Disclaimer: I do not own Captain Jack Sparrow or Elizabeth Swann (Disney does). I only play with them from time to time.

A/N: Oh, look, I'm back. With smut! As always, my beta is my hero, this time for saving me from the repulsive American grammer to which I am prone. Lesse..The quote Elizabeth says is from Ralph Waldo Emerson, which is flagrantly the wrong time period, but it needed to be there. And yes, I read too much Greek mythology in my formative years and now it imbues everything I write, even the sex scenes. Ah well.

Hêdonê: pleasure

Chapter Three: Hêdonê

"Took you bloody long enough," said Jack, standing up. Elizabeth stared at him, her expression blank.

"All in one breath, eh?" he asked, looking her over. Her nipples were hardening from the cool air, visible through the dark burgundy of her shirt. Jack swallowed and forced his mind back up into his head and his gaze up to her face. She stood there, dripping silently.

"Impressive," he finished. Elizabeth's face relaxed and she shook her head, her lips tinged with a wry smile.

"You bastard," she said. "You complete and utter bastard."

Jack laughed and extended a hand toward her. "C'mon, love, let me show you around."

Still shaking her head, she took his hand and let him pull her out of the water.

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Elizabeth gasped. Jack watched her with satisfaction. He knew she'd never seen anything like this in her life, and, with his impeccable sense of drama, he left it until last. It hadn't been easy. Every time they had entered a new cave, she had emitted little gasps, or soft sighs, or "ohs" of wonder and with every noise he had just wanted to take her right then, on top of the piles of gold coins, or chests of mahogany, or the stone floor. But he had been patient, and insisted she explore every room, marvel over every treasure, and he had been rewarded. He saw a side of Elizabeth he didn't even think she knew she had anymore. While he watched, Captain Swann had slipped away, revealing a young woman with a young woman's love of beautiful things, who giggled and blushed as she tried on priceless, flawless jewels, drunk on the smell of gold and the sight of sparkling stones. She still wore some of those jewels now; heavy gold chains wrapped around her neck and a particularly garish ruby and diamond ring adorned her index finger.

"Ohhh…" she breathed as she stared into the cave. Jack's muscles clenched, and he followed Elizabeth's gaze in a vain attempt to distract himself. It was, all in all, a beautiful room, with fluted marble columns and artistically arranged statues and artifacts of incalculable worth and all manner of lovely things, but all of that was nothing—nothing—compared to what was in the center. There, on a dais, was what was unquestionably the throne of Poseidon himself.

It was gold. It was large. It was emphatically masculine, and yet intricate, covered with reliefs of Oceanids and hippocampi cavorting in the waves and, oh, not just cavorting…And Elizabeth stared at it in a way that made Jack simultaneously jealous of and embarrassed for a piece of furniture. She took a step forward, and then glanced back at Jack, a hint of uncertainty in her eyes. He smiled indulgently.

"Go ahead, love. I've been all over these caves and there's not been a hint of supernatural smiting. Ole Whatisface is long gone."

Elizabeth eyed him a moment longer, before deciding he was telling the truth. She nodded once and walked on. Jack ambled after her, enjoying the view. She climbed the steps of the dais and stared at the throne with a kind of awe-ful lust. Jack wished she would look at him like that.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" he asked softly. Elizabeth nodded and tore her eyes away from it to look at him.

"D'you think…I mean, have you…well…you know…" She gestured toward the throne, her expression caught somewhere between guilt and mischief.

"Sat in it?" Jack finished for her, amused. She nodded.

"That's a bit sacrilegious, love, don't you think?"

Her gaze slipped from the throne and towards his face, an eyebrow cocked.

"I mean, it's the throne of the Sea King himself. And it's sat here for over a thousand years, untouched. Just think, love," Jack said, spreading his arms to indicate the room, "no one has profaned this sacred space since before Jesus walked the earth. No one has sat in that throne since Poseidon ruled all the waters of the world."

Elizabeth watched Jack steadily as he turned to her.

"…Yet," he said, a spark of mischief flashing in his eyes. A smile to match the spark spread in answer across Elizabeth's face.

"Will you do the honors, Milady?" Jack asked, indicating the throne with a mocking courtly bow. With an air of great solemnity, Elizabeth ascended the remaining steps and sat gingerly.

Nothing happened.

She wriggled a bit, as if settling in and placed her arms on the arm rests, a speculating look on her face. Jack suppressed an insane urge to giggle.

"Well, love?" he asked. "How does it feel?"

"This," Elizabeth announced with majesty, staring off into the distance "is one damned uncomfortable chair."

Jack gave a whoop of laughter and clung to the armrest. He snuck a glance at Elizabeth's face, still wearing a look of distant nobility, and for some reason this entertained him more. He sunk down on his knees next to the throne, shaking with mirth.

Elizabeth looked down at him.

"What on earth is so funny?" she demanded.

"Most powerful god…his bloody throne" Jack forced out between giggles, "and all you can say is…" He gave a whinny of laughter. "Damned uncomfortable?"

He sank down on his haunches and positively howled. Elizabeth watched him, wondering if perhaps the race for this treasure trove had finally driven him all the way round the bend. Finally, he caught his breath and propped his elbows up on the arm rest. He rested his chin in his hand and looked seriously at her.

"Would you like a cushion?" he inquired. She stared at him for a moment.

"Well, I don't know," she said. "D'you think you could find one?"

