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Will
dropped his shift on the floor, and shucked out of his breeches. Jumping up
into the high featherbed, he covered himself to the waist with the sheet.
"As usual, James, you've overdressed for the occasion," Elizabeth teased,
and she approached him boldly. Placing a hand on the laces at the front of
his breeches, she carefully undid the fastenings and slid them down over his
hips, then slipped her hands back up the sides to rest at the base of his
ribs. She'd expected him to be pale, with all the time spent in uniform, but
was surprised to find a delineation of lighter skin, below the belt. More
stocky in the torso than Will, less wiry and willowy.
In some ways, more masculine-looking, around the brow and the chin. James
stepped out of the breeches, and they puddled on the floor with the other
clothes.
Different, thought Elizabeth. Different is good.
Will watched from the bed, wondering at the lack of jealousy he was feeling,
viewing his wife undress another man. Not a stranger, to be sure, Will had
known Norrington from his own boyhood, from the time he had been rescued and
fished from the waters of the Atlantic. The long years spent under his
tutelage, on the fencing practice-grounds. The subtle mentoring, all through
his youth. Captain Norrington had been the adult Will spent his lonely
adolescent years the closest to. He'd not known him this well, but...
Trust. That's what it was. He trusted James. And he trusted Elizabeth. It
would naturally follow then, that he would trust James and Elizabeth
together, would it not?
That's why it only brought him happiness to watch his wife stand before
James, arms stretched over her head, as he cautiously unlaced her
underbodice, and exposed her breasts. Definitely feeling happiness, here.
Perhaps, happiness and a certain...excitement. Will reached under the sheets
and cautiously gave himself a couple of surreptitious strokes, as James
began to nibble down Elizabeth's neck, below the collarbones and gradually,
excruciatingly, on down to the darkened nipples.
"You taste like the sea." James observed.
"I rather expect that's true of all of us." Elizabeth replied. "Let me
check." Still wearing her smalls, she jumped across the bed to where Will
lay. "And how are you, Mr. Turner? Salty?" She leaned down and gave will a
firm lick from chest to chin, ending with her traditional nibble at his
sparse beard.
"Your verdict?" Will asked.
"Positively...um..." Elizabeth paused, "James, what's that word for "lives
in the open sea?' It starts with a p."
"Pelagic?"
"That's the one. Will, you taste Positively Pelagic!" She turned to James
and held out her hand. "Well, come on then. Get up here, it's your turn to
be tested, I mean, tasted!"
James was still morbidly uncomfortable, but also frighteningly aroused.
These two were so sure of themselves, it seemed, and he was so...unsure. He
hesitated. "I think I perhaps could do with some wine. Parched." He began to
back away towards the kitchen.
"Oh, no you don't!" Elizabeth lunged for his arm, and dragged him bodily
into the bed. "You still need convincing, don't you? Lie down."
"She'd make a good naval officer, wouldn't she?" Will chuckled.
"LIE DOWN, JAMES. That's an order."
"An order?"
"Fine. PLEASE lie down?" and Elizabeth muttered something about
insubordination under her breath, with a glance at Will.
Laughing, James did as he was told.
"Now. Your turn for the tasting, James." Kneeling beside James's legs in the
middle of the bed, she bent over his chest, and licked in little lapping
motions, all across his torso. She sat up, and pulled a short hair from her
mouth. "Hmmm...inconclusive. Further tasting necessary." She lowered her
mouth to James's belly, and gradually worked her way southwards, closer and
closer to... there.
And stopped. James flung an arm over his face and breathed heavily, thinking
carefully about the exact language of the articles of war. It had been too
long for him to last through much more of this.
"Still inconclusive. Will?" Will had been observing intently, and his hand
was under the sheet again.
"Um...very well." Will rolled over towards James. "Hullo, James. Don't take
this the wrong way, will you?" and he licked across the shoulder and up the
neck, to the ear. A little shudder passed through each of them. James
somehow managed to convince himself this was due to the tickle of tongue,
anyone's tongue really, on sensitive territory.
He was not going consciously admit to finding Turner attractive. Those
particular fantasies had always been carefully kept deeply hidden under lock
and key, ever since....
