Chapter Seven

Her feet were bare and dirty and none too steady as the cabin door closed behind her, Jack’s last order of “Turner, at the wheel if you please” bound to make him none to popular with at least two people tonight.

She hated to admit just how much she’d loved wearing a swirly dress. It was like being a little girl at a grown up ball. Well leaving out the part where all the other grownups were heavily armed and earringed and tattooed…she giggled to herself and twirled around some more in the general direction of Jack leaning against his desk with a bemused look on his face. She stumbled a bit, banging her hip into the corner and yelping in surprise. Jack’s smile broke into a grin.

“Easy there, luv. If you’re going to have any marks just there,” his fingers rubbed at the spot, “I’d like to be responsible for them, alright?”

Kate’s “Hmmm” turned into an “mmm” as his other hand found her other hip and her original intention came back to her in a hurry. Damn, she really was drunk if she could get distracted from the idea of getting both of them out of their clothes as quickly as possible. She gathered her hair in her hands and pulled it up and out of the way as she leaned into Jack and turned slowly around. The purr this evoked was quite satisfying, and she closed her eyes as she said, “undo me.”

“I thought I already was,” his fingers teased at the edge of skin and fabric and she got a little dizzy and had to clutch at the desk to have something to lean on.

“Is there a storm coming?” he teased as cloth-covered buttons slipped through loops and she could feel his breath warm against the back of her neck.

“Jack, you are imp…imp…”

“Impish?” a little lick. “So I’m told. Impossible?” That same tongue found her ear and she shivered. “Impudent? Every chance I get.” A hard nip as the last fastenings were undone and the dress pooled around her ankles.

“Impugning!” she shouted. “That was the word I was looking for. Though I don’t remember the rest of the sentence any more.”

“I’m not sure you’re going to remember much of this evening, darling,” he teased turning her around, his eyes looking as though he wasn’t likely to forget it which brought her back to him, her breath naturally catching.

“All the more reason I can be outrageous then.” He had a funny look on his face she thought but it didn’t slow her down, hard kisses and nudges walking him back towards the bed where she rather crashed on top of him. She looked like the cat with the cream, perched on top of his hips, undoing the last few buttons on his shirt so that she could slide skin to skin. She might not be totally herself, but who was he to argue when she moving down his body doing things like that with her mouth, kisses and nips and whispers of “gorgeous” and “crazy” murmured against his belly. His fingers were threaded through her hair now, all of him struggling to be patient until she looked up pleadingly. She’d gotten quite good at knots over the past year but…”Help, I can’t undo it,” she tugged on a tail of pink sash and unceremoniously flopped on the bed next to him. “I’ll leave it to you and wait right here. I’m just closing my eyes for a minute.” It didn’t take him half that, he thought after, but her breathing had already changed and her body curled up in a ball, fast asleep. Fuck. It was enough to make a pirate cry.

She was all sweaty. Hot and sweaty and thirsty. God she was thirsty. But the thought of raising her head off the pillow to find water was more than she could bear and she willed herself back to sleep.

She was in that little harbor town on St Kitts.
Walking along the dock, the thump of her boots on the dock like a metronome her heartbeat tried to follow.
Jack and she had had an amazing time together there.
She found out he spoke French even better than she did herself; and, he could draw – both sketches to build things and just because he took a fancy to something pretty.

But now it seemed she was late. At the end of the dock she felt more than saw the Pearl start to move.
She got one foot on board and grasped hold of the rail, one foot still on the dock and trying to keep up. At the end though she had to cling to the railing with all her strength, one foot on the tiny edge of the deck and the rest just hanging.

But not for long. She was heavy. Too heavy and getting pulled down, the sea beneath her growing closer as the Pearl rose up like a black wall above her, the ocean darkening in the shadow below. The water shouldn’t be this cold, she wanted to tell Jack it was wrong some how, the weight of it pressing all around and then she went down and it was too dark to see anything and she couldn’t tell him, couldn’t open her mouth for the water, couldn’t breathe.

