Well I don't know about you, but I've had a glorious summer hiatus. Sorry for the delay, but at long last, we're back. Thank you once again to all who have favourited and followed and especially left reviews. You are wonderful.
Emma loved to watch Killian sailing. She was stretched out against the balustrade mid-ship, soaking up some sunshine and watching him at the helm. He was, for once, paying her no attention whatsoever, intent instead on the course, shouting the occasional order and watching the makeshift crew carefully to see if it was followed up. The leather pirate garb had disappeared before they fell through the portal and it had never reappeared, and now in dark cotton trousers and a blue linen shirt in the warm sun, he looked like an off-duty naval commander rather than a dreaded pirate captain. This crew, of course, was largely made up of his close friends and family members, with several women on board – Belle, Regina, Snow and Emma – so he had no need to shock his crew into obedience with unexpected violence. He looked both authoritative and relaxed, completely at home.
Emma's heart gave a little start at that. If home was the place you missed, then Killian surely missed the Jolly Roger when he wasn't on it. Emma missed it, too, because on the ship she felt at home with him. They had slept aboard for only one night on this journey, but curled up under his blankets, in his bunk, in his quarters, she felt perfectly safe and happy.
All she had been doing since she arrived in the Enchanted Forest months ago was struggle to get back to Storybrooke. But Emma knew that she needed to ask herself if Storybrooke was a reasonable long-term goal as a home. Her own parents had long wanted to return to their kingdom, and Killian now had enough family members to crew the Jolly Roger and lay siege to a town, if necessary. She might get back to Storybrooke, but was there any point in staying? She patted her belly and silently promised her baby that she and Killian would find her a home, wherever it may be.
The Jolly Roger sped almost over the tops of the waves, cutting through the water so efficiently that a mug of tea set on a shelf would still be full an hour after being set down. Emma knew this for a fact, as she disappeared below deck and picked up her forgotten cup of mint tea from the desk in Killian's quarters. Not a drop had escaped. She ran her hands over the desk, thinking about the decades that Killian had commanded this ship, the countless hours he must have spent here mapping, negotiating, threatening, researching, writing and... possibly screwing other women? She shook her head to clear the thought. Pointless to dwell on that, she chided herself. He had been as open and honest with her as she wanted him to be. She gave the desk an affectionate pat and was about to turn around when she felt familiar hands press against the backs of her thighs and slide sensually up over her arse.
"Did you know that I fantasise about taking you on my desk?" he whispered against her ear, drawing her dress higher up her legs. His hands roamed up and down her thighs before catching hold of her knickers and lowering them to the floor. She stepped out of them and looked back over her shoulder as he knelt down to stroke the sensitive skin of her inner thighs.
"Spread your legs a bit more for me, love," he ordered softly. Emma sighed contentedly and gave herself up to this. She leaned over the desk, propping her head on her folded arms. From seemingly nowhere, he produced a rolled-up blanket, which he slipped between her hip bones and the table. "To protect the baby," he explained softly. Killian played his fingers in all the right places, and when he had her as wet as he wanted her, she felt him stand up behind her. She felt his knuckles brush against her exposed arse and heard the low-pitched jangle of his heavy belt buckle being pulled free.
He reached across her back and found her hands on the desk. He kissed the backs of her hands, then the palms. "Emma, give me your wrists." She placed them in front of her. He wound his thick leather belt around her wrists, then nudged her bound hands to the opposite edge of the desk. Emma knew to hold on without being told. He kissed her shoulder in approval and nuzzled his face lovingly into her loose hair. He used both hands to spread her sex wide open for him, and Emma could feel every callous on his fingers as her massaged her roughly. She sighed and hummed and began to pant as he teased his cock at her entrance. She tensed slightly, knowing that from this angle there would be an initial burning stretch if he took her a bit hard.
"I have dreamt of this. If you had stayed, that night in the past, when I brought you back from the tavern... well, this is why I punched my past self. I knew he was steering you to this desk. I knew he'd try to tie you up. Would you have let him, Emma?"
Emma shook her head, still holding her breath in anticipation. "You told me not to trust him. I wouldn't have trusted him."
"Are you sure? I would have been very persuasive. You might have spread your legs like this for him." His cock was still rubbing against her clit, making Emma unconsciously spread her legs a bit wider for him.
"No," Emma sighed. "I wouldn't have been so vulnerable with him." Emma puffed out a breath across a knot in the wood. How many women had been laid out on this desk for him, how many had noticed that little reddish knot in the grain, their faces pressed to the wood?
"I'm not sure I believe you, Emma," he said, something a bit dark in his throaty whisper. "You're so wet. Do you want me?"