Will was under fewer illusions. He'd been teased often enough by Elizabeth
about his statement made that day, "...right here between you and Jack."
Images flickered through Will's mind, images that had repeated in his inner
vision, over and over.
James, in just such a position as this.
Naked. In Will's bed. Will laving his way up that neck.
Will moved his lips from the earlobe to the corner of the jaw. Oh. The
little bits of beard, poking through skin to make a shadow and a bristle.
Will hadn't thought of that, but of course a man's chin would be different.
Different, thought Will. Different is good.
They were toying with him, but he could play at that game, thought James. He
wanted to shock these youngsters, get a bit of his own back, so to speak.
Did they think only they were capable of passionate arousal? Did they wish
to toss him as a bone to Elizabeth, since Turner could not fulfill her needs
completely? Ha!
One should not strike the flint to tinder, if one does not seek the flame.
They expected him to go to Elizabeth, willingly, even meekly.
It was time these two were taught a lesson. He was a man of more experience
than either of them, and Will's ever-so-appealing innocence would be the
chink in his youthful armor.
He turned and kissed Will full on the mouth, open and tonguing. Will
responded to his kisses even more strongly than had Elizabeth, ragged
breathing and covetous stroking over the length of his body. James increased
his attentions, pushing out the borders, seeking to find the edge where
Turner would buckle, turn back from this course.
Elizabeth stared, amazed. She never would have countenanced her reaction to
watching them together, prior to this moment. She knew that Will had held
some attraction for James as a Handsome Naval Officer; a kind of
hero-worship really, she had thought. Admiration turned into desire,
somehow. But this... the avaricious way Will took James's tongue into his
mouth, hungering for more, sucking and swallowing as if imagining something
more than just their faces together...
She was startled by the track her own imagination was treading. Both her
beautiful and loving young husband, and the strong and wise Commodore
Norrington, in her bed for the purpose of her sensual pleasuring? What woman
on earth would find that distasteful?
However.
To see them both together, intimately touching, caressing, and clearly
interested in the other's attentions...it raised her ardor more than any
previous experience. Yet no one was even touching her. Her rapt attention
was focused on Will's hand, sliding down to the front of James' belly.
James glanced up at her without breaking his lips from her husband's,
attempting to gauge her reaction. She closed her mouth (how long had it been
hanging open?) and tried to master her panting breath.
Eyes locked with hers, James reached under the sheets to Will's cock, and
began firm manipulation of what he discovered there. Elizabeth could imagine
the texture of Will in James' hand. Would James' fingers seem a great
contrast to her own, from Will's perspective? Will broke off kissing and
tilted his head back, breathless. James ducked his head and bit at the
hollow of Will's neck, just where it joined his shoulder, the sensitive skin
just above the collarbone.
Will shuddered, then rocked back as if stung.
"What is it?" James feared he'd bitten that muscular shoulder too hard.
"Ah, FUCK." Will flipped and rolled to his side in the opposite direction,
blushing profusely and curling around himself in a ball.
Liz covered her mouth, stifling a smile. "He's not injured, James."
Will's shoulders began to shake. Was the man crying? wondered Norrington.
"Biting his neck like that. It almost always sets him off," Elizabeth
explained, placing a reassuring hand on James' thigh.
"...sets him off." James repeated stupidly.
"Haven't you ever shot off a bit early yourself?" laughed Will. "Or is that
something they teach you how to avoid in the Navy? Never loose your cannons
until you can be sure of your target?"
Elizabeth crawled over on top of her husband, bussed him soundly, and said,
"Why don't you just enjoy the view there for a few minutes, and we'll see if
we can't manage to occupy ourselves, shall we? You'll join us again when
you've had a moment to..." she looked him up and down, "...recuperate."
"I'm sure it won't take long, watching the two of you, together. I'll just
grab a bit of that wine." Will dabbed at his belly with the sheets for a
moment, then took himself out to the kitchen.
James lay stunned. He had, just in this past moment, touched a man whom he
resented intensely, very nearly hated. Well, no, not hated. He'd known the
lad too long for that and if Elizabeth had chosen Will, he should hardly
blame the fellow for accepting her love. But resented, yes.
