Captain Minnow's Christmas
Part Three

Edward slept nearly the clock around before washing and shaving to greet Christmas afternoon.  Cheerful anarchy pervaded the junior officers’ mess tent, which was warmed with a cast iron stove and sported garlands of greenery and what appeared to be every candle in the encampment.

He was greeted with shouts of approval, thumping on the board tables and toasts to his exploits, but after drinking off a bumper he donned his cloak and left.  At this moment, he did not think Admiral Carleton himself could keep him from beating a path to Sally’s cabin door.

She answered his knock almost at once, as though she was waiting for him, then stood back to allow him to enter. He was happy to linger in the doorway however, savoring the opportunity to see her face more clearly in the fading light of day.  Her eyes were extraordinary -- deep brown enlivened by glints of green, the like of which he had never encountered.  Her exotic coloring, too, was more pronounced than he remembered, set off by a deep red shawl.  He swallowed and cleared his throat, trying to cure the unnatural dryness of his mouth.

“I brought you some sugar,” he said at last, holding out a packet wrapped in brown paper.  “As a Christmas present.”

Sally’s mouth lifted in an ambiguous smile.  “I thank you, Mr. Pellew.  Would you like to come in?  I can make you some tea.”

Tea, yes.  A nice, bracing cup of tea.  Just the thing to set him to rights.  He sat at the table, rubbing the frayed spot on one shirt cuff between his thumb and forefinger as he watched her set the water to boil.

As they had been the evening before, her movements were quick and graceful.  When she sat down across from him, he fixed his eyes on her folded hands.  Her hands were not soft, he realized, but he was drawn to them, with their long, slender fingers and close-trimmed nails.  He knew how clever they were, how strong.  He could just imagine the touch of her hand as she reached across to brush his cheek; imagine himself turning his head to press his lips to her palm.

He was silent and sighed inwardly, cursing his unaccustomed backwardness.  Hang it!  You know why you are here -- because you hope to make love to her. You know it, and she knows it, and she knows that you know that she knows it, so why do you not admit it?

It was so much easier just to give orders, or even to take them, than to convey what was now on his mind -- what he wanted to say to her, to hear from her, to give her, to take from her . . . .

He cleared his throat again.

“Last night you were willing to call me ‘Ned’”.

“Ned, then,” she answered him, more softly than was her custom in speaking, trying not to laugh and meaning to be kind.  “Will you have sugar in your tea?”

“I -- I find I don’t want any tea, after all.  I . . . .”  Surely there was no need for such torment.  Never before had he so completely lost his nerve in such a situation.  He had simply put on a jolly demeanor and bluffed. But he had never met a lass who provoked him, who made him itch quite the way Sally did.  She would see right through any bluff, and he did not think he could bear to appear foolish in her eyes.

“Right, then,” she said briskly.  “I’ll just take the kettle off the fire.”  She rose and set her kettle on the hearth and came ’round to his side of the table.  “We don’t want to get distracted and let it boil dry, now do we?”  Her voice was gentle as her hand brushed his cheek, just as he had imagined.  He clasped it with his own and took a deep breath.

“Your father . . .  ?” he asked with a lift of his eyebrow.

“Is gone to Chilsons’ for the New Year, just as Sergeant Ross said.  He left a note.”  Her free hand was bunched in a fist on her hip, for she was growing a trifle impatient.

Edward chuckled uneasily.  “I am beginning to think Sergeant Ross has missed his true calling.”

“And I am beginning to think you fell on your head when your arm was injured,” Sally said, with no sting at all in her voice, despite the tartness of her words, “for you are behaving as though you are a bit slow.  And we both know that is not true . . .

“Oh!” she exclaimed then, for Edward had sprung up from his chair, clasped her ’round the waist with his strong left arm and stopped her mouth with a kiss.

“Oh . . . .” she gasped again when he relented at last, because that kiss smoldered against her lips, his grip held her fast and for those moments she could hardly breathe.

“Do you think I am slow, miss?” he growled in mock anger.

“No,” she laughed, reaching to tangle her fingers in his thick dark hair.

“Simple, perhaps?” he asked, giving her a little shake.

