Elizabeth approached him tentatively, with the air of a rabbit darting nervously around its killer. They had left the beach, the arid and scorching beach, and were in the close confines of his cabin, far too intimate and close. For there was no avoiding her crushing guilt anymore, no escaping her choking emotions. She was locked in this room with her shame and her racing thoughts, locked in with the man she had tried to kill.
The silence that yawned between them engulfed Elizabeth in a black hole of tension and was not helped by the way Jack paced around the room like a caged tiger, scarcely allowing her to see more of him than his back.
"Why are you here?"
The question was direct, straight to the point and there was no affectionate edge to his words. This was not the rum-addled Jack that she had known before the Pearl had been lost. This was the Jack that had been devoured by the Kraken, betrayed and sacrificed by her and pushed to hell and back. He was hardened, unyielding with a dark line of suspicion beneath his chocolate brown eyes. His seriousness scraped away at any feigned confidence she could pretend that she had, and she had the grace to look down at the wooden floor, ashamed.
"I had to see you." Her voice was small and meek.
"Why?"
"I wanted... I had to see you. I had to apologise."
Jack's sharp bark of laughter made her flinch as though he had slapped her. Part of her wished he had. It was obvious he was angry, that much she had expected. But what was worse was the underlying edge of hurt and vulnerability she had exposed him to, feelings that Jack never experienced. He was a philanderer, a warrior free spirit who did as he chose and took what he wanted, never answering to anyone. And single-handedly she had robbed him of the ship he adored and left him to a grisly fate, facing horrors she could only ever imagine. He had made it through alive, but at what cost? He was a changed man, and it was all her fault.
"I'm so sorry, Jack..." Elizabeth lifted her head, blonde strands of hair falling loose around her reddening face and she finally allowed herself to look at him. He was tanned and beautiful as ever she remembered, but there was no humour dancing in his dark eyes as before. If anything though, this new sombre mood only intensified her desire for him. On her quick paced walk through the ship to his cabin she had known she was risking all that she had with Will for the chance of this one conversation and maybe more, and she knew by just seeing him again, that she had been right to come.
Jack sighed heavily, relenting from unleashing his barrage of anger against her but still heavy hearted. "I suppose you acted in the way you saw best. But I came back to the ship. I came back for you all, you know. You, Will, the crew. That... leaving me to...that..." He shuddered at the memory.
Elizabeth felt tears spring to her eyes and she wanted only to run to him and kiss every part of his face. "If only you knew, Jack, if only you knew..."
"Knew what?" Jack's stare was smouldering, it filled her head with fire and before she knew it she was slowly being drawn across the room towards him, a moth to a flame, crossing the space between them in a daze. He stood his ground, not moving towards her, but not drawing away either.
"If only you could know how I feel about you..." Elizabeth's voice was barely a whisper but he caught every word, and if she wasn't so focused on keeping her nerve she would have thought that he may have never been as serious as he was now.
She reached him, and he looked down, not even trying to create more breathing space for them both. Elizabeth looked up into his eyes, so close to him that she thought her long eyelashes would brush his cheek. She could feel her breath on his skin and could feel his warmth emanate back to her. "If only you could know..." she breathed, and let her eyelids close, allowing her slim body to stretch up slightly and close the last inch or two between them. Her lips found his, soft and gentle, and she did what she had always wanted to do... She transferred every unspoken word and feeling, every loose inhibition and desire, everything that she had never been able to say... and turned it all into a kiss.
For a second, the longest second that seemed to stretch into an eternity, she pressed against his mouth, the mouth that she had thought about in the corners of her mind for so long now, the mouth that tasted sweeter even than she could have imagined. She pressed all that meaning against him and then the second passed and she began to realise that maybe she had misread the chemistry between them... Maybe his anger was so much bigger than she could have realised and he couldn't bear the thought of reciprocating. But just when she thought she would have to pull away and hide from the hurt of it, his mouth opened and he finally yielded against her. His dark lips parted and she felt his tongue gently slip against hers and suddenly she was enveloped in his arms and he was warm, so warm around her and the cabin of the Pearl seemed to melt away, along with any recollection of her entwinement with Will.
The first kiss was broken, replaced immediately with a series of smaller, quicker kisses and now that she was here, Elizabeth knew what she wanted. Her body yearned for it, craved it like it craved food and air. She snaked her arms around his neck and positioned herself so that her mouth covered his completely and it was her tongue entering his mouth, her proving to him what she wanted, what they were going to do... He backed away slightly under her persistency and she followed until his back connected with one of the ornately carved pillars of his four poster bed, and their bodies became even closer. Her slim hands ran down and found his shirt and ripped it smartly apart, revealing inches of tanned and tattooed chest. He did not seem perturbed by her enthusiasm, or perhaps he was but was just allowing her to play it out and see where it would lead... Perhaps he thought she was going to back down at any moment and he was going to call her bluff. But she wasn't.
