AFTER THE BOYS OF SUMMER HAVE GONE

Author: Lady A
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: You/Jack
Categories: Romance

Disclaimer: I don't own PotC or the characters.

Summary: A brief chance meeting with a dashing stranger in a tavern leaves you mystified and interested. Your beliefs of never seeing the gentleman again are proven wrong when a certain buccaneer hunted down by the soldiers suddenly interrupts your bath; the very same you met earlier in the tavern. Granting the eccentric fugitive a safe haven in your house, he rewards you with mindboggling tales as well as a little something else...

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CHAPTER 1

The sun reflected softly in pink and blue on the wispy clouds in the near evening sky as it sank into the distant horizon of the endless sea. Ships floated in the gently rolling bay before you, many familiar, many strangers, only visitors to this port. The waves crashed up around the rocks at the base of the cliffs around the inlet, under the British fort looming in the distance. You watch the tiny figures scurrying around on the ships, batting them down, cleaning them up, and doing those things that sailors just plain did.

You stand on your balcony overlooking the scene before you as you do every night. Watching, Waiting for that which never comes. The breeze blows strongly in your face, billowing the light green flowered housecoat you wear over your chemise, and you sigh, thinking of the bright red sunset of the morning and the lack of color this night. You can hear the words of the sailors from the docks you like to walk in the day in your mind: Red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, a sailor’s delight.

You brush back some of the hair that has fallen loose from its comb and bats you in the eyes and tries to find its way into your mouth. Its storm season coming up, and you know in your heart that this odd weather is the foreshadowing of one of the summer squalls that ravage the Caribbean every year. That would account for the high volume of vessels making its way into the safer confines of the island bay and its harbor. You sigh again, knowing that this would mean a lack of shipping traffic for a while until the savage season was nigh over. What had gotten you to this dire place where you searched longingly over the water every night. What had led you to go against your own hard learned knowledge and hold onto the false hope that someday a certain ship would sail into your harbor?

Your hand clenches tightly around a small object in your hand, part of it dangling out the side, swaying in the same wind that flusters up your hair.

You had good common sense. Why couldn’t you use it now and give up on the thread of promise made by a man to you several months before? Why couldn’t you make yourself believe that the word of a man, no, not even a man, but a rapscallion, a thief, a purveyor of ill deeds and reputation, was just a great big lie? Why did you have to fall head over heels in love with all things, a pirate of the Caribbean?

Because it was him, and for some reason you still could not comprehend, you listened to your heart and not your head. You told yourself repeatedly to trust the instinct that had brought you as far as it had, or all your hard learned experience would mean naught… but maybe it was time to admit that you had made a mistake…That you had grievously misread him those four months ago, and he was truly nothing but a scurvy bastard.

You had never once before believed in love at first site. It was a story thought up by fanciful young women who dreamed of princes and towers and white knights on steeds. Something for those dithering maids who had nothing to contribute to their own lives and had depend on others for their means and ways.

For years you had tolerated the abuse and degradation from the men of Europe based merely on your born sex. You, to much amazement, succeeded in spite of that and the opinions of others. You had many talents, one being a love of music and composing, and another a brash business sense, and you insisted on using them quite efficiently. Your efforts in educating yourself in languages and the arts of merchanting and marketing had made you a comfortable sum, in spite of only being a woman. You learned to play the game, play the men in their flirting, primping, doting games, to get what you needed, without falling into the trap that many other ladies did. Taking your hard fought winnings you left for the New World and that of the tropical Caribbean to try your luck there.

And then he walked into your life. You blink back tears, as your mind thinks back to that fateful time months previous…

You had come down to the Caribbean to start pursuing your own interests that you knew could not be had in Europe. Your talent with the harp and other instruments had garnered you much luck in playing for the Governor and transplanted aristocracy from the Old World. There just were not a lot of musicians that wanted to come down to the islands and abandon their lucrative jobs with the hoity toity upper crust. The risk on the high sea was too much for many of them, but not for you.

This gave you the advantage of being called upon to play for the landed gentry’s dinner parties, and paying your bills without you having to dip into your substantial nest egg of saved monies from your business deals of the past. It allowed you to occasionally showcase your own compositions without having the immediate stigma of being just the woman. The stigma of being an independent woman, which meant she must be a whore, or a mistress in the making.

But as much as you took advantage of the derth that the rich had, you still felt a connection to the common folk, to whom you believed were more real and hence more interesting then the powdered wigs. You were singing that night in a local tavern, The Upended Keg. There was not much noteworthy about it except that this is where your saga started.

It was a common pub, run by a common barkeep, Dar Ostler, who gave you much the hairy eyeball when you entered three weeks prior with a proposition. For naught but tips you would sing and perform in his establishment, as this would all become the rage someday. Have something to draw himself new patrons beside the usual busty wenches and old brew. Why should he not get a head start on the others pubs? The wigs had their operas, and even in London they had the theatre in which anyone could attend for a pence. Entertainment on the isles was at a premium.

What you didn’t tell him was that there you could expand your repertoire of songs and tunes to those more base and amusing, that which common folk seemed to like the most. You could bring even the crustiest old salt to tears with your sad ballads of lost love and the sea, and then get them chorusing with you on some raunchy and suggestive tunes that you would dare NEVER play or sing at a grand estate. And they would cheer and chant and toss you coins. It was also the right spot to keep your ear to the ground for viable business opportunities to enlargen that dowry you planned never to use.

So with nothing to lose he let you start, and as you had figured, your idea was an almost immediate success, as your impromptu shows would draw the lonely merchant and sailors by for their grog and their meal and their wenches in their laps. By the end of the first week besides the merchants and sailor and farmers, even many of the King’s men would come by, hoping to catch you. The word of mouth was like summer lightning, fast and furious.

You began to wonder if your Idea was TOO good when after the second week more and more of the, shall we say, unsavory souls began to spend time at this establishment rather then their more usual establishments of ill repute a lot closer to the wharfs. After a couple of drunken bar fights and a stabbing, you expressed your concerns to the owner, but he shrugged it off as a usual occurrence this time of year.

This night had been more hectic then usual. The small rooms were full, and the stench of old sweat and spilled ale was almost overwhelming in the lingering heat from the day. Small rancid fat-made candles lit the tables, and smoke from the kitchen fires added to the smelly haze. You had seriously thought about taking a night off when earlier that morning the Governor of the island had requested last minute that you attend a dinner party that evening. The scent of bubbling stew and baked bread for dinners lingered, and made your stomach growl, but you were determined to skip your usual course here for the festivity that night.

You had accepted to arrive after eight, and one of the soldiers who had come to like visiting the pub agreed to make sure the carriage arrived in time and to the right place. It was known amongst the lobster backs that you preferred to keep your second job more of an under the table routine. The gentry were no better then the brash and loud men of the lower class. The men in their powdered wigs and velvet trim and fancy shoes were only different from the dirty sweaty men of the earth and sea in their more eloquent ways of trying to wed or bed or take advantage of you. And the common folk were usually far more generous for their means. This was a hard learned lesson you had made as a younger girl that and had vowed never to allow to happen again.

It was there, in the Upended Keg, amongst the chaos and wandering hands you had to laughingly slap away, that the inconceivable occurred.

You had finished your set, to the cheers and leers of a bunch of drunken patrons, although tonight seemed far worse then normal. The men had loved the sea ballads you crooned to them, as they always did. It was funny that you could put such heart into the songs of something that you had only experienced for the crossing from England to the mainland and the longer crossing to here. Thankfully you had a ship with many a sailor who loved to share their shanties with you.

After collecting your coinage, you weaved your way through the groping hands and suggestive comments. You knew your carriage would be arriving shortly to take you to the mansion for your next, more sedate, performance.

It was then your eyes lit upon a man, obviously with some relation to the sea, but not an ordinary sailor. You lingered for that extra moment that was to be your downfall. He was an average height from what you could see, with a dark mass of somewhat unkempt hair, braided and ornamented with stones and beads and trinkets, partially hidden beneath a red scarf and battered leather tri-hat. His dark beard was braided into two small strands under his chin. A small scar skipped down the right side of his face, more prominent in the eyebrow and along the side of his jaw through his beard.

He wore a plain linen shrift shirt, open at the chest, and his left sleeve undone, over which he had a blue button jacket vest. A homemade leather palm guard covered his right hand next to a beautiful large blue ring on his index finger. A leather belt on which hung a scabbarded sword and a strange blue and black box, was cinched over a red and white striped linen sash. It held his clothing tightly around his waist, and if one looked closely it also revealed the half hidden butt of a pistol. He was leaned back, large brown knee boots propped up unceremoniously on the table, as he nursed a large flagon of what you obviously figured to be some grainy alcoholic beverage. What caught your attention most was the dark kohl rimmed eyes that stared at you most intently.

Above the din you heard his voice, “Barkeep, a drink is needed for this fine angel after such a riveting performance. She must be parched. Put it on my tab.” He gave you a small smile, and a glint of gold reflected in the candlelight from several of his teeth. Your heart fluttered for the first time that you could ever recall, and you had to take an extra breath to calm a growing set of butterflies in your stomach. What was going on?

“Aye, you dog you,” one of the regular patrons belted out in an inebriated haze, in his own version of your defense. “Go back to your whores. You aint fit to talk to no lady of ‘er stature, let alone buy ‘er a drink, so bugger off.”

Your employer, Mr. Ostler, almost directly behind you, sniggered at the remark, knowing that you never accepted the widely offered drinks from riffraff.

To this day, you do not know why you chose to not ignore it like you had the others all the times before. You don’t know why you glanced back at him that moment. You don’t know whether it was the touch of ale in the man’s system, your learned insight, a strange combination of both, or just the fates playing their hand, but for a mere moment, you could have sworn you saw into his soul. At the patron’s harsh words, the faintest flash of agitated despair flickered in his dark brown eyes. It was a look you had felt so often, the look of heart wrenching dismay at people only seeing and believing only what they wanted. His deep dark eyes held the knowledge and experience of a man who had been through hell and back again. It was one of those that only a person who had lived it could recognize and understand.

He was good though, for in that flash of a second the mask was back up in the form of a sardonic smile and a cock of the head. “Aye, you be right. Waste of a fine drink that would be then, eh, mate? I’ll have it me’self then. Barkeep, another one!” He held up his tankard, laughing as though this was the most common everyday occurrence, and something told you it was.

It must have been that fleeting look that caused your good sense to take its leave, for the next thing you knew you heard yourself saying, ”I would be honored to have that drink, good sir, if it still be offered to me?”

The man’s eyes widened in pleased surprise, and he grinned broadly now. His feet scraped off along the top of the rough hewn plank from table so he could lean forward and upright. He clasped his hands briefly together and motioned towards you as in gratitude. “Unquestionably, milady. There man! Get the lady whatever draught she wishes,” he practically crooned out in a sing song lilting voice. Reaching into a small pouch that had been stuffed in his sash, he removed a rather sizable coin and tossed it to the startled barkeep. “That should cover it all.”

Mr. Ostler himself did a double take and looked at me with that same queer eye that he gave me when I first propositioned him.

“I’ll have some wine or mead if you please, Dar,” you quickly say. You dared not go heavy on your empty stomach.

“And not that cheap watered drek either, mate,” your new admirer called out after the retreating barkeep, gesturing flamboyantly with his hands. “Something decent. And don’t forget mine whilst you be getting ‘ers.”

“Thank you for your kindness good sir,” you state with a small contrived and polite curtsey.

