The Pirate King - 1. Chapter 1

The ship getting taken by pirates was kind of fucking up my plan.

I'd had a plan. Not a good one, but one that had been working for me. Hit a guard over the head. Check. Make my escape. Check. Pick the locks on the shackles they had on me, ditch the metal constraints in the river, and get down to town. Check, check and check.

Get on a ship, use a fake name. Get hired as a sailor; I'm a big guy and they can always use more men. Get a job. Get a wage. Get out of the city. All of that, all a big check. Now the plan had been for me to get off the ship at the next port. To take the money and run, start again somewhere new. Somewhere where they didn't know my name.

Not incredibly original, I know. But having a plan was important when things get tough. Having a purpose is sometimes the only thing that gets you through. And this plan was important. It was going to get me back to where I belong. It was going to let me kill the man who'd taken my life from me in the first place.

So yeah, the pirates were throwing a bit of wrench into things.

They'd pegged us for the merchant ship that we were, taken us in less than twenty minutes. It's important to be able to recognize skill when you see it, and I saw it in them. I watched them, mechanically unloading our cargo, our captain wringing his hands. I could have fought to save the cargo, I guess. I could have helped the captain, helped his Majesty. But neither of them had ever been much of a help to me. Besides, I wasn't interested in what they were doing with the merchandise; I wanted to know what they would do with us.

We waited around, hands bound, some of us nervous and all of us alert. I watched the pirate crew move between our ships. We hadn't fired a volley, hadn't taken any of their crew. And, if I still knew anything about anything, and these were the southern pirates I thought they were, that should keep us safe. Around here, they were more prone to flights of mercy than the strategy of razed grounds. In the event of capture, this was supposed to translate into lighter prison sentences.

I spat.

Finally, the pirates sent a delegate over to explain what was going on.

"Alright, you lot. Here's how this shakes down. We don't wanna have to hurt any of you, and we don't want any of you to hurt us. Part of not hurting you is not leaving you alone in the middle of the sea unarmed. We're not unreasonable, see, just trying to make our living. But, we can't leave you with the means to shoot us, either. See our dilemma?"

And sure, I did, but I also saw something else. Someone else.

He'd walked out onto the quarter deck of the ship across from us, an attractive thing in it's own right, a light little schooner that leapt through the water like it was dancing. The dip and pull of the ocean made the man hard to focus on, but once I'd seen him I wasn't going to let anything take him away from me. His red hair whipped wildly around, mirrored by his black cloak, by the sails and the ropes around him. He was an extension of the ship, and the ship an extension of the sea. In the midst of these southerners, surrounded by people I didn't spare a second glance, he demanded my attention. He looked like a pirate. He looked like a commander. A commander of men, a commander of fleets. Fuck, he looked like he could command the ocean and she would obey.

He looked over at me, and for a moment our eyes met.

Then the rolling of the sea took him from me. When the deck bobbed back into sight, he was gone. I searched about frantically trying to track him down, but it was futile, the deck empty of commanders and filled with nobodies. I thought about letting it pass, whatever had just occurred. It had been a strange moment, something so intoxicating, so demanding even at such a distance. What a feeling he had given me, in just that glimpse. I wanted it back. I never wanted to feel it again.

I shook my head at myself. Whatever was happening, it didn't fit into my plan. I had a solid chance at making it to my destination, if I just stuck to what I had set out to do. A good shot at making it out of this alive, and then making it on to my real goal.

Then again, since we'd been attacked we'd most likely be returning to port. Port was not a good place for me right now, with His Majesty's men and the bounty hunters swarming. By now they most likely had the wanted posters up, too. Besides, I wasn't returning to land. I wouldn't. I needed a new plan, and I needed it fast. But instead of thinking about what was going to happen, I found myself searching for the man I had just seen.

I scanned the ship, ignoring the man in front of me. He was asking something, but he was short and demanded nothing of me so I just looked over the top of his head. The wild red hair was nowhere to be seen. The black cloak didn't flow. Then, suddenly, blissfully, I caught a glimpse.

Just a glimpse, that's all it took. The plan had already been fucked. I didn't have another one ready to go. So when I saw the glimpse, when I caught sight of him for that moment, it was over. I was done. The man in front of me said something again, impatient, but he wasn't enough, certainly didn't command me and I pushed past him and headed toward the other ship.

They hadn't learned yet, these men, that ropes can't keep me. They hadn't the time or the experience to know these things, and so they had tried knots instead of steel to keep me tied down. Good knots, sailors' knots, but there is no knot that can hold me, no rope that my fingers can't undo. These men might have learned to be sailors, but I had been born one. And so I left them in the dust.

I heard them coming after me, the men, but I didn't care. I was on their boat faster than they could think to react, faster than they could even really understand what was going on. I move quickly for my size. But they caught on soon enough and I felt them pulling at my limbs, trying to stop my headlong plummet into their space. It might have worked, and I might have been escorted back to the merchant ship, but I caught a flash of black and a whip of red and bulled through the last of the men and then there he was. He turned just as I approached, my limbs dangling men, my shoulders turned to hooks for them to hang, my back even carrying one. But their extra weight was nothing, not compared to him. I stopped a few feet back, halted by his very presence.

