Nojiko was making eggs.
The galley smelled like tangerine glaze and hot oil and the coffee she'd learned to brew from the beans we'd picked up at the last island. Morning light through the porthole. The sound of Nami on watch above, her bare feet pacing the deck in a rhythm that meant she was charting while she walked.
Nojiko stood at the counter in a tank top and shorts, chopping something green with the precision of a woman who'd spent her life with a blade in her hand. Pruning shears, kitchen knife. Same motion. Same efficiency.
I came down the ladder. She didn't turn around.
"Eggs in five minutes," she said. "If you touch me before they're done I'm feeding yours to the ocean."
I came up behind her. Chest to her back. My arms around her waist. My mouth on the side of her neck where her pulse was.
"I'm making food," she said. The knife kept moving.
"Keep making food."
She kept chopping. Her knife rhythm steady. I kissed her neck. The spot below her ear where the blue hair was shortest. She smelled like tangerines and cooking oil and the salt air that had soaked into all of us since we'd left Cocoyama. My hands on her waist, thumbs on the bone of her hips.
She kept chopping.
My hand slid down. Under the waistband of her shorts. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. My fingers found her and she was warm. Not wet yet. But warm. I slid two fingers along the length of her, spreading her, the pad of my middle finger finding her clit.
The knife slowed.
"You're going to make me cut myself," she said. Evenly.
"Put the knife down."
"The eggs-"
"Will wait."
She didn't put the knife down. She kept chopping. Slower. My fingers working her, circling her clit in the rhythm I'd learned from three weeks of her body. She got wet in under a minute. The slick heat of her coating my fingers. I pressed one finger inside. She inhaled through her nose. The knife stopped moving.
I pressed a second finger against her ass. Not inside. Pressing. The pad of my finger against the tight ring of muscle while my other finger curled inside her pussy.
"That's-" The knife hovered over the cutting board. "Nn. That's a negotiation tactic."
"Is it working."
Her hips pushed back against my hand. The knife clattered onto the counter. She braced herself on the edge. Both hands flat. Head dropping forward.
"…the eggs are burning."
The eggs were burning. Neither of us moved to deal with it.
I pulled the pan off the heat with my free hand. Kept the other one working. Two fingers inside her now, my thumb on her clit, and she was bracing against the counter and making the sounds she always made. Open. From her chest. Grunts that bounced off the low galley ceiling. My cock was straining against my pants. The sounds she made did that to me every time.
"Nn- there. Yeah. Don't- nn- don't stop."
I turned her around. Lifted her onto the counter. She went without resistance, her ass on the edge, her legs spreading for me. I knelt between them. Put my mouth on her.
The taste of Nojiko at sea. Saltier than the grove. Something in the air had changed her. I pushed her thighs wider and buried my tongue in her and she grabbed the edge of the counter with both hands and her head dropped back against the cabinet.
"Ah- fuck-"
Loud. Nojiko was always loud. The galley amplified it. Her sounds bouncing off the walls, the low ceiling trapping the noise. I could hear Nami's footsteps pause on the deck above. Resume. Faster. Walking away from the hatch. Giving us distance. Or not wanting to hear.
I ate her. My tongue on her clit, flat, then pointed, the pressure alternating. My fingers inside her, two, curling, pressing the spot that made her narration dissolve. I groaned against her because the taste of her was making me ache. Saltier at sea. Deeper. She started talking.
"Your technique has- nn- improved since the- ah- the cottage. The tongue pressure is-"
I sucked her clit. Hard. She lost the sentence.
"Okay- okay- forget the- nn- just do that-"
I did that. Sucked and pressed and licked and her body responded the way Nojiko's body always did. Honestly. No performance. Her thighs clamped around my head. Her hips ground against my face. The wet squelch of my fingers loud in the galley. She was soaked. Dripping onto the counter. The cooking oil and the tangerine glaze and her juices all mixing on the surface she'd been preparing food on two minutes ago.
She came gripping the counter edge. One leg over my shoulder. Her body bowing forward, her abs contracting, the guttural sound tearing out of her chest and echoing off every surface in the small galley. The plates on the counter rattled from the vibration.
I stood up. Pulled my pants down. She looked at me. At my cock. Her eyes assessing. The farmer's appraisal.
"Table," she said. "The counter's too narrow."
I swept the table. Maps, plates, Nami's compass, a tangerine, two cups of coffee. Everything hit the floor. Nojiko would have objected to the mess except I picked her up and put her on the table and pushed inside her before she could finish the sentence. I'd been hard since the counter. Since her sounds bouncing off the galley walls. The relief of being inside her made me groan.
