Pirated Love (20 page)

Tina thought to herself, there could be something said for not releasing too soon as this orgasm went on and on in her wife’s mouth.  The feel of Claire touching her made it extra special, and as she slowly collapsed and then slid down Claire’s slick body into the now cool water, she reached for the faucet and turned on the hot water again so they could play in its welcome warmth.

“I love you,” she murmured as she rubbed her body against Claire’s glossy one.

“Only about half as much as I love you,” Claire murmured back, her breath now catching in her throat at the feeling of mons rubbing mons, breasts rubbing breasts.

They were pruney by the time they used the big, fluffy towels in the bathroom on each other.  As they went into the bedroom, Claire was about to fling her towel aside when Tina stopped her, looked up, and then walked determinedly across the room and hung her own towel over the wall. One end was on a dresser, the other on a wardrobe, but it was covering the wall.

“What is that about?” Claire asked, referring to Tina’s odd behavior.  Not that she minded, because now Tina was quite nude, and seeing her wife’s naked and muscular body was always arousing.

“Prying eyes,” Tina murmured as she turned down the bed for her wife to get into its warmth.  She turned back to the fireplace and added a couple of logs to the fire the maid must have started earlier.

“What do you mean ‘prying eyes’?” Claire asked, wondering if it was some kind of joke.  The bedroom’s wallpaper was russet in color and had gorgeous gold curlicues in its design.  Some of them could be called eyes, but she did not understand.

“My brother David, I believe, was hoping for a glimpse of us making love.  I have let him see me take past lovers a few times, but I refuse to allow him to see my wife!” she said vehemently, as she took the towel from where Claire had laid it on the end and wiped her hands from the wood she had tossed on the fire.  She flung the towel back into the bathroom so it would soak up any water on the floor and joined Claire in their bed.

“He watches?” Claire asked, alarmed, and glanced at the towel laid against the wall across from their bed.

“I know, I should have explained about David before we got here, but I am so used to him and his behavior.  I did not know Grandfather would allow him to eat with us so I could not warn you ahead of time.”  She looked embarrassed.

“He looks to be full-grown, but he acts...” she left off, unsure of how to say anything without possibly insulting her wife or her family.  She had heard of people less fortunate than herself from the nuns, but she had never seen one.  They were usually locked away in institutions, were they not?

“David was hurt in the same accident as my grandfather.  The beam that nearly paralyzed Grandfather hit along David’s head, rendering him insensible.  This is what he became as he came out of it.  He acts about seven years old, but he is twenty-six, almost twenty-seven.  The doctors tell us he will never get older.  They recommended we put him away somewhere.  Apparently there are institutions that take people like this, but it was not his fault he was this way, and Grandfather hires excellent nurses to take care of him.”

“What did he mean, did you bring him a woman?” she asked, remembering what she had heard before dinner.

Tina looked embarrassed.  “David still has the needs and desires of a full grown man and I have paid some women to visit him occasionally.  His female nurses, have been…I do not want to say ‘attacked’ by his more amorous attempts.  So now Grandfather hires mostly male nurses to take care of him so that he will not get any ideas that way.”

“But he watches you, or he has in the past?” she asked, getting back to their original conversation.

Tina nodded, embarrassed.  “I will have the peep holes filled in tomorrow,” she promised.

“Or we can just move to another room,” Claire stated, realizing that Tina had had other men or women in this bed and looking around at the fine comfortable bed with disgust now.

Tina realized she had erred and not told Claire enough about the situation.  She also realized why her wife might object to sleeping in her bed.  “I am sorry, I should have thought of that before they put our things in here.  It never occurred to me that he would think he could watch again, or that you would object to sleeping with me in a bed I shared with others.  You never did on the ship.”

Claire answered, “I never thought about it on the ship!”  She realized how petulant she was sounding and rushed to reassure her wife.  “I am sorry too.  I should have realized since you had past lovers that you would have had them somewhere.”

“I kind of like this side of you, knowing you can be jealous,” Tina teased with a little smile.

“I am not jealous,” she returned, hotly, before she realized Tina was teasing and saw the smile.

“Ah, but you are, mon amie,” she said, mimicking her grandfather’s accent.  “I like this,” she teased some more as she wrapped her arms around her wife’s naked form and bore her down to the bed.

“Just so that you know, I will not tolerate you ever having another in your bed!” she said hotly, before Tina could kiss her.

“Are you putting demands on me and my body?” Tina asked, in a voice Claire had never heard before.  She leaned back to look into her wife’s face in the light of the lamp.

