A/N: As usual, I can't thank everyone enough for your overwhelming enthusiasm for this story! You make me do happy dances. Haha. Really, it happens. Thank you so much for reading, because I'm having a blast writing it. Thought I'd better post this toute suite before I get in trouble for starting another story while leaving such a cliffy… :) My newest creation is an "On Stranger Tides" remix, with Elizabeth inserted into the plot. Feel free to check it out. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Chapter 21: Sweet Siren

Again he swept her up into his arms, carrying her back to the bed as though she weighed no more than a feather. He lay her down, and she sighed with relief as seamlessly his body settled above hers, his delicious weight pressing her down into her down mattress. Her hands swept over his arms and chest, exploring, worshiping, remembering.

She knew this body so well, knew the map of his scars like a navigator knows a chart, and yet somehow this seemed all so new.

Several times she forgot herself, opening her mouth to cry out as Jack nibbled and kissed her flesh, his lips seeking the tender skin of her neck and what lay hidden by the bodice of her night-rail. He hushed her with fingers pressed to her plump lips, and would forget to be quiet himself when she sucked upon the tips of his fingers hungrily.

"Lizzy," he growled, taking her nipple between his teeth through the thin lawn of her night-rail. She could feel his arousal for her grinding against her hip, hard as ship's oak, yet she knew it was an organ sheathed in the softest velvet. She wanted him in her hands, in her body, so much that she could think of nothing else. Her long fingers moved to unlace his breeches, pulling desperately at the knot. A cry of frustration escaped her as he moved out of her reach, travelling further down.

When he paid her a wicked smile, a flash of gold and eyes that burned with a fire that could consume the world—she knew he'd done it on purpose. He was teasing her, and she hated and loved him for it. "Pirate," she sighed, relinquishing herself to him again as he drew her night-rail up her thighs, the whispering soft fabric against her sensitive flesh a torturous pleasure.

"Guilty, luv." With a low growl from deep in his chest Jack rubbed his cheek against her inner thigh, grazing her with a day's worth of stubble. She relished the texture of him, loving his rough edges far more than the gentleman's façade he wore for the benefit of Port Royal.

My pirate.

She didn't dare say it aloud. The world—this truce between them—was far too tenuous.

Without further preamble he kissed her there, in that place from which all this howling insanity seemed to originate. Taut as a bow her spine curled beneath him, his name a ragged sigh on her lips. Dizzy with desire, maddened by his touch, her long fingers fisted in the thick black mane of his hair. Without mercy he explored her with his mouth, tongue sweeping back and forth in a hard rhythm that left her boneless beneath him.

Just when she felt certain she would burst into a thousand tiny pieces, Jack retreated, coming to all fours above her. Trembling, her eyes unable to focus, she reached out for him. "Please," she begged.

Have mercy, her eyes pleaded. Don't make me wait any longer.

Jack had envisioned this moment more times than he could count. He knew he should draw it out longer. Tease her into a pliable putty with kisses and gentle caresses. A better man would have, he reckoned. But he had waited too long already. He knew her body like the back of his hand, and yet he did not know enough.

It was Jack's eternal curse, it seemed.

No treasure was ever enough, and this one he hungered for the most of all.

Wordlessly he divested her of her nightgown, his hands urgent yet somehow also gentle. Her fingers trembled as she attempted the buttons of his tunic, and it seemed his were no better. They shared a shaky laugh at themselves and a kiss so sweet it curled Elizabeth's toes.

"Twas easier on the island, eh?" he whispered, referring to his habit of going about without a shirt.

Yet Elizabeth couldn't help but gather a deeper meaning from his words. Despite the fact that they had been through hell on that island—sunbaked, starved, thirsty all the time—it had been a true paradise for them.

"I've never been happier than we were there," she answered, meaning every word.

"Lizzy darlin', do you remember we almost died there?" he teased, even if in his heart he completely agreed.

"Yes. But first, we lived."

When at last Jack rendered himself bare Elizabeth pulled him to her, sighing with relief as she felt his bare skin against her own, the ridges of his male body perfectly suited to fill the soft curves of her own. How easily they fit together, she marveled. It seemed as though nothing could have been so natural as this; he and she, together on a large soft bed in the moonlight.

Jack gathered her close, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, his lips upon hers. He rocked against her, her legs opening in invitation of their own volition. She was so warm and wet, slick with desire; it made Jack dizzy to think it was all for him. He still could hardly understand what this beautiful woman saw in a scallywag like him.

When slowly he entered her Elizabeth could not suppress a groan, muffled in the bend of his neck. He filled her body, but she felt him in her soul, a complete melting of physical pleasure and emotional satisfaction. His fingers laced with hers above her head, his lips branded his mark upon her skin. Slowly he began to move, evoking the most exquisite pleasure, and yet it was not enough.

"Take me, Jack," she whispered against the shell of his ear, teeth teasing the lobe ever so gently. "You can take me the way you've wanted to all along."

