Title of Series: Pearls Author: Lady P (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
piratemistress)
Disclaimer: These characters aren't stolen, they're just borrowed, borrowed without permission; for personal, not commercial purposes.
Beta Extraordinaire: Kind editor and friendlady_di75. *mwah*
Tagline: In a backward tale, love is only the beginning.
Summary of Series: Jack's past adventures as captain of the Black Pearl and after weave in and out of his adventures with Elizabeth in the years to follow.
Pairing: J/E for the series. Assorted OCs and canon characters come and go.
Previous Chapters: Pearls [all tag] 1. Oyster 2. Conch 3. Cobra 4. Boar 5. Elephant [Part One, Two, Three] 6. Bamboo [Part One, Two, Two and a half, Three, Four] 7. Tree [Part One, Two, Three] 8. Whale [Part One, Two, Three, Four ] 9. Cloud [One, Two]
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Chapter: Nine, Title: Cloud (2/4); will post one part each day for the next 2 days.
Chapter Summary: This is it, the beginning of the end... or the end of the beginning, or... whatever. On the way back from World's End, but differently, and why; later, Elizabeth learns how Jack came to save her life in Port Royal, and realizes nothing is as simple as it first seemed.
Rating: MA/NC-17.
A/N: Some juicy stuff here, but I had to break the chapter up somewhere; if you’d prefer to read one long uninterrupted scene, come back tomorrow so you can read 2 immediately followed by 3. Otherwise, enjoy.
Cloud, Part 2
Over Port Royal, there were clouds obscuring the stars and moon, dark ones, and Elizabeth gave up staring out and turned to her bed. In a way it was hard for her to believe she was going to sleep in it. Months had passed since she'd slept in her own bed, and when she left it the morning of her failed wedding, she hardly thought she'd return to it so soon.
Low and distant, thunder rumbled. Elizabeth felt the sound in her chest, in her belly, and she absently traced her fingertips over her stomach through her nightgown as she walked to the bed.
The ultimate irony was that having arrived in her featherbed, finally, after everything, she ought to be exhausted enough to sleep for a week. The entire week would be preferable - that's how long she had to wait for her second attempt at a wedding. Mr. Turner - she forced the word 'Bootstrap' from her lips when she had to - had gotten a little banged up in the battle and all of his sea-change was starting to wear off. Will was enamored of the idea of having him present at the ceremony.
No violins. No fancy tea, nor china - just she and Will and their fathers at the church. Having it to look forward to, she ought to drift into peaceful sleep and dream of happiness to come.
She couldn't sleep. She was achy. She was tired. She was... bothered.
And what was this odd sensation, that had settled above her hips and seemed to churn, slowly, like the whirlpool, pulling everything into it? Nerves. Jitters. Anticipation, perhaps.
She considered Will, how happy he was, how they'd spent the evening together with her father when all she really wanted was to be alone with him. Alone, alone. He didn't seem to notice. She was restless - she paced, she fidgeted, she scratched her cheek with a forefinger while staring out to sea. She was waiting for something to happen. She didn't like waiting. She liked to make things happen in a timely fashion.
She wanted to take Will aside in the shadows, kiss him until that wide-eyed stare melted from his face and he responded to her, kissed her back, made her feel sharply desired. Made her feel like... don't think it.
Too late. An image of Jack had risen unbidden in her mind, and she pushed it down with a painful swallow. It was likely she would never see him again. After the journey back, and everything that happened, she and Jack were more or less back to what one might call normal; they didn't talk much, and they weren't really alone. There was an uneasy truce between them. Rather like the mistrustful truce between Jack and Barbossa, who had stayed behind when they'd escorted Tia back upriver, muttering something about debts and unfinished business. At the thought, she was slightly nauseated; no, surely Jack didn't consider her as ruthless, as incapable of loyalty as Barbossa. Surely not.
As she and Will disembarked on the docks near Port Royal, she had glanced back over her shoulder. Jack was looking straight at her from his place at the wheel, watching her go, likely out of his life forever. In his eyes, at that moment, the sadness of all the world... and then everything seemed to stop as their gazes met and locked; he saw she was looking back at him, too. The sorrow in his eyes melted, or perhaps just shifted, changed shape, and his eyes sparkled and his lips twisted into a knowing smile... the look in his eyes dared her to look away, at the same time it frightened her a little in its intensity. Her chest tightened; she found she couldn't look away. If Will hadn't caught her elbow, saying, “Careful,” she would have tripped on the lip of the gangplank and fallen square on her face.
Thunder rumbled again, and she sighed in her bed, wondering when the lightning and rain would arrive. She felt the gathering tension everywhere in her body, unsure what it meant, what to do. She only hoped something would quiet it, ease it... fill it. Perhaps then she could sleep.
“Think we'll have a storm tonight,” said a voice from the shadows.
She sat bolt upright, every nerve in her body on instant alert. She was surprised to discover her right hand at her hip, for a sword no longer there. Peering into the darkness, she could just discern a shape in the corner by the balcony doors, leaning against the wall.
Had she gone mad? Or had she somehow conjured him? The same sword hand found its way to her chest, where she felt the staccato pulse of her startled heart against her palm. She forced herself to breathe in, to exhale, as she assimilated the fact of the matter: Jack Sparrow was in her room.
After a moment, she gathered enough breath to speak. “How... how did you get in here?”
“I climbed up to the balcony. Lovely view from your room, but once a man scales the gate at the end of the drive, entering the house isn't like breaching the walls of Troy. Not exactly... impregnable,” he finished with a quick glance down Elizabeth's form.
“You could be arrested. Shot. Hanged.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Only if they know I'm here.”
“I'll scream.”
“Well then, quit wasting your breath and get to it, love - I haven't got all night.”
That seemed to give her pause, and she sat up straighter in the bed, drawing her nightgown higher on her shoulders - not as though Jack hadn't seen her in all manners of dress. But his eyes upon her were beginning to make her feel more exposed - warmer - as though the noontime sun were upon her skin and she had need of shade. “All right, then. What do you want?”
He crossed the room in three large strides, removing his hat and tossing it - awfully presumptuously, it seemed to Elizabeth - upon her bedside table, next to the lamp, where it slid across the table and fell on the floor. Jack didn't seem to notice - he occupied himself with taking the liberty of drawing the curtain aside completely, and sitting - sitting! - upon her bed, easy as he pleased. Her mouth opened to protest but he cut her off before she could speak.
“I want an answer to a question: the question of why you really came to rescue me.”
She blinked at him. “You left the ship, crossed the town, climbed the gate, entered my room at risk to life and limb, all to ask a question?”
His eyes were friendly dark-rimmed crescents as he smiled and said, “Not exactly - I got your father's room first, by mistake, but fortunately, he's sleeping rather soundly.”
“My father's - !” She threw back the covers and sprang out of bed, padding quickly to the door, which she opened as quietly as possible. She peered down the dark hallway. All was dark at the opposite end of the house where she had sent her father to bed with a brandy to calm his nerves, which had been quite unsteady of late. Most of the servants had also left during her father's imprisonment and disappearance; only two remained, an old couple who'd served them for years, and one of them was nearly deaf. Satisfied that no one stirred, she closed the door slowly and allowed the knob to slip gently through her fingers into place.
