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intheheartTitle: Freedom
Rating: NC-17, for porn, and also Ivy swears.
Summary: Gina comes to terms with freedom, and with love.
AU: EPIC PIRATE AU
Notes: For your delectation and delight, some porny fluff!
1. naughty but nice
She could not believe that she had done this.
Gina sat down on the narrow bunk that was now hers and began to shiver, hard. She couldn't believe she'd been that brave-- or that stupid, because who knew the difference anymore? She'd left her home, her father, her fiancée, and everything she'd ever known, all to follow a woman, a pirate, that she had never even met and knew nothing about. And why?
That was a question she was still trying to answer.
She didn't fit in here. She didn't belong here. She was a lady, good for the bearing of children and the running of a household and nothing, nothing else. What was she doing on a pirate ship? What had possessed her?
She closed her eyes and saw the scene again-- standing in the garden, the woman in the red dress in front of her, hand out, hair loose and blowing in the breeze. Come with me, she'd said. Come with me. Be free.
But what did freedom mean? What had she won herself? Freedom from corsets? She had that already. Her hand went to her ribs, absently. She had that freedom, but what had that gotten her besides sore breasts and a slumping back? And what other freedom did she have, really?
The freedom to sit in a cabin and do nothing. The freedom to be uselessly ornamental, like she had always had been, without the safety of knowing how her life would go. It had been a stifling safety, but a safety nonetheless.
She made a small animal noise and covered her face with her hands. What had she done? What had she done?
"Miss Caravecchio?"
She jerked up with a gasp-- she hadn't heard the cabin door open-- and met Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall's eyes, the worry in them clear.
"Are you all right?" she asked, and came in, shutting the door behind her. "I heard you."
"I..." Gina began, and stopped, because what could she say that wouldn't offend her?
The captain sat down on the bunk beside her, but did not touch her. "It's all right," she offered, her voice tentative. "To be frightened. I was. Sometimes I still am."
Gina looked at her, at this pirate-- no, at this woman she'd left everything to follow-- and felt something inside her begin to unknot.
4. on the cheek
Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall -- no, Ivy, she had to remember that. Ivy, then, had found her some things to do, when she'd asked. There were sails to mend and ropes to splice, and Gina found to her pleasant surprise that plain stitching and the basic cooking she'd managed to pick up were very useful indeed aboard the Bedrock Drift.
She'd even caught some grateful looks from the crew when they saw her stitching away, which puzzled her a bit. She understood that she did jobs they didn't want to do, but that was a lady's lot in life, wasn't it, and anyway she liked to be useful.
Useful. For the first time in her life, she was useful.
She'd found a place to sit on deck where she was out of the way, and she sat there now, a sail draped across her lap and her face turned to the sun. Her skin was probably going disgracefully brown, but what did that matter now?
"You look happier."
Gina blinked sleepily and turned her head to look up at Ivy. "I am happier," she said. "It's a beautiful day."
Ivy smiled at that, and Gina felt something in her midsection twist. "Clear skies, smooth seas, and a bonny wind to see us home," she said. "I wish all the days could be like this."
"If wishes were horses," Gina drawled, tipping her head back to feel the sun on her neck and chest.
Ivy laughed. "My father used to say that," she said, crouching down beside her. "Or something like it. If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea, I think."
Gina turned her head, to look Ivy in the eyes. "He doesn't anymore?"
The captain shrugged, carelessly. "He probably does. I haven't been home in a while, so I couldn't tell you for certain." She put a hand on the deck to steady herself, an oddly caressing motion-- Gina looked away. "This used to be his ship, you know."
"Was it?" Gina asked, breathless.
"His ship," Ivy repeated, quietly. "Mine now. I suppose I'll leave it to Aaron's children, if he ever has them."
"Or Summer's," Gina said, thinking of the small, solemn-eyed girl she'd been so surprised to find aboard this ship. The captain's beautiful little sister, as sheltered and protected as she had been, but so much more well-loved.
That got another laugh from Ivy. "She's so small," she said. "I can hardly think of her as an adult, much less with children."
Gina turned to look at her again. "What about you? Won't you ever have children?"
A tiny smile quirked the corner of Ivy's mouth. "No," she said, shortly. "I won't. I..." She paused, then shook her head, and patted Gina's cheek. "I won't, that's all. Well, back to work."
She stood and walked away, and Gina turned her attention back to the sail in her lap, trying to ignore the way her hands were shaking.
8. tender loving care
They'd spotted the other ship mid-morning, and Summer had taken Gina's hand and drawn her to the captain's cabin. "There's going to be a fight," she'd explained, her solemn eyes lit with excitement. "We have to be out of the way. Ivy doesn't want us getting hurt."
Gina could see the logic in that, and the pair of them had waited out the fight together in a cunning little bed built into the wall, enclosed by a pair of doors that Summer had shut and locked from the inside. "We're safer in here," she'd said. "This way if we're boarded they'll have to look to find us." And then she'd reached into a cabinet built into the wall and pulled out a pair of pistols, handing one to Gina as if they were no more dangerous than a pair of candlesticks.
Gina had left hers sitting in her lap. Even now it weighed down her skirts, and made her feel uneasy.
The noise of fighting had died down a bit. There were no more gunshots, no more crash of cannon, just the scuffling movements of people on the deck outside, shouting back and forth to each other. Gina dared to relax.
And then the cabin door crashed open, and Summer looked up alertly, hand going to the pistol before someone outside said, "It's all right, Summer, it's us," and she relaxed. "That's Aaron," she said to Gina, unlocking the doors. "It's safe now."
But it wasn't safe, because Summer opened the doors and gave a small cry and flung herself from the bunk, and Gina looked out after her and all she could see was Ivy, hunched in a chair, blood all over her shirt, her brother leaning over her with a worried look on his face.
Her heart seized in her chest, and for a moment she could barely breathe.
Then Aaron said, quickly, "It's all right, Summer, it's all right, it's just a flesh wound."
"Hurts like a bitch though," Ivy said, lifting her head. "Don't worry, Summer-love, most of the blood isn't mine. Where's the brandy?"
"In the cabinet," Summer said, and went to get it, while Gina tried to remember how to breathe. "Did you get the man who hurt you?"
Ivy grinned, taking the brandy from her sister. "Where do you think the rest of the blood came from?" she asked, then drank a healthy slug.
Aaron lifted up Ivy's shirt, and sighed at what he saw. "You're going to need stitches," he said. "And the blood won't ever come out of this shirt."
Ivy shrugged, and grimaced. "Oh, ow, not doing that again. Use the shirt for bandages. It'll be good for nothing else."
"Good idea," Aaron said, and without further ceremony hauled it over her head. Gina looked away, but not before she got a glimpse of small breasts and a long bloody cut across her ribs.
"Gina," Aaron said, and she looked back at him, startled. "I'm going to need your help."
"I..." she began, thinking of the blood all over the shirt, dripping onto the floor, and then she thought of Ivy's hand on her cheek and finished, "Yes. All right. What do you need me to do?"
9. double entandre
"I have something to tell you," Ivy said, and Gina tensed, uncertain.
