Chapter 14

The old boat had been, from the day I brought her home and made her mine, a refuge. Yes, there were days that I brought friends along, but mainly the boat was where I went when I wanted to get away from the world. Now I was on her, and I was clothed only in my boxers and before me, beckoning, was Jo, in my mind the epitome of red-headed perfection, herself clad only in hip-hugger panties and a dark blue sports bra.

And she was beautiful. Absent any light from the skylight hatch, we had a little electric cabin light on. "Come here, Stoney. Lay with me." In the dim light, my mind filled out the details, the blue eyes, how red that hair was in the sunlight, rendered brown in the dim cabin. I was adding new details like the exact curve of her waist, the perfect rounded butt, the legs, the long, athletic legs. I crawled in towards her, intent on taking this slowly.

My beautiful mate had other ideas. I was wrapped up and dragged against her, her right leg thrown over mine, pulling me into complete contact. I couldn't talk. My lips were occupied. So were her hands.

"Stoney, I've never seen you in shorts except that one time. You have strong legs. Muscular." Her hands emphasized her observation. "And I am not the only one to notice that you have a great butt." Her hands tracing my butt caused a surge in my groin.

Giggle. "I felt that."

"Johanna ... My lovely Johanna..." My hands at first cradled her head, then slid down her back, relishing the bare, youthful skin, ending up, naturally, on the curve of that delectable ass.

She moaned into my mouth as we kissed. Our lips parted. "Touch me, Stoney. You are the one to touch me. Everywhere."

I squeezed the curved cheeks of her ass. A little "Mmmm" came through the kiss. She did the impossible, pulling us together even tighter. I felt my erection pushing against a warm mound, the heat penetrating two layers of fabric. She felt it too, and moaned gently. One soft, exploratory hand disappeared from my butt. Reappeared between us, pushing its way downward.

When it reached the almost inevitable destination, when I felt HER fingers touch my straining erection, it was more than I could stand. I came. Pulsing, jetting, throbbing, I came. While I was coming, I let a little whimper escape my being, through our kiss. She pulled back. "Oh, Stoney ... You ... You ... I..."

"OHGOD, Jo, yes I did. I'm sorry. All this is more than I can stand. You don't understand how much I adore you, Jo. Intellect, talent ... and you're the single most beautiful woman on the planet. This was inevitable."

"I ... Stoney, I'm not experienced. Is that good or bad?"

I kissed her. "Good. Just more good than this mortal is able to stand."

"We ... I can stop."

"Nooooo, little angel. But I have a mess."

Giggle. "I feel it. You weren't supposed to do that there."

"Kiss me again, then I have to clean this mess up."

She kissed me. I rolled backward away from her and stood, the front of my boxers a sticky, sodden mess. I retrieved a clean pair from my knapsack and started towards the head.

"Don't," she said.

"Huh?"

"Don't put those on. I'm being terribly brave and I don't want you to put those on. Clean up and dry off and come back here."

I snagged the plastic tub with that new yachtsman's sanitary necessity, baby wipes, and cleaned myself up. When I turned, Jo's feet were in the air and she was sliding her panties up her lovely legs.

"Jo?"

"Hush, Stoney! I'm trying to parse all this right now. This is going down in my memories as so many things and it is so strange and so absolutely perfect. You can never sell this boat because it is here, our honeymoon suite, that we become one."

"If that does not in fact happen, I intent to throw myself overboard, redhead," I said as I crawled in beside her. I had planned another session of the two of us lying on our sides facing each other. Wrong again.

As I crawled in, she slid herself under me, trapping me between a pair of thighs for which poems should be penned. She shifted to make sure that the appropriate parts contacted one another and we held on to each other in embrace. Kissed. We ground against each other, my dick sliding along between hot wet labia in a way that I never had experienced before.

I am not inexperienced. I actually lived with a girl on one assignment when I was in the Army. Even thought we were in love. I knew about sex. Comparing that to this was like comparing a picture of a storm to standing out in it, having the winds buffet, the rain beat, the thunder shake.

I raised up a little, and Jo shifted underneath me. The safe slide between the lips was about to change as I felt the head of my dick catch in her opening. Her eyes widened and I thought about pulling back but her mouth opened. "Stoney, I love you." And she pushed her hips upward. I took that as a cue and met her motion with my own. Hot. Wet. Tight.

"Oh, Stoney..." she sighed.

"Are you okay, Johanna?"

"Very much so. Please..." Her hips punctuated her request. No, this wasn't some variety of animalistic humping. I'd dreamed of Jo for weeks and I wanted to love her body. We arched into each other, connecting, merging, mating, in the most physical and spiritual senses of the word. Each stroke put an "mmmmm" or an "ooohhhhh" in my ears.

"Stoney ... It's ... you're ... we're ... wonderfulllllll"

"My Johanna," I breathed. "My perfect, lovely Johanna..." That previous surprise orgasm was a blessing in many ways, the most obvious one being that I had half a chance of lasting more than twelve seconds in paradise. Her hip movement took on an insistent tempo, like she was searching for something. I made an adjustment and a sigh and a hard grind told me that she was where she wanted to be.

"Oh. Stoney. I'm. Just. Right. Theeeeeere! Nnnnnnngggghhhhhh!"

And I came again. This time I was deep into a place I was made for.

In the afterglow we were still intertwined. "I love you, Stoney. And it's wonderful between us."

"I love you, Johanna. And it truly is."

She pulled my face to hers and kissed me. "And always will be."

"Yes, my love."

"Stoney, I'm glad it's you."

"What's me?"

"You that is the first man to make love with me. Because I will never love another, you'll be the only one."

"And you will be the only one, from this day forward. And the thought makes me very happy, Jo."

"Good," she said. "And you love me very much?"

