Black
Pearl Tales
is the official archive of
Black Pearl Sails
and Black Pearl Library.
Pirates of the Caribbean
is the property of the
Disney Corporation.
|
a White
Squall (Rated
'R') by Hereswith |
|
|
The
tale thus far... |
 |
| aaa | |
|
He opened the cabin door too quickly to have been abed, but he did look rumpled and his coat and hat had gone missing, along with his boots. When he saw her, surprise flickered across his face. The hour was late enough for that, and full night had long since descended on the ship. Elizabeth squared her shoulders. “I can’t sleep,” she explained, and it was no
more than the truth. Her thoughts had indeed denied her rest—again—and “No?” said Jack, with an odd, mercurial grin. “That makes two of us, then.” And he stepped aside, to let her in. * Candles were lit around the cabin, and gossamer shadows rippled
on the walls like water. There were maps and charts “Planning and plotting,” the Captain replied. He sprawled into a chair and propped his feet on the edge of the table, ankles crossed. “Well, what is it that keeps you from your slumber, Mrs. Turner?” He sounded mildly curious, merely that, and his gaze was neither
mocking nor teasing, but her mouth went dry as dust, “Elizabeth?” he prompted, as the silence lengthened. “It’s not—“ she began, then faltered and
shook her head, angrily, hating how the words tangled and stuck
in her throat, She had not acted the shy, blushing maiden in his company, even when she, by rights, ought to have, and— blast it— she would not do so now. It came out clumsily, but that was of no consequence, because she said it, and the boundary was breached: “You.” His brows lifted. “How’s that, love?” “You’ve behaved like the veriest gentleman, of late,” Elizabeth pressed on, gradually finding her ground, and the courage that had eluded her. “And I’d rather you didn’t.” Jack’s pose remained the same, in fact, he did not move at all, but every semblance of leisurely ease vanished, laying bare a sharp, piercing intensity. Though this had happened, in the past, Elizabeth had seldom been the cause of it, and was far from impervious to its effects. A frisson ran through her, much like the sheer thrill of the height, after having climbed to the crow’s nest. “Is that so?” he asked, and his voice slid down, and deep underneath her skin. “If my being a gentle man displeases you, Lizzie me girl, pray tell what kind of man you’d have me be.” “A scoundrel.” The irony of it almost made her smile. For the whole of their acquaintance, that epithet had been an insult, and she would have scoffed at the idea that it would, one day, carry another meaning. “A pirate. It’s ‘aye’, Captain Sparrow.” His eyes turned nearly as black as the kohl that outlined them, but he still did not move. Elizabeth swallowed, and added, somewhat unsteadily, “I want you to touch me, Jack. I want it so much it hurts.” A tense quiet reigned, for a moment, an entire eternity, and
she felt frayed by emotion, then Jack swung his feet down He stopped in front of her, at such a distance as might be considered inappropriate between a gentleman and a respectable widow, and his nearness, the solid warmth of him, unnerved her more than she had been prepared for, but not more, she suspected, than he had intended it to do. “Touch you, eh?” he said, ever so lightly. “Like this?” He did not thread his fingers through her hair, the way he had before; he traced a feathery path, instead, from her temple and over her cheek, swerving around the curve of her jaw. Her pulses leapt, and she let her head fall to the side, yearning for more, like a starveling. But Jack ignored the opportunity with which she presented him; he drew back and studied her thoughtfully, as if contemplating a delicate problem. “Or, perhaps,” he mused, “like this?” With infinite care, he took her hand, skimming his thumb across the scar, and he did not wait for her to become adjusted to the feeling, ere he placed his lips where his thumb had been. Elizabeth gasped and her other hand clenched and unclenched, convulsively, bunching in the fabric of her breeches. Such a little thing, and yet she burned— Good Lord— she’d be cinders and ash when this was done. “Yes,” she choked out and, “No.” Jack straightened. “Too much, is it, Elizabeth, or not enough?” He leaned forward, to whisper in her ear, “Show me.” She twisted, with a muffled oath of frustration, blindly seeking his mouth, and he responded with a hunger that was, she discovered, similar to her own, pulling her flush against him. It was not like kissing Will; apart from the trinkets and the taste of him, the manner of it was all Captain Jack Sparrow, and she lost herself to it, drinking him in. It ended, as abruptly as it had begun, and Elizabeth stumbled backwards, bumping into the table. She fought to catch her breath and, as she looked at him, could not comprehend how the dancing, the not touching, had even been possible. “If we don’t get to the bed very soon,” she said, with a shiver, “I don’t think we will.” “Can’t argue with that, love,” he answered, unbuckling his belt, “but I’m not the one clinging to the table for dear life.” “Oh!” She flushed, disconcerted, and relinquished her grasp. “Not that I’d complain,” Jack continued, blithely,
