Twenty-Three

She woke in the cold, damp darkness that had marked all of her nights for a month. Overhead, the sky was flickering sickly green. The voice still echoed in her head: Monster. Devil. Toinette stared across the sand at nothing and held still.

The men slept in the shelter. She and Erik slept outside, each off to one side: sentries, harder to kill than most of the crew. Toinette had volunteered shortly after she and Erik had returned. Nobody had spoken against the idea.

Turning her head, she could make out the figure on real sentry watch: Raoul, that night. He still looked hale enough. As she watched, he scratched the back of his head. All was, if not ever well, as well as the island got.

It was a dream. Go back to sleep.

When she closed her eyes, she saw the faces again: Jehan, Gervase, the man she’d stabbed in Mecklenburg, the bodies from plague carts, her mother. The dead lips spoke again, their writhing splashed in paintings across her mind.

“Shit,” she muttered, and got to her feet.

Quiet as she was, Raoul was alert—good lad—and turned to meet her eyes. “Captain?”

“Can’t sleep. Walking a bit.” She saw the recognition in his eyes. None of them were sleeping easily of late. That was just what a crew already wound wire-tense needed, but there was nothing to do about it. They needed the wine to make the water good. “Don’t mind me.”

“Yes, Captain,” he said, and turned back to his duty: still obedient, still earnest, as though that would save him.

They all made their own armor. Sence’s was his faith, John’s and Samuel’s magic, hers… She wished she knew. Duty usually sufficed; duty was a damned poor fabric when she kept suspecting they’d be better off without her.

She walked. She tried not to look at the sky, and failed.

Erik slept behind a semicircle of rocks, shielded from the wind. Halfway there, Toinette realized her destination, shrugged, and kept on. Making sure he was safe would do as well as anything else for a task.

She suspected that seeing him might calm her too, but she didn’t want to dwell on that.

By the time she reached the ring of stones, she knew that Erik’s sleep wasn’t easy either. The sound of his body tossing back and forth came in unsteady counterpoint to his frantic breathing. When Toinette did stand above him and look down, she saw his brow wet with sweat and his eyes moving frantically beneath their lids.

She knelt and put a hand on his shoulder.

Instantly his hand clamped around her wrist in a bruising grip. He was half up off the ground, grabbing her by the shoulder, before he fully woke; then Erik froze, his wide eyes staring into hers, his mouth stilled mid-oath.

“Do you see the dead too?” she whispered.

“…aye,” he said, coming back to her from a long and horrible way off. Toinette knew the path he walked. She gently eased her wrist out of his hand and helped him sit up.

“I hate this place,” she said.

“Aye.” He sounded more certain about that, and less surprised. Slowly he gathered himself, wiped his brow, let out a breath: the steps of reasserting himself as a man and the world as less horrible than it was in his dreams. She knew that well too. It was what had driven her to find him, after a month when she’d avoided being alone in his company.

“Bear in mind,” she went on, keeping her voice quiet but knowing how welcome a voice speaking rationally would have been to her, “I’ve been in some wretched hives. Place up north where we all had bad meat—I never thought I’d hate anywhere more. And yet, there’s this. The world just keeps surprising me.”

“It’s…enterprising that way.”

“Would you like some water?”

“I’d like strong drink. Otherwise…” He shrugged. Moonlight picked out the muscles of his shoulders beneath his unlaced shirt. “No need. Thank you for waking me. I didn’t cry out, did I? Disturb you?”

“No. I had the same problem. I thought…” It sounded stupid, now that she came to say it, but she’d learned that the only cure for sounding stupid was to keep going. “I thought a walk might do me good. And I wanted to be sure nothing had made off with you in the night.”

“Don’t trust your sentries?” he asked with a semblance of his usual grin.

“Four eyes are always better than two.” She pushed back her hair, aware suddenly that she’d probably been thrashing around in her sleep fully as much as Erik had been, and that she’d not even tried to mend her appearance. “Or maybe I just wanted company that didn’t have to keep watch.”

