I know I'm only two chapters in, but I decided while writing the third that I wasn't happy with the way it was going and started over from the beginning. Hopefully this will be a little more interesting for you guys this way. :)

Disclaimer: Anything you recognize, I don't own.

Please Review! It's nice to have some sort of feedback. Thank you!

~ Prologue ~

The not too distant future.

Without a second thought, her hand curled around the frayed collar of his shirt and pulled him towards her, slamming her lips against his almost painfully. For so long, she'd been so blind - so stupidly clinging to her work as if it would mean something in the end. But all that was gone, ripped from her grasp just like so many other things she'd loved. And she'd be damned if she let him slip away, too. No, she was done denying it. She was done fighting the way her heart raced when he looked at her - done feeling guilty for waking with his name on her lips. She was done playing games with him.

At first, he froze against her, hesitant and surprised, before his hand gripped her hip to draw her closer. His hook pressed firmly into the small of her back, though he was careful not to hurt her, even as his lips began to move eagerly against hers.

They pulled apart momentarily, faces close and breath ragged, each meeting the other's gaze. She could see in his eyes that same strange fear he'd been struggling with since they'd met. She knew there was some haunting thought there, some distant memory he wouldn't let anyone touch. It was his, and only his - a wall he'd built brick by brick over the years, whether to protect himself or the people close to him.

She waited for him to decide, her breath catching in her throat as he searched her eyes almost desperately. And at last, after what seemed like an eternity to her, he let that terrible barrier fall, crashing over her like a wave.

He crushed her lips under his as he pinned her against the wall, the wooden beams of the captain's cabin groaning under the force. Her hands buried themselves in his still-wet hair as she wrapped her legs around him, tasting the salt of the sea on his tongue as he explored her mouth, consuming her like a man dying of thirst. It was nearly all she could do to breathe as she reveled in the feel of him. She knew this changed nothing - tomorrow he'd still be hell-bent on revenge and she'd still be standing in the path. But everything was somehow different. It was as if she'd spent her whole life locked in a room only to discover he was the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin, driving her further and further beyond the world she knew and into his embrace.

He was as changing as the tides themselves, torn between the two edges of passion. One moment he was touching her gently, kissing the ragged scars crisscrossing her shoulders as he carefully pulled away her borrowed shirt. The next he was scraping his teeth along her skin, grinding his hips into her and letting loose a frenzied growl in answer to the breathless gasps escaping her lips.

His lips closed around the harden peak of one breast, and she could feel him smiling as her hips bucked against him unbidden. His hooked hand as at her knee, bringing it up higher around his waist as his fingers dug into her ass so forcefully she knew she'd bruise, but the pain didn't even register past the overwhelming pleasure of having him so close. She breathed his name, grasping his shoulders tightly as he moved back up to kiss her, abruptly lifting her the rest of the way off the ground and settling her weight onto him. She could feel the length of him pressed up in between her legs through the leather of his pants as she rocked against him, her nails scraping across his scalp and down his back, leaving him moaning into her mouth in response.

He carried her carefully over to the bed against the wall. She tugged his shirt up over his head as he moved, rewarded with a breathless smile from the man she'd finally fallen for. She sucked gently on his earring as he settled himself over her, her nimble fingers shaking slightly as she unlaced the front of his breeches, pushing them down over his hips and forcing him to kick them away before he could return the favor.

"Love," he breathed, his breath warm on her skin as he delayed that fateful moment for just a while longer. His stormy blue eyes darkened with something far deeper than just desire. She knotted her fingers gently in his hair, for once entirely unafraid of that nameless emotion swelling unchecked in her chest. "Don't stop."

She smiled up at him and brought him down to kiss him deeply before she answered.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Captain."