Silhouetted by the Sea

Disclaimer: Characters aren't really mine...just the situation;)

Author's Notes: You're steering for some nice lemon in this chapter. Enjoy;)

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Silhouetted by the Sea
by Kristen Elizabeth

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After Hilde had recovered from the morning's unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome encounter with Duo, she dressed in the same green and gold dress of Relena's and climbed the ladder to the open deck. Quatre greeted her with a genuine smile.

"Good morning."

Hilde blushed; could he tell, just by looking at her, what had happened below deck? She fumbled through a hasty curtsy. "'Morning, my lord."

Duo appeared from around a stacked pile of wooden crates, examining a map. "I think we should double back. I'm pretty sure we missed an island just east of..." He glanced up. Upon seeier ier innocently guilty expression, all he wanted to do was grin and let her know that when he closed his eyes, he could still taste her. But instead, he cleared his throat and greeted her with a curt, "About time you decided to get up."

His heart ached when she looked down at her bare feet, just poking out from under the hem of Relena's dress. He could see her hands trembling in quiet shock. To her credit, and his dismay as it only helped to solidify his feelings for her, she lifted her head back up, held her chin high and replied in an equally cool voice, "Sorry, sir. I just couldn't seem to make my knees work again. Perhaps tonight I should sleep in my own bed."

"I think that would be a very good idea," her braided lover replied. Empty silence lay between them.

Quatre cleared his throat. "You were saying, Duo?"

The other man blinked and looked at the forgotten map in his hands. "Yes...um...there's another island, just east of the smallest one we saw yesterday. I've never stopped on it myself, but if you take natural drifting into consideration, it's possible that someone in a rowboat could have landed on it."

Hilde frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Duo believes that there might have been survivors from the..."

"It's nothing definite," Duo abruptly cut Quatre off. "Don't get your hopes up, Lady Hilde. They're probably all dead, but we gotta make sure. The Baron's sister is pretty valuable, after all." He tossed the map to the blond man. "I'll tell the men to swing her around."

Hilde watched him walk away, biting her lip until she thought she might draw blood. She glanced at Duo's well-dressed companion. "May I ask you something, sir?" Quatre nodded. "Is Duo...I mean to say...does he...have someone waiting for him? A wife? Fiancee?"

Quatre shook his head. "Just an obligation he can't break." He placed a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It might be best if you didn't think of him anymore."

She nodded. Looking down at her clothing, she suddenly felt horribly childish. Who had she been trying to fool by dressing in a real lady's clothing? It was a part she was never meant to play. After thanking Quatre, she headed back below deck in search of her own clothes. Perhaps if she abandoned her femininity again, she could forget how Duo had made her feel, for the first time in her life, like a woman.

****

"Heero..."

He lifted his head from between her thighs and frowned. He had been sure she was on the way to what he figured would be her first orgasm ever, when she had tugged at his hair and said his name in her soft, breathless voice. Licking his lips, he crawled up her flushed body. "What is it, duchess?" He kissed the well-loved side of her neck.

"I want you inside of me."

Heero lifted himself up on his arms. "You're sure you're ready?"

Relena nodded and twisted her fingers around the short hairs at the base of his skull. She tried to pull his chest back down to hers; the tips of her breasts missed the touch of his hard torso. "I'm ready. Please, Heero...I don't want to wait anymore. I..." Her throat closed up. "I feel like I've been waiting for you....my whole life."

Before he could let it slip that he felt the exact same way, Heero kissed her again. "All right. I want you to hold onto me, Relena." She nodded and hooked her arms around his shoulders. "I promise I'll try not to hurt you."

Her eyes closed as he began to enter her body. She wasn't even aware that she whimpered in pain until he caressed her cheek with his thumb. "Shh," he soothed. "Just relax." As more of his sex pressed into hers, she sank her teeth into her bottom lip, fighting the pain. Heero held her tighter. "Are you all right?" he asked once he could go no further.

She didn't reply for a long minute. When she finally opened her eyes, they were moist with joyful tears. "I'm fine, Heero. Truly." She shifted experimentally. The motion made Heero's eyes close in pure pleasure. Relena moved again.

"You learn...very fast," Heero breathed. He felt a thundering desire to move himself, but was hesitant in case he might hurt her more. "Are you sure you're..."