“It is nice to know that ones efforts are appreciated. I admit I usually find coin more a good indicator and more preferable, but in this case… a drink is quite welcome.”

“Aye missy,” he replied, an odd tone is voice as he smiled in a knowing manner. “I agree with ye’ quite strongly that coin be a wonderful thing, with drink not far behind. The last time I had a woman sing to me, it was quite enlightening, but far more base then what you treated me too. You know rum and bad eggs and all. Drink up me hearties yo ho!” With that he lifted his tankard in a salute and drained the last of the contents, smashing it on the table with a loud thump.

You smile, amused at the antics and demeanor of this dashing stranger. “I dare say I am unfamiliar with that one, but perhaps sometime you could teach it to me. It sounds most fun.”

“I daresay milady,” his eyebrow arching as he gazed at her, his voice seemingly thick and drawn with his drink,” that it might not be the best ditty for the normal company of which you keep.”

It was your turn to raise your eyebrows at him. “Oh, and what company do you assume I tend to keep, sir?” You were interrupted momentarily as a tankard of fruity wine was set into your hands, and another overflowing, frothy mug was plopped on the table.

“Most assuredly not my kind of company lass,” he murmured, “but I could be wrong. I don’t think I am though.”

“And just what is your kind of company?” You drank deeply of the wine, watching him over the rim of your glass, not wanting to take your eyes from his face lest he reveal something more.

He just smiled at you as if he held some great secret, and you felt your knees go weak as his eyes sparkled amusedly at your fluster. You hadn’t time to repeat the question as you heard your name called from behind you.

You turned slightly to see Mr. Sulley, one of the soldiers from the fort, a good man with a known crush on you that you used to your advantage, stepping inside the door. He waved and smiled. “Your transport is here. I’m to take you up as escort, as the Governor was a bit concerned about the influx of unsavory characters in the town as of late.”

“I’ll be right there, Mr. Sulley and thank you. ” You turned back towards the table. “I’m afraid I must leave, and I never got your name, Mr.…” You had to stop, for where the striking gentleman had been sitting was naught but an empty chair, and not anything but the flagon of ale bubbling ever so gently to indicate that he was ever even there. Your heart dropped, and you sighed. Well, your philosophy was never to become too involved with your clientele anyway, you told yourself as you gathered yourself to leave, but part of you couldn’t help feeling a sense of loss that you didn’t understand.

If only your story had ended there, you would have been able to go on with your life as you always had, but it didn’t. You never suspected how the spirits played with your fates and your lives.

The next day you had awoken late, almost midmorning, after a long night at the elegant home of the Governor. The evening had gone well enough, with many compliments and many fine officers and landowners attempting to woo you, but your mind had kept drifting back to the suavely haggard man in the bar. You had almost blocked him from your mind by the time you awoke and took to your hot bath, one of the luxuries that you loved so, especially after as long a night as you had had.

You sank back after washing and piling atop your head your long hair, relishing the perfumed water, and the beautiful day. The ornate porcelain footed tub had been placed so that you could glance out off the veranda if you chose, while still providing the privacy you desired. The breeze blew warm and fragrant with the odor of the exotic blossoms and fauna of the nearby forests, as you watched several of the palm trees outside roll softly back and forth. Wild, brightly colored native songbirds flitted back and forth past the doorway filling the late morning with their calls and cajoles.

Your peaceful solitude was suddenly disturbed by cries and shouts in the streets and the sound of gunfire. It came closer, but you dared not rise to look lest one of the stray bullets found its home in your direction. You had seen that happen on more then one occasion. Bloody fools never thought that what went up must come down. The din grew louder until it was practically under your window. Dear lord what were they after in such a fervor? Must be a cad of the most unscrupulous character to account for such a ruckus.

The next thing you knew a figure had scaled to the top of your palm tree and threw himself over the railing onto the floor. He rolled into the room looking back out the breezeway, breathing quite heavily from what you gathered to be an exhaustive run. Your heart jumped in your throat and you did not know whether to scream and get the guards attention or risk more wrath by doing so. You instinctively slouched down a bit more in the soapy water to try and cover yourself.

The dark haired man turned suddenly on his boot heel, and stopped dead when he saw you, his hand moving towards a pistol in his belt. Both of your jaws drop when you see each other. If your heart could leap further it would have exited your head. He was the buccaneer from the night before, a bit more disheveled and dripping with sweat.

His hand backed away from the firearm and he gave you the genuflection he had given you the previous night. “A thousand... pardons, milady,” he said between deep breaths.

Your initial fear had fled, and a rash boldness took its place. “I suppose you have a story for me?”

“A story?” He asked, looking a bit perplexed, straining to hear what was happening in the street below.

With as disarming a smile as you could muster, you stared him square in the eye. “Well, I don’t usually have men falling into my upper story room whilst I hear the guard on some sort of rampage in the town…so I figured you had some grandiose story for me. Come to think of it, I don’t even know your name. So could we start at that? Mr…?”

You would have thought he dealt with this every day of his life as removed his battered hat and gave a graceful bow, watching her carefully. “Jack. Jack Sparrow. Captain Jack Sparrow to be more precise.”

“Jack.” You let the name roll out, feeling it out as you said it. “Jack Sparrow. Well, I was going to say it’s a pleasure to meet you Mr. Sparrow.”

“Aye, lass,” Jack half-grinned, half leered, cocking his head as his eyes slowly traveled up and down the length of your tub. “It be quite a pleasure to see more of you again, milady. Most definitely a pleasure and most definitely more.” A clatter downstairs drew his attention, and a grimaced look replaced the admiring one. “But, unfortunately dear lady, I haven’t quite the time at the moment to expound on that tale for you.” He pointed to the door that closed room this off from your bedroom. “Would that perchance lead to an exit out?”

Pursing your lips, you tsked at him, and looked away. “Yes, but there is only one stair down and from the sound of it, they are already on their way up.” Jack was crestfallen and his brow narrowed in deep thought as the sought a means past his dilemma. You knew the street below was filled with soldiers, and the living area of your apartment filling with men. Your handmaid Ester was probably having fits about now down there. You knew there wasn’t much time, and if you did not act, Jack might be forced into a situation that neither of you wanted. To this day you would mentally kick yourself, and swore it had to be a demon possessing you, as the most insane idea slammed itself into your skull.

“Mr. Sparrow?” You snapped.

“Aye?”

“Tell me the truth. Had you come with any intent of harming, molesting or in any way causing distress to my person when you came flying through my breezeway?” You strained your ears to hear the sounds from below. You knew the soldiers were searching the house.

“What?” Jack took a step back.

“You heard me. Had you come with any intent…”

“Aye, I heard you”, he broke in, a quizzical air washing over him, and staring intently with narrowed eyes. “No, milady, I would not be my immediate intention to be causing you harm. It’s not very nice.”

“Good. Just remember then I could have screamed. Can you trust me, Mr. Sparrow? Jack?”

The fugitive Jack paused, glancing back and forth between the door, and you, and the window.

He was obviously weighing his options and what you had said, and simply nodded.

“Then do exactly as I say and right now,” you said briskly, sitting up and reaching for your soap. “Grab my housecoat there and take off your boots… and the hat…”

It wasn’t but a minute later when you heard the clumping of boots outside your door, and you braced yourself, silently praying that your idea would work. The wooden door crashed open and several Kings men started in, and stopped dead when they saw you reclined in the tub of water swimming with suds. The lead one you recognized as Mr. Sulley. Hands flew up to cover eyes, and a couple turned around.

“What do I owe this intrusion at such an intimate time in such an intimate matter,” you asked, hoping your voice was staying even and calm, even if your heart was pounding. At that thought then you started hoping they couldn’t hear your heart.

“I..I..I’m sorry, madam.” Mr. Sulley stammered, trying to look without looking through his fingers. “It..its just that… Well…there is a vicious, wanted criminal, a pirate, on the run after we apprehended him with some illegal goods he was attempting to sell. And he was seen coming in through that window.” The soldier tried to point, while balancing his rifle and keeping his eyes discreetly covered, and not very successfully.

You glance nonchalantly over at your breezeway and ask,” That window?”

“Um… Yes ma’am.”

“Mr. Sulley, “ you sigh, laying on a layer of exasperation, “Do you not think that if a pirate, or any man for that matter, came barreling through my window, or my door for that matter,” you accusingly implied, ”I would be continuing my bath, and not fainted away in a corner somewhere. Or at the very least have a dagger to my throat as a hostage.”

The soldier stammered and shifted uncomfortably. “But they saw...”

“Saw what? Do you see anyone else in this room?” you groan, rolling your eyes. “I think in your exuberance they saw something, and the quarry you seek is merrily and gleefully on his way to somewhere else. I’d suggest you continue your search for this miscreant before he truly does get away. And I would like to finish my bath.”

“Yes.. Yes. I humbly apologize, miss.” Sulley faltered, hesitating.

You start to rise from the water, “Shall I show you to the door, gentlemen?”

“NO!” He cried, pushing the other soldiers out. “I mean, no thank you. We can find our own way out miss. Sorry to have... sorry… sorry.” He shut the door quickly behind him as loudly as he had when flinging it open.

You sat as still as stone while the footsteps faded away, along with loud condemnations of busting into a bathing room with a naked lady in it. Just as you let your inhalation out in relief, from the other end of the tub, Jack burst up from the water, taking a huge gasping breath.

It was an amusing sight, the pirate wiping soap and water from his eyes and mouth. “You took long enough. I would have been quite put out if my epitaph told of me drowning in a ladies bathtub.”

“What would you have had me do? I hurried them as much as I could, practically to the point of showing them to the door!”

“Nay, lass. You did fine. Really. Quite an idea.”

You feel weak for a moment as the adrenalin rushes from your system. “I must be mad.”

Jack grinned his halfway smile, pushing some of fallen hair back. “I told a good friend of mine once say that the traits of madness and brilliance are closely related, or was that me? Either way, I vote for brilliance.”

You smile softly back, trying to shift a bit further back from the very close contact you have had with the pirate for the last few minutes. You reach for your housecoat that had been so nicely covering Jack’s effects, and practically giggle. “You didn’t peek while you were down there did you, sir?”

Jack burst out in a guffaw. “Nay lady, although the temptation is a strong afterthought. If I had, my eyes would be burning a lot more then they are now, savvy?” To his surprise, you stand up and step out, slipping your housecoat on. “Now there, I must admit, I did peek,” he smirked.

“Well, being a pirate, since that is what I am told you are,” you paused while Jack nodded once in affirmation, “I would assume that what I have is nothing that you haven’t seen before.”

“On the other hand, missy,” Jack purred, “What I saw was quite nice, and even better then some of the things I’ve seen before.”

You felt a hot blush rise to your cheeks, and biting your lip you glanced away. “If you would be so kind as to remover your clothes, Mr. Sparrow…”

Jack perked right up. "Oy! Is that an invitation there lass?”

Hands on your hips, you stared back in amusement into those sparkling dark eyes that laughed at you. “So that I,” you continued trying to stifle another giggle,” can get them washed and repaired. They could use it. Believe me. And since you will be hiding here for some time today, at least, while the guard searches the streets for you, you may finish the bath for I am done with it. And you could use that as well, believe me.”

Jack carefully pulled the red cloth from off his head and dropped it to the floor with an unceremonious squish. “This is awful flowery, you know. Not my image.” The red and white sash floated to the top, and onto the floor went the blue grey long vest, water puddling out from around it. He pulled the torn white shirt off next. “I’ve always been more a bucket and sponge man myself.”

