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Tifa stood on the deck of the cargo ship, savoring the clean, natural scent of the ocean. For someone who had spent the last five years living in the slums of Midgar, it was almost an emotional pleasure rather than a physical one. Her hair whipped in the wind, forming a wide streamer beside her as the breeze of their passage caught and tangled the dark strands. Eyes closed, she listened as booted footfalls sounded against the metal decking, before a warm presence settled at her back, Cloud's mako-and-birch-smoke scent twining with the salt of the ocean. Crowding close, he placed one gloved hand on either side of her, bracketing her body against the railing.
She was starting to become accustomed to this, to his random displays of rather dominant affection. They'd become frequent (if not exactly common) since he'd come for her at Don Corneo's mansion, although whether the change in him was in response to the predicament in which he'd found her, or to her protestations that there was nothing romantic between them, she wasn't sure. It seemed at times as if he were striving to make her body acknowledge the lie her jealous tongue had told, even if they never addressed the subject verbally.
"The open air is nice," he murmured against her temple, voice low so as not to carry to the sailors working further down the deck.
"It is," she agreed, shifting to nestle her head in the hollow of his shoulder, the move coming naturally, without coaxing on his part. Each time he held her was a bit like coming home, and for the moment she would relax and simply enjoy it – at least until her awareness of him turned her knees to jelly and the rest of her followed. Happily, he seemed subject to a similarly involuntary reaction, although in his case everything strained tauter and harder rather than melting into pliancy.
And it always felt so good when he pressed the hardest parts of him against the most yielding parts of her.
She shivered at the thought, and Cloud wrapped himself tighter around her in response. "Cold?" he asked, his blond hair teasing her cheek as he nuzzled her throat. She shook her head even as she shivered again, breath catching as his tongue flickered against her skin. "I see," he whispered, tone slightly teasing, "just over-heated and impatient."
"I'm not impatient," Tifa protested, clinging more tightly to the railing as he wrapped her hair around his wrist, and bent to press an open-mouthed kiss to her nape.
"Maybe not yet," he agreed, "but you will be."
Nudging her legs apart with his knee, he slipped his booted foot between hers, bracing it on one of the lower rails. The move had her straddling his thigh, hips angled as she rose up onto her toes. "Cloud!" she hissed in reprimand, sending sideways glances toward the sailors and other passengers on deck, then inhaled sharply when he wiggled his leg back and forth experimentally.
Ignoring her, he bounced his leg up and down a few times, repeatedly forcing hard muscle against the center of her need until she moaned. "Stand on the bottom rail," he told her, voice husky and demanding as he breathed the words directly in her ear. When she did, he stepped forward until her bare midriff brushed the cold metal of the topmost rail, and ground his erection against her bottom. The few extra inches in height had aligned their bodies perfectly.
"Cloud!" she protested again, even as she leaned forward, adjusting their angle so that he rubbed further between her thighs. "We're in plain sight!"
"No one will see," he countered, hands leaving the railing to stroke idle patterns on her thighs, before ghosting higher to settle at her hips, snugging her tighter against him. "Anyone who cares to look will see nothing more than a couple embracing. We're fully dressed, remember?" He hooked his thumbs inside her suspenders and tugged for emphasis, causing the leather straps to rub against her aroused nipples. Moaning in response, she caught one of his hands in hers and pressed it to her breast, arching into the touch, his palm a hot brand even through her shirt and his glove. His other hand inched her skirt up in the back, bunching the fabric between them, and then slipped between her legs to find her wet and ready. "Have I told you how much I appreciate you wearing skirts?" he asked, groaning the words against her throat as he thrust two fingers deep inside her, earning a soft keening whimper in return. "It makes everything so much easier."
Shaking her head, Tifa clung to the railing as her hips undulated slowly in time to the rhythm of those long digits. She felt him shift behind her, heard the rasp of his zipper, and then his fingers were gone, replaced by the head of his cock. His grip on her waist held her still as he forged slowly and steadily inside, an inch at a time, seating his entire length within her.