His hair was not red, not the way I'd thought it was. The light had lied to me, had played tricks on my mind, had danced through his thick curls and reflected colors that shouldn't exist. Even as I watched, it happened again, the sun picking up hues and pushing them to my eyes, blacks and browns and purples, indigos, royal colors, godly colors. Sunsets and nightscapes, all hidden in his curls. I wanted to watch his hair capture sunlight all day, but the kinks fell into his face, and I saw his thick eyebrows, the way they drew together and pinned frustration in place like a specimen to study, and then I saw the lines of his cheekbones soft and sharp and everything, and the sweep of his lips, his lips, his lips, frowning out at me, and staring out from all of it, controlling all this wonderful terrifying mystifying experience were his eyes, dark and deep and demanding, and I wanted him to demand of me. I wanted to be able to do everything that he asked.

"What is this," he asked, not to me but to the men trying to hold me back. They must have said something, but all I saw were his eyes, his lips, the way his brow furrowed even more.

"Well," he said, still not to me, but close enough that his voice rubbed against me and I wanted to press against it, just to be nearer to him, "he's here now." He looked at me then, looked me over, those eyes threatening to consume me. I wanted them to. I wanted them to light me on fire, wanted to turn to ash. At least then I couldn't feel the intensity of whatever it was I was feeling in that moment. At least then it would be over.

"Bring him to dinner, I guess." He turned and walked away. The moment ended. Somehow I was still standing.

"Dinner with the Captain," one of the men holding me said. "Lucky guy."

I looked at him, wondering if I looked as shellshocked as I felt. I must have, I guess, because the man began to laugh.

***

They tied me up for dinner.

I was tired of being contained. I had worked hard to escape exactly this. They used rope again, just added extra knots, and maybe it was because they were sailors that they were confident or maybe because they didn't know me, but they thought they had me good. They didn't, but I wasn't going to run this time. I sat in my chair and waited for the man they called the Captain to arrive.

My heart was racing, watching the door. What was happening to me? I'd never had a reaction like this before, not to anyone, not to anything. I'd navigated winter squalls in lifeboats. I'd killed men who wanted to kill me, and ones who didn't. I'd moved with fleets through channels as narrow as each ship was wide. I'd faced down mermaids and harpies, I'd killed a sea god and drank it's blood, I'd laughed in the face of prison guards and their whips. Hell, I'd faced down whole prison gangs. And that was on land. One pirate captain couldn't scare me.

Then he walked through the door, and my heart leapt into my throat.

He'd changed from before, or at least taken off his cloak. His shirt was carelessly unlaced down his front, baring more of his dark skin than I'd expected, his chest almost in negative to his white shirt, though what was a chest to me? His pants fit well, very well, and they showed off his hips, were tight through his ass, but I'd seen people's asses before, had seen men naked, so what was his ass to me?

I swallowed and looked down at the table.

"Well then," he started, rolling up his sleeves, and his forearms were muscled, and scarred, and I imagined them holding me, but what were his forearms to me and I didn't need to be held by anyone and I tried to look away, I really did. He took me in, frowning. What were lips that swept to me. What were eyes that demanded.

"You're tied."

I felt a strange thrill at the way he said that, at the way his eyes caught on my bindings. I shrugged, the best I could manage at the time. I didn't trust my voice. He looked to the men standing somewhere off to my left.

"He's big," the one said, while the other wheedled, "He took down like 12 of us earlier."

The Captain sighed. He leaned on the table, one leg crossed over the other and frowned further. (What is a brow that furrows?) "Why did you board our ship?"

Their ship? Every ship on the ocean belonged to me. I could have told him that, could have taken myself from this chair and shown him, but instead I felt myself shrugging. His eyes followed the motion of my massive shoulders without emotion.

"You need to answer truthfully before I can let you go."

He took me in, took as much of me in as he could see, as much as wasn't hidden by the table. I was glad there were parts hidden by the table. "Come now, answer honestly."

I shook my head. I couldn't explain. I couldn't say anything. And how do you tell someone that you boarded their ship, as he thought of it, that you came to them for them? How do you explain a pull so magnetic to someone in the center of it?

"Fine." He threw up his hands. "Don't talk. We'll drop him off at the next port, I guess." The last part was addressed to the men behind me. He turned to leave.

"No!" The word erupted from my mouth, as much a reaction to him leaving as a reaction to his decision. What was happening to me? No man could control me; I was the sea, I was the ocean incarnate, and no man should ever make me feel like this, should pull me physically from my seat as he left the room. He turned, and saw me pushing against my rope towards him. I watched him take it in, watched his eyes travel the parts of my body that fought to be released, caught the moment of hunger in his eyes and I sat back. I wasn't ready to deal with that, not yet. He blinked the hunger away.

"You want to stay?" He sounded completely unfazed, as if I had not just watched him visualize things I couldn't even begin to imagine.

"Yes," I told him.

"Why?"

There was silence.

"Give me a reason."

I didn't have one. Or maybe I did, but I wasn't ready to say it yet, so I just stared at him with eyes that I didn't ask to beg, but that did it anyway.

