Sky Pirates of the Rio Grande - Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Zenobia pressed her down on the bed, the water on their skin making their bodies slide sensuously against each other.  Eden kissed her, open-mouthed, hungry, her hands roaming over the other woman's muscular shoulders and back, grunting every time Zenobia pushed forward and ground her thigh against her overheated pussy.  The breeze coming in through the one cracked window was cool and made her feel even hotter, as if steam would rise from their flesh.

"Now I shall eat you, little mouse," Zenobia chuckled and began to kiss her way down Eden's slim body, trailing her rough tongue over her neck and down to her smallish breasts.  She sucked the hardened nipples, biting them playfully with her sharp teeth, making Eden jump and twitch.  She flickered her tongue ticklishly over her ribs and down across her heaving belly, then kissed Eden's downy mound and levered her thighs apart.

Eden held her breath and then shuddered when she felt that long tongue slither into the furrow of her pussy.  It probed deep, then came dragging out slowly and deliciously, sliding across her button and then pressing hard against it.  Zenobia got her hands under her ass and lifted her up, licked at her relentlessly.

She threw her head back and closed her eyes, moaning shamelessly.  She had never felt anything like this.  Even the dim intimations of sex she'd experienced paled beside the intense, electric sensations as another woman pleasured her like she had never dared to  imagine.  Eden spread her legs eagerly, squirming to grind her folds more firmly against Zenobia's rough, probing tongue.

Zenobia, for her part, buried her tongue in the musky scent and taste of the girl's wetness, savoring her.  She felt Eden's pulse beat at the inside of her thigh, pressed a hand to her belly to feel her quick breathing.  Impatient, hungry, Zenobia put a hand down to pleasure herself, stroked her own slick and sticky folds as she licked.  Eden was shivering and pulling on her own nipples, drawing close again.  She reached down and held herself spread for Zenobia's tongue, twitching and gasping for breath.

Almost there again, so soon.  Zenobia brought her free hand down Eden's belly and pushed two fingers up inside her again, feeling her inner muscles quivering and ready.  With a growl Zenobia pressed her rough tongue hard against the little pink button and licked hard and steady while stroking her fingers down the inner walls.  Eden twisted side to side and slapped the bed, clawed up fistfuls of the sheet and let out a long, shaking moan.

"Oh, oh God forgive me!"  Eden bit her fingers and Zenobia felt her pussy squeeze down as she spilled over again, her belly twitching and tightening until she nearly came up off the bed.

Zenobia drew her fingers out and crawled up her body, pinning the smaller girl down with her weight and strength.  Eden panted, red-faced and eyes half-shut.  She moaned when Zenobia slid her sticky fingers into her mouth and let her taste her own salty desire.  The girl sucked shamelessly at them and Zenobia laughed, kissed her again, let her suck her tongue and pull at her with her delicate little hands.

They rubbed together, hands roaming, fondling.  Zenobia liked the softness of her - no scars, no sun-browning or weathering from wind - she was soft as a baby all over, like a silk-wrapped harem girl.  She knotted her hands in that thick fall of dark brown curls and kissed her, gnawed at her chin and neck with her sharp teeth.

"Now little mouse, it is your turn to put that clever tongue to use."  Zenobia pressed her tongue to Eden's throat and felt the quick beat of her pulse beneath the skin, it excited her.

Eden caught her breath, bit her lip and nodded.  "I'll try," she said.

Zenobia rolled off her and stretched, pantherine and sensuous.  She gripped the wooden headboard with her hands and strained against it until the wood creaked, arching her back and thrusting her backside up.  She was surprised when Eden took hold of her from behind, left a trail of petal-soft kisses down her spine, little hands caressing and squeezing her ass.  Zenobia just let her forequarters fall forward onto the bed and purred, rocking her hips back to expose the swollen, dusky folds of her pussy.

Eden was surprised to find her mouth watering at the sight.  She had never even seen another woman like this before, and now the urge to simply bury her tongue in the slick flesh was as overpowering as the dense, musky smell of Zenobia's lust.  Eden used her hands to pull the generous flesh of Zenobia's ass apart, and then leaned in, blushing, to lick tenderly at the slippery cleft.

She licked gently at first, and then harder when Zenobia seemed to want it.  Her tongue parted the outer lips and slid into the slippery, salty groove within.  She tasted the tangy juices on her tongue, licked more deeply.  She smelled musk and sweat and wet skin, tasted Zenobia's desire in the quickening of the flow of juices over her tongue, dripping down onto her chin.

With a start she realized she could read in the other woman's body what she liked.  When she put her tongue here she felt muscles tighten and flex.  When she licked like this the tiger-woman's breath quickened and rasped.

