The Pirate King Ch. 06

He immediately spat it back out. "The fuck?"

"Lime juice," I told his hair. "Sugar. Salt."

"Salt?" He frowned into the mug.

"Cures hangovers." I shifted my head so that I could look at him; he looked so skeptical I wanted to laugh. "It's good for you."

He made a face, but took another sip. I smiled into his temple.

When he was was halfway done with the cup I reached over and grabbed the bowl again. He grumbled, moving to put down the cup, but I pressed it back into his hand. I took the spoon and stirred the porridge, tasting it. Cookie added less ginger than Minnie, but Minnie thought ginger was a gift from the gods and could do no wrong. I gathered up another spoon and held it before the Captain's mouth.

He stared at the loaded spoon incredulously. "Are you seriou-"

I took advantage of his open mouth and slid the spoon in, and he fell silent.

He let me feed him another two bites before he snatched the spoon from my hand. "Can feed my fucking self," he snarled. I kissed the back of his head and held the bowl for him as he ate.

After a time, he let the spoon fall into the bowl. I returned the bowl to the table beside us and wrapped my arms around his waist.

But he didn't go back to leaning against me. "Sailor," he said quietly. I wasn't sure I liked his tone. It edged on nervous, riding the line between scared and determined. I pulled him back against me, making him feel my skin against his, my breath even and steady to be so close to him. I was comfortable with him. I was happy. Please, I thought, just let this be. Let it go.

He settled against me, but I could feel that he wasn't fully comfortable. "Sailor," he said again. The edge slipped towards determination and I sighed.

"Yes."

"I need to know." He rested his cup on my hands, fidgeting with the metal. I took it from him and returned it to the side table along with the bowl, then took his hands in mine. He stared down at his hands. "I need to know, so I don't do it again."

I tightened my hands around his.

"I can't lose you," he said quietly.

"You won't."

"I did." He shifted over and looked up at me. "And I can't do it again."

The look on his face brought an ache to my chest, and I felt the chasm of guilt open in my gut again. "You won't," I told him again.

"I don't know that," he said, frustrated. Confused. Hurt. "I don't even know what I did."

"It was a mistake," I said quietly. "My mistake."

He took that in, then shook his head. "I don't understand."

I didn't want to say this. My stomach was opening so quickly that I was afraid I would be sucked away. I kissed him deep to anchor myself. "I didn't realize. I didn't. I just."

He needed to hear this. He needed to know. I took a breath. "You're nameless." He nodded, looking up at me with eyes that were big and beautiful and full of hurt, hurt that I had put there. "With Wicky, I thought." It seemed best to just say it and so I did. "I thought that it was for him, and I assumed that you used me."

I watched his mouth drop open, his eyes sharpening as he understood what I was telling him, what that would have meant for me. He knew, now, what he was to me. He had always known, because I was the same to him. "I'm sorry," I told him quietly. "I didn't know that what you did was for me."

"Fuck, sailor," he exploded. "Everything I've done since you've stepped on this ship has been for you. Every decision, every touch, every goddamn stupid breath." He stopped and closed his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was choked. "I thought I was doing what you wanted."

I felt my hands tighten around him. "I didn't understand." I kissed his temple softly. "I was wrong."

"I was so fucking lost without you," he whispered.

I didn't have anything to say to that. I held him tight and hoped that would be enough.

He wrapped his hands tight around mine and pressed against me. "I thought you hated me."

"Never," I told him.

"I didn't know. I thought it was." He paused, collecting something. "I was so rough with you, that last time." I could feel his emotion in how tight he held my hands. I let him squeeze as much as he needed, hoping that would drive whatever was within him out. "You trusted me, and asked me to guide you, to help you for you first time, and I..." He tilted his head forward, his hair tipping down and over his face. I leaned down after him and kissed the base of his neck.

"You deserve better," he said. His voice was getting lost in his hair; I closed my eyes to hear him better. "You deserve to be held so soft, and I always end up hurting you."

I freed a hand and lifted it to his chin, tilting his head back against my shoulder. His eyes didn't lift with his head, but I would get them up. I was here, and he was with me. The world was right. I kissed him gently, my lips lingering on his as I made him understand this.

