As Elizabeth lie awake in bed the next night, her thoughts bounced back and forth between Barbossa and Will. She'd given quite a bit of thought to her talk with Gibbs, and she realized that he was right – she just hadn't wanted to admit it to herself. She didn't doubt that Will loved her, but he did change after he learned that his father was still alive, and he had left her out of his plans in Singapore. And who did he get to spend more time with? His father, not her.
She still couldn't believe that Barbossa had come for her. A little part of her had hoped so, but she never thought it to be true. Who knew how many weeks or months they'd missed by going by Shipwreck Cove. That meant a great deal to her. It also told her volumes about Barbossa.
Elizabeth's thoughts automatically drifted to Madagascar again. She fondly remembered their last time together.
When she awoke sometime later, she decided to wake him up in her own way. She gently rolled over and slipped her arm over his hip, quickly finding what she was looking for. It wasn't long before the soft flesh in her hand began to grow hard, and Barbossa moaned as he slowly woke up from her attentions.
"I hope yeh be plannin' to finish what yeh start."
"Or maybe I'll let you,' Elizabeth teased. "Tell me what you like. Am I doing this all right?"
"It be nice, but I also like this." Barbossa's hand covered hers as it slid up and down his length. He tightened his fist at the tip and loosened it as it went down. "Keep your hand closed as much as possible at the top. Makes it feel more like you."
"Like this?" she asked, adjusting her method.
"Mmm yeah. Perfect. And throw in this every now and then." Barbossa moved her hand to his scrotum and squeezed.
"Doesn't that hurt?"
"No, feels good."
Elizabeth continued to pleasure him until he couldn't take anymore and pushed her hand away.
"Not how I want to finish," he told her, reaching for the last condom and rolling it on. He covered her body with his and kissed her.
It wasn't his usual fiery kiss; it was gentle and slow. He dropped his mouth to her neck and collarbone, leaving a wet trail in its wake before claiming her mouth once more in a languid joining. It made Elizabeth's toes curl, and she reached down to guide him inside of her.
Barbossa allowed her to control the pace, taking his time as he entered her. He couldn't see her eyes, but he could hear her, and the long moan that emanated from her was music to his ears. He wanted to hear it again and again, tomorrow and the next day, and that concerned him. It had been a long time since he'd let a woman capture his heart.
Elizabeth immediately recognized that that last time with him was unlike the other times. He did not hurry nor did he allow his passion to determine their course. She wrapped her legs around him, groaning when she realized how it changed his angle inside her. There was a connection with him whether she wanted to admit it or not.
"Hector," she breathed as he pumped his hips slowly. "The way you make me feel…"
"Aye, yeh make me feel, as well," he said quietly. "Yeh be beautiful, Elizabeth; so very beautiful."
"More," she moaned. "I need more of you."
Barbossa slid his arms under her back, cradling her, as she wrapped her arms and legs around him as tight as she could; she couldn't get close enough to him.
With his face buried in the crook of her neck, his moans and words were muffled. He really couldn't remember when he'd fit so perfectly with someone, and that felt like both a blessing and a curse. He knew that she was not his to keep, but when he came, he couldn't stop her name from spilling from his lips.
Elizabeth held him throughout his release. She knew that he'd only brought three condoms, so that was her last time with him. And she was a little sad about that.
Barbossa lifted his head from her neck to kiss her gently. "Yeh need one more, as well," he told her. He rolled to his back, disposed of the condom and then reached for her. "Get on top of me. Legs on either side…yeah like that. Now come here."
Elizabeth leaned over to kiss him as his hands slipped to the core of her body. His fingers danced between her legs, and her gasps forced her mouth away from his.
"God are you good at that," she sighed as she held herself up on her palms. "Oh yes…keep doing that…God of Heaven…where did you learn…nevermind. I don't want to know. Can you…a little faster…mmm – "
"Do yeh trust me?"
"You know I do."
"Rest on your forearms," he told her, waiting until she readjusted herself. "Tell me when yeh be close."
"Okay."
"Try to hold your hips still."
"That's difficult, but I'll try."
Barbossa's fingers continued to flutter over her sensitive flesh as her muscles clenched tighter and tighter.
"Oh god…close…so close," Elizabeth breathed. When she felt just the tip of his finger slip into her back entrance – something she was not expecting – her entire body froze as it felt like it exploded into a million pieces within her skin. Overcome with a new pleasure, she bit his neck in an effort to stifle her cries as an intense orgasm ripped through her.
When Elizabeth collapsed on top of Barbossa, she was panting and trying to catch her breath. Her body felt heavy and wonderfully limp, so she laid still.
"All right there?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her. His neck still tingled where she'd bit down. A part of him hoped that he'd be able to see remnants of it tomorrow.