Claire swallowed, not sure if she was serious, or angry, or what.  The tone confused her, but she began hesitantly, “I think, I think I have the right since we are married.”  She halted for a moment before asking, “Do I not?”  She was afraid of the answer.

“Of course you do and you are right.  I married you so that you were mine for the rest of our lives together.”  Her voice got a little tight and changed to a husky one.  “It also means I am yours forever,” she looked deeply into Claire’s cobalt blue eyes and smiled, with a hint of tears in her own.  “I love you too much to let others come between us.  I do have a past, but I promise you, I would never shame you about it.  If you want to move to another room, let us dress and get the maids to ready another guest room for us.”

Claire was moved by Tina’s little speech.  She loved her so much.  She had known of the past, not the particulars.  Tina did not tell her details and for that she was grateful.  But if she had not had past lovers, Claire would not have benefited from the excellent lover that Tina had turned out to be.  She herself would never have another lover, but she was astute enough to realize that Tina was good for her, and
to
her, and she would never hurt her about the past.  “Would it have such a lovely bathroom as we have in this room?” she asked.

Tina shook her head.  “No, I designed this bathroom for me when Grandfather gave me this suite,” she told her.

“Then I think we should stay,” she said, drawing Tina’s head back down to kiss her on her lips.  Tina could tell that Claire was smiling against them as she tried to return the kiss.

“I love you, Claire Von Hagen,” she murmured.

“That’s another thing,” Claire said, as she pulled back.  “Should not I be Claire Carmichaels now, since we are married?”

“Actually, I only use Carmichaels in England.  Here I use my grandfather’s name,” Tina rejoined.

“So who am I really married to then?” Claire asked.

Tina sat up, showing off her delicious body as she attempted to bow from a seated position.  “Bettina Geneviève
Anne
Sophie
Carmichaels Beauchene,” she said, giving it the full French flavor as the names rolled off her tongue. “At your service, madam,” she finished with, pretending to doff a hat at her wife.

To say Claire was amused and surprised was an understatement.  “Beauchene, Beauchene,” she said, musingly.  “Was not there some sort of story with the name Beauchene a few years back?” she asked, her eyebrows beetling together as she tried to remember.

Tina got back under the covers with her wife as she answered, “Probably.  Grandfather was notorious in his days, and he was a pirate, although he certainly did not use the family name for that.  Most do not realize I am a Beauchene, and Carmichael is a good Scottish name although our branch is English.  The family estate is still there waiting for me or David to make it home, but since my other grandfather died, I do not have any desire to visit it.”

“Why did your grandfather settle here, so far from civilization?  Did he not like France?” she asked, wondering at the history.

“Grandfather was the second son.  His brother was the Comte Beauchene and he inherited from their father as well as the family estates.  He financed Grandfather’s first boat, but it was up to him to make a name for himself, which he did by pirating, something he found he enjoyed.  When it came time to take a bride though, he chose Grandmother and she settled him down for a few years and gave him my mother.  When my mother wished to marry my father, at first Grandfather would not allow it, but then when he saw how in love she was with Father, he granted his consent.”

“Why did he not want her to marry your father?” she asked, intrigued by the story.

“He had thought my father was a mere baron and she could do better.  Then he found out he was actually due to come into a marquis and all the titles and land that came with that.  Because the marquis was originally French, he thought that perhaps my father could not be all bad.”  She grinned at the story she was retelling.  “When my parents died crossing the English Channel between visiting with grandfather’s family, the Comte, their cousins and so forth, my grandparents fought over who was to retain custody of myself and my brother.  A compromise was worked out and twice a year we sailed between the two countries as grandfather had an estate not too far from the Comte at the time.  Once Grandmother died he went back to sea and began building his fleet and looking for somewhere else to live.  He took us with him for those six months we were his.  It made my other grandfather furious because he thought all ship travel dangerous.  I could not really blame him as he had lost his only child to the sea.”  Her face was reflective as she told the story.

“So you fell in love with the sea.  What about your brother, did he love it too?” Claire asked, fascinated by her wife’s history.

“Oh yes, he loved it as much as I did.  It was a competition to see who could climb the ropes and ladders quicker than the other, who was a better seaman.  He thought because he was male that he would automatically be better.  He did not win all the time and it bothered him.  We planned to captain ships together when we were older.”

“And then the accident?” Claire could hear in Tina’s voice that there was a lot she was not telling her, but she hoped to hear it all, someday.

Tina nodded.  “We all thought David would die.  It might have been better...” she left off finishing that sentence as she swallowed visibly.  “Still, having some of him here is better than nothing.”

“So he lives here with your grandfather and you see him once or twice a year?”