"I deserve you," I told him. He frowned, those brows drawing together. "And you deserve me." I kissed him again before he could come up with any stupid arguments; I was right, and that was that. He would come to understand it.

It took three more kisses until he was melted against me fully. On the last kiss, his arm reached up and wrapped around my head, twisting his shoulders into my body. He used his hand to press my mouth more deeply against his.

"Do you trust me," I asked him.

He froze at that, his arm holding my lips inches from his. He searched my eyes with his, the darkness in them swirling, for a long time.

"Yes," he finally voiced, sounding so surprised I smiled. I wasn't surprised, not in the slightest; I had known the answer before I had bothered to ask the question. But he needed to know it, too, needed to understand.

"Then trust that I will never let you hurt me." I smiled at him, but he didn't smile back. "Besides," I continued, feeling my smile quirk around the edges, "I like the things you do."

He looked at me so shocked that I had to kiss him again.

He indulged me, then let me pull him back against me, his head on my shoulder. I rested my chin on his head and wrapped my arms around his waist. I wondered what he was thinking about. I wondered if he was thinking about the things he had done, how I had reacted, trying to see if I was telling the truth. I fought to keep my fingers from tightening against him as my thoughts began to drift in that direction.

He reached out and took the cup again, looking at it thoughtfully.

"Who's Minnie?"

I was very still for a moment. That, I thought, was not where I thought this conversation was going. "A friend," I finally answered.

"And Cookie knows her as well?"

I didn't want to out my friend, but Minnie had provided me another way. I smiled. "Any good ship's cook knows Minnie."

"Is that how you know her? Were you a cook?"

I pressed my smile into his hair. He harrumped and sipped his drink.

Minnie. I missed her, the ornery woman. I would have to find her after I got dumped on whatever island we were headed for. Her, and Sneg, and we'd need at least one strongman, and a ship. But not a crew, not a full one. I had a crew already. Had a steward who was good at his job, and loyal. Men who were decent at arms, if not excellent. A first mate picked out, if I could get my Captain to agree.

Because I had a Captain. He was coming with me. My heart sang to think of it, my cells vibrating with the possibilities.

So the crew, that was taken care of. All that really left was the ship.

I looked at the man before me. Why not ask the Captain? "What kind of ship do you want?"

"What?"

"When I come back for you." I felt almost giddy. Everything was perfect, and the world was at my fingertips. I drummed them against his stomach. "What kind of ship should I bring you?"

He turned to look at me. "Come back? You're not fucking leaving."

I blinked down at him, surprised. "I have to." Tomorrow I would be marooned. That had been decreed by the ship's vote.

"I won't let you go." I heard the stubbornness in his voice and believed him. It frightened me.

"You have to. The men, the vote -"

"I'm the Captain. What I say is law."

"Sir." I kept my voice soft in the face of the hardness he had suddenly brought into our space. "I won't be gone forever. They can't keep me from you, you know that."

He stared at me, defiant and angry.

"Don't invite mutiny over something so temporary," I told him quietly.

I watched the hardness drain from his face. It had been a shield, I saw, for the war that waged behind. The pain that still swirled. "But I just got you back." He sounded like he wanted to cry; maybe he did.

My heart broke and I wrapped him up as tight as I dared. "I need to go," I told him. "I need to, for you, for your ship, for me."

He frowned at that.

"There are things that need my attention." I kissed him on his nose. "Like getting whatever ship you desire, so that I can bring it and myself back to you."

"I like my ship," he told me stubbornly. "I like you on it."

My eyes caught the healed cut that slid across his chin. "Your sailors don't."

He pulled away. "They don't matter."

"Captain."

He put his hands in his hair and wouldn't look at me. I sighed and leaned back, letting him work through it as he would.

"They won't accept you," he finally said. "I tried, I've. They won't."

"No," I agreed. And they wouldn't. His men had fear, or at least half of them did. Maybe they would come around, maybe they wouldn't. But to them I represented the end to their protection, and they valued that over their Captain's joy.

Cowards.

