title: all the time in the world
summary: time stops when they're together (if only, if only)
notes: AU where Emma's a princess and Killian is a captain in the royal navy; smut, smut, smut, and a little plot and feels, but mainly smut
"There's too many damn buttons," Emma says and hisses at him. She pops them free, but her fingers fumble in her haste. He laughs, a low chuckle that makes his chest rumble beneath her hands. Annoyed Emma fixes him with a glare.
"We don't have the kind of time for you to be laughing at me. A little help please," Emma demands in what Killian calls her "princess" voice. She is a princess, what other voice should she have?
"Shhh, love, we have all the time in the world," he says.
He wraps his hands around her wrists and pulls them up to his face, kissing her knuckles softly.
"We don't," Emma says seriously despite the way his tongue licks across her knuckles. "And you know it, Captain."
She doesn't say how much she wishes it weren't so. She doesn't talk of obligations and how she wishes she could throw them all away just for one more moment spent here in his arms.
She doesn't say any of that because he says it for her with just one look of his blue eyes, so like the sea that he sails. He stops kissing her hands to cock his head at her, studying her face. Finally, his eyes drift away from hers and down to her mouth. He tugs her to him sharply, brings her arms down to her sides, and leans forward to kiss her. As gentle as his kisses to her knuckles were, this is nothing like that, heated and bruising and everything Emma needs in this moment. With him she feels wanted, loved, seen in a way that no one has ever seen her but him.
To everyone else she is Princess Emma, heir to the throne and future queen. To everyone else she is prim and proper and oh so untouchable. To Killian, she is anything but that. In fact, there is nothing he likes more than touching her. He's told her so himself.
"I need..." she mumbles against his lips, but there is no need for words. He always knows what she needs.
She remembers the first time they met. She'd snuck out from the castle in clothes borrowed from one of the servants with her hair straightened and tied up in a ponytail, different from her usual golden curls. She'd lost the guards who followed her past the castle walls and headed down to one of the taverns by the shore. She just wanted to disappear in the throng, to become just another one of the nameless faces who didn't have to worry about every little thing they did.
She didn't want to be recognized for what she stood for. She just wanted to be seen for who she was, a person, just like any other. Someone who could be ignored. Someone who could just be.
And for a while, that had been exactly what she got, taking a seat at the crowded bar and buying herself an ale. She'd sipped it for a while, just enjoying the sounds of life moving around her, until a loud guffaw had her turning her head to find the source.
She'd read stories like this. About their eyes meeting across a crowded room and their souls touching with just that look.
She'd looked away quickly from the handsome, laughing man and hoped that his eyes wouldn't linger on her, that he'd forget her face.
Her father once told her that she had a face that wasn't easily forgotten. He was too right.
A light tap on her shoulder had her freezing and then turning around. If there was anything she'd learned during her lifetime, it was to always put on a good show. And Emma was very talented in that respect, so despite her trepidation, she'd fixed her face into a smile and faced the man.
Dressed head to toe in the uniform of their Royal Navy - he must've just gotten leave - he'd smiled at her and said, "Captain Killian Jones, at your service."
She'd had dates before, potential suitors seeking her hand in marriage, but none of them had ever looked at her the way this "Captain Killian Jones" looked at her then, like he wanted to know her inside and out.
"Do you always look at girls like that, Captain?" Emma had asked with a raise of her eyebrow, hand over her mouth to cover up her smirk.
"First of all, I don't look at any girls like anything. I only like women. Second, how exactly am I looking at you, milady?" He winked at her, the dim light from the bar glinting off his bright smile.
And suddenly, she was afraid because he was looking at her like he knew. The milady was casual enough, but his look was anything but. He knew, knew who she was and any moment he was going to give her up and she would be shipped off back to the castle.
Instead, he sat down beside her at the bar and said, "May I buy you a drink?"
Confused, Emma scrunched her brows together and leaned into him, "You're not going to say anything?"
"And ruin my chance to sweep you off your feet? Who would be such a fool?"
She'd laughed, that time not hiding the smile that he'd brought to her lips.
She remembers that evening, remembers talking to him all night long until the tavern had cleared out and they were the only two left drinking at the bar. She remembers the way he'd offered to walk her back to the castle - "Most ladies would balk at walking the streets at this time without an escort" - and then winked at her and said, "But you're not most ladies." She remembers the way he'd kissed her hand when they'd gotten close enough to the castle gates, but not close enough to get caught, remembers the way the wildfire had ignited in her with just that quick peck of his lips, and she remembers wanting to kiss him back.
She always remembers that evening, because she can't forget how he'd made her feel, so very, very human when she so often felt like a puppet on display. She'd needed that, and without knowing her at all, he'd known.
"Open book," he'd called her then, and to him, she was. To him, she is.
She spreads her legs and he steps between them, grinding his erection against her wantonly. She is wearing her riding clothes instead of a dress so she feels everything as he presses to her. She wants - desperately wants, and she makes it known with a sharp nip to his bottom lip, a soft gasp into his mouth.
"Bloody fucking hell, Emma," he says when she grinds against him.
"I want to touch you," she says. "Please, Captain, Jones, Killian."
He growls against her lips, the exact same sound he made when she first called him Killian instead of just Captain. His hands release hers and with nimble fingers, he finally opens his vest. At once, her hands are on his chest, smoothing over the thick chest hair, sliding down to his torso to press into the hard muscle. His eyes close, and his hands move to her shoulders while she fondles him with needy touches.
