Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 17

"I guess ye have me pegged there," Captain Vex shrugged. "Nice that ye had people to remind ye to pull your head out of your arse."

"Yes it is," Will smiled. "And now it's your turn."

Belita shook her head in sad defiance. "The difference is I dinnae seek this out. Being attacked by monsters wasn't a decision. It just happened."

"Then why do you feel guilty about it?" Will asked.

Belita didn't say anything for a while. Then she let out a mirthless laugh. "Alright, good point. I dinnae think it's something ye can just talk me out of it though. The feeling might not have merit, but I'm still feeling it. I lost a dozen of my crew. I'm the captain. I can't help but feel like it's my fault. If I'd done things differently maybe this wouldn't have happened."

"Sometimes, you don't make any mistakes at all, but still lose," Will said.

"That's just a nicer way of saying that doing your best isn't good enough," Belita shook her head.

"Sometimes it isn't. That's life," Will shrugged.

"That never happens in the stories." Belita looked bitter, like she'd been betrayed.

"Maybe you can be the first" Will said, giving her a squeeze.

"The legendary sea captain who faced sea monsters and lost, but survived and had to live with the failure," Belita said bitterly. "Great story."

"The legendary sea captain who took risks no one else would, survived monsters no known ship had ever survived before, and got back up to keep going after she'd fallen," Will corrected her gently.

She looked up at him with a sad smile on her face. "I wish I actually was the version of me'self that you see. She sounds impressive."

"You're already impressive," Will shrugged.

"Yesterday I'd have agreed with ye," Belita grumbled. "Today, it dinnae feel that way."

"Personally, I'm more impressed today. We all played our parts, but you're the captain. You held the crew together perfectly, and we survived. We had some casualties, but most of us are fine," Will said firmly. "Tell me, before today, did you think Grindylow were real?"

She shrugged. "I dinnae know. I think there's a root of truth in most stories, but a fair amount of lies too. Sailors like tae exaggerate."

"I rather obsessively collect sea stories, and I wasn't sure. There's a reason why most folks don't think they're real, for the same reasons you said. Every account is an unsubstantiated legend, mostly told by drunk sailors. Every washed up corpse displayed in freak shows and medical academies has been suspected of being fake. They all look different. Only one or two that i've heard of looked like the ones we ran into. There's stories of ships outrunning them, but I've never heard of any ship actually fighting them and escaping. The Kestrel isn't a warship. She doesn't have armaments. Most of her crew doesn't carry real weapons. There was no way you could have known this was coming, or prepared for it, and we survived. As far as legendary stories go, that's one for the books."

"Aye, I suppose that's true. Still feels like bein' a fraud. A good captain wouldn't have gotten caught up like that. The Kestrel should have been able tae outrun that broken ship, but I let her get all bogged down and hobbled by all those smallboats and janky rigging," Belita shook her head. She was having a lot of trouble forgiving herself.

"The other night, Doctor Kalfou said that we are what we pretend to be," Will said. "I think she's right. That's all we will ever be remembered for. History doesn't care what's in our heads. It only cares what we say, and what we do."

"I think that would be more reassuring if I didn't have tae bury a lot of people in the morning," Belita frowned. She let go of Will and turned away. "I think I need some time tae me'self."

"Take it." Will nodded "I'm not going to let you out of my sight though. I was serious about that."

"That innae exactly what 'time tae me'self' means," Belita said with a disapproving look over her shoulder.

"It's what you're going to get," Will shrugged.

"Ye are goddamn infuriating." Belita sounded more tired than upset, but also a bit amused.

"So I've been told," Will smiled.

"Might have tae hang ye," she said, not able to hold back a small smile.

"I wouldn't recommend it. Then you'd be out a navigator," Will shrugged. "Also, Jack would want to shoot you, and you would want to shoot back, and then Quinn would get involved. Bella would probably curse your ship. It would be a whole mess."

"Mutineers, the lot of ye." Belita shook her head, bemused, stuck between depression and relief.

"I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just telling you what I won't do," Will said. "A good navigator knows to look out for their captain, even when she's refusing to look out for herself."

Belita let out a long, exasperated sigh. "Ye're sounding like Danica."

"You're sounding like me," Will smirked.

"Fuck. Well now I know I'm being an idiot," Belita couldn't help but laugh. She had to admit to herself that she was feeling a little better. Maybe he had a point.

"I thought that might snap you out of it," Will smirked.

"Ye talk too damn much," Belita said with a smile and shake of her blond head. She stepped towards him again and snaked her arms about his neck, bringing her lips to his. "Thank ye."

"You just needed a heading," Will shrugged, speaking between gentle, reassuring kisses.