They'd been three weeks at sea, now, and she was just beginning to feel as if she fit in. The other pirates had begun to treat her like one of their own, which mostly consisted of dumping work on her and telling bawdy jokes and stories to see her blush. She was... she was happy, actually.
The look on Ivy's face was so solemn, almost frightened. Whatever she had to say... Gina was mortally afraid it would mean the end of everything she'd begun to build.
"All right," she said, trying to be casual. "What is it? I've sails to mend, though, so make it fast."
Ivy ignored that sally, as Gina had known she would, and instead regarded her thoughtfully. "Did you ever wonder why it was I asked you to come with me?" she asked.
Gina shrugged, but she had, often. "I thought you felt sorry for me," she replied, and let her mouth quirk up a little in a half-smile. "I was rather pathetic."
"No," Ivy said quickly, too quickly. "No, not pathetic. You were never pathetic. You were..." She paused, inhaled, and looked away. "You were beautiful, Gina. You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I wanted you."
The words thudded on Gina's ears. For a moment, she could hear nothing else.
"Do you mean..." she began, slowly, because she was sure this was not it, "...like a possession?"
Ivy shook her head, made a sharp motion of negation. "No. No, not at all like that. I wanted you like..." She inhaled again. "I can't explain it. When you grow up on the docks, on a ship, it just happens, it just is, but when you grow up like you did, or my mother..." She trailed off, began again. "Do you know that some men and women... you're supposed to only want a man, if you're a woman, and the same if you're a man. But some men want men, and some women want women." She took another deep breath. "I want women."
Gina should be scandalized, she knew that. She should be horrified that such a thing could exist. She should run away from Ivy now, and leave this ship the first chance she got.
But she thought of Ned, of his bland face and his hard hands and the way she'd always shivered at the thought of being married to him, even when she knew she had no choice. And she thought of Ivy, of her hand on her cheek, the way her smile made her stomach twist and the breathless excitement she got, sometimes, just being near her.
"I asked you to come with me because I wanted you," Ivy said, plainly. "I'm telling you this now because I think that I love you, and I..." She paused again, and looked at her feet. "I would like to have a chance. If you think that you can give it."
Gina looked at the sky and the sea, the vast horizons. So much more was possible now than she had ever dreamt, before.
Why not this too?
"I think," she said, carefully, "you can have more than a chance."
11. slip into something more comfortable
That night, Summer slept in her brother's cabin.
It was the first indication that Gina had, other than the extraordinary conversation that afternoon, that things were really going to be different. Up until then, she'd had the bunk, occasionally shared with Summer, who shared her sister's hammock at all other times. They'd even had the quartermaster in with them a few nights, when Danny got sick of the crew cracking jokes at her expense. But tonight, it was Gina, and it was Ivy, and her mouth went dry at the thought.
Even Ivy seemed ill-at-ease, her movements jerky and awkward as she took off the huge old coat she always wore, the worn jerkin, the old leather belt. She hesitated at the blouse that looked as if it had seen far better days, then pulled it off over her head, deliberately.
Gina's hands hesitated over the lacings of her bodice, and she looked. She couldn't stop herself.
The cut across Ivy's ribs was nearly healed, a thin red line now marked by tiny dots where the stitches had come out. Her hair was longer than Gina had thought, brushing the bottom of her ribcage in loose, long waves. Her skin beneath her clothes was startlingly pale in contrast to her hands and face, pale and smooth but for the scars-- Gina itched to touch it but didn't quite dare yet.
All this she might have known about anyone.
But there were other things. Ivy's breasts were small and high, with nipples the faint rosy pink of dawn light, rising and falling quickly with her breath. Her hair was long enough to cover them, if she chose, but she did not, deliberately brushing it back. Her waist was a faint indent, easily hidden under men's clothes but so clearly feminine now, curving into hips still covered by her breeches, but what lay under that...
Gina realized she was staring. She wrenched her gaze away, blushing fiercely, and looked down at her hands as she fumbled with her bodice lacings. They were trembling, badly.
"No," Ivy said, and she looked up, still blushing. "No, don't worry. I don't mind."
"I'm sorry," Gina said, keeping her eyes on Ivy's face this time, relieved to see the humor and the desire there. "I... you're just so beautiful."
"So are you," Ivy said, put a hand on her chin, and kissed her, gently.
3. fooling around
The breeches were the next thing to go. Ivy's legs were as lovely as the rest of her, if somewhat less scarred, with a tangle of copper curls at their apex. Ivy seemed so much more comfortable naked than Gina was-- heavens, Gina was still wearing her chemise and she was still blushing so hard she felt as if she might catch on fire. Ivy just looked pleased, and a little amused.
"Don't worry," she said again, kissing the tip of Gina's nose. "I promise this is easy."
Easy was relative. There was a tangled mix of anticipation and apprehension twisting in Gina's stomach, too tight for her to speak, so she only nodded, and turned her face up for another kiss, another touch. If she didn't think about this, if she only let it happen, she thought everything would be all right.
Ivy's hands were soft and warm on her hips, burning through the thin fabric of her chemise. Her mouth was warm and wet on Gina's collarbone, her tongue flicking out, shooting tiny sparks through her body. The air, the sea rocking under the ship, Ivy, everything conspired to make Gina dizzy and drunk, wound tight with longing and with fear, overwhelmed and shaking... her knees went wobbly all of a sudden and she stumbled backwards, sat down hard on the bunk.
Ivy followed her, moving with the grace of a cat, and knelt beside the bunk, kissing Gina's stomach through the chemise, running her hands up Gina's legs. Gina thought she honestly might faint for a moment, and she put a hand out to the wall of the ship, threw her head back, tried to breathe, and not to think.
Then Ivy's hand crept up under her chemise, a knuckle brushed her most intimate and secret place, and she jumped, the fear winning all of a sudden and breaking loose to flood her body and heart and soul.
"No, oh, stop--" She'd blurted it out before she knew she'd spoken, and Ivy had frozen, crouched between her legs.
"What is it?" she asked, anxiety on her face and in her voice. "Did I hurt you?"
Gina shook her head, and pressed a fist to her mouth. "No," she said, and forced herself to calm down. "No. I just... I'm not ready. Not yet."
Ivy looked a little disappointed, Gina thought, but she said nothing of it, only rose and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "Of course," she said. "When you're ready."
2. hard to get
Gina was starting to think she would never be ready.
It wasn't that she didn't love Ivy. She did, more every day. And it wasn't that she didn't want Ivy-- she felt a hard fist of desire in her gut, every time she saw Ivy standing at the wheel, holding herself like a queen. But there was a line between them that she could not cross, a line that was never clearer than at night, in the cabin they shared, in a bunk she occupied alone.
She tried. She tried so hard. She was all right kissing Ivy; that took practice but it was normal and easy now, like breathing. She could sit with Ivy in the early evenings, the two of them cuddling together while Aaron taught Summer to take readings of the stars, or the crew danced a hornpipe, swinging around each other and laughing.
There was happiness here, and real true freedom, just within her grasp, but she could not make herself reach for it. She could not make herself touch Ivy, just a breath away; she could not make herself let go. There was always the fear, rising up to choke her just when she thought she had conquered it.
