Chapter 17 #2
“The waist holds,” he says. “The hips are… generous.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Callie says.
I look away, grinning. Carter’ez snorts.
“You walk fast,” he tells her. “This must not pull when you climb ladders. You climb more than the men, I think. Always up and down the platforms.”
“She does,” I say. “She forgets she’s not born to live on the ocean.”
“Wasn’t I?” she asks. “I swim just as well as you. At least I don’t fall anymore.”
“That sounds like progress,” Carter’ez agrees. “It needs reinforcement here.” He taps the side seam. “And pockets, I understand? I have made some loincloths with that addition.”
“Yes,” Callie says eagerly. “Pockets are important.”
“For what?” Carter’ez asks, distractedly as he looks through his skins.
“For everything,” she replies. “Knives. String. Stones. Anything.”
He nods. “Fine. Pockets.”
As he works, he talks. I think he may enjoy Callie’s company. He must sense her warmth as well as I do.
“The skin came three years ago, on a Day of Trade,” he says. “The Dry men wanted splix, of course. And some enjoy the dried seaweed we offer. Certain types of driftwood we can usually trade.”
“The Dry tribes don’t have farms,” I say. “The seaweed we gather gives them a flavor they can’t get anywhere else. Some seaweeds make a strong green color when dried and ground.”
“And they fear the Deep,” Carter’ez adds. “They think it will murder them. They will not cross it.”
Callie pinches the fabric. “You trade because you can do what they can’t.”
“Yes,” he says. “And they can do what we prefer not to. Unless we must.”
“That’s smart,” she says. “That keeps peace.”
“It keeps balance, perhaps,” Carter’ez corrects. “Peace is rare. I hear we now expect war with the Adropo tribe.”
“Maybe not,” I state. “They were here early. They must be eager for splix. I think there will be no war. Wars are for the Dry tribes, not for the Deep.”
He trims the skin with a short blade and sets the scraps aside. “If the trade stops, their village starves or bleeds. Sometimes both.”
“Does it ever stop?” Callie asks.
“Only when men become foolish,” he says, glancing at me. “Or greedy.”
I watch her face. She listens closely.
“And if one man in a tribe has more than the others?” she asks carefully. “Does that cause trouble?”
Carter’ez glances at me, then back to his work. “I suppose it can.”
I lean on the doorframe. “She means food.”
Carter’ez clears his throat. “The woman asks sharp questions.”
“She’s a sharp woman,” I say. “Sharp and soft at the same time. Don’t cross her, tribesman. Especially not if she’s holding a net.”
Callie smiles at that and lifts her arms again as Carter’ez adjusts the fit across her chest.
“This skin will last,” he says. “If cared for. Give it some oil occasionally.”
“I’ll take good care of it,” she promises. “Perhaps you can make a belt and sheath? I have a long knife now, and I want to keep it with me always. It was also made for me.”
“A belt would be easier to make than this dress. I can do it right now. For a sheath, try this.” He picks through a stack of several sheaths and gives her one. It fits her knife perfectly.
He finishes the last stitch on the dress and holds it up. “Try it.”
Callie quickly goes to our hut, changes, and returns. She twists, bends, and crouches—the dress follows her every movement.
“It works,” she declares. “I can move. I can breathe.” She looks at me, eyes bright. “It’s not a loincloth, but do I look like I belong here?”
The question hits harder than it should. Does she want to belong here?
“Yes,” I manage. “You do.”
Carter’ez hands her the sheath and the belt. “The trade will continue,” he says. “As long as the sea stays open and the jungle stays wary.”
“And as long as people keep talking,” Callie adds.
He chuckles. “I wonder if talking causes as much trouble as it solves.”
Callie steps closer to me once we leave his platform. “He may be right.”
“About what?”
“Balance,” she says. “If people think it’s off, they push.”
“They will not push you. Or me.”
“They might,” she answers calmly. “Not because they hate me. Because they want what you have.”
“You are not a thing to be taken,” I growl. “Despite what I did. I acted rashly back then, on the beach. Now, I would have done it differently.”
“I know,” she says. “But now the other men think as you did back then. Some of them.”
We stand there for a moment, the village moving around us. Men pass and boys laugh. Smoke curls upward.
That night, after the meal, she wears the garment. It draws looks. I keep my place beside her. I do not leave her alone.
Later, in the hut, she turns slowly in the torchlight. “This is nice. It’s wonderful how he made the first dress without ever having seen one.”
“Some Dry tribes wear longer garments like that,” I tell her. “At least their shamans do. I suppose Carter’ez holds you in high regard and realizes you have more to cover than most of us.”
She glances at me over her shoulder, a small smile playing at her mouth. The skin catches the light when she moves, dark and supple, shaped to her in a way that tightens my chest. I reach out before I think better of it and rest my hand at her waist. The warmth of her bleeds into my palm.
“You like it,” she says softly.
“I do,” I answer. My thumb traces the edge where skin meets skin, where the tailor’s careful work ends and she begins. She shivers, and the knowledge that I can do that to her settles deep and heavy inside me.
She turns to face me. The torchlight lights up her hair, her eyes. For a moment, we simply look at each other, close enough that her breath brushes my throat. Outside, the village sounds fade into the night. There are voices, laughter, the crackle of distant fires. But here, there is only her.
She steps closer. Her hands find my chest, curious and sure, as if she has already decided where she belongs.
Her fingers stroke across my stripes. I lower my head and breathe her in.
When my mouth finds hers, it is slow at first—a testing press that turns hungry almost at once.
She answers without hesitation, rising onto her toes, fitting herself against me as if the shape of us has always been this way.
I guide her back toward the furs. The torch throws our shadows large against the hut wall, tangled and dark. I take my time, loving the sounds she makes when I touch her, the way her body arches toward mine as if pulled by an unseen tide.
The world narrows to heat, breath, and the soft rustle of skin. I shed my doubts with my loincloth, leaving it by the door. What remains is want, simple and fierce, and the steady rhythm of her under my hands.
Her breath hitches as my fingers trace lower, skimming the curve of her hip, and she whispers against my mouth, “Don’t hold back, Crat'ax.”
I growl low in my throat, the sound vibrating between us, and she answers by sliding one hand down my chest, past the pulsing stripes, until her palm curls around the thick base of my larger cock while her thumb teases over the softer, curved length beneath it, drawing a sharp hiss from me as both shafts twitch eagerly in her grip.
She pulls me closer with that gentle, insistent hold, guiding me until the blunt head of my primary cock nudges her slick entrance and the smaller one presses hot against her clit.
Then she rocks her hips in a slow, deliberate circle, coating us both in her wetness as she murmurs, “Now take me, fill me.”