Tina nodded again.  “Aye it is better that way.  Grandfather’s servants are used to his behavior and he has family around who loves him.”

Just then they heard a slight scratching at the door. They both jumped.  Claire, because she was not expecting the noise with the seriousness of their conversation, and Tina, because Claire jumped.

“What is that?” Claire asked.  She was not quite frightened, but after hearing about David, she was not sure she would ever feel comfortable around him.

“It is just Sir Barkley asking to come into my room,” Tina said, with a laugh at herself for jumping. She got up naked and crossed the room to let the dog in.  “No,” she said, shutting the door, locking it, and grabbing him as he prepared to bound across the room and onto the bed.  “Down,” she told the big, furry beast before he could.  She did not think her wife would appreciate having a one-hundred-fifty-pound dog on their bed; he could crush her if he wanted.

“Does your dog normally sleep with you?” Claire asked astutely, seeing the accusing look the dog was giving her and nearly laughing.

“Aye,” Tina admitted, sheepishly.  “But he does not have to!”

“I do not think he is going to like that I took his place in your bed,” she commented.

“Well, he will learn,” Tina pushed the big dog down again, not easy as he was a solid dog with a mass that many a man would have trouble with.

“He sure is beautiful,” Claire said, admirably, at the black and white dog that was looking at her sorrowfully.

“Aye, and he gets away with a lot because of it,” Tina said, as she climbed back into the bed, feeling the cold of the castle despite the heat of the fire.  Having a great stone castle on the river sometimes meant the cold crept in and around the windows.

“Why did you not take him with you this last time?” she asked, wondering why she had not met him before this trip.

“Because I knew we were going to the Caribbean.  It is too hot for him with this double coat he sports.  He is a cold weather dog.  He likes snow, and cold, and water.  If you do not mind, we can take him with us when we sail next?” she asked, hopefully.

“No, I do not mind.  I just hope he does not mind sleeping on the floor of the cabin either,” she laughed at the sad puppy dog eyes he was using on them in hopes of getting on the bed.

Tina smiled; she was pleased her wife liked the dog.  “Let us get some sleep.  We have some stores to go through tomorrow.”

“Stores?” she asked, wondering what she meant.

“Aye, the things I brought Grandfather for trade will be sorted in the village before they are parceled out to traders and the village store for sale.  I told many hunters and trappers and some of the women I would trade for wild ginseng and other things I knew I could trade in the Orient,” Tina told her as she snuggled into the bed after blowing out the lamp.

Following Tina’s lead, Claire blew out the lamp on her side and snuggled against her wife’s naked form.  It was a very wonderful sensation, feeling the warmth of her body and the smoothness of her skin.  Claire had never realized before meeting Tina how this would feel, the intimacy, the companionship.  She loved her dearly because she had realized it with her and was grateful for it.  “So you knew six months ago that you would be sailing to the Orient?”

“I have been wanting to make another trip there, but it is going to take at least two years there and back.  And I was going to stop in India and perhaps one or two ports along the way, so it might take longer.  I wanted things I knew would fetch high trade value when I got there.  So I began telling people what I was looking to trade for long ago.”

“This is exciting, and you will let me see the trade goods.  Maybe I can help you somehow?” she asked.  In the American ports they had stopped at, Tina had done all the trading along with James, her first officer.  Her crew loaded or unloaded the goods as needed.  Claire had just stood back and waited for Tina to take her shopping.  She contributed nothing, but if she was going with her on this long voyage, she wanted to help in any way that she could.

“Do you know how to keep books?” Tina asked, after thinking for a moment.  She gently rubbed her hand down her wife’s naked back as her long leg slightly pulled her wife’s legs in closer to her own naked body.

Claire was momentarily distracted before she answered.  “I do not know if I know how, but I was always good at math and I am sure totaling up columns should not be that difficult.”

“Good, we will worry about that when the time comes, but keeping records is important so we do not miss anything and know when we have made a good profit.  I am sure we can talk about this tomorrow in the daylight when we do not have other things to distract us, hmmm?” she asked, as her hand gently cupped her wife’s buttock and she gently ground into her, mons to mons.

“Yesss, tomorrow,” Claire repeated back with an indrawn breath of appreciation as she started to nuzzle along her wife’s ear and neck.