What were eyes that begged to him, of course.

He sighed. "I can't let you stay if you don't have a reason."

"Please, sir," I said, and I saw that hunger again just for a moment, watched his body hitch in its usual smooth motions. I could use that, I thought. I wanted him to want me, found myself willing to do anything to feel his touch. I pressed up against the ropes, experimentally, carefully, controlled, and watched his eyes fall to my chest, my wrists, watched his hands tighten. "Let me stay."

He stayed that way for a moment, then looked up and to my left. "Leave us," he commanded. I heard a door open and close, and then we were alone.

My heart pounded.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he asked me.

"No," I told him. I looked at the lines of his body, saw them move, knew how to make them move for me, wanted to make them move for me. "Yes," I amended, and finally finished with, "maybe."

"What do you want." His voice sounded almost defeated. "Did someone send you?"

I shook my head. I watched his dark curls fall into his face, wanted to brush them away. I wanted to touch his face, draw it closer to mine. I wanted to feel him close to me. I closed my eyes and tried to remember how to breathe. What was happening to me? What was this man doing?

He drew closer, and I almost lost myself. "Tell me," he commanded, his voice cool and even, "what you want."

"You," I answered, because he'd asked, because his eyes demanded, and my body tingled with the word and I watched his eyelids flutter.

"To kill me? To lower my guard so you can attack?" He leaned on the table next to me, just around the corner, his tight pants out of sight, his open shirt terribly visible, and I didn't ask my body to press towards him, and I don't think he asked his body to shudder watching mine.

"I wouldn't do that." I was helpless, in front of him. He should know that, seeing me. How could he not see that?

"You couldn't, or you won't?"

"I couldn't. I don't know."

He leaned across the table, leaned in so close I could feel his breath. I whimpered, grabbing the handles of the chair. "Tell me what you want."

"You," I told him again, and leaned forward to kiss him.

He leaned back and thought about that.

"Please," I said, the rawness in my voice catching us both by surprise. I could feel myself giving up control, feel it melting in the face of desire. There was no plan. There was no back-up, no way out of this. There was only him. "Just one kiss."

"I don't kiss prisoners," he told me, eyes on every inch of me showing but my face.

"Please." I wanted to tell him that I wasn't a prisoner, not really. I couldn't be, not a ship that was really mine. Besides, I could get out any time I wanted, that I could have left a thousand times over, but I stayed in my ropes for him, for the way he looked at me in them, the way his eyes widened, but my body was pressing against them and his eyes were doing the thing and I couldn't find the words. He walked the rest of the way over to me. I couldn't imagine him drawn by me, and yet that's how he walked, like he didn't quite have a choice. I willed him closer.

He rounded the edge of the table, and his eyes finally traveled past my stomach, further down my waist. I watched him take in my broad hips and muscled thighs. I watched his eyes catch on the bulge in my pants, watched him see how hard I was for him, from him, and watched him swallow.

"Please, sir," I said, and arched towards him. I watched him jerk a bit at that, saw the way his hand clenched and unclenched, his eyes all over me and his body so close.

"One kiss," he whispered, and he touched my face and I actually gasped from it, his fingers light after the weight of wanting so badly. They traced my cheek, my jawbone, and then he lifted my chin and brought his lips to mine.

It couldn't have lasted as long as it felt, and it couldn't have been as short as I think it was. It felt like eternity. It felt like nothing.

It wasn't enough.

When he lifted away, my whole body tried to lift with him, to follow his command, but the ropes held me down. He left the place where I could reach and I let my teeth scrape against his lip, let myself try to pull him down just for a moment before he was gone. I stayed there, pressed up against my restraints, and he watched, hovering just out of reach, his hand on my face.

"You," he said, and his voice was ragged, and I almost made a noise because the sound was so perfect, must have made a noise because his fingers dug into my chin, "you can't stay here tonight, can you."

I shook my head.

"All tied up," his words caught as his eyes traveled the length of my body, his gaze trapped by the knots on my limbs. He cleared his throat. "Who knows what could happen. Someone could try to hurt you, or you could get out, try to hurt my crew. It would be irresponsible to leave you here."

I nodded.

"Alright, then." His voice had returned to normal. Cool, almost bored. But his hands shook as he untied my restraints. "I'll take you to a cell. Make sure you have everything you need."

I was happy to be spending more time with him, happy that he would be escorting me. Happy for any amount of anything he would give me. But I have to say, at his words my heart sank.

He finished untying my feet and went to move to my hands. In the motion, he suddenly found himself kneeling between my feet, hands over my lap.

He paused, slowly looking up to meet my eyes. They were wide, seeing him there, a moment of pure panic and want. Gently, he placed a hand on my inner thigh. That single touch, the simplest of gestures, pushed all my air from my body in a rush, and I was left dizzy. I thought I saw the quickest of smiles before he removed his hand and turned his attention to freeing my arms.

Soon, I could stand. We found, however, that the men who had tied me originally had decided the most secure method was tying the initial knot around my wrist itself, so that if I broke free of the chair, there would be rope still attached to me. We both looked down at these knots, leading out to lengths of thick twists, a leash for each wrist. We followed the lines and found the ends in the Captain's hands.