Belita's eyes glinted in the early light, and the smile on her lips was playful and challenging. "I could still use a 'heading,'" she teased.

"You have a very one track mind," Will laughed.

"Danger gets me going, an' being sad don't make it go away. Ye managed tae take the edge off the sad, so now ye gotta deal with the rest," Belita said matter-of-factly.

"I've clearly made a huge mistake," Will teased.

"Are ye gonna fuck me, or are ye just gonna stand there and watch while I take care of things me'self?" The amusement in Belita's eyes betrayed the venom in her words.

"Well there's an idea," Will grinned.

"Fine," Belita said dismissively. She turned on her heel, walked a few paces away away to a tree that was growing out of the ground at an angle, and leaned back against it. She slowly and deliberately finished unbuttoning her shirt, locked eyes with Will and pulled her shirt open, to expose her full, tanned breasts. The golden rings in her nipples glinted in the early morning sun. Then she undid her belt and untied the laces of her breeches, loosening them without breaking eye contact with Will. Her expression was all challenge as she slid her hand into the front of her pants.

Will leaned against a tree and watched as Belita's hand began to move. She started with slow circles, her hips rocking a bit. She bit her lower lip as her fingers dipped and rubbed through her wetness. It didn't take long for the warmth to build, and that familiar tension to follow. Her breathing became deeper. She cupped one of her breasts with her other hand and gently tugged at her ring, sending little shocks of pleasure down her spine.

Will's pants started feeling tighter as his erection swelled. Belita was gorgeous. The sun through the trees sent stripes of light and shadow across her body. Her blue eyes glinted with wildness and unspoken offering. Her hand went deeper into her pants and her hips rolled forward more. Will couldn't see where her fingers were, but he had a good guess.

She let out a groan of relief as she penetrated herself. She let her fingers toy with her opening for a bit, then dragged her wetness up through her sensitive lips, clicking them along her rings before she resumed circling her clit. She could feel the heat and tension inside her building up, that strange mix of need and satisfaction swirling together, giving her exactly what she wanted, but also making her feel like she wanted more and it was just out of reach.

For Belita, sex was an internal chase where she was the predator, and the prey, and that feeling of symbiotic conflict was never more apparent than when she was pleasuring herself. It wasn't something she did often. She took a fair amount of pride in the fact that she didn't have to. Finding a willing partner was easy. The problem for her came from finding real satisfaction. She could count on one hand the number of partners who had really made her feel like her itch had been thoroughly scratched. The relief she sought was always temporary at best.

Part of the problem was the lack of challenge. She never liked when things were too easy. To her, everything worth having was worth some struggle to get. Until now, Will had been firmly in the same category as the partners she found in taverns and brothels. Fun, good for a bit of release, but not worth dwelling on much beyond that. She was careful to keep her private life and her professional life separate, at least in her head. She'd had flings with crew before but it was important to maintain boundaries, especially when you had to keep working with someone in the morning.

Leaning back against her bent tree, on the edge of orgasm, trying to push herself over the edge while Will watched with that insufferably smug look on his face, it dawned on her that something felt different. The fatigue, and the rawness she'd been feeling had torn down the walls she usually kept on their emotions. The thrill she always got from a near-death experience had her blood up and still pounding in her ears. Then there was the way he'd cared enough to defy her. There was no way for him to have known that he'd triggered the thing in her head that happened when she found a challenge. Now, there he was, watching her, feeding the thrill she got from performance. It was exactly the right combination to give root to a whole new set of emotions inside her.

"Oh, fuck me," she breathed, feeling the full weight of both meanings of the phrase. Her orgasm washed over her right as the realization of what she was feeling struck. Her whole body tensed and her breath felt like it was being held hostage by her pleasure. Her mind was a chaotic jumble, trying to reject and rejoice in what she was feeling. She shook with the effort of her peaking tension, then finally relaxed into wave after wave of warm, shuddering relief.

When she opened her eyes, Will was right in front of her. She took a breath of surprise, but before she could say anything his lips met hers. She moaned into him, and new waves of anxiety twinned with passion welled within her. His hand traced around her neck and cupped the back of her head, tilting her head up. She stared at him wide eyed, completely paralyzed in her head while the aftershocks of her orgasm vibrated through her body. He kissed her again and she clung to him. He stepped closer, nudging her knees wider. She leaned back against the tree and wrapped her legs around his thighs, pulling him in. Their pelvises bumped together. She could feel his hardness grinding into her and all her conflicting emotions were swept away by a tide of throbbing want.