She didn't know where that fear came from, try as she might to pinpoint a source. She didn't fear Ivy, not anymore, and there were no jealous eyes here, watching them and condemning. The crew clearly knew and just as clearly did not care-- Ivy's particular inner circle, her brother and sister, her helmsman and quartermaster, even approved. There was no society, no church, nothing but the dark and Ivy's hands and the ever-present fear.
Ivy was getting tired of it. Gina knew she was, and her heart bled when she thought that one day Ivy's patience might come to an end.
She tried. She honestly did. But she could not make herself reach.
14. notch on the bedpost
"What am I doing wrong?" Ivy asked quietly one night, into the shadowed darkness of the cabin.
Gina hadn't been sleeping either, and she didn't pretend. "Nothing," she replied, honestly.
"Then what is it?" Ivy's voice was a cry of frustration and pain, and it hurt, somewhere in her belly, to hear it. "What can I do? I want to help you but I don't even know what's wrong?"
Gina sat up, pulled her hair away from her face, and was surprised to hear the same pain in her own voice when she answered. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong! I just can't... I can't..." She couldn't even voice it, couldn't even put into words the terror that built up in her every time they touched.
"Am I not good enough for you?" Ivy asked. The bitterness in her voice now was like a slap in the face. "Is that it? My grandfather is a baron and my aunt is a countess. Does that change things?"
"No," Gina said, and "Are they really?" and then she shook her head, what did that matter now? "No, that doesn't change anything. I love you! I do! I just can't..." and the fear rose up again, choked off the words. She covered her face with her hands and let a tiny sob escape. "I can't," she said again.
Ivy said nothing more.
A moment later, the cabin door opened and shut; Gina heard her boots moving away across the deck.
She turned over, pressed her face into her pillow, and cried herself to sleep.
15. kiss & make up
The cabin door opened and shut the next morning, a reversal of last night, and the first thing Ivy said was, "I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
Gina, who had meant to say something very similar, blinked, and then laughed a little. "I know. It isn't your fault either, if that helps at all. I just..." She stopped, and shook her head, ran her hands over her face.
"I know," Ivy said, and sighed, then sat down on the bunk by Gina's feet. "I meant... that thing, about me not being good enough, that was totally unjust. I know you don't think that. I know you love me."
"I meant to ask," Gina said. "Did someone..."
"The first girl I loved." Ivy tipped her head back. Her hair fell away from her face, exposing the long line of her throat-- it was a curiously vulnerable posture, for someone so strong. "She thought... well, never mind what she thought. I was good enough to fuck but not good enough to love."
Gina sat up then. "To hell with her," she said, vehemently. "And if I ever meet her I will scratch her eyes out."
Ivy blinked, looking at her, and then smiled, slowly. "You know, I believe you would. Never mind. She was... she changed her story, when Aaron told her who my mother was, but I'd learned better and I didn't want her anymore. You grow, you learn things."
Gina reached out, caught Ivy's hand, and pressed a kiss to the palm. "That doesn't make it hurt any less."
"No." She closed her eyes, curled her fingers around Gina's hand. "I love you. And I'm sorry."
"I love you," Gina said, "and I'm afraid."
Ivy opened her eyes then, and sat up straight. "Afraid of what?"
Gina shook her head. "I don't know. All I know is that when you touch me, I..." She faltered. "I get so afraid. I don't know why. I'm not afraid of you, or of us, I'm just... afraid."
"Ah." Ivy let it out on a long breath. "I see. I... do you think it's something that you can't..."
"No," Gina said. "No, I think it's something that I... don't know how to get over. Not yet. But I will. I will," she repeated, fiercely. "I love you. This will work."
"Yes," Ivy said, and smiled at her, a genuine smile. "It will."
5. taking it slow
They shared the same bunk now, at night. They did not-- yet-- do anything more, but they shared the same bunk, and Gina could already feel it helping, could feel that tightly wound knot dissolving bit by bit every day that she woke up with the warmth of Ivy's body stretched beside hers.
It helped, too, that Ivy had taken to touching her. Nothing serious, just a soft caress down the side of her arm as they passed on the deck, or a quick kiss to the back of her neck while she sat, head bent, mending sails. There were no expectations in these brief contacts, none of the possessive greed that men had always touched her with, only love, and a patient sort of lust that made Gina feel warm.
Ivy did not want to take her, in the crude euphemistic terms the crew used. Ivy wanted to have her, and to be had in return.
It helped.
6. come a little bit closer
"You know," Ivy said, one day while they sat together at the prow of the ship, "my mother left her home and her family to marry a man she hardly knew, and she did it twice."
"Twice?" Gina lifted her head and blinked. "But your father..."
Ivy grinned. "Papa was the second time," she said. "The first time didn't turn out so well, but it did lead directly to her meeting my father. You should ask her to tell you the story sometime. At any rate, I just... I wanted you to know that it works out, sometimes."
"I know it must," Gina said quietly, and looked down at her hands. "I... I am trying to be brave, Ivy. I am."
Ivy looked away then, and Gina thought she looked a little ashamed of herself. "I know you are," she said. "I do."
Gina reached out, then, and wrapped her hand around Ivy's wrist, running her fingers down the veins on the inside. "I didn't mean to make you feel awkward," she said, softly. "Tell me about your mother."
Ivy shrugged, but the tension in her shoulders eased. "Well, she's... frightening, honestly. Not to me, she's my mother, but to everyone who ever sailed with my father, she's some kind of bogeyman." She grinned, suddenly. "She wouldn't be left behind, you see. She sailed with my father on every voyage he ever took, right up until she had my sister, and then the moment she could walk again she was back on the ship with him until the day he retired." She leaned her head back, looking up at the rigging and sails billowing above their heads. "We grew up on this ship, my brother and I. It's more home than land could ever be, because my mother wouldn't be left behind."
"It must have been dangerous," Gina said, thinking of the fights they'd engaged in, the ones she'd waited out in the cabin with Summer, wincing at every noise.
"Not terribly," Ivy said. "Aaron and I always waited below in a fight, like you and Summer do. And my mother could handle herself. Papa used to joke that he could always find her in a fight, because she would be wherever everyone was running away from." She laughed. "Which isn't far wrong. There's a reason this ship hasn't seen a mutiny since before I was born."
Gina imagined herself in a fight, a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, and shivered. "I don't think I could be like that," she said. "I think I would be too afraid."
"Not everyone is like my mother," Ivy said, softly. "I certainly don't need you to be."
Gina edged closer to lay her head on Ivy's shoulder. "Good," she said, and closed her eyes.
10. tangled up in you
The storm hit with no warning, a wave of wind and water hitting the side of the ship like a punch and throwing Gina and Ivy off the bunk.
"Fuck me," Ivy said, scrambling to her feet. She ran to the cabin door while Gina was still struggling upright, threw it open, and stumbled back at the lash of rain that blew in. "Fuck me!" she screamed, and without another word darted out onto the deck, slamming the door closed behind her.