"How's this," I offered, keeping my voice genial and soft. He had no reason to know my opinion of his men. "I give you three months, three months to warm your men to the idea of you and I on the same ship. You give me the same amount of time to get a ship and bring it back to you. If you like mine better, we take the men we've won and the new ship. If not, the ones who have a problem will have another place to go." And I will kill Wicky regardless, I thought. And Natch will be your first mate. I reached forward and linked my fingers around his chest, burying my lips in his hair. He smelled like the sea and sweat, and I breathed it in deep. "How's that sound?"

He thought about that. I felt his body leaning into mine. "Three months?"

"Yes," I confirmed. I needed time to find my skeleton crew; needed to check up on a few things. I didn't know where he'd be dropping me off, didn't know how long it would take me to get to where I needed.

When he spoke again, his voice was quiet and held none of the determination from before. "It's too long."

"I'll be with you. I'll never not be with you." He nodded, understanding that, but also understanding that it wasn't enough.

"And how will you find me? We are hidden, we sail under false markers to hide ourselves from the King."

I laughed, letting my mirth drift through my stomach and into his back. I could feel him frowning, even though I wasn't able to see it. As if he could hide on the sea from me.

"I'll find you," I told him. "Have faith."

"A ship," he muttered. "Who will you find to help you get a ship?"

I didn't respond. He would trust or he would not, and I already knew which he would chose.

He grumbled against my chest for a little while longer, nursing the drink in his hand.

"How come Natch listens to you?"

I didn't answer. I didn't have an answer, not really. I was the sea; Natch was a sailor. What sailor wouldn't listen to me? I traced my finger over his neck, looking at the damage I had done while under his influence.

"Sorry," I murmured, not sorry at all. He turned to me, brows pulled together and I smiled. "A few marks, there."

His eyebrows raised and I got the distinct pleasure of watching his eyes turn from worried to mischievous. "Are there, now?"

I nodded, kissing his forehead.

"Don't recall asking to be marked," he said quietly from somewhere under my chin.

I froze, feeling a tingle start to build deep within me. There was that voice again, that damn dangerous voice. It drifted under my skin and turned my blood to ice, made my soul so hot. I shivered involuntarily.

His fingers traced my own neck, and I felt my head tilting back to give them more room, to extend the amount of skin they would be able to traverse. I could feel his appreciation in the way his fingers took their time, skipping over my skin, catching on my collarbone. "You don't have any marks."

"No," I said, my voice a little too light. It was hard to find the depth that was supposed to be there when his fingers were making everything come untethered. "I don't."

He flipped his body around, straddling me. "How will they know that you're mine," he whispered into my ear. I shuddered; I was his to do with as he pleased, and he knew it. When his lips landed on my neck I gasped, my hands flying to hold onto his back.

He grabbed my wrists and drug them away. "Oh, no." I could feel him smiling into my neck and I shuddered. "You know better than that." I let him push my hands to my sides, felt his fingers spider up my arms, my shoulders, returning to my neck. "Stay," he whispered, and I knew that I would have to even as all I wanted to do was touch him.

One of his hands slipped into my hair and I moaned, knowing what was coming. He pulled my head back, tracing his fingers down my exposed neck. They ended up in the soft spot at the base of my throat. I could feel their pressure against my breath, against my quickening pulse.

When his teeth bit into my flesh, I cursed and jerked, my hands seeking his body even as I kept them where he had demanded them to be. He tortured me, working on my skin until it was dangerously tender and then tracing over it with nimble fingers and blowing breath that sent white-hot tingles through my entire body.

"Put your hands on the headboard," he commanded quietly, and I moved as carefully as I knew how, afraid that my arms would burst through the motions I moved them through and take their own path in the desire the Captain was building in me. They made it to the headboard successfully, and I gripped it tight just in time for the Captain to bite a spot that he had already made so sensitive that my entire body seized.

With my hands there he was able to watch them, see how hard I was working for him, the way my fingers turned white with effort each time he made me whimper with pleasure. His fingers pressed harder against my throat, sending waves of pleasure crashing into the pain he was coaxing from my skin. I tried to curse but found that I was moaning instead, and the fingers pressed harder.

My cock was hard again, and pulsing with need and the inevitable release that was building just beneath my skin. "Sir," I choked out. These things he was doing to me, the way he touched me, needed me, marked me. It was all too much. I wouldn't last much longer. "Please."

He lifted his head, taking me in. His eyes drifted to my cock. "I haven't even touched you," he murmured, sounding surprised.