untying his sash, “and those charts could be pushed away,
in a thrice, A shaky laugh escaped her. “The bed would be more comfortable, I believe.” “I imagine it would,” he agreed, discarding his vest, and his smile widened, it brimmed with golden, wicked delight. “Come here.” She did. * Clothes were an obstacle, as what they covered could not be attended to, and the ache inside of her was a rising tide. They sat down on the bed, the hasty fumbling with garments occasionally broken by a kiss or a nip, then Jack deftly rid Elizabeth of her shirt, and though she had longed to be free of it, she stiffened awkwardly at the draft of air and the gravity of his regard. Will had thought her beautiful, but Jack—Jack was unpredictable in so many ways, and she was well aware that she was willowy, rather than buxom. He tipped her chin towards him, when she would have ducked it, and his eyes glittered, candlelight flared in the depths of them. “Siren.” “Hardly that,” Elizabeth protested. “I’m not—“ She trailed off, as Jack splayed his hand flat above her heart, the weight of it equally a promise and a reassurance. “Oh, but you are,” he stated, in that lilting tone he often affected for the telling of tales and nascent legends, his palm circling the swell of her breast, with slow deliberation. “Stricken deaf, tied to the main mast and clapped in irons—I would still heed your call.” She sighed and arched into his caress, unaccountably stirred by the contrast of soft and callused, pale and dark. “Is that—supposed to be a compliment, Captain Sparrow?” “Aye, Mrs. Turner,” he said. “It is.” And he bent his head, proceeding to put that damnably clever tongue of his to a different use. The very marrow in her bones melted, at that instant, and she sank onto her back. He altered his position, accordingly, and the wealth of beads and coins trickled in cool rivulets over her skin, but his mouth was searing hot, drawing doubt from her like poison from a wound. By the time he got to the slope of her belly, not a shred of it was left, and a ragged, uneven, “Jack,” was as much of a plea as she could muster. “Patience, love.” Jack chuckled, the minute vibrations and the rasp of his beard and moustache an exquisite torture. “Patience.” He removed her breeches, inch by unhurried inch, and much to her dismay, could not be persuaded, or tempted, to rush. When he had finished, Elizabeth was white-knuckled and panting and quite at the end of her tether. Jack shifted so that he was beside her and, after a fluttering sojourn down her inner thigh, at last settled his fingers—oh, God, those fingers—right where she needed them to be. An incoherent cry was torn from her, as unladylike as it surely was unlike that of a mythical siren, and it was only the first of numerous such, for he commenced to coaxing them out of her, with great skill and success, watching her, all the while, with a dark, heavy-lidded gaze. She might have begged him, she knew she cursed him, she thought she would die, overwhelmed by sensation. And Jack, the scoundrel, the pirate, gave her no quarter, nor would she have accepted it, if he had, but when she splintered and shattered, beneath his touch, and started to tremble, he held her and he anchored her there, until she had calmed. * Even the slightest of motions seemed beyond her, in the daze
and afterglow of pleasure. But Jack was tracing languid, “Swan,” he chided, repeating the sweep of an elegant neck. Her smile was inevitable; it could not be helped. “Of course, I should have guessed.” She turned her head on the pillow to glance at him. “It’s not fair.” “What isn’t?” “That you’re mostly dressed, and I’m not.” Elizabeth managed to push herself up so that she was sitting, with a concentrated effort of will, and tugged at the loose ties at the neck of his shirt. “The injustice would be corrected, if you took these off.” He raised a brow. “At my service, was it not?” she reminded him, brushing her hand down the part of his chest that was exposed to her view, and was gratified to see his jaw tighten. “Captain Jack Sparrow?” “It was.” His eyes flashed, but not in anger. “Impudent chit.” He captured her wrist and kissed it, then nimbly slipped out of the bed and did what she had suggested he should do. Desire rekindled in a heady surge, but was dampened, just as swiftly, by concern. The scars from his shoulders to his waist were familiar to her, after having cared for him while he was ill, but she winced, horrified anew, when he stripped naked and she spotted the criss-cross marks that had previously been hidden, and the large burn above his knee. “Not quite the reaction I was hoping for, love,” he commented, wryly, as he joined her. “No, but—“ Elizabeth frowned, chasing off an unexpected stinging of tears. “I might never have known you. You could have died, years ago, and I would never have known