Relena cupped his face with her warm hands. "Heero. I'm not going to break."

He smiled again; the gesture was becoming more natural to him. "Good. Because we're just getting started." He took her lips against his once more.

Several minutes later, Relena had a hard time believing that had been any initial pain at all. Heero's mouth was locked to hers as he thrust in and out of her body....and nothing had ever felt more right. The sounds of their lovemaking, his muffled groans, her choppy breathing, the slap of sweaty skin meeting skin, drowned out the even the loudest sounds of the forest.

Heero threaded his fingers through hers and raised her arms over her head, using his knees for leverage. With every delicious stroke, he was getting closer to completely losing control. His kisses grew harder, but she made no sound of complaint. All she did was wrap her legs around his waist. The feeling of her smooth thighs sliding up and down his ribs was too much.

He tore his mouth away from their kiss andeaseeased her hands. "God...Relena..."

She immediately dug her nails into his back; her head thrashed about on the sand without the anchor of his mouth on hers. "Heero," she cried out, approaching the white-hot edge of bliss. "Please..."

His hips thrust forward one last time and the air shattered with her throaty cry of ecstasy. Having taken her there, Heero let himself go, groaning her name into her neck as he found release deep within her warmth. He collapsed on top of her and waited for his breath to return.

Soft lips kissed his shoulder. "I love you, Heero. And if that's insane..."

Heero finally lifted his head and looked down at her with wet eyes. "We'll be crazy together."

****

"She's been locked up in that little cabin all day." Duo paced back and forth across the deck. In the distance, the sun was starting to set, casting a brilliant array of warm colors across the sea. "I should go check on her..."

Quatre folded his arms across his expensive frock coat. "She's probably just fine, Duo. Can we please focus on the task at hand?"

"Right...of course." Duo looked at his maps. "We should be back at the island sometime tomorrow morning. We'll do a complete sweep getting as close as possible and if we don't see any signs of life...." He drew in a breath. "It's back to Barbados we go."

"And the girl?"

Duo plunged his fingers into his thick bangs. "Will be turned over to Kushrenada on charges of piracy."

Quatre's voice was quiet. "I don't like it any more than you do. But most of the *Lady Anne's* cargo was seized and consequently lost when the pirate's ship went down, not to mention the probable loss of the Baron's sister and the Baroness. Treize is going to want someone to blame for the incident. And I'm sorry....but she's the only thing we have to give him."

"But what if we don't give her to him? I'll take her to America; he'll never even have to know she..."

"Treize is like my brother," Quatre continued, firmly. "To lie to him would be a betrayal of everything dear to me."
's b's brow furred, his anger directed towards his blond companion. "How could I expect you to understand. You've never loved anyone, have you?" Quatre opened his mouth to protest, but Duo pressed on. "I heard things in jail, pal. How many arranged marriages have you refused, anyway? The last one, if the information I overheard was correct, was to a very wealthy Italian countess...Catalonia something, wasn't it?"

"I really don't think that's any of your business." Quatre tranquil eyes flashed.

"What was wrong with her? Wasn't she pretty enough? Did she have weird eyebrows or something?"

"There wasn't anything wrong with..." He stopped. "I have no wish to continue this discussion."

Duo paused. "You do like women, don't you?"

Quatre turned on him with simmering rage. "Apparently not as much as you do or it would have been me bedding the little pirate!"

"Her name is Hilde!" Duo shouted. "And if you've got it into your mind that she's loose, you had better just wipe the thought away before I punch it out of you! She has more purity in her little finger than a hundred of your so-called ladies!"

Unseen by either man, Hilde chose that moment to come above deck. From her place behind the stacked crates, she listened to the remainder of their conversation.

Some of the anger died in Quatre. "Have you fallen in love with her?"

Suddenly remembering himself and the duty he couldn't escape, Duo scratched his cheek and replied with a simple, "Does it matter?"

"Does it?"

"I can't win here, Quatre." Duo crumpled the map in his hand. "What are my options? As soon as we reach Barbados, I'm going to shove her into a jail cell and take off, never to be seen on the island again. What the hell else can I do?"

The blond man lifted his shoulders. "I don't know."

"When I put her in that Barbados jail cell, it's going to be much easier for me to walk away without any feelings for her."