I looked up and met his demanding eyes.

He moved away, putting space between us. Then he turned and faced me. I waited, waited to see what he would ask of me. Suddenly, decisively, he tugged on the lines, putting pressure on my wrists. It wasn't enough to pull me forward, but forward I went, listening to the lines, listening to him, and my body tingled with it, rushed with it. He pulled again, and again I stepped forward, but just a step. I wanted to run to him, wanted to kiss him, wanted to do so much more that I didn't even know how to think about, but all he was asking of me was a step and so that's all I did.

He watched me listen to him, his lips parted, his brow creased. I watched him back and silently begged him to pull me all the way in, each step another glowing pleasure wave crashing through my body starting at my wrists and ending up in places I didn't know what to do with.

He stopped pulling me when I was too far away, not close enough to touch. "I think," he said, almost evenly, "that we had better keep these on." He held up the lines. His hands had not stopped trembling. "For security reasons."

I nodded mutely. He pulled me in another step and I gasped.

"Security," he repeated, and then he was off into the hallways and I was pulled behind him.

I ached that we weren't going to be alone anymore, that we were going to be sharing space with others. He was going to take me to a cell, and we would be done, and then he would drop me off on some deserted island and I would die.

I was in such despair that I didn't notice, at first, that we were not going down. Galleys are always down; you don't keep prisoners in the nice part of the ship. And we were headed into the seriously nice part of the ship.

He pushed open and door. "You first." I walked in and blinked. This was no cell.

"Easier to sleep and know you're not escaping if I lock you in with me." The Captain followed me into his quarters and locked the door behind us. I heard the lock click and felt my breath catch.

He turned to me, slowly. There was a beat, and then he grabbed my face and we were kissing. His hand traveled down my neck, over my shirt, then it was under my shirt and I was gasping and biting and kissing him back and I wanted to touch him too, wanted to feel his skin against mine but his other hand held the two ropes, kept my hands behind my back, kept pulling. I stumbled back a step at the pressure, then another. He backed me up against the far wall, tugging at me with one hand and pushing at me with the other until my back hit the rough boards beside the bed. He stopped there for a moment, panting, looking me over. Then he smiled, kissed me again, and walked away. I tried to follow and found that he'd tied my hands to the bedpost while I wasn't paying attention. A wave of frustration mixed with pleasure washed over me as I hit the end of my tether, feeling the wash of denial that I was becoming all too familiar with.

He watched me from the end of the bed, smiling slightly. It made me want him, made me want him even worse. I crumpled down to my knees.

"Please, sir," I told him, my voice so low, so hoarse, "this is torture."

The smile disappeared from his face so quickly it might not have been there at all. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'll stop." He moved forward.

"No!" I quickly said. He stopped dead where he was, hand outstretched, halfway towards me. "I don't... I didn't mean..."

He sat down on the bed. His eyes were searching, always searching. "Do you want me to stop?"

"I don't know," I told him truthfully. "I've never done anything like this before."

He closed his eyes and nodded. "I need to remember that," he murmured, and I'm not sure that he was talking to me. "It's just so hard when you're so." He waved a hand towards me. "You know?"

I didn't know.

He saw my confusion and came close, sat right next to me on the bed. He pushed his hands into my hair and put his mouth to my ear. "You make me want to do things to you," he whispered, and the intensity of it made me try to pull away but he had me by the hair, he held me tight, "that I haven't done with anyone in a long time. I want to do those things. I want to do those things bad." He bit my ear, and I let loose a noise that I had never made before, a mixture between a moan and a yelp and a gasp. "You make these noises, see? And these faces, and I -"

I pushed my lips to his and let me kiss him. When he pulled me away, we were both panting. I could feel him watching me, feel his eyes take in the lines of my chin, the length of my neck, and I leaned my head back against his shoulder and gave these things to him, offered them up. I heard him suck in his breath, felt his hand tighten on my head. He turned and rested his lips on my cheek, his breath shuddering. "Oh, the things I could do to you," I heard him mutter, and it sent waves of excitement through my soul. Instead of doing anything, he pulled away. "But I can only do those things if you want to." He took a breath and said it again, gentler. "I will only do those things if you want to. Okay?"

He backed off then, gave me space, but I didn't want space. "I want you."

He frowned. "That's not really what I asked."

"Please, sir," I said, and the way his body reacted to those two words sent waves of pleasure through my very core, "I want you."

He stayed where he was, his eyes closed. Stayed that way for a good while. "Okay," he finally said. "Okay." He opened his eyes and came closer to me. "But you can say stop at any time."

"Okay," I repeated.

"And I'm going to leave you tied up." His eyes were wide. "For security reasons."

"Okay," I said again, a little less evenly, and pretended that my body wasn't on fire.

"Are you secure," he asked my neck, and I nodded.

"Good. Stand up."

I stood up. He didn't. For the second time tonight, I found myself tied with the Captain's face inches from my the most sensitive parts of my body.

He traced the outline of the bulge with fingers that set my world ablaze. I wrapped my hands around the rope and gasped, trying to steady myself. He moved his fingers to my waistband, reaching around to find the laces. In doing so, he pressed his face up between my legs, and I closed my eyes in the face of it.

