[Training] twice, just to be sure

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The cold press of metal against her thigh has Flora sipping in a surprised breath, though gods if the chill of the steel doesn't have ripples of heat rising from the blade. "And yet quick is really all I've seen from you, despite all the talk to say otherwise." And this is where had Flora known anything about Jack's actual reputation and not just the story she'd affixed to him in her mind, she might have chosen her words a bit more carefully. "Maybe there's not actually that much to handle—" And yes, here her eyes do dip down before rising again. "Who would have thought it be so easy to catch Captain Jack in a stalemate."

A stalemate was in almost any interpretation, a decisive victory on Flora's part even if at no point during this did she ever really have the upper hand. Or at least that's how she chose to see it, anyways.

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

Hissing in a breath through his teeth as if mortally wounded by her words, it's one of those occasions where the fact that he does have the upper hand so thoroughly is precisely what makes it fun. Jack removes the blade from behind her knee, holding it up to the twilight of all the candles she's lit, before tucking it back away into his boot.

"Perhaps not," he purrs, though whilst her gaze lowers, his eyes never leave her face. "And how do you know I didn't engineer this stalemate? If only there was a way to find out for sure." And that goes for how much of there is to handle, too. Sighing, his attention turns to the cut on the back of his palm that's already drying out, Jack flexing his hand experimentally.

"Well I'm so glad you arranged this lovely little scene for us. I do hope you got everything you wanted out of it."

we show off our different scarlet letters

"I didn't want to point it out, but I can live with a scar on my thigh. Could you live with a cut throat?" They were bold words for someone who would consider an ugly scar the equivalent of a mortal injury (#howl), but never mind. "If only." Flora agrees, raising an eyebrow and watching Jack's fingers splay and contract, imagining all the other things he might do with them instead.

"On that note.." Kneeling down to be eye level with Jack, Flora smiles sweetly and almost shyly as she bites the inside corner of her lip and her aqua eyes flash somewhere behind the captain. "There is one more feather yet to be recalled. " She whispers, reaching forward and meaning to lay her palm flat against Jack's chest suggesting that if the feather was anywhere behind him, it would impale him on the way back to her hand.

"But this was your idea after all. Is it everything you expected it to be?" Gods, please say yes, please say yes.

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

"Of course not," Jack says with a sly scoff, rolling his shoulder in a shrug. "But the question you really need to ask is whether you're faster than I am. Especially given how much you seem to enjoy mentionin' it." Could he hamstring her before her knife got close, and would the loss of concentration mean the blade never completed its trajectory? Who knows, really.

But then suddenly she's dropping down to be eye level with him, and he isn't sure whether he likes this new position. Somehow looking up (or down) at her is better than being on an equal playing field (and yes Jack, that absolutely says more about you than it does anyone else).

He's smiling again to hear her question - or more specifically, to hear the thoughts that fuel it - the captain leaning in close without actually touching her. "You have no idea," he whispers. Which, if you look at it properly, is neither a yes nor a no. But here we are.

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'I never said I was faster." Flora counters, doing her best to duplicate Jack's smoulder. "Only that you seem to talk a big game of being hard to handle, and..." She shrugs as her gaze slips to the cut on his hand. "I seem to have gotten you, and.." Pushing her lips together and letting her stare grow slack as she mentally slides his hands up the back of her leg, Flora eventually shakes her head. "..no, it doesn't feel like you've done much of anything to me. But then..." Her smile is crooked and teasing as she shrugs. "I feel like that's a common complaint among women."

No, that isn't a yes or no, which might explain why Flora remains precisely as she is, hand on his chest, feather unrecalled. Part of her wants to kiss him—to bruise her own knees on her hardwood floor and tangle her hands into his hair; part wants to offer him a drink so that he might see how much better she's gotten at drinking whiskey (she's been practicing); but part, and no small part mind you, wants to recall the arrow. It wouldn't kill him—probably wouldn't even be able to puncture him—but would it earn his approval? Would he rub at the wound the way he'd looked at his finger with mild amusement and perhaps a bit of pride?