"I've never felt anything so intense in my life," she told him. "I didn't know that particular spot would feel like that."
"It does if it's done right."
They lay still a bit longer until Elizabeth asked, "Should I move? I'm probably too much weight on your chest like this."
"Yeh be fine," Barbossa assured her as he gently stroked her hair and listened to her breathe.
They didn't speak again until morning.
Elizabeth turned over for the fortieth time. As the dark surrounded her, she finally allowed herself to fully admit that she did care quite a bit for Barbossa. She'd been trying to convince herself that the attraction to him was purely physical, but it wasn't. She'd had a few thoughts during their night together that maybe he cared some for her, too, and Gibbs words seemed to confirm that.
She moaned in frustration. Just what she needed – to make a complicated situation more complicated.
At dinner a couple nights later, Elizabeth's curiosity got the better of her – as it was wont to do – and she decided to ask Barbossa a few questions about Singapore to see what he would say.
She waited until there was a lull in their conversation. "You know, you never did tell me what you were doing in Singapore."
The topic caught Barbossa off guard. "We'd been nearby," he answered. "Didn't seem right to pass by without stoppin'."
"Didn't you tell me that you'd spent most of the past three years around the Caribbean?"
Barbossa nodded, wishing that she would change the subject. "A fair bit of time."
"So what brought you so far east? It takes months to get there from the Islands."
"The waters in between be profitable," he answered with a shrug.
"How many ships did you pillage?"
Barbossa frowned across the table. "What's with the questions? Would yeh like for me to fetch Gibbs to go over the logs?" he asked, his sarcasm obvious.
"I'm sorry. I was only curious. I'm not familiar with the waters around Shipwreck Island."
When Barbossa noticed her chagrined visage, he sighed and said against his better judgment, "We caught a few."
That was Elizabeth's opportunity. "Really?" she said, feigning confusion. "Gibbs said that you hadn't taken any."
Barbossa's eyes enlarged before he cleared his throat; he knew he'd said too much. "Gibbs also be enjoyin' a right many hogsheads, too," he defended, not liking the line of questioning at all. She was too damn smart for her own good.
Elizabeth lifted an eyebrow in disbelief at his response. "I seriously doubt that he drank so much that he forgot that he'd raided ships."
"Are yeh sayin' I be lyin'?"
A small voice way back in Elizabeth's brain told her to mind the change in his voice, but she chose to ignore it. Instead, she shrugged and answered, "I just know what he said. I'm sure you have no reason to lie. Maybe I just misunderstood." She thought for a moment and then erroneously added, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accuse you. I'll go talk to Gibbs again."
By the time she'd stood and walked around the table to head for the door, Barbossa had met her, grabbing her upper arm.
"Yeh don't need to be doin' that."
"But I must have heard him incorrectly," she explained, ignoring that inner voice that was screaming for her to stop. His hold was firm, but he was not hurting her. It was the closest they'd stood in weeks.
"I told yeh. Just too many spirits," he repeated.
Elizabeth's eyes met the captain's, and she saw an interesting expression staring back at her. It almost looked like he was silently pleading with her not to leave. All she wanted was to hear him say that he'd come specifically for her. She'd hoped her gentle pushing would encourage him, so she decided to push just once more.
"Captain," she said quietly. "None of the crew can remember any raids." Elizabeth knew she'd crossed a line the moment that the words left her lips by his reaction to them. I tried to tell you, her inner voice warned. But you wouldn't listen. You just have to do things your way.
Anger flashed across Barbossa's face instantly, and he narrowed his eyes. He'd had quite enough from her. "Get out of me cabin," he growled, shoving her arm away from him and turning to walk towards the back of the cabin. "Dinner be over."
"But Captain – "
"I said get out!" he exclaimed, feeling like a caged animal once more as he kept his back to her. Barbossa did not like being cornered like she was cornering him. He didn't have to explain his actions to anyone, not even her.
"But I want to know – "
"I don't care what yeh want to know!"
"Why can't you just tell me that – "
Barbossa whipped around to face her with a patronizing gleam in his eyes. "What? Yeh want to hear me say that I made a special trip for yeh? Is that it? Well, I didn't! Why would I do that? I don't make special trips for no one!"
Elizabeth knew that she deserved his virulence because she'd pushed him too far, but it still hurt. She nodded as she bit her lip, willing away her emotion. "I see," she whispered. "Well, I was hoping you had." And then she left.
After the door closed behind her, Barbossa took the nearly empty bottle of wine from the table and threw it at the door, smashing it into tiny fragments of glass.
How had she found out? He'd told no one. The last thing that he ever wanted her to know was that he went just for her. But she knew. Somehow. Barbossa didn't understand.