He had touched Will in a personal, nay, intimate fashion, and brought
him to completion. As his wife looked on. The sheer perversity of the act,
the complete unexpectedness, the...
There simply were not words for this.
He watched, very nearly blinded by desire and confusion, as Elizabeth had
tugged loose the drawstring at the waist of her smallclothes, and wriggled
free of them, dropping them to the floor with a practiced flip of her wrist.
The smooth curve of hip, the dark mound of hair approaching to tickle, to
press against his thigh. It was all too much. Especially now that that
selfsame wife, his own former fiancée, was doing something deliciously
wicked to his skin with her fingernails, in the area between his waist and
his upper thighs.
He took her hand, held it still. "Elizabeth. What are we doing?"
"I thought that would be fairly obvious by now," she replied.
"Perhaps I'm not as quick a study as you believe," James stated solemnly.
"Spell it out for me. What exactly are we doing here?"
"We're having a marvelous time in bed, James." she replied huskily. "At
least, that's what I happen to be doing."
"And why, pray tell, are we doing it?"
Bottles clanked from the vicinity of the kitchen. Will was out there being
deliberately noisy. He was giving her a chance to talk to James. A smile
quirked the corner of her mouth. Wise Will.
"Honestly? Do you really want to know? The answer may not please you, you
know."
"I think you owe me at least that much explanation, my dear." Norrington
took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax in her presence. "Why are you
doing this, dragging me to your marriage bed?"
"Because Will needs it of me. Because I am not quite enough for
Will," Elizabeth sighed, and pulled her hands from his. "Because I love him
dearly, and I want more than anything to see him happy."
"I don't understand. How can... Why is... WHAT?"
"James. My husband loves me, and worships me and desires me. He also loves
and worships and desires you.
"And so you do this, this thing...because he is your husband? Out of a sense
of... duty?"
"In all the years you have known me, James, how many times have you truly
seen me do something I did not care to do, out of a sense of duty?"
James barked out a truncated guffaw.
Elizabeth's eyes darkened and she leaned forward. "Will asked first. He's
rather impulsive, even reckless, at times. I was going to wait until we were
married a full year before I asked him for the selfsame boon, for myself.
For this..." she kissed him deeply "and this..." and she worked her way down
his neck and shoulders "and this..." and lower still "and this..." her
breath traced over James as she spoke, and gooseflesh rose on his skin.
"Elizabeth. Stop." James held her head still, gently, between his strong and
supple hands. "I'll not have you do this out of some misguided sense of
pity."
"I do this because I wish it. Do you think me a strumpet, James? I love two
men, and was forced to choose between you, by a life that barely allows me
to marry even one man for love. I chose the man who needed me most,
and beside whom I would have the greatest freedom." She smiled, to take as
much sting from her words as she could. "I really would have made a dreadful
commodore's wife, wouldn't I?"
"I still would rather you had chosen to be my bride, and not his! I
want a family, not a convenient cunt! Can you blame me?" James' frustration
blazed to anger, but using such coarse language before a lady only fanned
his arousal further, much to his dismay. "I can find this sort of comfort in
the alleys and taverns. I'll not be your plaything, your amusement, in this
way." Despite his words, his body rebelled against all rational thought; he
made no motion to leave.
Will's shoulders darkened the doorframe. "I'm sorry, James. You're right.
I've known you well enough, for long years past. I should have guessed."
James could only wonder as Will and Elizabeth made some sort of silent
exchange, thoughts and eyes alone, over the distance between them.
"Are we going to ask him? Now?" Elizabeth's eyes flew wide, and caught the
light as she spoke.
James was struck by the thought that he had never before noticed all the
colors of her eyes; they held tiny flecks of gold and green in the brown.
"Ask me what?"
Will crouched, and reached beneath the bed, and slid out a long, narrow box.
"A gift for you. And a request."
Elizabeth took the box from Will's hands, and proffered it to a wary James.
"A request, from the both of us."
The surface of the box was pebbled black leather. It smelled freshly tanned.
It was heavy for its size, and the brass of the hinges and fastenings
undulled by time or tarnish. This was no whim, he held. This was careful
planning of long months. This was conversations late in the night. This was
something they had known, both of them.
"Join our family." Will entreated him.
"Help us raise our children, together," beseeched Elizabeth.
