WIP Wednesday: Take Your Innocence
Coming soon 😏
Killian Jones intrigued her from the moment she caught him watching from across the tavern, his hair falling into his wide eyes and a pink tinge to his cheeks. He looked for all the world like he’d never seen a woman before, and Emma wondered at his history as she sipped her rum. She couldn’t help it; she had always been too curious for her own good. Watching the deckhand - for that’s what he must have been - flinching and cowering at loud noises like a mistreated horse made her want to steal him away. She didn’t know quite why she was drawn to him. He was nice to look at, certainly, but Emma had never felt anything more than carnal desires for a man; nothing like the pull she felt to help this one, to comfort him, to hold him and protect him.
It was this pull that had her following him from the tavern into the night. She tried to tell herself she shouldn’t, but her feet carried her along in his trail anyway. When she found him again, curled up in the mud, taking his beating from the motley crew of thugs without so much as a whimper, Emma knew then that whatever it took, she had to have him.
Blackbeard was a cruel brute of a man, a bully, but beneath his bluster was a coward that couldn’t hold Emma’s cold stare, nor match her sharp tone when she demanded he turn his abused deckhand over to her. She offered him more than he thought Killian was worth and his eyes had bugged out when she tossed the pouch of coins onto his desk. He hadn’t quibbled after that, gleeful as he agreed to let her keep Killian. More trouble than he’s worth, that boy. Honestly I’m glad to be rid of him. Emma hadn’t bothered with a response. All that mattered was taking Killian far away from here.
He was so nervous, the trauma he’d been put through at Blackbeard’s hands making him afraid of her; although Emma herself had done nothing to warrant his fear. She had to be patient with him, keeping her movements slow, her voice gentle. The first time she’d offered him a choice, it nearly broke him. She’d seen his mind begin to fray in the trembling of his body, the soft panting of his breath as his eyes darted between her and the door. He’d mumbled an apology, frantic and shying away from her, as though afraid of what she would do to him.
A deckhand Killian/pirate captain Emma fic inspired by this prompt @caught-in-the-filter shared, and especially by her tags on it:
