Landscapes

 When Suzanna woke up, she kept shifting, trying to find the warm body that she expected to be there.

“Would you stop moving please? Just a few minutes...I’m almost there...”

 She heard Jack’s voice from across the room and her eyes went wide at his words. She had to ask, “What are you doing!?” but she didn’t move.

“Just curb your marvelous and infuriating curiosity for a moment, woman, and I’ll show you. Now be still!”

The minutes dragged on while she waited for him, until at last she heard a rustling and the sound of him coming over to the bed. She risked a glance and saw him sliding into bed behind her with a piece of thick, creamy paper in his hand, which he then slid in front of her eyes.

 Suzanna gasped, “Oh my god! This is fantastic!” She turned around and looked at him in sheer wonder then kissed him in a long, hard, aren’t-you-the-most-amazing-thing-in-the-world kiss that had him wrapping both his arms around her and diving down to kiss and nip at her neck. Which meant she could see clearly. She tugged him back up by the hair. “You did the painting too!” He could see he was going to have to suffer questions before he got what he wanted. “Why didn’t you ever show me or tell me before now?”

She laid on her back looking over the drawing more carefully. It was amazing. It was her on the bed with sheets and pillows crumpled and a head-to-toe view of her from the back. At the same time, she was a landscape—part of a view of the mountains and the sky and a delicious tumbling of earth. It made her feel beautiful and fortunate for her body to see it both as sensual and, in some way, commanding. She was truly stunned.

Before she could ask another question, he pulled her back on her side and faced her, their bodies extremely close but not touching. “I started years ago—a lot of time on a ship—just as a way to keep my hands busy, not with any idea of anything, really. I’ve wanted to draw you since I first set eyes on you,” and his finger did so now, painting in a whisper of movement that swept across her eyebrows and then her closed lids, down the sweep of her nose and lingered deliciously over that curlicue pink mouth, tracing those lips around and around and then down to her collarbone. “But for some reason around you, my hands have always been busy already,” he murmured and the finger continued up and down her arm. He moved just a bit closer again, and the heat pulsed between them. “Suzanna,” he breathed, “we can discuss this later, but right now,” his finger slid softly down the sweep of her shoulder and circled her aureola, earning a sharp intake of breath and a rush of color to her face, “I’ve been looking for a long time, luv, and what I need now is touching,” and he picked up her hand and brought it to his chest.

Somehow she understood and she mirrored his movements, circling his dusky brown nipples with her own finger, their bodies not touching anywhere else. They did not kiss now, only looked at their hands and into each other’s faces, watching how they brought each other to ecstasy. It was exquisite torture as he slid back and forth across the tops of her nipples, a kind of promise, and she felt him shudder as she did the same.

He slid across her belly now and she in turn felt those muscles ripple beneath her touch. Both their hips moved just slightly forward into contact and he pushed toward her just once, before he moved back, not wanting to let it go just yet.

He tilted back just a little bit and bent one knee inviting her to do the same, and she did as his skin slid across hers, down to the junction where her leg and body met, across the smoothness of her thigh, behind her knee, down her calf and back. Again she did the same, his light hair tickling with the texture under her fingers. By the time his touch reached where she wanted it most, she was so wet and aching she thought she might die, and she had no doubt of his desire as he jumped at her slightest touch.

Finally, when she was certain she could hold it no longer, he kissed her. His tongue was hot and insistent and she melted, pulling him in hard against her. They both moaned, but he wanted something else. He looked at her with blackened eyes. “I need your mouth,” he told her, and all of her ached for wanting to give this to him and delighting that he wanted her so. But before she could move to take him he said, “Wait,” and moved so that his face was between her thighs now and hers against his weeping length. “Still together,” he said and licked her hard and slowly. She cried out just a bit before wrapping her lips around him and suckling. Neither of them moved for just a minute and then they did.

It was everything at once—the feel of him demanding as he plunged his tongue deep inside her and then pushed hard at her clit, circling and demanding even more. The feel of him in her mouth was intoxicating; as he had drawn the curves of her body, so now she felt this landscape of undulations and ridges and wanted yet more knowledge of it and called it to her with her lips and her tongue. She reveled in the taste and the understanding that she was making him shake with pleasure and that she could do this and he loved her for it. They ravaged each other now, intent on drawing out the ultimate sensation from one another and then she was exploding just as he was, the two of them drinking each other in and inhaling each other and then gentling with small licks and sucks until they could breathe again.

********************

“Where are you, luv? Suzanna? Where did you go?”

Her whole body leaped a little, she was so startled to find Jack lying next to her. “What? I’m right here,” she insisted, but looked rather flustered.

He chuckled. “Yes, this heavenly body is right here, I admit,” his fingertips trailing down the length of her, “but I’ve a feeling that mind of yours is off visiting with some other heavenly bodies very far away somewhere else.”