She turned to see Jack lounging comfortably on her bed, hands folded behind his head, a smug expression on his face. The thought occurred to her that she could use some aqua vitae to steady her own nerves. Rum might be nice - but that, like the sword, was no longer close at hand.
She sighed, tucking hair behind her ear, and murmured mostly to herself, “Jack Sparrow, what am I to do with you?”
One dark eyebrow shot upward. “Captain, and depends on if you'd like to do something we've done before, or try something else.”
Something they'd done before... she folded her arms protectively across her chest. “You may not be aware of this - or perhaps you've forgotten - but proper and customary social interactions do not include the sort of things we've been doing. You may as well be gone from my bedchamber, as there'll be no stowing away, singing, sword-fighting, swimming, sailing or... er, swilling.”
“Not to be alphabetically clumsy... but you forgot... kissing.”
The way his voice wrapped around that last word made it sort of float in the air between them, and suddenly her lips felt heavy and moist as they had after that fateful kiss, and the stolen ones after. She gathered her wits as quickly as possible, shaking off the hypnotic effect. “There won't be any of that, either.”
“Pity.” He cocked his head as he looked at her in the near-dark, another slow rumble of thunder sounding somewhere outside. He reached out and patted a space on the bed next to him. “Just a brief talk, then?”
She eyed him warily, moving to light a lamp on her bedside table. “Accepting an invitation into bed with you would seem conducive to more than conversation, wouldn't you say?”
“Only if that's what you really want, Elizabeth. I only want an answer to my question.” He patted the space again, and she sat gingerly on the edge of her bed, looking at him in the lamplight. His dark hair looked very fine outlined against her soft, costly pillows, she noticed with a twinge of alarm. She liked the look of him, there. A little too much.
“Never had a man in your bed, I suppose,” Jack said as if reading her mind, and it unnerved her completely when he did that. He did it much more often than she'd prefer.
“Of course not.”
“Will could've climbed that trellis and gotten in here ages ago. Wonder why he didn't?”
The man's ability to probe her tender spots made her grind her back teeth, but she only said, “Because Will has a sense of decency.”
“Yes, well, try to forgive him - we all have our shortcomings.” A genuine grin spread across Jack's face as he adjusted his head on the pillow beside her. He then turned his head to look at her again, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Ever think about what it'll be like?”
With a look of thorough exasperation at Jack, she said, “Whether I do or not isn't any of your...”
“You do,” he said in a more awed whisper. “I'll bet you do. You've told me as much.”
“I never said - “
“You didn't have to,” he countered, reaching out to pull an errant lock out of her face and smooth it to the side, a gesture which surprised her in its tenderness almost enough to outweigh her annoyance at his ability to know her mind. “Which brings me back to the question at hand, actually.”
“What - which question?” Hearing herself stumble, she bit her lip in frustration; his nearness seemed to rob her of her ability to think.
He smiled again, and it was moonlight slipping lightly across the waves. “I wanted to know,” and he leaned closer, propping his arm casually upon the pillow, “why it was that you came to save me. Was it only guilt?”
She eyed the easy angle of his elbow, how it sank into the soft cushion, feeling a bit softer herself. It's really not proper for him to be in my bed, was her immediate, somewhat unrelated thought, but pointing that out would be more or less useless, she surmised, since he was, after all, already in her bed. With her... “...What was the question?”
He cocked his head, two shadows forming above his brows in a slightly perplexed expression. “Something wrong with your hearing?”
“One does... acquire the habit of tuning out your prattle, Jack.”
“Or maybe it's just that you don't want to answer.”
“And why wouldn't I?”
“Well - you don't mind if I take my boots off, do you, darling? It's quite a walk up here from shore - “ He sat up and bent to remove his boots without acknowledging her lips parting to reply that he need not remove any of his clothing in her bedroom. “The way I see it, there's one of two reasons. One, the answer to that question's one you'd rather not give, and you haven't had time to think of a good enough lie to cover it.” One boot hit the floor with a gentle thud. “The other-” and the second boot joined its partner, before he leaned back into the bed and turned onto his stomach, crawling alongside her with a suddenly predatory expression, “ - is that there's something you'd rather be doing, eh?”
Her eyes opened wide as she felt his warmth next to her through the thin fabric of her nightdress. She stared, wary yet fascinated, as he lifted a single hand and brought it down, slowly, to the bare skin of her neck above the neckline of her nightgown. A finger - brown from sun and dirt - bent and the knuckle painted a line along her collarbone and down her chest, drawing all of her breath along with it.
He bent near her, a curious expression turning down the corners of his eyes. “Why haven't you screamed yet, Elizabeth?”
Because I can't breathe, she thought, watching as his finger uncurled and then shot up to tip her chin toward him.
“Cat got your tongue, perhaps?”
“My tongue is fine,” she managed to get out, wetting her suddenly dry lips.
A broad smile from him, then, sails unfurled to snap in plentiful sunshine. “Let's make certain of that, shall we?”
When he bent to kiss her, still holding her chin up with his index finger, she knew she ought to do something. Scream. Gasp. Slap him. Move over. Turn her head, fight him off, jump out of the bed, fling herself from the balcony, anything except what she was doing, which was allowing her lids to flutter closed and her lips to meet his, giving in, for the third time.
Gentle warmth, just the softest of kisses, nothing like what happened on the Pearl, nothing like she imagined it would be. He was holding back. He was pulling back. Her eyes flicked open to regard him quizzically, and he said “Hm,” deep in his throat and sat back, away from her.
She sat up, then, her spine erect. “How dare you! I knew I couldn't trust you not to - “
“Now will you scream?” he said in a bored tone, as if he'd been expecting it all the while.
“If you don't leave... at once!”
“Soon as I get what I came for: an answer to my question.”
“Which bloody question?”
Another smile, but this one wasn't nice. It was bitter as shafts of sunlight pouring through a prison grate. He spoke through it, never taking his eyes off of Elizabeth. “Why... did you come... to save me?”
She swallowed, her eyes inevitably drawn to that smile. “We... we all came, because we needed your help for our own purposes. And the Pearl. For the good of all. You know that.”
“What I know is that you're a damn good liar,” he whispered, leaning close again. “And I think it wouldn't kill you to admit you missed me.” He held his finger and thumb pinched together, beneath his chin. “Just a little?”
“I...” She suddenly found her eyes wouldn't meet his face, and they fell to the open vee of his stained, tattered white shirt, the bronzed chest beneath, coasted with a sheen of sweat and dotted sparsely with curling black hairs. “Perhaps... a bit.”
“You might even look me in the eye when you say it,” he said, and her eyes flew upward as her cheeks flamed. She was mortified by his knowing look. “There, now. Was that so hard?”
“Was it... what?” she stammered, concentrating so hard on his face that her grasp on the conversation had lapsed. His eyes were beautiful in the dark, huge and close and speaking volumes on their own.