"You just knocked Nami's compass onto the-" I thrust deep. "Nn- okay. She'll survive."
She was on her back on the galley table. Legs spread. My hands on her hips. I was between her legs and the angle was new for us. Flat. Open. Her whole body laid out for me on the wooden surface. Her tank top pushed up to her collarbone. Her breasts bare. Her stomach flexing with each breath. The tan lines cutting across her shoulders where the strap had been.
I pulled out slow. Pushed back in. The table was exactly the right height. I didn't have to bend or lean or adjust. Just stood and fucked her and the angle let me go deep and she felt every inch.
"Nn- the angle-" Her hands found the far edge of the table, gripping behind her head. "That's- yeah. Don't change that."
I didn't change it. Steady rhythm. Not fast yet. Each thrust deliberate. Watching her body respond. Her breasts moving with the impact. Her abs contracting. Her mouth open. No shame. No hiding. Nojiko spread on a table in the morning light with her legs around a man she'd originally planned to use as a weapon.
"Harder."
Harder. The table legs scraped the floor. A plate fell off the counter from the vibration. She didn't flinch. Her eyes on me. Direct. Her hands pulling at the table edge for leverage, arching her hips up to meet my thrusts.
"The whole ship can hear you," I said.
"Good." Not a whisper. Not an acknowledgment. A declaration. She was loud because she was loud and whoever heard it could deal with that information.
I grabbed her thighs. Pulled her to the edge of the table. Changed the angle. Deeper. She gasped. Her hands slipped off the table edge. One found the counter behind her head. The other grabbed my hip. Pulling me deeper. Harder. Her farmer's grip on my hip bone, the calloused fingers digging in.
PLAP PLAP PLAP. The sound of us filling the galley. The table groaning under the rhythm. The plates rattling. Her open moans hitting the ceiling and coming back down. Something else fell off the counter. Glass breaking. Neither of us stopped.
I leaned forward. My hands flat on the table on either side of her head. Looking down at her. Nojiko flat on her back. Her tank top bunched at her collarbone. Her breasts bouncing with each thrust. Her stomach muscles flexing. The tan lines like a frame around her body. Her mouth open. Her eyes on me. Watching me watch her.
"Like what you see?" she said. Between thrusts. Her voice breaking on each impact. Not a tease. A genuine question. The vulnerability sneaking through the practicality.
"Yeah."
"Nn- good." She pulled me harder by the hip. The calloused fingers slipping on sweat. "Because you're going to see it a lot."
I drove into her. The table slid an inch across the floor. The legs scraping wood. She braced her hand against the wall behind her to keep from sliding off. The other hand still on my hip. I held her thighs wide and fucked her and the wet sound of it mixed with the galley destruction, the rattling plates, the scraping table, her voice bouncing off every surface.
She was flat on the table, legs spread wide, her body taking every thrust with the zero-shame directness that was pure Nojiko. Her face. Her face while I fucked her. Mouth open. Eyes wide. Not performing. Not narrating. Just feeling. The muscles in her jaw slack. The pleasure written across her features without a single filter between the sensation and the expression.
"Nn- ah- there- THERE-"
I drove into the spot. Held the angle. Her body arched off the table, a bridge of muscle and sweat, her breasts pointing at the ceiling. The sound she made was the loudest thing on the ship. A groan that started in her gut and rolled through her body and out her throat and the plates on the counter jumped.
She came. Hard. Her legs locked around my waist. Her body clenching in waves that tried to pull me deeper. The table shuddering under us. Her hand ripping away from the counter and slamming flat on the table surface. I came inside her. The orgasm triggered by the vice of her body. My hands on her hips, my head dropping forward, the pulse of it filling her.
We stayed there. Her on the table. Me between her legs. Both breathing. The galley was destroyed. Eggs burnt in the pan. Coffee on the floor. Nami's compass somewhere under the bench. A broken plate. Tangerine glaze on the edge of the table where her hand had smeared through it.
"We're cleaning this up before Nami sees it," she said. Staring at the ceiling. Still breathing hard.
"The compass-"
"We're telling her the ship rocked." She sat up. Looked at the destruction. Looked at me. "How are you still hard."
The deck hammock was not designed for two people.
It was a rope hammock strung between the foremast and a deck cleat. Meant for one person taking a nap in the sun. Wide enough for Nojiko's shoulders. Not wide enough for Nojiko's shoulders plus a man underneath her.
