Adrift

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Thank you to all who have continued to read and who have stuck with me so long. I hope you enjoy!

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She had said it and meant it. The sound of the very word broke down all the walls he’d built, had reduced to rubble each misgiving and doubt that he’d carried for so long. Elizabeth loved him both who he was now and for all he’d ever been – such knowledge brought Hector a sweeter freedom than he could have imagined.

Although the feel of her lips on his roused within him a fierce passion, it was with slow tenderness that he wrapped his arms around her and returned her kiss deeply, tasting her as if for the first time. In a sense, it was the first time…every bit of Elizabeth, past and present, was finally his for the taking.

Still holding the soap, Hector skimmed his hands down over the subtle curve of her back, revelling in the soft warmth of her wet skin. He rubbed the bar in small circles as he went, smoothing the way for his caresses and cleansing her of the day’s misery at the same time. She moved against him as though a wave swept through her body with each lazy stroke of his hands.

Elizabeth drew back from him and with her finger, softly followed the contour of his bottom lip. As he opened his eyes, he saw tiny dewdrops of water clinging to her lashes and reached up to brush them away with his thumb. Her eyes were still tinted red from the crying she’d been doing, but all sadness had been replaced a heavy-lidded look of lust so intense that her pupils seemed nearly black.

“Do you know what you do to me with a kiss like that?” she said, a slow roll of her hips making him groan with desire. By way of answer, he took her lips again – although not quite so gently as before – and sought entrance to her lovely mouth with the deft touch of his tongue. With a happy sigh she submitted and he kissed the very breath from her, stopping only when he felt her legs begin to shake.

“Is that what yer wantin’ from me, then? Naught but a kiss?” Hector whispered roughly, nuzzling at her neck and making her squirm delightfully against him as he nipped at her earlobe. The slide of her wet skin over his, with his cock nestled between them, sent a blaze of physical longing through him that was making slow seduction seem an impossible task.

“No, that’s not all,” said Elizabeth as she slid her hands across his chest and rolled his nipples between her fingers, making him suck his breath in. She pinched hard and he gasped, his hips jerking with the surge of need the pain brought forth. She bit her bottom lip as she worked her way further downward and took what she could of his straining erection into her firm grasp. “Not when you have so much more to offer me.”

The water was hot and the air became heavy as the shower continued to stream down over them. The sounds of his breathing rasped off the steamy walls as Elizabeth fondled his swollen length, tracing each ridge and vein with a maddeningly tender touch. Hector took her face in his hands and kissed her again, parting her honeyed lips and playing with her tongue in a rhythm that mirrored the ardent attentions she was bestowing upon him.

Despite the heat her nipples had budded and, pressed to his chest as they were, he could feel them brush his skin with each shallow breath she took. Without breaking his kiss, he let his hands drop until he could feel the tight nubs against his palms. Elizabeth moaned into his mouth as he squeezed her breasts, dragging his thumbs across her turgid nipples and massaging the pliant flesh. Although she continued to stroke him, her motions slowed as she was borne away on the wings of her own pleasure for a time.

She tore herself from his kiss and once again clasped his quivering cock in her hands, nearly bringing him to his knees with the sudden sensation of being sheathed with in her clutching fingers. “Enough teasing, Hector,” she begged, her voice breaking with emotion as she flexed her hips against him. “Please...I need you too much to wait any longer.”

The space in which they were confined was tiny but taking the time to make their way to the bedroom was unthinkable, so great was the desire to bury himself to the hilt in her tight, satiny quim. Hector backed her up against the slippery shower stall and taking the smooth globes of her ass in his hands, he lifted her up until she could hook her long legs around his waist. Gazing up into her beautiful face, the droplets of water glinting like diamonds on her skin, he slowly let her slide down until the tip of his aching member was pressed against her glistening slit.

Elizabeth seized hold of his shoulders and her flanks trembled in anticipation of their union. Hector hooked his elbow beneath her knee and lifted her leg, opening her up to take as much as he could give her. Gradually he lowered her, both of them groaning with ecstasy as she sank upon his shaft. Elizabeth’s eyes fluttered closed as he eased himself more deeply through her slick passage and she gasped his name, arching her back against the pleasure of the moment.

Slowly Hector began to move within her, already fearing that the fullness of his heart and the height of his arousal would bring him too quickly to climax. She felt too good – too hot, too wet, far too tight – for him to last. She moved in concert with him, urging him on with the leg wrapped around him and making small whimpering sounds with each stroke. He clenched his teeth as he battled for restraint, fighting to prolong the bliss. If nothing else, he was determined that through the memory of their coupling, she would always remember the day she’d revealed her love to him.