“Hard,” he said, quietly.
“...Was what hard?”
“Elizabeth, if I wanted to talk to Cotton's parrot, I could have stayed aboard ship.” He regarded her through narrowed eyes, thoughtfully. “Now where were we? Oh, yes. You couldn't say if it was hard or not.” A naughty twitch of his lips, and she knew enough to at least blush at the remark. “Would you like to find out?”
“No, thank you, seeing as I'm to be married,” she said in a flat voice, amazed that she'd recovered fast enough to speak.
“Shall I visit again after the wedding, then?” He moved toward her, just a bit, and she once again found herself devoid of air in her lungs as he drew closer. “Though I must say, it might be easier without Will frittering about always asking stupid questions.”
“There will be no more visiting,” she said firmly, facing him eye to eye as he lay next to her.
“So if I come back, you'll scream?”
“Certainly.”
“Well then, for both our sakes, answer my question promptly.”
She exhaled a sigh of frustration. “I told you we all came because - “
He lay a finger on her lips, then. “I already heard that answer. I want to know why you did. And I want to know why you haven't screamed. There's a dangerous pirate in your bed, Elizabeth - aren't you frightened? Or have you become so accustomed to facing death and doom that I no longer scare you?”
She reached up to pull his hand away. “You're wrong about that. You never scared me.”
He frowned, looking disappointed. “Not at all?”
“Maybe a little,” she conceded, more for his pride than any deep regard for the truth.
“Oh - good. I was beginning to think I'd lost my touch,” he said, flexing the fingers of the hand she had pulled from her lips, the hand she still held in hers. “Now - the other?”
She sighed again, letting go of his hand as though it were a hot coal. “Are you going to continue to ask until you get the answer you want? What would you like me to say? I could say any number of things, and they'd all be lies.”
“Except for one.”
She rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Very well. I suppose the world's a little more interesting with you in it. There. Are you satisfied?”
His eyes glittered as he looked at her. “You know, that almost sounds as if you don't really mean it. But - “ and he reached out his arms to draw her into them - “it hardly matters, because even so, perhaps that still wasn't the answer I wanted.”
Their gazes met and held, and perhaps that was why it seemed as though the room were spinning beyond him, when in fact he was guiding her onto her back and raising himself over her. “W-what answer are you looking for?” she stammered as she realized, with a sort of exhilarating panic, that he was inching the hem of her nightgown up, bit by bit, to slide his palm along her thigh.
It happened too fast to resist - his hand was suddenly between her thighs, and two of his fingers found their way between her folds - and she gasped when he stroked her once, boldly, and then withdrew his hand and closed her legs again.
“This one,” he said, and buried his fingers in his mouth just as daringly. She gaped, fascinated and horrified, as he slowly pulled his fingers away from his lips, leaving them glistening, his eyes upon her all the while. “Scream, Elizabeth,” he whispered with a heavy note of warning. “And better hurry, because I liked that.”
“That's...” disgusting, she meant to say, but she couldn't form the word with him looking at her like that. So intensely hungry, as if he wanted to eat her or something... Then she put his action and her thoughts together and once again found herself speechless.
“Are you still tongue-tied? 'Spose I'd better answer the other question for you - which was, since I'm sure you've forgotten by now - 'is it hard?'” He grasped one of her hands and brought it between them, pressing it flat against him, the steely heat of which she could feel even through his breeches. “The answer is: Oh, yes. Very.”
The syllables left his lips silk-wrapped and serpentine, and she found their meaning - that he desired her, she concluded - equally tempting, and out of sheer curiosity to know the result she moved her palm and flexed her fingers against the hard evidence that her traitorous kiss hadn't turned him off of her at all....
He groaned, his hips rocking forward as he pressed into her hand, and his head fell forward, too, his mouth coming to rest at the base of her neck. That reaction thrilled her, and she repeated the motion, more firmly, feeling his lips part as his hot breath rushed out against her bare skin. Blood rushed hot through her arms, her hands, her cheeks. Not shame; something far more perilous: power, pure and potent, the shaft of sunlight on her sword or the wood of the helm in her palm. Power to give and take, to steer, to change. She could control this, she could control him, herself... the possibilities began to rise like floodwaters, pouring in from every recess of her mind.
“Damn it, Elizabeth...I told you, you'd better scream.... don't you understand? Otherwise... I could have you, right here in your safe maiden's bed, in your fancy house with the servants upstairs and your father down the hall, and your betrothed snug in his bed in town dreaming of your wedding. Scream, darling. Scream, and fast. Now... now...”
And then his lips were upon hers, and she found herself so torn between curious anticipation and complete shock that screaming was the very last thing on her mind. The taste of Jack was flooding her, loosening all the bindings she didn't know were there, and when he explored her mouth greedily with his tongue she whimpered, her fingers curling into his shirt and the heat underneath. It was very hot in the room. Far too hot.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard, as she was, and he opened his eyes to look at her, his eyes seeming to touch on each of her features, her eyes last of all.
In answer she only lifted her mouth back to his and initiated another fierce, blindingly intense kiss, that left them both breathless and wrapped up in each other and it was only after a while had passed that she noticed her nightgown was bunched around her waist and Jack's hand was flat upon her abdomen, sliding steadily downward. When his palm brushed her curls, an involuntary shudder coursed through her middle, and she almost cried out for him to stop.
But then, at the first touch of his calloused fingers to her weeping center, she did cry out at the new pleasure of it, and he said sharply, “Sh! Now's the moment to be quiet. Bring the house down upon us and we're both in a pot of hot water.”
She didn't know exactly what he was doing, but she felt his fingers and thumb slipping over her, deliciously, repeatedly, and her breath caught in her throat as she felt the urge to move against his hand.
“Jack...” she groaned lightly, feeling her thighs relax and spread of their own accord. “I can't just permit you to...what are we doing...?”
“Ah, now she speaks,” he mused, sliding a finger against in her in such a way that her breath hitched on a near-sob. “And 'we' aren't doing anything... yet.”
“Something's doing... something,” she argued between deep gasps of air, lifting her hips against his hand as he bent his head to her mouth again.
“Oh? Good to hear,” he said against her lips. His motions sped up, became more deliberate, more confident, and soon he had her clinging to him, writhing against him, begging him wordlessly for release.
“What's... happening?”
“You tell me.”
“I'm... I feel so strange,” she whispered brokenly. “What have you done to me?”
“It's not done yet,” he answered, leaning forward to nudge her hair away from her ear with his nose. “But if you want to know what to call it, I suppose you could say...” and when he whispered a variety of descriptions into her ear... simple, tender, vulgar - words she'd only heard the servants and sailors use, words she'd heard but not used like that, words that she'd told herself she didn't know or think of.... and he made sure to stroke one particular spot where she was scalding hot and throbbed for him, suddenly everything went totally to pieces and she squeezed his hand between her thighs as she nearly wept, her whole body shaking, the nails of her hands raking long, deep valleys upon his chest.