Zenobia growled and rolled over, spread herself wide and drew one leg up to expose herself fully.  "Use your fingers," she crooned.  "Deep inside."

Eden settled between her outflung thighs and licked diligently at her swollen button.  Tentative, she sucked two fingers and pressed them against the slick furrow, gasped at the hot, close feel as they slid effortlessly inside.  It was hot and squeezing, like melted honey.

She plied her tongue and fingers diligently, stroking her fingers within experimentally, gauging Zenobia's responses, learning what she wanted, what she responded to.  Eden licked, tasting the salty juices that flowed over her tongue, stroking her fingers inside.  Her free hand stayed pressed against the inside of Zenobia's thigh, feeling her pulse and reading the tension in her muscles without really thinking about it.

Her fingers went deeper, found the soft swell of the cervix and Zenobia almost came up off the bed, she shivered and growled so hard.  Eden pressed and rubbed at the swelling while she licked and Zenobia's pulse raced faster and faster, her muscles drawing tighter than a violin string.  Eden pressed harder, settled into a swirling motion that swept her fingers around and around inside while her tongue worked until it ached.

Zenobia squirmed around so much she almost bucked Eden off, her ass sidling around, twitching and jerking, her inner muscles clenching and relaxing, clenching and relaxing.  Eden began to shove her fingers in and out, hard enough to bang against the cervix with each stroke, and Zenobia wailed like a true animal.  Her pussy clamped down like a fist and Eden jerked as a flood of juices gushed out over her hand.  She shoved her fingers in hard and a spurt of clear fluid erupted and splattered her face as Zenobia squalled like a she-panther, thrashed almost off the bed.

Eden lay there and watched her twitch, watched her legs jerk as aftershocks shivered through her, watched her belly rise and fall as she panted.  The whole room smelled of sex, of Zenobia's thick, heady odor mixed with the dusty bedsheets and the ageing wood.  Eden rolled over and looked up at the ceiling, feeling alone and small and very far from home.  She covered her eyes, then yelped as Zenobia gathered her up and crushed her in her arms, nuzzling up under her ear.

"Oh little mouse, you are good at that.  I like the way you do it."  She chuckled, easy and relaxed.  "You have been with a girl before."

Eden found herself turning red again.  "No," she said.  "No, never."  The fatigue began to hit her and she found her eyes drooping.  Her body felt warm and loose and relaxed, and she remembered she had been up all night running, save for the brief rest on an uncomfortable train.  She tried to move and found her limbs shaking.  "I don't... I mean I... ."  She couldn't keep her eyes open, couldn't even concentrate enough to speak properly, she just made a kind of indecipherable slurring noise and then everything went away.

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Eden woke with a start, knowing it was hours later by the darkness outside the windows.  She pushed herself up, recalling the events earlier with a guilty start and a creeping hot flush up her neck.  There was a single low lamp in the room, and by the thin light she saw that she was alone in the bed.

For the first time, she really got a look at the room.  Before she had been too tired, and then too... distracted.  She pushed her hair back, grimacing at how tangled it felt, she needed a brush.  In fact she felt stretched and achy all over.  A full day of fear and running followed by too much sleep.  She felt at once vibrantly awake and drugged with sleep.

The cabin was small, the walls closely packed with cupboards and cabinets.  A wardrobe stood to one side, the doors open and clothes heaped on the floor haphazardly.  Zenobia must have been into it, seeing what there was to put on - she had nothing but that shift, now ruined.  Eden frowned as she realized she was no better off, as her companion had ripped her already-destroyed dress clean off her body.  She would have to find something with which to cover herself.

She felt the ship shift in the wind and came fully awake, realizing it had been hours and she needed to check their position and correct the course.  She got out of the bed, looked helplessly at the pile of male clothing on the floor, and then just wrapped herself in the sheet.  Zenobia was the only person on board, and she'd certainly no reason to be shy in front of her now.

Eden hurried up to the deck and stopped for a moment, stunned by the panorama around her.  It was a clear night, and the crescent moon and bright diamond stars shone plenty of light to see by.  The sky looked blue-black and deep as the sea with a bolt of scattered stars flaming from one horizon to the other.  The land spread out around them in an endless vista of rolling hills forested with thick dark trees.  She went to the rail and looked down, feeling dizzy at the height.

"It is magnificent," Zenobia said, startling her.  "I have never been so high.  I want to leap into space and fall into it."  She leaned on the rail with both hands.  "It is so beautiful."  She was dressed in a rich blue captain's coat with heavy braid on the shoulders and long tails and high black boots, but no pants that Eden could see.  She wore her belt under the flaring coat and a pistol and saber hung from it.  Her hair was a billowing dark cloud in the night.

Eden remembered kissing her and turned slightly away, coloring and pulling the sheet closer.  She looked out over the landscape under the glittering sky.  "I... I always imagined it would be marvelous, but I never thought it would feel so... so exciting."

