Capsized

by Julie Cannon

  I insisted on helping Lefty with the galley cleanup, even though it wasn’t my turn. Blow didn’t argue when I told him I’d take his shift. I was still rattled from what had happened earlier and needed some mind-numbing physical activity. Anything to stop thinking and distance myself from her physically and emotionally, especially emotionally.

  I dried the plates and put them in the cupboard above my head. I was wiping off the table when Lefty said, “I think you’ve cleaned that spot three times.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, obviously not paying attention to what I was doing.

  “You okay?” Lefty asked. Out of all the guys he was the most observant. “You didn’t say much at dinner.”

  “Who can get a word in edgewise with these guys,” I asked. Lefty looked at me and frowned, knowing my excuse was bullshit. I couldn’t stall any longer so I left the galley. It was too soon to turn in so I went up on deck. Hook, Limpet, and Rock were sitting around a crew box playing cards.

  “Alissa, come on. We need a fourth,” Rock called, motioning me over.

  I thought about begging off but couldn’t come up with an excuse, so I sat down and they dealt me in.

  When Bert approached a little while later, I was up sixteen matchsticks, two Coke-bottle lids, and three kitchen duties. The game was good for me because it forced me to concentrate and enjoy the company of these men and not dwell on what was going on in my head.

  “I see you’re playing for serious stakes,” Bert said, pointing to the IOU chit for kitchen duties in front of me.

  “Only the serious need apply, Captain,” Limpet said. “I was winning until Rock invited Alissa to join us.” All three men groaned when I dropped my hand, showing them my cards.

  “Full house, gentlemen.” I leaned forward and gathered my winnings—eight matchsticks, one more Coke lid, and an IOU for head cleaning.

  “She’s eating your lunch,” Bert said from directly behind me. I could hear the smile in her voice.

  Hook looked at his watch. “It’s late, I’m turning in.” Rock and Limpet agreed and followed him below deck. The thought crossed my mind that they were doing it to leave us alone.

  “Looks like you caught on pretty quick,” Bert said, moving and sitting in the seat Rock had just vacated. She sat back and crossed her legs, her hands in her lap. She smelled like soap and her hair was wet.

  “I think they were just going easy on me.”

  “Trust me,” Bert replied. “Those guys don’t do anything, including playing cards, unless it’s one hundred percent.”

  “Well, whatever the reason, I get out of three kitchen duties and one head cleaning.” I waved the small pieces of paper in the air like a trophy.

  “Are you avoiding me?” Bert asked quietly.

  I started to say no but hesitated and answered honestly. “Maybe.”

  “Why?” When I didn’t answer she asked, “Is it because of what happened in the nest?”

  I looked at her even though my brain was telling me not to. A flashback of our little escapade earlier this afternoon clouded my brain.

  “No.” She held a hand up. “Let me rephrase that. Is it because we were alone together, and we jumped each other because we’re hot for each other?”

  “Maybe I just wanted to get out of kitchen duty,” I said, tapping my pile of IOUs. Bert’s smile made me start to relax.

  “I’m the captain. I set the cleanup schedule.”

  “I wanted a free Coke?” I asked, holding up one of the caps I’d won.

  “Meal and drinks are included in the passage.”

  “I needed some matches to light some candles?” I said, looking directly at her.

  It was Bert’s turn to hesitate. “Candles are not allowed on the Dream.”

  “Maybe I was trying not to follow you out of the galley and jump you again.” I finally told her the real reason.

  “Really?” Bert raised an eyebrow. God, she was cute when she did that.

  I slowly crossed my heart with my finger. Bert watched, her eyes flickering as she licked her lips. “Cross my heart.” My voice was a little breathless.

  “Would you like to go to my cabin and talk about this a little more?”

  “No.”

  Bert’s eyes shot to mine, and she was obviously surprised. I stood up.

  “I want to go to your cabin and let our bodies do the talking,” I said just before turning and walking in that direction. The chair scraped behind me as Bert hurried to catch up.

  There’s something just downright sexy when a woman is confident enough to acknowledge she wants to have sex. I was no wallflower in that department, and Bert’s reaction was more than a little thrilling. The fact that she desired me was a potent aphrodisiac. I wanted her hands on me almost as much as I needed mine on hers.

  I felt her breath on my neck as we hurried down the hall to her cabin. The mere idea that we were intentionally going to have sex aroused me to the point of almost feeling in pain. There was nothing shy or surreptitious about what was about to happen. No accidental or subtle coupling. This was clear, premeditated intent. For someone who didn’t want to be stuck on this ship for weeks, I couldn’t get through the door and lock it fast enough.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Bert

  I had barely closed and locked the door when Alissa pushed me against it and started peeling off my clothes. I helped, and then we both took care of hers and had an almost exact repeat of what had happened in the crow’s nest, but this time it was skin on skin. God, did it feel good.

  I managed to get my hand between my leg and Alissa’s center. She was hot and wet, and she whimpered when she rubbed her clit over the pad of one of my fingers. She was biting my neck and breasts, and within minutes she grabbed my head in both hands and kissed me hard. Our kiss muffled her moan as she came in my hand.

