Hidden Island Chapter 7, part 2 of 3

Hidden Island
Chapter 7, part 2 of 3

Janie squeezed her thighs together. A tremble ran through her. She didn't say anything. She couldn't even look up.

"Does that sound like what happened?" Bella asked.

"Yes," Janie said, "Exactly that."

"Good job," Bella grinned, her dark eyebrows bouncing.

A small smile crept up onto Janie's face. "It was wonderful. And I did want it.'

"It sounds like you got your world rocked," Bella said playfully, nudging Janie's thigh with her knee.

Janie nodded shyly and said, "That is a perfect way of putting it."

"You're welcome," Bella winked.

Janie's brows knitted. "I don't understand."

"Will learned everything he knows about pleasuring a woman from Jack," Bella shrugged, then she leaned conspiratorially near Janie's ear. "Jack learned everything she knows from me."

The blush crept back into Janie's cheeks, and her mind rebelliously considered the implications of that. She tried not to think about it, but the image of Bella on the table was burned into her mind. Only now, it was herself on the table, and instead of Will between her legs, it was Bella.

"Oh, I see." Janie could barely get the words out. She had no idea what to say anymore."

Thank you." She was rambling.

"I'll just add it to your debt," Bella said with a predatory smirk.

"How can you? Why do you always talk so lewdly." Janie exploded.

"Because it's fun," Bella shrugged. "There's nothing wrong with sex or with talking about sex.

Most people do it. Most people like it. Why shouldn't we talk about it?"

"Because it just isn't proper! Some things should stay private!" Janie was practically pleading, trying to hang onto some sense that her views and thoughts were sane in the endless onslaught of sensuality that was Bella.

The dark-haired witch looked around. "This is private. We're the only ones here, right? I'll stop, however. I don't want to make you uncomfortable." She got up from where she was leaning on the table, her leg breaking contact with Janie's thigh. Janie's heart dropped. She hadn't wanted to drive Bella away; she just wanted to make sense of this. She could feel the moment slipping away.

"It's about time to wake Will anyway," Bella said, smoothing her skirt. "Thank you for talking with me."

Janie stood up abruptly and reached out, grabbing Bella's hand. She looked at it, not able to look anywhere else. Words tumbled from her lips. "With Will, I took his hand last night and dragged him to the bed. The day was awful, and I knew I needed something to make me feel alive, in control, and not scared. I am not prone to hysterics or lack of composure. I made a choice, and I do not regret it. It was easy and fun. I knew what he wanted for a long time, even if he thought he was careful not to show it, so I knew exactly what to do. I knew what to say. I knew how to tell him."

Janie's gaze rose to the beautiful witch's lush body and fell into the dark pools of her eyes. "I don't know how to tell you," she said.

Bella leaned in slowly and gently and pressed her plump, soft lips to Janie's. Their hands slid around each other's bodies. Janie shook like she was frostbitten, and a tiny, helpless moan escaped her right into Bella's mouth. Her head swam. She forgot to breathe.

Bella broke the kiss and smiled at her. "Sometimes, you don't need words."

Paperwork and clothes were everywhere. Bella's multicolored skirts were draped over a curio cabinet. Janie's sensible high-collared blouse hung on the back of Will's big office chair. Her bustier was carefully, gently folded and set on a shelf out of harm's way. Bella was delighted when she first saw it, and she immediately asked where Janie had gotten such a treasure. One of Janie's stockings was ruined, covered in patches of black, hanging precariously from the ship's wheel mounted on the wall of Will's office. Bella's dress was also ruined, but Janie was holding that.

They'd knocked over an ink pot. Thankfully, they had already been naked by then, stretched out full length on Will's big desk, but by the time they'd realized, it was far too late. Somehow, they'd managed to knock the pot over towards them. It had spilled all along Bella's left side, down her hip, and slipped under her arched back, creating a substantial puddle. It had also gotten all over Janie's knee, shin, and a bit on her foot. Also, the palm of her hand and the underside of her forearm. She'd been partially straddling Bella, her other hand cupping a prodigious breast, her other leg slid up between Bella's thighs, feeling the heat and wetness pressed against her skin. One of Bella's hands held tight to the back of Janie's neck. The other was between Janie's legs, fingers churning. They were both too engaged to notice the slow wetness spreading over them. Between the two of them, there was already plenty of that.

Janie had been the one to knock the ink over. In the throes of her orgasm, she hadn't even noticed.