It was all Hilde could bear to hear. With her hand pressed to her mouth, she retreated back below.

Duo continued, unaware of her entrance or exit. "Still...you try telling that to my heart. I have. A hundred times." He snorted. "It's determined to love her."

"No matter what?"

The braided man looked across the ocean as the sun continued to sink into the horizon. "No matter what."

****

"Should I be wed aed about her?" Sally wrung her hands and stared out at the flaming evening sky. "They've been gone for hours."

Wufei shook his head and threw another shell into the surf. "She's in good hands."

"It's the hands I'm worried about," she replied, dryly. "And rightly so! I am her guardian, after all."

"Let me see if I understand this." He stood up and brushed sand off his breeches. "You don't actually have your own life to live, so you sail around, chaperoning other people who do?"

Sally's jaw dropped; it took her a moment to recover from his hurtful words. In that moment, Wufei regretted every single of them. Finally, she closed her mouth and turned on her heel to head back to the huge warning fire Trowa was tending to.

Something caught her arm and held her back. She whipped around, prepared to launch a full verbal assault on the pirate, when she caught the strangest look in his eyes, one she never thought she'd see. Apology.

"Do you always have to be so sensitive?" he asked, but his usual sneer was absent from the words.

"I'm not sensitive! You're just completely *insensitive*!" Sally tried to shake off his grip, but he held on. "Let go of me."

Wufei gently tugged on her arm, pulling her close enough for him to wrap his arm around her corseted waist. "If I were insensitive, I wouldn't want to do this." He crushed his lips to hers in a hard kiss of pure lust.

At first, Sally protested with all of her might. She pushed against his chest, tried to tear her mouth away from his, but after a long minute, she relaxed and let him kiss her. No one had kissed her since her husband died and he had never done it like this. Kissed her like he would die if he didn't.

Wufei smiled when he felt her body become slack and her lips begin to respond to his. He lowered her to the sand, suddenly very thankful that Trowa was occupied much further down the beach and that Heero and the duchess were nowhere to be found.

As he continued to kiss her, he reached for the top of her corset. Rather than unlace it, he yanked it down along with the remains of her dress and her chemise. Her ample breasts spilled forth; he covered them with his hand, rolling and kneading her nipples.

Sally moaned. Had she gone insane or had he wanted this for as long as she had? Rather than try to sort anything out logically, she fisted handfuls of his black shirt and pulled it over his head. It landed somewhere in the water, but neither of them cared. His skin was hot against hers; he rolled them over in the surf until she was straddling his hips.

She threw her head back and rocked her groin against his when he raised his mouth just enough to run his lips across her nipples. After a delicious moment, Sally dropped her head and kissed him, her tongue wrestling his for control. She gave up the fight when he rolled back on top of her. A wave from the incoming tide crashed over them, but it went ignored as he snaked his hand up under her tattered skirt.

Within a matter of seconds, he had her skirt lifted and his own breeches undone. When he joined their bodies, a tangled cry of fulfillment drowned out the sounds of the ocean. There were no awkward fumblings; they found their perfect rhythm instantly and rode it together. The waves of water that hit them only added fuel to the passionate fire they were building.

He kissed her as they both came to swallow her loud cries and perhaps to muffle his own. Water continued to wash over them and retreat in the long minutes it took for them to recover. Wufei eventually lifted himself off of her. "I didn't hurt you?"

"No." Sally's smile was one of pure sated pleasure. "Some warning would have been welcome, but..."

"Next time." Wufei pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.

She raised an eyebrow. "There will be a next time?" When he didn't reply, she pressed her lips to his ear. "Dare I hope?"

Clearing his throat, Wufei withdrew and tugged her dress back up over her breasts. "Maybe we should go look for Heero."

Sally watched him lace up his breeches. "No. Let them be. Whatever they're doing..." She sighed. "...let them have their moment together." Her knees wobbled as she stood. "It's more than most people get."

He didn't offer her reassurances or promises. But he did offer his hand to hold as they walked back to the shelter. And perhaps that was just as good.

****

"Did you notice that the sun is setting?"

Heero cracked one eye open to look at the sky above them. "When did that happen?"

Relena smothered a giggle in the crook of his neck. "I'm not sure. I lost track of the time hours ago."