When she recovered, opening her glazed eyes slowly, her chin raised and her lips spreading into a satisfied smile, she was surprised to see Jack suddenly squeeze his eyes shut, and tilt his head with a pained look. He withdrew his hand after a final, gentle stroke of his thumb. He was still.
“What's wrong?” she asked in a gravelly whisper.
He sighed. “I... when I decided to come here, I swore this was as far as I'd let it go.”
She frowned at him. “And now... so? What?”
He groaned softly, hanging his head so that locks of his hair tickled her shoulders. “So... now... I ought to stop. Maid that you are... it's too messy. Too dangerous.”
“You mean for me?”
“Well... for you, too,” he replied, furrowing his brow.
She exhaled in a scoff. “Well, that figures. You would only consider yourself.”
He rolled his eyes, and then rolled his body off of her onto the bed beside her, flinging an arm dramatically over his forehead. “Elizabeth, try not to be an idiot.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think?”
“Think, period,” he said, punctuating the two words with the fingers of his hand raised pointedly in the air. “Think carefully. I swore off swiving virgins a long time ago, and with damn good reason.” He sighed again, and it was almost a groan, as he kneaded his temple with his fingers in frustration. “I can hardly believe I'm even thinking of doing it again.”
Something about his tone stirred her deeply; she realized it was the hint of a challenge, one that she could hardly refuse. She wanted to make Jack Sparrow forget himself, forget silly pretenses of courting, forget whatever he'd sworn to do or not to do. She also knew it was probably wrong, would probably cause loads of trouble, and could potentially ruin everything.
But she just couldn't resist.
She rolled over and draped herself over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin clear down to her toes. Very slowly, deliberately, she lowered her head and pressed a kiss to his chest where the shirt exposed his skin. She felt him hold his breath. She parted her lips and tasted his skin with her tongue; he exhaled on a deep groan.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “forget all those romantic notions I've a feeling you're nurturing somewhere. It would change nothing. It's several hours of me - and you know what I am - in your bed, in your body, to both of our mutual satisfaction.”
She smiled against his chest, then tasted him again, drawing her tongue in a line that followed the open vee of his shirt. Another hitched breath from him.
“Think about what you've saved for dear Will. Kisses, places, maidenhead, perhaps? Think, now. Don't be brash - this can't be... undone,” he groaned as she unfastened the buttons of his shirt, following them with her lips and teeth.
Will. At the thought, she stopped; she frowned. Of course she'd meant to save all those things for him. It just didn't seem to be working out that way. Because she'd temporarily lost her mind.
Dear Will. She closed her eyes and pictured him. She was going to marry him, not Jack. She thought of him waiting for her at the altar, being brave for her all those times during their adventures, kissing her hello. Kissing her goodbye. She did love him, but she was at a loss to explain how things had become so far gone with Jack... it was beyond her control, almost. Jack wasn't handsome, he was strangely beautiful, and there was this savagery about him, the sense of the raw and untamed. The wild; and yet he thought, he spoke, he was cunning and wise at times, and he seemed to know her better than she knew herself. All of those things seemed to reach something elemental within her, something primal she was helpless to ignore. But Will... she loved him. She would set apart something of herself, only for him.
“No more kisses,” she whispered to Jack. “What happens between us... however far it goes, you're right... it's not love.”
“Fair enough,” Jack said. “Promise my lips are sealed far as kissing. Or yours are, or something.”
They stared at each other for a moment. A bargain had been struck. They'd stopped competing for the upper hand, if only for the moment... she knew he wanted her, and now he knew she wanted him, too... a terrifying revelation, effectively stripping them naked though they still wore their clothing; it had been so long since they'd spoken as equals, stopped advancing their own agendas, that upon finding themselves in accord, they were momentarily dumbstruck.
Elizabeth recovered first. “Jack, I... don't know what to do.”
“I know that. Will you give me a bloody minute?” he said as though he'd just been about to spring into action - whether he really had been or not. He shrugged off his shirt, and he winced at the sting of her nail marks across his rib cage. She saw the red marks she'd left even through his shirt, and drew in her breath, looking at his face.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No, you're not,” he replied with a lopsided smile, reaching out to pull her nightgown over her head and toss it aside, exposing her completely to his eyes. She couldn't miss the hunger in his expression... he looked at her, really looked, feet, calves, stomach... his eyes seemed to narrow appreciatively as he drew the backs of his fingers over her chest and breasts, brushing a thumb across her nipple which made her give a small gasp, and then he found one of her hands and pulled it back toward his lap.
“Now you,” he said, and waited to see what she would do. She peered at him curiously, at first, and then got onto her knees and crawled the very short distance toward him, reaching her hands for his chest.
“I want the story of these,” she said, brushing her thumbs over his bullet scars.
“Perhaps someday. Not now.”
She bent to kiss them, then, first one, and then the other... Jack looked puzzled when she glanced up at him - perhaps because no woman had ever done that before? And she had said this wasn't love, but weren't they in deep waters if it turned out to be...
And as far as deep waters went, she steeled herself for the heretofore undiscovered country of what lay beneath a man's breeches; with unsteady fingers she unfastened Jack's, hearing him draw in his breath. When she had undone them he exhaled, perhaps relieved that she'd succeeded, but when she began to explore him with her fingers, his breath caught again. She had a fairly good notion of what a man ought to look like, but never thought about how hot his skin would be, how firm, how responsive to her touch.
“All right, that's enough,” he said quietly after a moment. He got up and divested himself of the breeches entirely, turning back around to find her eyes fixed on him, eagerly moving up and down his now-naked form. She was so curious about him... she had wondered if he were olive-skinned everywhere or simply bronzed by the sun, and she noticed he seemed to be evenly brown... her mouth went dry and she swallowed as she took in the full sight of him, the masculine narrowing of his hips and the dark trails of hair and the gentle peaks and valleys of sinewy muscle...It was very hot in her bedroom; how had it grown so hot? She was pulled from her thoughts by his voice. “Elizabeth,” he was saying, and she finally looked up and met his gaze. He smiled a knowing smile, before indicating the door with a tilt of his head. “By the by, does your door lock?”
She felt her cheeks heat as she realized she hadn't even thought about that... had she taken leave of her senses entirely? “This is utter insanity,” she whispered. “It's the end of all if someone should wake...”
“Do you expect anyone to? Your father?”
“Insensible; brandy and exhaustion.”
“Ladies' maid?”
“Not at present.”
“Other servants?”
“Ancient, deaf, and across the house. They even slept through my kidnapping two years ago.”
“Then it stands to reason if we're quiet, they'll sleep through this, too, won't they? But don't make excuses, Elizabeth; risk there may be, but if you're harboring doubts, speak up.”
Though it was madness, she looked at him and gave a nod toward the door, saying breathlessly, “Turn the key.” The answering look in his eyes made her shiver despite the heat, and when she heard the dull click of the crude lock she shut her eyes tight. She had done it, now. No going back.
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A/N: More tomorrow! Sorry, but you were warned about the scene break! Feedback feeds my weary soul. Two more pieces to go.
piratemistress)Disclaimer: These characters aren't stolen, they're just borrowed, borrowed without permission; for personal, not commercial purposes.