By the time they did notice, ink was everywhere. They were both covered in smears, dabs, and blotches. Janie had leaped up when she saw, practically dumping Bella on the floor, apologizing profusely as she looked frantically around the room for something to clean up the ink with. Bella looked at Janie's pale skin, blotted everywhere with black smears, and started laughing like a woman possessed. She had gotten up slowly, looking at the dark rivulets running down her leg, coating her hand. Janie had grabbed a stocking and started trying to clean up the ink. Bella hadn't helped at all. Instead, she had slid her arms around Janie's waist and pulled the more petite woman back against her, kissing Janie's neck and sliding an ink-stained hand up to her pale breast, leaving a stark black handprint. Janie had been aghast.

Bella had kissed her, cutting off the shocking words that were about to come forth.

Janie managed to push Bella off and kept trying to clean up. Bella had given up and sacrificed her dress to the cleanup effort. Eventually, they'd both given up and resorted to playfully marking each other even more. Janie had thrown her stocking at Bella but missed. It had hit the ship's wheel on the wall and hung there. After that, they were tickling each other. Janie had snatched Bella's dress and was using it to ward off Bella's fingers.

That was how Will found them. His brows slowly rose as he took in the scene.

Both. Covered in scars of ink. Standing on paperwork. Smiling from ear to ear. Naked.

Janie noticed him. Her smile vanished, and she quickly clutched the dress to her chest, making a feeble attempt at modesty. Bella didn't bother. She sat on the desk with her hands wide, holding the edge. She crossed her ankles in languid relaxation.

"What happened?" Will asked, taking in the room.

"We spilled some ink," Bella smirked.

Janie snorted with the effort of trying to hold back her laughter, then composed herself. "I'll clean it up."

"Mumm hmm," Will said. He looked slowly from one of them to the other. "So, how'd the ink get spilled?"

"Janie and I were having sex on your desk," Bella said. Janie made a strangled noise. "I seduced her. She makes a mess when she comes." Bella's grin was full of lust and mischief.

Will cleared his throat, "I see."

"You seduced me?" Janie sounded a bit horrified. She gave up on the dress and just covered her breasts with one arm.

"Sure did," Bella winked. "I even told you what I was doing while I did it."

Janie's mind suddenly felt like it was getting bigger and smaller simultaneously. She thought back on the whole conversation. Every touch. Every gesture. Has she had it all been calculated? Janie was a master of reading people's intentions, and she hadn't seen what was happening to her even when it was being explained to her step by step. It would have been painfully obvious if she'd been watching it happen to someone else, but she'd been too distracted and overwhelmed. Things like that didn't happen to her. The magnitude of her blind spot was staggering. All she could do was stare at Bella as she had just revealed herself as a succubus.

Janie threw the dress at her.

Bella laughed and cringed as it hit her and fell into her lap. She set it aside, looking overly proud of herself. "We're going to go upstairs and clean up in your washroom. I'd invite you to join us, Will, but you'll have customers any minute." Bella hopped off the desk, took Janie's hand, and pulled her to the door. Will stepped out of the way. "Besides," she added, "You had your turn."

Bella planted a kiss on Will's lips full of tease and heat, then was gone leaving Will to watch her naked, ink-stained, swinging butt start to disappear up the stairs. Then Janie slid past him as well. "Sorry about your desk," she cringed. That was all she could think of saying. Will watched her shapely rear follow Bella's up the stairs. He licked his lips. Bella's kiss tasted like Janie's.

There was a knock at the door, and Bella's unmistakable laugh echoed down the stairwell. He glared in the direction of the steps for a moment and then went to work.

Upstairs, Janie was being rewashed by someone else. This time, I didn't quite have the sensual joy of the first. The ink was hard to get off.

"All his towels are silk?" Bella said, baffled. "These are useless!"

"At least he has good soap," Janie said, lathering up her hands and spreading them up her arms and over her chest, trying to wash free the handprint on her breast.

"It's granular soap! It practically peels the skin off." Bella huffed.

"Well, yes. It's rough, but that is what we need right now," Janie said. "Can you do my back?"

Bella moved to the edge of the shallow tub and took the soap bar, lathering up her hands.

"Does he have any way of heating this water?"

"No. It's been something he's had planned, but it hasn't happened yet," Janie said. "Just getting the pump working to draw water up the second story was hard enough."

"Why'd he do that, anyway?" Bella rubbed her hands in small circles across a particularly stubborn black spot, turning the lather grey.

"His room is upstairs?" Janie shrugged. "Seemed like a good idea to me."

"I guess it wouldn't be convenient to have the washroom in his office," Bella conceded. "Who would want to live in a lighthouse anyway? He could work here and live somewhere else like most people."

"It suits him," Janie laughed.

"Inconvenient? Not doing what it's built for? Badly kept up. Disorganized?" Bella said. "Yeah, it suits him."