She'd said that she was hopin' I had, he thought. What did that mean? He'd tried his best to keep his affection for her purely physical, but it wasn't, and he knew it. If she'd been hoping he had come special for her, did that mean that her interest had been more than just physical, too?
A woman can care about two men at the same time, his inner voice reminded him. Maybe that's why she reacted like she did after Madagascar because she'd discovered that she'd cared a bit more than she thought she did.
Could Elizabeth care for him then? Barbossa did not fear many things, but he was afraid to hope that such a thing could be true.
Then why not just ask me, he thought in annoyance. Why the word game?
As Barbossa paced in his cabin, he told himself that he would just forget the conversation. He told himself that he would go to bed and put whatever feelings for her that he might have had way out of his thoughts. He told himself that he was being ridiculous. He told himself that he'd had his one night with her and that he'd leave her alone from then on.
Next thing he knew, Barbossa was hastily leaving his cabin, crunching over the broken glass, and heading to hers. Two can play this game, he thought, unable to stop himself. If she can corner me, then I can corner her. When he reached her door, he didn't knock. She'd been sitting at the small table when he burst in.
"Why did yeh react the way yeh did after we left Madagascar?" he asked, frustration obvious as he stomped over to her. It was then he saw that she'd been crying.
Elizabeth wiped her face and stood. "I told you," she said, crossing her arms protectively. "I'd made a mistake."
"I think yeh be lyin' to me."
Elizabeth pursed her lips. "I am not lying."
"Then why were you hopin' that I'd come to Singapore just to get yeh if Madagascar was a mistake?" Barbossa barked.
It was Elizabeth's turn to be cornered, and she didn't like how it felt. Leave it to that damned pirate to use her own trick on her.
"Get out," she told him, eyes ablaze.
"Don't like that, do yeh?"
Elizabeth turned away from him. Dammit!
"I don't think yeh believe it was a mistake at all," Barbossa continued, enjoying pushing her the way she'd pushed him.
"Oh I see," she said, turning around. "So this is where I'm supposed to say 'what – you want to hear me say that it wasn't a mistake', right? Is that it? Well, I won't!" If he wouldn't, then she wouldn't, either.
Barbossa stared at her for a moment and nodded. "Now yeh know how it feels. Maybe I was hopin' that it hadn't been a mistake, and maybe I wanted to hear yeh say it, too." Then he left with a slam of the door behind him.
Elizabeth sat back down at the table, dropping her head to her forearms.
She was in so much trouble.
Gibbs noticed that Barbossa and Elizabeth avoided each other over the next few days, and it drove him mad as he was the only one who knew what was going on. He'd said all that he could say to her, and he was not about to say anything to the captain. He really wanted to throw them both overboard until they figured it out. One was just as stubborn as the other, and they were hurting each other needlessly. All he could do was hope that they came to their senses sooner rather than later or their voyage to the Colonies might never happen.
As Elizabeth tried to focus on the chart in front of her, her mind was filled with thoughts of Barbossa, as it always seemed to be. She was driving herself insane, really. Since admitting to herself that she did care about him, her feelings seemed more intense, and that was the very last thing that she needed. She was married, and she loved Will. Their marriage was in no way normal, though; Gibbs had been right – they would be apart for the majority of said marriage, so what kind of marriage was it, really?
It was a marriage of desperation, her inner voice answered. That's what it was.
Elizabeth could not disagree – it had been desperation. They'd both assumed that one of them – or both – would not make it off of that ship alive, and so they'd panicked. They had been planning to marry already, but for the first time in three years, she wondered what would have happened had they not married on the ship. Would she have married him at Shipwreck Cove, anyway, before he left, or would they have come to the conclusion, with him being captain of The Flying Dutchman and all that went with it, that marrying wouldn't have been the best choice, regardless of how they'd felt?
If Elizabeth had had even a little time to think, she was fairly certain that she wouldn't have married Will because it just wouldn't have been fair to either of them. It didn't mean that she loved him any less, but if she'd had time to consider their 'new' situation, she wouldn't have done it. Knowing Will the way she did, he would have fought her on the decision initially, but eventually he would have agreed that marrying – with them being apart so much – would not have been wise.
She remembered something that Teague had told her not long after Will had left – "Just because you want somethin', Lizzie, don't mean that you should have it. Just because you want somethin' don't mean it be the best choice for you."
Teague was a wise old pirate.
Even though she loved Will dearly, it didn't mean that marrying him had been the best choice for her.
Perhaps Madagascar had not been the mistake. Perhaps marrying Will had been.
Oh these two. They're something else, aren't they?
Thanks to BrunetteAuthorette99, snapeygirl, Black Heart, Sini, Bloodsired, Krushie and RG111 for their reviews last chapter. You all light up my inbox!
Did everyone go trick or treating tonight?