Her hands were frantic, pulling at his belt and laces. His hands found her breasts, lifting and squeezing. Their lips rarely parted. As soon as she had his pants open her hand dove down inside them and gripped the length of his hard cock. She felt him smile against her lips as something inside her clenched with need. She shoved him back a step and turned around, leaning down against her tree and pulling her pants down below her ass.

He stepped back in without missing a beat, his rough hands gripping her hips. She felt his erection come down onto her butt, reaching nearly to the small of her back. Then he dragged it backwards, down between the cheeks of her ass until it slipped between her thighs and scraped along her wet lips. She clenched her thighs together involuntarily, then stepped a bit wider, feeling her breeches dig into the sides of her thighs.

He reached between her legs and lifted his erection so it pressed against her, rubbing it back and forth, nudging the rings that pierced her outer labia and spreading her wetness along his length. She planted her hands against the tree, arched her back as much as she could, and straightened her arms, stretching like a cat and pushing back against him.

"Say it gain," he whispered roughly into her ear.

Confusion filtered through the lust. She looked over her shoulder. "Say what?"

"Tell me what you want," he smiled.

Defiance and challenge welled up inside her as she realized he was toying with her, but before she could spit venom at him, other words tore from her lips.

"Fuck me!" she snarled.

The thick head of his cock pressed into her wetness and forced wide her clenching channel. She cried out in animalistic bliss as every inch of him filled her. The orgasm that hit her waught her completely off guard. She was still reveling in the sensation of finally being filled. She squeezed with everything she had as his cock sank to full depth within her, and her clenching suddenly became a burst of pleasure. She felt like she'd been popped like a very happy soap bubble.

She found herself smiling, and silently laughing as Will pulled on her hips and began to stroke back and forth inside her. It was the laughter of life affirmation, of the sheer joy of having lived, the opposite of survivor's guilt. She pushed against the tree, driving herself back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. Their coupling was fast and hard, filling the trees with the sound of flesh slapping against flesh. She reached back towards him, wanting more contact, more connection, fumbling at his hip. He slipped his fingers into hers. She held on tight and put the back of her hand against the small of her back, giving him a point of leverage to pull against.

The strength of his thrusts increased again, and she felt like every hammering ripple was driving vicious pleasure through her whole body. Every slap of their hips rocked her, bouncing her breasts and her butt, forcing the breath from her lungs, making it harder and harder to think. All she could do was hold on and ride the waves of pleasure that had taken over her body.

This was what she needed. What she'd been craving. The purge of concious thought that came from a right and powerful fuck.

Will was used to the Captain being a passionate lover, but he'd never seen her like this. They were bordering on violence, and she seemed like she was still wanting more. Small hissing moans were escaping her lips. Her eyes were clenched shut and she was pulling on his hand and pushing back against him as hard as she could. There was something primal happening, and Will was awed by it. His breathing was getting heavier. Keeping up with the Captain's pace was tiring him quickly, and how hard she was squeezing his injured hand wasn't easy to ignore. He wasn't about to stop though. He hadn't fucked like this in years, not since the last time he and Jack...

The ruins. The chamber of trials. This was how Jack had made love to him right before they completed the last test and she abandoned him. He'd thought of it often. It had been incredible. The passion and wild joy had been impossible to forget, even with everything that happened afterward. For years he thought she'd been somehow trying to preemptively apologize for what she knew she was about to do, but as he drove himself into Belita's willing body it occurred to him that Jack might have been thinking something very different than he'd assumed.

Unexpectedly, he found himself smiling.

He reached out with his other hand and hooked her arm, pulling it off the tree and back to him, holding her back arched as he used her arms to pull her back onto his rampant cock as hard as he could. She threw her head back and cried out in pleasure and surprise. He drove into her relentlessly, feeling that familiar tightening in his balls as she cascaded through another orgasm. With one final pounding thrust, he erupted into her shuddering depths with a strained roar.

They held there like statues, faint wisps of steam rising off their joined bodies. Belita was still arched like a figurehead, her eyes and mouth wide open, trembling with the strain of holding in the waves of bliss still washing through her. Will held her tight and felt the warmth and softening begin. Finally he took a breath. "Holy... fuck..."

Belita chuckled. "Aye. Sure felt holy tae me."

Will gently pulled himself free of her and tucked his softening manhood back into his pants. She made a disappointing sound and then pulled her own breaches up over her rounded ass. She straightened up, rolling her hips and bending forward to stretch the muscles that had been straining in the position she'd been holding. Then she stood up straight again. "I really needed that." She slipped her arms around his neck and gave him a kiss of thanks.

"So what now?" Will asked when their lips parted.

"Sleep," she said, relieved. "Tomorrow is going tae be another long day."