Jack jerked his head toward the bow of the ship, and he and Elizabeth went up to the foc's'le to talk.
"I notice you had no trouble finding me," he said.
"'Twasn't difficult," she replied with a smile. "I just looked for trouble, and there you were in the thick of it."
He gave her a half-smile. "You should talk, trying to take on five Spanish warships in your delicate little junk!"
"And yet I still managed to come find you afterwards, just as you requested."
"Aye. Although 'm not sure this counts as 'afterwards,' but there doesn't seem to be anything we can do for the rest of 'em at the moment."
"So shall we have that talk we mentioned?"
"'S good a time as any."
"What do you want to know?"
"What you meant by it. The kissing an' all. You've been a faithful wife to an absent spouse for the last two years. You've made it very plain that you were a one-man woman, and I wasn't that man. You've spurned every one of my advances since the day we met. What's changed?"
"I'm not sure, exactly," she said. "Finding out that I'm single certainly changed a lot of things."
"Aye, but even after you found out that you and Will weren't married, you still didn't make a wild leap for Jack."
"Actually, I did, and you turned me down as I recall."
"Because you still wanted Will!"
"And you still want Angelica!" Elizabeth shot back. "Do you deny that you still have feelings for her?"
Jack frowned. "This conversation needs rum," he said. He left for a moment and came back holding Gibbs' flask.
"It doesn't matter whether I still feel anything for her or not," he said, uncorking the flask and taking a brief swig. "She's nothing but a rabid, vicious little cur. I'm more interested in finding out your feelings for me, love, as they seem to be changing daily."
Elizabeth looked away from the challenge in his eyes. This would have been so much easier if they'd had time to talk about it earlier, when she could still taste Jack on her tongue, and when his dark eyes had looked at her with that soft, open expression. It would have so much easier to tell him then that she was falling in love with him.
Now, all she could think about was Angelica's boast about Jack's saying he still wanted her, and Jack's history of having a girl in every port (and two in some), and even Jack's own story of his "excessively carnal exchanges" with Angelica when they had first met. Was she insane? Elizabeth wondered about herself.
Her noble intentions, of being the one to risk her heart on him and saving him the risk of confessing his feelings to her first, now dissolved, and she looked at his faintly wary expression and got scared.
"I care about you a great deal, of course," she dissembled. "You're my best friend. You've saved my life over and over. You sacrificed immortality for Will's sake. You rescued me and Jacob from Flimwell. You've worked with me for weeks to find and beat our attacker—even when I think you may still have feelings for her."
Jack's frown deepened. He cocked his head to the side, waiting for her to get to the point.
"I guess I just have to know why," she said. "Why do you do all this for me, Jack?"
"What do you want to hear, Elizabeth?" he asked, tipping up the flask again. His voice took on a cynical edge as he continued, "I doubt you'd want the truth, so tell me what you want to hear. You know I always do as you ask. Tell me what you want me to say and I'll say it, love."
She said nothing, but reached for the flask. He let her have it.
"Do you want to hear how much I wish little Jake were my son instead of Will's? Do you want to hear that sometimes in the dusk between waking and sleeping, I remember the taste of your mouth, how sweet and passionate it was when you kissed me? That when I'm alone in my cabin sometimes, I close my eyes to relive the feel of your body pressing mine up against the mast? Do you want to hear how much I wish you had chosen me instead of Will? Do you want to hear that your kissing me this morning was like one of my dreams about you coming true?
"Do you want to hear how much I wish I were a better man for you?"
His eyes were dark and intense; Elizabeth felt pinned by his gaze like a butterfly. Gone were his expansive gestures, his flamboyant mannerisms.
"Do you want me to tell you how much I love you, 'Lizabeth?" he whispered.
She stared at him, open-mouthed, with tears welling up in her eyes.
His face hardened. "Or would you rather hear some piratical motivation for all of it? Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it."
"The truth, Jack. I want you to tell me the truth!" she choked.
He pushed himself off the rail and headed back towards the stern, only stopping once to look over his shoulder at her and say, "I just did," before descending again to the main deck.
She stared after him, stunned at Jack's intensity, so different from his usual light banter and devil-may-care attitude. Had he really felt that way all this time?
She wiped her eyes and sought him out on the main deck behind the quarter-deck stairs, leaning on the gunwale. She passed Gibbs, still in a glaring contest with Angelica as he trained his unwavering musket on her.
Elizabeth went over to Jack and leaned on the gunwale next to him. Her shoulder nudged his shoulder. She didn't look at him, nor he at her, but they both looked straight ahead at the cloud of smoke and the other ships who were finishing up the battle.
"Did you know that every time I held your compass for more than a few seconds, it pointed straight at you?" she asked him in a conversational tone.
She felt him huff out a tiny laugh. "Wish I'd known that then," he murmured.
"You'd have been insufferable, and I was already angry enough about it," she said.
He gently bumped her shoulder back. "I do enjoy making you angry."
Elizabeth sighed. "And you have a rare talent for it. You really are dreadful sometimes."
He moved his hand over on the rail so that his pinky barely brushed hers. "I know," he said. "But you love me that way and you know it."
She sighed again. Her heart was pounding, but she kept a cool exterior. "It's true," she said, moving her pinky so that it covered his. "I do."
From the corner of her eye she saw Jack slowly turn his head to look at her.
"Elizabeth?" he asked softly. "You mean that, darling?"
She looked at him and smiled.
"Because if you're just playing with me, love, I'm going to resurrect that kraken and feed you to it," he went on pleasantly.
Elizabeth reached up and stroked his face, from the expressive black brows, down his fine, straight nose to his slightly parted lips. She stroked them gently with her fingertips, feeling his breath come faster.
"What do you want to hear, Jack?" she whispered. "Do you want to hear that I wake up sometimes, trembling at the memory of that kiss over there?" She pointed at the mast. "That I can still recall the feel of your mouth, the taste of your skin? Do you want me to tell you how important you have become to me, that your midnight visits were sometimes the only thing I had to look forward to? Do you want to hear about how badly my heart aches at the thought of you still wanting Angelica? Do you want to hear that when you kissed me this morning it felt like I was finally home? "
"Elizabeth. The truth, love. Is that the truth?" he demanded.
She nodded slowly, eyes never leaving his. "I'm not playing with you, Jack. Never about this, I promise."
His eyes closed and he sighed and leaned into her caress like a cat. His hands went to her waist and pulled her closer. She touched his lips again with a feather-light fingertip.
"Jack?" she whispered.
"Mmm?" His eyes were still closed.
"If I promise you no shackles and no sea monsters... will you kiss me again?"
He opened his eyes and smiled at her. That soft warmth in his eyes was back. "Gladly."
She waited.
So did he.
"Well?" she said.
"Promise first," he demanded with a smirk.
Elizabeth grinned, took a step closer and opened her mouth to speak. Then she noticed something behind him and her smile melted away. "Oh, no," she said. "El Gavilón's back."
"Damn, she was right. Gibbs, get me a pistol!" he called, turning his head to call to his first mate.