She looked a bit abashed. “Sorry. Guess I was thinking.” She flipped over to her stomach and brought her face quite close to his. “Jack, can I really stay? Really?” He thought for all the world that she looked about 15, so like a kid asking for permission it was painful, and he hated those deaths and the cruelty that could make her doubt like that. He answered her with his mouth on hers, pulling her tight against him and kissing her softly at first and then with more and more of all he felt until they reached a crescendo that left them both gasping for breath, clinging to each other, fingers in their hair, foreheads touching.

“Does that answer your question? Christ, Suzanna, I had no idea what I was going to do if you said no, and that’s the truth. Couldn’t think of a single plan that made any sense to me at all if you didn’t want to be here. Well, it crossed my mind I could tie you to the mast and kidnap you—never actually kidnapped a woman before, well only a little.” He smiled, then was serious again. “I think I’m a fairly brave man, Suzanna, but brave enough to let you go, if that was what you wanted? I’d rather face the entire Royal navy with guns blazing than that.”

The look on his face made it so clear that it was all true that she was laughing and crying at the same time. “I love you, Captain Jack Sparrow! I love you, love you, love you, love you!” she declared, smothering him with kisses until he was actually blushing. Now that was something you didn’t see everyday.

“I believe you already!” he said looking embarrassed and like the cat with the cream at the same time. “And the most amazing thing is, I love you too, though my ears find it so strange to hear my mouth say it that they feel like they must have ended up on the wrong body somehow.”

“Oh, I would say it is very definitely the right body,” she purred, sliding slowly down against him.

He pulled her back up to kiss her again. “And I would say that tying you to the mast is sounding more and more interesting now that it’s not such a desperate measure.”

“Oh, most definitely. I can see it now,” she slid off him to the side and put her arms behind her back with her wrists together as if they were tied. “Poor helpless maiden taken captive by the dashingly handsome pirate captain. Whatever will he do with her? She is at his mercy...” her voice was all make-believe breathy and she batted her eyelashes at him shamelessly.

This was as playful as he’d ever seen her. He found himself wondering if maybe now she felt like she could relax a little more. He turned to face her with a dangerous gleam in his eye. “So tell me more about this prurient little fantasy of yours, my pet...”

If anyone had been walking by, they would have heard a lot of shrieking and laughing and then some relative quiet.

********************

Will and Elizabeth had spent the night on the island along with the rest of the crew, although they slept a little ways away from the others but not so far that he couldn’t keep an eye on the Pearl. He had made Jack a promise to make sure he wasn’t disturbed, and Will took it seriously. Not to mention that no matter how fond of them he might be—and he truly was—a band of drunken pirates only 25 feet or so away from a sleeping Elizabeth with no cabin wrapped around them for protection made him more than a little wary. Keep a sharp eye indeed.

He thought a lot and about a lot of things. What was happening with Jack and Suzanna, of course. After talking with her that night on deck, he couldn’t imagine she would say no. What had she told him? That what she’d always wanted was the moon and the stars; wasn’t that what Jack was offering her?

It was certainly what he felt like he’d gotten a taste of today at the helm. He couldn’t remember anything else in his life being more exciting than that. Well, it was a close second at least. Actually there was a corollary here. After all the times he’d sailed with Jack, he thought he knew what it meant to be out there. He thought he had an understanding of what Jack saw in his ship and that he had tasted similar pleasures. But it turned out the Pearl and he had only shared the most chaste of kisses. Yesterday he had felt her underneath him for the first time, felt how she responded to his touch, knew that he could make her sing for him, and it was utterly intoxicating. And dangerous. Because now he wanted more.

That particular desire being unattainable at the moment, Will turned to the woman next to him. He had never ceased to be amazed by how beautiful she was—breathtaking, really—and that she had chosen a life with him over Norrington and respectability and making her father happy. Though in truth, living in a house her father owned had never set quite well with him, but at the moment, it was practical. At least they were not under his roof at the governor’s mansion. There were only so many disapproving stares a man could digest along with breakfast every morning. But then waking up with her made up for a lot.

Elizabeth moved a bit in her sleep, rolling onto her side, her head pillowed on one arm while the other curled at her side. One perfect, pink-tipped breast spilled out the front of her white cotton gown, and he caught his breath. He longed to take her in his mouth and wake her up to the feel of it, but he dared not with the potential audience at his back. Nonetheless, if he kept his body between her and them so that she couldn’t be seen, he might just manage something.

********************
Elizabeth was dreaming. She was standing on the bow of the Pearl with the wind blowing her skirts around her and tickling her legs. The feeling of the wind moving through her hair and teasing at her clothes was intoxicating. She reached to caress her nipples through the thin cloth of her gown but, in the way of dreams, found that Will was now standing in front of her, her laces undone and his fingers replacing her own. He drew small, lazy circles, avoiding the nipple itself, letting her arousal build, and she whimpered. On the beach above her, Will smiled.

The tickling around her legs increased and her hips rose up a bit in response. But she didn’t fully wake up until Will slipped his fingers inside all that slippery wetness. Her eyes flew open and she half sat up in surprise. “Shhh...” he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her gently back down. “We need to be quiet, luv. We don’t want to get their attention.”

