Chapter 25

"Killian." As she placed a torn morsel of mildly stale bread into her mouth, Emma's tone was casual. Too casual. Hook immediately had more than a sneaking suspicion that she was about to begin asking carefully phrased and sensitive questions.

Probing into his past was truly never enjoyable, but her curiosity had been inevitable, and he supposed it was best to simply get it over with. Besides, she'd held back whatever interrogation she was dying to unleash long enough for them to find this private moment so he could elaborate for her without an audience. He supposed her patience deserved reward. He smirked. "What would you like to know, love?"

Her ears reddened at having her motives called out, but she didn't shy away. "About the curse you were under. I didn't know that had happened to you."

Though he did his best to hide it, he bristled at the look she gave him. It looked an awful lot like pity, and he wanted none, least of all from her. He leaned back in his chair and fiddled with his hook. "I suspect there's still quite a bit we haven't learned of each other. Truthfully, I remember nothing of the years that passed during that time, and it is far from the worst event I've endured in my life. When I returned to awareness it felt as though I'd only blinked. Nothing on the island had changed one whit, only the world beyond. I'm not sure that any questions you might have are ones I could answer."

"How did it happen?" She asked wide-eyed, without a hint of bashfulness or hesitance about her curiosity anywhere on her features.

It was that boldness of hers that enticed him so, and so his smile grew warmer, and he found himself opening for her like a book, but not before shaking his flask in the air as an offer. She winced, no doubt recalling how she'd felt that morning, but then she nodded in acquiescence. He retrieved two glasses and filled hers only half as much as his before sliding it across the table to her.

"I told you earlier," he began. "That I've had prior dealings with the Dark One. In fact, for many years now, I've sought revenge against that bloody crocodile for the loss of my hand." He made no mention of what else he had lost that day. That was a story in and of itself, so he kept his focus on the one with greater relevance. "I'd discovered the Evil Queen was keeping a prisoner who held valuable information concerning the Dark One that might aid me in my intentions against him, and intended to take this prisoner for my own purposes. I was apprehended, but rather than doling out punishment, the Queen made me an offer. She told me of a curse she had coming, one that would whisk us all to a land without magic, where the Dark One had no special powers or cheap tricks, and so I could kill him as easily as I could any other man. In return for her facilitating my vengeance in this way, she demanded her mother's death. She made use of some strange magical hat to send me through to Wonderland, along with the body of a guard I'd dispatched while making my entrance. I was to exchange the corpse for her mother Cora's upon my return."

He paused to take a swallow of his rum, then distractedly swirled what remained in his glass. "The assassination did not go according to plan. My instructions failed to account for the Queen of Hearts, as Cora was called in that kingdom, exercising additional precautions in regards to her heart, such as storing it somewhere other than her chest. When I told her I'd been sent by her daughter, she informed me that Queen Regina's promised curse would deprive me of my memories upon reaching that magic-free realm. Of course, that would leave me unable to enact my revenge, should I recall neither the offender nor the offense. She proposed that instead we stage her death so that she may return to this realm, and in reciprocation, she would prevent my memories from being lost in the coming curse. Her intent was to shield the island now called Safe Haven from the curse, and wait it out frozen in time."

Hook's jaw clenched as he remembered the next bit, but slowly, he licked his lips and continued. "As I said, the duration felt as if it were only a heartbeat. When the spell released us, she became frantic because her daughter's curse hadn't worked as expected, and she was uncertain as to why. I myself found it peculiar because we had seen ominous and unnatural purple clouds rolling toward us. Some kind of magic had been cast for certain, and it didn't appear to have been of the light persuasion. She was all in a tizzy attempting to deduce what could have prevented the outcome she'd predicted, but all I could gather from her was that I would not have my revenge as promised and that twenty years had passed us by. I was able to take her heart from her on my second attempt because I knew she'd had nowhere to hide it during her spell except for inside of her body like everyone else does."

He shrugged, as an attempt to trivialize everything he'd told her, but he kept a wary eye on her reaction as he brought the glass of amber liquid back to his lips. At first, she said nothing at all. She simply dipped another bit of her bread into her stew and then chewed it.

"Wow," she finally said anticlimactically. "I would have been pissed too. I probably would have done the exact same thing. Although that does raise an interesting question."

"Does it? What's that, love?"

"If you were frozen in time for twenty years, and you didn't age when you were in Neverland, then how old does that make you?"

Hook barked with laughter in spite of himself. "That's your takeaway from all this?"