Gina got to her feet somehow, and made her way across the heaving cabin, holding on to the wall, the hammock, and anything else that kept her even remotely upright. Thank heaven it was-- had been-- a relatively bright day, so there were no candles lit. They couldn't deal with fire on top of a storm like this.
The door burst open just before she got to it and Summer fell in, soaked to the skin and coughing between sobs. Gina threw her weight against the door to shut it, then went to her knees and gathered the girl into her arms. "It's all right," she said, watching the lashing sea outside the porthole with fear making a knot in her stomach. "It's all right. You're safe now."
Summer said nothing, just went on sobbing helplessly, clinging to Gina's arms and soaking her skirts.
Gina got her away from the door eventually, got her out of her sopping clothing and into a dry nightdress that enveloped the little girl entirely. All the while the ship heaved under their feet and the storm roared, a hungry seabeast bent on devouring them whole. Gina told herself that Ivy would fight it off, and concentrated on Summer, on calming her shaking and getting her warm and dry, whispering an endless stream of meaningless reassurance, trying not to let her own fear show.
The storm seemed to last forever.
Eventually the wind died down; eventually the noise of rain lessened; eventually the hoarse shouts from outside calmed to conversational levels, then nothing. Summer's shaking eased as the wind did, though she still clung to Gina.
Gina held her blindly, because without Summer's fear to distract her, her mind latched on to Ivy. She hadn't seen her since the storm began, hadn't heard her voice in the noise outside. Had something happened? She'd heard enough terrible stories of storms at sea, of men swept right off ship decks or out of the rigging, never to be seen again. She could see that happening to Ivy all too clearly.
Then the door opened quietly and Summer looked up, let out an incoherent cry and stumbled into her sister's arms. Ivy held her tight for a moment, then looked up and met Gina's eyes.
Gina's lips parted, and white-hot heat flared in her belly.
"Aaron," Ivy said, without looking away from Gina. "Can you take Summer and put her to bed?"
Gina didn’t even see him enter, or Summer leave. All she knew was that the door shut, and then Ivy was in her arms.
12. between the sheets
Ivy's skin was freezing, like ice beneath her hands. Her hair left wet trails when it dragged along Gina's skin, little lines of cold that made her own skin burn the hotter. They were both shaking, from need or from cold; Gina couldn't tell the difference.
Her bodice fell open almost by magic and then Ivy's mouth was on her breast, the wet heat in sharp contrast to her fingers on Gina's opposite nipple. She whimpered at the touch and tugged at Ivy's shirt, pulling it up around her shoulders-- Ivy must have lost her jerkin sometime, though Gina neither knew nor cared where.
The shirt came off and Ivy was back at her breast, her back smooth under Gina's hands, her nipples hard and pebbled under Gina's fingers. Gina couldn't let go of her, couldn't stop touching her; when she tried she thought of the storm and of Ivy trying to keep afloat, drowning in the endless ocean, and clutched harder, pulled closer. Her hands twined in Ivy's hair, her legs wrapped around Ivy's waist, and still she was not close enough. Ivy kissed her, Ivy held her so tightly she thought she would melt into her and still, she was not close enough.
Then Ivy shifted just a bit and suddenly her hand was between Gina's legs, one finger actually inside her. The feeling was alien but incredible; Gina cried out from surprise, then, when another finger joined the first, from pleasure.
Ivy must have misinterpreted it because she froze, her breath panting hot against Gina's collarbone. "Did I..."
"No!" Gina cried, and pushed down, trying to get more friction. Ivy began to withdraw and she hissed, frustrated, "Don't stop!"
Ivy froze again, then laughed, and there was such joy in that sound that Gina couldn't help but kiss her. And then her fingers slid back in and Gina couldn't help but moan, couldn't help but move her hips, pushing forward, trying to get something she couldn't put a name to.
It came at last, when Ivy pushed up against her inner walls with both fingers, stroked something between her legs with her thumb, and bit the crook of her neck, very gently. The wound coil inside her unwound all at once; her head fell back, sparks exploded behind her eyes, and she half-collapsed into Ivy's arms as pleasure swept over her in waves.
"There," Ivy said, sounding satisfied, and unbelievably smug. "That's what you're missing."
Gina raised her head from Ivy's shoulder, and realized her lover was trembling against her, nipples tight, muscles tense. "Not anymore," she said, and pushed Ivy down onto the bunk. "My turn."
13. sleeping beside you
Ivy was nicely warmed up again by the time they finished, skin flushed, lips swollen, body warm to the touch. Gina felt quite proud of herself, actually, looking down at her lover while she slept, one arm thrown up above her head. Ivy looked relaxed, and boneless, and so, so happy.
Gina knew how she felt.
She'd known a little about sex before she came aboard the Bedrock Drift. She'd known a man had a thing, and a woman had a place for it, and that a woman must lie very still and let a man take his pleasure if she was to bear him children. And of course once she had come aboard, her knowledge had expanded exponentially-- she'd even once, in port somewhere in the Caribbean, come across one of the crew and a whore he'd brought back to the ship, sweating and grunting down in the hold. It had looked uncomfortable, not at all the sort of thing she'd wanted to participate in.
That was not at all what had just happened. What had just happened was... a revelation.
She'd never known a woman could enjoy it, too. She'd never known that two women could do such things to each other, that Ivy could make her body sing the way it had. She hadn't imagined that she could ever feel so good, so happy, or so in love. Even better, she knew her lessons on the subject had only just begun.
This was freedom, in its purest and most joyous form. She was free.
Gina pressed her face into her lover's shoulder, closed her eyes, and went to sleep with a smile.
7. in your arms
Everyone in Plymouth knew about the Bedrock Drift and its captain. Everyone knew the captain was a woman, with hair that shone like blood in the sun and a smile that could cut you down where you stood, daughter of a pirate and a noblewoman, the queen of the seas. Quick with a pistol, quicker with a cutlass, the captain was one of the best pirates to sail from Plymouth in a long time. Everyone knew that. Everyone respected that.
Everyone knew the captain of the Bedrock Drift had a woman, too, but no one dared say a thing about it, not even the priest. Things said about the captain, about her unfemininity and her ruthlessness, she'd laugh off or plain ignore, but she would kill you soon as look at you if she heard you'd said anything against her woman.
Besides, everyone liked the captain's woman. She was lovely, kind and sweet, pretty like an angel with blonde hair and blue eyes and the pale, pale skin of a noblewoman, the bearing and manners of a saint. If you saw her moving through town, blue skirts swishing around her legs, you'd swear she was an angel; if you saw her with children, or the injured, or women who'd been hurt by their lovers, you'd know she was.
And if you saw her with the captain, the two of them entwined at the prow of the ship or sitting together at meals, red hair and blonde mingling, arms about each other's waists, you'd know she was in love, and beloved. And if you saw them talk together, or laughing, or kissing each other on a moonlit night, you'd know that they were happy in the storybook way that is so very rare.
Everyone knew the stories, that the captain of the Bedrock Drift had kidnapped the governor's daughter and run away with her to sea, where they sailed in freedom and love, and never let anyone or anything stop them or pull them apart.
Everyone knew the stories were true.
Rating: NC-17, for porn, and also Ivy swears.