The way he was too good of a man to take for himself, before.

Her long legs wrapped about his waist, pulling him deeper, and something snapped within the pirate, the tenuous threads of his self-control finally unravelling for all her charms. "Lizzy," he groaned raggedly, holding himself above her. Lovingly she ran her hands over the wiry muscles corded upon his arms and chest, the scars and tattoos, his life written in pain and ink upon his skin. "My sweet little siren. Do you know what you do to me?"

He began to move in a way that stole her breath away, his hips rolling deliciously against hers, further igniting her desire with every deliberate stroke. It quickly took her to heights she'd never dreamed imaginable, a sweet madness that left her unable to speak, unable to think past anything but Jack's body moving against hers.

"I have wanted this since the day I pulled you from the harbor," Jack went on. "The way you looked at me…" The memory caused him to close his eyes and drive inside her, the pleasure of her hot tight channel almost too much to stand. She'd looked upon him with curiosity and wonder, and not a trace of the uneasy fear he'd grown used to. It wore on a man's soul to be constantly regarded as something that might bite without provocation, no better than an animal. With just one look she had shown him such mercy, a balm for his soul, the likes of which he hadn't even known he craved.

Jack gathered her in his arms, moving them closer to the headboard. He gripped the carved wood in his strong hands, so hard it creaked as steadily he pushed Elizabeth closer and closer to her peak. "I've wanted to be with you since I was just a girl," she confessed between kisses.

Jack laughed a little, his eyebrows raised with suggestion and mischief. "Indeed? Precocious lil' thing that ye were."

She smacked his shoulder, laughing, breathlessly basking in their joy. "Not like this," she amended, cupping Jack's cheeks in her hands. "But still, I wanted you. I've always found you wonderful, Jack."

"Oh love. Fool that you be…" he warned her, rolling so that she now sat atop him. And yet the way he looked up at her did not speak of a man invested in caution, his eyes glittering like rogue stars in an endless night.

"Don't say that," she scolded, lifting herself upon him and sliding back down in a way that caused his eyes to flutter closed.

"Yes, mum," he acquiesced, that shapely mouth curling in an insouciant smile. Hungrily Elizabeth watched him below her, drinking in this sight so that she may sear it upon her mind forever. He was so beautiful she could hardly stand it, and she could not shake the feeling that this happiness was some forbidden twist of fate. That at any moment the powers would seek to snatch it from them.

Elizabeth watched as Jack licked the pad of his thumb, and stroked the nub of flesh between her legs, sending a bolt of pleasure through her core. "Time to come for me, luv. Because you are too bloody beautiful and I can't hold out much longer." In tandem they moved, Elizabeth holding Jack's other hand upon her breast, gripping him desperately as she spiraled towards release.

He could feel her heart racing beneath his palm, a pounding that matched his own. It wasn't long before her body clenched upon him in that ultimate pleasure, his name a ragged sigh upon her lips that she barely managed not to scream out. Jack followed close behind, coaxed by the fierce spasms of her channel, spilling inside her body in a blinding rush of warmth.

She collapsed upon him, a ragged but happy sigh upon her lips. Jack wrapped his arms around her, and they lay like they were dead for what felt like an age.

"M'sorry, luv," he finally sighed, sliding out of her. "Didn't mean to be careless."

He'd forgotten everything in that moment but the sublime bliss of being inside her.

"It's fine," she assured him. She could drink her potion in the morning, the way she always did after every rendezvous with Norrington.

Or maybe she wouldn't, she thought to herself in a crazy moment, biting her lip. Just maybe she would keep a piece of Jack all to herself. A fey child with golden locks and shining midnight eyes, a love that could not sail away from her.

As though he read her thoughts all too well, Jack fixed her with a gimlet stare. "Darlin' don't do anything rash. A babe would be a burden I don't think ye can rightly fathom."

"I know," she sighed, closing her eyes. She rested her cheek upon his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. "I don't want a baby right now," she assured him. She wanted to have adventures, not play nursemaid. "But if I were to ever have one, Jack, I would want it to be yours."

Thoughts of fatherhood were always something he'd punctuated with a cold sweat, but now he felt an undefinable ache for her words, just above his heart.

What had this woman done to him?

Clearly, he was losing his mind.

Jack exhaled a deep sigh, his fingers sliding through the golden mass of Elizabeth's hair, his hand cupping her head to his chest.

"Well…thank you kindly, luv. That is perfectly terrifying."

But he said it in such a glib way that made her laugh. Satiated and filled with a floating joy, Elizabeth snuggled into the bend of Jack's neck, and the pair dozed.

They woke before dawn to make love once more, this time so tenderly that Elizabeth thought her heart might explode for all the adoration in it. And yet he did not say the words, and neither did she, afraid to break the gossamer spell that had fallen upon them that evening. She dared not speak of the future, his plots, or his intentions towards her.

For one night, just one blessed night, she just wanted to enjoy him without a care for tomorrow.