Jack took one look at her honeyed eyes, alight with laughter and dancing with mischief and lost his head completely. He wrapped one hand around the back of her neck and the other around her waist and pulled her inexorably toward him until her lips met his.

For a moment, he lost himself in the taste of the sea and the sweet sense of homecoming. Then Elizabeth shifted, and he remembered where he was, who he was kissing, and exactly how good she was with a knife.

He broke off the kiss hurriedly and sat back. It seemed very quiet in the throne room, nothing but the sound of Elizabeth's soft breathing and the quickening pound of Jack's own heart. He took a breath, cleared his throat.

"Sorry," he ventured, finally. Elizabeth said nothing. Slowly, reluctantly, he dragged his gaze to her face.

"For what, exactly?" she inquired. Her eyes glittered and a small, dangerous smile curved her lips—

—dangerous because it was a smile that angels would fall to be near and her eyes looked at Jack the way she looked at the throne she sat upon, the way a starving man looked at a banquet, the way Circe eyed Odysseus, lust and want and need and absolute power flaring in the melichrous depths. She held out a hand. Jack knelt before her and she buried her hands in his dreadlocks, forcing his head back. He started to speak, but she brushed her lips across his, whispering "Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods," before capturing his mouth in a kiss. He would have gasped, if he could, so strong was her want, her need. He felt as if she were sucking the breath from his very bones, but he didn't care. He tasted blood and wanted more, clawing at her clothes as she slipped his shirt from his shoulders. She emerged and he pulled away to look at her, all long legs and lithe body, glowing like honey in the white room. Golden chains snaked around her neck and fell across her small breasts, gleaming against her fair skin. Her eyes glittered an impossible array of amber and topaz and her lips were swollen from his kisses. She was like sunlight, like fire and he so very badly wanted to get burned.

He reached out a reverent hand to stroke her skin.

"Stand up," she whispered, slipping off the throne to kneel in front of him. He complied. With a swift movement, she undid his belt and stripped him of his trousers. He looked down at her bright head.

" Elizabeth, what are you—" he began, but then he felt a touch, feather light and burning like a brand. "Oh," he said. "That."

Elizabeth leaned forward.

"Jesus," he gasped, his voice hoarse. He could feel her smiling, knew she gloried in this power, knew she could run him through right then and he would die a happy, helpless man. He felt all his thoughts slipping away like silver fish, losing himself in the pure sensation of her mouth, her hands. She released him and stood up, trailing little kissing nips and fingernails up with her. His mouth sought hers and he almost fancied he could taste himself on her lips. The world was spinning around them now, or perhaps they were spinning around in the world, but it didn't matter as his legs hit the throne and she pushed him down on it, as she straddled his thighs and started to move. She was hot and tight and wet and shone above him like daybreak on the waves. He was climbing, climbing, climbing ever higher as she rocked above him, climbing so high he felt as if he could touch the sun, and in that moment when she shuddered around him and cried out his name, in that moment when his every muscle went rigid and his blood caught fire, he was touching the sun for this was the place where day and night meet in a blinding flash of light that exploded before them, around them, inside them. And then he was falling, falling, falling back into the darkly welcoming embrace of the sea.

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Elizabeth reclined lazily in the throne, toying with the buttons of her half-open shirt, and watched Jack trying to sort out his jumbled pile of clothing and effects. The way that man dressed was ridiculous. It'd taken her a total of thirty seconds to get dressed, most of which was used to turn her breeches the right way out, and ten minutes later, Jack had managed to put on his own breeches and nothing else. Not that she was complaining, really, she thought, as he pulled on a sash which had somehow become stuck to his waistcoat. Muscles shifted underneath the tattooed canvas of his skin. She slid off the throne and walked over to him, studying the tattoos. She traced a few with her fingertip, an Aztec looking sun and a few words in a language entirely unknown to her. Jack looked at her over his shoulder.

"Like them, do you?" he asked, grinning a bit. She nodded.

"What do they mean?"

Jack shrugged. The tattoos rippled. Elizabeth resisted a very strong urge to pull him down and have her way with him again.

"Damned if I know," he said. "What's it look like at the moment?"

She looked at him blankly.

"You mean you don't know what your own tattoos look like?"

"They change, love," he said, by way of explanation. "According to…I don't know what actually, since I don't know what they say. They're the doing of a little old wise-woman I met in my misspent youth. I was assured by her tribe that it was a great honor, since most of the time she just killed people." Jack shrugged again. Elizabeth swallowed and managed a somewhat strangled "Mmm." Jack turned back to his labors.

"Need any help?" Elizabeth asked, when she could trust herself to speak.

"Me? No," Jack said. "I'm just looking for something…I could've sworn I put it in the…Maybe it's in this one…"

He rifled through his pockets, muttering. Elizabeth watched him, amusement glinting in her eyes.

"Ah," he said, finally. "I found it."

He turned around to face her, one hand closed into a fist.

"I know I beat you here and all, but since I am such a kind and generous soul—"

"Thin ice, Jack," said Elizabeth, eyebrow raised.

"And seeing as you're the one who gave me directions in the first place," he continued smoothly, "it doesn't strike me as quite fair that you leave entirely empty-handed, so with that in mind, I would like to give you a small trifle, a memento, a token of my appreciation. As it were."

Elizabeth's other eyebrow went up. Jack grinned and opened his hand.

In his palm, gleaming against his gypsy-dark skin, lay a small, golden ring.