Summary: Gina comes to terms with freedom, and with love.
AU: EPIC PIRATE AU
Notes: For your delectation and delight, some porny fluff!
1. naughty but nice
She could not believe that she had done this.
Gina sat down on the narrow bunk that was now hers and began to shiver, hard. She couldn't believe she'd been that brave-- or that stupid, because who knew the difference anymore? She'd left her home, her father, her fiancée, and everything she'd ever known, all to follow a woman, a pirate, that she had never even met and knew nothing about. And why?
That was a question she was still trying to answer.
She didn't fit in here. She didn't belong here. She was a lady, good for the bearing of children and the running of a household and nothing, nothing else. What was she doing on a pirate ship? What had possessed her?
She closed her eyes and saw the scene again-- standing in the garden, the woman in the red dress in front of her, hand out, hair loose and blowing in the breeze. Come with me, she'd said. Come with me. Be free.
But what did freedom mean? What had she won herself? Freedom from corsets? She had that already. Her hand went to her ribs, absently. She had that freedom, but what had that gotten her besides sore breasts and a slumping back? And what other freedom did she have, really?
The freedom to sit in a cabin and do nothing. The freedom to be uselessly ornamental, like she had always had been, without the safety of knowing how her life would go. It had been a stifling safety, but a safety nonetheless.
She made a small animal noise and covered her face with her hands. What had she done? What had she done?
"Miss Caravecchio?"
She jerked up with a gasp-- she hadn't heard the cabin door open-- and met Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall's eyes, the worry in them clear.
"Are you all right?" she asked, and came in, shutting the door behind her. "I heard you."
"I..." Gina began, and stopped, because what could she say that wouldn't offend her?
The captain sat down on the bunk beside her, but did not touch her. "It's all right," she offered, her voice tentative. "To be frightened. I was. Sometimes I still am."
Gina looked at her, at this pirate-- no, at this woman she'd left everything to follow-- and felt something inside her begin to unknot.
4. on the cheek
Captain Hirschfeld-Kendall -- no, Ivy, she had to remember that. Ivy, then, had found her some things to do, when she'd asked. There were sails to mend and ropes to splice, and Gina found to her pleasant surprise that plain stitching and the basic cooking she'd managed to pick up were very useful indeed aboard the Bedrock Drift.
She'd even caught some grateful looks from the crew when they saw her stitching away, which puzzled her a bit. She understood that she did jobs they didn't want to do, but that was a lady's lot in life, wasn't it, and anyway she liked to be useful.
Useful. For the first time in her life, she was useful.
She'd found a place to sit on deck where she was out of the way, and she sat there now, a sail draped across her lap and her face turned to the sun. Her skin was probably going disgracefully brown, but what did that matter now?
"You look happier."
Gina blinked sleepily and turned her head to look up at Ivy. "I am happier," she said. "It's a beautiful day."
Ivy smiled at that, and Gina felt something in her midsection twist. "Clear skies, smooth seas, and a bonny wind to see us home," she said. "I wish all the days could be like this."
"If wishes were horses," Gina drawled, tipping her head back to feel the sun on her neck and chest.
Ivy laughed. "My father used to say that," she said, crouching down beside her. "Or something like it. If wishes were fishes we'd walk on the sea, I think."
Gina turned her head, to look Ivy in the eyes. "He doesn't anymore?"
The captain shrugged, carelessly. "He probably does. I haven't been home in a while, so I couldn't tell you for certain." She put a hand on the deck to steady herself, an oddly caressing motion-- Gina looked away. "This used to be his ship, you know."
"Was it?" Gina asked, breathless.
"His ship," Ivy repeated, quietly. "Mine now. I suppose I'll leave it to Aaron's children, if he ever has them."
"Or Summer's," Gina said, thinking of the small, solemn-eyed girl she'd been so surprised to find aboard this ship. The captain's beautiful little sister, as sheltered and protected as she had been, but so much more well-loved.
That got another laugh from Ivy. "She's so small," she said. "I can hardly think of her as an adult, much less with children."
Gina turned to look at her again. "What about you? Won't you ever have children?"
A tiny smile quirked the corner of Ivy's mouth. "No," she said, shortly. "I won't. I..." She paused, then shook her head, and patted Gina's cheek. "I won't, that's all. Well, back to work."
She stood and walked away, and Gina turned her attention back to the sail in her lap, trying to ignore the way her hands were shaking.
8. tender loving care
They'd spotted the other ship mid-morning, and Summer had taken Gina's hand and drawn her to the captain's cabin. "There's going to be a fight," she'd explained, her solemn eyes lit with excitement. "We have to be out of the way. Ivy doesn't want us getting hurt."
Gina could see the logic in that, and the pair of them had waited out the fight together in a cunning little bed built into the wall, enclosed by a pair of doors that Summer had shut and locked from the inside. "We're safer in here," she'd said. "This way if we're boarded they'll have to look to find us." And then she'd reached into a cabinet built into the wall and pulled out a pair of pistols, handing one to Gina as if they were no more dangerous than a pair of candlesticks.
Gina had left hers sitting in her lap. Even now it weighed down her skirts, and made her feel uneasy.
The noise of fighting had died down a bit. There were no more gunshots, no more crash of cannon, just the scuffling movements of people on the deck outside, shouting back and forth to each other. Gina dared to relax.
And then the cabin door crashed open, and Summer looked up alertly, hand going to the pistol before someone outside said, "It's all right, Summer, it's us," and she relaxed. "That's Aaron," she said to Gina, unlocking the doors. "It's safe now."
But it wasn't safe, because Summer opened the doors and gave a small cry and flung herself from the bunk, and Gina looked out after her and all she could see was Ivy, hunched in a chair, blood all over her shirt, her brother leaning over her with a worried look on his face.
Her heart seized in her chest, and for a moment she could barely breathe.
Then Aaron said, quickly, "It's all right, Summer, it's all right, it's just a flesh wound."
"Hurts like a bitch though," Ivy said, lifting her head. "Don't worry, Summer-love, most of the blood isn't mine. Where's the brandy?"
"In the cabinet," Summer said, and went to get it, while Gina tried to remember how to breathe. "Did you get the man who hurt you?"
Ivy grinned, taking the brandy from her sister. "Where do you think the rest of the blood came from?" she asked, then drank a healthy slug.
Aaron lifted up Ivy's shirt, and sighed at what he saw. "You're going to need stitches," he said. "And the blood won't ever come out of this shirt."
Ivy shrugged, and grimaced. "Oh, ow, not doing that again. Use the shirt for bandages. It'll be good for nothing else."
"Good idea," Aaron said, and without further ceremony hauled it over her head. Gina looked away, but not before she got a glimpse of small breasts and a long bloody cut across her ribs.
"Gina," Aaron said, and she looked back at him, startled. "I'm going to need your help."
"I..." she began, thinking of the blood all over the shirt, dripping onto the floor, and then she thought of Ivy's hand on her cheek and finished, "Yes. All right. What do you need me to do?"
9. double entandre
"I have something to tell you," Ivy said, and Gina tensed, uncertain.