Several puckered lines crossed his back and sides, from some sort of blade battle you assumed. You stared at the blue-green tattoo of a bird sailing above the waters right above a harsh white brand of a capital P on his right forearm. On his left chest was a rose tattoo. “Well, while you are being hidden in my house, flowers it is. Matches your body art. And I have a sponge here, so you should feel closer to home.”

Jack made a face a cross between a scowl and a snicker but continued his disrobing in the water; his large leather belt and hand cover being tossed next to his boots. You saw him shimmy a bit, and the blue pants he had on came up to be displayed in his hand. “That’s all,” he murmured in a soft slurred tone with a sly suggestive twist on his lips.

You open the door and call out to your housemaid. A very surprised older woman appeared, hand flying to her mouth when she saw the soaked, very naked man in your bath. You hand her the dripping mass of old clothing. “Please discreetly take care of these as quickly as possible. Let me know when they are done. And send up repast for two please.” The women grimaced at the pile of rather rank garb and hurried off.

When you turned back, Jack was eyeing you seriously. “How do you know she aint going to run to the guard there and bring them back? Now you ‘ave me at an extreme disadvantage.”

“Miss Ester has been with me nigh on fifteen years and had to deal with far more disturbing things during her time with me then the idea of a man in my personal quarters. Even if that man in my quarters be a wanted pirate. I would trust her more then I trust you at the moment. You have nothing to fear but clean clothing, Mr. Sparrow. Savvy?” You throw the slang back at the Captain.

Jack scratched at his beard, then leaned back, relaxing, his arms resting on the sides of the porcelain. “Aye, I savvy. Now about this bath thing you want me to do…”

* * * * *

CHAPTER 2

You stared at the pirate for a long moment, and he returned it with the wide round eyes like that of a puppy standing over your previously nice unchewed shoe. “You can’t tell me you don’t know how to take a bath?” you exclaimed incredulously. Jack didn’t respond right away, regarding you coolly, but the twitch in his cheek gave him away, and you threw your sponge at him with a smile. “Liar!”

Catching it deftly, he gave you that amusing half grin and almost crooned, ”How I be a liar when I never said anything in particular about the subject to begin with? You assumed.”

“You let me assume.”

“It’s more fun that way sometimes, and it’s not my fault that people do assume is it? No milady I am more then familiar with baths. In Asia, they have entire houses that are just one big inlaid bath, and everyone bathes together. Now THAT,” he said with enunciation and pointed finger,” is a bath. And ye get your back washed for you.” He held the sponge out suggestively.

“You want me to wash your back for you?” You replied mockingly, with an undertone of seriousness. “Do you think that proper, Captain Sparrow? This is certainly not one of those Asian bathhouses.”

“Tsk. Mores the pity. As far as being proper, you haven’t had much of a problem standing in the same room, not five feet away from a very naked man that you insisted get naked, after he was put in very close confines with a very naked woman, in your tub.” Jack leaned forward, one elbow resting on his knee, leaning his head on his hand, still looking up at you.

You knew this was a big game to him, and you were willfully falling into it. “Mr. Sparrow, I am not a buxom wistful maid who knows nothing of the world. There is nothing on you that I haven’t seen before in my lifetime.”

“Oh? I daresay ye can never be too sure of things like that. You never know just what you might be missing, now can you?” Jack grinned wider to the point where you had no problem seeing his gold-capped teeth. “And I say, in my professional opinion, ye are amply buxom enough.”

A flush of color rose to your cheeks. There were too many buts and uncertainties that were squeezing into your life and you felt like you were losing your control. Even if you weren’t the most beautiful woman on the island, men complimented you all the time, and it never flustered you. You were used to it, able to ignore it, but when Jack said it, you felt self-conscious. When other men expounded on any of your virtues you felt almost perturbed, but when Jack said it, you felt giddy and girlish. That ground at your guts.

Jack had taken your dwindling bar of soap while you were busy blushing at his comment and lackadaisically ran it up and down his arms. His arms were leanly muscled and obviously strong, but not to bulging like some men you had seen that you wondered how they could move them. While the lower half of his arms was coated in dark layer of hair, his upper arms and chest were near bare with just a smattering here and there of a few stray strands. He had a light layer of hair over his back, and down his stomach that disappeared into the water…

You quickly pulled your eyes away from following that compelling line that led down, hoping he had not noticed your forwardness. If he did, he made no indication of it, and just kept washing. You wondered what it was that men had against a sponge or a cloth to wash with when the bar went straight to his underarms to lather. The odd variety of hair you would have to be pulling from your soap, or maybe you would just let him keep that one if there were any left. After all his nagging about flowers he seemed to sure be enjoying it.

You must have had an odd look on your face, because he stopped his wash in mid scrub. “I hope that this is either highly educational or entertaining for you, milady.”

“Or both,” you said matter of factly.

“Aye, or both,” he repeated with an amused smirk.

Your attention was drawn back to his scars, mentally tracing each one in your head with an imaginary finger. Your mind raced with what possible adventures had caused those trails of either light or reddened puckered skin.

“Cutlass. Bar fight, knife. Bar fight, broken bottle. Jealous husband. Bloody damned mutineer Barbossa. One of the King’s finest with a lucky shot that thankfully wasn’t any luckier. And I ‘ave one on my knee from when I was just a wee lad and ran into tree, but that’s not very interesting I don’t think, but I can still show ye if ye like.”

“I’m sorry?”

The pirate shrugged. “I was giving you the list of my wounds since you were showing as much interest in the scars on my body as a sailor shows to the grog on leave, and that is quite a bit.”

“Oh,” you softly said.

Jack started again, a bit slower this time, and pointed to each scar as he gave its brief history. “This one,” he said, pointing to the one that marked his face,” was from a cutlass blade of a drunken sailor from when I was but a boy on my first ship. This one,” he went next to a thin line between his shoulder and his neck,” is from an altercation on Tortuga in some alehouse, as is this one,” and he reached behind to lay a finger on a more ragged one on his upper back, twisting a bit so you could see. “Just a bit of a misunderstanding about money or something.” He went next to one, on his other shoulder. “I got this one from gentleman a bit upset that someone else was pleasing his wife, pretty lass with huge…” Jack faltered in his words, his hands a bit outstretched by his chest, and he dropped them quickly, “but at the time I did not know she was his wife. She withheld that information from me at the time I wooed her. The strumpet!” He held up his arm and bent away a bit so you could see an odd shaped scar on his side. “A marine got lucky with his musket so the bullet grazed me, but since it was molten lead, it stung just a bit as it burned my flesh out. Oh, I almost forgot this one,” he held up his left hand, and across the palm was a thin white line. “This one is from the dreaded Isla del Muerta, after a rather harrowing battle as a living skeleton with Barbossa, who gave me the scar on my other side, when the bastard committed mutiny, stole my ship and marooned me.”

“Living skeleton?” Your heart raced at the thought of that story, but coming from a pirate, you wondered how much of it could be believed, and how much was wild elaboration.

“Perhaps I can be coaxed to expound on that one over a meal. It would take a while to make it though that tale, and by the time I be done with it, there will have been too many things shriveling aside from my fingers that a man just doesn’t like to have shriveled.”

You laughed. “I will hold you to that. I will have a bucket of water brought up for you to rinse after you finish the rest of your bits, and try and find something you can dry off with and wear while your clothing is being dried. When you are done, if you could attach that waxed canvas tube to the plug on the bottom and allow the water to drain down the side of the house through the casement.”

“You never have not yet told me your name, miss, speaking before of formalities.”

You told him your name and curtsied in your habitual formality, “Captain Sparrow,” and closing the door behind you, left Jack with a bemused expression.

In the other room, you let your self nearly collapse against the wall. What had come over you in there? The entire time your heart had seemed to skip beats as he spoke, and your body flushed hot inside. You actually stayed in a room and watched him bathe, talking to him in conversation as if he were just sitting on your veranda drinking tea. He was a bloody nefarious pirate. A villain. A scoundrel. And you were risking your interests and well being just protecting him from the marines who probably had the right idea in the first place.

You scowled and contemplated what now to do with him now that you had him.

Jack would have to make do with your damp housecoat or your bed sheet. You sighed, and threw on a simple drawstring chemise and your favorite necklace that you rarely went without; a variety of precious and semi precious stones engraved with small dragons. You grabbed another short chemise he could wear if he chose. It was somewhat like his regular white shirt, you thought, but just a tad longer.

You had Ester have the local stable boy bring up a large wooden bucket of water and leave it right inside your door, which you then transferred to inside the water closet, managing to only spill part of it.

“Well, its about time,” came his muffled drawl as you slipped it in, and tossed the clothing and sheet in as well.

A few minutes later your midday meal arrived on covered trays, just as Jack made his grand entrance in the boudoir of your apartment. The sheet was wrapped around his waist, clutched at the front side in one hand, and the rest tossed over his arm and shoulder, like a Roman senator of old. The thin cloth stuck to his damp flesh, clinging to his hips and legs and outlining practically everything. Your breath caught in your throat. EVERYTHING.

The elderly housemaid stifled a gasp but not the sideways questioning glare she gave to you quickly as she hurried out. Jack snickered softly at that, and sauntered closer. You had to call it saunter, for it was a pace you could barely describe, like a cross between a glide and stroll. It was like all his limbs were one fluid motion, like an animated rag doll. He held up the dressing gown. “I’m not wearing this,” he said. “I did the soap thing to make you ‘appy and out of gratitude for all you’ve done fer me, but that’s as far as I go on that.”

“Well I did the best I could under the circumstances. I don’t keep an assortment of masculine garb lying around for that random day when a pirate falls through my window.”

“Not even some leftover clothes from…careless visitors?”

You narrowed your eyes at that comment. “Mr. Sparrow, I am not some whore who keeps a parade of men in my chambers. There are no men in my life and haven’t been in a long time.”

Jack studied your anger with that deep intense stare of his that seemed to go through a person. “Pity. Such a waste,” he started, and changed his tune quite quickly as he saw the storm cloud on your horizon darken,” but then again… quite an upstanding an honorable thing.” He almost flinched. “You’re not going to slap me now, are you?”

“As tempting as that option is, no I am not, Mr. Sparrow. I suppose I should expect that from someone like yourself, so I don’t know why it angered me so. Why did you think I was going to slap you?”

Jack paused in that dramatic way of his, hand askew in the air. “I tend to have that problem around women it seems.”

“I think I can see why.”

Jack regarded you oddly, as if he was sorting a myriad of jumbled thoughts before he spoke again. “That’s interesting. A beautiful, strong woman as you, I would not have thought, though, as one who would leave her bed cold. My mistake. But that it was coming from me, it should not have angered you but did, and the idea that I thought you were attractive enough that men would wish to bed you angered you, even though I said nothing about you being a whore. In fact, there is absolutely nothing about you that would ever even give me the faintest conception that you were anything akin to a trollop. Very interesting.”

“Mr. Sparrow, I haven’t a clue what you are insinuating.”

“For whatever reason, my opinion matters to you.”

You chocked back a chortle. “Mr. Sparrow…”

”Jack.”

“Fine. Jack, why would the opinion of a man I barely know, and a wanted felon besides that, matter to me?”

“Exactly my thought. Why would a woman do anything you did for me today? Because for whatever twisted reason that I don’t think YOU even know yet, you like me.”

“Pshaw. You presume too much, sir.”