Heero combed his fingers through her tangled hair. "And no one's even come to look for us." He closed his eyes lazily. "So much for the loyalty of my crew."

"Sally's probably given up all hope regarding my chastity," Relena said. She dropped a kiss onto his Adam's apple. "That was why she came with me on this voyage, you know. To be my chaperone."

"And to deliver you to Kushrenada." Heero opened his eyes, his sexual haze fading rapidly at the memory of the man to whom his lover was promised.

Relena pulled her lips away from his skin. "I don't even want to think about him." She raised herself up on her elbow to look down at him. "And I don't want you to either." When it became apparent that Heero wasn't going to forget so easily, Relena grinned impishly and began to walk her fingers down the now-familiar plane of his stomach. "I would rather talk...about you."

Heero lifted his head to see what she was up to. When she took his sex into her hand, he dropped his head back to the sand. "Relena..." he growled. "You're insatiable, do you know that?"

She stroked him like she had been loving him for years. "Why did you become a pirate?"

"Because...all the Congress seats...had been filled," was his sardonic reply.

Relena pursed her lips. "Really. Tell me the truth."

He grabbed her hand and rolled on top of her. She laughed, completely unafraid of the feral look in his eyes. In the course of the afternoon, she had seen it several times and at every instance, it lead to nothing but pleasure. "You want the truth? All right. The truth is I've been a thief all my life, Relena. When I was a child, I stole bread and apples. When I got older, I stole wallets and money purses. And now, at twenty, I steal ships. Or whatever's on them, anyway."

"But...you kill people, too. How can you do that?"

"If you think I enjoy it, you're wrong. But sometimes, it can't be helped. I have to strike whatever's in my path, keeping me from my goal. "He shrugged. "It's the only way I know how to survive and to provide for the people under my care."

"Your young friend? The girl in boy's clothes?"

"Hilde, yes. If I didn't do what I do, the only way for her to live would be to sell her body like so many girls I grew up around. I would rather be a murderer than see her degraded." He let her kiss his eyelids; it was her gesture of sympathy and he loved her all the more for it. "She was the first person I ever loved."

Relena encouraged him to lay his stubbled cheek against her breast; she ran her fingers through his messy locks as she spoke. "The first person I ever loved was my brother. Millardo." She smiled up at the bleeding sky. "I didn't think there was a stronger, braver, more wonderful person alive." Her smile fell. "He left for boarding school when I was six. For the next few years after that, I only saw him at the holidays. He joined the army after his schooling was finished and almost immediately sailed for America. While he was gone...our parents died of pneumonia and I went to live with his wife, Lucrezia. By the time the war ended and he came back, I was already grown up. So, I suppose you could say...I don't really know my brother at all." Her voice throbbed with emotion. "And now he's sent me off to marry his friend without even so much as asking me..." She stopped; Heero placed a kiss on her breastbone. "I don't mean to complain. So many have had it so much worse."

"Pain isn't always about what one has gone through, but what one has been denied. No matter what I might have said to you before." Heero lifted his head. "Who has loved you, Relena Peacecraft?"

She blinked back tears. "My brother...at one time. My parents before they died. Lucrezia once we got to know each other." She desperately wanted to add his name to the list, but stopped. The barrier of not actually having heard him say the words was holding her back. "I haven't exactly lacked for love."

"You haven't exactly been given it without conditions either." Heero brushed his thumb across her nipple.

Relena allowed him liberties with her breasts. Ignoring her soreness for what would be their third time together, she opened up to him, accepting his renewed arousato hto her body. They made love slowly. Sweetly. There was no rush to keep up with the setting sun. When they finally spent themselves in each others arms, darkness had seized the air around them.

She clung to her lover, never wanting him to leave her body. "Can we stay here tonight? I don't care what any of them think...even if they find us like this." Her words were light, but there was an undertone of intensity. "Can we, Heero?"

He swallowed. "Nothing could make me leave you right now, duchess." Satisfied with his answer, Relena snuggled into his arms and in only a few minutes had drifted off to sleep. He eased himself out of her body and settled into the sand for the night. Before he joined her in slumber, Heero kissed the top of her head and whispered, "Nothing could make me leave you for the rest of my life."

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To Be Continued