The Straw Hats darted off the ship, yowling and fighting and disappearing into the brush of an uncharted island, already teeming with unknown peril. It was like this every day, every island, but someone always needed to stay behind to watch the Thousand Sunny. It was often a job reserved for Franky, who would toil away in his workshop making repairs so minuscule the crew would never notice, but on the rare and blessed occasion that danger was imminent, Nami and Usopp would slide down behind the ship's ornate rails and call from the surf,

"You can do it! Gambare!"

They watched with relief as the last of their friends disappeared amid an overgrown hellscape of crawling vines and creeping shadows, Franky scooping Robin onto his shoulder, smiling and giggling. Three tense breaths passed between them. The ring of Luffy's voice died down, muffled by the jungle.

"Shower? I could run a bath? Or the bed, oh Nami, the giant bed... it's empty," Usopp swooned as he spun to standing from his hidden vantage, freezing only inches away from Nami's nose. She was already smirking, already bare breasted and impossibly stunning.

She tossed her bikini at his face and waved her hand.

"No time, I'd bet we've got twenty minutes or less before they punch whatever made that tremor to death."

Usopp plucked the tiny strip of clothing from his nose and jammed it into his pocket, murmuring, "Ever the risk taker."

She fluffed her hair over her shoulders, a sheet of fire-forged bronze that caught the light and burned with it, long and grazing the subtle curve of her spine. She was an ocean of soft, pale skin, glistening in the afternoon sun. She was everything he didn't know he desired.

"You're awfully clothed, don't you think?"

Usopp knew how to play this game, and Nami was never wrong. He undressed down to nothing, leaving his clothing where it fell. Kicking off his boots, he stumbled after the woman who was now dazzlingly naked and standing to catch the sun in a plush patch of grass. He slid down to his knees at her feet, grabbed her by the hips, and buried his face between her thighs.

Nami giggled, and moaned, tangling her fingers in his coarse, curling hair and admiring the man drinking her in, prostrate before her, chestnut eyes hazy and contented. One hand slid up her back, another slid between his thighs.

If they had more time…

But they didn't have more time, and as much as she was here for foreplay, it was the main attraction that she was really willing to risk everything for.

She pressed her palm to his forehead and tipped back his head.

Usopp pouted, "If you're going to treat me like your dog, you should at least let me lick you."

"I'm sure you'd be very happy if everyone came back now and saw you like this."

He grabbed her by the hips and tugged her into his lap, a lazy smile on his face.

"I'm a good boy, Nami."

She smirked, golden eyes sparkling, "Yeah, you are," and wrapped both hands around the length of him, petting him with her thumb. He breathed in a quick, ragged breath.

"Very, very good," She cooed.

His stomach flexed, ridged with new muscle beneath honey brown skin dappled with soft, dark hair. She traced it, the tip of her finger sliding down his chest and between his thighs as he breathed out a heady laugh.

Two years, it wasn't that long, but it had been good to him. His voice was fuller now as he swallowed down his disbelief, shoulders broader now as he wrapped his arms around her waist. His hands were bigger now, with heavy square fingers that brushed against the heat between her thighs and slipped inside.

"Oh… ha," She panted, chewing at her bottom lip, gently rocking her hips to match the motion of his hand while she met him together in long, ragged strokes.

This could have been enough. A few, fleeting moments between friends turned… not lovers, but something else, something in between. Something carnal and confusing and beautiful at the same time. But it didn't have to be enough.

Usopp rolled forward onto his knees to whisper in her ear, brushing the weight of himself against her belly and earning another hungry whimper.

"How do you want me?"

Heat flooded down her throat where his lips had just barely touched her, burned through her breasts and stomach and thighs.

"Laid back, propped up on your forearms… so you can watch me." He obeyed. "You're biggest like this."

How had she learned to move like this? He remembered her being lithe, twiggy, angry, voicelessly scaling the side of a ship and disappearing through a tiny porthole. Cat-burglar, they called her, because of her silent step, because of her sharp claws. The woman that mounted him now was as far from that girl of two years ago as he could imagine. She was unstoppable. She would destroy him.

And against all odds, he welcomed it.

Nami's eyes narrowed hungrily. She swallowed down a ragged groan, rubbing the back of her hand against his cheek and palming his shoulders and chest. There was nowhere she didn't want to look, no part of him that wasn't worth every wanton glance and touch and kiss and bite, and still, she couldn't take her eyes off of his face as she gripped him in one hand and gently brushed him against her.

"Oh, fuck."

That look, right there. That look of complete and utter greedy desire and knowledge that of everyone who fawned over her, he was the only one. He was the only one who satisfied her. Part of her hated it. Most of her loved it.

It took everything in him to relax his hips and let her slide down against him.

"You okay?" He breathed.

She nodded, just enough, gripping his waist.

"Good."

