Parlait

Again, thanks so much to those who read and review! I just hope you don't hate me by the end of this chapter! This starts out with no sex (no really!lol) and then it comes back...just can't keep my hands off this man!;-) On your own now, enjoy Chapter 9, and let me know what you think! Thanks! -- Grace


…a true sailor’s plight; there she stood awaiting him anxiously upon the dock, a prominent rise in her belly. Fatherhood, it was as uncertain a thing as it was unexpected…

There’d been many homecomings to Cornwall by now, but each time his old sea boots rattled across this Port Isaac pier, and the smell from the nearby market and spices from the fleet of merchant vessels that docked were in the air, the excitement filled him as if it were the first time this reunion were about to take place. He’d been home perhaps an hour, maybe less. It had taken some time to secure The Caja Bronnen to keep her sound until their next voyage, and so he’d kept his parting remarks to his crew brief, releasing them from their duties upon the merchant vessel and sending them back to lives as husbands and fathers. Now, Barbossa himself returned to such, with large, eager steps, just like he’d done for over four years now. Something was different this time, for amidst the crowd of sailors, stevedores, venders and rejoicing families; Barbossa could hear small footsteps running hard towards him. Instantly he smiled, stood still where he was, let her come to him.

“Papa!”

He could hear her above the bustling of offloading ships, above the creak of the pier, above the noise of commerce, a voice he’d only dreamed of hearing for so many months at sea! He could see her now, a small form hurtling steadily towards him, arms spread out wide, strawberry blond tresses flying back behind her like kite tails. His smile broadened, every tooth exposed as he dropped down to one knee, his heavy duffle still on his back, but no trouble for his size and strength. He opened his arms to her; she’d be to him soon. “Joo!” He called out to her, his voice booming so it shook the very docks. Good God, she’d wobbled when she walked when he’d last left, and now she ran to him as sure of foot as any mountain goat!

The collision couldn’t have been a happier one, her tiny form dissolved right into his, nearly disappeared within the folds of his weathered green Captain’s coat, small arms around his neck, hugging with all their four year old strength, but it was more than enough to melt his heart as he pulled his arms around her and hugged her, rocking them both back and forth as she giggled and giggled. “Papa’s missed y’so very very much, little Joo!” But Barbossa could hear more footsteps, another so strongly longed for presence. He wrapped one arm around his daughter and stood up with an over done gallant flourish of his hand to greet her, the smile immoveable from his lips as Joo hugged him and hugged him.

Graciella stood still, rolling her eyes at his smugness and clutching her shopping basket before her, smiling bright eyed at her husband, their daughter happily in his arms once more. “She’ll never learn to say her name if you keep calling her that as well.” She laughed.

Barbossa laughed back, turned his head to his little girl, stroking her light red hair. “Say yer name, for Papa,” he smiled at her. “Y’can run now, can y’say yer ‘L’s’?”

Joo grinned at him, reaching out and twirling her little fingers in the red beard that he’d not had when he’d left for his last voyage. “Joo-yeee-anna!” She said to him proudly, and then started giggling again when she saw her father’s expression.

Barbossa laughed heartily, hugged Joo tighter and kissed her little forehead. “She’s nearly got it!” He said, then extended his other arm around Graciella, drawing her close and kissing her cheek, wanting more, but she too quickly threw her arms as far around his broad chest as they would reach and embraced him snugly.

“We’ve both missed you so very very much, Hector!” She said, nuzzling close.

Barbossa pulled his wife more into him, kissing the top of her head, but something kept them from melding together the way he’d remembered they always had… except for once. He looked down, drew himself back a step, and sure enough, her swollen belly told the tale. He was speechless, had to shift Joo about in the arm that held her to make sure he didn’t drop her. Graciella now laughed, looking up at him and brushing his short beard with the back of her hand.

“I wrote you,” Graciella’s smile became bigger. “But I see my letter and you never met upon the high seas.”

His big hand plastered itself over her abdomen as if he could hold the child there, his blue eyes wide. “When?”

“I found out six weeks after you sailed,” Graciella smiled, her hand joining his at her belly. “By now, three more months should see it due.”

Now he laughed joyously, raising a hand skywards in triumphant happiness before pulling Graciella close again, closer than before, and leaning down to kiss her, the taste of her mouth so long missed it ached to experience it again. He stood straight, stroked Graciella’s dark, almost black, hair, cheek and chin, so good to touch her skin of satin again. And then he gave her a smirk. “At least we be married this time!”

