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“Let me go!”
The man who had tied Elizabeth’s arms back chuckled. “With yer husband so long gone away at sea, you’ll need friends like us.”
“This is extortion!” Elizabeth struggled furiously against her bonds.
“Nay, simply the price of safety.”
“Safety from what?” Elizabeth spat. “From the likes of thieves like you! Robbers and brigands, the lot of you!”
The gang of men who had come to offer her their “protection”, at the hefty price of most of the rest of her gold, only laughed as they turned to leave.
As their leader reached her threshold, a familiar figure swung into the doorframe, one hand behind his back. “Hullo, lads.”
“Jack!” Elizabeth had never been so glad to see that man.
The leader of the gang placed a wary hand on the hilt of his sword. “Who’re ye?”
“Traveling salesman, you might say.” The bronzed pirate looked as nonchalant as ever, though his smirk spoke of mischief. “A merchant of peace. Come to offer the lady a better price than you.”
“Beat it, mate,” their leader spat, drawing his sword. “It’s four to one.”
Jack swiftly drew a pistol from behind his back and cocked it at the man.
One of the better armed brigands drew his pistol as well, and Jack drew a second pistol from the pocket of his coat and aimed back.
The room froze in a stalemate.
“It’s a draw, gentlemen. Drop the gold and be on your way,” Jack urged.
“Look here,” the leader of the gang said, taking a different tone now that a pistol was fixed on him. “We only came by to make sure the lady was safe. I don’t know who you are, but if you’d like to contribute to the defense of Shipwreck Cove, I’m sure we can come up with an arrangement.”
“If you don’t know who I am, then you’d best learn,” Jack said. “Because arrangements that don’t take that into account don’t go well for the counterparty.”
“And you are?”
“I’m Captain Jack Sparrow, mate.”
The widening eyes of the men around indicated that, at least in a pirate cove, that name was not without weight.
“I thought ‘e was dead,” another man said.
“I was. Nasty business.” Jack glanced back to their leader. “Oh, by the way, Tom sends his regards. He says, and I quote, ‘He has it coming. Send him over to me and I’ll give him his due’.”
The bag of gold the man held dropped to the ground. “What?”
“It’s not too late, you know,” Jack continued. “You could get yerself down to the church... Look, I’ll tell you what. I’m a kind man. I’ll count to ten. One.”
“Drop it, drop it,” the leader told his men, sweat visible on his brow.
“What’s the matter?” the man with the pistol replied.
“Two.”
“Let’s go, it’s not worth it.”
“Three.”
The men were dropping her gold.
“Four.”
By the count of seven, the gang was filing out of her house.
“Ten!” Jack finished, calling out at the backs of the retreating men. “And don’t come back again!”
When he was satisfied they were gone, he closed the door. “Hullo, love. Miss me?”
---
Elizabeth took a sip of rum. Being around Jack again made her want to drink. He'd held her far too close as he’d cut her free from her bonds, bringing back memories she'd rather forget. He was still looking at her in a way that breached propriety, even after she'd offered him a drink. Especially after she'd offered him a drink.
She set her glass down on the table. “How did you guess he'd killed a man named Tom?”
“Common name." Jack grinned. "Men like that always have someone who has it out for them.”
“Still, what are the odds there’d be a skeleton in his closet by the name of Tom?”
“I don’t know what to tell you. The odds are often in my favor.”
“You’re the luckiest man I’ve ever met.”
He winked at her and took a swig of his drink. “Hang around me some more and it might rub off on you.”
She narrowed her eyes at his devilish grin. “Why did you come, Jack?”
“I can never resist the call of a damsel in distress.”
“You do happen to have good timing, but I did not call you. You showed up here on your own, probably crossing half the sea to find me. So what do you want?”
Jack wrinkled his nose. “I cross half the sea to visit an old friend, and this is how you welcome me?”
“I’ve fed you. Watered you.”
“Aye, like a flower. Thank you. I feel marvelous.” He placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Now, are you going to pick me?”
Elizabeth decided to put her suspicions on the table. “Did you come to proposition me?”
“Do you think I would be so bold?”
It didn’t matter if he wasn’t going to come out and say it. The way he was looking at her was an answer in itself. “I’m married, if you can’t recall. To your good friend.”
“I merely came to see how you were doing,” Jack replied, his eyes wide and innocent. “You’re looking very lithe, Elizabeth. Your whole life ahead of you.”
