Lost at Sea Bk. 02 Ch. 26

The jobs she'd taken after leaving Bastard's Bay had become increasingly dangerous. She knew exactly what it was like to not care if you live or die. That's what had driven her to accept a mission through the Drifts in the first place. It was likely to be suicidal, and at the time that seemed fine.

She just hadn't counted on Morant and Vex deciding that they needed Will Godsdamned Sterling to be their navigator. She'd tried to get them to change their minds, but the more she fought, the more they'd seemed convinced he was the right choice. In the end she'd been overruled, so she'd tried to resort to sabotage. She'd gone to Will's stupid lighthouse with Morant and Vex specifically because she knew it would make him angry. She'd even brought Quinn along just to twist the knife a bit more. She'd bet everything on Will hating her enough to say no to the whole endeavor so she could sail off and die, but he didn't. Now she knew that he'd agreed because of how dangerous it was, and because she was there. He even brought Bella.

Jack's entire house of cards had come falling down before they'd even left port. It was one thing to risk her own death, but she couldn't do that to them. She'd found herself unexpectedly having to make a plan to survive the suicidal mess she'd gotten all of them into. It was the first crack in the dam she'd put around her shame. In Barcola a full blown leak had sprung. Today the whole thing crashing down and unleashed the flood. Now she felt like she was drowning. Part of her wanted to just sink into it and disappear forever.

The morning had been so good. She'd actually let herself have hope. Only a few hours later for no good reason at all, she'd left him alone with a poisonous spider while the curse she'd given him started acting up.

Why had she let him stay? She didn't have to leave. She could go back right now and tell him she thought all this was a bad idea. What was stopping her? Was she that afraid of upsetting him? They'd had fights before, many times. Their relationship had always been volatile, but they hadn't had a real fight since boarding the Kestrel together. They'd both been walking on eggshells with each other. Even when they argued, it seemed like they were both more interested in de-escalation than anything else. There was a part of her that wanted him to get righteously angry with her. She knew she deserved it, but even at his most bitter he never let it turn into rage.

She wanted to go back to him, but Shea was dangerous. He seemed like he had a plan. Undermining that now might undo any progress she'd managed to make with him. Besides, even if Shae was dangerous, she could be very useful. There was no reason to deliberately provoke her. Poking a bear in its lair was stupid. Maybe she could try honey? She knew how to speak Shae's language. It wouldn't be hard to smooth things over. Making Shae happy might very well make Will happy.

She smiled to herself and started forming a plan of her own, but stopped herself as that creeping sense of doubt and wrongness came flooding back. Before she could think about it, a voice distracted her.

"Move yer arse."

Jack's attention jerked behind her just in time to see Candy come stomping up. Jack stood up quickly and stepped away as the stocky redhead crashed past her like a Malaharan Water Ox. She weaved and turned at the bottom of the first flight of steps with a lean that nearly overbalanced her, but she steadied herself on the wall of the switchback and kept half-stumbling down the long twisting path without another word to Jack. She tossed her bottle sidelong off the edge of the cliff and stumbled her way around another curve.

It felt like someone had dumped icy water down her soul. There she was lamenting the self-destructive tendencies she and Will shared, and here a woman she'd barely met showed her what a death wish truly looked like. The narrow, winding trail full of ancient steps, sloped ground, and stray rocks looked like it would be trachurus sober. Falling down drunk, it was a bet with the Harvester.

Jack quickly followed Candy, not really sure what to do, but compelled to help.

_____________________________________

Being touched was blissful. Also odd. Janie had always been so used to keeping people at a distance. Emotionally, socially, physically, it didn't matter. She rarely let people into her space. She'd finally let her guard down with Will, and then with Bella and Belita, and then they'd all had to run just as she was starting to be comfortable. It hurt. Without fully realizing it, she'd gone back to her old habits of keeping everyone at arm's length. Even her Evangelina disguise had been carefully crafted to entice, while keeping people away.

She had been getting closer with Tonya and Caine, but none of it had been comfortable. Neither of them were disarming the way Bella was, or enticing like Belita, and she didn't know them like she knew Will. To complicate matters, there was all the sex stuff mixed in. She kept finding herself in situations with them where she felt it was very important to maintain clear boundaries.

Earlier when she had been washing Tonya, she'd been the one doing the touching. It was one sided. There was enough of an element of control to it that she'd been able to ignore her nerves, but she'd tried hard to give herself some mental distance anyway.