"Exactly!" Zenobia said, pounding the rail with her fist.  "I feel I could go anywhere, do anything in the world!"  She took a deep breath, let it out.  "This is what it is to fly, then.  Now I understand the look in the eye of the hawk, or the aguila.  This is what it is like to be free.  Only this."  She ran a hand through her hair and ducked her head for a moment.  "Thank you for this."

"I... well."  Eden felt embarrassed.  "I would not have made it this far without you."

"And without you, I would still be in that damned cell.  I might have stayed there until they decided to kill me and slice me up for my pieces."  Zenobia dropped her hand to the hilt of the saber, caressed it.  "Now I am free and I will not ever be taken again.  I thought it was better to be captured than to die, but it is not."

"Yes, well."  Eden brushed her own hair back from her face.  "I should get us on course."  She turned and started up the steps to the helm.

"Are we not on course now?"  Zenobia followed her casually, almost strutting in her tall boots.

"Probably not.  The wind will drive us off course without constant corrections."  Eden looked at the compass, scanned the stars and let her experimental brain make its calculations.  "Well, not too bad.  We're a lot farther south than I wanted to be, and too low."  She adjusted the rim controls and felt the thrumming as the galvanic nodes fired in the gasbag exciting the gasses into greater buoyancy.

She watched the altitude gauge as the ship rose, tried to trim it more deftly this time and level off at the right height, was pleased to be able to do so on the first try.  She checked the course and reached for the wheel, stopped and beckoned to Zenobia.  "Can you take the wheel?"

Zenobia grinned as she stepped up and took the helm, handled the wheel easily when Eden unlocked it.  Eden leaned around her to watch the compass.  "Three points north."

"Whatever that means," Zenobia spun the wheel, held it until Eden told her to straighten it out again and locked it in place.

"There, now we are back on course," Eden yawned.  "I can't believe I'm still tired."

"Neither can I," Zenobia chuckled.  "You really are like a mouse."

Eden narrowed her eyes.  "Cats sleep more than mice."

Zenobia shrugged.  "If you say so."

---

The Jackson carried them West on through the day, her old engines chugging steadily along.  Eden kept having to adjust their heading in the face of winds that pushed them southerly, but they made good time, passing over the green hills of Kentucky and out over the lower, rolling country of Missouri.  The weather was fair and clear, with only a few very white clouds and plenty of sun.  The gasbag kept most of the glare off the deck, so Eden didn't have to worry about her fair skin burning in the daylight.

She managed to find something to wear, though it still bothered her to wear pants.  There wasn't a pair of shoes on board that fit her, so she had to go barefoot in trousers and a too-big shirt like a cabin boy.  It took her an hour to finally brush the kinks from her long hair, but it felt immeasurably better when she had finished.

There was still nothing to eat but tinned beef, biscuits, and dried apricots, and nothing to do but watch the scenery below.  Eden found it disconcerting to look down, as her brain easily calculated exactly how high they were, disallowing her the illusion that it was a miniature country below them.

She didn't talk to Zenobia about their tryst in the cabin, and for her part the tiger woman pace the deck restlessly.  She seemed emboldened by the freedom of the sky, but deviled by the want of something to do.

Eden was napping in the late afternoon of the second full day when Zenobia came and shook her awake.  "Mmmuh?  What is it?"

"I see a ship," she said.

Eden woke up and got out of bed, pulled herself into her trousers.  "Close?"

"Getting closer."

They went up on deck.  The sun was westering, and it lit the golden country below them with a warm glow.  Eden frowned - they were too low again.  The old ship had problems keeping altitude.

On the quarterdeck Eden pulled the spyglass from its case and set it in the socket on the rail.  "Which way?"

Zenobia pointed off the starboard bow and Eden swung the glass, scanned the horizon.  "I don't - wait, there it is."  She squinted.  The ship was a newer design, with no separation between gasbag and hull.  The ship was built around the envelope for greater strength, speed, and durability.  This one had an open top deck, though, and she recognized the design.  "Santander-class, a Mexican ship."

Zenobia grunted.  "Why is a Mexican ship here?"

"Well, the ship was built in Mexico.  That doesn't mean the crew is from there, but it's not a naval ship or a passenger liner."

"A cargo ship?" Zenobia said.

"No, it was built as a warship, and I see guns."  Eden peered through the scope.  "They just corrected course, heading this way."

"Mmm," Zenobia said.  "We are fucked, I think."

"What?  Why?" Eden said, but even as she spoke she saw the other ship run up a standard, and in the afternoon sun she saw the black banner unfurl and a white skull gleaming.

"Ohhhhh, damn it."

Continued in Chapter 9...

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