"Open your eyes," he instructed me. I tried, and when I was finally able to look down, he was waiting there, smiling. "You doing okay?"

I nodded, words beyond my capability.

"Good. Then I want you to watch me." And then he carefully pulled down the waist of my pants to uncover my cock.

He looked up to me, saw my wide eyes staring, watching as instructed, and smiled. Then he opened his mouth and took me inside of him.

My entire body shuddered, and I had to look away, it was too much. When I finally was able to look again, he had stopped and was staring up at me. "Watch me," he told me firmly, commanded me, and I felt a second shudder threaten my body. I nodded.

He took me again, and I gasped and gathered rope into my hands and tried not to cry out. He moved his mouth up and down, watching me watch him, seeing me react, digging his fingers into my hips in time with my gasps and hovering just over the head of my cock to hear me moan, to watch me squirm. Soon, he pulled away, moved his head up my body, biting my hipbone, then just below my ribs, making his way to standing, stroking my cock all the while.

I lunged at him as soon as he was in range, kissing him as deeply as I could. He kissed me back for a little, indulging me, but all too quickly his hand was in my hair, pulling me back. I panted, trying to figure out which way was up.

He took one look at my face and actually laughed at me. "You need a break," he said. He untied me from the bedpost and pushed me onto the bed. "Stay," he instructed. "I'll know if you move."

I laid as still as I could, trying to breath, trying not to think too much about what was coming.

"I want to switch your ropes with manacles. It's more comfortable," he said, and I turned and found that he was naked, and immediately looked away before I tore a hole in myself with desire. He sat down beside me and started undoing my ropes.

"Wait," I told him, suddenly aware of what was going on. He was leaning down to kiss my wrist, and I almost lost the thread of what I had been thinking. It was important, very important, but it was getting confused in the sensation of his mouth on the soft underside of my arm.

Then cool metal snapped around my wrist.

"No." I sat up straight. He pulled back and let me move away. I looked down at the metal band wrapped around my arm, looked over at the pirate captain holding the key. "I don't," I started, but I didn't know how to say what I needed to. "This isn't."

"Okay," he said softly. He put out his hand, palm up. I hesitated, knowing how easy it would be for him to snap the other side closed. Then I put my hand in his. He unlocked the manacle and put it beside the bed. "Ropes," he said. I nodded, but I eyed the manacles beside the bed. He got up and silently put them away.

He tied me back up, careful and gentle. I didn't know hands could be so gentle. He brushed my hair from my face and looked me over. "Good?"

I was, I found. I had to be when I was near him, when his hands were on me. I nodded and leaned forward to kiss him. He let me get close, so close, inching away and making me follow until I was at the end of where I could move. Only there, only then, did he brush his lips against mine.

He laughed at the noises I made, then dug a hand into my hair and at the same time grabbed the shaft of my cock. I cursed, and he kissed me, one hand rhythmic and the other steady, pulling, turning me into an arching moaning creature.

"Keep your hips down," he murmured into my cheek, his mouth on his way to my neck, nipping and nibbling. I tried, but they kept lifting, lifting into his hand. The third time I did it, he moved his hand to my hip bones and slammed them back down to the bed.

"Keep them down," he warned me, in a voice that sent shivers all through my body. I nodded, and he spidered his hand back to my cock and when it reached it he bit my collarbone and I cried out.

He kept moving his mouth down, pulling the back of my head with it until his arm didn't reach, until his mouth hovered centimeters from the tip of the part of me that stood, quivering, twitching, all of me waiting. I knew I could lift my hips and it would reach. I knew I could bridge the gap.

But I knew he didn't want me to. I waited.

"Good," he told me, and smiled up at me, and I only had a second to smile back before he dropped down and licked the length of my shaft.

I cursed, long and low and with my whole body. He was moving slow, torturing me, his tongue tracing circles around the most sensitive parts of my body. His fingers roved my hips, and my legs, and my stomach, pinching and tracing and pushing. He lifted his head as I cursed again, watching me squirm. Then he moved again, and took my balls in his mouth.

Waves of it were rolling through my body. I felt myself reaching a height, knew what was coming next. "Please, sir," I tried to tell him. I don't know how I made any words out of the vibrating mess I had become. "I'm going to come."

He looked up at me, took in my face. "No," he said simply, and took me back in his mouth.

"God." I hid my face behind my arms, cursed and writhed, trying to hold back the waves of pleasure building behind my eyes, within his mouth, inside my core. "Please," I tried again.

"Look at me." I shook my head. "Look at me," he commanded, and I did. I almost lost it then, seeing him there, his smiling face so close to areas that should be mine, that were now his. He kissed the top of my cock, once, then nodded. "Come."

I let it go, gasping, and came all over his face.

At the end of it, I lay, trembling, staring down at the pirate captain who knelt between my legs. He grinned up at me and crawled up my body, moved his way up so he was straddling me. When his face hovered just above mine, he put his fingers to my chin and pulled my lips to his. He tasted like pleasure and warmth, and I kissed him soft and was no longer so afraid that I was going to break.