  I lifted her and carried her to my bed. I knelt between her legs, and her knees fell open in a silent surrender as I dropped my mouth to her. I felt her pulse against my tongue and slipped two fingers into her as my tongue licked and flicked. Then I moved another finger just to the tip of her ass and pressed lightly, asking for permission to enter.

  “Yes, please,” Alissa whispered, her hand over her mouth so everyone in the entire boat couldn’t hear her.

  Slowly I entered her, and she started bucking harder. The image of her pinching her nipples, her juices on my face, my tongue on her clit was exquisite. When she came I felt it everywhere. She spasmed around my fingers, her clit twitched, and warm wetness coated everything. I was so aroused from watching her, giving this to her, all it took for me to come was for her to call out my name.

  I heard my name softly penetrate the darkness and opened my eyes. My cheek was against the inside of her thigh, my fingers where I’d last put them. My limbs felt like jelly.

  “Bert?” she called again.

  “Hm-mm?” I replied, not wanting to leave where I was.

  “I want to taste you.”

  My clit jumped. “I’m up for that,” I mumbled.

  When I started to move she said, “No, stay where you are. Just come up here.”

  Okay, I know my sex-filled brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but stay where you are, just come up here? What the hell did that mean? I thought about it for a second, and then my clit jumped again. I got it.

  I wasn’t a contortionist so I couldn’t stay exactly where I was, but after a few quick maneuvers I managed to get pretty close.

  My heart hammered and my blood shot through my veins in anticipation as I slowly lowered myself to Alissa. She grabbed my hips and pulled me the remaining few inches until we were one.

  I’d never been crazy about this position because I always found it hard to pay attention to what I was supposed to be doing and not what was being done to me. It never really worked well, and I always felt that either the woman I was with or I got the short end of the stick. But when Alissa’s tongue touched me, I changed my mind completely.

  We fell into a na
tural rhythm, and when she did to me what I was doing to her, I didn’t want to turn back. It was my turn to cry out first, smothering the sound in Alissa’s hot pussy. An instant later I felt her clit stiffen. She came hard, and I do mean hard.

  Somehow I managed to move before I collapsed on top of her. I got my bearings and lay down, pulling her close.

  We were both breathing hard, Alissa’s breath on my damp skin chilling me. I wanted to pull the sheet up but didn’t want to hide her glorious body.

  “If you hadn’t been avoiding me we would have done that much earlier, maybe even a few times. As it is, I don’t think my heart can take much more than that,” I said.

  Alissa crawled on top of me, straddling my hips, her eyes bright with fire. “Let’s find out.”

  My hips jumped when she started caressing her breasts. She was looking into my eyes, but I had to watch what she was doing. She pushed them together, then apart, then together again, all the while pinching her nipples—hard. I reached out to put my hands where hers were, and she swatted them away.

  “You can look but not touch.”

  “What?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

  “You heard me.” She leaned forward, her nipples a tongue flick away from my mouth. I instinctively lifted my hands, but she backed away. “Don’t touch,” she said, teasing me.

  She put fingers from each hand in her mouth, then pulled them out. She rubbed the wet finger around and over her nipple, and I swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure I was breathing either.

  She repeated the action, this time running her fingers across her stomach and stopping just before her pussy met mine. I watched in fascination as she opened her pussy lips to press closer to me.

  I could see her clit glistening against me, and my head started to spin. I’d seen countless sunrises, watched the sun set over the ocean after a storm, but I’d never seen anything as exquisite as Alissa pleasuring herself. “I have to touch you,” I stated weakly.

  “No” was her equally weak reply. Holding herself open with one hand she rolled against me.

  Holy Mary Mother of God, she was beautiful. Her hair was down, her skin glowed from the sun, and the expression of ecstasy on her face was almost too much for me.

  I wanted to touch her. I had to touch her. I wanted my fingers where hers were, giving her unmentionable pleasure, my mouth on hers, breathing her air.

  Alissa lifted her gaze from her fingers to look into my eyes. An instant later she came, and it was a long time before she fell into my arms.

  “That was for banishing me to the crow’s nest,” she said.

  It took me a minute to catch my breath. My head was trying to catch up to my racing heart. My ears were still ringing and I was light-headed. Watching Alissa pleasure herself was the sexiest, most sensual thing I had ever experienced.

  I rolled her over onto her back. “Hmm, I’ll have to send you up there again every day,” I said before sliding down her body to feast on that warm, special place between her legs.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Alissa

  Twelve days later we were within sight of land. The Dream had caught eighteen tons of tuna and safely transferred them to the transport nets. We trailed behind the transport boat, on standby if they ran into trouble. We played cards, told stories, and laughed a lot.

  In the privacy of Bert’s cabin we played strip poker, and when Bert realized I couldn’t keep my hands off her when she started to lose, I’m sure she cheated more than once. But then again so did I.

  We would dock in two days, and this exquisite adventure would be over. The guys were excited to get off the boat, but surprisingly I was ambivalent. What would happen with Bert and me? Would we continue this? And exactly what was this? Sex between us had become more hurried and more frequent as we got closer to shore. It was as if we both knew this would be over when we returned to port.