They'd been three weeks at sea, now, and she was just beginning to feel as if she fit in. The other pirates had begun to treat her like one of their own, which mostly consisted of dumping work on her and telling bawdy jokes and stories to see her blush. She was... she was happy, actually.
The look on Ivy's face was so solemn, almost frightened. Whatever she had to say... Gina was mortally afraid it would mean the end of everything she'd begun to build.
"All right," she said, trying to be casual. "What is it? I've sails to mend, though, so make it fast."
Ivy ignored that sally, as Gina had known she would, and instead regarded her thoughtfully. "Did you ever wonder why it was I asked you to come with me?" she asked.
Gina shrugged, but she had, often. "I thought you felt sorry for me," she replied, and let her mouth quirk up a little in a half-smile. "I was rather pathetic."
"No," Ivy said quickly, too quickly. "No, not pathetic. You were never pathetic. You were..." She paused, inhaled, and looked away. "You were beautiful, Gina. You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen, and I wanted you."
The words thudded on Gina's ears. For a moment, she could hear nothing else.
"Do you mean..." she began, slowly, because she was sure this was not it, "...like a possession?"
Ivy shook her head, made a sharp motion of negation. "No. No, not at all like that. I wanted you like..." She inhaled again. "I can't explain it. When you grow up on the docks, on a ship, it just happens, it just is, but when you grow up like you did, or my mother..." She trailed off, began again. "Do you know that some men and women... you're supposed to only want a man, if you're a woman, and the same if you're a man. But some men want men, and some women want women." She took another deep breath. "I want women."
Gina should be scandalized, she knew that. She should be horrified that such a thing could exist. She should run away from Ivy now, and leave this ship the first chance she got.
But she thought of Ned, of his bland face and his hard hands and the way she'd always shivered at the thought of being married to him, even when she knew she had no choice. And she thought of Ivy, of her hand on her cheek, the way her smile made her stomach twist and the breathless excitement she got, sometimes, just being near her.
"I asked you to come with me because I wanted you," Ivy said, plainly. "I'm telling you this now because I think that I love you, and I..." She paused again, and looked at her feet. "I would like to have a chance. If you think that you can give it."
Gina looked at the sky and the sea, the vast horizons. So much more was possible now than she had ever dreamt, before.
Why not this too?
"I think," she said, carefully, "you can have more than a chance."
11. slip into something more comfortable
That night, Summer slept in her brother's cabin.
It was the first indication that Gina had, other than the extraordinary conversation that afternoon, that things were really going to be different. Up until then, she'd had the bunk, occasionally shared with Summer, who shared her sister's hammock at all other times. They'd even had the quartermaster in with them a few nights, when Danny got sick of the crew cracking jokes at her expense. But tonight, it was Gina, and it was Ivy, and her mouth went dry at the thought.
Even Ivy seemed ill-at-ease, her movements jerky and awkward as she took off the huge old coat she always wore, the worn jerkin, the old leather belt. She hesitated at the blouse that looked as if it had seen far better days, then pulled it off over her head, deliberately.
Gina's hands hesitated over the lacings of her bodice, and she looked. She couldn't stop herself.
The cut across Ivy's ribs was nearly healed, a thin red line now marked by tiny dots where the stitches had come out. Her hair was longer than Gina had thought, brushing the bottom of her ribcage in loose, long waves. Her skin beneath her clothes was startlingly pale in contrast to her hands and face, pale and smooth but for the scars-- Gina itched to touch it but didn't quite dare yet.
All this she might have known about anyone.
But there were other things. Ivy's breasts were small and high, with nipples the faint rosy pink of dawn light, rising and falling quickly with her breath. Her hair was long enough to cover them, if she chose, but she did not, deliberately brushing it back. Her waist was a faint indent, easily hidden under men's clothes but so clearly feminine now, curving into hips still covered by her breeches, but what lay under that...
Gina realized she was staring. She wrenched her gaze away, blushing fiercely, and looked down at her hands as she fumbled with her bodice lacings. They were trembling, badly.
"No," Ivy said, and she looked up, still blushing. "No, don't worry. I don't mind."
"I'm sorry," Gina said, keeping her eyes on Ivy's face this time, relieved to see the humor and the desire there. "I... you're just so beautiful."
"So are you," Ivy said, put a hand on her chin, and kissed her, gently.
3. fooling around
The breeches were the next thing to go. Ivy's legs were as lovely as the rest of her, if somewhat less scarred, with a tangle of copper curls at their apex. Ivy seemed so much more comfortable naked than Gina was-- heavens, Gina was still wearing her chemise and she was still blushing so hard she felt as if she might catch on fire. Ivy just looked pleased, and a little amused.
"Don't worry," she said again, kissing the tip of Gina's nose. "I promise this is easy."
Easy was relative. There was a tangled mix of anticipation and apprehension twisting in Gina's stomach, too tight for her to speak, so she only nodded, and turned her face up for another kiss, another touch. If she didn't think about this, if she only let it happen, she thought everything would be all right.
Ivy's hands were soft and warm on her hips, burning through the thin fabric of her chemise. Her mouth was warm and wet on Gina's collarbone, her tongue flicking out, shooting tiny sparks through her body. The air, the sea rocking under the ship, Ivy, everything conspired to make Gina dizzy and drunk, wound tight with longing and with fear, overwhelmed and shaking... her knees went wobbly all of a sudden and she stumbled backwards, sat down hard on the bunk.
Ivy followed her, moving with the grace of a cat, and knelt beside the bunk, kissing Gina's stomach through the chemise, running her hands up Gina's legs. Gina thought she honestly might faint for a moment, and she put a hand out to the wall of the ship, threw her head back, tried to breathe, and not to think.
Then Ivy's hand crept up under her chemise, a knuckle brushed her most intimate and secret place, and she jumped, the fear winning all of a sudden and breaking loose to flood her body and heart and soul.
"No, oh, stop--" She'd blurted it out before she knew she'd spoken, and Ivy had frozen, crouched between her legs.
"What is it?" she asked, anxiety on her face and in her voice. "Did I hurt you?"
Gina shook her head, and pressed a fist to her mouth. "No," she said, and forced herself to calm down. "No. I just... I'm not ready. Not yet."
Ivy looked a little disappointed, Gina thought, but she said nothing of it, only rose and brushed a kiss across her forehead. "Of course," she said. "When you're ready."
2. hard to get
Gina was starting to think she would never be ready.
It wasn't that she didn't love Ivy. She did, more every day. And it wasn't that she didn't want Ivy-- she felt a hard fist of desire in her gut, every time she saw Ivy standing at the wheel, holding herself like a queen. But there was a line between them that she could not cross, a line that was never clearer than at night, in the cabin they shared, in a bunk she occupied alone.
She tried. She tried so hard. She was all right kissing Ivy; that took practice but it was normal and easy now, like breathing. She could sit with Ivy in the early evenings, the two of them cuddling together while Aaron taught Summer to take readings of the stars, or the crew danced a hornpipe, swinging around each other and laughing.
There was happiness here, and real true freedom, just within her grasp, but she could not make herself reach for it. She could not make herself touch Ivy, just a breath away; she could not make herself let go. There was always the fear, rising up to choke her just when she thought she had conquered it.
