and tongue them, and she shuddered and gave a small yip of glee.
He showered kisses along her upper body, across her nose and cheeks, and brushed his lips against hers fleetingly, working slowly at finally bringing their mouths together, and this time she was not startled, but brought her face up to his, her mouth slightly open as she discovered a new thing. Her breath went musky, and her scent of arousal wafted over his senses as he groped a hand under her loose skirt to stroke her firm young buttocks. She reached away from him and fumbled with the latch-peg to one of the corn-cribs and drew him into the dry, moldy- smelling structure, where they sank to the mats on the earth in between large cane baskets of kernels. He kicked the door shut and undid the buttons of his breeches. They rolled back and forth, first one atop then the other as he fought his way out of his clothing, and his hands found the way up between her slim thighs to press against her belly. There was very little hair at all when his fingers found an entry to her body, and it drove him even more insane with wanting her. She rolled onto her back and raised her legs about his waist, reaching down to touch his member, and gave a gasp as her fingers wrapped around it, drawing it to her belly and stroking the tip against her swollen clitoris. She bit her lower lip and cried out softly as her namesake before he lost all control and forced himself against her. She was incredibly moist, yet almost too snug to take his first thrust, and for a moment, he thought it would end right there as he struggled to enter her fully. He tried thinking of the exact wording of the Articles of War.
''An Act for Amending, explaining and reducing into one Act of Parliament, the laws relating to the Government of His Majesty's ships, vessels and forces by sea!'' he gasped as she writhed up at him, lifting her legs around his chest and spreading them wider to allow him easier entry. Her fingers were digging into his shoulders and she was moaning with total abandon by then. ''Whereas the several laws relating to the Sea Service, made at different times, and on different occasions, have been found by experience not to be so full, so clear, so expedient or consistent…' Ah, Jesus God Almighty, what a snug'un you are!'
But finally, he was completely within her and forced her to lie still for a moment by putting all his weight on her to hold her down before she bucked him off. After a half-minute's pause in the proceedings he began to thrust gently into her, and lifted himself up to allow her to move. She clung to him like a limpet, grunted and puffed and met his every thrust, squeezing his member like a firm handshake until finally she cried out and mewed in pleasure, and he followed her into bliss.
Except for a few times during the night when she had to run her errand to check the cooking fire and keep it smoldering, they were in each other's arms, napping lightly now and again, but mostly going at it like a pair of stoats in heat. For one so young, she was expert as all hell, and eager to meet his every desire, as he was hers. They did not share a single word in common, but they giggled and teased and tried to talk between their waves of passion. Alan finally dropped off for what seemed an hour or so, and then she was nudging him, rolling over on top of him and molding her maddeningly lovely body to his for warmth in the grey pre-dawn light of a foggy morning.
'Arhlan,' she whispered, kissing him. 'Go.' She exhausted her tiny vocabulary of English words and lapsed back into Creek or Cherokee, he had no idea which.
'Rabbit,' he sighed, wrapping his arms around her with his eyes still shut. 'Soft rabbit. Bunny.'
'Boony,' she mocked.
'Soft. You say soft?'
'Soff?'
'Like these,' he said, brushing her deer fur braids. 'Soft.'
'Soff,' she repeated, nodding to show she understood at least the sense of what he was saying.
'Soft Rabbit, you. Soft Rabbit.'
'Soff rabt,' she parroted. 'Arhlan. Go.' She made a gesture and touched her chest.
'See you tonight, yes?'
She gave him a smoldering kiss and knelt to wrap on her skirt.
He got into his clothes and staggered outside into the thick mist of a river-bottom dawn, almost unable to find the winter house for a moment. People were already stirring, at least from the Indian side of the compound, while a soldier nodded on guard before the low fire of the night before.
'Morning, sentry,' he said to alert the man before he jumped up from his nap and shot him.
'Mornin', sir!' The man leaped to his feet like a signal rocket.
'Anyone else up?'
'Nossir, not yit, sir!'
A minute later, while Alan stood there yawning and stretching the kinks of too-little sleep on too-hard a ground, McGilliveray came out of the winter house. 'Good, you are up. We go to the lake and take bath. Wake your people, if you please.'
'They're not going to be awfully keen on it, mind,' Alan told him. 'It's barely past first sparrow-fart, and the water'll be cold as charity.'
'We agreed, Mister Lewrie,' McGilliveray carped like a tutor who had caught him scribbling in the margins of his books again.
'Alright, alright,' he said, leaning into the house and duck-walking through the low entrance. 'Wakey, wakey, lash up and stow! Show a leg, show a leg, all hands on deck!' After being pestered to death by heartlessly cheerful bosun's mates chanting that dreadful tune aboard ship for years, it did his spirits good to finally get a chance to use it himself. Hmm, just as good I said show a leg, he thought. That part was to determine, when the ship was out of discipline, which occupant of a hammock or pallet on the deck was a hairy male liable for duty, and who was a hairless (mostly) female doxy or 'wife' who could sleep in and not be tipped out or roused roughly. The hands had found their own arrangements with the Creek girls during the night, it seemed, privacy be damned; it had been dark enough inside the fireless winter house to allow everyone willing to enjoy a grope on the raised cots the chance to do so, and several cackling young women made their way outside, leaving their men to grumble their way awake.
'Outside and down to the lake, lads,' Alan called with false cheer. 'Into the water for a dip before breakfast. I know, I know, but the Indians do it, so we have to as well, long as we're here. Nobody ever died of a little less dirt. Let's go!'
'Ah, fook t'Indians,' someone groused in a whisper.
'You already have. So let's get down there and see how pretty the rest of 'em are with their clothes off.'
It amazed him that sailors could get soaking wet during a turn on deck, could kneel and scrub with 'holystones' and 'bibles' every morning and revel in the sluicing of a washdeck pump, but would turn their noses up to anything that smacked of getting wet on purpose. They stripped reluctantly, covered their privates with a sudden surge of heavy modesty, and waded into the water an inch at a time, yipping and shying as the coolness crept up their bodies.
Alan walked out, wincing with chill but determined not to make a sound, feeling the soft lake bottom ooze between his toes, stumbling now and then on a twig or reed on his unprepared soles.
Damn fine show, though, he thought, taking in the view.
Indians of every stripe and condition were splashing into the water, the children yelping and making great water-spouts as they dove in. Men congregated to one end of the bank, women much further down, and the negotiating party about midway between, far enough away from the females so they would not enrage a wet husband.
'Please, sir, kin we get out now, sir?' one of the men said shivering with cold, his arms wrapped around his chest.
'Scrub, dunk and get the worst smuts off,' Alan said, staring at the dirt that was floating off the man. '
'Aye, sir,' the man sighed, looking down at his own scum as if he expected to be drowned in three feet of water. He held his nose and dropped out of sight, to come up puffing and blowing a second later as if shot out of the water. 'Oh, Gawd!' he cried miserably.
'Hot breakfast waiting for us, lads. Get dry and we'll eat.'
Alan came out of the water, shivering like a dog. He saw his girl trotting off towards the town to be the first to help with the cooking, and he waved at her. She stopped and waved, and he blew her a kiss, and she parroted his motion, laughed, then ran on to her never-ending labors, which raised a laugh out of his miserable crew, at any rate.