"Grow old with us," Will finished.
"You're mad! You can't be serious!" although James had a sneaking suspicion
that neither of these was the case. "What would you have me say?"
"Yes," the Turners chimed in unison.
The air was suddenly very still in the bedchamber.
"Please?" said Will, and James was caught by those pleading eyes, and
something inside him broke a little. No one had ever looked at him with
quite that much pain and longing before.
No one.
Could he do this?
Could he bear to refuse this, once it was offered?
The box lay forgotten in his lap.
"Please?" said Elizabeth, and looking to her eyes, James saw the same
longing for love and happiness...directed at Will.
Will stretched out his hand, nudged the box as a reminder. Half-unconscious
of his own hands, James thumbed the latch, opened the lid, and stared at the
gleaming blade within.
An absolute masterwork of swordsmithing, a perfectly proportioned weapon of
beauty and functionality. The blade was smooth and cool like water, under
his fingertips. Not as elaborately ornamented as his ceremonial blade, but
one that was even more finely crafted in the balance for its length and
size. A princely gift.
But not as great as what he had just been offered.
"Children?" he managed to choke out the word.
"Our children, James. All three of us," said Elizabeth.
"Together." Will laid a hand on his upper arm.
"But we might not know..." argued James.
"It's possible. We'll never be truly sure, I suppose. But I think I'll
know," Elizabeth reassured.
"I..." James took a deep breath, closed his eyes, exhaled slowly.
Across the canvas of his imagination, he saw them. A daughter, a son, and
two more daughters. The son was his seed, but all four were his children.
Green eyes snapped open.
"Yes."
Elizabeth raised her hand to James' face, brushing his cheekbone with her
thumb. Blinking back unexpected tears, she cradled him there for a moment,
taking into memory every detail of his countenance.
The silent gratitude in her eyes cut James to the quick, sundering the last
of his internal breakwaters with a storm surge of emotion. He rocked into
her, in a tsunami of kissing and touching, the box with the sword in it
forgotten between them.
Will slid the box carefully out from the closeness of their embrace, and
replaced it safely under the bed. As he rose from his crouch, he found
himself grasped by two sets of hands, pulled swiftly and roughly up onto the
mountainous featherbed. James' mouth was the first to find his, to his
infinite surprise.
After a moment of celebration, Will disengaged from the embrace of the man
he cared for more than any other, the man who had been the brother and guide
of his youth, but who now...
"I don't wish to... you don't need to... I..." Will stammered out his
extenuations.
"William," James replied. "I do this not out of duty. I do this not out of
gratitude." He pressed Will's shoulders back, overbalancing him onto the
pillows, and laying him out flat. Then, James began to lick, and to speak,
his way down Will's chest and belly. "I do this...lick because it
is...nibble something... suckle I have wanted... bite
to do... lap for a very long..." James paused when he reached Will's
cock, and simply breathed over it for a rapid heartbeat or three "...long...whoosh
...time."
And with that, he took Will within his lips, and slid his mouth down around
the length of the shaft, cheeks hollowed and tongue swirling inside.
Elizabeth clapped a hand over her mouth, to stifle her exclamation of
surprise. She remembered her first tentative experiments with her mouth and
Will's sex. Fumbling, awkward, choking... nothing like what she saw here.
James knew exactly how to go about what he was doing to Will. He was
very obviously not unfamiliar with the way of a man with another man! Even
notwithstanding the advantages of having similar accoutrements, the
commodore must have had experiences generally discountenanced in a naval
career.
Will's hands fisted in the sheets, and he managed to pant out a few words.
"Not as long as I, I think." James chuckled in his throat, and the sensation
of it nearly sent Will over the edge for the second time in less than an
hour. Will clutched at James' head, holding him still and then lifting him
off, as he squeaked, "Not yet! Stop!"
James chortled again, and turned to ask Elizabeth, "Does he always operate
on such a short fuse?"
Elizabeth lay sprawled across the other side of the wide bed, "Not with me.
It must be you."
"I suspect it's the novelty of the situation," Will laughed. "Surely the
effect will fade, in time. But perhaps we should have you between us,
my love," Will crawled around behind her, and she scooted into the center of
the bed, rolling to her side.