“Did you expect me to have shriveled up into a withered old hag in half a year’s time?”
“Perish the thought! But I did wonder if dear William might have left you a bit more... fulfilled.”
“He did not leave me with child, if that is what you are so crudely implying.”
“Mm. Pity.” His dark eyes searched her over. “Or is it?”
She abruptly stood up from the table and turned away from his searching gaze. “Did you come here to rub it in? Or to call Will a eunuch? If so, you have succeeded. You may go now.”
“Elizabeth.”
The way he said her name made her glad she was already facing the wall.
“Lizzie.”
“What do you want, Jack.”
“Look.” His voice was softly insistent.
When she was sure the tears that had threatened would not escape, she turned.
A small leather box sat on the table. Closed. Unremarkable.
“I brought you a present,” Jack said cheerfully.
“That’s your compass.” She sniffed as her gaze traveled from his kohl-lined eyes to the worn box. “It’s broken.”
“It’s not.” Jack sauntered over and held out the compass like he was presenting her with a priceless gift. “Open it.”
She pulled away as he pressed it into her hand, the cold brush of his rings over her fingers making her heart thud. “No thank you. I don’t want it.”
“You don’t want the thing that will give you what you most want? What’s the sense in that?” Jack crowded closer. “This compass, love, it will point the way...” He swept his hand across the room in a dramatic gesture. “To your heart’s truest desire.”
Elizabeth shook her head. There was no telling what that cursed thing might reveal.
Jack swayed back a step, regarding her with furrowed brow. “What good can come of denying yourself the things you want, if you’re still going to go on wanting them?”
This man knew far too much of her. Elizabeth turned away again. “It does no good to look at the things you want if you can’t act on them.”
“Can’t?” The pirate swayed closer. “Or won’t?”
Elizabeth only shook her head again, with fierce resolution, and thrust the box back at him. “Keep your compass. And your immorality.”
Jack stepped away, waving his hand. “Eh, take it. It’s yours. Does me no good anymore. I already go after what I want. Perhaps someday you’ll decide to do the same.”
“This is what I want. To be faithful to Will.”
“Is it?” Jack sounded unconvinced.
“Yes. Do you know what he told me before he left? He said it would be unfair to expect me to wait for him. He—"
“He did?” The pirate’s eyes sparkled with renewed interest. “Then you’re free, Lizzie!”
“That is not the point. He loved me, and he forgave me, even after he saw what we did at the mast, Jack. He’s a better man than you.”
Jack was advancing again, closing the distance between them. “Dear William. He is a better man than me. But he's also a deader one.”
The glare she skewered him with brought him to a halt. “Have you no honor?”
“No. Nor scruples. But what I lack, I make up for in charm.”
“Vile man.”
“If you say so. Tell me you really don’t want me though.”
It should have been that easy. Elizabeth parted her lips, searching for the words to dismiss him. But they could not be found.
“Let me hear you say it, Lizzie, and I’ll go.” With every word, the pirate drew nearer, until she could smell the rum and tobacco on his breath. “Tell me you don’t want me. That you’ll never... ever... want me.”
“Stop.”
“Say it.” He stepped closer until his face swam before her eyes.
“Jack! Please...”
A gold tooth flashed at her, and the room seemed to grow warmer beneath the heat of his smile. “You know, you’re particularly convincing when you beg like that, all high and breathy...”
She placed a hand on his chest to keep him at bay, but the physical contact suddenly heightened the stakes.
He looked down the hand she had placed over his heart, then met her eyes with a tragic gaze. “I saved him in the end, love. Gave up immortal life to hand you right over to him. I didn’t have to do it. But you were right. I wanted to know how it ta—“
No longer thinking beneath the tempest of emotions that had risen up at his words, she yanked him in by his shirt, crashing him into her.
Tastes.
His lips tasted of rum and salt, longing and betrayal. As her lips parted to him, he took the advantage, winding his tongue into her mouth and his hand into her hair. One step, and then another, and then her back hit the wall. Kissing him was as natural as breathing, as easy as falling... into rampant adultery.
She pulled away to speak. “Jack...”
“Cariño, querida,” he murmured against her jaw, trailing his kisses down her neck
Was he speaking in another language, or simply spewing nonsense? The foreign words muddled with the feeling of his beard ticking her skin, until she could no longer recall what she needed to say.
“Te anhelo, te necesito, di que me quieres...”