Emma's fingertips tore at her bread again as she smirked at him with a knowing gaze. "Would you prefer me to have another?" Clearly she could read him better than he'd realized. "Besides," she continued on her turn for the lighthearted where he was grateful to follow. "I've always had a thing for older men."

Placing both elbows down on the table's surface, he leaned toward her and slipped a husky, albeit humorous note into his voice. "In that case, I am geriatric."

She chuckled and sipped the last of her stew from her bowl. Her fingers wiped a stray droplet off her chin. "If that's the case, I think it's well past time you were in your bed, don't you?"

That gave powerful fuel to the wicked thoughts beginning to burn in his mind. It was extremely satisfying how swiftly and comfortably she was settling in as his mistress, having already spent one night with him in his cabin while the crew was aboard, and currently showing zero qualms about spending another. "Aren't you going to warm it up for me, then?" He pinched the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

Briefly, she narrowed her eyes at him, but she did it with a coy smile. Beneath the table, he heard two thumps as she kicked off her shoes. Then she stood, and backed the couple paces away toward the bed. Her hands nimbly undid the laces of the pants she wore and the fabric fell into a pile around her ankles. She lifted her shirt, exposing the smooth skin of her stomach and her beautifully unbound breasts. It was truly a sight to behold, but Killian felt a slight pang when he saw the discomforted way her motions slowed as she lifted the shirt over her shoulders and head.

Entirely bare except for the bandage on her back, Emma seated herself on the edge of his bunk and stared at him expectantly. Instead of behaving as she supposed he would, he made for the cabinet and retrieved the ointment in order to tend to her wounds before tending to her womanly needs. "Hey," she chastised. "No fair. Undress."

"Hush," he commanded. "This will only be a moment."

"Clothes first." The set of her jaw was a firm indication that she wasn't going to budge on the issue.

Rolling his eyes, he set the jar down on the table behind him and did as she bid. He threw his coat over the back of a chair and left his boots beside it. He tugged his shirt up over his head, pulled loose the laces of his breeches, and then freed his legs of them. Last of all, he unclasped the cuff that held his hook in place and tucked it away beside the bed. He stood before her, presenting himself with arms lifted at his sides in askance whether he'd met her gratification.

Emma nodded, and Killian rolled his eyes again with a smirk. "Now then," he instructed her. "Lie down on your stomach and we'll get you sorted."

"Is that your idea of dirty talk?" She teased as she obeyed him.

He gave her ass a light smack, admiring the way it bounced when he did so. "Patience, you naughty thing."

Seating himself down beside her, he peeled back her bandage with great care. Visible healing had already taken place over her skin. He reached and grabbed the jar from the table and popped its cork off with his thumb. He dipped in his fingers to scoop out an amount, working it into his palm to warm it before slowly tracing it in a thick line down the length of Emma's spine. Replacing the jar's cap, he returned it to the table and out of the way. With his fingertips, he began to trace lazy figure-eight patterns over the width of her back, spreading the ointment side to side, up and down. When the whole area was covered and his hand glided easily over her, he sought out the areas with the most tension, caressing and massaging the knots as he could to soften them, and avoiding any spots he knew would not benefit from further touch.

She let out a soft moan as he squeezed at the base of her neck, and his nether regions stirred. She did it again a moment later when his hand found the next stiffened muscle. Continuing his ministrations, he eased her knees apart with one of his and shifted to kneel in the space he'd created. Her hips rocked in immediate response, rising toward him. He could feel the damp heat of her beckoning him, but he held out. She was beginning to writhe in need of him, even as she made those little noises of pleasure induced by the manipulations of his hand. The sight was one to be savored. When he'd given it its due appreciation, he positioned the head of himself right at her opening and paused, though it was nearly impossible to resist plunging deep into her.

"Killian," she gasped. "Please. Please fuck me."

The sound of those words was pure music, as was the sound she made when he did as she bid and filled her completely. His hand snaked around her hip for leverage as he pressed in hard and held there, hearing her rasping breath before he began to move within her. He pulled her back onto him with every forward thrust in full and driving strokes. Within moments, she'd had to shove her face into the pillow and bite down in an attempt to muffle the sounds of ecstasy emanating from her throat.

It was enough to drive him mad. His strokes became stronger still, and more rapid, which only served to intensify her sounds. Then, her whole body clenched. She choked out his name once more as her inner walls convulsed around him. He could not have stopped himself from falling off of that cliff with her even if he had wanted to.