The Pirate King Ch. 11

"Brother!" I heard Val shout behind me. "Wait!"

But there was nothing on the earth that could keep me from this.

I skidded around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, not caring if I knocked over a candelabra. I could call up a storm to quench the flames, that was nothing, that was inconsequential. But this, the Captain.

He started at the noise, his head snapping towards mine. Our eyes met.

Oh, that moment, those seconds when there was nothing but our gaze. That pause while we both drank the sight of each other in, the feel of the soul just across the room. So close. So far.

There was, still, a moment of fear. I still didn't understand this, didn't know what he was doing here and that made me nervous for some reason. Made my breath catch on all the worry I'd swallowed what felt like hours ago, days ago.

The moment stretched. The tension drew out. I thought the room might collapse with the weight of it.

Then the Captain made the smallest of noises, and everything snapped.

I rushed toward him; no, I fell, fell into his gravity, fell towards the impossible completion that had been promised to me ever since I had seen him sitting there, all the things my soul needed but couldn't say, all the things my body wanted but didn't know, that was him, that was us, and I collapsed into that knowledge and his orbit with a joyful sound that belied the pain I finally allowed myself to admit that I had been in, would be in whenever we were apart. Even as I took my first stumbling steps, his barstool clattered to the floor with the velocity with which he launched his body from his seat.

We met with the force of heavenly bodies crashing together. We met like prophecy. Like fate. And oh, how we were. How could we not be? We were everything, we were nothing, we were the entire universe collapsing in on itself and this, this was what was right with the world and everything else, all of the struggle and pain and normalcy, it had all been leading up to this moment and every moment with him that would come, and so with the backing of destiny and the stars, the sky, and the sea, always the sea, we kissed and my soul was set was right for the first time in weeks.

His hand was in my hair, pressing my face to his. As if I would go anywhere else. As if I could go anywhere else. And yet I let him guide me, let him feel me move for him because I would always move for him, in a world where I was an immovable force, an immeasurable power he, he was the thing that calmed me, that broke me, that guided me to being whole again. I needed him to guide me. How had I lived without this force in my life? Of course I had been lost without this. Of course I hadn't known what to do, had holes inside my soul. The completeness I felt at the fingers weaving through my locks, his lips pressed to mine, his body heat twining through my body heat was the only thing that existed within my entirety.

His lips broke from mine and I immediately mourned the loss of contact even as I gasped for breath. We stood there, panting, staring at each other.

His fingers explored my hair, his eyes my face. His free hand drifted up my chest to my cheek and slipped over the scar the Russian had put there just a week ago. I saw a frown flash over his expressive, worried eyebrows and leaned down to kiss it away.

Not now, I wanted to tell him. Not ever. Never worry for me.

He seemed to understand. He would always understand. "Fuck," I heard him whisper, and I felt him relax into the press of my lips on his forehead. I smiled at his curse, all the things he could put into that single word. It slipped into my soul and vanquished the last of the storms that had made my body their home. My arms wrapped around his back until my hands locked into each other, locked him against me. I pulled him as close as he could get and felt him sigh.

We stayed like that, pressed up against each other in the center of the brothel floor. Just holding each other, his hand on my cheek, in my hair, my hands in the small of his back, our breath warming each other's skin. We stood there for eternity. We stood there for not nearly long enough.

Then, suddenly, the Captain reached back and grabbed my hand. Hard. "We're leaving," he commanded, and I nodded as if I had a choice.

"I have a room," I told him as he turned and pulled me through the doorway, out the back and into the same alley I just came up with Val. But the Captain shook his head.

"You're coming with me. The ship."

I frowned. If I got on the ship now, I would never leave. And the Russian was still on Hyrun, and I needed a ship, and I was still waiting on Sneg... "Captain."

He pulled me faster toward the docks.

"Sir." I stopped moving, causing his smaller body to jerk back towards me. I caught him as he rebounded back and pressed my lips to his, immediately quelling any objections he might have about my decision to change his velocity.

When I pulled my lips away, I smiled down at him. There were people on the street, but I paid them no heed. To me, there was no one but the Captain. No one mattered but him.