After a short while, Elizabeth gave a cry that sounded like frustration and cupped his cheek in her hand, making him look up at her in bewilderment. “Loving you...has not made me...more delicate. I don’t want gentle and careful, not from you. I wish...uhn...” her eyes closed for a moment as she writhed against him, “I want you to take me hard and fast...as would befit...a pirate.”

When her eyes opened again, he saw there a burning hunger, one that could not be satisfied by feathery touches and languorous lovemaking. The look fuelled both the fire coursing through his blood and the urgent demands of his body. With a rapacious growl he plunged into her as hard as he could, drawing from her a keening sound of carnal rapture so pure that it took all his self control not to explode inside her in that instant.

The water around them had begun to cool as the ship’s hot water tank emptied, but Hector barely noticed with the feverish feel of his skin. He pumped into Elizabeth’s slight body with all the youthful lust and vigour she seemed to bring out in him, almost afraid of hurting her but unable to stop from losing himself within her most intimate embrace.

Her breath was coming in short pants and her finger nails dug into the muscles of his shoulders, stinging but stoking his passion even further. He pulled her closer and bent to suck one of her nipples into his mouth, scraping his teeth over the hard pink flesh until Elizabeth cried out loudly and her climax began to ripple over the length of his engorged cock.

She stiffened in his arms and her toes curled against his ass as she was swept away with her release. “Oh...oh yes...my love!” she gasped, her head falling back. Hector bucked against her, the tide of his own peak surging high and his heart hammering at her words. Her legs tightened around his hips and she buried her face into the crook of his shoulder, hanging on as she rode out the ebb of her orgasm and the pounding force of his began.

He thrust deeply and filled her with his seed, the intensity of it shocking him. He could feel himself drawn further into her moist silken heat, the sensitive head of his organ caressed within her channel and squeezed with each beat of her heart. His grunts came to sound almost like sobs as he continued to spurt his essence into her womb, his seemingly perpetual release making his limbs quake and his balls contract into stones beneath his member. It felt like forever until he was spent and the pressure that had held for so long started to fade into satiated exhaustion. Hector felt weak and, slowly robbed of the ability to hold Elizabeth aloft any longer, he slumped against the side of the stall, praying that his heart was strong enough to survive the strain of such an unbearably exquisite experience. Hector kept an arm around her, cradling her so she would stay close even as they both tried to recover their bearings enough to find their legs again.

The water had finally turned truly cold and Elizabeth reached over to twist the taps closed before sliding her arms back around him, seemingly unwilling to relinquish her hold upon him. The final drops of water dribbled from the showerhead and splashed down around their feet, a cool quiet end to their hot impassioned frenzy. He trailed his fingers up and down the damp skin of her back, reluctant to remove himself from the sanctuary of her arms so long as the peaceful repose lasted.

It was Elizabeth who finally broke the silence, her voice sounding raw from giving such boisterous voice to her pleasure. “I wish this whole mess was done so that we didn’t have to resort to snatching a few precious moments from the chaos.”

He didn’t want to think about Beckett and more importantly, didn’t want her taking the path back down that trail of thought. Not for a few minutes, at any rate. “And if it were over...if our time truly was our own and the world ours for the takin’, me girl...what would be yer fondest desire?”

“I would want to ride with you again,” she said, snuggling closer and gifting him with a small kiss in the hollow of his neck. “Climb up behind you on the Harley and follow a ribbon of blacktop wherever it takes us, travelling by day and making love under the glow of a billion stars by night.” Elizabeth pulled back from him to look into his eyes. “The two of us, flying down a highway forever. That’s what I want.”

Hector felt a lump grow in his throat. The sentiment was a pretty one, without question, but the reality of his situation hadn’t changed. “If forever was mine to give ye, ‘Lizabeth, ye know ye’d have it. But however great or small be the number of days we have, I swear to spend ‘em at yer side and lovin’ ye.”

She smiled sadly at him and smoothed a stray lock of wet hair from his cheek. “Let’s not spoil our interlude with melancholy, my Captain. Life isn’t going to offer any guarantees to either of us; look how close I came to losing you by Marilyn’s hand, even with you being practically indestructible. We waited so long to find what we do have...I don’t want to waste it by wishing it was something else.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, caressing her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “Well said, lass,” he murmured before kissing her swollen, rosy lips in a way that threatened to ignite their lusts once more. Lush as velvet was her mouth, kisses smooth as cream...he closed his eyes to savour the taste.

“Hector...” Elizabeth whispered, spreading her fingers over his chest and moving her soft body against him again.

Reluctantly he shook his head and pulled back, catching hold of her wrists to keep her from bringing back to life that which had already begun to stir. No time now, not with unfinished business at hand. “As much as I’d like to pretend Beckett away and remain here with ye, I cannot rest until we rid ourselves of that conniving, lace-draped dandy once an’ fer all. I must make my way out on deck and see where things stand with the search.”