“You!” Gasped Graciella, but she quickly smiled and laughed again, however balled up a fist and struck him lightly in the chest, looking up at him and then sighing, so much emotion brimming in her blue eyes. “You haven’t changed at all, Hector,” she told him lovingly, reaching up and trying to smooth down the ragged red beard that desperately needed a trim. “Not since that day I found you, shipwrecked and washed up on the cove, carted you home to my father’s house and nursed you…” now she smirked. “Only to have you show your gratitude by wreaking your havoc upon this Parson’s daughter!”

He leered, leaned closer to her about to whisper something about how he’d missed said ‘havoc,’ but the direct result of such squirmed in his arms and reached out towards the shopping basket her mother held. “What is it, Joo?” He smiled, his attention stolen by the little star he held.

“I buyed you apples, Papa!”

Graciella held the basket up for her to reach, for like her father, once Joo set her mind to doing something, there was no stopping her. “We were shopping, preparing to make you a welcome home dinner when we noticed The Caja’s main mast above the all the rest at the dock,” she said as Joo’s little hands fitted around a large green skinned apple. “You should have seen how she tore away from me and took off down the pier!”

“She knows yer in no condition to chase after her, she does.” Barbossa laughed, holding out his big hand to Joo as she placed the apple in it, looking up and giving him the brightest, proudest little smile, her blue eyes shining like dawn’s light. “Thanky, Joo!” he said warmly, and gave her another kiss on her forehead, lingering long enough to breathe in the sweet smell of her hair, her mother always kept her so tidy. “It be a nice apple! And Papa has somethin’ fer y’as well!”

Joo gasped and smiled with the excitement that he’d brought her something, making Barbossa squeeze her one more time before putting her down so he could retrieve the gift from his duffle. He’d packed it last, leaving it right on the top so he could quickly get to it and give it to he when he arrived home, he’d dreamed of doing so many times during this last merchant voyage. Quickly he pulled open the duffle and sought out the red cloth bag, tied with a drawstring, and bent again to one knee as he placed it in her outstretched little hands, a look of wonderment already on her little face. She stood there holding the bag, eyes wide, so amazed with the vibrant color. “Go on, Joo,” he smiled, feeling better than he could remember feeling in so many months. “Open it!”

Her little fingers pulled at the white drawstrings, having them undone in no time, needing no help at all from him. They shared the anticipation, Joo in a rush to see what her Papa had brought her, Barbossa barely able to wait to see the look on her face. Finally, she reached her hand in and pulled out the cloth bodied doll in the long black silk dress, her mouth was agape, fingers trailing the smooth softness of the silk, but when her eyes got to the doll’s head and took in the wrinkled face and gray hair, she immediately shot her father a befuddled, somewhat disapproving look.

Barbossa guffawed, had known it was coming, he’d purposefully arranged the doll thusly so that when she found it she’d give him that look. But he also knew Joo to be impatient, and didn’t delay too long in making her wonder. Now for the great trick of the gift! “Capsize ‘er, Joo!”

Again Joo looked confused, but turned the doll upside down, the black silk skirt of the dress suddenly becoming a bright and vivid red silk on the other side, and another head, where feet and legs should have been, emerged, this other face young, beautiful, rosy cheeks and golden hair. Pearls were stitched to the ears of the younger face, and around the neck, silver and gold rings painted upon all her fingers. Now Joo’s face lit up, and she stared up at her father as if he’d just performed some magic.

Before he could laugh again, Joo fell against him in another tight hug, the doll between them, and all Barbossa could do was hold his little girl to him and feel how she moved his very soul. He was proud to be a Captain in the Piran Merchant Company, couldn’t have lived without life at sea, but it did keep him away from those he loved most for so long. The day was fast approaching when he’d return home with a doll for Joo, only to have her meeting him there on the pier with some young man who meant to ask for her hand. Why couldn’t she just stay so little forever? “That be how I hope y’always are, Joo.” He whispered to her. “Always young inside!”

At that, Barbossa’s eyes opened wide, the image of that old and young maid doll burned firmly into his memory, and he could still see it even in the darkness of his cabin. Elizabeth stirred in his arms, all night long she’d been want to have some part of her touch him in her sleep, her hand on his chest or shoulder, her leg tangled between his; he must have pulled away suddenly when he realized the dream he was having, she’d only reacted in her sleep. But now he was awake, a memory too fond and too painful to let him sleep. And Elizabeth…it was too difficult to be so close to her at this moment; for it had been his feelings for her that had brought on that vivid apparition of a past, happy life, that he’d been unable to hold onto.