Then he stopped, doing nothing more than standing behind her, legs braced to support them both against the motion of the ship. And oh, what that motion did to her. She'd long since gained her 'sea legs', and the rocking of the ship had become virtually unnoticeable. Now, though, each rise and swell and dip jarred their bodies together, giving sudden little jolts of friction.
The random and infrequent thrusts were nowhere near enough. Her hips lurched into motion, only for Cloud's hands to force her back to stillness. She wriggled, bracing more of her weight on her hands and pressing up on her toes to gain leverage.
"Stop," he murmured, leaning forward to brush his lips against her cheek, "before you call attention to us."
"Move, Cloud," she answered, managing to bounce up and down a few times before he again stopped her, "or I'll beat rush you into the ground when we land." The threat lost some of its effectiveness when his hips rolled with the motion of the ship, his length surging forcefully inside her, and her voice rose in a moan.
"Alright," he agreed, with the tone of one humoring her, "but slowly."
To her frustration, the rhythm he set was as lazy and gentle as if he were rocking back and forth on his heels. If they'd been somewhere private, it would've been languorous and sweet. As things were, however, it was maddening.
"Cloud," she sighed after long minutes of the steady stroking, "it's not enough." Her voice was breathy with need.
"I thought you were worried about being seen?" he reminded her, his own voice rough, betraying the effort his control was costing. Adjusting his stance, he rocked slowly into her from a slightly different angle, wrapping his arms around her to keep them locked together and limit her movement.
"Don't care," she answered on a gasp, shuddering in his embrace. "Take me somewhere private, or use your fingers, or talk me higher, but do something."
If he was surprised by her insistence or desperation, he didn't show it. Once more bracketing her between his arms, he urged her hips forward until her clit came hard against his wrist. A small, careful motion ground the metal band he wore against her, harsh edges blunted by leather and cotton into exactly what she needed.
Yes.
As Tifa moved her hips in tiny gyrations, Cloud's lazy thrusts forced her mound against his bracer, and between them the pleasure built higher in torturously slow increments. It was ages later before she finally began to tense, her orgasm impending, promising to be completely overwhelming. She held her breath every time he rocked forward, certain that each thrust would be the one to make her come, only to find her release still hovering out of reach.
Cloud began to whisper to her, heated words that let her know he was just as eager as she. He murmured how good she felt around him, how tight and wet and eager. He told her how badly he wanted to feel her come, how he needed her to send him over. He groaned a demand for her to clench around him, then moaned a plea for more when she complied. All without raising his voice, ever mindful of being discovered.
Both struggled with the need to speed up, to force themselves over the edge rather than wait for the peak to arrive in time with their current pace.
When it happened, it washed over Tifa in slow motion, seeming to last almost as long as the buildup itself. It curled her toes and made her entire body shake, her sheath milking the length inside her until he succumbed as well. "Oh," she gasped, sucking in air only to repeat that one syllable over and over again as the pleasure-shocks began to fade: "Oh, oh, oh." A slight sting in her bottom lip told her she'd bit it to keep silent at the height of her orgasm, and her fingers ached from the grip she'd had on the railing.
Behind her, Cloud trembled and shook through his own release, his face buried in her throat to muffle his sounds of pleasure. "Fiery Ifrit," he groaned when the hot rush was over, slumping against her as his body shuddered to a stop, "I think I felt that in my hair." Tifa laughed and he grinned in return, relaxed and – for the moment at least – unguarded. More the boy from Nibelheim than the SOLDIER she'd met in Midgar. Pulling her close against him with one arm, he straightened their clothing with the other, and then turned her to face him.
"See," he murmured against her lips, "I told you no one would notice."
"Oh my!" Aerith breathed, breaking out of her dazed stare when Yuffie jostled her in her headlong rush for the side of the boat. Cheeks flushed and heartbeat accelerated, she snuck another glance at Cloud and Tifa. No one else seemed to be paying the couple the slightest attention. The two were currently sharing a rare moment of tenderness - Tifa's face cradled in Cloud's cupped hands as he kissed her long and deep, her palms resting low on his waist, fingers curled into his shirt – but she was fairly certain that they... that they had just... and right there in public!
Maybe her mother had been right about SOLDIERS being over-sexed.
She hoped she had a chance to find out.