Chapter: Tension

-

Silence.

Sophia knocked again

Nothing.

Carefully and almost silently, she creaked the door open, having found that it was not locked. The room was empty.

"Damn," she cursed quietly, before closing the door and sliding down the wall to sit, huddled with her knees pulled to her chest, beside Jack's door, gazing mutely at the stars overhead, twinkling like fireflies. Sophia did not know much of stars, and wondered vaguely if someone in this world actually knew what they were. She wondered many other things, her mind gratefully sparing her images of him. Who was "him"? She questioned. She knew, though. For once, it was not her father, or her rapist, or her husband.

Before long, she was asleep, sitting beside the captain's door.

-

Jack was drinking with his crew, but was not drunk. He fully intended to work more on solving Sophia's riddle later tonight, and did not want to fog his mind with rum. Even he knew that some things were more important than fun and games. Some things.

He watched as his crew became more and more inebriated, their fingers slipping and fumbling against the table as they searched for their rum, their speech nearly incoherent by the time that they noticed Jack's strange mood.

"Why're y'not drinkin', Cap'n?" This came from a man called Sebastian

Jack grinned. "I 'ave business after this. Can't be. . .  impaired, savvy?"

"Ah. . . business." Foolish laughter from him and his companions. "Tell us, mate. Whoss she like?"

Jack furrowed his brow, his fingertips tapping against the neck of his rum bottle as he considered their question. "Wha's who like?" He asked lightly. Sebastian hesitated.

"Stop bein' a bloody puss, Bass," interjected Thandor, a curious gleam to his eyes. "What's Sophia like 'n bed, Captain?"

Jack masked his surprise with a sly, cat-like grin. He wondered vaguely what had induced the idea and why they were so sure that he had bedded Sophia. They wanted to know, then? "Bloody vixen, she is. Ne'er seen anythin' like 'er when she gets riled."

Thandor leaned back in his seat, hands locked behind his head, satisfied. "Thought so. Seems. . . feisty." Chuckles of agreement sound from the rest of the crew. Lusty eyes, Jack thought as he gazes at his companions.

"Feisty's not th' word for it, mates." Flashing them one last devious grin, Jack set his bottle on the table and rose from his seat, collecting his hat and placing it on his head with flourish. "Well, gentlemen, I'll be excusin' meself, then. I've got a certain lady waitin' for me." Jack turned to leave, but, as a question arose in his mind, ceased his movement and held up an index finger in query. "Jus' wonderin', wha' made you men so sure tha' I'd had her?"

Sebastian shrugged. "You watch 'er, mate. An' she seems to. . . respond t' you."

Jack's face remained carefully impassive as he left amid a chorus of hoots and catcalls.

"Bed 'er good for me, mate!"

-

Jack was very, very surprised to find Sophia, of all things, asleep outside his cabin. Very surprised. She looked pale and fragile, bathed in moonlight.

"Sophie." He shook her a bit, to no avail. "SOPHIE!"

"What!?" She shouted, jerking awake, surprised to find a hand shaking her and that she was not, in fact, in her nice warm bed but instead outside, sitting outside on the hard wooden deck with a sore bum. Blinking away the tempting haze of sleep, she glanced up to find Jack staring at her, his face silhouetted by the light of the stars and moon. She could only see black where his expression would have been. She did not like it. "Jack?"

"What're you doin' out 'ere, love?" Jack asked, quietly. His mind was still on the conversation that had occurred between him and his crew.

"I'm not sure. . ." Sophia's eyes widened as she remembered why she had ventured from her cabin. Only to see if I could hurry up the treasure finding process, right? Of course. "Oh. . ."

"Oh." Jack repeated, his hands waving vaguely. Sophia watched them. "Well, scurry on back to you're bed, then. I 'ave things t' do." He said dismissively.

"Um. . . could I come in for a bit, Jack? I may be able to help."

Jack turned his head sharply towards her, his expression calculating. How had she known he hadn't solved the riddle yet? "I thought you said you couldn't?"

Sophia shrugged, her voice quiet as she spoke and still somewhat groggy from sleep. "Truthfully, I don't actually know. It's not as if I have experience in the matter." She added wryly. Jack nodded, before swinging his door open and, very discourteously, left it ajar for her to close behind her.

Sophia sat down, the wooden chair hard against her spine. Jack was seated at his desk, reclining casually in his chair, intent upon the curling piece of parchment in his hands. Sophia watched the curve of his torso as he slouched, stretched and contracting muscle.

Jack broke the silence, reading softly from the parchment. "'A place named for th' oldest an' wisest of things.'"

Sophia knew, of course she knew, but when she opened her mouth to answer, all sound escaped her. She coughed, and attempted again, failing miserably. She hated the sensation of having no voice, of being silent and ignored by the world. "I. . . I can't, Jack. It won't let me." Jack looked at her from under heavy brows, watching with his dark eyes. Sophia lowered her gaze to the floor.