Besides, these men knew what I would do if they got in my way.

"My room," I told him again. I passed a hand over his chest, feeling his body shudder. "It's closer." I hoped that would be enough. I was not feeling very verbose at the moment.

"My love." The Captain reached up and touched my cheek, and the combination of his voice and his touch sent shivers all through my body. His eyes were intense, filled with the kind of cold that made me want to drop for him, made me want to fall for him, do anything in the world for him. "I would take you right here if that were an option."

I couldn't help but let slip a small moan at his words, and his eyes sparked with the kind of light that might have scared a different man. It merely made me need him more. I had to concentrate hard to hear his next words.

"But I need to get you out of here. I need to get you away from him." His hand was hot against my cheek, fingers asking me to understand.

I didn't. I didn't need to leave. Get away from him? That made no sense, would never make sense. There was no man that could run me from my goals. Or my room. Especially when I could be in that room with the Captain.

I covered his hand with mine, watching his brows grow closer together. "You trust me," I reminded him, and he scowled his understanding and assent and I knew I had him beat. I shifted my face and kissed his palm. "My room." Whatever you're worried about, I told him with my lips, it is safe. You are always safe with me.

He sighed, his resolve melting with the sensation of my lips exploring the lines of his palm. When my lips moved up his hand, my tongue flicking out to catch the pads of his fingers, he shuddered into acceptance.

"Fine," he told me, trying to sound annoyed, and I grinned at him around the finger now resting between my lips. I kissed the rough tip gently, then wrapped my tongue around his slender finger to pull the rest of it into my mouth.

He gasped, bending his finger at the knuckle to hook me like a fish. I felt him drag me through space, his hand only leaving my mouth an instant before his lips crashed into mine.

When we broke for air again, I had somehow become pressed up against a wall, my wrists caught in his hands and our bodies so close they might as well have been one.

But they weren't one, and we weren't close enough. At least, not yet. I looked down at him with eyes that must have said everything I needed to, because he pulled me from the wall and began moving me down the street.

In time, he stopped. I sighed, unhappy to not have his tug at my wrists anymore. He whirled on me. "I don't know where I'm going."

I leaned in close, a smile playing at my lips. "To the sea."

He shuddered, his eyes flipping closed for just a moment. I watched his understanding flood through his core before his eyes snapped back open, dark and dangerous and the only thing I had ever wanted to land on me, the only thing I could ever imagine touching my skin again, unless it was his hands, unless it was his lips, unless it was his -

Then he was pulling me through the streets again, and I followed him happily. If he noticed the looks the islanders gave him, the wild-eyed man pulling me, me, through their streets, he gave no sign. He was as focused on me as I was on him, and I loved him for it, loved him for every step he took, every turn he made, each step we descended towards the sea. He made it to the beach, then looked about lost, and I laughed and pulled him to me. "My turn," I whispered, and then we were off again, and this time I was in the lead and he was the one being tugged behind, flushed, lost, reliant.

In no time at all we were at the door of my room and we burst through, two things that together could not be contained by mere wood and metal, and I laughed as we toppled onto the bed because we were together, because he was here, because no matter what had brought him to me he was safe, he was with me and I loved him and nothing, nothing could keep us apart.

My clothes, for instance, stood no chance. He had my shirt off in all of a second, my moans egging him on as he drug the fabric over my head. He paused as my wrists tangled in the fabric, and I froze, letting him watch the way the cotton captured my hands above my head.

"Fuck," he whispered, and I tugged gently at the temporary bonds, watching his eyes track the movements and go dark, dark like I needed them to be, dark like I remembered them and wanted them and gods, he was everything to me. He kissed my forehead with lips that shook and tightened the fabric, trapping my hands where they lay and I gasped at the sensation, not caring that these were not knots I could untie quickly, that this was fabric that would have to be ripped, wrested from, in the end it didn't matter because the look in his eye when he saw me there was everything that I needed, and besides, I knew I was always safe with him.

