by Jamie Hawke
“Fearsome,” she replied with a grin, then adjusted the jacket and lingered there, close.
“Last night—”
She held a finger to his mouth, cutting him off, then shook her head. “No questions.”
“I’m just—”
“We’re busy fighting a war, no?” She turned, checking another saber against her own, but ultimately settling on the one she’d entered with. “So let me say this once and be done with it—I don’t have time for distractions… for physical cravings and demands on my time. For emotional lollygagging.”
“Right.” Frank frowned, not liking how this was going at all.
“But…” She turned to face him, cocked an eyebrow, and smiled. “I get that you might have some cravings, being a man and all. And Milly is dear to me. As she can focus on more than one thing, while I cannot, why not divide and conquer?”
“Did you just refer to me with that phrase?”
She laughed. “You’re cute… Is it wrong that I want to claim you?”
“Claim… me?” Frank was more confused than ever.
“Only if you’ll have me, but,” she shrugged with a flirtatious lick of her lips, “I have a feeling that’s not an issue.”
“Great. Except… for the not making sense part.”
“Oh, God. Do I have to spell it out? Fine, but only because I hope it’ll help you focus on the battle at hand. Milly moves in, has some fun with you, and maybe I join when I’m ready. In the meantime, you’re not off worrying about trying to get laid, because she’s satisfying you plenty. Then, when we’re all hot and bothered and ready—and have a moment where my attention isn’t so divided—maybe we see what happens. Maybe I fuck your brains out… we’ll have to live long enough to find out.”
Without another word on the matter, she led the way back out, until finally at the doorway she paused and said, “Does that work for you?”
Frank gulped, nodded, and then croaked out, “Yes. I mean, fuck yes.”
“Thought so. Keisha was training last I saw her—see if she has time to show you a few moves before we set sail, yeah?”
“Won’t it look bad in front of the others, a girl showing me moves?”
She turned back, frowned, and said, “Don’t make me rethink this whole thing by making stupid remarks.”
And then she was gone, leaving him to feel like an idiot. He shook it off and darted back to where he’d last seen Keisha. A few other pirates passed, barking laughter and shouting in their excitement at going into battle to avenge their fallen comrades from the steam demon attack. Some of the men looked at Frank with respect, others with contempt or hatred. One shoved right past him, shoulder hitting him hard enough to nearly knock him over.
If they had any idea how much Frank was going to be able to help them—he figured, based on what his compass had already done—they wouldn’t be acting like this. What did he care though? He had just gotten head in an amazing pirate lagoon, and what sounded an awful lot like promises of more to come from multiple women.
His legs were tingling just thinking about it.
He found Keisha preparing to leave, the other pirates already on their way. When she saw him, she frowned and glanced around.
“Expected you earlier,” she said, turning away from him and starting to walk. “But apparently, you have a death wish.”
“I got… distracted.”
Keisha turned to him with a frown. “That’s what you call it? Tell you what, when you’re lying on the beach bleeding out, I’ll remind you that at least you got your dick wet first.”
“What the fuck?”
She turned on him, hands on her hips. “Tell me otherwise. Tell me you didn’t go off and play around with Esmerelda or one of her gals instead of preparing to save your life and defend everyone else’s here.”
“That’s not fair,” he protested.
“Is it not?” She stepped forward, hand on her sword’s hilt. “Maybe we try you out then, see if you’re ready for what awaits you.”
Frank gulped and took a step back, but then stood tall. “Actually, that’s why I’m here. I honestly hadn’t thought about it… didn’t realize the invitation to train was open. Was I… fooling around? I’m not sure how that’s anyone’s business but my own, but…”
“Fuck, I don’t want the details,” Keisha said, waving him off. “But I’ll say this—watch out for her. You wouldn’t be the first man to be strung along like a puppet, playing into her games.”
“I wasn’t aware there were games.”
“Believe it.”
“I thought you two were… I don’t know, friends?”
“We’re not enemies, but among pirates, the word ‘friend’ is always confusing.” Keisha drew her sword—a saber like his—and took up a defensive stance. “Would I die for her? Listen to her stories and laugh? Bring her fucking soup in bed if she was sick? Yes, to all of the above. Would I trust her with a man I had an interest in?” She scoffed. “Not a chance.”
Frank pulled his sword but paused, running over the words she’d just said. Had she implied she liked him or was that a stretch?
Without warning, she switched to the offensive and lunged, sword stopping an inch away from his heart before he even thought to parry it.
“See?” she said. “You’re too distracted by your dick. You might want to lose it before it costs you your life.” This time her sword lowered to his crotch, and he quickly knocked her sword away with his own.
“Not funny. Dick or life, I choose to keep the dick and lose my life.”
“Your priorities are a bit off.”
“No different than any man,” he countered.
She nodded. “I agree.”
This time when she lunged for a strike, he was ready. He blocked and spun, lunged as she leaped back, and then went after her. Only, her first move had been a feint, and she came back and caught him, sword at his crotch again.
He glared, taking a step back and frowning. “I’m not sure I like learning from you.”