I felt his hand in my hair and I opened my eyes to find his searching my face. I let them rove, let them explore my lips, my ears, the scar across my nose. "Never done something like this before, huh," he finally said.

"No." He still had cum on his face. My cum.

What the fuck had just happened?

"You're messy," I let him know. I thought about leaning forward and licking it off, what it would taste like. The thought caught me by surprise. I stared up at him, considering what an action like that would mean, how it would look, and suddenly found myself lifting towards his face tongue first.

He gasped as I succeeded, as surprised as I was. I stayed where I was moved when he pushed me back, smiling slightly at the taste I'd gotten for myself. He pushed his hair back, and I saw his hands tremble. His eyes were roving over me, taking in everything.

"Fuck," he finally said. "I'm gonna go get cleaned up. I'll be right back."

He didn't tell me to be still this time, but I was. When he came back, he looked me over with this strange mixture of confusion and desire. Then, he leaned over and untied my hands.

I immediately reached up and pulled him down, let my hands finally sink into his hair, let them brush against his cheek. I had been denied this so long, had been kept from knowing him in this way and there was so much I wanted to learn. He let me kiss and touch him for a while, then he pulled away.

"Stop," he said raggedly. But he didn't command, it was just a word, so I reached out again and pulled him back to me, felt my hand slip down his chest, explore his stomach, reach around his back. I felt his breath catch as I neared his hip bones, as I passed them.

"Stop." He pushed at me forcefully. It wasn't enough to actually move me, but move I did. "What are you doing?"

I didn't know. Dazed, I tried to find some semblance of breath in the lust-driven creature I had somehow become. My hand was still caught in his hair, the only link between our bodies. He made no move to disengage it, and so I left it there, only moving it down the the nape of his neck. He pressed into my fingers, and I saw that he was shaking. I let him anchor himself in my splayed palm.

"I don't want to be done," I told him. I didn't realize it was true until the words came from my throat. He closed his eyes and bit his lip. His breath was fast. "I want to do more."

"I don't want to overwhelm you," was his response. He didn't open his eyes.

"You won't." He shook his head against my hand. "You won't, I promise." I was desperate for him, needed even more than he'd already given me. I moved my body closer to him, pulled his head towards me at the same time. "I'm strong," I told him, my lips on his, and his hand found it's way into my hair. His breath was ragged against my body. But he didn't come closer.

"Fuck," he said quietly. "You make it hard, you make it so fucking hard."

I didn't know what he meant by that, but I knew what I wanted. I reached down and traced my finger over his erect cock.

My head was ripped back, his gasp a receding echo as he pulled my hair hard enough to move my entire body away from his. I could hear his breath panting from where he sat. His hand gripped my hair tight, and I didn't have a choice but to wait to see if I had made a mistake.

Just as suddenly as he had pulled me away, he yanked my head towards his, and we kissed, hot and deep and passionate. When he shoved at me, I fell back against the bed, and he fell on top of me, consuming me, my lips, my chin, my neck, up to my ear. I was gasping, reaching to pull him closer, but he kept pushing my hands away, pinning them against the rough sheets.

In time, he pushed himself up. He propped his forehead on mine, resting as he caught his breath, his heart pounding against my chest. My body was in a daze, wrapped in a cocoon of sensations that I didn't understand but wanted to never end. Only he could free me, I realized. I had to do what he wanted, would always do what he desired. It was all I wanted, and I ached with it.

I waited to see what he would do with me, what decision he would come to. He moved his lips to my ear. "Stay on your back and spread your legs," he whispered to me, and I almost whimpered to hear it. "Be ready for me when I come back."

I was waiting for him when he arrived, a jar of something in hand. I'd taken off my shirt while he was gone, a step we hadn't previously bothered with, and I don't think he'd been expecting it. He stopped and stared at me, free hand pushing back his hair, eyes demanding and dark. When he finally got into bed he settled between my legs, placing the jar on a side table in reach, and then he just looked at me. His eyes made me weak, weak in a way I had never been, and I felt like I should have been scared and yet I had never felt more safe. As his eyes explored me, so did his hands, sliding across muscles and skin, stopping at each and every scar they found as if marveling at my existance. He was a marvel. I was nothing but an afterthought. I pressed into his hands, guiding them down my stomach and over my hips. They ended up on my thighs, running up and down their scarred expanses.

"I'm going," he said a little incredulously, "to fuck you."

"Okay," I think I responded. It was hard to say anything in all the anticipation that was built up around my body.

He ran his hand over my hipbones and I shuddered. "Are you scared?"

"A little," I admitted.

He lifted my leg up over his shoulder. "I need you," he told me, kissing my calf, biting my skin, "to relax." I could feel his breath shaking against my body, could feel how much he wanted this. His want drove the desire in my crazy, wrapped it up inside of me sparkling and hot. He kissed his way up my leg to my knee, leaving a trail of blossoming tingles behind. "It's going to be okay."