"Stay," he commanded in a voice that was for me alone and I did, my hands remaining fast in the bed above me as his hands traced down my arms, my sides, coming to rest on my hips. His fingers left a trail of lightning, and I would not have been surprised if I did not glow in every spot where his touch had landed. I shuddered beneath him.

"Kiss me," I begged him, but he shook his head. I watched him pull away, smiling slightly as he began to strip himself of his own clothes. "Sir!" I called after him, but it did no good.

"Missed you," he murmured from his distance, his eyes turning my body to steam. I arched under his gaze, too lost in him then to even beg for the touches that I needed, the kisses that were the only thing that could keep me alive, together. I was rewarded when he finished stripping and began to draw closer once again. I watched him intently, my breath fast and my eyes locked on his erect cock. He caught my gaze and moved a hand down to my view. When he began to lazily stroke the length, I let out a moan that made him laugh in full.

"Need you," I heard him say, but my attention was completely on his hand, on his cock, on the things I wanted him to do to me. I was so preoccupied with his hands motions, with the way he tugged and twisted at the hard flesh I so desperately needed, that I somehow missed the way he moved the rest of his body. When his other hand landed on my own member, hard and aching in my breeches, I jumped.

His eyes were hooded and dark. "Gonna make you come," he whispered, and those words ripped through my body right to where he held his hand and I moaned, low and uncontrolled. I pressed into his hand, feeling the heat of his flesh, of his desire, of his body so close to mine but not close enough.

He leaned over his hand and pressed his mouth to my hipbone delicately. His lips felt like fire against my sensitized skin. "Sir," I begged him, not sure what I was begging for.

He smiled up at me, his fingers hooking in my waistband. "I know," he told my navel. I felt my pants leaving my body, my cock springing free, and cursed at the sensation.

"Eyes open," I heard him command. Gods, when had my eyes closed? I forced them open, forced myself to focus on not just the feel of him, the smell of him, the knowledge that he was here and close to me but also the sight of him and oh, gods, he was floating right over my cock with this look on his face, and I got caught in his eyes, his dark eyes that held so much of everything but right now, right now they held so much of all the things I needed and I named that look love because that's what it was, he loved me and I loved him. I smiled down at him in the moment he gave me to process that look, that one moment right before he dropped his head and took my entire length in his mouth.

I threw my head back, cursing, unable to do anything but curse. My hands were clenched around my shirt and I focused on that for a second, tried to remember not to rip it in the intensity of the things I was feeling. I prayed I had not bucked my hips in surprise and reaction to his movement.

I took a few more breaths like that, my eyes on the ceiling, my hands tight around the fabric of my shirt. The Captain was no longer moving - I knew that he was waiting for my eyes. I gathered myself and looked down to him.

As always, as he always would, the sight of him took my breath away.

He rested between my legs, his lips pressed on the head of my cock, hand wrapped around my girth. He caught my gaze and smiled, slowly beginning to stroke my length. I think I cursed again, watching him, because his smile grew just before he took me again in his mouth.

I could not tell you what he did to me in those moment. I lost myself in him, lost myself in the way he would look up at me through his lashes, through errant strands of hair, in the way his hand was on my hips, my cock, my balls, the way his tongue -

Oh, gods, his tongue.

"Sir," I gasped, knowing I was close. He lifted his mouth long enough to give me a ragged smile.

"Come for me." And even in his words raggedness, the command could not be ignored, and I moaned as my body reacted to his desire for me and I came in his mouth.

He swallowed my cum, took everything I had to give him and then licked me clean. Small noises dropped from my lips as his tongue continued its quest over my sensitive member. Then his lips moved to my hips, then my abs, my chest, and then finally found a home in my neck. He lay against me, panting, feeling my heaving chest move beneath him.

I took a chance and brought my still-bound hands down around his shoulders. He nestled into the contact, drawing a smile from my lips as I buried them into the top of his head. I gave myself a moment to be sated, happy. Blissful. Then I nuzzled at his head.

"Your turn."

"Ah." He shifted in my arms. "I actually." He sounded almost sheepish, a state of being I did not associate with my Captain. I looked down his body and found his cock deflated, his stomach coated in his cum.