Elizabeth sighed in disappointment but nodded. “I agree. Let’s make sure that he has stolen his last hour from us.”


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By the time he had forced himself to leave Elizabeth behind and made his way aboveboard, Hector found the evening well along. There were a few fires lit along the beach, beacons for the men as they combed through the swamp, and the flames had the shadows of the mangroves dancing along the shoreline. With the daylight lost, though, there was little point in continuing the search, so he instead set up a watch whereby the Blackhearts would take turn patrolling the beach and bunking in the crew quarters on the Corazón.

Although Hector had decided to await the new day before making a decision about how to proceed, his instincts told him that as there was no sign of occupancy at the safe house, Beckett had likely escaped the everglades amidst the confusion following Jones’ slaying. What had become of Norrington, he could only guess. Dead or still in league with Beckett, ‘though if the deputy marshal was still alive, Hector would not miss the opportunity to make him regret his part in Elizabeth’s suffering.

There was no chance that Beckett would disappear for good, not with the portal still safely stowed on Wisteria. Even with his accomplice dead, the former lord’s motivations likely remained unchanged. Their very existence remained balanced on a razor’s edge until the bastard was dead.

The gig was returning to the Corazón with the first load of crew, the exhausted men no doubt looking forward to a few hours’ sleep and a break from the moaning, whining passenger they were bringing across with them. Each wave that broke against the small boat brought a new, vocal lament from Jack Sparrow, annoying enough that Hector thought it no small wonder that his men didn’t simply dump their former captain over the side to rid themselves of the irritation.

John Ansill tossed a line up to Hector, a tense and stormy expression on his haggard face. “Cripes, Cap’n. I’ve ferried cattle as did less bleatin’ than this one. Not exactly the heart of a lion here.”

“I was bloody SHOT! Or did you fail to notice the gaping chasm in my chest, you shite-flinging simian!?” Jack hollered indignantly, looking altogether undignified as he was hoisted up by his arms and legs, and then passed up to waiting hands onboard the Corazón.

“Bit o’er the top even for ye, Jack,” Hector said, crossing his arms and giving Sparrow a prod in the side with the toe of his boot once the man had been laid out on deck. “Perhaps it be time to grow a pair and pull yerself together.”

“Well, perhaps you’d have a better understanding of what I’m going through if you’d ever been on the receiving end of a bullet to the heart…” Jack’s snapped his mouth shut as he took in Hector’s cold look and finally realized what he’d said. “Oh. Right. Never mind, then.”

“Bring forth a lamp, Master Ragetti. From the noise Jack be making, fer sure I need to be lookin’ upon this grievous injury meself.” Hector got down on one knee, roughly tearing Jack’s bloody shirt open, and causing Sparrow to hiss sharply and squeeze his eyes closed in agony. “Shot went straight through, so ye’re halfway to healin’ already,” he commented, pressing on the wound and getting back a very little bit of blood for his efforts. “And ‘tis only a tiny chasm, so it won’t take but a week and ye’ll see nary a mark on yer pretty, girlish skin.”

“Hector,” Jack gasped, folding his arms over his chest to stem the pain, “I thought for sure once we rescued your distressing damsel, you’d be better occupied lusting after her, and the men and I would be spared your unwelcome sexual advances.”

Ragetti gave his captain an alarmed sideways glance, grabbing at his own shirt front with his free hand and jerking it closed. Hector rolled his eyes, marvelling at the gullibility of some. Slimy viper that Sparrow was, the cur couldn’t resist taking a shot, not even when he was flopping about on deck like a gaping trout. The remark didn’t rankle as much as usual, though; no doubt he had Elizabeth to thank for smoothing the edge off his temper. The thought made him smile to himself before he spoke again. “Shall I leave ye here, then, or are ye gonna crawl down the stairs and into a cabin on yer own? Wouldn’t want to offend yer delicate sensibilities by lendin’ ye a hand.”

Jack tried to pull himself to a sit but sagged back down on the deck, wincing and trying to catch his breath through clenched teeth. “If you’d be so kind as to ask her, maybe Miss Swann could attend to me. Times like this, a man needs a woman’s touch.”

Hector chuckled at the thought and got to his feet. “She’ll not be touchin’ any man aboard but me; of that ye can rest assured. Granted, yer as poor a specimen of manhood as I’ve had the misfortune to encounter...even so, I’ll be thankin’ ye to keep yer distance or risk losing whatever body parts get too close to her for me comfort.”