Would it feel good?

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

"It absolutely is a common complaint," Jack agrees, self assured as you like and more interested in the pulse he can see thrumming at her throat than how he's coming across. "Not with me, though." It would sound like a brag if he weren't so matter-of-fact about it. It should sound like a brag, actually, only the captain is quite distracted all of a sudden by Flora's dipping a toe into sadism.

It's a thread he could happily tug at, to see what kinks unravel as he goes, Jack leaning just a little against the hand she's pressed against his chest; just enough for Flora to feel the pressure of his weight. I dare you, he almost says. You don't have it in you, too. Only he's not so sure about that any more, and gods if it isn't attractive.

And so despite knowing better - and you do know better, Jack - the captain leans in to close the distance between them, offering precisely the type of kiss he knows Flora will respond to; gentle but perhaps a little bit needy, and teasing enough to have either of them begging for more.

we show off our different scarlet letters

They could go around and around like this with Flora pointing out that she only had Jack's words to go by and Jack only offering more of the same as evidence, but clearly that wasn't getting them anywhere. At least, nowhere Flora wanted to be.

Nearly gulping at the sudden press of him against her palm, the girl was shoved almost face to face with precisely the question Jack had been considering himself; did she have it in her? Softly Flora's eyelashes flutter as her fingertips flinch against his chest; the pulse of the not knowing is so strong she thinks it's that which she hears thudding in her ears instead of her heartbeat.

Suddenly though his lips are against hers, and instead of recalling the feather Flora grasps at his shirt as she moans a high-pitched note of surprise. The fireworks in her mind are all feather-shaped this time; just as bright and hot as they had been before, but each edged with something razor sharp.

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

Her thoughts are second only to the feel of her fingers in his shirt, and Jack lets the knife he'd been holding clatter to the ground (don't be fooled, though, he absolutely makes a mental note of where it is). He takes the time to indulge in the taste of her lips and the warm feel of her body, his free arm slipping about her waist to arch her forward and against him, hoping to coax the fireworks in her mind into something a little hotter, a little brighter.

Flora has called him out, too, on being easy to handle, on being perhaps not all he is cracked up to be, and those are big words from someone with precisely zero experience to back them up. So maybe there's just a bit of something to prove mingled in with the lust and arousal, even safe in the knowledge that he hasn't disappointed yet and he doesn't plan to start now.

"If that feather stabs me now, I promise you'll be more upset than I am," he murmurs against her mouth, shifting as if to encourage her back onto the couch where she'd been splayed so prettily with her book of poems. Jack won't be following, though, oh no. He's got plenty of work to do down here, between her thighs.

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It's funny how character traits can be decided just like that. For instance, prior to this moment Flora probably couldn't have said whether she was the type to want to be man-handled or if she wanted to be in control. (She'd probably have leaned towards the latter, actually). However as Jack's knowledgable hands guided her body against hers, Flora felt something inside of herself unfurling and growing more bold knowing that not everything was up to her, and against these new parameters, she felt suddenly more confident.

Moaning softly against his lips and trying to sort through the dizzying amount of sensations she felt all at once, Flora tried to scrape her fingertips through his hair and against his skull the way she's read about in books and seen in movies on the beach. It all felt exactly as she'd wanted, at least until he nudged her onto the couch.

Her fingertips clutched up Jacks' shoulders having expected his body to blanket hers, but as he remained on the floor between her thighs, Flora felt the fuzzy lavender haze of arousal in her belly suddenly flinch and grow still with panic.

Wait, was he..?
What if she tasted like..gods, like pee?
What if she somehow looked wrong down there?
And he'd been with so many women, so he'd know, and, and --

"--uhm!" Clearly her throat and finding her voice far more breathy than she expected it to sound, Flora pushed back a strand of hair. "I have whiskey in the kitchen. And glasses cooling, if..if you..want..ed."