So other than the occasional friendly hug with Tonya, she hadn't really been touched by anyone in weeks. Now, she had four hands on her naked body gently washing away all her troubles. At first she'd been twitchy, embarrassed, and constantly on guard, but all it had taken was Caine's firm voice telling her to close her eyes. When she couldn't see them it was easy to just give into the sensations, and she loved it.

Caine's hands were big and strong, and he had a gift for finding the spots where she was most tense and applying pressure in ways that made her relax and let go. Tonya's hands were small and soft and just a little bit tickly, and she had zero qualms about where they went. The short, paralyzing war Janie had with herself the first time Tonya's hands had smoothly washed across her breasts had shocked her so much that she didn't even realize that Tonya had already moved onto dragging soap across her other breast until it was done. The air was still warm, but Tonya had asked if she was cold because of how much she was trembling. She had goosebumps over every inch of her skin and her nipples were painfully hard.

But it wasn't because she was cold.

She was molton between her legs, and it was warming her entire body.

She ached. She wanted to be touched more. She wanted to put her hands on the wall and let them both do whatever they wanted to her, but she refused to move. She'd made a promise to Will. He'd probably encourage her to have fun. She knew he was. Bella and Belita were with him, and they seemed insatiable. Her promise hadn't really been for him though. She knew that now. It was for her. Giving herself away like that helped keep her safe.

It was a good idea too, because now she was discovering that she had a hard time resisting temptation on her own. She knew she'd be begging them to take her by now if it wouldn't betray her promise to Will. She could never do that. It was all such a confusing, delicious tangle. She was aroused but ashamed. She wanted to be taken but trusted them not to. She refused to give in, but wanted to. She felt strong for refusing, but weak for wanting. She loved their touch, but didn't want to see what they were doing to her.

Their hands roamed up and down her legs. Caine's stayed safely to the outside, but sensuously kneaded her calves and thighs through the wet soapy cloth. Tonya used her bare hands, pushing the suds over her bottom and between her thighs. Only once did the little witch's knuckles brush up against the light hair that covered her most delicate folds, but it was enough to make Janie want to scream.

It would all be so different if she could just talk to Will. She knew what he'd say. He'd embarrass her on purpose, but he'd do it in a way that let her know he was encouraging and accepting. She'd get flustered. He'd get that amused twinkle in his eye and make her tell him everything, no matter how embarrassing it was. All her magistrate training let her read him like a book. He tried to hide it, but she knew he enjoyed the control she'd given him. Once, that look had exasperated her to no end but now it was one of the things she missed most. In truth, she loved when he told her what to do.

And that was it. The missing piece of everything was Will's permission. She wanted him to encourage her. She wanted him to watch.

When did that happen? She had never thought of herself as someone who would let herself be controlled. She'd rebelled against her family and run away to the Magistrate, and then rebelled against the Magistrate and run away to Will. She lived life on her own terms and prided herself on her self control. Why did Will's blessing matter?

She found herself following the thread of emotions and motives in her head, but shied away with a physical jerk of her body when she realized where that path might lead. She did not want to think about it. Better to just enjoy the moment.

"You alright?" Tonya asked.

"Yes," Janie replied. "Something just... tickled a little."

"You have really nice skin," Tonya said absently, running her fingertips across Janie's lower back.

"Perhaps I used to," Janie said with a self effacing laugh. "Now, I expect I'll have quite a few scars."

"Let's see what we can do to keep them small," Caine said. "These bandages should be plenty soaked by now."

Janie took a deep breath to prepare herself. To the others it seemed like she was bracing for pain, but she was actually forcing herself to put a mental vice on the throbbing desire between her legs. She kept her eyes closed and nodded quickly.

"Watch how I do this," Caine said to Tonya. "We start at a top corner and work across slowly, rolling the bandages downward and taking care not to tear the scabs. If the bandages stick, we use water and go as slow as we need to."

The sensation was surprisingly painless as the clusters of bandages were peeled back. As the wounds were exposed to air she started to notice the sting a bit more. It wasn't terrible, but it let her know exactly where the worst cuts were.

"Some scabs will be stuck to the bandages and lift away clean after soaking a while," Caine continued. "That's fine. What we don't want to see is new blood because we tore something open."

Tonya squeezed Janie's hand unexpectedly, and Janie squeezed back.

"You alright?" Tonya asked.

"Yes. The pain is mild. How does it look?" Janie replied.

"Like you got real cut up," Tonya said bluntly.