They both smiled as they continued along the path to Eros and ended up sleeping cuddled in the middle of the bed.  They were both too soundly asleep from the long trip, the hot bath, and their exertions, to feel the huge dog as he stealthily snuck on the bed and curled up at Tina’s back, keeping it warm against the cool night air.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Claire woke to the bed shaking violently, and as she tried to clear the sleep from her eyes, she was met with a huge swipe of tongue against her sleep-swollen face.  “Yech!” she cried out as she tried to push away the determined dog, but one-hundred-fifty-pounds of dog against her puny arms was not easy to push away and he got in a few more swipes with his long and slobbery tongue.  Only when he realized she was fully awake did he return to his other ‘project’ that had awoken her.  When she realized he had been licking himself between his legs causing the bed to shake, which had awoken her, she rolled from the bed with another “Yech!” crying out as she ran for the bathroom and water to wash her face.

“What is the matter?” Tina asked from where she was sitting on the indoor toilet that the bathroom sported.

“Your dog!” she sputtered, as she splashed water on her face, the cold further awakening her.

Tina laughed as she finished up and pulled the string above her head to release the water into the bowl and allow the debris down the drain pipe.  “What did he do?” she asked, as she grabbed a towel for her wife.

“He licked me!” she said, indignantly, gratefully reaching for the offered towel.  “After he was licking himself!”

Tina sputtered into laughter, but tried to straighten out her face as her wife glared at her from behind the towel.  “I am sorry?” she offered up lamely, but the laughter was still in her voice and it came across hollow.

“How did he get up on the bed I would like to know?” Claire asked indignantly, her hand on her hip in anger.

“He was on there when I got up,” Tina told her and realized she should have shoved him to the floor so he knew he was to sleep there from now on.  But she had woken warm and toasty between her wife and dog and had been content until the call of nature had her getting up to go to the bathroom.

“Well, I do not appreciate fleas in my bed!” she continued, working up a bit of steam.

“I am sure he has a couple,” Tina smiled as she took the naked woman in her arms and kissed her to calm her outrage.  It did do a remarkable job of distracting her as they were both naked.

“Wait, what is that?” she asked, pointing where Tina had been sitting.

“That?  It is an indoor water closet, something else I had imported from Rome.  It is so much better and cleaner than a chamber pot,” she said, shuddering delicately remembering the smells that sometimes emanated from a chamber not properly cleaned or left to sit too long.

“How clever!” Claire stated, in wonderment.  This bathroom was definitely a modern development and she was lucky to have such a well-traveled wife who brought things to them.  She returned the naked hug of her wife as she gave her another kiss.

A firm knocking on the outside door interrupted their good morning kiss just as their hands had started to wander.  An expletive from Tina had them both chuckling as she shut the bathroom door and grabbed her robe to answer the door.

“Where’s my present you promised me?” David whined as he stood at the door trying to look past his sister into the room.

“I have not unpacked yet, but I will make sure I find it as soon as I can,” she answered her exuberant brother.  He tried to brush past her, but she held firm.  “You cannot come in, my wife is not dressed yet,” she told him.

“Your wife?” he asked, confused.

“You remember Claire, the woman I brought with me?” she reminded him.

“You brought me a woman?” he asked, single-mindedly.

Tina tried not to sound exasperated as she repeated what she had told him the previous day.  “No, David, Lady Claire is
my
wife, not yours.  I did not bring you a woman.”

He looked crestfallen for a moment and then seeing Sir Barkley on the bed he said, excitedly, “Did you know that Grandfather got us a girl dog and they have puppies?”

That easily he was distracted, and Tina was relieved.  It was hard to say no to him when he wanted things, but she had always been firm with him.  It was difficult sometimes to realize the brilliant man he had started out to be and would never be now.  “You will have to show me later, okay?  I have to get dressed now,” she hinted broadly and was pleased when he took it.

“Okay, but Grandfather said you were to dress like a lady today and not a sea captain!” he said, importantly, as though he had given her some big news.

“Thank you, David, I will,” she said, with a smile as she closed the door.  She realized she had forgotten to visit him last night before coming to bed with Claire, but it was all right because he had apparently forgotten...at least for now.

Tina turned to see Claire opening the bathroom door.  She looked sadly at Tina.  “You heard?” Tina asked her.

“Aye, he is a determined cuss is he not?” she tried to joke.

“He gets things in his head and there is no distracting him sometimes.”  She walked towards Claire and held out her hands to take her in her arms.  “Promise me you will not be alone with him.”

“Is he dangerous?” Claire asked, alarmed, looking up.

“Not dangerous no, but he might misinterpret something and I would hate for him to accidentally hurt you.  If you are never alone with him, then it will not happen,” she answered, determined that nothing would happen.

Claire looked at her waiting for her to tell her more and when she did not, she shrugged off the feeling that there
was
more.  “Well, we should get dressed and see these puppies, should we not?” she said, sounding as exuberant as David just had.