He looked down at Elizabeth, soundly asleep in his arms, her body well used and his well pleasured. He should have wanted to pull her a little tighter against him, kiss her cheek softly and join her in slumber once more, and part of him did, but he was too afraid of the dreams it might bring on. Thirty some years had not been enough distance between him and those memories. What he needed now was solitude, and that which had helped deaden the pang of his greatest loss for years now, the sea.

Outside in the night air he couldn’t help scanning the dark horizon for the shadow of a barque rigged galleon with sails darker than the sky. Some part of him believed that the dreams and memories would cease if he quickly gave Elizabeth back to Jack. It would hurt, and she had said that she loved him, but perhaps it would somehow set things right with the names on his chest? But Elizabeth…he wasn’t sure he could live without her now, whether she knew it or not. She’d looked so beautiful lying there in is bunk as he’d quietly stood up to dress, pushing the blankets and a pillow around her in place of his body, trying so hard not to wake her. She’d want to talk, and he didn’t. He walked now, from stern to bow, passing the man on watch without a word, until he reached the bowsprit and had nowhere else to go. Here The Reproach rose to meet his feet as she crested the waves, and he gave her gunwale a firm pat. She was one the best ships he’d ever sailed, or stolen; two gun decks, fully rigged, expansive hold, and yet fast and maneuverable for a big ship, he’d always liked a big ship. She was a pirate’s true dream vessel. And yet, not even she could pull him from this dejection.

The Caja Bronnen had been a big ship too, the largest merchant vessel in the Piran fleet, and he’d thought himself quite a man to have been named her Captain back then. He hadn’t owned her, the Piran Company owned her, but her, her cargo and her crew had been his responsibility. Aside from his family, nothing had made him happier in life than that ship.

“I sometimes think you love her more than us,” Graciella’s voice wouldn’t leave him as he stood at The Reproach’s bow, no matter how hard he tried to not hear it. “I’m begging you, Hector! Please, don’t go!”

“Woman, y’aren’t bein’ sensible, are ye?” He was still a young man then, but he’d already faced so much and seen so many things. However, not one of them helped him to know how to settle this argument with his nearly child-due wife. “Lord Piran expects The Caja to sail to the West Indes tomorrow and back again, and he expects me as ‘er Captain!”

Graciella heaved her hands up. “Why?” She yelled now. “Why do you choose a ship and the sea over your unborn child?”

“Gracie, y’ll wake Joo!” His voice was low, hoping to encourage hers that way, but he couldn’t keep his tone low for very long. “And I be choosin’ to feed me children, and not let them grow up workin’ for scraps and a bed of rags outside the back door of a brothel like some son of a whore that I was!”

Now tears, they rolled down her cheeks like daggers plunging into his heart. “Forgive me, Hector,” she began, losing her anger and reaching up to touch his face. “I was a fortunate child, my raising was so that I cannot imagine, and therefore, sometimes forget the turmoil you suffered as a boy,” she lay her head to his broad chest overtop the place she knew he’d marked with her and Juliana’s names. “But please, can this voyage not wait another week? I have a grave feeling, a premonition if you care to call it so, that this birth will not proceed well.” She raised her head again and looked him in the eye. “Please, be with me. Incase something should—“

His finger was immediately upon her lips. Graciella’s tears hurt him so, but he hadn’t believed her at all about the premonition, but knew enough not to act so. “Don’t say such things.”

Two weeks later, Barbossa would have the first of the many visions that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He woke, at least, he thought perhaps he’d been awake, with a freezing chill, as if an icy blade had stabbed through him, bitter cold dread climbing each vertebrae in his back like stair steps. There was the usual darkness of his cabin aboard The Caja, but then a macabre glow, that spread and spread, taking on the form of a woman, his own Graciella! She wore a perspiration stained shift, the front of it, between her legs, red with so much blood. In one hand she cradled a baby, a pale and lifeless infant boy that lay limp at her breast, and her other arm, it was extended, her hand pointing a finger, accusingly at him, and tears…tears streamed down her face. To this day, Barbossa swore that if he stared into darkness for too long, he could see that vision appearing again.