"Unique. Full of history," Janie countered, "Charming."

Bella handed Janie the soap back. They were getting suds and water everywhere. "He is that."

"I thought you liked him," Janie said, a bit taken aback by Bella's barbed tongue.

"Oh, I do," Bella poured a bucket of water over Janie, washing the suds away. There were still a few greyish blotches. "I have more affection for Will Stirling than is probably healthy. I have for a long time. Just because I like him doesn't mean I'm blind to his faults. Being stuck here and forced to make a more honest living has mellowed him. You didn't know him when he was younger. He was impossible."

"I think you're right. He's said so himself. It isn't him, in any case. Is he being stuck here, giving up on all the adventure? I think he's lost something. I didn't know him before. He hired me a while after he decided to try to make his living as an absentee navigator. It upsets him.

I've spent much time learning to read people. It isn't as bad as it used to be, but he's still holding in a lot of frustration and anger. He does not like what his life has become now. Until you showed up the other night, he'd been spending more and more time at that awful bar on the docks. I hadn't seen him smile in weeks. Now, there's a spark I've never seen in him."

Janie kept scrubbing at her shin while she talked.

"I've seen it," Bella said. She'd moved to the window and let the sun stream down her chest, not caring or even considering who might see below.

"That's the old Will, more or less. He's infectiously excited and far too clever. It always starts that way. He is cursed, however. Everything will go wrong sooner or later. I won't tell you it was like that for him even before the curse. The curse makes it all worse. Jack was the same way.

They're so alike sometimes it's scary."

"And you were involved with Jaqueline, too?" Janie asked.

Bella shrugged and turned around to let the sun hit her back. "I have a type."

Janie poured water over herself. Her faint ink spots were about as good as they would get.

"Your turn," she said, stepping out of the tub.

Bella removed her headscarf, wound her hair into a messy bun, and secured it with the scarf.

Then she stepped into the tub and took Janie's soap. "What do we do with all the water when we are done?" she asked.

"There is a sluice drain right here under the window. Under this brass plate. We lift it, and the water dumps out the tower and down the back of the cliffside," Janie said, touching the metal disk set into the floor with one dainty foot.

"And how does he get the water up here?" Bella asked while she scrubbed.

Janie tapped a simple lever on the wall and pointed to a copper pipe above the water barrel.

"There's another large barrel outside. The lever pumps the water up. Will pays a fellow to keep the outside barrel stocked with fresh water a few times a week. He says it's just a bilge pump.

I don't know what that means." Janie finished trying to dry herself with the awful silk towel and tried to help Bella get clean. "Are you excited for your adventure?" she asked, soaping up the big ink blot running down Bella's side.

"A bit," Bella said. "Last time I was on a ship, I was seasick."

"Oh no," Janie laughed. "Well, I'm sure it will pass. You'll have to get used to it eventually."

"That's what I'm telling myself," Bella shrugged. "I am worried, however. I haven't seen Jack in years, and now I will be stuck on a tiny boat with her."

"I'm sure it will be all right. You seem to have a gift for getting through to stubborn people,"

Janie said, running her soapy hand up Bella's back more sensually than needed for cleaning.

"Jack isn't just stubborn. She has a lot of other things, too. Reactionary. Impulsive. Quick to anger." Bella leaned into Janie's hand, enjoying the sensation but a bit lost in thought. "When I found out what she'd done to Will, I told her off something fierce."

"But wasn't Jack your... girlfriend? And you and Will weren't involved, right? Why side with Will?" Janie needed clarification.

"Will was still my friend, and what Jack did was wrong. She left him for dead. When she got back, she was depressed and irritable for months before I finally dragged the truth out of her,"

Bella shook her head. "I wish I'd known you then. You'd have seen right through her and gotten to the truth right away."

Janie's smile had a hint of sadness. "I'm not sure that would have made things easier for you.

The truth doesn't always set you free."

"It would have certainly made things faster," Bella said tersely. "I didn't catch on until Will didn't return at all. Jack had been deflecting every time I asked about him. We used to be thick as thieves, so I looked forward to seeing him again. I'd said some pretty harsh things to him before he and Jack had left, and I wanted to make amends. Months went by, and he didn't come back. When the truth finally came out, I was furious. At the time, I thought he was dead, but Jack swore he wasn't. She turned out to be right, but she'd left the island by then. When Will returned, I thought about coming to see him, but I started hearing about how angry he was and all the drinking and fights, so I figured it was best to leave him be. I have a hard time with people when they're like that. Especially men. I figured he'd come to find me when he was ready, and before I knew it, two years had passed."


To be continued