Beta Extraordinaire: Kind editor and friend
lady_di75. *mwah*Tagline: In a backward tale, love is only the beginning.
Summary of Series: Jack's past adventures as captain of the Black Pearl and after weave in and out of his adventures with Elizabeth in the years to follow.
Pairing: J/E for the series. Assorted OCs and canon characters come and go.
Previous Chapters: Pearls [all tag] 1. Oyster 2. Conch 3. Cobra 4. Boar 5. Elephant [Part One, Two, Three] 6. Bamboo [Part One, Two, Two and a half, Three, Four] 7. Tree [Part One, Two, Three] 8. Whale [Part One, Two, Three, Four ] 9. Cloud [One, Two]
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Chapter: Nine, Title: Cloud (2/4); will post one part each day for the next 2 days.
Chapter Summary: This is it, the beginning of the end... or the end of the beginning, or... whatever. On the way back from World's End, but differently, and why; later, Elizabeth learns how Jack came to save her life in Port Royal, and realizes nothing is as simple as it first seemed.
Rating: MA/NC-17.
A/N: Some juicy stuff here, but I had to break the chapter up somewhere; if you’d prefer to read one long uninterrupted scene, come back tomorrow so you can read 2 immediately followed by 3. Otherwise, enjoy.
Cloud, Part 2
Over Port Royal, there were clouds obscuring the stars and moon, dark ones, and Elizabeth gave up staring out and turned to her bed. In a way it was hard for her to believe she was going to sleep in it. Months had passed since she'd slept in her own bed, and when she left it the morning of her failed wedding, she hardly thought she'd return to it so soon.
Low and distant, thunder rumbled. Elizabeth felt the sound in her chest, in her belly, and she absently traced her fingertips over her stomach through her nightgown as she walked to the bed.
The ultimate irony was that having arrived in her featherbed, finally, after everything, she ought to be exhausted enough to sleep for a week. The entire week would be preferable - that's how long she had to wait for her second attempt at a wedding. Mr. Turner - she forced the word 'Bootstrap' from her lips when she had to - had gotten a little banged up in the battle and all of his sea-change was starting to wear off. Will was enamored of the idea of having him present at the ceremony.
No violins. No fancy tea, nor china - just she and Will and their fathers at the church. Having it to look forward to, she ought to drift into peaceful sleep and dream of happiness to come.
She couldn't sleep. She was achy. She was tired. She was... bothered.
And what was this odd sensation, that had settled above her hips and seemed to churn, slowly, like the whirlpool, pulling everything into it? Nerves. Jitters. Anticipation, perhaps.
She considered Will, how happy he was, how they'd spent the evening together with her father when all she really wanted was to be alone with him. Alone, alone. He didn't seem to notice. She was restless - she paced, she fidgeted, she scratched her cheek with a forefinger while staring out to sea. She was waiting for something to happen. She didn't like waiting. She liked to make things happen in a timely fashion.
She wanted to take Will aside in the shadows, kiss him until that wide-eyed stare melted from his face and he responded to her, kissed her back, made her feel sharply desired. Made her feel like... don't think it.
Too late. An image of Jack had risen unbidden in her mind, and she pushed it down with a painful swallow. It was likely she would never see him again. After the journey back, and everything that happened, she and Jack were more or less back to what one might call normal; they didn't talk much, and they weren't really alone. There was an uneasy truce between them. Rather like the mistrustful truce between Jack and Barbossa, who had stayed behind when they'd escorted Tia back upriver, muttering something about debts and unfinished business. At the thought, she was slightly nauseated; no, surely Jack didn't consider her as ruthless, as incapable of loyalty as Barbossa. Surely not.
As she and Will disembarked on the docks near Port Royal, she had glanced back over her shoulder. Jack was looking straight at her from his place at the wheel, watching her go, likely out of his life forever. In his eyes, at that moment, the sadness of all the world... and then everything seemed to stop as their gazes met and locked; he saw she was looking back at him, too. The sorrow in his eyes melted, or perhaps just shifted, changed shape, and his eyes sparkled and his lips twisted into a knowing smile... the look in his eyes dared her to look away, at the same time it frightened her a little in its intensity. Her chest tightened; she found she couldn't look away. If Will hadn't caught her elbow, saying, “Careful,” she would have tripped on the lip of the gangplank and fallen square on her face.
Thunder rumbled again, and she sighed in her bed, wondering when the lightning and rain would arrive. She felt the gathering tension everywhere in her body, unsure what it meant, what to do. She only hoped something would quiet it, ease it... fill it. Perhaps then she could sleep.
“Think we'll have a storm tonight,” said a voice from the shadows.
She sat bolt upright, every nerve in her body on instant alert. She was surprised to discover her right hand at her hip, for a sword no longer there. Peering into the darkness, she could just discern a shape in the corner by the balcony doors, leaning against the wall.
Had she gone mad? Or had she somehow conjured him? The same sword hand found its way to her chest, where she felt the staccato pulse of her startled heart against her palm. She forced herself to breathe in, to exhale, as she assimilated the fact of the matter: Jack Sparrow was in her room.
After a moment, she gathered enough breath to speak. “How... how did you get in here?”
“I climbed up to the balcony. Lovely view from your room, but once a man scales the gate at the end of the drive, entering the house isn't like breaching the walls of Troy. Not exactly... impregnable,” he finished with a quick glance down Elizabeth's form.
“You could be arrested. Shot. Hanged.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Only if they know I'm here.”
“I'll scream.”
“Well then, quit wasting your breath and get to it, love - I haven't got all night.”
That seemed to give her pause, and she sat up straighter in the bed, drawing her nightgown higher on her shoulders - not as though Jack hadn't seen her in all manners of dress. But his eyes upon her were beginning to make her feel more exposed - warmer - as though the noontime sun were upon her skin and she had need of shade. “All right, then. What do you want?”
He crossed the room in three large strides, removing his hat and tossing it - awfully presumptuously, it seemed to Elizabeth - upon her bedside table, next to the lamp, where it slid across the table and fell on the floor. Jack didn't seem to notice - he occupied himself with taking the liberty of drawing the curtain aside completely, and sitting - sitting! - upon her bed, easy as he pleased. Her mouth opened to protest but he cut her off before she could speak.
“I want an answer to a question: the question of why you really came to rescue me.”
She blinked at him. “You left the ship, crossed the town, climbed the gate, entered my room at risk to life and limb, all to ask a question?”
His eyes were friendly dark-rimmed crescents as he smiled and said, “Not exactly - I got your father's room first, by mistake, but fortunately, he's sleeping rather soundly.”
“My father's - !” She threw back the covers and sprang out of bed, padding quickly to the door, which she opened as quietly as possible. She peered down the dark hallway. All was dark at the opposite end of the house where she had sent her father to bed with a brandy to calm his nerves, which had been quite unsteady of late. Most of the servants had also left during her father's imprisonment and disappearance; only two remained, an old couple who'd served them for years, and one of them was nearly deaf. Satisfied that no one stirred, she closed the door slowly and allowed the knob to slip gently through her fingers into place.