As swift as Usopp had pulled her down, he leaned forward, threw an arm around her shoulders, and met her in a hungry kiss, burying his hips against hers.

They met in ecstasy again and again, pleasure flooding through them, voices lost and tangled in one another's embrace. He grazed his teeth against her, rubbed his thumb between her thighs, trailed careful kisses down every exposed inch of pale, soft, sun-kissed flesh. He moved for her entirely, his pleasure linked only to hers. And when she whimpered, so beautifully soft, and shattered against him once, and twice, he rode her through the aftershock of her ecstasy until she lay trembling in his arms.

Usopp slid himself from her, still holding her as tight to his chest as he could, and stroked himself breathlessly.

"Hey, Usopp," She purred, lips brushing against his ear. "I think you've earned your favorite ending." Nami pressed her breasts together and smiled coyly.

A dog does not disobey his master. Usopp ran his palm down his face and groaned, panting. He did not last.

They lay together for only a few breaths, hearts pounding as one. There was never enough time for them. Neither ever stopped to wonder, with more time, would the spell somehow break that bound them together? Usopp's story had been written long ago, and Nami's was only just beginning.

She brushed her fingers against his cheek, ran her thumb down the patch of hair on his chin, and traced the curve of his throat. As she did, he allowed himself the pleasure of admiring the woman in his arms, one of his best friends, who had somehow grown from the same stick-thin teenager as him into this absolutely stunning woman, watching him with dewy eyes. He chuckled.

She pouted. "What?"

"Nothing," He lied.

A single breath passed between them as Nami leaned forward. She kissed him, soft and quick, over as soon as it began.

"…Did you just kiss me, Nami-swan?"

And like that, their tryst had ended.

Nami rolled her eyes and gently shoved the man she'd been entwined with off of her, standing and stretching in the sun. The day had was young—there would be hours more of this sun, soft clouds, the gentle rocking of the sea. The waves would be smooth and the weather clear, a perfect day for coffee and sweets and tanning herself on the top deck beside her tangerine grove.

"You know, if you tell anyone about this, I will destroy you," She mused, a little flash of fire in her eyes.

Usopp held up his hands in surrender. "Oh, don't worry, I know my place. You're probably the most beautiful woman on the seas, seriously Nami, everyone we meet either wants you or wants to be you. Even Boa Hancock is jealous."

"What are you then?"

"Very lucky."

She scoffed and flicked him on the nose, rubbing what was left of him into her chest. He handed her a soft towel and she thanked him absent mindlessly, then froze.

"Shit."

Luffy's voice rang out above the canopy.

In an instant, they leaped for the deck, fumbling and scrabbling over one another, gathering up their scattered clothes and clumsily tugging them on as if being dressed alone would somehow erase everything that had taken place between them.

"Usopp."

He laced up his boot and swore.

"Usopp-a!"

"Yes, Nami."

She stood before him with her arms outstretched and hissed, "Where is my top?"

He paled as the two of them dove around the swing and under the seat as the sounds of breaking branches and raucous cheering drew closer and closer. In a sudden moment of realization, Usopp shot bolt upright and jammed his hand into his pocket.

He chuckled, for a moment, before the same delicate hand that had been so kind to him only minutes before came down on the side of his head with enough force to shoot stars before his eyes.

Luffy was the first to fling himself onto the ship, grinning madly as Usopp planted himself between his captain and his navigator. Nami smiled weakly in return, tugging the last strands of her hair free from her swimsuit.

For a single, brief moment, Usopp could have sworn Luffy's dark, bright eyes flickered towards their flushed cheeks, his displaced hair, her nervous glance. But there was no way that Luffy would know. He couldn't know. That was the only way that they could keep narrowly avoiding utter destruction because nobody would ever suspect that there could be anything going on between the two of them.

Luffy snickered and threw a rubber arm around his friend, "Usopp, you missed the coolest thing."

By the time Luffy had started to drag him away, the rest of the Straw Hats had piled onto the Sunny. Sanji flitted forward and took Nami's hand in his, dreamy blue eyes eternally hopeful, and vowed to never leave her again.

She flashed him a careful smile, her best imitation of normal.

Sanji had grown quite a bit in those two years as Usopp had. They all had, she noticed, even Chopper had shed some of his strange, inhuman, boyish charms and now seemed like more of a young man than the fawn they'd found on Drum Island. It was a wonder that she hadn't noticed any of the others until this moment.

Maybe, she thought, there was something different in the air here? Something about this strange island that she could have understood if she had left the deck of the ship. Maybe it was the island or maybe it was him—them—the sudden weight in her heart as she realized what she had done. How she had kissed him without thinking. Her mind had not been her own.

She sighed and smiled.

Maybe it was neither of those things. Maybe it was that two years really hadn't been so long after all. Maybe it was the knowledge that even though each day brought them nearer and nearer to Raftel, to the One Piece, their journey was actually just beginning. There was still so much more of the world to see.