“I tried so hard to tell you,” it wasn’t until after he’d arrived back in Port Isaac months later that he was to learn what had happened. Thankfully, his Graciella lived, but their son, cord wrapped around his neck, died, never having taken a full breath in this world. And now, Graciella cried again, holding his hand as they stood over the meager marker, no crosses, no angels, no names, just the word “infant.” “I’m sorry, Hector! I’m so very sorry!” Her face was buried in his arm, she couldn’t so much as look at him, though it had now been months after the ordeal.

“I won’t let y’blame yerself, Gracie.” He said, having meant to say so much more, but it wasn’t easy to speak with all the emotion choked in his throat. “I thank God for y’and Joo!”

“We love you, Hector! We love you so very dearly! I can face anything with you! That’s why I asked you to stay.” Graciella swore to him, lifting her head now and he immediately took his eyes from the grave stone and wiped at her tears. A hint of a smile crossed her face, but faded again. “I’m your wife, not your harbor.”

Her last words struck him so hard that he couldn’t answer, and so they stood there in silence for what seemed hours. He knew Graciella was right, she wasn’t something he could leave so easily, he should have stayed, should have found some reason to delay the voyage, could have lied to Lord Piran about the condition of The Caja, whatever it would have taken to buy him more time at Graciella’s side. But he hadn’t.

Her voice pierced the sad quiet, startling him as he descended into culpability. Could he have made their son breathe? No, of course not. He was no doctor. But he could have been there with Graciella, and Joo, to grieve, and to be strong. How could he let down those he loved so very much?

“If your son had lived, what would you have named him?” Graciella asked, moved closer to him, and held tighter.

Perhaps she asked out of some need for closure. “Jack.” He answered, then sighed heavily, feeling tears at the corners of his own eyes suddenly, but blinking them back expertly. “You?”

She hesitated, pulled away from him until the only contact between them was her hand in his. “Hector.” She gave his hand a squeeze, then let go, walking away up the cemetery lane, unable to stay any longer. It was just as well, because the sound of his own name dropped Barbossa to his knees, and he stayed there, unable to stop himself as he sobbed over his son’s grave.

Time, patience, passion and love, they all worked together to heal the wounds, but it wasn’t long after that Graciella found herself with child again. This time she demanded he not go to sea; demanded that they spend no more time apart. There was no arguing with her. The St. Agnes Light on the Scilly Isles was in need of a keeper, and she insisted that Barbossa step into that role. In all his life, he’d never fought so with a woman. Graciella’s theory was that being the lighthouse keeper would salve his need for the sea, while keeping him close to his family and home. But a light was not a ship. A woman just couldn’t understand that; save for one.

Elizabeth Swann…did she have an inkling of the destruction she caused within him? What business did she have reawakening these old feelings? These old ghosts? Where was the damned Pearl when he truly needed that ship? The sooner he was rid of Elizabeth, the sooner he could grieve the loss of her, and get over her, or die, or whatever. Of course, it was far easier to think this with Elizabeth asleep some sixty feet away in his cabin. Had she been standing beside him, he may not have been able to so easily think of casting her off. But it had to be; he couldn’t have here any longer, keeping him in this state! But he couldn’t blame her, nor hate her, nor help himself. Hector Barbossa was in love again, feeling all of its splendor, and paying for it with all of its pain. How did he separate the two? Must they be bound together, one end joy and the other end agony? Like little Joo’s doll? That damned doll…how could he at the very least get that to go away from his mind? He was that doll Barbossa began to realize. Thanks to Calypso he was now older on the outside than he was on the inside, and in that, just as confused and clueless as he had been as a young man.

“Tis a poor captain who leaves his prisoner unattended, and within his own cabin, no less!”

Barbossa sighed. Of course, why not add her directly to everything inside him trying to tear him apart at this moment? Perhaps she’d even like to see his head explode under the strain? He turned his head just until he could see her peripherally; she was wrapped in one of the sheets from his bunk. She couldn’t be out here, on deck, like that! “Elizabeth, return from wence y’came. Y’ve nothin’ on.”

“There’s no one about, Captain.” She smiled; surprised by the modesty he suffered for her. “And you ruined what I had on.”

True that, he now vaguely recalled tearing the flimsy shift off of her body. Her body, trim and petite, small breasts jutting out into his hands, nipples as pink as rosebuds, slim but curving hips, he could see it all again though he wouldn’t let himself look at her. Damned Calypso! He’d just gotten to a point in life where he was no longer so easily swayed and influenced by a woman’s anatomy when he died, only to be brought back again with a younger man in his skin; as fitful, hungry and distracted as he’d been some thirty years ago. “The sun rises soon, crew will be up. Go!”