She turned to see Jack lounging comfortably on her bed, hands folded behind his head, a smug expression on his face. The thought occurred to her that she could use some aqua vitae to steady her own nerves. Rum might be nice - but that, like the sword, was no longer close at hand.
She sighed, tucking hair behind her ear, and murmured mostly to herself, “Jack Sparrow, what am I to do with you?”
One dark eyebrow shot upward. “Captain, and depends on if you'd like to do something we've done before, or try something else.”
Something they'd done before... she folded her arms protectively across her chest. “You may not be aware of this - or perhaps you've forgotten - but proper and customary social interactions do not include the sort of things we've been doing. You may as well be gone from my bedchamber, as there'll be no stowing away, singing, sword-fighting, swimming, sailing or... er, swilling.”
“Not to be alphabetically clumsy... but you forgot... kissing.”
The way his voice wrapped around that last word made it sort of float in the air between them, and suddenly her lips felt heavy and moist as they had after that fateful kiss, and the stolen ones after. She gathered her wits as quickly as possible, shaking off the hypnotic effect. “There won't be any of that, either.”
“Pity.” He cocked his head as he looked at her in the near-dark, another slow rumble of thunder sounding somewhere outside. He reached out and patted a space on the bed next to him. “Just a brief talk, then?”
She eyed him warily, moving to light a lamp on her bedside table. “Accepting an invitation into bed with you would seem conducive to more than conversation, wouldn't you say?”
“Only if that's what you really want, Elizabeth. I only want an answer to my question.” He patted the space again, and she sat gingerly on the edge of her bed, looking at him in the lamplight. His dark hair looked very fine outlined against her soft, costly pillows, she noticed with a twinge of alarm. She liked the look of him, there. A little too much.
“Never had a man in your bed, I suppose,” Jack said as if reading her mind, and it unnerved her completely when he did that. He did it much more often than she'd prefer.
“Of course not.”
“Will could've climbed that trellis and gotten in here ages ago. Wonder why he didn't?”
The man's ability to probe her tender spots made her grind her back teeth, but she only said, “Because Will has a sense of decency.”
“Yes, well, try to forgive him - we all have our shortcomings.” A genuine grin spread across Jack's face as he adjusted his head on the pillow beside her. He then turned his head to look at her again, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Ever think about what it'll be like?”
With a look of thorough exasperation at Jack, she said, “Whether I do or not isn't any of your...”
“You do,” he said in a more awed whisper. “I'll bet you do. You've told me as much.”
“I never said - “
“You didn't have to,” he countered, reaching out to pull an errant lock out of her face and smooth it to the side, a gesture which surprised her in its tenderness almost enough to outweigh her annoyance at his ability to know her mind. “Which brings me back to the question at hand, actually.”
“What - which question?” Hearing herself stumble, she bit her lip in frustration; his nearness seemed to rob her of her ability to think.
He smiled again, and it was moonlight slipping lightly across the waves. “I wanted to know,” and he leaned closer, propping his arm casually upon the pillow, “why it was that you came to save me. Was it only guilt?”
She eyed the easy angle of his elbow, how it sank into the soft cushion, feeling a bit softer herself. It's really not proper for him to be in my bed, was her immediate, somewhat unrelated thought, but pointing that out would be more or less useless, she surmised, since he was, after all, already in her bed. With her... “...What was the question?”
He cocked his head, two shadows forming above his brows in a slightly perplexed expression. “Something wrong with your hearing?”
“One does... acquire the habit of tuning out your prattle, Jack.”
“Or maybe it's just that you don't want to answer.”
“And why wouldn't I?”
“Well - you don't mind if I take my boots off, do you, darling? It's quite a walk up here from shore - “ He sat up and bent to remove his boots without acknowledging her lips parting to reply that he need not remove any of his clothing in her bedroom. “The way I see it, there's one of two reasons. One, the answer to that question's one you'd rather not give, and you haven't had time to think of a good enough lie to cover it.” One boot hit the floor with a gentle thud. “The other-” and the second boot joined its partner, before he leaned back into the bed and turned onto his stomach, crawling alongside her with a suddenly predatory expression, “ - is that there's something you'd rather be doing, eh?”
Her eyes opened wide as she felt his warmth next to her through the thin fabric of her nightdress. She stared, wary yet fascinated, as he lifted a single hand and brought it down, slowly, to the bare skin of her neck above the neckline of her nightgown. A finger - brown from sun and dirt - bent and the knuckle painted a line along her collarbone and down her chest, drawing all of her breath along with it.
He bent near her, a curious expression turning down the corners of his eyes. “Why haven't you screamed yet, Elizabeth?”
Because I can't breathe, she thought, watching as his finger uncurled and then shot up to tip her chin toward him.
“Cat got your tongue, perhaps?”
“My tongue is fine,” she managed to get out, wetting her suddenly dry lips.
A broad smile from him, then, sails unfurled to snap in plentiful sunshine. “Let's make certain of that, shall we?”
When he bent to kiss her, still holding her chin up with his index finger, she knew she ought to do something. Scream. Gasp. Slap him. Move over. Turn her head, fight him off, jump out of the bed, fling herself from the balcony, anything except what she was doing, which was allowing her lids to flutter closed and her lips to meet his, giving in, for the third time.
Gentle warmth, just the softest of kisses, nothing like what happened on the Pearl, nothing like she imagined it would be. He was holding back. He was pulling back. Her eyes flicked open to regard him quizzically, and he said “Hm,” deep in his throat and sat back, away from her.
She sat up, then, her spine erect. “How dare you! I knew I couldn't trust you not to - “
“Now will you scream?” he said in a bored tone, as if he'd been expecting it all the while.
“If you don't leave... at once!”
“Soon as I get what I came for: an answer to my question.”
“Which bloody question?”
Another smile, but this one wasn't nice. It was bitter as shafts of sunlight pouring through a prison grate. He spoke through it, never taking his eyes off of Elizabeth. “Why... did you come... to save me?”
She swallowed, her eyes inevitably drawn to that smile. “We... we all came, because we needed your help for our own purposes. And the Pearl. For the good of all. You know that.”
“What I know is that you're a damn good liar,” he whispered, leaning close again. “And I think it wouldn't kill you to admit you missed me.” He held his finger and thumb pinched together, beneath his chin. “Just a little?”
“I...” She suddenly found her eyes wouldn't meet his face, and they fell to the open vee of his stained, tattered white shirt, the bronzed chest beneath, coasted with a sheen of sweat and dotted sparsely with curling black hairs. “Perhaps... a bit.”
“You might even look me in the eye when you say it,” he said, and her eyes flew upward as her cheeks flamed. She was mortified by his knowing look. “There, now. Was that so hard?”
“Was it... what?” she stammered, concentrating so hard on his face that her grasp on the conversation had lapsed. His eyes were beautiful in the dark, huge and close and speaking volumes on their own.
“Hard,” he said, quietly.