“You’re the one who has my attention,” she gasped breathily.

“I was beginning to think you were going to sleep through the whole thing,” he replied smiling, and he pressed into her in a way that made her gasp.

“Ah...” was all she could say.

Leaning forward a bit, he ran his other hand across her covered breast and then slid inside her gown again, squeezing her nipple at the same time that his fingers shifted again. This time he had no choice but to kiss her, or she would have given them away completely.

********************

When the crew returned to the Pearl, Jack and Suzanna were still nowhere to be found, though a simple signpost gave a clear indication where they were—one of Jack’s knives stuck into the wood beside the door to his cabin. Every sailor on deck knew that if you knocked when the knife was up, you might well need it to defend yourself from the retribution that was to follow. “Well that seems promising,” Will said to Elizabeth, pointing out the warning.

Before she’d fallen asleep last night, Will had recounted his conversation with Jack and what he thought was going on.

“I know I may have given her a hard time at first, but now I can’t imagine them apart. It seems absurd on the face of it—a woman in her position and a pirate—but the only thing that seems more absurd is splitting them up,” Elizabeth marvelled.

“Well, Jack is certainly beside himself.”

“Actually, it was Jack that turned me around despite all of Suzanna’s sobering words. That night in Tortuga it was the look on his face when he was afraid she was hurt and then when he brought her back to the ship and wouldn’t let anyone else take care of her....it was pretty clear that the center of Jack’s universe has shifted.”

“Yes, well apparently the women of your family have quite the gravitational pull, Elizabeth,” he said, kissing her lightly.

Her hand moved up to feel the silk of his hair and her stomach fluttered at the look in his eyes. “And apparently you pirates have a gift for making us think the stars shine just for us,” she answered as they kissed again, looking for more.

“Elizabeth,…” he began.

“Oy! William, on deck! There’s work to be done. And tell your lass that Suzanna would very much like to see her in our cabin, as soon as possible.”

“Be right there, Jack,” said Will. Then he and Elizabeth both turned to each other with the same thought and the same words. “Our cabin?” they said in unison. Elizabeth couldn’t wait to hear more.

********************

Pressing work now completed, Jack and Will stood on deck. Jack noticed Will’s surreptitious glances back at Anna Maria at the helm.

“You’ve got it bad, William.”

“What?”

Jack’s eyes went to the help and his chin tilted to indicate his subject matter. “I said, you’ve got it bad.”

“Anna Maria? Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. You know I love Elizabeth.”

Jack put up his hand to stop him. “No, Will, that would be interesting enough, but that’s not who has got her teeth in you. It’s the Pearl.”

Will looked abashed. He felt as if Jack had caught him lusting after Suzanna.

“No need to apologize, mate. I put her in your arms after all. You’ve got that look in your eye of a man who’s waited some time to bed a woman and who thinks that having had her at last he will now be free of his obsession. But instead all he can think is when can we do it again?”

That was so dead on, Will was at a loss for words.

“I haven’t got it figured out yet. I’m only getting an inkling, after hours of talking this afternoon, of what I’ve gotten meself into. Christ on a stick, it’s complicated. I imagine your Elizabeth probably has a better grasp on things, having been raised in it more, but I’ll tell you, mate...”

“Jack! You are talking in riddles. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Sorry about that, thinking out loud. Well you will soon enough then, after the cousins have their little chat. Suzanna just wanted to talk to Elizabeth first. But you know, she thinks the world of you, William. I have to confess, although I’ve always counted you my friend, she’s helped me realize I was still seeing you too much as the son of your father and not the man you’ve grown into.”

“She’s an amazing woman, Jack, and she’s helped me see a number of things more clearly as well. She’s a great friend.”

“And you fancy her a bit, as well, eh?”

He opened his mouth to protest, but Jack fixed him with that look and he relented. “Only as much as you deem acceptable without feeling compelled to kill me.”

Jack threw back his head and laughed. “You know, Will, that was a strategic use of the truth if ever I heard one! We may make a real pirate of you yet!”

Jack was still laughing and Will still looked a bit embarrassed when Suzanna and Elizabeth emerged from the cabin. He was sure his face was a bit pink, but Elizabeth’s, on the other hand, was as white as a sheet, and he immediately went to her, concerned.

“She’s just a little bit in shock, Will. She’ll be all right. Actually, Jack, it’s too nice to be inside. Do you think you might fetch us some rum and some pillows, and we could talk on the terrace?

“Coming right up, luv,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her gently before he disappeared. There had been a lot to deal with for her all in one day’s time, and he wanted to know that she was coping. She seemed fine, he thought. Then again, she was probably the only one who really understood what was going on.

When they were settled with generous portions of rum all around, Elizabeth took a shaky breath and took Will’s hand in hers. “Well simply put, Will, Suzanna is proposing to make us rich beyond our wildest, hell, anyone’s wildest dreams.”

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Chapter Fourteen