But she wasn’t about to listen to him. She’d been so troubled by his absence when she woke up, for it had been easy to tell by the way blankets and pillows were tucked under her arms and head that he’d meant to disguise his departure. She’d been so sure he’d made love to her, and even their more lustful couplings had been permeated with sudden soft kisses of some emotional depth. And the way he’d held her, kept her so close to him as they slept; how could she have been mistaken?

Or was he just hiding? From what? He’d seemed to want all that she gave; she hoped she’d in some way, or at least, by the fact of her compliance, she’d made it clear she wanted what he gave in turn. She’d fallen asleep more secure in the notion of their emotional attachment than she’d awakened, and she was determined not to lose the ground they’d gained together. She loved him damn it! No hiding allowed!

Why not just take control? It had been her who had assumed the chase and asserted the gains to be made when she and Will Turner encountered feelings. Likewise, it was also she who left Will, and went in search of Jack, and once she found him, it was she who was first to speak her mind and heart. Elizabeth wasn’t accustomed to waiting for a man to do anything, but Barbossa certainly wasn’t anything like Will, nor Jack. She’d found him to be capable of deeper affectionate displays, was oddly enough more tender than either of them when he wished to be. But he could bend her to his whim until she wanted nothing more than to submit to him, and he could also be a fortress around her, making her feel safe. She began to realize that she’d never truly reached the stage of trusting a man, nor had she ever wanted any of those things from a man before. But then, perhaps she’d never truly been with a man until now. How was she to talk to a man?

She’d stop short of telling him exactly how things were between them, though she felt pretty certain that she knew. But she wouldn’t merely turn tail and leave him just because he said so. Something she couldn’t explain willed her to stay where she was, for leaving him may have also equaled losing him. There was something mysterious going on with Barbossa that she suspected had less to do with her than she liked. This was no time to tell him she loved him, but it was time to assert herself to him, refuse to go back to the cabin, make him see that she intended to be with him. “I won’t go back to your cabin unless you come with me.”

Damned stubborn woman! Why was it always his lot to fall in love with such bullheaded, insistent females? And beautiful as well, his body, so physically able, and so suddenly undependable, was taking control. He thought about how only a sheet covered her, his cock flared to life. He fought not to turn and face her, trying to ignore the carnal pleas that now echoed through every fiber of him, she was so close and so naked! “Elizabeth, if’n y’don’t go back I’ll have y’up against the gunwale!”

Her heart leapt, finally, an invitation to bring them as close as they could be, perhaps this would put them back upon the track she so wanted them on. And he did cut quite a figure standing there in his coat, breeches, boots and sword, he always had. Up against the gunwale was it? Elizabeth knew he could see her even though he didn’t turn around. Without a word, she let the sheet drop to the deck.

Barbossa had seen the flutter of something white, but could make out no more than that as he struggled to stare at the sea. She hadn’t, she wouldn’t…but when he turned his head, there stood Elizabeth, naked in the night! The sheer audacity of such a thing, the woman he loved, nude, in front of the world? He should…but the chivalrous notion was beaten down by the animalism coursing through him, and he grabbed her, kissing her forcefully as he pressed her against the gunwale, the way she kissed him back and parted her lips for his tongue adding to his fire. His balls were already tight against his body and cock spasming as if trying to draw fluids up his shaft as it swelled more and more. He couldn’t wait; it wouldn’t be long before he reached his point; her boldness and the unpredictable nature of this woman alone having gotten him halfway there already.

Elizabeth had began to notice that whenever the urge overtook him, something flickered through his blue eyes that made them intensely blue for a split second, something she could see even in the shadowy darkness. And once she’d seen it, she was gone, her body reacting as if trained to go on that lustful signal. One of his strong arms held her around her back as she reached forward to undo his belt, shift his sword more to the side so that it would not gouge her hip, and then she took to undoing the buttons of his trousers, loving how his cock pushed back against her fingers from the other side. He was kissing her again, hard, like an invasion, and his free hand slipped between her legs, rubbing her pink creases with a fury.

“No need,” she whispered, tearing her mouth from his, thrusting herself against his hand. “I’m ready, have me.” She opened the last of the buttons at his fly and his erection bounded through it. She lifted one knee to his hip, but couldn’t resist giving his cock a good, long stroke. She so wanted that length inside her, wanted him to fuck her, out here, on the bow of his ship!