She didn't know where that fear came from, try as she might to pinpoint a source. She didn't fear Ivy, not anymore, and there were no jealous eyes here, watching them and condemning. The crew clearly knew and just as clearly did not care-- Ivy's particular inner circle, her brother and sister, her helmsman and quartermaster, even approved. There was no society, no church, nothing but the dark and Ivy's hands and the ever-present fear.
Ivy was getting tired of it. Gina knew she was, and her heart bled when she thought that one day Ivy's patience might come to an end.
She tried. She honestly did. But she could not make herself reach.
14. notch on the bedpost
"What am I doing wrong?" Ivy asked quietly one night, into the shadowed darkness of the cabin.
Gina hadn't been sleeping either, and she didn't pretend. "Nothing," she replied, honestly.
"Then what is it?" Ivy's voice was a cry of frustration and pain, and it hurt, somewhere in her belly, to hear it. "What can I do? I want to help you but I don't even know what's wrong?"
Gina sat up, pulled her hair away from her face, and was surprised to hear the same pain in her own voice when she answered. "I don't know. I don't know what's wrong! I just can't... I can't..." She couldn't even voice it, couldn't even put into words the terror that built up in her every time they touched.
"Am I not good enough for you?" Ivy asked. The bitterness in her voice now was like a slap in the face. "Is that it? My grandfather is a baron and my aunt is a countess. Does that change things?"
"No," Gina said, and "Are they really?" and then she shook her head, what did that matter now? "No, that doesn't change anything. I love you! I do! I just can't..." and the fear rose up again, choked off the words. She covered her face with her hands and let a tiny sob escape. "I can't," she said again.
Ivy said nothing more.
A moment later, the cabin door opened and shut; Gina heard her boots moving away across the deck.
She turned over, pressed her face into her pillow, and cried herself to sleep.
15. kiss & make up
The cabin door opened and shut the next morning, a reversal of last night, and the first thing Ivy said was, "I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
Gina, who had meant to say something very similar, blinked, and then laughed a little. "I know. It isn't your fault either, if that helps at all. I just..." She stopped, and shook her head, ran her hands over her face.
"I know," Ivy said, and sighed, then sat down on the bunk by Gina's feet. "I meant... that thing, about me not being good enough, that was totally unjust. I know you don't think that. I know you love me."
"I meant to ask," Gina said. "Did someone..."
"The first girl I loved." Ivy tipped her head back. Her hair fell away from her face, exposing the long line of her throat-- it was a curiously vulnerable posture, for someone so strong. "She thought... well, never mind what she thought. I was good enough to fuck but not good enough to love."
Gina sat up then. "To hell with her," she said, vehemently. "And if I ever meet her I will scratch her eyes out."
Ivy blinked, looking at her, and then smiled, slowly. "You know, I believe you would. Never mind. She was... she changed her story, when Aaron told her who my mother was, but I'd learned better and I didn't want her anymore. You grow, you learn things."
Gina reached out, caught Ivy's hand, and pressed a kiss to the palm. "That doesn't make it hurt any less."
"No." She closed her eyes, curled her fingers around Gina's hand. "I love you. And I'm sorry."
"I love you," Gina said, "and I'm afraid."
Ivy opened her eyes then, and sat up straight. "Afraid of what?"
Gina shook her head. "I don't know. All I know is that when you touch me, I..." She faltered. "I get so afraid. I don't know why. I'm not afraid of you, or of us, I'm just... afraid."
"Ah." Ivy let it out on a long breath. "I see. I... do you think it's something that you can't..."
"No," Gina said. "No, I think it's something that I... don't know how to get over. Not yet. But I will. I will," she repeated, fiercely. "I love you. This will work."
"Yes," Ivy said, and smiled at her, a genuine smile. "It will."
5. taking it slow
They shared the same bunk now, at night. They did not-- yet-- do anything more, but they shared the same bunk, and Gina could already feel it helping, could feel that tightly wound knot dissolving bit by bit every day that she woke up with the warmth of Ivy's body stretched beside hers.
It helped, too, that Ivy had taken to touching her. Nothing serious, just a soft caress down the side of her arm as they passed on the deck, or a quick kiss to the back of her neck while she sat, head bent, mending sails. There were no expectations in these brief contacts, none of the possessive greed that men had always touched her with, only love, and a patient sort of lust that made Gina feel warm.
Ivy did not want to take her, in the crude euphemistic terms the crew used. Ivy wanted to have her, and to be had in return.
It helped.
6. come a little bit closer
"You know," Ivy said, one day while they sat together at the prow of the ship, "my mother left her home and her family to marry a man she hardly knew, and she did it twice."
"Twice?" Gina lifted her head and blinked. "But your father..."
Ivy grinned. "Papa was the second time," she said. "The first time didn't turn out so well, but it did lead directly to her meeting my father. You should ask her to tell you the story sometime. At any rate, I just... I wanted you to know that it works out, sometimes."
"I know it must," Gina said quietly, and looked down at her hands. "I... I am trying to be brave, Ivy. I am."
Ivy looked away then, and Gina thought she looked a little ashamed of herself. "I know you are," she said. "I do."
Gina reached out, then, and wrapped her hand around Ivy's wrist, running her fingers down the veins on the inside. "I didn't mean to make you feel awkward," she said, softly. "Tell me about your mother."
Ivy shrugged, but the tension in her shoulders eased. "Well, she's... frightening, honestly. Not to me, she's my mother, but to everyone who ever sailed with my father, she's some kind of bogeyman." She grinned, suddenly. "She wouldn't be left behind, you see. She sailed with my father on every voyage he ever took, right up until she had my sister, and then the moment she could walk again she was back on the ship with him until the day he retired." She leaned her head back, looking up at the rigging and sails billowing above their heads. "We grew up on this ship, my brother and I. It's more home than land could ever be, because my mother wouldn't be left behind."
"It must have been dangerous," Gina said, thinking of the fights they'd engaged in, the ones she'd waited out in the cabin with Summer, wincing at every noise.
"Not terribly," Ivy said. "Aaron and I always waited below in a fight, like you and Summer do. And my mother could handle herself. Papa used to joke that he could always find her in a fight, because she would be wherever everyone was running away from." She laughed. "Which isn't far wrong. There's a reason this ship hasn't seen a mutiny since before I was born."
Gina imagined herself in a fight, a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, and shivered. "I don't think I could be like that," she said. "I think I would be too afraid."
"Not everyone is like my mother," Ivy said, softly. "I certainly don't need you to be."
Gina edged closer to lay her head on Ivy's shoulder. "Good," she said, and closed her eyes.
10. tangled up in you
The storm hit with no warning, a wave of wind and water hitting the side of the ship like a punch and throwing Gina and Ivy off the bunk.
"Fuck me," Ivy said, scrambling to her feet. She ran to the cabin door while Gina was still struggling upright, threw it open, and stumbled back at the lash of rain that blew in. "Fuck me!" she screamed, and without another word darted out onto the deck, slamming the door closed behind her.