Even in her lust-induced haze, Emma clocked that this was a ridiculous question, given her current position. But she only breathed out the word yes, and she felt Killian kiss her shoulders before straightening behind her, his hands gripping her hips.
He thrust in hard. She cried out, just as he intended. Moving one hand on her clit and the other gripping her arse, Killian pushed in and out of her, roughly but not too hard. She could tell he was holding back, treating her carefully, caressing all the right places inside. Her bound hands couldn't get a purchase on the edge of the desk, so she clawed her nails across the polished wood. Over and again he thrust in and out, seconds and minutes blending together as the thick drag of his cock made her desperate. He was talking – filthy, wonderful compliments about her body; she caught some intriguing references to her ass to file away for later – and she felt herself winding up tighter and tighter, closer and closer. She must have been making sounds – he was whispering to her nonstop, telling her not to hold back – because finally he rubbed one hand up her body, gripping her breast and the back of her neck, then gripping her jaw. He roughly plugged two fingers into her mouth, and she instinctively stopped moaning and sucked. His other hand was between her legs, dipping down to gather her moisture from his cock as he pulled back. She could feel his fingers exploring the way she stretched around him. Then he brought his wet fingers back to her clit.
Emma exploded, choking his name out around the fingers still thrust in her mouth. As the last spasms of her orgasm faded, he pulled her hips away from the edge of the desk and brought both hands around to rub her taut, emerging bump. He continued to fuck her at a fast pace and she squeezed her muscles to stimulate him further. He groaned and started up a rhythm that she recognised as being solely for his pleasure. He came holding her belly with surprising gentleness, considering how hard his cock had been slamming into her from behind. He almost stilled inside her, thrusting gently and twitching as the last of his seed shot into her.
Killian's sweaty head rested against her back. "I love you both," he murmured, kissing her shoulder, refusing to withdraw. He held her there, both breathing hard, until he heard the men shouting above deck. They had spotted the port.
…
Killian knew this type of port town well. He'd never docked in this particular circle of hell before, but he could smell the whorehouses and cheap whiskey from the helm. The weather-torn waterfront stank of rot and unwashed, unemployed men. In days past, Hook would have swaggered down the gangway, killed a couple of local thugs to establish respect and taken over a local tavern to reward his men. He glanced at his current crew - two queens, one king, one librarian/princess, dozens of Jones family fishermen and his own pregnant wife - and realised that he was going to need a new career. Hook had nothing to lose, but Killian worried that his 13-year-old stepson would be propositioned by a desperate, diseased whore the minute he stepped off the ship.
He tucked Emma closer to his side as he steered into an opening; in her old job, she may have chased down scum in alleyways in the wrong parts of major cities, and Killian respected that. It didn't change the fact that he had no plans to let Emma anywhere near the shifting vermin he saw loitering at the harbour until he had the place under control.
Killian jumped up onto the gangway as soon as Mac and Will had the Jolly tied fast, and he stood tall and straight, surveying the port as though he owned it. Which he intended to. They needed to secure this hellhole as their entrance and exit, then gather intelligence on Merlin and his hold over the local area.
Noting every armed man for 50m in every direction, he began his swagger down to the dock. Then he felt someone tugging at his jacket sleeve.
"Umm, Captain, aren't you forgetting someone?" Emma deadpanned, taking hold of the arm he hadn't offered her.
Killian heaved a sigh and looked Emma up and down. Her gold hair shimmered in the sunshine and her purple dress was almost iridescent, and all that came in well behind the blindingly precious necklace; she looked like a goddess. He felt the townspeople shifting and gossiping and trying to figure out ways to take advantage of this unusual situation. He wondered how many of them at this outpost would recognise her, but then her parents were on board, and once the townspeople saw Snow and David, knew royalty had pulled into port … Killian knew his princess needed protecting, even if she had no bloody clue.
"You wouldn't consider staying on board and out of sight for a bit, would you, love? Just while I secure the port? The town beyond will no doubt hear out David and Snow, out of respect, but the rats on this dock have no loyalties. You look too tempting a mark to pass up."
"I'm nobody's mark, Killian," she scoffed. She tapped the sword at her hip. "I can take care of myself."
She had barely finished speaking when one of the thieves in the gathering crowd lunged for her, blade flashing toward her throat. Emma sparked up her magic in defence, but Killian was already pulling his sword out of the man's neck and kicking the body into the dim water beneath the dock. An arc of the man's blood spurted across a few in the crowd, drawing gasps and rancorous murmurs.
Furious, Killian aimed his bloody sword at the neck of the next closest ruffian and echoed his command through the momentary silence: "No one touches my wife. No one even approaches her. I will bleed this goddamn port dry if necessary." He looked directly into the eyes of the man standing beneath his blade. "Am I understood?"