I nodded, then gasped as my entire body shifted, the Captain pulling my hips up, his hands tight on my thighs. "Put your hands on the headboard," he instructed, and I did, "and don't you let go." He took a scoop from the jar, spread it on himself. I watched him. I couldn't take my eyes off his hand stroking his perfect cock, something I'd never wanted until tonight and now couldn't imagine living without. He moved his hand to me, his fingers gently spreading my ass, rimming my hole with lube. He paused, watching my eyes follow his every movement in anticipation, then pressed a finger inside of me. I gasped, lifting my hips, pressing against the pressure I hadn't realized I'd wanted so badly. He pulled it out and I let my breath out with it. "I don't want to see your hands anywhere but where I tell them."

"Yes, sir," I said, my voice raspy, and felt him shudder.

"Ready?" he asked, and I nodded, then he kissed my knee one last time and slowly pushed into me.

I wanted to curse, or shout, or do something, but the intensity of it, the slowness, the pressure, it all took my breath away. I meant to look at his face, to watch him, but I just couldn't do it, couldn't pay attention to anything but what was happening inside of me. I heard him moan, though, heard him let slip a low noise that shot me through with pins and needles and fire, and I gripped the headboard as tight as I could so that I wouldn't cry out.

He pressed into me again, but he was going so slow. It was torture, the feeling of wanting him deep inside of me, needing him there, and to have him move so slowly, so deliberately. I wanted him to move fast. I wanted him to move hard, as hard as he was, as hard as I was in danger of becoming again. "Fuck," I said, unable to contain it anymore. "Fuck fuck fuck."

He stopped, asked me something about pain, but stopping was the opposite of what I wanted, and pain was the opposite of what was going on, and I didn't know how to express that to him so I let go of the headboard and wrapped him up. One of my arms went around his waist and the one around his head, and he gasped and we cursed into each others lips and I pressed him into my body, pulled us as close as we could get, as deep as he would go.

He was shaking as he pushed me away. "Headboard," he reminded me.

"Fuck," I groaned as I lay back down, but it turned into a moan as he moved inside of me.

He tortured me like that for what felt like eternity, going as slow as possible, watching me squirm, and curse, and beg. In time even he couldn't handle it and he began to pick up speed, falling into a rhythm of moans and curses and fucks and please, sirs, until we became a blur of cock and curse and pleasure and I couldn't tell where one thing started and the other thing began.

"Touch me," he cried out, and my hands lept from the headboard where they had been gripping, obeying, bone white. I grabbed him tight, wrapped him up like before and pressed him deep, and we cried out together as he came inside of me.

We lay there for a moment, breathing, panting. Then he pushed himself to stare down at my body with that same mixture of confusion and desire he had on his face earlier. He gently pulled out and I gasped as his member slide from my sensitive body. He traced the gaping hole he had left. We both felt it close around his finger.

He looked up at me. "Fuck," he said softly.

He collapsed next to me, tracing my body with his fingers. My hands now free, I found his hand and entwined my fingers with his, pulling his fingers to my mouth. I kissed his hand, then his fingers, then gently bit the inside of his wrist.

"Fuck, do you want more?" he laughed.

"I think I'll always want more of you," I told him, because it was true and because I was flooded with endorphins.

He propped himself up on his elbow and watched me. I let him, because there was nothing to see but me, and I wanted him to see me. Eventually he leaned over and kissed me, softly, gently, and I let him do that too.

"Hey," I asked him when he pulled away, "what's your name?"

"Fuck," he laughed. Then he thought a bit and said it again, and it didn't sound as humor filled. "Fuck." He pulled away. "Shit, I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For." He gestured vaguely. "This doesn't feel good."

I laughed at that, endorphins still rushing through my system. "I thought it felt pretty good."

"No, not like." He sighed and sat up. I followed his lead, pulling my bulk up after him. "I feel like I just used you, somehow."

That got him a raised eyebrow. "Used me?"

"Yeah, you know. I'm the captain."

"And?"

"And the captain shouldn't be having sex with the prisoners."

"I'm not a prisoner." I had never been a prisoner, could never be. But he misinterpreted my argument.

"Technically, you still are. We have to take a vote, to see what we do with you. We're democratic."

"Okay. So I'm a prisoner." I shrugged at him.

"Yeah." He pointed at himself. "And I'm the captain."

"You already said that." I smirked at him. "If you feel like you used me, that kind of implies that you wanted this all along, doesn't it?" I felt lazy. Felt drained and happy where I was. Safe. Safe enough, maybe, to needle this man a bit. "When exactly did you know you wanted to fuck me, Captain?"

He looked away. "All I'm saying is, there's a power dynamic here. You could have. I don't know, felt like you had to do what I asked." He looked down at his pointing hand, still pressed to his chest.

I wanted to laugh at him, at the statement he had just made. I was still caught up in what had just happened, trapped in a web of satiated desire and the false tranquility that came after. As if this man could have made me do a single thing I didn't want to do. As if anyone could. But he looked so concerned, so guilty, that all my laughter disappeared from my lungs. Instead, I found myself telling him the truth, a new habit I'd picked up in his presence that I wasn't very fond of. "I would have done what you asked," I told him quietly, "no matter who you were."

He went very still.

