Chapter 4: Fair's Fair
James woke before Elizabeth, and could not help but take the time to study her supine form beside him. Her golden hair lay tousled across the pillow, her comely features resembling an angel at rest. She was no angel, he knew, and yet he did not have it in himself to hold what had happened against her.
Not too much, at any rate.
Indeed, it seemed silly to hold a child accountable for the actions of a grown man, an experienced sea captain, and a decorated officer. And he realized now, seeing how she had changed, that her assessment had been correct. She'd been a child on the cusp of womanhood, bright as the sun. He'd been so blinded in his bid to make her his own that he hadn't given a single thought to the fact that perhaps she was not ready for such responsibilities.
Wife, mother, mistress of household.
It was no wonder she fell from the battlements.
Or perhaps she'd leapt.
Coward that he was, he didn't really want to know.
Yet the irony did not escape him that as he wallowed in ruin here on this wretched island, finally he had been able to win her. A respectable gentleman—an officer, a Commodore, held no interest to this one. Now that he had nothing, she'd looked upon him with desire shining in her eyes, and given herself to him completely in the course of little more than an hour.
Well, a very exciting hour, he reasoned. He'd saved her from those ruffians, and he supposed there's nothing like a daring rescue to send a woman's heart aflutter, and Elizabeth in particular thrived on a good adventure. And though saving Elizabeth Swann was no new thing for James Norrington, before he'd had two warships and a battalion of Marines at his back. Perhaps she'd thought him an officer with hands soft as a lily, only able to order others to do the dirty work. But James had not always been at the top, and he knew what it was like to face an enemy on a deck slick with blood, so scared that you were certain you would not live to see the sun set.
What a price he'd paid to finally win her. Crazier yet, he wasn't sure he wouldn't do it all over again, for the torrid night they'd shared. He thought of the lives lost in the hurricane and knew shame, but there it remained.
She made a soft sound, her eyelids fluttering open.
He froze, certain she would think him leering down at her like a lovesick calf. He waited for the inevitable. She would certainly fly from the bed, declare something missish like how dare you! or I love Will! and flee.
When she smiled it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.
When she lifted a hand to touch his hair gently, brushing dark strands away from his eyes, James felt his heart stop.
"Good morning," she sighed sleepily, sinking back down into the pillow.
It took James a moment or two—several, in fact—to find he still possessed a voice. "Good morning."
She studied him with those coffee colored eyes, her gaze sweeping over his visage. "Your eyes are such a lovely green, James. Like the forest in the heart of summer. I never knew." He closed his eyes to the compliment, leaning into her hand.
She'd never spent as much time studying him as he had her, he supposed. Despite the tenderness in the observation, it still stung.
Her fingers trailed over his beard, stroking the coarse hair. "I know it's atrocious," he apologized, thinking he would have given three gold sovereigns for a shave at that moment.
"I rather like it."
He laughed, but it was tinged with bitterness. "Of course you do. I look nothing like myself now."
James made to vacate the bed, but Elizabeth was quicker. Suddenly he found himself with the vixen perched atop him, the heat of her bare womanhood pressed against his belly. With a helpless groan he sat back again, his hands gravitating to the long thighs that straddled him. His eyes were drawn to the hourglass curves of her torso, and her perfect little breasts. Perhaps buxom curves were the fashion of the day, but he'd never thought her less than breathtaking in all her svelte lines. Like a fast ship, or a fine horse, the Creator clearly saw fit to spend a little extra time in the making of her form.
"That's hardly fair," she insisted. "This is the first time I've ever been allowed to see the man behind the wig and all that gold braid and blue wool. And you know, I think I rather like him."
Her fingers trailed over his chest in the most distracting way, and for a moment James closed his eyes and allowed himself to simply enjoy her touch. But it was not long before he spoke again, unable to stop himself. "Then what you are saying is that I should have seduced you before proposing marriage. I'm sure your father would have been thrilled by that tack."
Elizabeth had the pluck to offer a cheeky grin. "Perhaps you should have," she agreed, thinking back on the James she had known in Port Royal. Stoic, always in control of himself, never the slightest given over to any kind of emotion or passion. She'd thought him a perfect stone wall, and how could a warm blooded young woman want to tie herself forever to that? If only she'd known what boiled underneath that fetching blue uniform. Had she known a little more of the world, perhaps she could have guessed.
James looked away, trying to imagine such a feat in his old life and failing to envision it. His old self could not have stood for such impropriety. He would have rather died than dishonour her. "I cannot fathom how I would have even begun to go about such a thing, then."
Elizabeth offered a smile tinged with sadness. "You might have courted me a little before proposing. A visit that did not consist completely of speaking to my father of the state of security in the Caribbean, or perhaps a picnic…" His offer had come so seemingly out of the blue; she hadn't thought he regarded her as anything but the annoying child who had terrorized the dauntless so many years ago, much less a possible candidate for a wife.