“That’s enough.” She pushed him back as his lips trailed across her bosom. “You’ve got your reward. We’re not going to—“
“Di que me quieres.” His eyes burned like live coals, and she did not have to understand his words to know what he wanted from her. The hands sliding down her body made their intentions quite clear.
“Speak. English,” she hissed, trying to arrest the progress of his hands towards her increasingly heated core.
“Tell me the truth.”
“The truth, Jack, is that somehow fate has seen fit to plague me with you like a limpet, but you will never be mine, and I will never be yours,” she said in a rush. “I am married to Will, and you are married to the sea. If I let myself have you as I — yes, as I may have wanted at various times! — then on top of forsaking my vows, I will have only lost two men to a mistress with which no woman can compete.”
At her confession, satisfaction twinkled in his eyes. “The sea is a generous lover, Lizzie. There’s more than enough room in her for two.”
“Is that the fate you came to offer me?”
“I’ve come to offer you everything. Anything.” His dark eyes sparkled. “All the things your bonny heart desires. Where do you want to go, love? Havana? Morocco? Majorca? I’ll take you.”
She tried to move away, but he cornered her, painting a picture with his hands. “What do you want to have? Diamonds? Rubies? Pearls? I’ll give them to you.”
“I want the heart of a man that is constant and true.”
“How about one that is living, too?”
She rolled her eyes and turned aside.
“Lizzie, listen—“
“You may want me, Jack, but I know you’d be about as loyal to me as you’d be to any port of call. So not at all.”
He took her face in his hands. “Listen. I have a proposal. Come with me. We can do as much or as little as you want of...” He gestured between them with his hand. “This. But let’s give it an honest try. You and I. Me and you. Us.”
“That’s far from a bold declaration of love. Are you proposing I forsake everything for pearls and Majorca?”
Jack sighed. “See, the trouble with an honest man is he will only promise you what he can give. Nothing more. Nothing less.”
She snorted.
“But because I am not an honest man,” Jack continued, insistently seeking out her eyes until he had her undivided attention, then offered his next words in a tone of deep sincerity. “I promise you, Lizzie. I will be here for you. Whatever happens. And you will have all of me. For as long as you want me.”
Like all her encounters with Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth did not know what to believe. “Is that the truth disguised as a lie, or a lie told like the truth?”
“Do you believe I could tell a lie to your face?”
She studied him for a moment. “I believe you don’t know the difference yourself.”
He smiled as if she had caught on to a grand secret of his. “Then why don’t we find out, eh?”
He had talked her in circles, irking her until she wanted him gone, and yet she knew she would miss him the moment he left. As usual. As always. She removed his hand that still lingered on her, but then she somehow ended up holding it. She stared at it as if it were a foreign object as he traced a slow circle over her palm with his thumb. When she looked up, she was trapped by the naked longing in his eyes.
“At least the other thieves that visited only came to take my gold," Elizabeth sighed. "Your protection comes at a higher price.”
“But one you dearly want to pay.” His other hand trailed down her face.
She tilted her head back. “Claim it, then. Before I change my mind.”
His fingers paused at her jaw. Then his lips were sinking down upon hers, tasting the depths of her need, and the riptide of desire dragged her under.
----
It was all moving far, far too fast.
But surely it had happened slowly too, over all these years. Circling, and circling, and circling each other, until finally crashing together like two stray waves tossed together by a storm.
The familiar scent of him washed over her as he tumbled her to the bed — ocean, gunpowder, sweat, tobacco, leather, and rum. She yanked at his rough dreads, the beads tangling in her hand, and he bit down on her shoulder like he would devour her whole.
Rough hands bunched up her dress. When he kneed her thighs apart, her legs began to tremble, and her hips bucked up into his hand when his fingers slid over her sex.
He hissed, making a pained expression. “Wet as the sea, love. Tell me what you want.”
She would not give him the satisfaction. But the gentle slide of his fingers made her breathing grow shallow and labored.
By the time he shifted his weight between her legs, she had parted them willingly for him. He kissed his way down her body, then lowered his head...
“Jack! What are you doing?” She shoved him away, her fingers catching on the ragged bandana around his head.
His grin flashed gold. “Did your paramour neglect giving you a proper education?”
Her face burned as his fingers continued to play over her. “I don’t know what you’re...”
“Lie back and I’ll show you.”
She almost managed to jerk away when his tongue swiped over her sex, but he grabbed her hips and hauled her back into place.
“Ey, lie still. I’ll do you no harm.”
