayed down there and licked and sucked and fondled and kissed. She fought him and he let have a little give. Just enough to get her to the tip.

It spat at her, the beast of red-hot iron flesh. Indignant and spoiled, or just caged for much too long. All the same, the naughty thing needed to be punished and its master had given Lina permission to deal with it as she pleased. One final lick of the head, the preseed coating her tongue and rolling down her throat, an open mouth and a deep breath and she dived. Hot and salt and flesh and heavy scents of a mate strong and capable and brutal. Collected essence of male hammering into her head. Lina's hands found his thighs, flexing beneath her fingers and she pulled herself down, down the endless length of delicious meat. Gregor had done her wrong, trespassed against her and her will. He had kept this from her. She didn't know quite what he had, but he knew, he knew that she wanted it and he had stayed still. Damn the pretense of civility aboard the ship. Every moment should together should have been spent with him inside her, and nothing else. If the others didn't like that, they would be deluding themselves and refusing to stand in awe of the spectacle. Their loss.

Her nose touched his pelvis and the hands let go and let her work. They couldn't stop her anyway. Back and forth, up, and down, humming and sucking and taking in Gregor's taste as more salt heat poured down her through to glut her stomach. It settled within the burning rum, dulling the edges, and twinging her core in rhythmic spasms. Good, he tasted good and the flexing thighs quaked with her own twitches. His stomach was twitching too, trying to control the spasms of the flesh in her mouth. Gregor's legs gave out as Lina ran her lips to the tip and slammed them back into the hilt. The fall pulled Lina's prize from her mouth and a surge of anger ran down her spine. That was hers and hers alone and it should all be here in her, never leaving, always there. The world was wrong. Gregor was now hers and that would never change. She crawled over to lay on him as he sat dazed from the sensation. More clear, viscous preseed poured from his tip and it would not stop. It smelled like Gregor and Lina liked how Gregor smelled.

---

Gregor worked hard to catch his breath. Too much, too fast and it needed to stop so he could gather his bearings and actually try to make sense of this situation. That wasn't supposed to go in mouths. He knew where it was supposed to go, but that didn't matter to Lina. She wanted to taste, so she tasted, and, in his daze, he felt her weight crawl up his chest, the soft cushion of her breasts lifting and dragging across his skin. Soft and big and comforting, giving her heartbeat to him in time with his own.

Her lips found his and he gazed into her blazing eyes as he tasted himself and her melting together in heat and sweat and skin and flesh and he pushed upward into her. Good and right and just and he let go and there was nothing else but flesh on flesh and tongue on tongue, lip on lip, sensation and pleasure and nothing else but more to touch and feel and taste and breathe. Lina was hot, hands roaming and pushing into her as she pushed into him.

And then Lina pulled away and he was left wanting as she smiled down on him with savage lust. Crawling and writhing, taking herself up and away from his mouth, only to sit back down and give him more flesh to kiss and lick. Her shoulders and the ridge of bone, her chest, soft and supple and giving and taking, her stomach with hard lines and strong control, to her groin, dripping and sweet and intoxicating.

"Your turn," she purred into the night air. He obeyed and nodded as Lina finally settled to kiss him with her lips once again.

He was terrible, lavishing his tongue on all the wrong places and he knew it. But he was eager, willing, wanting to devour her just as she had done to him. His hands roamed her body, finding soft things and hard things, loving the change and lines, the subtle metamorphosis to scar tissue to unmarred skin. Salt and heat and sweat and sweet, writhing muscles and wet flesh against his mouth, squirming on top of him, trying to find some alignment that worked. He found a good spot with his tongue and lips and Lina squeezed her thighs, enveloping his skull with dark skin of moonless nights. Only her heartbeat and the shift of muscle and bone, thicker than his arms, crushing him and choking as he lavished and licked and bit and sucked. Lina gasped above him and kept grinding, smothering, covering, and filling his darkening vision with scent and taste of mating and fertility and strength of smoke and flame. She tasted of warm things, smoked logs with slumbering embers, cinnamon and cloves floating in spiced cider, the heat of another curled against a blizzard. He couldn't breathe. There was only Lina with her scent and taste and flesh, filling his mind with her and only her. His vision was going dark.