“Yer fortunate it’s not yer ass!” He growled, grabbed at her knee and hoisted it higher, moving deep between her legs and having no trouble putting his cockhead to her slick opening as Elizabeth pulled herself closer to his body. Whether it was his thrust or hers, or a combination of the two, that joined them, he wasn’t sure, but he felt himself slide deep within her liquid velvet, a groan escaping him as her hands fought to get beneath his shirt.

“I can’t touch enough of you with this on!” Elizabeth breathlessly complained, yanking at a tie near the collar of his shirt, trying to get it open. It hadn’t taken long for her body to take on the fit of him, she thought, remembering how long and how agonizing it had been before she was as comfortable with Jack as she already was with the Captain. Damned shirt! Oh, but how she wanted to run her fingers through his chest hair and feel how his muscles flexed when he fucked her.

“Use yer teeth!” He answered in a hoarse, eager whisper, unable to be still any longer, beginning to thrust, one hand holding her knee to his hip, the other arm around her back, up and over her shoulder, pulling her into him for more leverage, but nothing seemed like enough. “Elizabeth, I want y’too much to last.”

“I just want to feel you fucking me!” She was leaning forward, grabbed hold of the stubborn tie at his shirt in the manner he’d suggested, clamped her teeth down over it and yanked sharply. A sudden ripping sound, his shirt fell open, her hands grafted themselves over his heaving pectoral muscles, the tie still in her mouth.

As if to kiss her, Barbossa leaned forward, taking the cloth tie of his shirt from her mouth with his and then forcefully spitting the fabric onto the deck, crushing her lips with his a second later. The feel of her hands on his chest was now so lasciviously ingrained in his mind that Barbossa didn’t doubt that the next time he felt them there he’d be instantly hard as granite. He felt the twisting of orgasm beginning, a few more thrusts, he’d be there. But he couldn’t leave her with nothing. It was his fucking she wished to feel? Or was it his cock? “Feel what I am!” He whispered, thrusting in as deeply as he could; doing his best to keep his voice down, not wishing to draw attention to what they did, she was no whore; he esteemed her too much to make a show of this. He unbent her knee he’d been holding at his hip, straightening her leg up against his body until her ankle rested on his shoulder, her clitoris once again rubbing against his body. “Now fuck me, girl,” he told her. “Want to feel ye claspin’ me tight!”

He was so deep within her now, goosepimples flared over her skin at the feeling of the night air on her breasts, and his cock taking up all she had to offer. She braced her free leg against the belaying pins at the rail and leaned far enough away from his body to be able to move as he moved, her sheath contracting in some effort to draw him even deeper as he madly kissed, sucked, licked and bit her calf. She couldn’t pinpoint where she felt it first, or even what, she just knew she was cumming, and the more she ground herself against his body, the faster and heavier orgasm approached.

Elizabeth held onto him as if to keep from drowning, her fingers locked securely over his big deltoids on each side as they moved together. She trembled, and she moaned, her breathing uneven as her ready channel lengthened a bit more, grew wetter, slicker. Still, Barbossa sought more, wanting to drop off of this plain together, and he altered his rhythm, now thrusting forward as she did, his cock jammed deeper within her now than before, again and again, his blood raced, vibrations dancing along his cockhead, creeping down the underside of his shaft. Elizabeth though, she plunged before him, falling against him in a convulsing heap of heavy sighs and louder groans that only grew louder as her orgasm grew in intensity. He was so close, but he couldn’t allow anyone to notice this moment they shared. “Shh,” he hissed, the first of the major jolts pleasure rolling through him as his cock pulsated. He bent her head to his chest and held it there. “Bite it out!”

If she bit him, he hadn’t felt it, for a second later the world exploded, all becoming starlight and cannon fire, wave after wave seeming to leave his body and breach her shores; and then, silence, but for the creaking of The Reproach against the sea, and labored breaths that aimed to return to normal. A sated Elizabeth’s leg slipped limply down from his broad shoulder as his organ softened. The sun was just visible now, and Barbossa realized again that she was completely nude. He tucked his cock back into his breeches, quickly removing his coat.