“Kate! Kate luv…wake up”

She was still gulping air and not quite believing it was as he pulled her out of the sheets and into his arms, holding the wracks of her body while her eyes forced themselves to see what was really in front of her and that was him, dark lines between his brows and fingers all over her face wiping away tears and stray soaked strands of her hair “ssshhh..I have you”. Her words wouldn’t form in the mouth that tried to speak and he shook his head “There’s no need luv, I know those waters all too well” and Kate closed her eyes to see if it was still all there, that cold dark loss of him. The last fingers of it were still trailing out of the corners of her mind while his body held hers down, rocking with the ship, their breath falling together.

“So is that how it is to be Jack? The Pearl hunted down by gunships and at some point your luck running out? Me left alone at the dock drowning on dry land.”

Jack took a deep breath and pulled her further in “The bloody navy has always been there, waiting for us to be more reckless or maybe less, that’s what it is to be here, what I am, one sail ahead of them by me wits or luck, a good measure of the last I grant you.”

“What happens when there’s no Black Pearl to come to your aid? I saw them today- I saw them Jack, what they did…and despite that I have never seen women fight like that, they would all have been cut to ribbons, every last one of them, you can’t out run the whole navy Jack- not forever”

He closed his eyes, his jaw tight before he answered “And what would you have me do?” Kate pulled from his arms to look at him, a still weak sun cast the only light in the rich dark wood of his cabin catching the lines of Jack Sparrow, sleek as a cat and naked in front of her, his body a story book all of it’s own, a map of skirmishes and battles with the sea “I have no choice Kate, if I fooled meself otherwise and took up a house and a life of sorts on land, and if ever there was a woman to tempt me..” his fingers ran down the curve of her breasts, a small smile greeting her involuntary shiver “then I may as well have let the navy hang me, because Jack Sparrow would be neither Captain nor man. And if I am not mistaken Kate you want both. So I take me chances, live by the skin of me teeth and hope that the very next day is the best one. One day it will be the navy’s turn…you may be right luv.”

Kate just stared, nothing in her mind that could argue. “So that’s it then- and I am to wait for that day? Wait for all that black and cold and death?” her fists balled at her sides as her body railed against the conclusion

“No, you are to be in this day with me” Jack’s long fingers unpeeled each of hers before holding them to his lips, a slip of his tongue through the gaps and over the tips that stole her breath and then a sensuous dance over her palm and her wrist, a wet flame licking at a pulse point. She gasped a little and he smiled against her skin, but her face tightened again. She still wanted to say or ask or explain. “Jack…” He saw the tears threatening to spill and decided more direct action was necessary as he spun them both down to the bed, his mouth stealing whatever words she had. The language of warmth and heat called like to like, his kisses pouring into her a torrent conveying far more than words and demanded she respond in kind. He only dared stop when she was whimpering and a little frantic, her hips pushing up against the leg he had braced her to the bed with, his cock hard and heavy against her thigh. He relented a bit now he knew he had her and she turned to face him sideways, breathless and wanting, but still looking unsure.

He wanted her to touch him. Christ, he needed her to touch him and he reached for her hand, bringing it to his chest while he kissed her softer now, coaxing – come back. She sighed and seemed to settle back into herself at the feel of such a favorite familiar place, sliding over gorgeous smooth hard muscle. Caressing and teasing and making him purr.

He groaned as she pulled him against her, her sex now hungry for something to move against and moaned as she slid down a little, her tongue finding a nipple as her hand moved between them. She rubbed the sticky velvet against her skin and they both whimpered.

He sucked and bit at her neck as she moved, a particularly hard bite stilling her just a moment and he looked at her face. “Just tell me now you’re not going to fall asleep again? Otherwise I’ll go find some rocks to throw myself on...”

She blushed and he grinned and then she was kissing him as hard as she could, pulling him on top of her, opening her legs and pulling his hips in. His mouth moved to her breast, sucking hard and sending bolts of lightening between her legs. Hi slipped his fingers between them into all that wet heat and the sound she made turned any other thoughts he had into one word, “now”. He pulled up to watch her face as he pushed deep inside her, her back arching and all he ever need to be sure of on her face right now.

It was desperate now and they fucked each other as hard as they could, her hips grinding and pushing and his crashing down on her, both of them wanting every last bit and hands and tongues and bodies all reaching to pull each other further in until the flood of it carried them both over the side. But this sea was warm, and the only place she ever wanted to be.

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