He had not told anyone that he had already discovered the solution to on section of the riddle.

Most precious to any seaman,

A carrier of both gifts and ill news.

She travels with the greatest of ease,

Although a swift tumult and swell

 Of unexpected affairs will fell her.

My own will be the statement you require,

For strongest in her time she was.

Jack had solved this with ease; the word he needed was the name of Ektibar's ship. Jack smiled faintly in thought. A man after his own heart.

It had been late at night, as it always seemed to be when his mind was working at its best. With the help of his book and years of legends told, he now knew the name. La Mujer Fatal. The Fatal Woman. How ironic, Jack had thought.

"La Mujer Fatal, aye?" He questioned, inspecting Sophia's reaction with care.

She glanced up, her eyes bright, nodding slightly. "That was his ship, I believe. You solved it?"

"'Course I did, love. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow!"

"So I've heard," Sophia responded with a smile eloquent with dry humor. Jack watched her for a moment, motionless and silent, before rising to sway towards her, standing about a foot from her and leaning forward as to severely trespass her personal space, his eyes furrowed and focused fixedly upon her face.

"So you can't help me, then?" He asked, his voice several notches below its normal frequency. Once again, Sophia noticed a powerful, male scent and felt her insides twitch in reaction. Ashamed of her body's response to his proximity, she lowered her eyes, shaking her head slowly.

"You're sure?" Jack cocked his head slightly, an intelligent and highly sly smile distractedly fixed upon his lips, his eyes still and locked on her face. He could see the flush across her neck and through the opening of her shirt down to the tops of her breasts, pink and inviting, and could almost hear the quickening of her breath. His fingers convulsed. He wanted to touch her.

Sophia opened her mouth to smartly reply "quite," but was silenced when his hot mouth covered her own, gentle and still insisting of her compliance. Sophia was ready this time, unlike their last hasty departing caress, the previous reaction of her body spurring her into submission. She knew the art of the kiss; she knew how to move in such a way as to drive her partner into a further state of passion, she knew how to tempt and tease, compel and dismiss.

He was heat, seeping into her muscles and joints like a delectable potion, rouging her skin and liquefying her knees. The heat brought a sigh and a faint whimper to her lips, her hands raising to either side of his face, her fingers spread, feeling him and possessing him. She felt the vibration of his groan against her fingers, and his arms came around her, picking her up onto her feet and pressing her against him, her breasts, nipples upright and tingling, to his chest, his hips to her belly, lips to lips. The kiss was soft, but Sophia could tell that he would not keep it such for long, could feel his arousal growing against her stomach even in the short time of their embrace.

She was driving him crazy. Her lips yielding against his were enough, but her small, curving frame pressed to him would take him over the edge, he knew. Jack knew his limits and that he was fast approaching them. Already, his trousers had grown several sizes too small for the situation, his loins aching against the softness of her flesh.

He had to touch her skin.

Sophia obeyed readily as he backed her against the wall, her spine arching at a sultry angle to the wooden boards, gasping when the rough warmth of his hands lifted her blouse to run across her belly, spanning the slender width of her waist. Her skin trembled beneath his touch, and Sophia succumbed to the fog of desire that overtook her mind, unknowing of all else. She shut her eyes.

She was so soft, perfect beneath his hands. She was everything, experienced, soft, innocent, practiced, and virginal in that she had never really known driving, bowel-wrenching passion. Jack continued to kiss her in an increasingly fervent manner, the caress rough and nearly painful against her lips, one hand departing from her skin to skirt the curve of her left breast with a practiced lightness, carefully avoiding the nipple, torturing, and inciting a moan from the back of her throat.

Sophia wanted him, hard and safe and hot, inside her very depths. Her belly felt light and airy, her womb constricted and ready in her desire. "Jack. . ." She breathed, tilting her head back as he left her shaking lips. 

That was enough, her voice, his name. Jack could not control himself much longer if she insisted on speaking in such a way, low and throaty with passion. His hips bucked forward, grinding her own to the wall. Sophia panted quietly as he peppered kisses across her jaw and throat, his mustache and goatee providing a coarse contrast to the softness of his lips. Her hands were moving over him now, his shoulders, his face, his chest. She delighted in fingering the bare skin in the V-neck of his shirt, dark and rough with sun. Slyly, Sophia shifted her thigh so that it brushed against his groin, the center of his lust. Jack groaned, pressing into her hips in a sort of perverse punishment, for that was exactly what she had wanted.

Jack heard her protesting whimper as his hands left her skin through his lust-filled haze, but ignored her, instead concentrating on the buttons of her blouse. Sophia shrugged halfway from her shirt once he had conquered several of the buttons, and Jack, finding that one smooth shoulder bared to him was too tempting to simply bypass, abandoned her blouse to bury his face in the crook of her shoulder.