Gregor had to push her off. He didn't want to, but he had to. He needed to be alive and breathing for the night to continue and that meant he had to stop now. His hands found her stomach and he shoved, sending Lina tumbling back and fresh air filled his lungs, sweet and clean and still heavy with Lina and only Lina. She grunted as she fell onto him and she growled. Gregor knew he made another mistake, but he had to.

"Why'd you stop," hissed Lina.

"Couldn't breathe," he gasped into the air.

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

He still tasted her, on his lips, on his tongue, down his throat. She was still on him, weighing him down into earth. Wet, he was wet, and he felt more of his essence spit out and drip down her back. Lina did not mind. She had stained him as well. Gregor heaved and found his way on top again, kissing and licking again, imparting her taste unto Lina, just as she had done to him. Eager and hungry and lapping at him. They broke and gazed into one another and found gluttony and lust and sin in each flash of dark light from their pupils. Monsters and demons and beasts lost to anything other satiating and filling and being filled until the world died. Lina licked her lips as Gregor's breath singed her throat. Gregor's hands moved to squeeze and compress, letting her skin show his mark, just as Lina's thighs had done to his head.

"Now," purred Lina in Gregor's ear.

"I'll break you," whispered Gregor.

"You'll try."

---

Lina lied on her back, spread and open and glistening in the dying embers and twinkling moonlight. Gregor drank from the stream, the cool water bringing a moment of clarity. He was really doing this, finally, and it felt right. He was still erect, and it would not go down, even now. It hurt, every pulse sending a small shock through his core and it would not stop. It kept spitting, red and angry and veins throbbing in primal rage. The coils in his gut had shifted into something darker. The urge to move, to flex his hands and crack the bones and do something, anything, that was still there, but it had to be against Lina now. No one else, just her breaking in front of him as she broke him, building each other up again, just to destroy. That's all they were, force and will combined into destruction. That's all he would ever be. No gifts of jewels and fabrics and expensive, shiny things to entice and ensnare, for Lina. Just meat and blood and flesh, given and taken in combat and struggle. Just as he was. Fool, he was a fool for trying to think anything different. They were just beasts, crammed together.

Lina growled again and he realized that even now, he was trying to be something he was not. A momentary respite before another round. He threw his head back and sighed. Now, he needed this now and Lina needed this an hour ago. It wasn't time to ruminate and think and rationalize. He should just throw himself into strength until he was exhausted.

Lina squirmed in warm earth on top of the rough canvas. Gregor was taking too long, much too long. He needed to be over here and in her now. The break for water was a begrudging allowance, but she did almost suffocate him, so she let it happen. But her Gregor was denying her with every second. He stood up straight and rolled his shoulders and she saw the earth move under his power, on his back. Shoulders broad enough to carry the world and the muscles to do it one handed. That would be in her, the muscles ripping into her and tearing her in half. She growled deep in her throat and her prized finally turned to face her and she found exhilarating dark hunger in his eyes.

"Beautiful," he rumbled.

"Now," she growled.

He tackled her into the dirt, knocking the wind from her with his bulk. She felt him press into her, a prelude to the main event. That would be allowed. She wanted to know what would happen to her. It trailed a wake up her stomach, following the valley or rock muscle, past her navel and settling just above it. That was good, very good. She was hungry and that might be enough to sate her. It would be an experiment, but at least when it started, she could feel it. Her stomach tensed and she willed it to open for him. This was hers and she would not be denied, not even by some foolish notion of survival.

They met and he forced her open. Lina gasped and hissed and growled as Gregor ground himself deeper and deeper into her. Wide and thick and hot and pulsing, she could feel her mate's heartbeat from inside her stomach. Gritting her teeth, deep breaths in and out and she was shaking. She didn't want to shake. She wanted to press him deeper into her until it was all in her. It was all hers, all of it and her own body told her that was a bad idea. She did not care. All of that was going inside of her, even if it had to split and rip and tear and break her open. She would not break before she claimed him and broke him too.