It was supposed to be a girls' night out. She was promised too many drinks, lots of meaningless gossip, and no pressure about any of the other stuff that had been clouding her mind lately.
Mary Margaret had talked her into it. It had been Ruby's idea. Even Belle was joining them.
"Look, Emma, I know you're stressed and you feel like you need to take care of everything right this second, but you don't." her mother had told her gently.
She had reminded Mary Margaret that she was the one who had warned Emma about the two men who had feelings for her. She was the one acting like it was a dangerous situation. True to form, her response was entirely too optimistic.
"Neither of them are going anywhere. You can take a night off from thinking about it."
Part of Emma wished they would go away. It was a half-hearted wish, of course, but it would make things easier. Or she'd continue feeling lonely - not that she hadn't learned to live with that.
So she had reluctantly put on a skirt and some heels and headed to meet the girls at the Rabbit Hole. And she had to admit she was having a good time. Ruby was talking about some random gossip she'd overheard at Granny's lately and they were all laughing like teenagers. Emma had a fleeting thought that she had never had friends like this as a teenager and it was a nice change.
The air in the room shifted, or maybe it was just the air in her lungs, and she knew the moment he walked in the door. It was mere moments before she felt her eyes drawn to him and met his own eyes staring back at her. He took a seat on a bar stool and motioned to the bartender before turning his gaze back on Emma.
Mary Margaret and Belle were showing off battle scars - quite literally - from their adventures in the Enchanted Forest, and she turned her attention back to the conversation even though she felt his eyes on her the whole time.
Too quickly Ruby was leaving with some guy who'd been shamelessly flirting with her every time she passed and the other women agreed that it was time to go. Emma decided to stay, and when Mary Margaret followed her gaze to the bar she frowned.
"It's supposed to be your night off, remember?" she asked and Emma let out a mirthless laugh.
"Saviors don't get a night off." was her flat reply.
The waiter brought her another beer and the door had barely closed behind her companions when he was standing over her table.
"Emma." he said by way of greeting, and she guessed he was nearly as drunk as she was.
"Hook." she answered with a nod toward the chair closest to her and he sat down quickly.
"Had enough of girls' night, darling?" he asked and when she didn't respond right away he continued with a wink. "Talking about me?"
Emma snorted and rolled her eyes at him dramatically.
"We were talking about scars." she told him, watching him carefully. It unnerved her, the way he looked at her and saw past every defense and yet sometimes she couldn't even see past the guarded look in his eyes.
He was nodding and he lifted his drink to his mouth to take a swig, licking his lips before placing the glass back on the table and her eyes followed the motion against her will. When the corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk she knew she was caught.
"Hmm, physical scars," he lifted his hook slightly with the elevation of one eyebrow, "or emotional ones?" he asked, his voice dropping to a tone that Emma thought would be very dangerous if they were alone. He was staring at her neck she thought, and then realized her hand had unintentionally gone to the place where her swan necklace used to rest, she dropped it back to the table and used it to take another pull from her bottle.
"Physical, I guess." she muttered.
"Have a lot of those, do you Swan?" Hook asked her seriously. She looked back into his eyes and for some reason felt compelled to answer honestly.
"More emotional than physical, I suppose." she told him, but she told him about the physical ones anyway. Those were the easy ones to talk about.
The one on her upper arm from when she was 12 and fell out of a tree she'd climbed into to read.
The one on her wrist from when she was 15 and working a job for a pizza place getting paid under the table. She pulled a pie out of the oven and it slid, the tray searing her skin - it burned for days.
The one on her back from a particularly brutal fight with a kid in her senior year. She got thrown into a table in the Chem lab and there was a bunch of broken glass, one piece was lodged into her back - 22 stitches.
The one on her knee from when she fell off a bike when she was seven. She had been trying to teach herself to ride but she didn't know you were supposed to start with training wheels - 8 stitches for that one. The alcohol was dimming her senses and she hadn't realized what she was doing when she slid her skirt up to show him that one. She saw his eyes darken as they looked from her eyes to her knee and then to where her fingers were resting against her thigh.
With his foot angled around a leg of her chair he slid it so she was closer to him, her left leg against his right and he leaned over to her so his face was inches from hers.
"Are you trying to drive me mad, Swan?" he asked in a hoarse voice that caught her off guard and she smoothed her skirt back down over her knee. She could feel the heat radiating from his body now that they were in such close proximity and she could see the intensity in his eyes. Everything about that moment caused something to stir in her that she hadn't felt since their kiss and she was suddenly very aware of how close his face was to hers and even more aware of the affect it was having on her.
"I should probably get home. Regina will be dropping Henry off early." she murmured and tried to pretend she didn't see the disappointment in his eyes. She initially turned down his offer to walk her home but when she stood and felt the full effects of the alcohol she'd consumed that night, she thought maybe an escort wasn't such a bad idea.
Emma was by no means a lightweight but the alcohol was definitely taking its toll. She had to lean against him as they left the Rabbit Hole and she rolled her eyes when he chuckled at her.
"Don't worry, love, I'll get you home in one piece." he laughed as he wrapped an arm around her and tucked her against his side. Things were a little bit fuzzy but the feeling of him warm against her was pleasant and she relaxed into it.
Neither of her parents' vehicles were parked outside the loft when they got there and Emma wondered if Mary Margaret had told David they should give her space tonight in case she brought Hook home. Not that that's what she was doing, and then she felt slightly offended that her mother would assume. Maybe they wanted their own alone time, her subconscious reasoned much to her dismay and she pushed the mortifying thought from her mind.
She unlocked the door and gave Hook a puzzled look when he just stood there in the doorway wishing her goodnight. No innuendo, no proposition, not even a little bit of flirting. Emma shrugged.