Sophia squeezed her eyes shut as Jack pressed hot kisses across her shoulder and the tops of her breast, her breath increasing its rhythm to a further extent. Quite suddenly, images of her house in Port Royal flashed in the blackness of her vision. Sophia realized what she would loose if she submitted to Jack's seduction and remaining on the Pearl.

Safety, home, a comfortable bed. Hot water, growing old comfortably, children (she still had hope). A husband, one that would love her past the time when old age wrinkled her skin and caused her body to sag. One that would not busy himself with common whores and drink.

Of course Jack noticed when Sophia grew still beneath his lips and touch, but by now would not have been able to stop if he tried. Her softness, her vulnerability, her strength, her body, they were all pushing him into such a lustful trance that the world had blacked out around him and only she existed. He wanted to sink himself into her.

"Jack. . . stop." What a contradictory command, with her body willing him to do just the opposite, to go further and further until there was no place left to reach.

Jack barely heard her, but mumbled against her collarbone in a non-committal response.

Sophia attempted to quell her body's desire. "Don't. . . I have to stop. . ." Firmly, she pressed her palm to Jack's shoulder, pushing him away, away from her.

This, needless to say, got his attention. "Jesus, Sophie. Wha' is it?" He said, his voice a low growl of frustration, laden with the kind of hunger that shot a shiver up her spine.

"I can't, Jack. I'm sorry." He stared at her, his eyes black and expressionless. She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw.

Jack was working like the devil not to say anything, not to beg her to stay and cure the ache in his loins. Working not to tie her to the bed (again) and take her, possess her completely, her thighs shaking as she whimpered beneath his touch, her – Stop, Jack.

Sophia stood quietly for several moments, leaning ever so slightly against him until her knees could support her once more. God, how she wanted to stay, to be warmed and tortured by the intoxication of his caress. With a faint sigh, she eased out from beneath his body, and thought she heard a faint grown vibrate from his throat as she left.

And so she left, shaking, as Jack touched her only with the heat of his eyes.

-

"Bloody 'ell."

Jack pressed his forehead against the wall, his eyes shut as he willed the sexual energy to bleed from his veins. It didn't work. He would have to keep from doing. . . that again, because if she asked him to stop once more he didn't think he would be able to do so. No, Jack thought, glancing down at himself briefly with a sigh, most definitely not.

For now, Jack concentrated on slowing his breathing and calming himself, allowing the adrenaline to fade away, even if his lust for Sophia did not. He wished he were in Tortuga, where a practical strumpet was always in hand for situations like these. In Tortuga –

Tortuga.

Tortoise, in Spanish.

Oldest and wisest of things.

Jack remembered, from stories and fables his mother had read to him as a child, that the tortoise had always been the wise one, the mentor, always portrayed as impossibly old and knowing of the ways of the world.

It had been right in front of his face the whole bloody time.

Now, if he could only solve the secret of the mysterious woman who tempted him so and then left him to bleed, to lust for the eternity of the night.

-

A/N: Oh my fucking GOD. That was. . . erm. . . exhilarating. Oooohhh. . . *basks in the sexiness that is JACK*

Okay, now that I've got that out of my system, I can actually talk. I hope this meets your expectations for the first really sexy scene. I'm sorry to keep you guys hangin', and I know you all want them to finally get on with it, but this is all part of the plot, ladies and gents, and we all know how important that is. I couldn't have them screwing like little jackrabbits (haha, JACKrabbits) before they even knew where to go to find the treasure, now could I (don't hurt me)? I PROMISE that we will get to it. Sophia can't be a Jack-virgin forever. I think I created a new term. Jack-virgin. Funny.

So, how about Tortuga being the "key" town? Unexpected much?

Once again, thanks to all the wonderful reviewers. I can't do it without you guys! 100+ reviews! That's AWSOME! AJ-Sparrow (I know, I couldn't resist the shirtless thing), DaydreamBeliever14 (Ha, me too. Oooh, you're so faithful, much kisses!), SparrowPhoenix (Long chapters = gift/curse. Thanks!), sakhara291 (I can always count on you. Thanks much.), Anaknusan (As I have said numerous times: hookedness is a good thing!), Cayenne Pepper Powder (Waiting, still waiting. Sorry!), zigzag (love ya, darlin'! E-mails are goood.), CrazyCanoeingGIT (Bad me! No Norrington sympathy – I'll remember), and A.H Smith (Cramming is much badness. Thanks!). I love you and thank you all!

Also, I'm going to MARCH FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS (yay!) this weekend in Washington, D.C., so I won't be able to write on the weekend, and it may take a bit longer to write the next chapter. Sorry!