“I’m not looking to seduce her, old man. I’d just rather have her changing my bandages and seeing to my needs as opposed to, say...this one.” Jack gestured offhandedly at Ragetti, who gave an indignant huff and shoved the lamp at Hector before stomping off, muttering about seeking out a spare bunk.

“Just remember, Jack,” warned Hector. “Yer the one as was ready to abandon ‘Lizabeth to her fate had there been a chance that the enemy would make off with the portal. If’n I shared that wee fact with her, I’m guessin’ you might not want her playin’ nursemaid. Not sure as I could predict the outcome of yer recovery then.”

“You’re a heartless prick, Barbossa” Jack grumbled, scowling as he rubbed tenderly at his chest. “Suppose I should count myself lucky that your men took the time to retrieve me at all.”

“Aye, now yer gettin’ it. Tell ye what...I’ll see if I can’t find one on me crew as has nice, soft hands to help ye down to a cabin and off with them soiled garments. Close yer eyes and pretend that ‘tis a woman preparin’ to have her wicked way with ye.” The younger man groaned despondently again but Hector had decided he’d had enough banter for the time being. Jack would no doubt wheedle someone into helping; he was nothing if not a master of manipulation.

Heading below deck, Hector wandered down the passageway towards the cabin Elizabeth had been using. After dressing, she’d muttered something under her breath about cleaning up the destruction she’d wrought in her fit of anger, and had scurried away in search of a broom and a bucket. With the crew using all the bunks in their own quarters, he’d have no choice but allow Sparrow to recuperate in what had been her rooms. Truth was, that suited him just fine – she belonged back with him in the captain’s stateroom, sharing his bed and in his arms every night.

He paused outside the door and knocked quietly, but there was no sound from within. Twisting the knob, he opened the door a few inches and saw the broom propped up against the wall, the bucket beside it and filled with the jagged remains of the mirror. Pushing the door all the way ajar, he saw Elizabeth slumped over on the bed, her few belongings piled around her as if she’d fallen asleep in the midst of packing.

He stepped into the room soundlessly and crouched at her side. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that she’d finally succumbed to her fatigue; it had been a week since she’d had a proper sleep and the trauma of the day had certainly drained her further. Elizabeth had the Blackheart cut clutched against her as a child might hold a blanket and he could smell the leather as it was warmed by her body. He was tempted by a brief but compelling image of her wearing it and little else, but quickly pushed the lascivious thoughts from his head. Another night, perhaps, when she was well rested and they’d put the nonsense with Beckett behind them.

As he watched, her brow furrowed as some stray thought troubled her mind and he caressed her forehead, smoothing away the stress until her face relaxed again. Hector considered letting her continue slumbering but in his condition, Jack truly did need the bed and there was no other place to put him but where she dozed.

He stood and reached behind her to grab hold of the cushion she wasn’t using. Tugging off the pillowcase, he used it as a makeshift rucksack in which to toss her toiletries and the few pieces of clothing she’d left behind when they’d made for the mainland the evening prior. That task complete, he knelt beside her again and pressed a kiss to her cheek. She smiled sleepily and slowly blinked her eyes, reaching out to stroke his beard with her slender fingers.

“I was getting my stuff together and thought I’d close my eyes for a minute or two.” Elizabeth turned her head to yawn into her pillow before looking back at him, the adoration on her face making his heart turn over. “Guess I was more tired than I thought. Is it morning already?”

“Nay, but I need to be puttin’ Jack in yer bed and I’m thinkin’ t’would be best fer everyone involved if’n ye weren’t still usin’ it at the time,” he said with a crooked grin. “Besides, if I’m to keep an eye upon ye, better to have ye in me own room and safe from trouble.”

Rubbing her eyes, she frowned despite his attempt at levity. “No sign of Beckett then, I take it?”

Hector shook his head and slid his hand over her smooth, soft hair. He should have moved her without waking her first; at least she’d not have been dwelling on their adversary yet again. “Don’t ye be worryin’ about that. At the first rays of dawn, we’ll be fast on his tail. I promise ye that by tomorrow, the threat that be Cutler Beckett will be dealt with permanently.”

Elizabeth didn’t answer and as he watched, her lids slowly closed and then opened again, fighting as she was to stay awake. “I know. We’ll get through it somehow,” she said through another yawn.

“Aye, lass – that we will” he said, slipping his hands beneath her shoulders and under her knees as he lifted her. Cradled in his arms, she laughed softly at the gesture of gallantry as she laid her head on his chest and snaked a lazy arm around his neck.

She sighed contentedly, nuzzling against him as he carried her from her rooms and down to his. “I love you, Hector,” she said faintly, and then her breaths deepened enough that he knew she’d fallen back asleep.

“And I love ye, ‘Lizabeth,” he whispered against the crown of her head. “Now and through all time.”