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

One might expect someone like Jack to continue regardless, or to merely coerce or laugh off her insecurities or gods, any other distinctly Jack-like behaviours. But as the icy shard of panic in her belly serves to wilt his own arousal by default, the captain pauses with his head lolling against the inside of her left knee, having been leaving a string of kisses that should have led somewhere very fun indeed.

He does consider getting up and leaving, honestly, because if this is going to be another game of blue balls, he's out, and the brothel is real close by. But Jack is nothing if not an ambitious sort, and maybe some part of him wants this just because he shouldn't have it, because it's dangerous and stupid and again, he really shouldn't have it.

"What do you want?" he drawls, his fingers drifting down the length of her smooth smooth calf.

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I want you to pick me up and fuck me against the wall, Flora might have answered were this not her first time. Something about him being between her thighs felt shockingly more intimate than actually having sex with him, not that Flora could rightly say why. You'd think for someone as content to have life be all about her that this would be right up her alley (ayyyy), but the girls' need to please and to always appear perfect was charlie horsing what was actually turning out to be a rather good evening.

'I...I just thought..you might be thirsty.." She whispers in a rather jittery tone that she hopes she can pass off as breathy anticipation.

Or...or..!

Moving a perfectly pedicured foot towards one of Jack's legs, Flora lets her toes trace a path that edges up one calf. She doesn't mean to touch him there (wait, weren't foot fetishes a thing?) only to suggest it. Biting at the inside of her lip, Flora gives a coquettish little shrug, suddenly finding herself very keen to reverse their positions. She was a fast learner after all (and really, how hard could it be?).

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

The answer to that question, of course, is how hard does she want to make it (and yes, every amount of innuendo there is intended). Right now things are running the risk of turning considerably more soft, and although her perfect painted toes are doing a bit of wandering, Jack is entirely in his head right now. Or in her head, rather. It wouldn't be the first time (and no one is surprised) that he's dealt with a girl with daddy issues, but gods, this one had talked - and thought - a good game at first.

And so with a soft sigh and an imperceptible relaxing of his shoulders, the captain leaves a final kiss against the inside of her thigh before rising promptly upwards towards her lips again. "Ain't thirsty," he informs her, shifting to cover her on the couch, bracing one arm above her head as his tongue seeks hers out once more, while the other grasps Flora's hand, guiding it over his body as if to see for himself how fast a learner she is.

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Flora's relief covers her thoughts like a misting tent on a hot day. She'd rather bruise the inside of her lips with her teeth and choke herself on Jack's cock than potentially--and gods if this isn't relatable--not have a perfect vagina. Better to give, than to get. Safer, anyway.

Looking up at Jack until the blue of his eyes is smeared away by the press of his lips against hers, it's with immediate enthusiasm that her hand folds into his that it might be guided down his body. Quickly though Flora shakes her fingers free of his that this might go at her own pace; not because she's nervous this time, but because she has it in her mind she can build up the anticipation on his part.

Flora's tongue grows lazy as her concentration moves to her fingers (though she is aware enough to arch her body off of the couch that his mind might be reminded of her curves). Pressing her nails down his thigh and then splaying her fingers outwards, it's in tandem with the flick of her tongue that the flat of her palm tries to seek out whatever interest she might have thusfar kindled, and gods if the damage of her upbringing didn't make pleasing Jack turn her on like nothing else.

full speed ahead 'til I'm dead in the fast lane

Having seemingly found the right notes to hit at last, Flora won't be disappointed, and as Jack grinds against her palm it's only half a conscious thought to do so. Regardless, she'll be rewarded by the hard feel of him through the clothes they're still wearing for some reason, and he hums a note of encouragement into her mouth.

She isn't wearing much to begin with (win), so as he shifts to try and reverse their positions, one of his hands greedily slips up the back of her bare thigh to cup and squeeze her ass, and gravity alone will ensure she knows just how interested he is in where this is going. "Touch me," he mutters when they part for breath, his teeth grazing along her bottom lip. "And touch yourself."