Apparently he was not understood. When the next man threw himself at Emma, wielding a rusty length of heavy chain, she was ready, flinging him backwards onto the dock with a wave of her hand. Killian jumped off the gangplank, stalked through the stunned onlookers and stabbed his sword inelegantly into the man's heart. At this the rabble stilled.
He kicked the body so that it rolled into the crowd. "This port is mine now. I have taken it for Queen Snow and King David. Is anyone else having trouble understanding?" He stalked up and down in front of the onlookers, watching for any further sign of trouble. Emma heard footsteps on the gangplank behind her, and turned to see David, Henry and Mac with their swords drawn. She raised a curious eyebrow at Henry, but he only tightened his death grip on that sword and took a step forward, edging her to one side.
"Henry, get back on the ship, please," she warned him.
"No way. Hook told me to protect you. YOU get back on the ship, then I will," he countered.
Very clever, Killian, she thought. And he's Hook again, obviously he's Hook again, he currently had the point of his sword pointed at a man's throat while the man in question was laid flat out on his back on the docks, his chest beneath Killian's boot. Emma stomped back onto the Jolly in a temper, Henry following in reverse, his sword and eyes still pointed to the crowd on the docks.
Mac gestured to his men on board, and they swarmed onto the dock. Killian ordered the crowd separated, questioned and searched for arms. Once a mountainous stack of pistols, knives, swords and axes had accumulated and had been stored in the ship's hold, their group split into teams to interrogate the whores, pirates, murderers and thieves who lived there. The questioning continued late into the night, when Emma and Snow slumped down at a table in the cold, stone warehouse that Killian and David had established as their temporary headquarters. Belle had lit candles around the cramped office space at the back of the warehouse, and the three women were trying to consolidate all of the information gathered through the interrogations.
"Very few have seen any sign of Merlin or his magic, or not for a long while," Belle began. "I don't see many references to any strange happenings, not for years now. A few of the younger people seemed not to know who he was at all."
Emma shook her head. "No one seemed to fear him, that's for sure. I must have talked to 30 extremely smelly men today, and not one seemed scared."
"Same," shrugged Snow. "A few people could recite legends of Merlin's power, but no one had seen any evidence of it. They know all about the hidden castle, and they know he's there, they just don't care."
Killian, David, Henry and Mac trudged into the warehouse, covered in blood and dirt and sweat. Snow wrinkled her nose. "There are barrels of clean water in the corner," she called to them, pointing. "We found a well. At least scrub off the blood before you come in here." The men stripped off their jackets and shirts and washed themselves down without a word, too exhausted to argue. They sank into chairs in the office space, glassy-eyed. Killian flopped onto a bedroll left on the floor of the office and propped himself against the wall. A table against the far wall was piled with warm food, brought in by a friendly tavern owner in the town beyond the docks who was happy to see someone cleaning up the lawless seafront. Emma piled a plate for Henry, who began eating with the speed and enthusiasm that only teenagers seem able to muster. She handed another to Killian, then sat down close to him on the floor.
Before taking a bite, he leaned into her and quietly asked if she had already eaten. Emma shot him a funny look. "Yes, Killian, I've eaten. Plenty. Everyone has eaten except the four of you. Will even came in earlier for a meal, before he went back to guard the Jolly with Regina and some of your relatives."
Killian simply began eating, content knowing he wasn't taking food that she needed. He chewed thoughtfully and looked longingly at her lap. If only everyone else would clear away, he could lay his head down on that silky dress, and maybe she'd stroke her fingers though his hair in that way that always made him want to purr like goddamn cat. He reminisced for a moment about what he would have down after taking a port town like this with his crew. Found a tavern and a willing barmaid, no doubt, and hoped she'd bring him some small comfort, or at least release. There had certainly never been any cuddling, and sure as hell no purring.
Emma's hand was already on the back of his neck, thoughtlessly dissolving the tension as she discussed sleeping arrangements with Belle. Killian's eyes closed and their discussion faded to white noise; he dimly heard people moving out of the office and unrolling bedding around the warehouse.
The door to the office scraped closed with dull clunk, and he felt Emma's lips moving softly across his forehead, down to this ear. "It's okay, Captain, they're all gone," she whispered. "You can put your head in my lap." Killian sighed deeply and shifted himself to lay across her legs, his face to her belly, so that he could mumble sleepily to the baby, "Your Ma is the best." Emma pulled a blanket up over his bare shoulders, then ran her fingers through his hair until he fell asleep.
But Emma sat up, wide awake, long after. Merlin was still out there, trapped but still powerful. Tomorrow she would find him.