Stoically, he replied, ”Do I? You presume that because I am a pirate, I do not tell the truth. Well, to tell the truth, MOST people do not think I am telling the truth. It is this very assumption that inspires me to the truth or the parts I see fit to, more often then not, which is quite an advantage at times because even if you do tell the truth, nobody thinks you are. In that way, you can get away with telling the truth almost all the time, and no one every really knows if you are actually telling the truth or not, even though I think it makes nary a difference with the vast majority of people I meet. Comes in handy at times though, because nobody can be sure just exactly what you plan to do. While I did presume too much that you had gentlemen friends, but with good reason to think so, in the opinion of a worldly man such as myself, I dared not presume because you were a woman who bedded that you were more then what I see that you are; an incredible and interesting person that knew what you wanted and did what she needed to get it.”

Your head spun at his twisted logic, but it made sense in a way. You did allow yourself to fall under that spell of what you thought about pirates, and Jack was breaking many of those preconceived notions. He was also correct before about liking him. No man had made you weak in the knees as he had since you were barely done being a girl. You shamefully looked away. “I’m sorry.”

Jack floated over to one of the chairs at the small table where your dinner awaited, and sat down. “If I were to do as you did, I would assume that your doubt relates to the great discovery I made many years ago that the majority of women do not like the truth. As much as they prattle on about how much they value and desire honesty in their men folk, I have come to the conclusion that it is merely a bunch of codswallop.” Jack reached over and started removing lids to the small dishes of food; some stew, cold roast chicken, vegetables, bread and fruit. “But I do not see you like that, and that is the truth.”

You watched him pick up a knife and start slicing off chunks of the capon, and skewering various boiled roots dropping them on a plate. You took your place carefully across from him. “Why do you think that most women care naught about the truth?”

“Because,” Jack said carefully around a mouthful of carrot, ”they don’t want to be told the truth. They love the doting and tender phrases and wooing of the simple fools, who go on and on about their limpid pools and breathless beauty, when what the men are really meaning is how much they want to roll them in the hay like lusty goats. What is a limpid pool anyway?” The pirate swallowed his bite, picked up a cloth napkin from the table, and continued. “Men are simple creatures that way. They swoon on for the sake of the women, and it seems to work for a while until they are past that titillation and the ladies want the truth. A trap set out to snare the unwitting young man. They will ask you questions and either not like or believe your response.”

Jack’s voice rose up into this amusing falsetto, and he waved the napkin around as if it were a fan or a handkerchief. “Luv, is me arse too big in this dress? Wouldn’t you love to go and meet me mum and dad? Do you wish I had bigger bosoms? Were you looking at that girl there? Is she more beautiful then I am?” Dropping the cloth, he poked another bite onto the knife, and used it to enunciate his words. “There is no right way to answer questions like that. Especially those last two. You admit you were looking, and you are in trouble. You deny you are looking and she will never believe it. Tell her the other girl is beautiful and she will be crying her eyes out and you are in the street. Tell her the other girl is a cur, and you are still on the outs because you had to be looking then.”

You were trying not to laugh out loud, as you recognized many of those as true examples you had heard throughout your years. Jack grinned right back at you in mixed amusement between your mirth and the triumph of making you happy.

You poured two thin-stemmed glasses full of red wine from a carafe, and set one in front of the pirate. He picked it up delicately by the long glass stem and twirled it ever so softly between he thumb and forefinger. “Awful fancy for the likes of me don’t ye think, miss?” Jack asked in that gruffness where you couldn’t decide if he was serious or joking. “You live rather well for one who be singing and playin’ in a place like the Keg.”

“That is my interest, my hobby, not my main source of income. Well it is at the moment, but that is from choice, rather then necessity. And while I like my luxuries, I can, and have,” you stopped to take a long draught of your wine, watching Jack observe you and your reactions,” lived without them. I only rent this house for the time I will be here, and then I will move on when my business is done.”

“And what business would that be, milady?”

“Let’s just say I broker things, trade things, arrange things. Many things. I get ideas and I use them. I inherited my father’s merchanting runs when he died, and used them until I sold them. I had been planning to get involved in the Molasses trade, but I have other ideas since I have been down here. I am just biding my time until I get THAT feeling of whether I am wrong or right. Then I will act.

Jack had cleaned his plate and reached over to get some more when he noticed you had not taken anything yet, and paused. “Ye’d better take some because I’m plain out famished myself.” When you didn’t respond right away, he started hacking and tossing things onto your plate until he figured he had given you enough, then resumed filling his again. He ripped a small loaf of bread in half and tore out part of the middles, shoveling some of the stew in each piece, and unceremoniously plopping yours down on top of the rest of your disarrayed victuals.

The pirate suddenly suspended his eager food doling and picked up a large green apple. He stared at it intently, turning it back and forth on the tips of his fingers, lost in thought.

“Jack? Is there something wrong with the apple?” You inquired softly, but it was enough to jar him from his reflections.

“Aye? No, I was just thinking about the last time I had me an apple like this. Thought it was going to be the sweetest thing.”

“Worm?”

Jack laughed. “Aye, but it warnt in the apple lass. No… I had taken one bite, in what I thought was a brilliantly conceived victory, but I had counted my chickens before they hatched as they say….and I ended up in a stinkin’ leakin’ cell avoiding flying cutlery as people blew holes in my ship.” He ended by taking a large bite of the apple, and mumbling between chews, ”Just as I said then, funny world mate.”

“Tell me about it. Please,” you try and mask the eagerness in your begging. “You owe me a story over dinner. You said.”

“Oh, yes, I believe I do,” he said, “but I must ask if you be afraid of ghost stories milady?”

“No, of course not, Jack. I love ghost stories.”

“Ah, good,” Jack said, taking another bite of apple. “But if I am to tell ye this story, I must start at the beginning, and that be ten, no, twelve years ago now, right after I won the Pearl as my own. I had raided this Spanish merchant vessel when this old dying sailor onboard offered in exchange for the rest of the crew’s life, which I had no plans on ‘arming either way, this funny wooden compass that didn’t point north, and some tale about the lost Isla de Muerta and the golden treasure of Cortez…”

His darks eyes sparkled gleefully as you pulled yourself to the edge of your chair to lean in closer. For a good part of the afternoon, between food and drink, Jack Sparrow regaled you the most intricate tale; treasure and mutiny, years of waiting and searching until this fateful day in Port Royal when this maid Elizabeth just happened to fall in the ocean as he was busy commandeering a navy vessel, a kidnapping, a reluctant friend and compatriot named Will and the search for Jack’s cursed ship the Black Pearl. By the end of it all, the food was long gone and you had opened several more bottles of wine. A good portion had been drunk by the raven-haired pirate, who was now emphatically leaping about the room waving a large spoon in imitation of a great escape that he and the Will character had gone through in an attempt to escape the noose.

Throughout the couple of hours it had taken to relate the saga, you had sat starry eyed and spell bound in rapt attention, and even more so as the large amount of wine you drunk worked its relaxing magic on you. He had your complete and utter attention, hanging on every word he drawled out. You could picture in your mind the ships on the sea, the salt spray, the encompassing magical fog of the cursed ship and the great battles with cannons and pistols and cutlasses. As Jack wound down to what you knew to be the end, part of you had wished that you could have been Elizabeth on the beach that night.

Jack had slipped into the short chemise some time before when he had grown tired of holding the sheet. In your more then slightly inebriated state, your inhibitions were almost shattered. You could feel the flush in your body, and the deepness of your breath as you drank in the sight of his long tanned legs as he danced around the room in some sort of spoon to sword footwork with the light material dangerously twirling upwards at times over his thighs. The drawstring to the shift had been left mostly undone, so a great expanse of his chest, slightly sheened with a light layer of sweat from his demonstrations, peeked out darkly against the whiteness of the material. You envisioned it uncovered, back in the tub. Your memories drifted back to the sheet and the way it clung to his hips, and was barely a barrier between you and more intimate, manly regions. Your mind could not contemplate the why here and now and why him questions you would ask yourself on later days. Right now all you could feel was a long buried insatiable longing that gnawed at you deep in your guts.

With a deep breath Jack spun around to face you. “And that milady, is the Curse of the Black Pearl, and how it ‘appened, except I was a lot more properly clothed for that sort of thing and not dangling around as much...”

You do not know if it was the fire in your eyes, or the rush of blood that seemed to burn just under your skin, but the pirate was momentarily taken aback to silence. Tossing the spoon/sword to the table he moved several steps closer, contemplating the unexpected reaction that had seemed to overcome you. “You know missy,” he smirked in a mild teasing tone, ”You keep looking at me like that and things won’t be dangling for much longer,” as if the implication would shock you from your stupor.

When you softly expelled a large breath of air, only then did he realize that it had the opposite reaction. Jack’s smile gave way to a somber expression as he pushed back several tangled locks of his black hair and the strings of beads that had fallen into his face. Your eyes locked with his, and while you weren’t quite sure what you saw in them, you saw no malice or degradation in them. What he saw in yours you could only assume, but what he must have seen must have been quite clear. Slowly he took those extra couple steps until he stood directly in front of you, not once breaking the gaze, the only sound from his clinking hair decorations. His hand rose, and hesitantly caressed the side of your face with the back of his fingers, from your temple to down under your chin. Turning his fingers, he exerted ever so slight pressure and guided you to stand up before him, then slid his hand until his palm cupped your cheek. His other hand slowly followed until your face was nestled between them and you were just scant fingertips from his.

The heat from his flesh radiated like a furnace in the sparse gap between your two bodies, and you could feel his breath on your lips, but Jack did not move other then the barest stroke of his callused thumb over your cheekbone. You knew you trembled under that excruciatingly tender touch, and didn’t know how you remained standing as your body felt as though the very bones had been removed and the rest of you threatened to pool on the floor in a quivering heap.

Jack ever so tentatively pulled you closer so that his lips brushed yours, then again. This time you closed your eyes and returned it, lips parting against his. Jack increased his pressure, deepening the kiss until you felt yourself melt against his body. His tongue traced the inner part of your lips and edges of your teeth, exploring and tasting. The pirate Captain tasted sweetly of the wine as he exhaled into your mouth.

One of his hands trailed around to rest on the small of your back, firmly keeping the intimate contact between you, as he turned your head and blazed hot kisses down your neck, working his way from the front back to near your nape. You heard yourself gasp and groan as in places his teeth grazed at the tender flesh. His moustache and small beard almost tickled, adding to the erotic sensations that he was drawing up out of you.

Even with the bath, you could still garner the slightest scent of the sea upon him mixed in with that musky scent of man, as it was part of his very essence. He was one of those hot summer nights on a darkened beach, the tide rolling in; bringing all that was new and exciting in its wake. Your arms wrapped instinctively around under his arms onto his firm wide back. It was solid and strong, partially from all his days as a sailor, as you imagined him pulling and hoisting the many ropes aboard the ship. You felt his shoulders quiver as your fingertips pressed into the firm flesh, drawing him closer even though no room remained. Your body pressed tightly against his, and somewhere in your consciousness you noted that nothing was surely dangling anymore.

The second hand that was not on your back skimmed to the long drawstring at the front of your chemise, deliberately releasing the tie you had made. Jack pulled away, his dark eyes intensely clouded with arousal. Jack stared at you so hard he could have bored holes through to the back of your skull, but you refused to release his gaze. You must have been a sight, lips swollen and face flushed with your own incredible desire.

In a desperate guttural tone he forced out, “If you want me to stop, milady, you need tell me now, fer I can’t be sure I will be able to if we keep going. Right now it will practically kill me to do so, but I will if that be your wish.”

You couldn’t force yourself to speak, any cognizant thoughts completely drowned out in the sheer animal attraction that you were feeling for this man. Grabbing the already loose edges of his makeshift shirt, you pulled it hard enough to retract the rest of his string, and the neckhole widened to the point that with your guidance it completely slid down over his shoulders and off his body to pool around his feet, making your response quite obvious.

“Dear God woman!” Jack groaned and crushed you against him, passionately kissing the very air from your lungs.

Now your fingers could feel and play in the light layers of hair as you touched his bare skin and you played with all the way down to where you gently massaged the swell of his buttocks. He tugged and nipped on your lower lip, his tongue none so cautious anymore as he explored every inch of your mouth that he could reach. A burning swept through your very core, engulfing you in the most incredible longing you had every felt in your life.

Jack practically tore at your gown with his right hand, trying to open it as you had his, while his left hand lifted it up and slid underneath up your leg to clutch at your hip. His manhood was pressed against your stomach and he ground it against you through the fabric.

It was your turn to pull away, the two of you both panting heavily. You reached up to trace the edges of his beard with your fingers, feeling the different texture of the scar that ran though it on the one side from the rest of his weathered, tanned skin. He grasped your fingertips in his lips when you got close enough to them, pulling them in with gentle suction and rolling them inside ever so slightly. With a reluctant and pleasured groan, you pulled them out and made wet trails down the side of his neck, which you followed with your lips. You nervously tasted him in your kisses, nibbling his flesh as he had to you. His skin was slightly salty from his show earlier, and silky smooth once past the bristly remnants of facial hair.

Moaning softly, he stood perfectly still as you kissed further down into the small shallows in the front of his shoulders. Your fingers moved of their own accord over his body, tracing the lines of the rose tattoo on his left breast, lingering on the solid nibs of his nipples. Jack hissed in sharply when you grasped them between your pads and manipulated them lightly. His own fingers pulled out the comb that held your long hair, tossing it across the room, and entwining them in the loose strands.

Your lips closed around one of his nipples and you swathed it with the tip of your tongue, flicking it, and pressing the tender bit in your teeth. Jack increased the pressure on the back of your head, every expelled breath a raspy moan. You had yet not looked down that line of belly hair you had so wished to follow earlier, but you could feel it. You pursued it under your palm, allowing your hand to run through the downward laying strands, tracking its growing mass until the texture changed and you know you had reached the start of his most intimate area.

You could feel his hard expanse against your arm, but you dared not touch it directly yet. Instead you teased through the coarser strands to underneath, ending up cupping his balls. “Christ!” Jack choked out as you manipulated his sacs in your one hand. Smiling against his skin, you kissed and suckled sensuously down, taking the same path as your hand had.

You could feel him shaking with the strain he was under as he fought the urge to push on your scalp and rush things with his eagerness as to what was coming. The strong musk that was Jack grew incredibly more alluring as you reached the side of his groin with your face, your nose nuzzling into the coal black hair.

Bashfully you now allowed yourself pull away and look over at the manhood you felt so prominently against you earlier. It stood out abruptly from the surrounding dark mass of curls, a bit more then a hands length and a good grasp around guessing from what you could see. The loose skin that would have covered the tip when down was pulled back tightly and the darker head glistened with leaked moisture. He was pulsing and bobbing slightly in his obvious arousal. You tenderly stroked a fingertip up its length to the small slit in the tip, then down around to the bottom.

Jack was watching you intently, all his muscles taut and trembling as he strove to remain still and let you explore. Closing your hand around the base, you placed your lips against the tip where his fluids seeped, and bit by bit parted them around it, till the whole head was completely surrounded.

You maneuvered your tongue up to flavor what was being released in his arousal, and you knew you must have hit something good as he practically whimpered. While you could not take his whole expanse in, you allowed as much as you could in, squeezing carefully on the exposed shaft. You drew it in and out excruciatingly slow and leisurely, enjoying its velvety hardness and the way it drew interesting sounds from the pirate’s throat.

You felt Jack’s whole body shudder. “God dammit to hell,” Jack breathed loudly, “Not this way,” and he pulled your head away and practically dragged you up by the arm and hair, to envelope you in another passionate kiss, bruising your lips in its ferocity. But you cared not.

A rip resounded through the room as Jack in his desperation gave up the idea of floundering with your ties and tore your chemise straight down the front, shoving it over your shoulders and off, all without releasing your lips from his. He scooped you up in his arms, cradling your body and in a few strides was next to your bed. Lowering you down onto the downy blankets, he balanced himself on both one arm and leg, and went after your neck and ear and shoulder again with his nuzzles and nips. His free hand grasped your breast, kneading it in his palm, catching your hard nipple in the groove between his thumb and forefinger. He took your skin between his teeth and lips until your body rose up and you gasped out his name. He lapped at the most tender spot at the base of your throat, in the hollow of your neck, and left a long wet trail down between your breasts. He titled his head so he could see your face tremble as he engulfed your aureole and teased the contracted nib.

Jack moved between your legs, and your first thought was that the time had come when the man relieved himself of his arousal, but instead of moving up as all the men you had loved previously had, he slowly started to move down. You froze up and stiffened and Jack stopped mid kiss on your belly. He had a concerned expression and carefully asked, “Am I hurting, ye, lass?”

You shook your head edgily, licking your lips, trying to find your voice and your words to question your confusion In a quavering voice you were only able to get out,” No, Jack. I just… What are you doing?”

Jack's eyebrow rose and he knelt up. He ran his hands through his locks and braids and jewelry, pushing them back over his shoulders, slightly bewildered. “I thought you said you ‘ad been with a man before?”

“I... I have. Several times,” you blurt out. “Its just that they never... I mean by now they had... you know?”

As if dawn had broken and the light revealed all, Jack got this knowing grin and wryly queried, "Ye have never had a man pleasure you all the way have you?”

“All the way?” You shook your head, suddenly feeling the ignorant fool. So much for your confidence earlier when you were before him.

“As you pleasured me earlier.”

Your mouth rounded in an ‘oh’, as Jack tenderly ran his fingers through your nether curls on your mound. “You mean…? No one would ever even consider… I thought… I was always told it was considered unclean and uncouth and…”

“Not the gentlemanly thing to do?” Jack finished for you amusedly. You nodded and blushed fiercely. Reassuringly, Jack smiled at you, and kissed your one bent knee, near his head. “First off, I am but a pirate, so I suppose the fallacies of a gentleman and their silly rules do not concern me. Secondly, no real gentleman would leave a lady he craved to actually please unsatisfied. You bathe and care about yourself, so there is nothing I feel is unclean about an act that can bring pleasure to the lady as much as it brings pleasure to the man.” He pursed his lips and seriously asked, “Do you trust me?”

In a breath barely audible to even you, you whisper, ”Yes Jack,” and yet your body still quivered in your apprehension.

He leaned up, over you, hands on either side of your head and kissed you gently, passionately. “Then just relax and trust me, luv,” Jack murmured, his eyes warm and affectionate.

He started again, the two small braids of his beard trailing sensuously over your breasts. Jack offered no contact other then the beaded strands. He kept his eyes locked with yours as he delicately drug them over your skin. You shivered, surprised that just that bit, resurged the desire and need that centered in your core, burning and growing. He avoided your intimates, traveling back and froth over your sides, stomach and breasts before meandering over your hip and down your right leg. You didn’t even notice as it got lower and lower until you could feel his breath again through his lips, hot and cool at the same time on your practically flaming skin. His lips met the inside of your lower thigh, near your knee, and you heard yourself gasp softly in your pent up relief for contact.

Even in your trepidation, you focused on the sparkle and enthusiasm in his eyes as he tantalizingly kissed up your inner thigh towards your apex. Each nibble and kiss and inch upwards increased in pleasurable intensity. You shivered uncontrollably, as your body screamed its approval of the pirate’s actions, feeling the growing dampness between your legs.

Jack blew over your twisty curls, the breeze feeling cool on your burning flesh. He traced your lips with his fingertip, brushing your nub, swollen and distended and more sensitive then you had ever known it. You jerked and gasped when he made the brief contact, and the corner of his mouth twitched up. Jack guided your knees outward and down, wrapping his arms under and around your hips, drawing you closer. With his thumbs he carefully parted you and gazed upon your most private area.

You blushed deeply again, self-conscious and embarrassed. “Ye shouldn’t be ashamed, luv. ‘Tis the heart of woman’s beauty, what we men don’t have and yet crave more then all else with their girls if the men dare admit it. It’s the woman’s flower, her garden, her rose,” Jack whispered just loud enough for you to hear. “Men who don’t crave their nectar are the fools, and those who follow them are the ones who lose.” You were strangely comforted by the adulation on his face as he looked up again at you, partially blocked by your own body.

Jack’s hands tightened on your hips as if he knew what to expect, and lowered his mouth to kiss your nether lips, then run his tongue up between them. You jerked, not in pain, but in bliss, as it shot waves of scorching pleasure down every limb and over every inch inside and out. You groaned and tried to move, fighting the urge to flee and the urge to surge up wanting more. He unhurriedly used the tip to trace each side, into the center, tasting and prodding, and then over your nub. There he increased his actions alternating between entering you and suckling the small bit of flesh, teasing and torturing the hyper sensitive organ with everything he had, laving and nibbling it, pulling on it gently. The short whiskers only added to the frustration as they brushed and scraped gently against everywhere else as he pleased you.

During this, the reason he held you down became apparent as you writhed uncontrollably. While the rest of your body twisted and thrashed, as much as you wanted to pull away, and push closer, he held on firmly adding his body weight and you could barely move down there. You wanted to grab his head, his hair, try and exert some control, but you grasped up and grabbed the wood post of your bed frame, pulling and twisting against it. Your groans and moans escalating into louder and louder cries and screams, until you could barely mew, or gasp for air.

Jack had been watching your every struggle and shudder and contortion, his eyes glowing with well deserved pride and confidence yet hazing over with his own lust and desire till they were clouded. Finally he released you, and you practically collapsed, your body still throbbing and wanting, as wound as the coils in a fresh turned clock. Jack crawled up between your legs and rested on his forearms over you. With one hand he brushed the tendrils of hair from your sweaty face. His beard and lips were shining from your juices.

You felt his length rested against your mound, and he softly rubbed it through the soaking curls by ever so slightly manipulating his hips. Jack shut his eyes and groaned, pushing your legs wider, lifting up slightly and reaching down to help guide his member to your entrance. You tilted your hips up slightly, as his head pushed cautiously through into your body, and little by little, inch by inch, he sheathed it in its entirety.

Jack gave a low long throaty moan, and threw his head back, his long hair and beads flying wildly. He pulled out again almost completely, again as slowly as he could, and back in again. He did this over and over, picking up speed just a bit each time he entered, and each time he entered he pushed a little harder.

It was like the most excruciating pleasurable torture you had ever felt. Your arms and legs wrapped around him, and you pushed your hips up to meet his thrusts. The room filled with the mixed moans and gasps from you and he, as the desire rose to unfathomable heights. Your nails dug into his skin, urging him for more. Your body screamed and smoldered, wanting to burst and burn. You felt a power, a pulsating energy building, much like the tingling you felt on the night of thunderstorms when purplish glow of Saint Elmo’s fire danced on the ships masts in the bay.

Jack in his efforts, still studied you, and must have known your plight, for he caught you in a deep kiss, then tore down your neck to your shoulder, hard and demanding. His pace quickened even more, his hips banging non stop against yours, the sweat of two bodies pooling on you, making a suctioning, slapping sound as flesh hit flesh. As two people with one body, he strove to be deeper then any man had ever got, pulling your hips up a bit to increase his penetration.

Then you felt it, like a rolling, boiling explosion that started deep in your loins and expanded outward. You screamed, “Jack!” and stiffened, and then convulsed wildly under him, every bit of your skin igniting and tingling. Your eyes practically exploded with a light so bright from behind your eyelids. You thought your lungs stopped working, as for a brief moment you couldn’t breathe. Your muscles contracted uncontrollably and spasmodically around Jack’s shaft.

This all brought him over the edge and he redoubled his efforts, growling in a predatory triumphant way, until he screamed out in a long deep cry, his hips thrusting madly until he shuddered from his head to his feet, as a new, different heat went deep inside you. Jack practically collapsed on you, gasping for air; his face nestled in the crook of your neck and shoulder, buried in your hair.

As the intense feeling subsided, your body relaxed, and for the first time in your life you felt totally at peace. Jack started to lift off you, but you held him tight against your body, his weight and heat comforting to you. He stopped and relaxed back down. Idly you brushed his damp hair away from his face, and tenderly stroked his soft slick skin until the cool breeze from the window began to dry it. You lay that way together for a long time, for so long that your connection with Jack parted of its own accord, being spent; he slipped from your body without moving.

His breathing so soft and regular, you figured your pirate lover had gone to sleep, until he nuzzled your ear, and said quietly, “I say if that be evil, luv, then damn me to the depths of hell forever, because I willingly throw myself into temptation and damnation.”

Jack rolled carefully off to the side, and pulled you into his arms, wrapping them tightly around you, resting your head on his chest, right on the rose.

* * * * *

CHAPTER 3

It was amazing how the day had passed, between the bath incident and the story and the incredible lovemaking, it was passing fast. The sun’s rays grew long in the afternoon sky. In several hours the horizon would redden and darken as the evening settled on the island, and stars would shine down like little lanterns in the sky.

And you had accomplished nothing but break the law several times over.

As the steady thumping of his heart beat against your cheek, you didn’t give a rat’s ass anymore if the Marines stormed in right now to drag you to the gallows. You sighed, happy and content for the first time in a very long time. You felt a kiss on the top of your hair, and you craned your head so you could see Jack gazing down with a tranquil smile.

“Everything all right, luv?” he murmured.

You rolled a bit so you were half atop him, one leg draped lazily between his, chin and cheek atop your arms folded across his chest. “Mmmmmmmmmmm. I’m more than all right Jack. I am exquisite. ”

“Yes, you are,” he chuckled.

“I meant how I feel, silly,” you laugh.

“So did I,” the pirate matter-of-factly replied.

Closing your eyes you lay your head back against his flesh so you hear his heartbeat again.

“You must have lines of girls waiting for you in every port.”

Jack snorted, his grip tightening around you for a second. “Nay lass. You would be surprised at just what I don’t have. First off, I don’t meet many real ladies in my line of work. A good knowledge of the working girl I have yes. Secondly, remember that item I mentioned about getting slapped a lot.”

“I’m sorry,” you say, confused at the twinge of joy you felt at his statement. “From the way you spoke I garnered that you had plenty of women. You do know how to please one, you can’t deny that.” You felt his chest heave as he stifled a sigh.

“There is knowledge and the place to use it, luv. It’s been a long time since I’ve had call to use it.” Jack softly said. “I cannot deny that I am a man and have my weakness for the flesh that most men have. I have spent many a good coin on pleasurable company, and its gratifying interludes, BUT…” He paused and touch of regret barely skirted the edge of his words, “no matter the drink and flowery words the girls give ye, it is no more then business, even if they don’t find you repulsive. They don’t really care what you be doing to them. They just want their coin and you to come back again with more, and as soon as you leave there is another in your place, so your spot never grows cold or lonely for them. As loud as the girls’ moan and scream, it is not in their face, in their touch, or their kiss. Their satisfaction is the profit from it. So like most men, I enjoy the illusion for that which it is and do my business and get it done for my own satisfaction. Savvy?”

Shifting out from under you and guiding you to your back, Jack propped himself up on his side and elbow, looking down into your face, as if he was searching for something. He traced his finger up and down your cheek. “Today my business was your satisfaction, something I would never waste on the girls in my most recent…” He scowled and shrugged, “and sadly enough, thinking back, seems to be my more long term, past.”

You didn’t know what to say, and you didn’t know if the pirate was feeding you those lines he admitted he knew girls liked to hear. There was nothing about him in the somber and tender expression or tone that would have even given you the hint he was telling anything but the honest truth.

You started to talk, but he stops you with a small kiss. “For the first time in a long time, I was able to see the true ecstasy of a woman, and know it was real, and not the efforts of a whore to placate her client. Hearing you, seeing you, feeling you, and dear god could I feel you, when you reached that ecstasy, is one of those rare treasures that so many men carelessly overlook. But ye know how we pirates love treasure,” he said with a grin. “And speaking of treasure,” Jack began to fondle the dragon necklace around your throat, “this is quite lovely. Not the normal jewelry you usually find on a lady, in Europe anyway. Well made. Quite valuable. Find similar items quite a bit more in the Far East, but I’ve not seen anything quite like this.”

“It was a gift, a repayment, and a reminder. And I like dragons,” you say. “A creature maligned and even vilified by the masses and yet mostly misunderstood. They grip me in a way that is hard to explain, so they are special to me.”

“Dragons be misunderstood?” the Captain chuckled.

“Yes, they are,” you say. “I see dragons as the pinnacle of all that is free and wild and beautiful and intelligent and because of that, men must be able to dominate and control it or squash it out. We fear them and revile them. We think of them stealing our food and eating our virgins, but where do these stories really come from? Do we actually stop and think about them and what they do and why they do it? Because of the acts of a few, like the rabid wolf or the unmarqued privateer, they paint all the dragons with the same brush. Men like to paint everything with a brush. It does not matter the intentions or skills or worth of the painted. You are what they want to think and make of you, no matter how hard you fight it.” You barely hid the venom in your voice at the end.

Jack was strangely silent as he played with the gemstones, rubbing them thoughtfully between his fingertips. Trying to change the subject, you reach up into his hair and touch a long white bone that is woven into one of his twisted tiebacks. “Since we are speaking of adornments, what’s this?”

He hesitated before replying, still mulling over your remarks. “It’s a fid. A big fid. What’s a fid you ask?” He didn’t let you answer. “Sailors use them for fixing nets and splicing ropes together. One day I put a small piece of one of my tails through it, and it’s been there ever since. It helps hold my bandana on. It’s more or less tied on with a leather strap so if I needed it…a simple slice with a knife, I don’t lose much hair.”

You touched the silver ring with the bright blue gemstone that sat on his right index finger, “Your own pretty trinket, Mr. Sparrow?”

“Oh, yes,” he chuckled. “My greatest bit of treasure. Actually my first bit of treasure ever, which is why to me, at least, it’s my greatest piece. My first assignment was on a buccaneer ship, the Raging Tide, not long after my man hair started growing in, so I wasn’t much more then a boy.” Jack gave you a sideways glance, and obviously pleased by your attention continued on. “In fact I wasn’t much but a glorified cabin boy to a bunch of drunken louts with no sense of code or honor. Horrible place, but it was a job for one in my delicate position of being too young for much. Didn’t know at the time the nature of their business, or the ‘other’ expectations that were to be demanded out of me.” Jack contorted his face oddly as if he were remembering something and you swear he almost shuddered.

You entwined his fingers with yours and gently squeezed his hand comfortingly. “Its okay. You don’t have…”

“Nay, it’s a good story actually,” he grinned, snapping out of his somberness. “There was this ugly, horrid Greek by the name Yialli, who was just the bane of my existence then. Through deceitful means he had become the Bo’sun of the ship and just ran me ragged. Got to give him credit though, I was forced to learn everything quite fast and quite proficiently to avoid his directed wrath. It was the undirected wrath that tended to haunt me and hurt me…Either way, it was about six weeks into my grand adventure on the sea that I discovered the true nature of the Raging Tide, as it took a Spanish vessel on its way home to the mother country loaded with all sorts of goods. Well, the miscreants went on their way to Tortuga to spend their new wealth, but since a vast amount of imbibable beverages were part of the captured cargo and they had not the best guidance or rules on the ship, their celebrating started very early. Yialli was three sheets to the wind by the time he was to dole out the shares of the booty, and when it came to my turn, he basically threw this old coral encrusted piece of junk at me, laughing the whole time and daring me to complain. I did the foolish thing and voiced my disparity at his inequity, and ended up with this for my efforts if you remember from earlier…” Jack ran a finger down the reddish scar in his right eyebrow and lower cheek, in his beard hair. “Bastard came damn close to taking my eye, but,” and he held his arm up with a flourish so the ring glittered in the light, “he didn’t, and I came up on the much better end of the deal. I have never seen someone so irate as that dog after I cleaned it up, and discovered it was a blue sapphire ring fit for royalty. I’ve not taken it off since the day I put it on too many years ago to even think of counting.”

“Well its simply beautiful,” you say cheerily with open admiration. Jack’s giddy mood form the joy of his storytelling was horribly contagious. “So whatever happened after that?”

“Well,” Jack continued, “I knew from that moment on that my back was just waiting for the dagger, and spent a few sleepless nights until we reached Tortuga, and I left to find other fortunes. Ended up in the same line of work, slightly better ship, and well, here I am. I found out about a year later that the blasted Tide was taken by His Majesties Royal Navy, and all either perished in the battle, or ended up feeding the crows on the end of a rope. Yialli was made a few inches taller, much to my delight.”

“I’m glad you left that boat at Tortuga. I would hate to think what would have happened if you had stayed on.”

“Ship. Its all about the tonnage luv,” he sniggered in amusement. “And I didn’t become ‘Captain’ Jack Sparrow for being a fool.”

He gently lifted up your hand and kissed your fingers one by one almost making you forget your prior conversation, until he looked down on you in his contemplative, cockeyed way and asked, “Back to your interesting trinket there. Reminder and repayment for what?” You must have blanched, or flinched or both, because Jack sighed and comfortingly caressed your palm. “Like anything could shock a pirate, luv? Old boyfriend? Lover?”

“Sort of,” you very hesitantly say. “While it was bought with my money, it was a gift from my husband.” The caressing fingers stopped and she felt the pirate stiffen. “Do not fret, Captain. You shaint be getting another scar from a jealous man. At least from mine anyway. He’s dead.”

Jack let out a breath. “Oye. Good. No, not good. I’m sorry. ‘ow did he… you know?”

Your stomach started to tie in knots. How much dare you tell him? What would he think? What did it matter what he thought. You didn’t figure you could lie well to him even if you tried. He seemed to be able to see through you. “I killed him.” You murmured, barely audible, and pulled away, bringing the sheet with you, so you sat on the edge of the bed, wrapping it around you. It had been so long since you had actually thought about all that in your past, and it tore at you. “As bad as that sounds, I am not a Black Widow. Don’t concern yourself, Mr. Sparrow. I have no plans on killing you.“

“I had no fear of that milady,” he answered, and his warm body pressed up against your back. Placing his lips on your shoulder he let his warm breath tickle over your skin, his hands just touching your arms. “You can tell me, ease your soul,” he whispered almost inaudibly against your flesh, “or naught. I shaint condemn ye either way, or for what you did. Sometimes confession is good for ye so I’m told, and I know you are troubled by it. Savvy?”

“You know? How?”

“I’ve been there myself for forever and eternity. Nothing drives someone farther and faster then guilt, by either wanting to atone or escape from it. Aye, I know.”

Your lips trembled as you struggled to find words. More of you then you realized must have trembled, because his arms encircled you and pulled you back against him comfortingly. Finally you heard yourself, and almost without thought the words came pouring out.

“There once was this young girl, only child to a well off merchant whose wife had died when the child was but a wee bairn. Her father never remarried, and of course she was spoiled rotten by her father, but not in the normal way you think. She was spoiled because he did not exclude her because she was but a girl. He did not rush the child from the room when business went on, so through watching and listening she learned. She was well educated. Her love of music was fostered with instruments and tutors to the point where she was convinced she could attend some of the renowned music colleges of Europe, except that none would take a woman.

At around the age of 16, her father went to speak to the master of a smaller academy in Germany, desperate to bring his daughters dream to some sort of fruition, but as her luck would have it, his ship was lost. In a short expanse of time not only was she was excluded from all the schools she wished to attend but then orphaned and the only heir to a minor fortune, so I want to say she wasn’t all in her right mind at the time. Young and overwhelmed. She continued to run her father’s routes as she thought he would have, but many were unwilling to want to deal with a woman, especially one so young, but she kept at it.

It was then the suitors began to show up at her door, fortune seekers for the most part; others who wanted to make her an honest woman and not a man want-to-be. One day a handsome young gentleman arrived, all in velvet and lace, son of lord as it were. He came at first with a business proposition, needing someone to help subsidize some shipments from the Far East, his contacts and sources, and her money to start. He actually followed her advice, which started her denial of instincts. After all, he was a lord; a man of noble blood and honor. The goods returned successfully and quite a bit of money was made. He presented her a necklace from that shipment, covered in dragons, as a token of his affection and appreciation. It was like her spirit he said. Making a long story short, he wooed her while they waited the long months for the ships and caravans to return with the goods. And she fell for his words, convinced he loved the simple merchant girl and her whims, ignoring the coldness in his eyes when they were alone and the distance in his kiss. She ignored her gut feelings and all that she had learned from her father.

He convinced her to buy a winery in France, as his inheritance was not solvent until his father’s death, where they would go live after they were married, and he would use his influence to get her into a music school nearby. Well that sold her, and they were wed. The wedding night, painful and cold, was a forbear of her husband’s desire to take and not give, but not being experienced in the ways of the world, the girl knew not the difference and bore it with resolve.

He packed her up and took her to France. They had stopped at an inn outside Rouen, and booked a room. She found it odd when after the evening meal, and retiring, he packed her up, and they left in dead of night in secret, leaving her maidservant behind, but she did not question as it was not her place. Then in the middle of nowhere, in a farmer’s field under the light of the full moon, they stopped …” You faltered, the long buried memories striking you like hot iron brands, the details returning in such vivid details that you started to flinch as you remembered. You did not feel the hot tears as they coursed down your face.

“He beat her mercilessly, over and over and over with fists and boots of stone. She could think of nothing she had done to deserve this. She was scorched by the fire of greed and contempt in his eyes as she begged for mercy in her fear and confusion. No one heard her screams, or if they did, no one cared. How long it went on she did not know, but it seemed forever, until finally darkness took her. He beat his new wife to within an inch of her life, then threw her in a watery ditch to drown. No one would miss an unknown English girl in the French countryside. As she floated in the water, he came down and took the necklace from her. Little did he know that this action saved her life, and when he dropped her head again and left, it fell on a branch, which barely kept it above the water line.

It was merciful fate that had sent her maidservant to steal after them, as she had never trusted nor liked her lady’s husband. She pulled the dying girl from the slimy water, and as luck would have it she lived. They say that what does not kill you makes you stronger, and she put this into her resolve to right the wrong against her. Hard won lessons that one tends not to forget.

What the ignorant girl never knew until then was that her lord was bankrupt, bereft of his money, having lost it on unwise transactions, women and gambling. What she also discovered was that all this time he had a mistress outside Paris, whom he planned to flee to after murdering his wife.

His great plan was cunning and almost worked. He leaves his wife at the inn to travel ahead, but the upstart young wife follows him in her wantonness, and she is beset upon by bandits, who rape and kill her, just in case she is identified. If that is the case he takes control of everything and he wins, later able to marry his mistress. If not, then he eventually takes his mistress and passes her off as the wife, for who in France knows whom she really is.

Shame that he tarried so long gallivanting with whores and wine and cards. Shame that he traveled alone, still half drunk to his mistress’s house, with the necklace as a gift, the original intended recipient. It was only after the dagger plunged into his heart did he recognize the swollen and hideously bruised and battered face of the one that wielded it. Never had the girl felt such fury and yet such release as she used the dagger as he had his fists on her. When it was done, he was barely recognizable. She knelt next to the body; her form covered in blood and gore from head to toe, retrieved her jewels from his pocket, and carefully put her dragon necklace back on.

The maidservant was worth her weight in loyalty and gold, as she helped the new widow remove his valuables and drag the corpse to a tree where they trussed it up and left it for the crows and any passersby. She allowed herself a short time to heal, and then went onto her winery, where the poor heartbroken woman learned that her husband never arrived ahead of her. As far as the world knows, Lord Geoffrey was found on the road to Arles, eviscerated by bandits. As far as I know, he beat me and left me to die… He beat me and left me to die like a dog in the gutter… like a dog… he just kept beating me…”

Not once had you ever relayed this story to anyone, and not once had you cried about it since that first night after you were pulled from the ditch and awoke. You had pushed it from your mind, as though it was a nightmare, a simple matter of survival. But now it was there, in the forefront, and you broke down, sobbing and weeping, repeating those last lines over and over as the betrayal replayed itself over and over in your mind.

He held you the whole time, having turned you to cradle you like a child, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, stroking your hair and articulating unheard words of comfort. By the time you regained even a sliver of composure, Jack’s chest was soaked with your tears, and the mortification of your weakness began to sink in. You tried to pull away, but he held you firm.

“Nay, luv, stay,” the pirate captain said in that strange insightful way that he had. “I could tell ye I’m sorry, and I am, for what that miscreant did was deplorable, but we both know it doesn’t change what happened. I could tell ye that not all men are Satan incarnate as he was, but I think ye know that too, or you wouldn’t ‘ave laid with me in the first place. I can’t change the past; lord knows I wish I could. I don’t have much to offer you that would mean anything, but I can offer ye my sympathy, if you would have it. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, a subject I am well versed on, but you have overcome it and made well for yourself, and if anything came of that wretched night, you should be proud of that.”

You started to wipe tears and moisture from your eyes and nose and face, not feeling quite proud at the moment. Reaching back, Jack pulled your pillow down and lay you back upon it, using the edge of the blanket to wipe the remaining tears away. He rose and fetched a fresh glass of wine and the bottle, handing you the glass and sitting next to you. He took a long swig straight from the bottle. You sat up, sipped at yours, your throat stinging and raw, not daring to look up at him, clutching the sheet modestly around your chest still.

“I’m sorry, Jack,” you choked out, your voice barely able to work.

“For what? Being human? Having feelings, regrets, skeletons in your closet? We all have those, silly woman!” His hand rubbed tenderly at your back.

“I barely know you, and yet I burdened you with something so dark, something I have ne’er told anyone. I can’t say what came over me.” You glanced up from under your lashes, ashamed.

Grinning in his sharp way that seemed to indicate he already knew the answer, Jack suddenly asked, “If ye barely knew me, what made you trust me to begin with, lass? Think about it. “ You couldn’t answer right away, and Jack continued after taking another long draught of the bottle. “You, dear woman, have been a pleasant surprise to old Jack here. You are not the regular dithering female that I usually cross paths with. Not many have the gift of inner strength, beauty, and true insight that you seem to have; the ability, innate or learned, to read people’s true intentions. My question is what you see and how you see it? How did you come to the judgment that I had not come to slit your throat for that mere bauble around your neck after having my way with you? What made you even start talking to this scurvy dog to begin with, when it was clear that was something you never did before?”

“Your eyes,” you reply your strength and resolve returning a tad. “That night in the pub. Your eyes spoke to me.” You hesitantly stroked his dark eyebrow with one thumb, outlining the faded remnants of the dark, oily kohl that had been smeared around them on the lid. “I saw what I had felt all these years, and I saw compassion, and caring, and potential.”

Jack took your hand in his and kissed your wrist as you caressed his face. “Not many see that in me.” His soft lips and facial hair on your wrist sent shivers down your spine, and you felt that small spark start to rekindle.

“Kindred spirits, I suppose,” you breathe.

His kisses worked up you arm to that superbly sensitive flesh at your inner elbow, where he lingered, listening to your inhalations quicken. Jack’s hand cupped your breast and fondled it, relishing its firm pliability, and working the ever-hardening nipple with his fingers until it could be no harder.

Instincts and hormones and adrenalin from your cry took over and startling both you and he, Jack found himself pushed back onto the bed, as you caught his lips with yours. Your hands on his shoulders, you straddled his thighs, pressing your chest against his without adding your full weight, wanting that precious contact with his skin. His fingers slipped between you, and into your soft mound, between your swelling lips. You heard and felt the groan of approval for your forwardness from him in the deep kiss. You knew he could feel the wetness of your arousal that was already there as he slipped his fingers into your channel. Your hips moved of their own accord on his fingers as the probed and stroked inside you.

His thumb pinched hard the exposed nub and you jerked up with a gasp. The corner of his mouth turned upward in a pleased way, watching you squirm and gyrate as he increased the rhythm of his actions. “What do you want, luv?” Jack asked between your loudening gasps.

You pulled his hand away and looked down on him, his raven black hair, its long tangled tendrils splayed out around him, and the hint of his gold-capped teeth in the wry smile on his face. You knew from those dark expressive eyes that the pirate was looking for something in your reply that was not what was the first response expected, but you hadn’t figured what yet. Moving up a few inches you didn’t answer him in words. His shaft was already steel hard beneath you, and you ran its length back and forth between your nether lips, slicking it with your hot fluids.

Jack groaned and grasped your breasts, squeezing them in his grip as you added weight and pressure and rocked on his flesh, matching his groans each time you ran it over your more sensitive swelling.

“What do you want?” Jack asked again, the eagerness burning brightly behind sheer lust in his eyes.

“You.” Your hand takes his manhood and it pulses in your grasp and he utters something unintelligible. You guide the tip to your opening, and lower yourself, feeling it slide in, stretching and filling your body.

Jacks hands grasp your hips and stops your progress. “Nay luv’. What do you WANT?” he growls out firmly, chastisement for your not understanding his meaning, yet patient in desiring your comprehension. His brows furrow in his effort and he stares you down, daring you to see what he means in his face.

A moment of clarity struck you in your desire and you cry out, “Freedom,” and force yourself the rest of the way onto him. Jack smiled and releases you, throwing back his hands, letting you go. You rode him, unsure and haltingly at first, feeling the deepness of his entrance between rising and falling, and just rocking on his length. As you gained confidence, want began to grow steadily, your rhythm increased. Jack grasped at the pillow under his head in his fight to let you be, his fists clenching and unclenching as you gyrated on top of his body. Your hands rest on his shoulders, helping balance yourself on his body and give you leverage. His hips rose and tried to match your plunges with his own thrusts.

Guttural sounds and growls grew louder from the pirate as he watches your efforts, your head thrown back and fingers digging into his skin, trying to reach that pinnacle, just ever so out of reach. Suddenly he bucks strongly and flips you to the side, but not letting you onto your back. Jack kneels up, pushing his hair back again, cursing for need of his red scarf. “Get up. Get up on your hands,” he orders.

You look at him somewhat baffled, but did as he asked. You feel Jack come up behind you, guiding your legs apart and his hard shaft between them, and his intent becomes very clear. His one arm bends you over to gain better entrance, and the other supports your hip, pulling you back onto his length. After he fills you completely, Jack pulls you against his body, kneeling fully upright, your back to his chest. His lips kiss your neck, and his breath is ragged and hot in your ear as he takes your lobe and nips at it.

Jack rocks ever so slowly beneath you, his thrusts purposeful and strong in the short space he has to move. One of his hands grasps your breast, and the other goes down to feel the connection between you, where two becomes one. You snake one arm up and around his neck, through his hair, feeling the cool metal of the trinkets in its mass bobbing on your shoulder and arm. You pull him tighter against you, encouraging his gentle tongue explorations and the thrusts behind you. Your other joins his between you, and he moans loudly as you touch there, touch him. You can feel his slick skin and soaking coarse curls as he pulls in and out of your passage. He guides your fingers to your own body, entwining your fingers with his, and encourages you to touch and pleasure your own body.

Your body clenches around his shaft in response to the touch, and you lowly whimper, an amusing paradox to the pirate’s ever growing cries. “Grab the post luv,” he raggedly grunts out, and his hands grasp your hips after you do. With you bent over further, he has wide movement, and solidly begins to thrust deep into you. His hands pull you back harder and harder, and he leans over to kiss and bite at your back. You feel his balls slapping against you in his anxious enthusiasm. Sweat runs from his chest and face and drips onto your back like hot raindrops, mixing with your own.

His ever-audible groans and cries fill the room, almost drowning out your own exclamations of passion. You feel that exploding fire start to consume you, as you realize that Jack is near his climax. He grimaces in his fight for control, and you hear him call out, “Oh god, luv. I cant.. Oh dear god..” And it trailed off into a throaty roar as he came in wild abandonment, digging into your sweat-slicked flesh with his fingers that would later leave bruises.

This triggered something in your own psyche, and fell over the edge of pleasure, screaming his name over and over as you shuddered and writhed against him, daring not let go of the wooden bedpost lest you collapse. His groans choked up into a silent scream, and his teeth dug into your shoulder as he pulsed and surged his essence deep into you. Your body clenched and trembled around him, milking his body of all the seed that filled you.

Jack, gasping for air, practically collapses on top of you; the only thing stopping him is his sudden grasping of the wood, right above your own hands. The metal dangly on the end of his hair tassel swings back and forth, bopping you in the nose several times until he flings it back with a flip of his head.

"Oh, sorry my dear,” he apologetically said, frowning as he poked a finger at the large bruised and slightly bloody mark he had left on your back. “I think I’ve branded ye. Left an unintentional souvenir.”

You release the bedpost and wearily sink into the soft bedding, and Jack slides in wrapping his arms around you. “Hell’s bells,” he says, suddenly, as his gaze is directed out the window at his angle. The sun had almost set, and the sky was a deep, dark red.

“What’s wrong, Jack?”

“The day’s all but passed, that’s all. Didn’t mean to alarm you.”

You felt a pain in your gut. “Does that mean you will be leaving now?” You hoped the disappointment wasn’t too evident in your question.

Jack only clutched you tighter to him. “I’ve till morning till I need be back on my ship, and my contact for my goods is long gone, so I’ve nowhere pressing to be and no fancy engagements I must be attending. So, if ye be so inclined, I might be persuaded to linger…”

You giggled, and turned in his arms so you were nose to nose. “What would be good persuasion to a pirate captain, I wonder?”

He stared off into the distant air a moment as if in thought, and smiled cattily. “A good dinner would be nice, and eventually some sleep, but first and most important...” He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, reaching underneath and retrieving a metal bowl, “I desperately need a chamber pot. That, my girl, will work wonders for me,” as he strode off into the other room.

The rest of the night was spent suffering your maidservant’s perturbed stares as she brought you dinner and drink and new clothing for Jack, (much to his consternation and her sheer insistence that almost none of it could be saved but she purchased everything almost identical to what he had given her), listening to more of Jack’s stories of the sea, and making love until you both collapsed in exhaustion and fell into deep sleep enveloped in his grasp.

You did not feel the pirate leave your bed before the sun rose, nor hear any of his other actions before he stole from your abode.

He quietly dressed in a new crisp white linen shirt and new blue breeches, oddly offset by the old red and white tattered sash and comfortably worn long vest that he had verbally fought Ester for until the old woman gave in. He slid the red bandanna over his head, tying it beneath the large ponytail in the back, and pulling the small beaded and decorated top tail over the edge to hold it. Slipping his belt and weapons on, but leaving his boots off he strode over to your small writing desk and sat down. Setting his leather hat to the side he picked up a quill, and he sat for many minutes, poised over a sheet of parchment. All at once he began to write, the quill flying across with a soft scratching sound, and not stopping until he had filled the page with words. Signing it with a flourish, he blew across the wet ink gently to dry it, and folded it thrice.

He reached up and grabbed the long tail on his left side and finding the base near his skull, with a small penknife, he sliced it off and knotted the sliced end with a loose strand of thread that hung from his sash.

Jack Sparrow stood over your sleeping form for a long while, staring down expressionless, holding the letter, the hair and a small object. He set it on the pillow in the hole that his head had made while sleeping, then bent down and kissed your forehead. With deft fingers he removed the dragon necklace from your neck with nary a disturbance to your sleep, and slipped it into a long pocket in his vest. With that, he crept into the other room, where he slipped on his boots and in the darkness climbed out the casement and back down the tree from where he had first come.

Although you knew he would be gone when you awoke, when you did stir with the morning light and the litany of avian chorus to find his spot empty, you had to choke back sorrowful disappointment. When you stood up is when you saw the letter and picked it up. Underneath you saw the long familiar hair adornment, wrapped around and threaded through something. You gasped when you realized what it was, and ever so hesitantly took it up. Jack’s silver and sapphire ring peeked out from under the hair when you slowly unwound it. He had run the hair through the middle and tied it in a simple overhand, then wrapped the rest around to shield it.

Weakly you sat on the edge of the bed, and unfolded the letter with trembling hands. Jack had a beautiful script for a pirate, but then you knew that he wasn’t just a pirate; that there was more to him then he let on, and that even now you so desired to learn about. Your hand flew to your neck as you read it, as you realized that your necklace was gone. You read the words several times, before folding the paper again, and holding it to your breast.

It read:

‘My sweet lady

I did not ever think my heart could or would be as heavy as it was when was to leave you this day. That in and of itself told me something and it is only fair that I tell you, to leave you with something.

It is rare when one meets someone truly extraordinary, who that in an instant can leave an indelible impression upon oneself, that cries out to be nurtured and explored to its full potential. Even in my wide travels, that has only happened upon the rarest of occasions and in the most bizarre and unexpected situations. This has not broken that mold to be sure. You are most surely a dragon kindred, if the traits you told me be true.

My duties call me to be elsewhere, and with my code I must go. If it were not for my enormous responsibilities, I would tarry longer with you, for I desire to learn as much about you and your whims and dreams, as you said you did for mine.

With that, let it be known that if the Gov’ners men ever see need to hassle you, you can honestly claim to them that the dread pirate took advantage of you, stealing your precious jewels for his own nefarious desires. For your own safety, of course, I have done this.

If I for some addled reason that is best not dwelled on or explained, have happened to have misplaced and forgotten anything of my own property that you perchance run across, I ask you the boon of caring for it, until someday soon in the future I may retrieve them from your hands. If I have any say in the matter our paths will cross again.

If it be in your heart what be in mine, look to the seas at the sunset, and think of me, and know that I will be thinking of you.

Never surrender, milady, and never let them tell you what for.

Captain Jack Sparrow‘

It was now four months later, and the tears seeped down your face the same as when you read that letter. You tightly held the ring and hair that Jack Sparrow had left, staring at the sunset, as you had every clear night since that day.

Laughter from small groups of people caught your attention, and you looked down onto local girls walking with some of the new sailors that had arrived in. The boys of summer had arrived in the form of new recruits and transplanted sailors and soldiers from the old world that the young girls of the island flocked to for attention and prospects. While some might stay, most would leave, and the cycle would start again.

You supposed that Jack was your boy of summer. A pleasant interlude and the memories would be something you would always cherish. You could always hope that maybe he might even remember you on occasion.

While the girls of the town would look forward to a new batch of young men every few months, or every year, you knew in your heart that there would be no others for you. Your summer was gone. If you were not alone before, you certainly were alone now. You had your songs and your new enterprises, and that would have to do, for you would never surrender to the chains that modern society deemed acceptable for you.

You opened your hand and gazed down upon the silver band with its bright blue stone and the dangling ornament that hung from it, moving in the wind. You would always have your sunsets, you thought; just like he asked, and in that way you would always have some part of him.

You almost screamed as smudged, dirty fingers encircled your hand with the ring, to hold it firm. A warm body pressed into your back and breathed into your hair. “Beautiful sunset, luv. I see you did me the courtesy of keeping that safe for me. Thank you very much,” you heard a familiar voice say.

Your legs almost collapsed out from under you as you recognized the dulcet, slurred tones, and you quivered in anxious shock, not daring to prove yourself right.

“I have to say,” the male voice continued, "I had a rough time of trailing the bit of crumbs you left for your new whereabouts, but they always forget that I am Captain Jack Sparrow.”

You whirled, and were nose to nose with the pirate Captain. His eyes sparkled mischievously from sockets with mostly fresh black kohl circles around them, and he had that amusing sideways grin that showed the gold of his teeth. Taking a half step back, you looked him up and down in disbelief that he was really here and this wasn’t some delusion of yours.

Jack was almost the same as the first time you saw him, in the dark overcoat, his white shirt a bit less tattered and only a couple of patches on his pants this time. The notable exception was where the dangling hair ornament had graced his head before, was a new line of stones threaded into a strand on his hair, all which looked mightily familiar as the stones that once graced your neck.

He saw your gaze and laughed. “I needed a safe place to keep those, and that seemed better then any other, and my head felt a bit lopsided and empty once I ‘misplaced’ the original.” Jack stepped in close to you again, a hand snaking behind to the small of your back “I have to admit, dearie, I had a bit of a time when I first got back to the Pearl, not hearing the end of it for several days as to how pleasant my new attire and fragrance be, especially from Gibbs.” He cradled your flabbergasted and awestruck face in his free hand. “My guts have told me that this will be a bad season, and not enough profit for risk for a bit o’ time. We had a couple of excellent months there, so being the responsible Captain that I am, I have stowed the Pearl in a sheltered harbor, and given the crew some time off to do what they need or want to. I was thinking, or more so I was hoping, that I could find a place to take up a temporary residence here on this island, maybe with some fair lady to keep me company. Would ye have any suggestions, luv?” Jack pressed his lips to yours, long and lovingly, then pulled back and waited for your reaction.

Searching for a voice, you were barely able to nod, the emotion radiating from your eyes. Then it truly struck you, and throwing your arms around him, you laughed and cried at the same time. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, Jack.”

“Aye, you know a pirate’s reputation. As I told ye before they could never resist a bit of treasure,” he replied as he swept you up into his arms and carried you back towards the inside, and teased on the way in, “Now, despite my crew’s taunts, I was hoping that you might be persuaded to that bath thing again, but this time with me, you know, to wash my back?”

THE END

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