“Oh?” He lifted his eyebrows, and the way he smiled let her know exactly how he was interpreting what she’d said.

Toinette opened her mouth, starting to protest that she hadn’t meant it that way—but then, why not? They were away from everyone else’s view, neither of them were on sentry duty, and the beach had always been fairly peaceful regardless, and there was nothing like sport to make you know that you were alive and not, say, in a nightmare den of underwater talking corpses.

She leaned forward and kissed him. She was better at that motion than she’d been when they’d been young. It was easy for her mouth to settle atop his, to curl one hand around the back of Erik’s neck as she let her breasts graze against his chest. His arms slid around her with far more grace than before, and the splay of his hands on her back was unhurried, without pressure. They were old enough to be smooth now, when anger and despair didn’t drive them.

Slowly Toinette learned his mouth, the fluid glide of his tongue against hers, the way his fingers slowly clenched, dragging themselves across her lower back. She thrilled to the hitch in his breath and leaned further toward him. In time she’d have to shift position—hers was already unstable, her weight balanced half on Erik’s shoulders and half on one knee—but the very precariousness was interesting, a factor to work around and to lend unexpected pressure.

He skimmed the side of her breast with his fingers, brought them up in a tingling line to her collarbone, and finally cupped her chin as he pulled away.

“You’ll have to be verra quiet, you know,” he whispered, his voice like thick velvet. “Do you think you can do that this time?”

“Do you?” she asked, while even the question brought her sex to pulsing heat.

Erik’s fingers tightened. “I asked you.”

Arousal was a slow twist in her gut, a tightness in her chest. “Then,” Toinette said softly and from her throat but in no way uncertain, “I’ll be quiet. There’s no man born can make me cry out if I set my mind against it.”

His eyes flared. “We’ll see, won’t we? Stand up.”

Toinette could have told him to go to hell. She could have ignored him. She considered doing both, but the order itself made her shiver with sensation. She wanted to obey.

The idea wasn’t entirely new to her. She’d heard stories enough. She’d spent a few nights drinking with whores, while her men enjoyed themselves, and heard of bishops who liked to be whipped and lords who enjoyed being slaves for an evening. Yet her own liaisons had never been so complicated, and this was Erik, and she was actually blushing as she got to her feet.

That only made her more excited.

Putting a hand to her hip, she cocked her head and looked back down at him. “So, then?”

“Take off your gown,” he said, no less authoritative for whispering.

She wanted to undress smoothly, without any of the frantic scrambling that had happened last time. She almost managed it, though as with any gown, there was an awkward moment when her head was covered with fabric. Then she dropped the fabric to the ground and stood, feeling the night air cool against her naked body.

Erik’s gaze was almost warm enough to make up for it. He sat spellbound, looking first at her bare breasts and then down over her belly to the tuft of hair between her thighs. The uncanny light spilled across them both, and Toinette could have done without it since it made her look as though she was underwater. Still, it let her see the stark desire on Erik’s face, and the thick ridge rising from his lap, and for that she’d almost forgive it.

The silence was rich and shortly unbearable, the anticipation too drawn out for her willpower. “If I were mortal, I’d be freezing right now,” she said, by way of something to say.

She’d expected that to break the mood. Instead, Erik chuckled, shaking his head, and stood up. “But you’re not, are you? Stand still.” He slipped around behind her, his breath hot on her neck as he ran his fingers over her hard nipples. “No, it’s no’ chill behind this.”

The touch, light as it was, was wonderful agony. Toinette leaned back, thrusting her breasts toward Erik’s hands, seeking the solid heat of his body behind her.

He allowed the contact for a heartbeat. Then he stepped back and his fingers closed harder on her breasts, pinching. “Did I no’ say stand still?”

“I—” She struggled to keep her voice even. The pain was small sparks, feeding the fire within. “Didn’t realize how still you meant.”