She bends forward, kisses him in the hollow of his throat and moves lower, kisses pressed to every bit of skin she can touch while his grip holds her tight. She licks over one of his flat pink nipples. He groans and drops his hands from her shoulders. She moves to the other nipple, giving it the same loving attention he would give hers were they bared to him.
When his hands press against her crotch and rub her through her pants, she pulls back sharply, a strangled sound catching in her throat. Her nipples poke through her top and he takes advantage by leaning down as she did to him, and sucking her through her top while he continues to rub her through her pants, thoroughly wetting her core.
"Killian," she whines.
Her hands are still touching him, she presses fists into his stomach, rubs her knuckles down the lines of muscle. She unfolds her hands to palm his skin, moving them downward until they are resting over his erection and she feels him through his pants, warm, beating and alive beneath her hands.
A bell chimes in the distance, loud and echoing throughout the empty display room and a sob loosens from her chest - there's just no time.
He releases her covered nipple. Her now damp shirt clings to her chest, and he meets her eyes with a saddened smile, says, "We can stop if you want - you can go if you..."
Killian trails off. His eyes go wide and searching as he stares at her, and Emma chokes back whatever look she is giving him because goddamnit, she isn't going to let this...this whatever she is feeling right now ruin the last moments she'll be able to spend with him for a long while.
"Don't you dare leave," she says, and knows he hears the plea in her command because she can hear it too, in the shaky way the words leave her mouth, in the heavy breath that leaves her chest.
The look he gives her says more than words ever could. His movements are nimble, delicate when he pulls her riding pants down her hips. She kicks off her short boots and steps out of her pants. His fingers dip into the curve of her thighs and brush over her underwear, but soon that light touch is gone and he pulls those down as well, lifts her up against the display cabinet to sit her down on top of it.
"Emma, love," he says as if mesmerized by her. She blinks up at him, determined not to look away from the pure awe in his eyes as he pushes his own pants down his hips and then opens her legs, moving in between them.
Killian's thumb brushes her mound and he drives his fingers into her silken, wet heat, twisting them in circles to stoke the flames within. Just when Emma's body starts to tense, so close to shattering with pleasure, he removes his fingers only to push her farther up the cabinet so that her knees are bent, feet pressed on either side of her. He angles her hips against his so that he can press the head of his length against her entrance.
In mere moments, they are joined. He stares at her, breathless, and Emma stares back at him, that look taking her own breath away. Emma's toes curl as he slowly pulls his length out of her, only to push back in, just as slowly. The lazy drag of him within her has her tightening around him, but it isn't until she leans up off her elbows and reaches out to grab the golden shoulder tassels of his open jacket for support that he starts to pound into her, hips meeting hips in a rough melding of their bodies, so hot that Emma feels like she might burn alive with it.
Emma holds onto his shoulders tightly, digs hollows into the fabric when his hands pulls her all the way up, changing the angle of his thrusts. He is practically holding her in his arms, but she can't admire his strength right now, can't think of anything but the way he spreads her open and fills her up.
"Killian," she says his name, like she'd say "I love you."
"Emma."
She cries when she sails over the edge, when his waves take her under and she plummets into his deep blue sea. She doesn't mean to close her eyes, but can't help it, the pleasure too overwhelming, and when she reopens them, and sees the look in his eyes - want, need, love - she kisses him as he thrusts in and out of her, finally pushing through her shuddering core to seal himself inside her like he doesn't ever want to leave. She can feel his release pulsing inside her, a mark on her that she'll have to wash away long before she wants to. He can leave no marks, no impression that she has been his, is his, except the one she carries deep in her chest. Sometimes, she wonders how no one sees it, the way he is branded on her because it burns so bright to her - how can no one see?
He gently disentangles their bodies, but continues to rest his forehead against hers, his lips brushing hers as sound filters into the room, the world outside forcing its way in as it always does.
Killian pulls away, touches his hands to her knees softly, and then bends down to pick up her discarded clothing and hand it to her.
His release leaks down her thighs and she'll have to scrub it out of underwear before her maids come to pick up her clothing to be washed. Her hands shake. Her vision goes blurry. She tries not to think of anything, but can't help but think of everything, these stolen moments, how they should be more than that, more than things she has to pretend not to remember, more than the long silences in her conversations with her parents when they ask her where she goes.
"You know if I were a pirate, I could just steal you away, and no one would be able to stop me," Killian says wistfully.
"If you were a pirate, I'd have met you at your execution," Emma says steadily enough as she finally manages to still her trembling fingers enough to readjust her clothing.
"True," he says on a half-sigh.
She looks down at herself. Her jacket now back on her shoulders, and her shirt should dry before anyone has a chance to notice the wet spots over her nipples, not that anyone would dare say anything about it. There are advantages to being royalty.
Emma glances over at Killian as he fixes his pants. Somehow those advantages just don't seem so advantageous.
He clears his throat like he is struggling to speak, and doesn't look at her when he says, "I set sail tomorrow. I know I shouldn't ask, I ask so much of you already -"
"I'll be there."
The smile that lights up his face is at once breathtaking as it is heartbreaking. She memorizes the lines around his eyes, the brightness in his blues, and then walks over to him to memorize the feeling of his lips on hers, the burn of his growing beard that he'll shave tomorrow morning right before Princess Emma will see Captain Killian Jones and his crew off as they set sail on their tour around the other kingdoms.
She pulls away, and there are no goodbyes as she treads down the steps, slips out the back door of the empty display store with her head down and face covered into the busy streets below. She pushes through the crowds as she takes the familiar route back to the castle and wants, wishes, but if anyone asks, and they often do, Princess Emma wants for nothing, nothing at all.