James looked at the two of them, two sets of darkened brown eyes gazing into
his own, the woman's arms spread to welcome him in, the man's wrapped
protectively, but not possessively, around her torso. Blood surged through
him, making his veins sing and his heart swell to nearly breaking.
He slid into her embrace, and suddenly checked. This was no brief encounter
with a wharf-doxie, no casual intimacy with a fellow officer on a distant
shore leave.
For the first time in his life, he was going to engage in sexual relations
with deliberate intent to conceive a child.
His own child.
Terror and joy flooded him in equal measure, reflecting in his conflicted
expression. "James?" Elizabeth's voice was soft in his ear, "If you're
not...there are other ways..." her words were awkward, trying to reassure
him.
"It's all been rather sudden, honestly. But I... I'm ready."
"Are you certain?"
"Now or never."
There was almost no friction as he entered her, just a heat and moisture and
sense of belonging in this place, with this woman, and yes, also with
this man. He was not one to seek the company of men by exclusive preference,
but there was a certain adamantine passion that was never quite satisfied by
the attentions of a woman alone. Nor would any man ever have the ambrosial
charms that a woman could hold for him. She rocked against him, and her
nipples brushed against the dusting of his chest hair. Will's hands cupped
her bosom from beneath, his calloused, blacksmith's thumbs tracing fire at
the edges of her sensitive breasts.
Will stroked against the smooth skin of her derriére with his cock, while
James filled her with his. Surrounded by warm, sweat-soaked men, like a bath
in heated seawater, she was rocked in the waves of the two of them. It took
a few tries to find a rhythm that they could all three keep, and she held
back her giggles, so perilously close to the surface. Laughter and joy,
passion and desire, all warred for prominence.
It was so preposterous, that this day's events might ever have come to pass.
Perhaps it was all merely an elaborate dream she was having.
"She likes it when you lick her neck," Will helpfully explained to James,
and the additional sensation of two tongues at her throat caused her to
explode. Waves of shuddering and clenching passed through her, wringing her
like a washcloth, every drop and morsel of juicy passion dripping from her
being.
As she began to shudder between them, James reached around behind her, and
grasping Will by the hip, used him for greater leverage as he thrust deeper
and more forcibly into Elizabeth. Will steadied them both, watching, intent
on the ecstasy in James' face, the keening of Elizabeth's voice. Almost
there...
Almost there...
Elizabeth and James fell limp in each other's arms. He had found greater
enjoyment, Will mused, viewing the two of them together, than even being the
one to find his own satisfaction.
However.
There was something to be said for a little satiation, as well. Will gently
removed his left hand from her breast, and reached down to give himself a
few final strokes to complete the process.
"Not yet. Stop." James slid his hand around from the back, to cover Will's
own. "Mine." he said simply.
"Ours." Elizabeth countered.
"Mine." Norrington's voice had gone commodorial. "You've had months
together. This once..."
"Yes." Will's voice deepened below his usual, to a resonant basso.
Elizabeth slumped off the side to the floor and knelt there, head supported
on the bed by her arms. "I'll just stay out of the way over here and watch,
shall I?" Her wide grin showed how little she would be minding this role.
She caught up her dressing gown off the floor, and wrapped it around her
shoulders.
And watch she did, as James positioned Will on a hillock of pillows at the
headboard of the bed, and proceeded to suckle and lap his way all around
Will's firm, trembling cock. He licked his fingers, and used them to slick a
circling path, round and round the balls. Never giving more than a second or
two of attention to the head, wandering and meandering his way throughout
the entire area with his mouth, James soon reduced Will to incoherency.
Finally, unable to refrain from begging, Will cried out, "PLEASE!" and James
lunged and sucked him deep into his throat, just at the moment of Will's
climax, swallowing and swallowing.
I wonder if he could teach me the trick of that, thought Elizabeth.
BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM!!! came the sound of vigorous pounding at the
front door. None of them had noticed the passage of time. The sun was deeply
westering, and the boat had been missed for its expected return.
"Marines." James managed to remain calm in crisis, as per usual. "Swann must
have sent out search parties. We must feign injury, to explain our absence,
I believe. He leaped from the bed, pulled his sword from beneath it, and
gave himself a wicked-looking but shallow cut across his own brow. Then,
flipping the blade deftly in the air, he held the hilt out to Will with a
wry grin. "Your turn."