"If you were the first mate," and I took his hand in mine, "or a deckhand," and I grabbed his waist, "or a scullery boy." I lifted him into the air, and he squeaked. It was a ridiculous sound to come from the captain of these pirates, these big tough baddies, and I smiled softly at him and put him down on my lap facing me. He tried to push away, weakly, and I captured his hand and put it behind his back. When he tried with his other hand, I put it behind his back too, and was pleased to find I could hold both his wrists in one hand. With my free hand I smoothed back his hair, taking my turn now to search his face, to watch him think through options, think through scenarios of what I could do now that I had him. He pushed against my hand with his wrists, and I pushed back, let him know that he couldn't break free. At the realization he made a small noise and I couldn't help it, I had to kiss him.

He looked dazed when I pulled away. "You're dangerous," he said.

I couldn't not agree with that.

"You make me dangerous." He searched my face one last time, then shook his head. "Let me go," he said, and I knew it was a command and did it. "We need to get cleaned up."

I looked down at myself, his cum still dripping out of my ass. "I kind of like how I am."

He closed his eyes for a second. "Let's go," he finally managed.

He walked me to the washroom, keeping at my side the whole time. It was a private suite as part of his captain's quarters. I took it in, noting the mirror, the private toilet, the full basin of clean water set out for a nightly wash. I walked in, expecting him to leave, but he simply crossed his arms. I kept my back to the wall and moved forward. "A bit of privacy, perhaps?"

He shook his head. "I'd rather you weren't out of my sight."

"Why not? Afraid I'll come after you?" He frowned at me. "Afraid I'll find something something like this," I picked up a straight razor from its box, "and try to kill you?"

It was meant as a joke. I thought I was dreaming, I think. It's the only explanation for how I'd been acting, for my careless words and even less careful actions. I was a planner; I planned. I knew what would happen when I picked up a knife.

So I shouldn't have been so surprised when he grabbed a weapon of his own.

"You don't need that," I said, watching him get ready to fight. He eyed me warily. "See?" I put down the razor, raised my hands in submission. My knees dropped to the floor for him, one after the other, an action I had never taken for any being before. He watched me submit. "I already told you," I reminded him quietly, "I'll do anything you ask." I saw the hunger glowing in his eyes.

He slammed the door in my face.

I stayed there for a moment, processing the moment of desire and lust I'd read on his body before he'd closed me in. Then I shrugged and got myself cleaned up. There was nothing I could do about that now.

The Captain didn't look at me as I emerged from the bathroom, dripping and clean, just pushed past to clean himself. I didn't understand his sudden change in attitude, but I felt a twinge of concern that it had been brought on by something I had said. I settled myself in bed and hoped.

He'd taken clothes with him into the wash room. He emerged in that same light shirt, same tight pants, and I was shocked by how much he still took my breath away. I had just seen him naked, had just watched him -

I stopped my thoughts, swallowing hard. He caught my look and scowled.

"I need to tie you back up," he said, all business, but my breath caught in my throat. "You're still a prisoner, and you just tried to attack me."

"I didn't -"

"It was stupid to untie you in the first place." He wasn't looking at me, just gathering what he needed.

I shrugged. He was in some sort of a mood. I leaned back and offered up my wrists.

"Really," he continued, "You should be in the cells. You should be in irons."

I sat right back up and pulled my wrists into my body. He was staring out the window, watching the night stars dip and pull against the fabric of the sky.

"Put me in irons," I said, my voice as quiet and still as the darkness he watched, a completely different voice than the one he'd heard all night, "and I will never speak with you again."

It was an odd threat, coming from my lips. But you should never threaten someone unless you plan to follow it through, and I would never kill this man, or hurt him in any way, so this was the threat that came.

He turned to look at me, then, saw my face and, I think, saw that what I said was true. Or at least that I meant for it to be. "Okay," he said quietly. "Ropes." And he might have been doing it to make me more comfortable, but really, what was my comfort to him? I let him tie me. Knots couldn't hold me, but he didn't know that yet, and his knots were as good to me as instructions to follow. He made the motions mechanically, not looking at my body, not looking at my face that lay so close to his, but the shake of his hands gave him away. When he was finished, he sat back.

I tugged gently against the ropes, settling to a more comfortable position.

"Stop it," he asked me, his eyes closed. I stopped. "I'm sorry," I said. "I just needed to move." He nodded without letting his eyes open. He waited until he was sure I was done, then made his way to his side of the bed. Only then did he actually look over at me in full.

"Shit, your pants."

I looked down at my still naked body. "Will it bother you?" I watched emotions go to war on his face. Eventually, practically or selfishness won out, and he let me be. He blew out the candle and sat on the edge of the bed.

In the cover of darkness he spoke. "I'm sorry for the way that I acted tonight. I should have been more in control."

"I don't know what you're apologizing for," I tried, but he cut me off with a firm, "Be quiet." I was glad I couldn't see his eyes.

"You deserve to be treated better." I disagreed, didn't understand what he was talking about, but his instructions had been clear. I heard him get settled under the covers. "Now, go to sleep."

He was asleep before the I could think to say anything else.

I felt the ship lurch around me, comforting and known. Outside, the night sky held a thousand stars, and the sea was endless.

I looked up at my bound hands, then at the sleeping man beside me. Things were not going according to plan.

Not at fucking all.