“...Was what hard?”
“Elizabeth, if I wanted to talk to Cotton's parrot, I could have stayed aboard ship.” He regarded her through narrowed eyes, thoughtfully. “Now where were we? Oh, yes. You couldn't say if it was hard or not.” A naughty twitch of his lips, and she knew enough to at least blush at the remark. “Would you like to find out?”
“No, thank you, seeing as I'm to be married,” she said in a flat voice, amazed that she'd recovered fast enough to speak.
“Shall I visit again after the wedding, then?” He moved toward her, just a bit, and she once again found herself devoid of air in her lungs as he drew closer. “Though I must say, it might be easier without Will frittering about always asking stupid questions.”
“There will be no more visiting,” she said firmly, facing him eye to eye as he lay next to her.
“So if I come back, you'll scream?”
“Certainly.”
“Well then, for both our sakes, answer my question promptly.”
She exhaled a sigh of frustration. “I told you we all came because - “
He lay a finger on her lips, then. “I already heard that answer. I want to know why you did. And I want to know why you haven't screamed. There's a dangerous pirate in your bed, Elizabeth - aren't you frightened? Or have you become so accustomed to facing death and doom that I no longer scare you?”
She reached up to pull his hand away. “You're wrong about that. You never scared me.”
He frowned, looking disappointed. “Not at all?”
“Maybe a little,” she conceded, more for his pride than any deep regard for the truth.
“Oh - good. I was beginning to think I'd lost my touch,” he said, flexing the fingers of the hand she had pulled from her lips, the hand she still held in hers. “Now - the other?”
She sighed again, letting go of his hand as though it were a hot coal. “Are you going to continue to ask until you get the answer you want? What would you like me to say? I could say any number of things, and they'd all be lies.”
“Except for one.”
She rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath. “Very well. I suppose the world's a little more interesting with you in it. There. Are you satisfied?”
His eyes glittered as he looked at her. “You know, that almost sounds as if you don't really mean it. But - “ and he reached out his arms to draw her into them - “it hardly matters, because even so, perhaps that still wasn't the answer I wanted.”
Their gazes met and held, and perhaps that was why it seemed as though the room were spinning beyond him, when in fact he was guiding her onto her back and raising himself over her. “W-what answer are you looking for?” she stammered as she realized, with a sort of exhilarating panic, that he was inching the hem of her nightgown up, bit by bit, to slide his palm along her thigh.
It happened too fast to resist - his hand was suddenly between her thighs, and two of his fingers found their way between her folds - and she gasped when he stroked her once, boldly, and then withdrew his hand and closed her legs again.
“This one,” he said, and buried his fingers in his mouth just as daringly. She gaped, fascinated and horrified, as he slowly pulled his fingers away from his lips, leaving them glistening, his eyes upon her all the while. “Scream, Elizabeth,” he whispered with a heavy note of warning. “And better hurry, because I liked that.”
“That's...” disgusting, she meant to say, but she couldn't form the word with him looking at her like that. So intensely hungry, as if he wanted to eat her or something... Then she put his action and her thoughts together and once again found herself speechless.
“Are you still tongue-tied? 'Spose I'd better answer the other question for you - which was, since I'm sure you've forgotten by now - 'is it hard?'” He grasped one of her hands and brought it between them, pressing it flat against him, the steely heat of which she could feel even through his breeches. “The answer is: Oh, yes. Very.”
The syllables left his lips silk-wrapped and serpentine, and she found their meaning - that he desired her, she concluded - equally tempting, and out of sheer curiosity to know the result she moved her palm and flexed her fingers against the hard evidence that her traitorous kiss hadn't turned him off of her at all....
He groaned, his hips rocking forward as he pressed into her hand, and his head fell forward, too, his mouth coming to rest at the base of her neck. That reaction thrilled her, and she repeated the motion, more firmly, feeling his lips part as his hot breath rushed out against her bare skin. Blood rushed hot through her arms, her hands, her cheeks. Not shame; something far more perilous: power, pure and potent, the shaft of sunlight on her sword or the wood of the helm in her palm. Power to give and take, to steer, to change. She could control this, she could control him, herself... the possibilities began to rise like floodwaters, pouring in from every recess of her mind.
“Damn it, Elizabeth...I told you, you'd better scream.... don't you understand? Otherwise... I could have you, right here in your safe maiden's bed, in your fancy house with the servants upstairs and your father down the hall, and your betrothed snug in his bed in town dreaming of your wedding. Scream, darling. Scream, and fast. Now... now...”
And then his lips were upon hers, and she found herself so torn between curious anticipation and complete shock that screaming was the very last thing on her mind. The taste of Jack was flooding her, loosening all the bindings she didn't know were there, and when he explored her mouth greedily with his tongue she whimpered, her fingers curling into his shirt and the heat underneath. It was very hot in the room. Far too hot.
He broke the kiss, breathing hard, as she was, and he opened his eyes to look at her, his eyes seeming to touch on each of her features, her eyes last of all.
In answer she only lifted her mouth back to his and initiated another fierce, blindingly intense kiss, that left them both breathless and wrapped up in each other and it was only after a while had passed that she noticed her nightgown was bunched around her waist and Jack's hand was flat upon her abdomen, sliding steadily downward. When his palm brushed her curls, an involuntary shudder coursed through her middle, and she almost cried out for him to stop.
But then, at the first touch of his calloused fingers to her weeping center, she did cry out at the new pleasure of it, and he said sharply, “Sh! Now's the moment to be quiet. Bring the house down upon us and we're both in a pot of hot water.”
She didn't know exactly what he was doing, but she felt his fingers and thumb slipping over her, deliciously, repeatedly, and her breath caught in her throat as she felt the urge to move against his hand.
“Jack...” she groaned lightly, feeling her thighs relax and spread of their own accord. “I can't just permit you to...what are we doing...?”
“Ah, now she speaks,” he mused, sliding a finger against in her in such a way that her breath hitched on a near-sob. “And 'we' aren't doing anything... yet.”
“Something's doing... something,” she argued between deep gasps of air, lifting her hips against his hand as he bent his head to her mouth again.
“Oh? Good to hear,” he said against her lips. His motions sped up, became more deliberate, more confident, and soon he had her clinging to him, writhing against him, begging him wordlessly for release.
“What's... happening?”
“You tell me.”
“I'm... I feel so strange,” she whispered brokenly. “What have you done to me?”
“It's not done yet,” he answered, leaning forward to nudge her hair away from her ear with his nose. “But if you want to know what to call it, I suppose you could say...” and when he whispered a variety of descriptions into her ear... simple, tender, vulgar - words she'd only heard the servants and sailors use, words she'd heard but not used like that, words that she'd told herself she didn't know or think of.... and he made sure to stroke one particular spot where she was scalding hot and throbbed for him, suddenly everything went totally to pieces and she squeezed his hand between her thighs as she nearly wept, her whole body shaking, the nails of her hands raking long, deep valleys upon his chest.