A heavy sigh escaped him, and instantly Elizabeth regretted causing the pain that shone in his eyes. "I know that I bungled my courtship of you. I do apologize for that. You deserved…more."
Elizabeth held his hand to her cheek, kissing his wrist. "You needn't apologize to me, James. I'm sorry I mentioned it. I know you were a busy man."
Which was true, but too busy to communicate his interest properly? No, there was a different truth in that. "No. I…was afraid," he admitted.
A frown creased her perfect features, those sculpted dark brows joining in the center of her forehead. "The Scourge of Piracy afraid of me? What rubbish."
His lips pursed in a small smile. It did sound absurd, didn't it? "I did not think myself worthy of you. I was just a lowly post-captain until my promotion came. And then I suppose I was foolishly impatient. I knew your father intended to send you to London for a season if you did not find a suitable match in Port Royal. I was afraid you might slip through my fingers."
He'd also been terribly proud of himself that day, as he had a right to be. A little drunk perhaps on the excitement, and Weatherby Swann's excellent sherry, and—love. He could still remember the way his heart had pounded in his chest at first seeing her that day, bedecked in all her finery in the latest fashions, all for him or so he'd thought. And then rather than slip through his fingers, she'd plummeted from the battlements, and he'd been too preoccupied with his little speech to even notice until it was too late.
What a perfect ninny he'd been. Perhaps he had not deserved her.
Elizabeth frowned as he criticized himself. He could be so harsh, on himself most of all. "What nonsense. I couldn't have received a finer offer, James. I see that now."
"You are kind, my lady."
She could tell that he was humouring her, and she narrowed her eyes with determination. "Perhaps I should have taken the initiative," she mused, her imagination running a bit wild with the possibilities that had passed them by. "I should have grabbed you up at Christine Forsyth's birthday ball." The Forsyths were a rich merchant family in Port Royal, and that party had been the last they'd attended together before the debacle with the pirates. "I could have pleaded the need for fresh air, and during a turn in the garden I should have kissed you silly behind the hibiscus bushes."
As though to demonstrate she leaned down to kiss him, a slow tangle of lips and tongue that melted James from head to toe. The curtain of her hair blocked the bright sunlight, cloistering the lovers in their embrace. James couldn't help but smile against her mouth with the thought. "And then?" he dared ask, his voice becoming thick as the tide of desire rose within him again. Elizabeth could feel a certain part of his anatomy coming to attention as she narrated this sweet fiction, the velvety tip of his penis touching her bottom. She reveled in this newfound power, and moved her hips a little just to hear him gasp.
"Hmm. And then…" her lips travelled down his jawline, teeth nipping lightly at the soft lobe of his ear, causing his hands on her waist to clench a little. She was finding that she loved the strength in those hands, and the way they seemed to fit on every curve of her body. "Naturally, you would have been overcome, and finally persuaded to declare yourself." His answering chuckle was a deep bass rumble in his chest.
"Indeed?"
"Yes, certainly." He could feel her cheeky smile against his neck. "Then you would have led me to the secret grotto in the Forsyth gardens. The one with the fountain of Poseidon and that absurd clamshell bench hidden in the niche behind it. Where you would have sat me down, and plied me with these bone-melting kisses, and shown me that marvelous trick you performed last night with your mouth."
James went rock hard at the thought, and yet despite everything he felt himself color at the memory of his conduct the night before. He'd been completely unhinged by desire, and had wanted to make her come more than anything, even more than the completion of his own pleasure. Yet now, with the pure morning sun shining through the window the world seemed different, and he second guessed himself.
"That was…not gentlemanly. I apologize—"
"It was divine," she assured him before he could offer regret. "Don't you dare apologize. In fact I hope you'll do it again."
Had he looked in the mirror, James knew his cheeks would be apple red.
Elizabeth ignored his embarrassment, and her kisses continued to blaze a trail down his chest. The sensation of her mouth on his skin lulled him, and James could do nothing but sigh, his hands fisting in her hair. When her tongue dipped into the valley of his hip a pained groan escaped him, and he suspected he knew what she was about. Something whispered that only whores know that trick while the rest of him rejoiced with the forbidden desire to feel her mouth on his now throbbing cock.
"Elizabeth…you don't have to—"
"Hush, James. Fair's fair." She was determined, it seemed, to have her way.
When her lips wrapped around his swollen member he was lost to her, only able to offer encouragement and gentle guidance with a hand on the back of her head, and sounds of enjoyment torn from deep in his throat. In no time, watching her blonde head bob upon him, he knew he would burst from the pleasure. "Elizabeth, that's enough…" he tried to warn her, but she only responded with what might have been a laugh, taking him even further into the back of her throat. He came in her mouth with a moan, and watched with a mixture of delight and horror as she swallowed him down, only a little moisture escaping at the corner of her mouth.