"Yes, I do."

"Enough to do something about this huge cold wet spot we made?"

"This is a heck of a time to discover you're deceitful, right after I seal my life with yours," I said.

She giggled. "Not deceitful, practical."

Add two towels to the laundry I'd haul away from our weekend.

She was holding the blanket up to her chin. "Chilly in here."

"I can turn the heater up."

"No," she said. "You get under here with me. You're the engineer. You know all about friction."

I dove under the blankets with her. In a matter of minutes it was a twisted pile at our feet as we went at each other. Jo's eagerness was like a dam-burst and for myself, well, it had been a very long time since I thought of a woman as ... correction ... I'd never thought of a woman as I found Jo.

After the third round for the evening we finally curled unfamiliarly in each other's arms and let sleep overcome us.

In the wee hours of the morning I sat up with a start, the dream too real. Again. Seconds passed before I regained senses enough to ... a soft hand touched me. "Stoney?"

"Jo," I said softly, "I'm sorry..."

"Is this what happens?"

"What?"

"When it comes back?"

"I don't know why ... Why, on this night, of all nights, I don't know why..."

"Can I hold you, love?"

"Of course, Jo." She slid up to a sitting position beside me, wrapping me in her arms.

"You're mine, Stoney. I'm yours. I'm here for you." She eased her lips to mine, eyes bright, caring, and I couldn't help but respond. My own arms wrapped her in return, pulling her to me.

"Is it better this way, Stoney? With me here?"

"Yes, it's better."

"You're sweating."

"I know."

"You could open the companionway for a minute, cool off."

I unwrapped from her, and for the first time I saw Johanna standing, nude, in the dim light of a full moon coming through the little cabin portholes. It was dim light, to be sure, and shadows played enticingly over her form.

"Beautiful," I said.

"Come on, let's cool off," she smiled, taking my hand. Gingerly we made our way through the cabin. I opened the hatch to the cockpit, felt a cleansing cascade of cool air, even cold, on my bare skin. The light of the full moon flowed inward. "Go up. Out."

"No clothes, baby. I'm naked."

"Nobody out there for miles, Stoney. Me and you in the moonlight."

I ascended the little ladder, turned, took her hand and helped her out. What I saw evoked almost primal memories from deep in ancestral blood. Naked in the moonlight, she turned, stretched, the moonlight barely showing the red of her hair, the cool light glinting off alabaster skin. An angel. An ethereal being come down to earth. A forest nymph. A dryad. No, we were on the water. A siren. Nothing mortal could explain what I saw before me.

"Stoney, you're not saying anything."

"Johanna, you are the most beautiful creature I have ever imagined."

"And quickly becoming one of the coldest. Hold me, Stoney."

I pulled her in against me, her skin cool, dry, and we embraced, clad only in the moonlight. I kissed her.

"Randall Jackson, under the light of this moon, I wed myself to you," she said gravely.

"By the same moon, I take you, Johanna Solheim, as my wife and give myself to you only."

"Then it's done," she said. "In a very old way. We have mated. We have sworn under the light of the moon. We can go fill out a government form somewhere and get a functionary to log us into a public record. But make no mistake about it, my husband, we are married."

In the moonlight her face was beautiful and deadly serious. "I understand it no other way, dearest wife."

She shivered. "Are you cooled off?"

"Most of me, I think."

She looked around, the moonlight glinting off the wind-blown chop. "Get us blankets. This is too beautiful to give up right away." In a flash I returned with the blankets and wrapped the two of us as we sat in the cockpit.

"Jo, angel, I love you."

"That's good, Stoney," she said, "Considering that you're my husband."

"So who's gonna know this upon our return to civilization?" I asked.

"Everybody."

"About being engaged? Or being married?"

She put her hand on my cheek. "Stoney ... I'm serious about this. Married."

"Move in with me. We tell everybody. Get rings. Let 'em think we planned it and eloped, thus making you a beautiful young widow when your father hunts me down and kills me."

"He won't do that. Remember, love of my life, that my parents approve of you."

"Uh, that was when they thought we were just getting engaged."

"I am their only daughter. I have been the proverbial 'good girl' all my life. I have not paraded a bunch of guys in front of them. Just you. I think I can make this work."

"Why don't we tell them that we are going to get married at a Justice of the Peace next weekend?"

"Why don't we tell them we got married THIS weekend in the old way? Mom used to tell me the folk tales and the oral history stuff. She was raised Catholic, but she's got a strong undercurrent of the old ways in her."

"What about your dad?"

"Dad dotes on Mom. And me. And he will be happy. And we can make it official at our leisure." She pressed me back against the coaming and administered a kiss that fairly made me glow. She sighed, said softly, "Stoney, when I was a young girl (said the 21-year old!) I used to daydream about kissing the love of my life under the light of a full moon. I didn't know I was prescient."

"Better do it again to make sure," I said. We molded together, my erection pressing against her.

"We can do more than kiss, can't we?" she asked, her voice almost like a shy little girl.

"Yes, I believe we can," I said. We worked together, me sitting back up, her straddling my lap, the heat of her center seeking my hard staff. We managed to make that connection. She tossed the blanket backward off her shoulders, threw her head back and howled.

I was momentarily startled. "Howl with me, Stoney! We won't be able to do this every time, but howl with me."

There's something primal about that. Never knew it. Never thought of it before, but if Jo asked, I would see that Jo got. Thrusting up into her, I howled with her. The chill of the air cooled my skin but did nothing to lessen ardor. She found a method of rocking that stimulated both of us mightily. I was trying my best to hold off an immediate urge to come, wanting to see where she got with this. Where she got was rapid progression to clamping her mouth to mine, her tongue invading, searching, then she did a little mewing sound, her lips still pressed to mine, her body shuddered, and we both came.