"This is stupid," she said. Climbing in on top of me. The hammock swung violently. The ropes groaning. We nearly tipped.
"Probably."
"If this breaks we're both going overboard."
"Probably."
She got her balance. Straddled me in the hammock. The ropes dug into my back. The whole thing swayed with every movement. The ocean underneath us, the sun above, and the salt spray hitting us on the bigger swells.
She positioned me. Sank down. The hammock swung forward from the motion and we both grabbed the ropes. She laughed. The rare sound. Nojiko's laugh was low and startled, like it surprised her every time it happened.
"This is ridiculous," she said. Grinding. The hammock swaying with her rhythm. Each roll of her hips sent us rocking and the rocking changed the angle and the changing angle made her breath catch at unpredictable moments. "The physics of this are- nn- not what I expected."
She rode me in the hammock. The ropes pressing into her knees. Into my back. The texture of the rope rough against skin and the friction adding something that a bed couldn't. Every sway of the hammock pushed me deeper or pulled me back and she couldn't predict which and the unpredictability was making her louder.
I could feel the rope pattern pressing into my spine. Lines of pressure that shifted every time she moved. The discomfort was real but it blurred into the sensation of being inside her, the hot grip of her body, the weight of her on my hips. Pain and pleasure mixing in a way that beds never offered. I wanted her harder but the hammock couldn't take it and the wanting made everything more intense.
The ocean was helping. Swells rocking the ship, rocking the hammock, adding a third rhythm to our two. She'd rise on her knees and the hammock would dip and she'd sink back down harder than she meant to and gasp. The sound of impact muffled by the rope but the wet slap of our skin still cutting through.
"Ah- the rope- nn-" The rope was pressing into her inner thigh. Leaving marks. Red lines in her tan skin. She looked down at them. "That's going to leave marks."
"Good."
"That's my line." She ground harder. The hammock protesting. The ropes creaking under our combined weight. She found a rhythm that worked with the sway instead of against it. Rising when the hammock pulled back, sinking when it pushed forward. The motion carrying us. Like the ocean was inside the sex. Like the whole ship was part of it.
I reached up. Found her breasts. Squeezed. She arched into my hands. The hammock swung. Both of us moving with the ocean now. The rope lines on my back deepening. Her thighs squeezing the hammock edges. The creak of the rope on the mast cleat. The splash of spray when a bigger swell caught the bow.
She leaned forward. Her hands on my chest. Her face above mine. Looking down at me with the sun behind her head. The blue hair catching the light. Her expression open. Unguarded in a way that Nojiko on land never was. Something about the ocean had loosened the last bolt holding her composure in place.
"This is stupid," she said again. Riding me. The hammock swaying. "This is the stupidest sex I've ever had."
"Want to stop?"
"Nn-" A swell pushed me deep. Her eyes crossed. "Absolutely not."
Her energy was changing. I could feel it. Not the earthy grounding of the grove. Something flowing through the cultivation connection. Earthy and wet. Like soil after rain. The ocean was in her now. Three weeks at sea and the farmer's energy had adapted. Grown. Mixed with the water and the salt and become something new.
"Nn- I'm-" Her grinding lost its rhythm. The approaching orgasm making her body clench and the clench making the hammock jerk and the jerk making her gasp. Feedback loop. Each sensation triggering the next. She grabbed the ropes on either side of my head. Pulled herself down onto me. Hard.
She came with the ocean spray hitting her back. Her head tipped up. Sun on her face. The sound she made carried across the water the way Nami's had last night. Open. Unashamed. The groan of a woman who'd left the only home she'd ever known and found something she hadn't expected on the open ocean.
I came inside her. The hammock rocking us through it. Her body clenching in long slow waves. The cultivation energy surging between us. Earthy and flowing. New.
The hammock held. Barely. The ropes creaking. We lay tangled in it, her on top of me, both of us breathing. The sun on our skin. The ocean rocking us. The rope marks red on her thighs and my back.
"I don't miss the grove," she said. Into my chest.
"Liar."
"…I miss the grove a little." She adjusted. The hammock swung. She put her chin on my chest and looked at me. "But this is good too."
"Binding agreement?"
She thought about it. Reached over the edge of the hammock. Her fingers found the deck. Found a tangerine that had rolled there from the galley explosion. She peeled it one-handed. Put a segment between her teeth. Leaned down.
The kiss tasted like citrus and salt and the ocean.
"Binding agreement," she said. Through tangerine pulp.