Smiling like a satisfied cat, she collapsed to rest her head upon his chest, listening to his heart pound like a trapped bird against his ribcage. "I've never done that before," she said, drawing circles in his chest hair.
She'd proven so proficient that James wasn't sure he believed her, but it hardly mattered.
"You could have fooled me."
Elizabeth laughed, unfazed. She sat up on an elbow to regard him, biting her lip the way she had since she was a little girl when she was curious. It was interesting. He knew her every little tell, it seemed, but she claimed to have hardly known him at all. He had not allowed her to see him, he realized, cooped up behind the wall of his military man facade. It was something he'd thought would come once they dwelled in the security of a marriage. He hadn't fathomed it would be important to reveal himself before, hoping his status as a Commodore, a smart match, would be enough to win her.
Too late, he realized Elizabeth Swann was not a woman to be won by such things.
She'd wanted passion, love, and maybe even a little scandal to sweeten the deal.
Well, now she was a fugitive, and he a disgraced officer of the Royal Navy. If it was scandal she wanted, he could deal it in spades. As far as the rest—it had been hers to claim all along, even if she had not realized it.
"Your turn," he informed her, voice husky with desire. With a hand fisted in her hair he pulled her into a kiss. He could taste himself on her mouth, but could not find it repulsive. His kisses travelled down, pausing to pay utmost attention to her left breast, and then her right. She panted beneath him, her fingers tangled in his dark hair.
"Oh James."
It was ridiculous what the sound of his name on her lips did to him. He forgot all shame, all rules of propriety, and again all he wanted was to feel her arch with that ultimate pleasure beneath him, panting his name like a prayer. "What was it exactlyyou wanted me to do again?" he teased, kissing the pink bud between her legs lightly before lifting his head to regard her.
Her eyes smoldered as she looked down the length of her torso to see him nestled between her thighs, an unbelievably rogue smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "I don't even know what to call it," she admitted, amusement shining in her dark eyes.
James rifled through all the terms for the act, and none were terribly fetching, truth be told. "I think that marvelous trick will do," he answered thoughtfully, before descending to press his lips to her once more. Her delighted laughter faded to moans as he kissed and licked between her legs. One long arm extended up, and he toyed with her nipple as he made love to her with his mouth. It felt as though a spear of pleasure shot through her every time he tweaked that tight bud, the two parts of her body inexplicably connected. Elizabeth's back arched like the drawing of a bowstring, ready to fire. She came with a wanton cry, and as she trembled James quickly moved to bury himself inside her, shuddering as the convulsions of her tight little quim squeezed his cock.
He began to move, winning a ragged groan from Elizabeth as her hands scrabbled for some purchase on this earthly plane, her fingers digging into his shoulder and ribs. James fought not to say things like this could have been yours for always or do you regret choosing the blacksmith now? They were useless questions, really, and even more so, he wasn't sure he wanted the answers.
And so he said nothing, taking her to the shining peak of release once more with his body moving within hers, and his large hands upon her soft flesh. Once more she cried out his name, digging her nails into his back as she came, and it was more than enough to drag him over that exquisite ledge with her. He chanted her name like a whispered prayer into the bend of her neck. Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Elizabeth.
The very instrument of his damnation and his salvation.
For a long time they did not stir, tangled in each other like a bowline knot of arms and legs. But finally, as the sun rose higher in the sky and the grumbling in James' stomach became insistent, he asked, "Would you care for some breakfast?"
Elizabeth pressed her lips, seeming embarrassed. "I don't want you to feel obligated to care for me, James. I know your situation must be…tenuous."
She expected many responses, but not a chuckle from deep in the former Commodore's chest. Though he declined to say it, after bestowing the most glorious night and morning of his life upon him, it seemed the least he could do was feed her. "Tenuous is a perfectly accurate word for my place in the world as of late, though you are still welcome to anything I have, Elizabeth. I suppose some things never change."
He in turn did not expect the sadness that overcame her delicate features. "I don't deserve you," she said quietly, unable to meet his eyes. This newly penitent Elizabeth Swann was a curious creature to behold. Perhaps she had grown up a little after all?
"Well. If I have learned anything in this life it is that no one gets what they truly deserve," he said lightly, hoping to make her smile. However, that too she seemed to take gravely, her lips pressed tight together.
"James, I'm sorry. You deserve the best of everything. I—"
It was ever so gratifying to hear it, though he found he would give anything to see her smile again. And so he silenced her with his lips pressed to hers, and their breakfast was happily delayed for another half hour.