When I looked back up to him, my smile barely contained, my eyebrow raised, he actually blushed.

"You're hot when you come," he muttered, and I laughed and kissed his forehead. "And it's been a while, I suppose, and -"

I cut off whatever else he had planned to say with a kiss.

We lay like that, entwined and comfortable, the sound of the ocean's pulse just outside our door keeping us company. It was hard to look anywhere but his eyes, hard to exist in anything but his gaze and all the things he had brought with him. All the love he carried. The soft promises I found in the warmth of his breath on my skin, the tickle of his hair against my neck. The way our breathing synched to the rush and pull of the waves. All of these things, him, it almost made up for being on land.

"Fuck," he whispered, and the word spilled into the moment effortlessly. "Do you know how hard it was to exist without you?"

I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his nose, feeling him sigh, knowing the things he felt were the same as me. Of course I knew. I had nearly destroyed a port with the intensity of how much I knew.

My fingers were tracing gentle circles on his shoulder. He turned to watch them and noticed my shirt still wrapped around my wrist.

"You should have reminded me," he scolded gently. He shifted his body, putting his back lightly to my chest, leaning up on his elbows to begin to free my hands. I lay still, not incredibly interested in having my hands free. I was content with the way his fingers felt against my skin. "I would have done this ages ago." There was a moment where he slowed; his face was turned away, and so I did not know his expression. "I know how it bothers you."

In the quickest of movements I pulled my hands from his and pressed my makeshift bindings to his chest in a tight hug. He gasped in surprise and toppled into my embrace.

"Not for you," I whispered against his neck, feeling how that made him shudder. "I trust you. Okay?"

He nodded, and I released the hold I had against him. He went back to his work. I, for my part, went back to nuzzling at his ear.

"You're distracting me," he complained.

I bit him, and he gasped.

He eventually got my shirt untied, but it probably took longer than it should have.

"Fuck," he sighed. I smiled behind him, where he couldn't see. I loved all the things he could express with that single word. "We ripped it."

"Your fault," I grumbled, and he swatted at my arms causing me to laugh. I pulled him back into my arms tightly and pressed my face into his neck. "Fine. Our fault."

"Damn right," I heard him mutter, and I squeezed him to me in appreciation of. Of everything. Of him. Of his being here. Of his being him. Of love, and life, and togetherness.

He held the shirt up where I could see it. "I need to get you some better bindings."

"I like the ones we have," I told him truthfully.

"Me too," he admitted. "But I can't have you continually ruining shirts around me. And irons are out, so -"

"Irons," I interrupted him. "Are good."

He twisted to look at me, a strange expression on his face.

"I told you." I landed a small kiss on his nose, then on his cheek. One on each of his brows. "I trust you."

"Irons," he repeated, his voice slightly strained.

I laughed at him and returned my satisfied head to his neck.

"I am sorry about the shirt."

I pressed a kiss to his skin. "Forget the shirt," I told him. "Val will find me a new one."

"Val?" I could hear the frown in his voice, and I smiled.

"My brother." I raised a lazy arm towards the side of the room strewn with Val's clothing.

The Captain moved to sit up, and I let him, feeling him pull from my grasp. I watched him take in the sight of the small silk clothes piled in every direction. "You are sharing this room with another man," he finally stated, his voice flat.

"Yes." Amusement kept my voice light. Was he jealous? "My brother." I reached up to pull him back to me, but he swatted my hands away.

"No." He frowned at the clothes. "Aye. I mean." He looked back at me, those eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "You always do this to me."

"Do what?" I was still happy, hazy. He moved too quickly through emotions for me; why not just be happy to be?

"Make me an idiot. Make me." He passed a hand through his hair. "If it was just you, maybe that would be okay. But now." His frown seemed to deepen. "Did you say your brother?"

I reached up to him again, and this time he let my hand rest on his arm. "You're not making sense."

He let out a quick sigh, his breath moving fast and hard. "I'm afraid we've just put your brother in danger."

"Val?" I snorted. I didn't think Val could be in danger if he tried.

"Love, I'm serious."

"So am I." I pulled at his arm, but he stayed sitting where he was.