He was touching me, touching me in all the ways I needed him to touch me. "Please," I tried again, but the word turned into a groan as he skipped his fingers down my chest. He tapped the tip of my cock and I almost doubled over, gasping.

He looked at me a moment, the smiled soft. "No," he told me. Then his lips were back at my throat.

I was panting. "Sir, shit. Sir," I tried again, but I didn't get any farther before he pulled my head bodily down by the hair.

"I said no," he hissed in my ear. He took a moment for that to sink in, then very gently flicked his tongue against my earlobe.

I cursed every curse I could think and then some more.

He guided my head back to the tilt he wanted it at and went back to marking me as he saw fit, filling my soul with pleasure and pain in equal and insurmountable measures that I never wanted to end. I was losing myself in his lips, his teeth, his breath, all the ways he had of touching me and then denying me of him, surprising me as he came back not where I expected him. I couldn't last, not like this. Not with him, not the way he made me, not the way my soul howled for him.

"Gods," I gasped. "Sir."

He pulled back and took me in. I watched him smiling down at me, his eyes wide and hungry, and that was almost too much. I moaned and tried to roll away from his gaze but his hand in my hair held me tight, my hands on the headboard obediently staying put.

"You want to come?" he asked me, his eyes flaring. I lost my words in their dark brilliance, squirming beneath him. I barely managed to nod. "Then you need to ask."

Cruel, I thought. He knew, had to know by looking at me that I had no words left. He was cruel and I loved it, wanted more. I whimpered and begged him with my eyes.

"Say it." His hand had found it's way to my hipbones, dangerously close to my cock. I was close to tears. "Say it or I can't let you."

"Please," I managed. "Sir."

He watched his fingers circle my cock. "Say it all."

"Fuck." His wrist had brushed the overly sensitive tip; my body twitched and twisted.

"Say it," he commanded, and his fingers were on my cock, and I was going to lose it.

"PleasesirmayIcome," I rushed out all at once, all in one breath. The relief from saying it was immediate, and I let myself smile, believing that my release would soon begin.

But he simply narrowed his eyes. "Sorry," he said. The grin slid from my face, and I watched it climb onto his. "Didn't understand that."

"Fuck," I almost cried as his fingers landed on my cock. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck."

"Careful what you wish for." His hand was almost lazily brushing up and down my length. The sensation was so extreme, so intense. It was as if all my nerve endings had been brought from everywhere else in my body to just under his fingertips, my body responding to his touch in all the ways he demanded, just to torture me. The feeling was so far past anything I had ever felt before. "If I fuck you, I won't let you come until I do."

I moaned at the coldness in his voice, found myself pushing into his hand.

"Is that what you want?"

"No," I managed. I wanted him to fuck me, but I needed to come. I needed to comenow.

"No, what?"

"No, sir," I gasped out as his fingers traced over the tip of my cock.

"Then what do you want?"

"Sir." That word was easy at least. It sat on my tongue like a curse, after what he did to me. Gods, I loved this man. I made the rest of the words careful, clear. It was so difficult, my tongue wrapped up in the breath I could barely breathe, the electricity my brain was pumping out into every part of my being. "Please let me come."

He wrapped his hand around my cock and my entire body collapsed around it. His other hand brought my head forward, brought my lips to his. He kissed me, and I swear to you I had never been kissed like that before, cold in the face of all the fire I held contained within me, a sudden calm in the storm that raged against my very soul.

"Come," he whispered against my lips. And gods, I did. I had never come so hard in my life, my entire body focused on that one command, on the pleasure crashing through my entire body, because it was my entire body, not just the parts that should be for sex, he had made my entire body for sex, my entire body his, and I came for him with an intensity that brought tears to my eyes.

He stroked me through it, his lips on mine to capture the noises that I couldn't help but let slip in the throes he had put me in. It was everything, eternal, a blinding white-red intensity that took over my entire world and was over far too soon.

Even when it was over, my body didn't seem to want to let me return to normal. Sparks were firing sporadically in my brain as I began to come down, my body spasming with no clear rhythm or intention. I knew that I was still so sensitive, could feel the very air swirling around me, and so when he kissed me again I almost lost my mind.