When she recovered, opening her glazed eyes slowly, her chin raised and her lips spreading into a satisfied smile, she was surprised to see Jack suddenly squeeze his eyes shut, and tilt his head with a pained look. He withdrew his hand after a final, gentle stroke of his thumb. He was still.
“What's wrong?” she asked in a gravelly whisper.
He sighed. “I... when I decided to come here, I swore this was as far as I'd let it go.”
She frowned at him. “And now... so? What?”
He groaned softly, hanging his head so that locks of his hair tickled her shoulders. “So... now... I ought to stop. Maid that you are... it's too messy. Too dangerous.”
“You mean for me?”
“Well... for you, too,” he replied, furrowing his brow.
She exhaled in a scoff. “Well, that figures. You would only consider yourself.”
He rolled his eyes, and then rolled his body off of her onto the bed beside her, flinging an arm dramatically over his forehead. “Elizabeth, try not to be an idiot.”
“Well, what am I supposed to think?”
“Think, period,” he said, punctuating the two words with the fingers of his hand raised pointedly in the air. “Think carefully. I swore off swiving virgins a long time ago, and with damn good reason.” He sighed again, and it was almost a groan, as he kneaded his temple with his fingers in frustration. “I can hardly believe I'm even thinking of doing it again.”
Something about his tone stirred her deeply; she realized it was the hint of a challenge, one that she could hardly refuse. She wanted to make Jack Sparrow forget himself, forget silly pretenses of courting, forget whatever he'd sworn to do or not to do. She also knew it was probably wrong, would probably cause loads of trouble, and could potentially ruin everything.
But she just couldn't resist.
She rolled over and draped herself over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin clear down to her toes. Very slowly, deliberately, she lowered her head and pressed a kiss to his chest where the shirt exposed his skin. She felt him hold his breath. She parted her lips and tasted his skin with her tongue; he exhaled on a deep groan.
“Elizabeth,” he said, “forget all those romantic notions I've a feeling you're nurturing somewhere. It would change nothing. It's several hours of me - and you know what I am - in your bed, in your body, to both of our mutual satisfaction.”
She smiled against his chest, then tasted him again, drawing her tongue in a line that followed the open vee of his shirt. Another hitched breath from him.
“Think about what you've saved for dear Will. Kisses, places, maidenhead, perhaps? Think, now. Don't be brash - this can't be... undone,” he groaned as she unfastened the buttons of his shirt, following them with her lips and teeth.
Will. At the thought, she stopped; she frowned. Of course she'd meant to save all those things for him. It just didn't seem to be working out that way. Because she'd temporarily lost her mind.
Dear Will. She closed her eyes and pictured him. She was going to marry him, not Jack. She thought of him waiting for her at the altar, being brave for her all those times during their adventures, kissing her hello. Kissing her goodbye. She did love him, but she was at a loss to explain how things had become so far gone with Jack... it was beyond her control, almost. Jack wasn't handsome, he was strangely beautiful, and there was this savagery about him, the sense of the raw and untamed. The wild; and yet he thought, he spoke, he was cunning and wise at times, and he seemed to know her better than she knew herself. All of those things seemed to reach something elemental within her, something primal she was helpless to ignore. But Will... she loved him. She would set apart something of herself, only for him.
“No more kisses,” she whispered to Jack. “What happens between us... however far it goes, you're right... it's not love.”
“Fair enough,” Jack said. “Promise my lips are sealed far as kissing. Or yours are, or something.”
They stared at each other for a moment. A bargain had been struck. They'd stopped competing for the upper hand, if only for the moment... she knew he wanted her, and now he knew she wanted him, too... a terrifying revelation, effectively stripping them naked though they still wore their clothing; it had been so long since they'd spoken as equals, stopped advancing their own agendas, that upon finding themselves in accord, they were momentarily dumbstruck.
Elizabeth recovered first. “Jack, I... don't know what to do.”
“I know that. Will you give me a bloody minute?” he said as though he'd just been about to spring into action - whether he really had been or not. He shrugged off his shirt, and he winced at the sting of her nail marks across his rib cage. She saw the red marks she'd left even through his shirt, and drew in her breath, looking at his face.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No, you're not,” he replied with a lopsided smile, reaching out to pull her nightgown over her head and toss it aside, exposing her completely to his eyes. She couldn't miss the hunger in his expression... he looked at her, really looked, feet, calves, stomach... his eyes seemed to narrow appreciatively as he drew the backs of his fingers over her chest and breasts, brushing a thumb across her nipple which made her give a small gasp, and then he found one of her hands and pulled it back toward his lap.
“Now you,” he said, and waited to see what she would do. She peered at him curiously, at first, and then got onto her knees and crawled the very short distance toward him, reaching her hands for his chest.
“I want the story of these,” she said, brushing her thumbs over his bullet scars.
“Perhaps someday. Not now.”
She bent to kiss them, then, first one, and then the other... Jack looked puzzled when she glanced up at him - perhaps because no woman had ever done that before? And she had said this wasn't love, but weren't they in deep waters if it turned out to be...
And as far as deep waters went, she steeled herself for the heretofore undiscovered country of what lay beneath a man's breeches; with unsteady fingers she unfastened Jack's, hearing him draw in his breath. When she had undone them he exhaled, perhaps relieved that she'd succeeded, but when she began to explore him with her fingers, his breath caught again. She had a fairly good notion of what a man ought to look like, but never thought about how hot his skin would be, how firm, how responsive to her touch.
“All right, that's enough,” he said quietly after a moment. He got up and divested himself of the breeches entirely, turning back around to find her eyes fixed on him, eagerly moving up and down his now-naked form. She was so curious about him... she had wondered if he were olive-skinned everywhere or simply bronzed by the sun, and she noticed he seemed to be evenly brown... her mouth went dry and she swallowed as she took in the full sight of him, the masculine narrowing of his hips and the dark trails of hair and the gentle peaks and valleys of sinewy muscle...It was very hot in her bedroom; how had it grown so hot? She was pulled from her thoughts by his voice. “Elizabeth,” he was saying, and she finally looked up and met his gaze. He smiled a knowing smile, before indicating the door with a tilt of his head. “By the by, does your door lock?”
She felt her cheeks heat as she realized she hadn't even thought about that... had she taken leave of her senses entirely? “This is utter insanity,” she whispered. “It's the end of all if someone should wake...”
“Do you expect anyone to? Your father?”
“Insensible; brandy and exhaustion.”
“Ladies' maid?”
“Not at present.”
“Other servants?”
“Ancient, deaf, and across the house. They even slept through my kidnapping two years ago.”
“Then it stands to reason if we're quiet, they'll sleep through this, too, won't they? But don't make excuses, Elizabeth; risk there may be, but if you're harboring doubts, speak up.”
Though it was madness, she looked at him and gave a nod toward the door, saying breathlessly, “Turn the key.” The answering look in his eyes made her shiver despite the heat, and when she heard the dull click of the crude lock she shut her eyes tight. She had done it, now. No going back.
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A/N: More tomorrow! Sorry, but you were warned about the scene break! Feedback feeds my weary soul. Two more pieces to go.
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