The ship rolled gently with the waves and the sudden lurch knocked them off balance, sending them side-stepping across the room. Jack caught them both and Elizabeth was now walking backwards towards the bed, pulling Jack along by the loop in his unravelling belt, still kissing him passionately. There was another heave and Elizabeth fell back amongst the bed covers and Jack fell too but caught himself expertly, placing a hand either side of her shoulders. For the first time, he broke away from the heated kisses as though for air and a reality check.
"Elizabeth..." His voice was quite choked and husky, as though his desire was causing difficulties in speaking. "Are you sure, this is wise... this is what you want to do? I mean..."
Elizabeth allowed a soft trace of a smile to linger on her pink lips as she ripped his shirt off and slipped one hand deftly below the belt to the hardened warmth on the inside, pressing gently but firmly. His eyes flickered close and his breath caught. "Quite sure," Elizabeth whispered, pulling off the rest of his attire.
"Well if you are quite sure..." Jack murmured into her soft hair, pulling open her own blouse and slipping a warm hand under her skirt and against her cool thighs.
She gasped at the sudden sensation, the explosion of tingling nerve endings she felt there as his fingertips brushed higher and higher towards the height of her bare flesh. His fingers were as soft as a feather but insistent and firm at the same time, each stroke and caress making her breath catch in her throat. His fingers began to probe deeper and with a thrill of excitement she relaxed and let him and was rewarded with waves of crashing pleasure. He brought his face up close, intimately looking into her eyes and kissing her mouth softly and watching as her eyes rolled back and she tried to stutter his name but couldn't. He nuzzled her neck and whispered filthy things into her ear, things that she could not have imagined anyone uttering to her in any walks of life and she felt her thighs close protectively around his hand, keeping it there as her hands grasped desperately for the sheets, anything to hold onto as the waves took her.
Jack's mouth migrated south of her neck towards her chest, gently pulling her blouse further away from her skin to reveal her breasts which he caressed gently with a warm mouth and inquisitive tongue. His hand was still coaxing her down there and she was beginning to shudder and she bit her lip against a tidal wave of noise that was threatening to explode out of her.
Expertly, devilishly, he relinquished his hold on her and used both hands to caress her for a moment and then guide himself towards her. With a voice as low as a breath of wind, he looked her at her deeply. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes," Elizabeth nodded, feeling nerves and pleasure overwhelm her in equal amounts.
And then he was inside her. There was a split second of pain as he pushed gently but insistently and he kissed her softly as he did so, and then it was gone and a warmth and sense of relief spread through her as he rocked swiftly against her. Each thrust locked his muscular frame against her slim body and with every brush of torso against torso, it felt as though their bodies were designed to connect like this. Even in her darkest of dreams and wildest of fantasies she had never imagined it could feel quite like this, and she knew quite correctly, that Will would never be able to make her feel like this. It was as if Jack knew everything about her body and could unlock parts of her that even she did not know could exist.
"Oh..My god," she breathed, each word catching at the back of her throat. The thrusts were deep and slow but they were becoming faster, and with the increased rhythm, the feeling inside her began to intensify. Her legs wrapped instinctively and tightly around him, locking him towards her, for him to get as near and as deep as he wanted. She began to tremble again and this time she knew that he would not stop, he could not stop until she had felt the sheer pleasure about to cascade around her. Her shaking hands grasped desperately for something to cling onto; the bed sheets, his back, his hair, his muscular arms, but then his knowing hands took over and pinned hers firmly back behind her head so that she was held down, fast and strong. As the climax rushed through her and with nothing to hold onto she let the satisfaction pour from her lips in a breathless scream, and tightened around him impossibly hard. Her loud cries and shuddering body was enough for Jack to reach his own moment of heightened release and he slammed against her with a groan, holding her arms tight as he squeezed his eyes shut and breathed heavily.
Slowly, he released her and as soon as her arms were free she embraced him and held him in a deep kiss. Gently he pulled back from her and lay back at her side, his deep, dark eyes heavy with tiredness and lust. Elizabeth curled in against him and felt his arm close around her shoulders and listened to the sound of their pounding heartbeats and heavy breathing slowly fade back to normal. Her body was aching slightly and still warm from his magical touch and as she began to drowse alongside him, she felt drunk with the new happiness that he had shown her.