"Well if you don't want to come in, goodnight then." she said lightly and felt a little too satisfied at the shock that crossed his face.
He stared at her dumbfounded as she stood in the doorway, leaning down to remove her heels before straightening again to look at him. He was clearly mulling it over, though she wasn't sure why. Maybe he thought it was the alcohol talking and not her, and while she would love to use it as an excuse the only thing the alcohol did was make her bolder about what she already wanted.
She recognized the moment he made the decision to stay, the resolve was clear in his eyes, though still mixed with something like disbelief. He slowly, deliberately took a step inside and closed the door behind him.
In one swift motion his hand was at her waist and he was spinning them so that her back was against the closed door. He hesitated, his eyes boring into hers as though he wasn't sure she was real.
"Emma." he said in a low whisper and it sounded like a question. Her heart was threatening to beat out of her chest and the desire was swirling through her. She managed to nod at him before his lips crashed against hers with all the desperation of a starving man who had finally found nourishment. His good hand went to her neck, tilting her head back to give him better access to her mouth. His tongue demanded entrance and her lips happily obliged.
When his hand slid down to her waist and his body pressed against her harder, pinning her to the door, she reflexively ground her hips against him, relishing in the low growl that came from his throat. His hook went lower, sliding over her skirt to the hem where cool steel met with burning skin and she gasped at the sensation. He trailed it beneath her knee and used it to lift her leg so that it was hitched up and around his hip. The angle created a delicious friction between them that had her panting with each movement until he hoisted her fully against him with his good hand, her ankles clasping behind him and he carried her upstairs.
She braced herself against him with one hand on his shoulder and the other twisted into his hair and her lips continued to move with his as though breaking the kiss would somehow ruin the magic they were under. And that's exactly what it felt like to Emma, that she was under some spell with him and nothing else mattered.
When they got to her room he set her down on the bed and she immediately reached for the waistband of his leather pants. He grabbed her wrist with his good hand and shook his head, kneeling down in front of her and sliding his hand under the hem of her skirt, lifting it ever so slightly. She leaned back on the bed, expecting him to continue his progress up her thigh, but he didn't. His hand rested on her leg just above her knee and she watched as he leaned down and with more tenderness than she knew him capable of, gently placed a kiss on the small pink scar there.
He followed the same pattern with the other scars she'd told him about, gently taking her wrist and lifting it to his lips, all the while keeping his eyes on hers. There was some sort of emotion bubbling inside her that she didn't want to acknowledge so she pushed it away.
Hook slid her jacket off her shoulders before getting up and climbing onto the bed behind her so her back was to his chest. She lifted her shirt over her head for him and he slid the strap of her tank top down over her arm, placing another gentle kiss on the small scar from her fall from the tree.
With a flick of his wrist he sliced through the back of her tank top with his hook, and it fell from her shoulder to the floor. She knew the scar on her back was particularly brutal looking. It hadn't healed properly because she had reopened the stitches three times by accident while moving in her sleep. He didn't hesitate, but trailed kisses along the diagonal line from the bottom to the top of the scar. When he finished with the scar he continued kissing up to her shoulder and she shuttered and leaned back against him. He chuckled darkly against her neck and sucked on her pulse point eliciting a quiet moan.
It was as though the sound of it snapped something inside of him because to Emma's relief the tenderness ended. He moved around so that he was in front of her again and claimed her mouth fiercely with his own, simultaneously lifting her so he could slide her skirt off while he guided her further back onto the bed. She was naked except her underwear and he was fully clothed, it hardly seemed fair.
As if he had read her mind, Hook backed away and stood, undoing the laces on his pants while he dragged his eyes all over her body. She blushed under his gaze, self conscious about being so exposed, but she could see the heat in his eyes while he studied her and she knew her own eyes mirrored his.
When he joined her on the bed moments later, naked as she was, she felt like she'd go crazy if she didn't touch him, it was a need she couldn't explain or understand but definitely something she'd never felt before. Emma slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders before linking them around his neck and pulling him to her for another kiss. There was nothing gentle left in either of them as they became a frantic tangle of limbs on her bed. His lips seared her flesh and the sensation was both too much to bear and not enough. When he finally ripped the thin cotton that was the only barrier between them and entered her in one swift motion she cried out wildly and he swallowed the sound with his mouth before setting a torturous rhythm that was on the brink of being too hard but was everything she wanted, everything she needed from him and she met him with equal urgency.
The fire he was lighting in her body had her on the brink of a meltdown and her nails dug into his shoulders as he growled out her name.
"Emma?" came a quiet female voice, causing her to snap out of her daydream. Daydream? Jeez more like erotic reverie. Mary Margaret was looking at her expectantly.
"Hmm?' she asked absentmindedly.
"We said we were going to head home, are you coming?" she paused. "You look flushed... are you feeling okay?"
Shit.
She stood up and smoothed her skirt, pulling her jacket over her shoulders and trying to avoid her mother's concerned look.
"I'm fine, just ready to go home." Emma told her, a blatant lie. And her gaze met Hook's across the room. He was smirking at her, and while she was sure he couldn't have known about the scene that had just played out in her mind he gave her a wink that made her shiver involuntarily.
Mary Margaret followed her gaze.
"Yes. Well. Let's get you home then." she said in that disapproving tone that made her seem all too motherly considering they were the same age and Emma almost had to laugh.
"Yes, mother." she teased and was rewarded with a glare before they headed out the door. She shot a look over her shoulder at the pirate by the bar. Always watching her. She smiled at him, and was all too pleased with the surprise that flicked in his eyes.
I'm not done with you, pirate, she thought before the door closed behind her.