Caine winced at Tonya's candor and spoke up before Janie could react. "You're healing clean, and fairly quickly. Nothing looks infected. Cerise did a good job cleaning you up and making sure all the glass was out. That stuff she gave you to put on the wounds seems like it's working. Do you think you can sleep on your stomach tonight?"

"I've been sleeping on my stomach since this happened," Janie said with a small shrug.

Caine started filling up the bucket from the spigot. "It's warm enough I think you can go without a blanket. I want to let the cuts breathe and dry out. We'll put new bandages on in the morning,"

"Alright," Janie said. As he approached her with the bucket, she held her hands out to her sides, then realized that the two of them were fully on display in front of each other, and she hadn't reacted at all. It seemed normal for a moment. As soon as she realized it most certainly wasn't normal, she felt her cheeks grow red and she looked at the floor.

"Turn around," he said gently, sounding like he was trying not to let her know he was amused. The mixture of indulgence, amusement, and comfort was so much like Will that she felt another surge of heat between her legs, and more color in her cheeks. Caine was different though. The edge of challenge was missing. Will had an infuriating way of adding a smug coaxing to his interactions with people. Caine did that with Tonya, but never with Janie. It was almost the opposite. With her, he was as gentle and reassuring as possible.

Feeling like she'd just discovered something important, she slowly turned around. The two men really were alike at their cores. It was no wonder they got along so well, and also a bit discomforting considering her situation. She added the implications of Caine's underlying similarities to Will to the list of things she was consciously avoiding thinking about.

Caine began to slowly and gently pour water over her wounded back and rinse all the soap off Janie's body.

"Oh, she gets the nice bucket?" Tonya asked acerbically.

"She's not a brat," Caine countered.

Tonya huffed and took a knee in front of Janie. She started ringing out the washrag in the runoff and looked up at Janie with a happy grin. "This is so much fun. We should do it again tomorrow!"

"Um..." Janie said awkwardly. She knew she'd likely need help bathing for as long as her back was still healing, and she found it hard to deny Tonya's infectious enthusiasm. In spite of that, she instinctively found herself trying to come up with a reason to say no. Nothing came to mind, To her surprise, she found that comforting after the initial surge of panic faded. She smiled. "Alright."

"Do you want to do something about all this," Tonya asked her, making a circular finger motion in front of Janie's womanhood.

Janie's eyes widened and she unconsciously covered herself. "What? No. What's wrong with... this?"

"Oh, nothing," Tonya said. "I just wanted to know if you wanted to use some of Bella's goop?"

"What?" Janie asked, bewildered.

"Bella's goop?" Tonya repeated. "It gets rid of hair."

Janie blinked. She'd assumed Bella's hairlessness was just careful diligence with a razor, or some trick of her mystic art. After seeing Bella's body painted with sigils during the mirror ritual, it had been very apparent why, but the details of how had never occurred to her. "How does it work?"

"I don't know," Tonya shrugged. "She got it from her ex. You just put it on, and a few hours later all your hair falls out. Then you just rinse it off."

"That sounds... uncomfortable," Janie said.

Tonya shook her head. "Not really. It feels a little weird afterwards, especially the first time. Nice though. Everything feels silky. I like it. Makes cleaning up witch paint a lot easier too."

"I'll pass," Janie said gently.

"Alright," Tonya said, standing up with an energetic bounce. Her earlier fatigue had clearly vanished. She handed Janie the washrag again. "I'd offer to do the rest, but I think you might explode," she winked.

Janie shook her head again, amazed at Tonya's perceptual ability to confuse or embarrass her. "The rest?"

Tonya made another small circle with her finger, pointing between Janie's legs again.

Janie's mouth opened slightly, then closed again as her face burned brighter. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Caine conspicuously turn his back and start filling the bucket again. He wasn't quick enough to hide the amused look on his face.

Janie quickly rubbed the rag between her legs and shuddered, loving and hating how good it felt to finally touch herself there. Tonya winked at her and Janie wanted to die. She finished quickly, dropped the rag into the washbucket and got out, trying to ignore her pounding heart.

"So now it's Caine's turn then?" Tonya asked.

A chill ran down Janie's spine.

"I'm good," he said without turning around. "Washing down you two got me cleaner than I've been in years."

Janie exhaled and felt her heart unclench.

"Aw, you're no fun," Tonya complained. "You go first tomorrow."

Janie's heart clenched again.

A heavy knock hammered on the door and a booming voice called from outside.

"EVANGELINA CASTILLIAN, OPEN THE DOOR IN THE NAME OF THE MAGISTRATE!"