It was not harm she was concerned about at the moment, with the man in her bed still fully dressed. It was the embarrassment of being spread open for him like a split clam. But when he lowered his head again and flicked his tongue over her, she found she could no longer muster the will to care.
Her legs were soon spread carelessly wide as he drove her up to the edge with nothing but his mouth and hands, her dress still on, though wet and clinging to her skin. She was panting when he crawled on top of her, an inch away from the fall.
“Tell me what you want, love,” he asked her between kisses, his hands still making bold work of her.
“You,” she finally confessed, her tongue loosened by desire.
He groaned as if he had been wounded, and then his fingers were at the laces of her dress. “Thank god.”
She rambled on as he yanked at her clothing, delirious with the confession of this awful, burning secret. “Even though I’ve tried not to. Even though I shouldn’t. I’ve tried so, so hard to fight it.”
As he pulled her dress up and over her head, she took a deep, gulping breath, feeling as if he were slicing the corset free from her again.
“Give it up, love,” he muttered, running his hands down over her bare skin. “Fighting it only makes it hotter.”
His touch did wild things to her. When she bucked her hips up to him, he sat back and yanked off his belt, then shed his breeches, nearly tearing them off in his haste to be rid of them. Lord, he was a man. She had hardly enough time to catch a glimpse of him before he was pressing up against her, and she was already so wet, so eager for him, that he simply slid up to the hilt in one smooth motion.
She gasped from the sudden fullness, fighting off an impending loss of control, and yanked him down to her by his shirt, burying her face against the sweat-slicked skin of his neck. She was full of him. Of him.
He stopped then, supporting his weight over her. “Are ye alright,” he rasped, his voice hoarse.
It was rather too late to ask if she was not. But it was not her first time, and there had been no pain. Only a thrumming sense of completion that was so much grander for the precipice of desire he had raised her to. She was still processing that he was finally inside her as deep as a man could be when he suddenly pulled back. Her thighs clasped around his waist, her body rebelling against the loss.
He searched her over, his eyes dark and serious, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Tell me if you want me to stop. Otherwise...”
When she bit her lip, giving him no answer, he waited a moment more, then granted her silent desire and filled her again to the core.
She cried out as her body yielded to him upon each burning thrust. Loud, wanton moans she could hardly believe spilled from her mouth as her body fluttered around the aching pleasure.
He cursed, then leaned down close, his voice hot in her ear. “Oh, you’ve needed it so bad...”
She could only whimper, lost in the upsetting realization that he was right.
He moved slowly and deliberately, with maddening self-possession. How well he knew how to drive a woman apart. She was probably so far from the first he had splayed out like this beneath him that it was not worth counting. But the pleasure rose up in her again anyways as he took her in her marriage bed, the intensity mounting until he was plundering her like a ship he had boarded and looted.
His thrusts became sharper as her heat rose, and she balled the sheets up in her hands, fighting the unbelievable wave of pleasure threatening to drown her. Oh, she should not have trusted this man, should not be letting him...
But none of it mattered. Elizabeth sobbed as the wave broke, tumbling her into the abyss of her ruin.
Jack pinned her to the bed through her crisis, then sharply withdrew, leaving her lurching with his sudden absence. The question she had no time to ask was answered by strands of his hot seed falling across her skin.
He nuzzled her as they caught their breath, the mess of his hair tangling over her face, then rose from the bed. She averted her eyes, somehow finding more capacity for shame now that the deed was done.
He handed her a handkerchief he had produced from somewhere among his effects, and she cleaned him from her skin, but it felt as though the shape of him was still pressed into her. She willed her fingers not to shake.
“Consider us even, then,” she managed to say. “And close the door when you leave.”
“Leave?” Jack raised his eyebrows, then sighed and stripped off his shirt. “Don’t break my heart, love.”
Elizabeth placed a hand over her eyes, willing what was left of her fragile self-control to hold as he crawled back onto the bed.
He cautiously gathered her up into his arms. “We’ve only just begun.”
She relented to his embrace, letting him tug her against his chest. Despite her misgivings, it was a luxury to be pressed against the warm expanse of his skin. The deed was done, but his mouth still trailed lazy kisses down her head, over her neck, onto her shoulders.
“Between you and me, darlin,” he murmured against her skin between kisses, “it is not I who would take what I want and leave my lover behind.”
That final cut was more than she could bear. The tears she had fought back more than once finally made their escape. “I’ve betrayed every man in my life.”