you.” “Ah, but you would’ve known of me,” Jack quipped, but she glared at him and his expression changed. “Could have,” he conceded. “Didn’t.” “I’m glad,” she stated, fiercely, and touched him. It was almost like making a chart, except she was committing it to memory rather than paper. His body was the sea and his smooth and silken skin the surface of the water, disturbed by scars and tattoos. Reefs and shoals. Islands, by which she could take her bearings. She navigated from one to the other, determining the shape, texture and location of each. And Jack did not object to her painstaking, scholarly thoroughness, rather the opposite; his lashes swept down, his muscles snapped taut underneath her questing fingertips, like sails in the wind, and his breathing grew shallow and rapid. Emboldened by this sight, Elizabeth leaned in to nibble at the hollow of his throat, her hands drifting low. “Bloody hell, Lizzie!” he growled, at that, no hint of velvet in his voice. And he grabbed her, kissing her hard and urgent and open-mouthed, and they fell against the bed linen in a tumble of limbs. Laughter bubbled through her, but then he cradled her hips to his and—it was real, it was Jack, it was as close as flesh would allow, and that gave her solemn pause. He stilled, like she had, muttering something unintelligible, and Elizabeth briefly savoured that lull, before hooking her leg over his and urging him to move. Fire sparkled, as he complied, and she wrapped her arms around him, snaring herself in locks and braids. She readily picked up his rhythm and pace, remembering the how of it, even though she was out of practice, and she embraced the nuances that differed from her former experiences of such intimacy as unreservedly as she embraced the man. Jack. Salt. Salt and devil rum and burnished gold, and those infernal baubles that trickled and tickled and maddened her, almost as much as did the feel of him on top of her and inside of her. She could not bear it; she struggled and strained, matching him, both of their hearts raging like the thunder, and every sound he uttered—coming undone for her, because of her—she swallowed, greedily, licking them up. Jack. It was not so violent, so wrenching a release as the earlier
had been, but it shook her, for all its sweetness, and she * They stayed entwined, for a long while. “Now that,” Jack eventually observed, “was interesting.” Elizabeth snorted, and she hit him, but not in earnest, it ended up a butterfly stroking along the slender arc of his spine. “Wretch. Very interesting, at the very least.” He chuckled. “Fair enough. Very interesting.” When he withdrew from her, she curled up next to him, utterly spent and scorched near translucent, if not completely turned to cinders and ash. Little by little, she became cognisant of her surroundings and the noises that floated around her. The Pearl was conversing with the ocean, in a continuous singsong; hushed murmurs and whispers interspersed with the groaning of timber. “A penny for your thoughts, love.” Elizabeth started, having presumed he was sleeping. She rolled over onto her stomach and up on her elbows, her hair shrouding her. “I wonder,” she said, and it was not altogether in jest, “if she disapproves.” “Not as such,” Jack replied, amused, and he did not question whom or what she meant. “She won’t forget you brought me back to her.” Elizabeth nodded, strangely relieved. She did not exactly believe his statement, but neither could she have sworn he was wrong. The border between the conceivable and the inconceivable was uncommonly thin aboard the Black Pearl, curse or not. Skeletal crew or not. And if the Pearl had good graces, she’d prefer to be in them. She reached out to fiddle with a metal coin. “Jack? The reason you were awake, was it alike to mine?” “Well,” he said, with an admonishing tap to her shoulder, “your answer tarried, Mrs. Turner.” Her cheeks heated, suddenly, and he added, “What decided you?” She hesitated, then admitted, “What should have decided me, when you asked, save for fears and foolish notions.” Her fingers darted to the scar from where the Spanish Commander had shot him. “If— God forfend— fate and fortune should ever be less kind, I would never forgive myself for not doing this.” Jack pondered that, his mien serious. “And having done it, as it were, do you regret it?” “No,” she said, simply, but with firm conviction, and crept forward a bit to be able to properly kiss him, lingering until her breath was quite stolen away. Pirate. “The men will talk,” she mumbled, when she could. “They’ll say it’s about bloody time, I reckon,” Jack remarked. “Gibbs made a to do about my purported ill-humour yesterday, and even Parrot’s been eyeing me funny.” “Parrot?” Elizabeth grinned. “Doesn’t he always?” And a wild, curious joy unfurled within her, the spread of its wings like that of an albatross. Or a dragon. “They would be right, you know,” she said, “it was about time.”
All our authors thrive on feedback. Email the Webmaster to have comments forwarded to the author. a
|
|
--