what, like it's hard?

JACK

"Maybe you're stalkin' me," Jack says casually with another long sip of wine, before holding it back out for Flora. "An' I s'pose it is a bit magic. Comes from cloud manta - they're pretty common in Torchline. I guess I could always use my own magic instead these days." He hasn't given it too much thought actually, about what he could potentially do with the combination of power he's got at his fingertips.

As for kissing first, perhaps Jack would have done just that if Flora hadn't flopped onto her stomach and out of reach. Ah, well. "To remember me by? You reckon I'm goin' somewhere?" he inquires, reaching over to take the jewel from her fingers and clasp it around her neck where it will likely save her from drowning in the near future.

"Oh, are you? How're you gonna talk Maeve out of it?" he inquires, sounding crookedly interested.

flora

"I doubt I could stalk you." Flora countered with a wide smile. "You'd be letting me stalk you, if anything." For all the things she wrongly believed about Jack, this was much closer to ringing true. Accepting the wine and having to arch her back to take a proper sip (well, arching it regardless), now it's Flora's turn to raise an eyebrow. "Well, no use exerting yourself if you don't need to. Saves energy for other things." Flora suggests innocently enough, though behind her eyes their fingers are clasped against the sand as Jack blankets her body with his.

"You might be." She purrs, shrugging. "I heard the Ark sets sail pretty frequently." Fluttering her lashes up at him as if to ask if this was really the case, Flora stilled as his fingers attached the gemstone around her neck. "Well?" Leaning slightly onto one hip and raising her chin to give him full view of the stone (and anything else besides), the girl's smile turns entirely sly. "Oh, she's going to give it to me." Flora replies, genuinely believing it. Her thoughts laid out a plan wherein Maeve was named Safrin's new demigod and where a few whispers suggested to the Queen that she could better serve the goddess if she wasn't shackled by her responsibilities in Torchline.

"But I can't say anymore. I don't kiss and tell either." She added with a coquettish and yet somewhat challenging shrug of her shoulders.

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Well, there you have it," he drawls with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm lettin' you stalk me, and that's how I'm wherever you seem to need me." Blind luck is absolutely not something he's willing to give credit to when it comes to Remi's daughter, put it that way. "Mm, I knew you were more'n a pretty face," he continues, making no attempt to hide the way he watches the arch of her body as she sips at the wine.

"Aye, that she does. But she always finds her way home again," he says of the Ark, admiring his own handiwork to see the crystal nestled against her throat. And she absolutely knows how to make the most of it, and it would only be rude for him not to admire and appreciate the show she's so kindly putting on.

And the thoughts whirring behind her aqua eyes are precisely the type he can sink his teeth into as well. He hadn't taken Flora for being any type of cunning (forgive him, but there's a lot of layers of bimbo to get through), and if the knowledge of a sharp mind behind her sun-kissed skin isn't a turn on, he doesn't know what is.

It probably explains their sudden proximity, Jack also having turned to face her properly, close enough to count the freckles on the bridge of her nose. "I won't tell if you don't," he purrs.

flora

"Having a pretty face comes in handy though." Flora adds, not at all ashamed of being proud of her beauty. It was naturally given to be sure, but that didn't mean Flora didn't do what was necessary to maintain it as best she could.

Twining the bottle of wine between her fingers and wondering how much they could safely drink and still make it back to shore, Flora feels heat suddenly against her skin and finds it isn't immediately clear if it's coming from Jack or simply emanating from her belly. Opening her mouth and finding no witty words at the ready, Flora sips in a flustered breath. The clear images of Jack's hand beneath her lower back as the other pressed their clasped fingers into the sand grows shaky. It's so easy to picture it, but now that it's potentially here, that he's here, Flora finds a strong current of trepidation suddenly worrying away her confidence.

"Well," She huffs, releasing the bottle to brush a strand of hair off of her cheek. "-wouldn't that ruin the surprise? You seem like a man who doesn't get very many of those."

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

"Mm, handy, and all other kinds of body parts," Jack agrees wholeheartedly, letting bold blue eyes flash down from her bridge of freckles to wine tinted lips and a throat baring an opalescent crystal. The things he could do with the images in her head, the way he could coax them to life and then some. He could warm his hands by the fire building in her belly, could drown in the spaces between thoughts when the mind goes blank and the body forgets to breathe.