“Shh. S’alright.” Fumbling fingers tried to wipe the tears from her face. “Happens.”
That only made it worse. “But I won’t be able to bear it when you do the same to me too.”
“Ah, Lizzie.” He shifted down so he could take her face in his hands again. “I don’t make promises. But what I take, I keep. Thieves’ honor, savvy?”
She did not know if that would be enough, but the blurry sight of his eyes stilled her tears. They were large and dark, and more serious than she had ever seen.
“Pirate,” she whispered.
Gold flashed in his teeth as he smiled at her in the dim light. “Peas in a pod.”
He kissed her.
If she had not been thoroughly plundered, she was now. His gentle touch was prying into her chest, coaxing out that last prize she could not allow this man to take.
Elizabeth pulled away, tucking her head beneath his chin, and when she did not respond to his gentle nudges, he finally he let her be, though he did not let her go.
She was drifting between wakefulness and sleep when she felt, rather than heard, the soft rumble of his voice. It began deep in his chest, then grew into a quiet tune. A fragment of a song, a roaring bonfire, a rum-soaked night, sand between her toes, heat between her thighs...
Drink up, me hearties, yo ho.
---
There was a bare-chested man sitting up in her bed, and he was not her husband.
Elizabeth put a hand to her head as she recalled last night’s ill-advised deeds.
“Morning, love.” A hand brushed through her hair. “How’re you feeling?”
She took the cup of water he offered. “Rum is a vile drink.”
“Well, good thing we drank it all.” Jack sprang up from the bed, irritatingly cheerful. “You’re safe from it now.”
It was a bit too late now. She watched ruefully as he crossed the room and opened her wardrobe.
“Where did those lad’s clothes you have go?” he asked, rummaging carelessly through her clothes.
“What are you doing?”
“Aha.” He pulled out a pair of breeches and a shirt. “These will fare better at sea.”
“You still mean to steal me away?”
“Elizabeth, darling, I have not said a single thing to you that I have not meant.” He crossed the room and laid the men’s clothing on her bed. “And I have not offered you a single thing that you do not want.”
“Just go, Jack. You got what you want.”
“Lizzie.” Jack crawled onto the bed. “You are trying my patience. But I don’t need a compass to know which direction your heart blows.”
She had hoped letting him have her might settle the score. But as he drew near her again, taking her face into his hand, her stomach did a flip.
He tilted her head up to meet his kohl-rimmed eyes. “You want to come with me."
She stubbornly held her silence, the only dignity left to her.
“But you think I will tarnish your honor, violate your virtue, expose you to danger, encourage your vices, and corrupt your character.” He smirked. “And I will. But you’ll love it.”
“What makes you so sure?”
His eyes flickered down to her lips, and his face drew nearer. “How did it taste, hm? To take what you want?”
One moment, she was still looking into those eyes, and the next, they were kissing as if it were the first time again.
“You’ve ruined me,” she whispered against his lips.
“I’m not sorry.”
Jack moved to practice the new mode of persuasion he had acquired over her, twisting his fingers into the heart of her sex until she let him sink down between her legs. That man was far too clever with his tongue, breaking her down body and soul. To let him in was to be consumed by his madness.
She dragged him up of her own volition, pushing his breeches down and parting her legs to him. Yet when she tugged at his hips, offering no surer invitation, he held back.
“What d’ye want, love?”
She groaned in frustration. Was it not exceedingly obvious?
“Tell me.” He draped one of her legs up over his shoulder.
“Jack...”
“Go on.” His arm looped beneath her other leg.
“Whatever you want!”
With a groan of satisfaction, he leaned forward and thrust deeply into her, folding her up beneath him. “How fortunate we are aligned, then.”
She could hardly move, pinned back as she was, but it was more than enough beneath his skilled touch. He was far and away the best man who had ever been in her bed, consigning her wedding night to a paltry comparison. He drove her through one climax, then took her swiftly on to another, steering her through the straits of desire like her body was a ship at his command.
“Jack! I can’t!”
“Just hold onto me. Let go. Let it... ah, yeah. Like that.”
She let out a cry as he dragged her head back by her hair, baring her neck to him as he rode her without mercy.
“I told you it would be good for us,” he growled with his teeth at her throat. “Gods, you’re so, so good. Once more, love.”
She was thankful there were no neighbors around to hear the way she screamed.
In the long, slow aftermath of their slaked desire, there was nothing more to say.
He cleaned her up, then pushed the clothes he had chosen over to her. She put them on with no further argument. She would follow him to the ends of the earth if it meant he would give it to her like that every day.
He smirked as he watched her pack a trunk with her belongings. Insufferable man. It was beyond endurance that he thought he could waltz in and claim her not six months after Will was gone, and it was worse that he she could not help but let him be right.
At the threshold, she paused and looked back at the house that had been her home for six months. Six long, lonely months.
“Come, love.” An arm wrapped around her from behind. “Time to go.”
“To where?” She let him turn her around to face him.
“To adventure and fortune!”
“Or ruin and disgrace.”
“Elizabeth. Whatever happens, you will always remember this as the day...”
She raised an eyebrow, and he flashed her a devilish grin, lifting one finger in the air. “That you caught Captain Jack Sparrow. A feat that many men, and many more women, have dearly wished to claim.”
“If I have caught you, it is much the way one catches the flu.”
“I know just the fix.” Jack took her by the arm. “Bedrest. And plenty of fluids.”
She wrinkled her nose at the crude innuendo, but let him lead her away.
“Come, darlin’. Our carriage awaits.”
---
“Where are we going?” Elizabeth asked.
They stood at the prow of the ship, looking out over the sea.
“Any place your bonny heart desires," Jack answered.
“Let me see that compass.”
“You want to look now? Bit too late for second thoughts, eh?”
“Ship hasn’t set sail. Still have time to change my mind.”
The expression that crossed his face almost made her laugh. She had not thought he could be so easily thrown.
“Maybe I got what I wanted,” she teased. “A night to remember with the infamous Captain Jack Sparrow.”
He looked at her like she’d tied him to the mast again, and she immediately regretted her words.
She stepped closer, following some instinct to make it right, but Jack stepped back, putting the compass in her hand. “Go on, then.”
“I don’t need to...”
“Go on. It never lies.”
Unlike you, she read the unspoken words in his eyes. Foolish. She’d shattered the fragile truce they’d achieved with a few careless words.
“Open it,” he ordered.
And what if you wanted something that, deep down, you were afraid to want? What then? What would the heart say, if one were to see it speak?
“Afraid,” he said, his dark eyes mocking.
“Yes,” she admitted.
But she opened it anyways.
The needle spun briefly, then found its bearing. Straight ahead, pointing at the sun-dark man before her.
He began to circle her with feline grace, looking over her shoulder as he did, and the needle traced his path.
“Still think it’s broken?” Jack gloated.
“No.” Elizabeth sighed. “But I think I am.”
Broad arms wrapped around her, and hot breath tickled in her ear. “You know, there’s no place like a pirate ship for bad men and broken things.”
“Then consider me on your crew.” She handed the compass back to him.
He held the instrument out and moved it about, letting her watch it spin back towards her no matter where he placed it. So he had not led her false about how the compass had been acting for him. No matter how many times she discovered Jack to be sincere, it never ceased to surprise her.
“I thought it was broken too, for awhile,” he mused. “But I’m faster to come to terms with my inconvenient desires. Still makes it useless for navigation though.” He snapped the compass shut. “Good thing I have a map.”
She freed herself from his arms and turned around, leaning back against the side of the ship. The sight of that unwavering needle following her around had comforted her more than she had expected. It was like a weight had been lifted from her chest. A relaxed smile played across her face as she watched the wind tug at his hair. Filthy, brazen, brilliant, beautiful pirate. And he wanted her more than anything in all the seven seas.
He returned the look she gave him with interest. “Let’s try this once more. Where to, love?”
The sudden blessing of unexpected happiness loosened her tongue. “Wherever there’s you, and me, the stars above, and the open sea.”
“Then my darlin’, daring Lizzie.” Jack swaggered over to her, placed his hands on her hips with a lover's proprietary ease, and spun her around. “You see that?”
She looked in the direction he pointed. Where the sea met the sky, a glimmering light danced over the water, burning orange gold with the last dregs of day. “It’s lovely,” she sighed.
His voice was a low rumble in her ear. “I’m going to bring you that horizon.”
That wild, exhilarating rush in her veins, that had energy enough to be ten places at once, do ten things at once, and yet was ecstatic enough to simply be here in this moment... what was it? Was this the fulfillment of what he had offered her?
Ah.
“Freedom,” she said, giving voice to the unnamed feeling that was tangled up in everything about this man.
“Aye,” he laughed. “Freedom.”