Gina got to her feet somehow, and made her way across the heaving cabin, holding on to the wall, the hammock, and anything else that kept her even remotely upright. Thank heaven it was-- had been-- a relatively bright day, so there were no candles lit. They couldn't deal with fire on top of a storm like this.
The door burst open just before she got to it and Summer fell in, soaked to the skin and coughing between sobs. Gina threw her weight against the door to shut it, then went to her knees and gathered the girl into her arms. "It's all right," she said, watching the lashing sea outside the porthole with fear making a knot in her stomach. "It's all right. You're safe now."
Summer said nothing, just went on sobbing helplessly, clinging to Gina's arms and soaking her skirts.
Gina got her away from the door eventually, got her out of her sopping clothing and into a dry nightdress that enveloped the little girl entirely. All the while the ship heaved under their feet and the storm roared, a hungry seabeast bent on devouring them whole. Gina told herself that Ivy would fight it off, and concentrated on Summer, on calming her shaking and getting her warm and dry, whispering an endless stream of meaningless reassurance, trying not to let her own fear show.
The storm seemed to last forever.
Eventually the wind died down; eventually the noise of rain lessened; eventually the hoarse shouts from outside calmed to conversational levels, then nothing. Summer's shaking eased as the wind did, though she still clung to Gina.
Gina held her blindly, because without Summer's fear to distract her, her mind latched on to Ivy. She hadn't seen her since the storm began, hadn't heard her voice in the noise outside. Had something happened? She'd heard enough terrible stories of storms at sea, of men swept right off ship decks or out of the rigging, never to be seen again. She could see that happening to Ivy all too clearly.
Then the door opened quietly and Summer looked up, let out an incoherent cry and stumbled into her sister's arms. Ivy held her tight for a moment, then looked up and met Gina's eyes.
Gina's lips parted, and white-hot heat flared in her belly.
"Aaron," Ivy said, without looking away from Gina. "Can you take Summer and put her to bed?"
Gina didn’t even see him enter, or Summer leave. All she knew was that the door shut, and then Ivy was in her arms.
12. between the sheets
Ivy's skin was freezing, like ice beneath her hands. Her hair left wet trails when it dragged along Gina's skin, little lines of cold that made her own skin burn the hotter. They were both shaking, from need or from cold; Gina couldn't tell the difference.
Her bodice fell open almost by magic and then Ivy's mouth was on her breast, the wet heat in sharp contrast to her fingers on Gina's opposite nipple. She whimpered at the touch and tugged at Ivy's shirt, pulling it up around her shoulders-- Ivy must have lost her jerkin sometime, though Gina neither knew nor cared where.
The shirt came off and Ivy was back at her breast, her back smooth under Gina's hands, her nipples hard and pebbled under Gina's fingers. Gina couldn't let go of her, couldn't stop touching her; when she tried she thought of the storm and of Ivy trying to keep afloat, drowning in the endless ocean, and clutched harder, pulled closer. Her hands twined in Ivy's hair, her legs wrapped around Ivy's waist, and still she was not close enough. Ivy kissed her, Ivy held her so tightly she thought she would melt into her and still, she was not close enough.
Then Ivy shifted just a bit and suddenly her hand was between Gina's legs, one finger actually inside her. The feeling was alien but incredible; Gina cried out from surprise, then, when another finger joined the first, from pleasure.
Ivy must have misinterpreted it because she froze, her breath panting hot against Gina's collarbone. "Did I..."
"No!" Gina cried, and pushed down, trying to get more friction. Ivy began to withdraw and she hissed, frustrated, "Don't stop!"
Ivy froze again, then laughed, and there was such joy in that sound that Gina couldn't help but kiss her. And then her fingers slid back in and Gina couldn't help but moan, couldn't help but move her hips, pushing forward, trying to get something she couldn't put a name to.
It came at last, when Ivy pushed up against her inner walls with both fingers, stroked something between her legs with her thumb, and bit the crook of her neck, very gently. The wound coil inside her unwound all at once; her head fell back, sparks exploded behind her eyes, and she half-collapsed into Ivy's arms as pleasure swept over her in waves.
"There," Ivy said, sounding satisfied, and unbelievably smug. "That's what you're missing."
Gina raised her head from Ivy's shoulder, and realized her lover was trembling against her, nipples tight, muscles tense. "Not anymore," she said, and pushed Ivy down onto the bunk. "My turn."
13. sleeping beside you
Ivy was nicely warmed up again by the time they finished, skin flushed, lips swollen, body warm to the touch. Gina felt quite proud of herself, actually, looking down at her lover while she slept, one arm thrown up above her head. Ivy looked relaxed, and boneless, and so, so happy.
Gina knew how she felt.
She'd known a little about sex before she came aboard the Bedrock Drift. She'd known a man had a thing, and a woman had a place for it, and that a woman must lie very still and let a man take his pleasure if she was to bear him children. And of course once she had come aboard, her knowledge had expanded exponentially-- she'd even once, in port somewhere in the Caribbean, come across one of the crew and a whore he'd brought back to the ship, sweating and grunting down in the hold. It had looked uncomfortable, not at all the sort of thing she'd wanted to participate in.
That was not at all what had just happened. What had just happened was... a revelation.
She'd never known a woman could enjoy it, too. She'd never known that two women could do such things to each other, that Ivy could make her body sing the way it had. She hadn't imagined that she could ever feel so good, so happy, or so in love. Even better, she knew her lessons on the subject had only just begun.
This was freedom, in its purest and most joyous form. She was free.
Gina pressed her face into her lover's shoulder, closed her eyes, and went to sleep with a smile.
7. in your arms
Everyone in Plymouth knew about the Bedrock Drift and its captain. Everyone knew the captain was a woman, with hair that shone like blood in the sun and a smile that could cut you down where you stood, daughter of a pirate and a noblewoman, the queen of the seas. Quick with a pistol, quicker with a cutlass, the captain was one of the best pirates to sail from Plymouth in a long time. Everyone knew that. Everyone respected that.
Everyone knew the captain of the Bedrock Drift had a woman, too, but no one dared say a thing about it, not even the priest. Things said about the captain, about her unfemininity and her ruthlessness, she'd laugh off or plain ignore, but she would kill you soon as look at you if she heard you'd said anything against her woman.
Besides, everyone liked the captain's woman. She was lovely, kind and sweet, pretty like an angel with blonde hair and blue eyes and the pale, pale skin of a noblewoman, the bearing and manners of a saint. If you saw her moving through town, blue skirts swishing around her legs, you'd swear she was an angel; if you saw her with children, or the injured, or women who'd been hurt by their lovers, you'd know she was.
And if you saw her with the captain, the two of them entwined at the prow of the ship or sitting together at meals, red hair and blonde mingling, arms about each other's waists, you'd know she was in love, and beloved. And if you saw them talk together, or laughing, or kissing each other on a moonlit night, you'd know that they were happy in the storybook way that is so very rare.
Everyone knew the stories, that the captain of the Bedrock Drift had kidnapped the governor's daughter and run away with her to sea, where they sailed in freedom and love, and never let anyone or anything stop them or pull them apart.
Everyone knew the stories were true.