"No need, on my account." Will grinned broadly, rotated his arm, up and over
his head, took a deep breath... and popped his shoulder out of its socket
with a sickening crunch. Norrington's eyes bugged.
Elizabeth shuddered beside him. "I hate when he does that. It goes back in
without much trouble, but it aches for days afterwards." She was frantically
hopping on one leg, getting into her smalls and underskirts, under the
dressing gown. "I'll go stall them with the 'hysterical female' routine. I
think 'daft and batty' ought to do for my injury. You two finish dressing
and work out the story." With that, she dashed to the front door, closing
the bedroom behind her; then, they heard the shrieking begin.
"She's an amazing woman, Will. You're lucky to have her." James struggled
his way back into Will's too-snug breeches, finally deciding to leave his
shirttails free to cover the gap in the buttons.
"No, James." Will was having difficulty as well, dressing awkwardly with the
use of only one arm. "We are lucky to have her, you and I both."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Epilogue:
Norrington was buried deep within his paperwork, a myriad of parchment
sheets strewn across his desk. So much to be attended to; he'd fallen too
far behind in his days of recuperation from his "head injury."
"How is that gash of yours healing, sir?" Lieutenant Groves inquired,
solicitously, having entered the open door of the office unnoticed by his
superior officer.
Norrington stifled a flinch. Groves often made a game of attempting to sneak
up on fellow officers. Gillette had complained of the practice. Often.
"Hmmm? Oh, fine. Just fine," James scowled, an action which still stung
slightly. "Do you have a report for me? Any news of the rest of the fleet?"
"No news of consequence, sir." Groves seemed to be stifling a smirk.
Norrington sighed. Groves was rather a jackdaw, always in need of a firm
hand to keep his capricious nature in rein.
"Well then, why don't you deliver the news of no consequence,
Lieutenant."
"Mrs. Turner sends a request that you do her the honor of dining with her
and Mr. Turner, this evening after seven, at their home."
"I see." James made as if to ponder for a moment. "I really ought to stay
late and finish these..." He gestured to the morass of documents before him.
"I'm sure these can wait, sir," Groves beamed. "After the Turners were so
kind as to care for you after your injury, hosting you in their home for
several days? If I may be so bold, sir, it only seems appropriate that you
grace them with your presence when they ask it of you."
Norrington eyed his lieutenant suspiciously. "Only appropriate that I do so?
In dereliction of my other duties?"
"Under the circumstances, sir." Groves schooled his face to careful
seriousness, failed, and twitched into a smirk again.
"Lieutenant. Close the door. I would speak with you privately." Norrington's
eyes were hard, his voice commanding, as he gestured with one hand at the
entryway.
Groves swallowed, and shut the heavy wooden door.
"Explain yourself." Norrington demanded.
"Sir, I... I'm sorry I..."
"You are indeed." Norrington let the man hang for a moment.
"I did the best I could, at-at-at at the time, sir." Norington quirked an
eyebrow at that. What revelation was about to be blurted? Theo was often
guilty of subterfuge, none of it malicious, but most of it directed at his
rival and fellow lieutenant. The next word from his lips was likely to be...
"Lieutenant Gillete, sir," Groves said, the words tumbling from him in a
rush, "he wouldn't take no for an answer. He was hellbent on searching
everywhere that was likely. I sent him to six other places, stalled him as
long as I could, after I saw you both go back into the Turners'..."
"Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir?"
"Your babbling incoherencies come dangerously close to impugning the honor
of several good people of Port Royal. I believe you should choose your next
statement very carefully. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did you see, that day I was injured?"
"Sir, I saw nothing."
"Are you very certain?"
"Absolutely certain, sir."
"You will never speak of this again. Is that clear?"
"Inescapably clear, sir."
"Very good. Dismissed." Groves turned to make a hasty, chagrinned exit. As
his hand touched the door handle, James spoke again. "Oh, and Theodore?"
Groves turned in trepidation.
"You have my thanks. Tell Elizabeth I'll be along as directly as I can, will
you?"
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