Elizabeth wasn’t quite up to speed as she felt his coat being wrapped around her shoulders, warm from his body. She instinctively worked her arms through the sleeves, looking down and suddenly seeing that he’d covered her nakedness with it. It easily closed around her chest with plenty of room to spare, much longer on her than on him, and Barbossa took the time to do up three of the buttons. She caught her breath, looked up and smiled at him. “Thank you.”

How quickly such urges for her came upon him would take much more getting used to. Their coupling had been a wonderful anesthetic, taking away the pain of the past, but now it was returning again. In this half-light of dawn, Elizabeth’s hair looked darker, nearly black, like Graciella’s; a leaden thought crossed his mind, what if a child grew within Elizabeth’s womb at this instant? Barbossa wished to be alone. Out of a sense of duty he drew her close and kissed her, not thinking it would go past a light pressure on her lips, but when Elizabeth threw her arms around him and moved her mouth against his so strongly, he felt himself lost once more. With some regret he noted that loving her had certainly given Elizabeth some control over him. But, he was a man with much to sort out, and he couldn’t do it with her in any close proximity to him. “Go,” he told her, turning away from her and staring back out at the water again. She held his hand still, lightly tugging at it. “I’ll be along.” He added, if only to make her go.

He withdrew his hand from hers, a true retreat that Elizabeth balked at, giving chase. Was she losing him? Was he even hers to lose? Not without a fight, at the very least, he wasn’t! “Captain—“

Barbossa sighed, gripped the rail tightly, cursing how persistent she was. She sensed that he was purposefully distant; she’d always been a smart and intuitive girl, but why couldn’t she just leave a man to his demons? Just get her to go, say something that would at least make her storm off. “Be Jack where I last saw The Pearl, y’ll be clawin’ his back by tomorrow night.”

“What?” These new feelings that had erupted for Barbossa had completely blotted out the fact that he’d said he was taking her back to Jack. Jack…she’d started out this night clinging to his image and memory the way those in despair prayed to saints. But now, she couldn’t bring herself to imagine facing Jack, or being with him, or even once again sitting and talking with him and trying to fathom what point he was trying to make. She wanted Barbossa! “No!”

What an absurd creature she was! “No?” Barbossa repeated, turning to face her again. Not once in his long career as a pirate had a captive refused to be set free…if he set them free.

Elizabeth gathered herself, feeling a bit the way she did upon their first meeting when she’d so boldly demanded “parley.” “Captain Barbossa,” she began, her chest and chin out proudly. “As your prisoner, I invoke the right to decline any release until a time that I see fit!”

She stood there dressed only his coat, the garment dwarfing her as she barked her orders like some little general, hands on her hips. He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, though his overall thoughts would not lighten. “Y’ve no such right! As a prisoner, y’ve no rights at all, ye silly wench!”

“Be it of any conjecture, I am not going!” She told him firmly, her irritation mixing into her fear of somehow losing what she felt to be there with him, and her next statement made more emotions clear than she’d intended. “Just because you don’t wish there to be something between the two of us doesn’t mean there isn’t! I know you feel it too; it’s in your every touch! I’m not leaving just because you’re unnerved by it, and I don’t even know why you are, but I assume it’s something to do with them!” Her eyes flashed in the dawn light, and her fingertip poked into his chest with some force, right over the names. She’d sensed that she’d overstepped many boundaries already, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Who are they?”

Had any other woman made such accusations or demands of him, he’d have back handed her and sent her tumbling overboard. But Elizabeth Swann wasn’t any woman; she was someone unafraid to speak truth, and seek answers. However, Barbossa didn’t like that she could so easily read him, didn’t want an acknowledgement of what he felt for her, not yet, he’d barely grown accustomed to it himself. He didn’t like how she’d referred to him as “unnerved,” and his blood boiled to have the names on his chest so importunately called into question. She had stunned him, and he disliked that as well. Why not just stun her back? “They be me wife and daughter, Elizabeth!”

She felt her eyes widen, her head dropped forward as she blinked, hearing the words but not feeling them fit into the image she’d always held of him. How strange and alien it was to think of Captain Hector Barbossa as a husband! As a father! It made him seem a different man all together. He gave a woman his name, had a child with her? Astounding! Wait! “You’re married?”

As delicious as the shock on her face was, Barbossa looked off at the sea again. “Was.”

“What happened?” She realized her questions were intrusive and rude now, but she had to know!

She clearly did not know when to stop. Fine. Let her see what she’d claimed to love, what she’d claimed to know loved her. He took a breath, tried to speak through the misery that now held every bit of him. “I killed them.”