“And now you do. No moving. You can talk, but that’s all.”

His hands eased again. He cupped her breasts lightly, then slid his fingers down over her ribs to her waist, all the while placing brief kisses along her neck. Toinette drew a ragged breath. “And if I don’t obey?”

Erik laughed again, a hot vibration against the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Then I stop.”

“There are times,” she said, “that I hate you. You know that.”

“Is this one of them?”

The breeze wound between her parted thighs, caressing slick flesh only enough to tease: no substitute for anything Erik might offer. He stepped closer, pressing his cock against the cleft of her arse, bringing his hands back to fondle her breasts. Toinette’s only comfort was hearing the unsteady sound of his breathing. “Not quite,” she said.

“Mmm,” he said, a pretense at thoughtfulness that his voice was too husky to quite sustain. “Good girl.”

Finally, too slowly, he wound his fingers through the curls around her sex. Toinette closed her eyes, relishing both the touch and the way his hips thrust forward as her wetness provoked his lust, trying not to move or cry out.

The challenge became a near impossibility. Erik stroked slowly along her cleft, alternating between a tantalizingly light touch and a pressure so firm it would have been painful had she been less excited. His thumb rubbed lightly at the center of her pleasure, then danced away again.

She thought of every oath she knew, in every language. That didn’t work. Once Erik slid two fingers inside her and began pumping, rubbing his cock against her in time with each stroke, not even biting her lip helped. The sound from her throat was stifled, as best she could manage, but Toinette couldn’t have denied that it was a whimper.

“Not so quiet as all that,” he whispered into her ear. His teeth closed on her earlobe, and he pulled his hands back at the same time.

Toinette hissed in frustration. Despite the edict, she half turned, looking over her shoulder into Erik’s eyes. “Will you stop now?” she taunted him. “Truly?”

“Only change the rules,” he replied, and grabbed her by one hip. He’d been reaching to undo his hose, Toinette realized then. When he pulled her back against him, his cock slid between her thighs, thick and hot against her, almost what she needed. She flexed her hips, and the friction made both of them growl.

“No,” said Erik, and the hand on her hip was punishingly strong. “On your knees now.”

She knelt, quickly enough that she squirmed inwardly at the memory. The sand was soft under her knees, then under her elbows—she knew what he was telling her, and she wanted no delay.

Delay she had nonetheless. Erik covered her with his body, one hand holding the dripping head of his sex just at the entrance to hers. His breath came quickly on her neck, and when Toinette turned her head, she could see his pulse pounding in his throat, but he didn’t enter her.

She lifted her eyebrows and shot him a challenging look. The sport was a thrilling one. She didn’t even mind—entirely—if he won that round, but she’d not take the fall without a fight. “I could just go take care of myself, you know. It’s no greater sin than fornication.”

“No greater sin,” said Erik, and the presence at her cleft slid slowly along, working her open and then stopping, “but no’ nearly so satisfying, is it, lass? You canna’ tell me your hand feels like this.”

Toinette closed her eyes, dug her fingers into the sand. Despite Erik’s words, she knew he was close to breaking—but the ache between her legs was too much, her body too desperate.

“God. Please, Erik,” she whispered.

Saying the words was itself treacherously exciting; the long slow thrust that followed sent starbursts exploding behind her eyes; and best of all was Erik’s groan, mingling lust and relief and telling her that he’d been in as much blissful torment as she.

Slowly, deeply, he moved within her. She’d been on the edge before; now her whole body went rigid with need.

Leaning down, Erik brushed her hair away from her neck and whispered in her ear, his rhythm never ceasing. “Almost there, aye? Let me feel it—that’s good—yes, oh Christ, yes.”

His voice fell into a shattered snarl as Toinette’s climax began. In the midst of her pleasure, she felt him speed up, felt the bursts of warmth within her, adding to her passion—and was thankful that, at the end, he slipped a hand over her mouth. She surely would have been heard, otherwise.