  “We’ll be docking around three tomorrow.”

  Bert’s voice came over my right shoulder. I was standing at the bow of the Dream and felt her come up behind me before she spoke. These last few days I seemed to know where she was before I saw her.

  “Okay,” I replied. Actually it wasn’t, but what was I going to say? I want you to turn this boat around and just keep going. Let’s sail away together? Like that was going to happen. No way would this go anywhere. I didn’t get involved, and obviously Bert didn’t either. She’d said as much a few nights ago.

  “How is it you don’t have a girlfriend?” We were lying in bed catching our breath after another marathon sex explosion.

  Bert laughed at my question. “This is an odd time and place to ask, isn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I mean we just had mind-blowing sex—at least it was for me. I hope it was for you too.”

  “You know it was, you dummy.” I poked her in the ribs. “Answer my question.”

  “I spent ten years building my business, and frankly, I didn’t have the time or energy to put into it. That and the fact that this life isn’t easy on the ones left behind. I saw what it did to my mom, and I won’t do that to anybody.” Her voice had lost its playful tone.

  “But wasn’t that her choice? I mean, didn’t she marry your dad knowing he was a fisherman?”

  “She did and she didn’t. I mean she fell in love with him and because of that stayed with him, but she raised his kids alone and worried sick about him every time he went out. She didn’t sleep hardly at all till he came home. Even then he wasn’t around much. He was doing repairs to the boat, scouting new fishing grounds, hanging out with other captains and getting intel on where to catch. It’s a hard life and even harder years ago.”

  “There was sonar back them, wasn’t there?” I asked, trying to remember if I ever learned about the technology in high school. It sure as hell wasn’t part of my undergrad or grad-school curriculum.

  “Yes, but nothing like it is today,” Bert answered. She didn’t seem to think my question was dumb. “Sometimes it was hard to tell if it was a school of tuna, sharks, or a pod of whales. But for some reason my mother loved him, had four kids, and spent most of her married life alone.”

  “Again, wasn’t that her choice?”

  Bert didn’t speak for a while, then said, “I don’t see your point.”

  “Couples do it all the time for whatever reason. Work locations, military spouses, hell, even prisoners. If both parties agree, then why not?”

  “I won’t do that to anyone.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I believe in forever, and I don’t think the trailing spouse has any idea what they’re signing up for.”

  “Even if they come from a fishing family?”

  “Especially if they do. Who would want to live like that?”

  “Obviously a lot of people. Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many little fishermen around,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. What had started out as simple curiosity had become something serious.

  “Maybe so, but not me.”

  “But just knowing you have someone, you belong to someone and they belong to you means something.”

  Bert didn’t answer.

  I’d intended the conversation to be over but couldn’t help asking, “So you just hook up now and then?”

  “No. I wait until I rescue a damsel in distress on the high seas and have my way with her.”

  I slid on top of her. Her hair was mussed from my hands in it, and she had sweat on her forehead. I wiped it off, my hand still shaking a bit. “Is that what you’ve done? Had your way with me?” I asked with false indignation.

  “Yep.”

  “Is there anything we haven’t done that you’d like to do?” I asked, curious at her answer.

  Bert’s eyes flashed, and I felt her heart beat a little faster under me. She smiled that smile that always got me going. Actually every smile got me going. It was working now.

  “We’ve done things I’ve never imagined, so it’s hard to say if we missed anything.”

/>   “Do you think sex is selfish?”

  “What?” Bert asked, probably confused at my change of direction.

  “Sex.”

  “I know what sex is.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you certainly do,” I said, grinding my crotch against her hip. “Do you think it’s selfish? I mean, when you have sex with someone it makes you feel good.”

  “I think all of my brain cells blew out the top of my head a few minutes ago so that’s pretty obvious. But I don’t think I’m following,” Bert said, obviously confused.

  I wasn’t sure exactly what I was asking, but it was something I’d thought about often lately. “Okay, let me try to explain,” I said. “You see someone you’re attracted to, and your body gets all tingly.”

  “Tingly?” Bert asked. “Did you get all tingly when you saw me?”

  “Yes, and then I got hot and horny, which is exactly my point. I wanted to have sex with you because of the way I felt. The way it made me feel.”

  “You wanted to have sex with me? Why the hell did we wait so long then?”

  I poked Bert in the side. “Pay attention.”

  “Baby, you and sex will always have my attention.” She squeezed my ass to demonstrate her point.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I am too, can’t you tell?” she asked, pushing me onto my back and sliding her thigh between my legs.

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I want to have sex with you because of the way it makes me feel.”

  “Okay,” she said, readily agreeing.

  “But don’t you see? I want you to touch me because it feels good. And when I touch you it feels good to me. So sex is totally selfish.” Made sense to me.

  “Is there a problem with that?” Bert asked, nibbling on my neck in that spot that made my toes curl.

  “No.” I answered weakly, not sure anymore what my main point was or why I’d even brought this up. Bert shifted lower, my breasts her next place to taste. I tried to focus because I had a point in there somewhere, but when Bert slid lower I completely lost my mind.

  “Alissa?” Bert’s voice drew me out of my wet dream.