She shook her head wordlessly, her lips parted in a teasing smile, her eyes alight with mischief and -- yes, he was sure of it, desire.  He covered her mouth with his once again, using his tongue to part her willing lips, letting her tongue taste his own.

Sally wound an arm around his neck, opening her mouth beneath his to allow him to deepen his possession of her.  He held her so tightly against him that she fancied she could feel his rapid heartbeat and the imprint of his waistcoat buttons through layer upon layer of her heavy winter clothing – shift, skirts, petticoats, a wool-lined bodice and the cross-wrapped shawl.

She must have imagined Edward’s initial awkwardness, for now he was unmistakably, devastatingly bold.  His firm tongue slipped against hers, plundering wantonly, demanding more and more until she clung to him, barely able to stand on her own.

Not that there was any need.  He held her fast with his better arm even as his other hand began to skim over the tempting curves of her behind.  When he cupped one round cheek and squeezed gently, she moaned beneath his mouth, squirming in his embrace.  He smelled of wood smoke, of wool and linen, of ice and the cold air, and something indefinable and masculine that aroused all her senses. 

When at last he lifted his mouth from hers, she was breathing quickly, her cheeks flushed rose beneath her golden skin.  He sat against the table and Sally stepped close to him and tugged at his neck cloth.  Her thigh rubbed against the swelling erection trapped in his britches and he fairly throbbed with his longing for her.

His dark eyes glinted with a force and fire that expressed his whole being, a spirit so vigorous and overwhelming in spite of his youth that her fingers trembled at their task.  She caught her lower lip between her teeth, laboring to breath deeply, to lessen the thumping of her own heart.  Her legs began to match her fingers for shaking as moisture welled in the secret cleft between her thighs.

Edward reached behind her to untie her shawl, whipping it off her and tossing it carelessly behind him onto the table.  She threw his neck cloth on top of it and fell to opening his shirt.  “Ned,” she whispered breathlessly as she bent her head to kiss the base of his throat.

“Mmmm.”  She continued to moan softly, pressing her mouth along his neck, her tongue flickering against his skin.  He gave a low, involuntary gasp in response, taking in the alien sensations of her warmth, the blaze of her lips, her body’s unexpected softness in his arms.  Her breasts, high and prominent, pushed against him in the most tantalizing manner, begging to be bared for his touch.

“Please, love,” he breathed and she straightened so that he could push her shift off her shoulders and pull at the strings of her bodice.  He slipped an exploring hand into the top of her shift, cupping the generous curve of one breast.  His fingers brushed just the tip of her nipple and she closed her eyes, quivering, as the tingling, sweetly stinging, indescribable sensations rushed from her bosom to the unfurling damp petals of her sex.

He continued playing with her tender nipple, grasping the tip gently between his thumb and his forefinger, turning his hand to brush its entire circumference with his knuckles.  After what seemed an eternity, he let go of her waist to take possession of both her breasts at once, weighing them in his hands, deliberately grazing the hard buds of her nipples with his palms. 

Sally sighed beneath his touch, her fist gripping his coat to keep herself from falling.  Her eyelids flew open as he finished unfastening her bodice and tugged her shift to her waist, revealing her breasts at last to his hungry gaze.

“Will you help me with something, Ned?”

He looked at her helplessly.  “What?  What is it you want me to do?”

“I thought you could help me rearrange the furniture.”

“Sally . . . “  He didn’t know whether to grin or to growl at her, standing there bare to the waist, her breasts bouncing in his face as she laughed at him.

“Seriously, why don’t we move my bed next to the fire?”  Edward took her point at once.  The hearth was warm and well-lit, perfectly suited to their purpose.

They pulled the little rope bed, sturdily-built but none too wide, cattycorner in front of the fireplace.  He was unable to take his eyes from her nude bosom, watching through heavy-lidded eyes as she barred the door and checked the shutters.  He shrugged out of his jacket and flung it onto the back of a chair.

Returning to him, Sally put her hands on his shoulders and he sat on the bed, pulling her down next to him.  Her fingers flew over the buttons on his waistcoat; they pulled his shirt off together.  But when she began to work on the fall of his breeches, she could hardly get it open.   He had already grown so big and so hard that its fastenings  were sorely strained.  She was eager and tugged hard, then clicked her tongue as a silver button popped off and rolled noisily along the pine floor.