And then it all curdles in her mind (and in his own, as a result), the captain left trying to adjust to the milk-sour taste of fear at the back of his throat. Taking up the bottle where she left it off, he raises it to his lips and takes a generous pull. "Oh, I don't know," he murmurs as he nestles it back down in the sand. "I'm getting quite the surprise right now."

flora

Thankful for his movement if only because it gave her something to look at, namely his hands around the wine bottle, Flora's mind instantly saw the jut of her own hip against his palm instead of the smooth clear glass. It was the strangest thing, to have to steel one's nerve to do something you wanted. Wanted badly if the way Flora felt her thighs pleading to press against one another was any indication.

Still, needing just a bit more courage, she reached out for the bottle, downing a healthy sip and then some. Go on. Kissing someone isn't that hard. In her mindseye she saw it easily enough, had imagined a moment just like this for long enough that genuinely she'd basically already done it already. Still, her toes were cold even if her core wasn't.

'Oh?' Placing the bottle down, Flora shifts closer by perhaps only a centimetre or so, though at least this time she has the courage to hold his gaze. And then..because...well because if it wasn't now then Flora wasn't all the things she always told herself she was, she did it.

Heart thundering, she stretched out towards Jack. The kiss that followed was...not like she'd imagined. It was perhaps too quick, a bit too chaste, and there was perhaps a bit too much salt on her lips, but that was how it actually was. Flora's mind happily took the facts and oversaturated them with colour. Her first kiss had been on a secluded island after having been magically rescued. It followed wine on the beach and jewelry and was with the captain of the Ark. What was in fact hardly more than a press of lips, was in Flora's mind an entire firework display distilled down into a single starburst that made her feel hot and dizzy and full of laughter.

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

It's a good thing that Flora decides to take up the wine again, because Jack needs a fucking minute after all of this. Hell, it's only the Kaliesin girl's status as... well, a Kaliesin girl that has stopped him from taking the decision out of her hands entirely, because if there's one thing Jack knows it's fucking everything what people want, and he knows she wants this.

He's managed to still the choppy waters of his telepathy by the time Flora is leaning in again, and the captain doesn't know what he expects, but it's a) not a chase peck on the lips and b) not for Flora to feel so fucking happy about it. Huffing out a soft breath that might have been a laugh if she was in the mood to notice it, Jack raises his eyebrows at her. "That's not a kiss worth tellin' about," he drawls. "We can do better."

Leaning in again, Jack's kiss isn't too quick, and it's definitely more wine than salt. The hand not propping him up chases a warm and sandy pathway over her thighs, and his tongue parts her lips in slow and generous arcs that promise much more where that came from. And if she was fireworks and starbursts before, he can't wait to see what happens next.

flora

Flora expected proclamations of love and marriage after they'd parted, not a critique. Instantly the coral spots of colour on her cheeks begin to fade as ice water burbles up from her toes. "Wh-" She begins, before the O of her lips is invaded by his tongue and the frosty chill of her thoughts flash-boils like alcohol in a hot pan.

Fireworks turn to comets and meteors burning up in the atmosphere. Want chases away Flora's uncertainty and inexperience so that even though her fingers against his back are jerky and stiff, the way they tug at him as her shoulders roll and her back moves to flatten onto the sand, is confident.

Maybe it's because of the manta crystal against her throat that stopping to breathe hasn't occurred to her at all, but Flora's mind is much more invested in maneuvering him on top of her than maintaining any of her vital functions. Now, the barrier of having never done this before yielding to doing this right now, Flora's mind is rife with images of sandy touches and easily tossed off bathing garments.

Near their feet, the rope pulled out of Flora's boat by Jack begins to slither back towards the water as the ocean reaches greedy fingers to soak the boat back out for a second time.

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

JACK

A man who wasn't Jack Barclay might have been all clumsy fumbles and quick finishes at this point, especially with her obvious encouragement sending every drop of blood straight south, but thankfully, this is Jack, and she's not to worry. Granted, the fact that her mind is running on overtime is Very Distracting and he can almost feel their bare skin against the sand and his cock slipping into her tight, slick heat, easily manoeuvred atop her where she'll be able to feel his kindling interest pressing against her inner thigh.

It's at that point, of course, that the fateful captain dares to breathe, and in that second between everything, the very obvious creeeak of a boat easing itself out to sea slithers into his ears. Snatching a glance over his shoulder, Jack's fuck is not one of passion and need, and he's entirely distracted (and aroused and annoyed and Safrin's sweet tits, why now) as he rolls off her and to his feet.

"Well, congrats," he grumbles, "you did pull the boat onto the sand." And they're not doing it a third time, so when Jack eventually catches the bastard thing, it will be to ferry Flora and his very blue balls back to Haulani.

~FIN