“Way I hear it, it would be quite the loss,” she said, then winked, taking up an offensive stance.
He felt his cheeks redden. “Are we here to show me some moves or…?”
“We’re here to test you,” she said. “See if you can fight, see what you need to know, and maybe see if you can keep your dick in your pants.”
“I’m still not following why it should stay in my pants.”
“Oh?”
“I don’t mean with you, but… in general. Who are you to say me getting close to someone is a bad thing?”
“For one, time away from training.” She lunged but gave him an easy strike he could block. “For another, say that person dies today. Now you’re distraught and no use in the next fight. We just lost two fighters.”
“Or, say I fight that much harder knowing I have someone who cares about me, or at least cares about my dick, and therefore kill twice as many of the enemy? Or say she or they die—”
“They already?”
Frank frowned. “Just… say she dies, then maybe I want revenge and I’m ten times the fighter, leading charges and bringing all kinds of trouble their way.”
He struck back and then froze. “You lost someone.”
She didn’t even bother to block the would-be strike, just glared at him, then turned and walked off.
“Hey, wait,” he called after her. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m only trying to understand where this mindset comes from.”
She rounded on him and said, “Is that so? Then yes, but I’ll tell you this right now—it wasn’t some random sex and certainly had nothing to do with his… well, you know. I fucking loved that man, and they took him from me. Maybe you’re right, maybe I’ve come back tenfold on them, and will continue to do so until every last one of the Pirate King’s men is dead. But I’d give that all up to have him back, and had I known…”
“You would’ve betrayed everyone here to save him.”
She stared, no ans
wer forthcoming. Which was, of course, the answer in itself.
“That doesn’t make you wrong, it doesn’t make you bad.” Frank walked toward her, stopping a pace away. “What it made you was in love, and the fact that you fight on shows that you’re strong, and that maybe you never would’ve betrayed these people either because you knew all along that he wouldn’t have been okay with that.”
“You don’t know him,” she spat back.
“And I don’t know you, except what I can see right now. This is what I see.”
Her hand gripped her sword tight, then loosened… then let it fall. “You remind me of him, you know.”
“I’m… not sure what to do with that. Thank you?”
She nodded. “Not your looks, but the way you speak with such passion. For someone who just arrived, you sure seem to care.”
“I do,” Frank admitted. “And it’s because of the people. People like you, Esmerelda, Milly, Teddy… Hell, even Ox maybe. And a large part of it? I’ve known people like the Pirate King, or at least known of them. They must all be stopped before it’s too late.”
“Indeed.” She lifted her sword and grinned. “Then let’s make this count.”
“Training?” Frank asked.
“We have maybe twenty more minutes. Let’s see if there’re a few moves I can show you.”
“Hell yeah,” Frank replied, earning him a confused glare before she started checking his stance, giving him slight modifications and showing him a few blocks to strikes he hadn’t known.
By the time they were done, she was laughing and he was pulling off new moves he’d never even seen in his Jedi dueling club. He’d made a new friend, and felt damn good about that. She was right that now he cared enough that he didn’t want to lose her. But he was only going to fight twice as hard, if not harder, to ensure that didn’t happen.
They walked to the ships together, going back around to the other side of the island, where they’d depart as a precaution to always keep the hideout as secretive as possible.
“You’re not the worst,” Keisha said. “Where’d you learn some of those moves?”
He hated to admit that a couple of his spinning jump strikes and the like had been copied from the Star Wars movies, especially since she wouldn’t have a clue what he was talking about, so instead he said, “Here and there. Foreign fighters, mostly.”
She nodded, intrigued. “Well, keep it simple out there unless you’re going for the shock factor. A lot of these pirates know what they’re doing and will simply step in and gut you if you try something fancy.”
Frank’s next step was wobbly at the thought of his guts spilling out onto the beach, him falling dead and never returning home. Worse, never getting to caress Milly again, never to get his chance with Esmerelda. And now he wanted to be there for Keisha, the woman who had lost her lover.
There were simply too many reasons not to die. He’d have to make sure to make it so.
“And you?” he asked as they crested the last hill to see the waiting ships, their sails unfurled and ready to go. Not one of them, he noted, flew the Jolly Roger.
“My father,” she said, and her voice took on that distant feeling. “He taught me every day since I could walk. Told me it was the only way to defend myself in this world—that or take up the household life, and fuck any notion of me being a cleaning, cooking, mother. Not for me.”
“You chose this instead?”
She scowled, shaking her head. “No, this lifestyle chose me. I was content making a life for myself in the trading business. When the Pirate King declared all ships in the region either for him or against, it all fell apart.”
“Damn.”
“My father was a great man. Defended me, got us to this point. Want to know the irony? He wasn’t killed by the sword, but by choking… choking on a fucking bite of chicken.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.” All this talk, Frank couldn’t help thinking about his dad, worrying he might never get back to see the old man. Maybe share a ginger brew and takeout—that would be good enough. No, that would be great. If he ever found a way back.
Keisha nodded, put a hand on Frank’s shoulder, and said, “Thank you.”
Her hand lingered there as they walked, then fell to her side. Oddly, he felt the strange sense that she really wanted him to hold her hand. But after everything they’d discussed, with the way she’d scolded him for fooling around and told him about her dead lover, he couldn’t do it. Maybe it was some perverted side of him taking over that tried to convince him to, the devil on his shoulder, but he fought the urge, telling himself it wasn’t right.
Even if it was what she needed, it could still be taken the wrong way, and he didn’t want to risk the friendship they were forming.
“So what do you fight for?” she asked.
“I…” The question hit him as a confusing one. In part, it was still to get home, but as he found himself questioning that desire, he felt more and more it was about these people around him. That, and ensuring the future he knew to be the future stayed that way. Finally, he said, “The people, I guess. You, Milly, Esmerelda… even Teddy and Ox. And our future.”
She nodded, looking at Frank in a new light, and said, “Yeah, that’s right.”
“It’s right?” he asked with a chuckle. “Didn’t know this was a pop quiz.”
“Now you know,” she replied with a wink.
They reached the ships and Teddy waved them over to the one they were to sail on. “Help where you can,” Teddy said when they’d joined him. “But we have enough sailors. What we’ll really need are ready hands when it comes time for fighting, so rest if you need to. Whatever helps get your mind in the right place. For me,” he held up a bottle of rum and grinned, then downed some before finishing, “this hits the spot.”
Frank wanted to say something about that being a cliché, but didn’t suppose that would go over too well with a pirate possibly drunk on rum. Instead, he followed Keisha to the armory, where they went about ensuring all the weapons were properly stowed, then ensured that the gunpowder was dry and secure.
Esmerelda entered and gave Keisha a sideways glance before asking, “So, does our boy know how to use that sword of his?”
“Like a master,” Keisha replied.
“Funny, I really didn’t think you two were on your own long enough for him to qualify as being a master. Maybe I should take him to the captain’s quarters and find out.”
Frank frowned, realizing that they weren’t talking about sword play at all. “Aren’t you the one who said you needed to focus?” he asked. “For your information, we legitimately did practice, nothing more.”
Esmerelda shrugged like she wasn’t sure.
“Would it be so bad if we had slept together?” Keisha asked. “Have you planted your flag in him or something I should be aware of?”
“In a sense,” Esmerelda replied. “But you’d be welcome to join anytime, as long as the other ladies approve it. Honestly, you could probably use a good flag-planting yourself.”
“I set myself up for that,” Keisha said with a laugh, shaking her head and starting to leave. “You two, behave yourselves.”
“Keisha,” Esmerelda said as the woman reached the door.
Keisha turned back. “Yeah?”
“That wasn’t much of an answer. In, or out?”
Frank couldn’t believe they were discussing his sex life like this. He stared, mouth hanging open, as Keisha pursed her lips, blushed, and made eye contact with him.
“Maybe,” she said. “Let me think about it.”
When she was gone, Esmerelda turned to Frank with wide eyes. “You must be really special. Also, you’re welcome.”
“What happened?”
“She never shows the remotest interest in men, not since… well, I shouldn’t say. But the fact that she’d consider joining us—”
“I’m sorry,” Frank said, hand to his head in a confused burst of being kind of offended and very intrigued. “First, what
exactly is us? To be totally clear here.”
“I should be getting back to—”
“No. Teddy even said they have enough sailors, and we have to be far enough away from our destination that they can’t easily find us. So… explain.”
She stood tall, eyeing Frank in a stern way that didn’t let him know what was going on in her head. Finally, she let out a frustrated breath before reaching back to throw the lock on the door.
“What’s… happening?” Frank asked.
“Better than explain,” she said, “is to show.” She stepped forward, dropping her jacket and then undoing the buttons on her blouse. Before he knew what was happening she had her shirt apart, breasts exposed, and was undoing his pants as her lips met his—gently at first. Then with more vigor as she had his pants off and was cradling his balls, moving her hand along his cock as she got a feel for it, moaning. “I told you I didn’t want the distraction,” she said as she sank down to the floor, pulling him down on top of her and guiding his head down to kiss her breasts. “However, as we can’t have you confused, since that would be distracting for you, we can meet somewhere in the middle.”
“This is the middle?” he asked, looking up from her breasts, one hand moving along them as his other worked to remove her pants.
“In a sense, yes.” She grabbed his hand and placed it between her thighs so he could feel how wet she was. He slowly started caressing around her pussy, then slid a finger in. “We’re not going to fuck yet, because I want the first time that happens to be… not in these circumstances. And I want the others there.”
He leaned back. “The others? Meaning… Milly?”
“Milly, Mary… maybe Keisha, if she’ll be part of it. But she can join later. Something we can work on.”
“Okay, hold on.” He pulled his hand away, but she grabbed it and put it back exactly where she wanted it and held it there, then pulled him in for a kiss. “No, I mean it,” he continued, “not that I’m arguing, but I have to know. The others… why? I mean, why do you care?”
She rolled her eyes even as she had her hand on his cock, stroking it, breathing heavily as he fingered her. “It’s complicated. Let’s say it’s teamwork. Like the closest-knit group you can possibly imagine.”