“Vixen,” Edward whispered, pushing her onto the bed and kneeling astride her.  He leaned down and kissed her deeply, rolling her onto her side and stretching himself out alongside her.  There was just room for the both of  them, if they were careful, and the beauty of it was that her tawny breasts were now pressed against his chest, their dark rose nipples grazing his hungry skin.

He reached down to pull her hips even closer, got his leg underneath her, his other knee between her thighs.  He heard her shoes drop on the floor, but found he did not give a fig about his boots.  Later, perhaps. 

One hand found the hem of her skirt and slipped underneath to skim over her thick winter stocking -- from ankle, to calf, to the tender place behind her knee until, yes his fingers felt her warm, smooth flesh at last.  He pushed and that was one stocking off.  She wrapped her bare leg over his hip and he groaned as his cock, stiff and thick, grazed against . . . against, well he was not quite sure what, but was quite sure that he could not stand his current state much longer. 

He rose up again and in one swift movement he had her on her back, her skirt and petticoat around her waist.  He slipped a knee between her thighs, using it to shove them high on the bed, farther apart.  At the same time his fingers delved through the mossy curls between her legs, straight into the swollen, drenched cleft nestled beneath.

Sally whimpered under him, arching her back, imploring him without words to go on stroking her in just that way.  But he couldn’t, not for long.  His thumb insinuated itself into the very top of her seeping little notch, brushed across the swollen pearl hidden there.  Oh, he knew about that pearl and he vowed he would come back to it.  He rubbed it again with his thumb, and yet again, but his cock was rampant now, blood pounded in his temples, he could feel his balls tightening and he had to be in there.  He had to.

“Oh, love,” he cried.  “I’m . . . sorry. I cannot wait . . .  .”

“Shhh,” she crooned, reaching for him.  Her hand wrapped around the thick column of iron-hard flesh, but then let go as he slid smoothly into her silky, molten depths.  He struggled to control the tempo of his thrusts, entering her slowly, pushing until the crisp hair of his groin mingled with the softer hair of hers; then withdrawing, nearly overwhelmed by the delightful suction of her tight sheath.  He forgot the weakness of his right arm, but used it to pull her leg up over his shoulder and she cried out with the depth and force of each thrust from then on.

“Ah!  Ah!  Ned!”  Her voice rushed in his ears, the sound of her desire stabbing his heart, and her soft, wet pussy captured him completely.  White-hot tongues of pleasure flashed down his spine, in his buttocks and balls.  Christ Jesus, he’d never been so overcome in his life; he thought she might be a witch.  Then she began to shudder and convulse beneath him, sobbing his name and he knew she was a witch.

Sally tucked her head into his shoulder and moaned uncontrollably, her aching nipples hard as pebbles.  Her cunny was swollen and throbbing from his pounding, full of sensation yet on the edge of numbness.  A sweet, unbearable tension gathered and crested within her, threatening to burst.

“Oh, God, Ned!” she cried at last “You’re making me come!”  And indeed he was, in great shuddering waves of overpowering pleasure.  She stared up at him, dimly aware that his head was thrown back, his eyes closed in some final rapture.  He increased the speed and force of his thrusts, lost to sensation himself, until he at last he plunged all the way into her and, gasping, stayed there, filling her with hot spurts of his seed.

She was reluctant to be separate from him and mewed her disappointment when he withdrew his softening member, but it was only sensible.  The little bed could only hold them comfortably if they lay on their sides.  Besides, he needed out of those boots and breeches.  She stood up naked and laughing to tug at first one boot and then the other while he smiled up at her foolishly.  She swatted him until he stood up and shucked off his breeches, throwing them in the general direction of his other clothes before he pulled her back down on the bed.

She turned toward the fire, covering herself with the patchwork quilt, and Edward embraced her from behind so that his solid chest grazed her back and his sated, sticky sex teased her bottom.  He kissed the back of her neck and began to undo her braid. She held still, letting him play with her hair while their breathing slowly returned to normal.

“Happy Christmas,” Edward whispered.  “I believe I shall have another present for you soon.”  The fire hissed and crackled in the grate and she smiled at the thought.

“I thought you might,” she said.  “Happy Christmas, Captain Minnow.”

The End


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