Summer Interlude

“Are you all right?” Will asked solicitously as he wrung excess water from his hair, noticing that Elizabeth was shivering a little despite the relative warmth of the smithy.

“I’m fine,” she replied. “Wet, but fine.”

“You should get changed,” he said, “get out of those wet clothes.”

He blushed hotly when he realised what he said, and she looked at him amused. “And what do you suggest I change into? I don’t think you keep a spare dress of mine here.”

If anything, Will blushed harder. “I… I was actually thinking of a spare set of my clothes. If you don’t mind wearing men’s clothing that is.”

Elizabeth smiled. “Of course I don’t mind, you should know that. Or have you forgotten what I wore when we had our sword fighting lessons?”

He shook his head. “Forgive me; I don’t know what I was thinking. Come on,” he took her hand and led her into the tiny house at the back of the smithy where he was still living. He had long since overcome embarrassment at Elizabeth seeing his meagre accommodations, and he would be moving after they were married anyway.

After handing her a set of dry clothes and taking a set for himself, he cleared his throat. “You…er…can get changed in here. I’ll change out there.”

Before he had a chance to go back out into the smithy, Elizabeth pulled him to her for a kiss. “You are so sweet, Will Turner,” she whispered against his lips.

He returned the kiss. “So are you.” They kissed again, longer and more passionately; and, forgetting the fact that his arms were full of dry clothes, Will snaked them around her waist, encountering the wet fabric of her dress. This brought them back to reality. “You’d better get changed. I’ll…I’ll be out there.” He backed out before he could give into temptation again.

"Wait, Will," she quickly took hold of his hand, to prevent him leaving. "Could you please unfasten the buttons on the back of my dress before you leave? I cannot reach them."

He seemed to contemplate her request for a moment, as if internally debating whether or not it was a ploy to keep him there with her. But when she turned to show him the back of her dress, he decided that she was in earnest. With a sigh, he handed the clothes he was still holding to her and reached to unfasten the sodden dress. "Is that all right?" he asked when his hands reached her waist.

She shrugged her shoulders forward and felt the dress give in front of her. "I should be able to take it from here, thank you."

With her dress only loosely covering her modesty, Will felt the need to escape again. "I'll be right out there," he said softly, talking his clothes back from her.

Elizabeth smiled to herself over Will’s behaviour, but that smile soon faded as she contemplated the task that was before her. It was easy for Will to say to get changed, but he had no idea of the intricacies involved in her outfits. It generally took two ladies maids to get her dressed of a morning, especially when she was forced to wear a dreaded corset like the one she was wearing now; she rather doubted that she could manage on her own. She found that it was relatively easy to remove her wet dress, as heavy as it was, once it had been unbuttoned. Stepping out of the dress and laying it aside, she looked down at her undergarments, which were also soaked.

If only she was not wearing the darned corset. It would be a relatively simple matter of slipping out of the chemise and other undergarments that she wore; wet as they were they posed no problems... except when they were under the bloody restricting whalebone thing that was impossible to get out of on one's own. She tried, oh she tried, knowing that it would make Will very uncomfortable to have to come back in and help her undress (even if the idea gave her a little thrill). But given that it was pulled tightly and fastened at the back, it proved indeed to be impossible for her to manage on her own.

She sighed in defeat. "Will?" she called.

"Yes, Elizabeth?" she heard him call back through the door.

"I need a little more help in here."

A moment later the door opened, and Will walked in, wearing dry breeches and nothing else. Her heart thudded at the sight of him bare-chested, and she found herself speechless. He had stopped short, flustered, at the sight of her in her wet underclothes. He just stared at her, mesmerised, for a long moment before pulling himself together.

"I...ah...I'll be back in a minute, let you finish dressing," he mumbled,

That restored her power of speech. "Wait, Will, that's why I called you. I...er...I need some more help."

"You need more help," Will repeated in a tone that bordered on disbelief. "What do you need help with?"

"The...uh...the corset, it's tied at the back, see?" she turned her back to him to demonstrate. "And it's rather tight and I can't reach to loosen it."

"I see," the first Elizabeth knew of him coming up behind her was hearing his voice right at her ear. She shivered at his proximity, especially when his warm hands touched the skin of her back just above the corset; and felt him take a deep, almost shuddering breath "So I, er, just loosen it for you?"

It took her a moment to find her voice. "Yes. Just untie the stays and loosen them."

"All right."

She felt his hands find the stays and hesitantly work at them. He was working slowly, and she knew that he was fighting his inate sense of propriety while doing this. Yes, she knew it was technically improper, but she needed to get out of her wet clothes, and this was the only way. Sometimes practicality outweighed propriety.

All of a sudden she felt the corset give way, and she was able to take a deep breath. She exhaled noisily and took another deep breath, glad to be free of that contraption. Will chuckled behind her.

"How can you breathe in that thing?" he asked.

"I don't," she responded dryly.

"Oh... well, er, do you need any more help?"

She smiled. Despite having her back to him, she could tell that he was torn between wanting to stay with her and needing to get out to avoid impropriety. Although she knew she could manage on her own here on out, she was reluctant to let him go. "Yes, please. Could you lift the corset up, please?"

"Like this?" he asked, taking hold of the end of the corset at her waist and lifting it slightly.

"Yes, it comes up over my head." Elizabeth raised her arms as she spoke, allowing him to pull the corset up and off. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him place it on a chair.

"Anything else?" he asked, his lips brushing her ear, his fingers trailing down her bare arms.

Elizabeth wanted to say "yes" so desperately, but logically she knew that she could take it from there herself. All she was wearing now was a chemise, petticoats and undergarments, none of which required assistance. But she did not want Will to leave, either. So she did the only thing she could think of—she slowly turned around to draw things out. "Thank you, Will," she said softly, leaning up to kiss him. Only to stop when she took a look at him.

Will seemed frozen in place, and she wondered why. He was breathing raggedly, and his brown eyes kept drifting down before snapping back up to hers. Intrigued by the almost sheepish look in his eyes, she looked down at herself to see what he was seeing... and gasped. Her white undergarmnets, wet as they were, were practically transparent and clung to her, leaving nothing to the imagination. Glancing back up at her fiancée she almost expected him to bolt. But he was still frozen in place, his hands opening and closing almost convulsingly. Unsure about what exactly she should do (apart from the obvious, which would be to evict him from the room in a huff—something she did not wish) she chose just to do what she had turned around to do, and leaned up to kiss him.

The touch of her lips to his seemed to galvanise him into action. Unmindful of her wet undergarments, he wrapped his arms around her tightly, pressing her to him as he took control of and deepened their kiss. Elizabeth did not mind in the slightest; she willingly opened her mouth under his, granting access to his questing tongue, and linked her arms around his neck, twining her fingers in his still-damp hair. The need to breathe soon became an issue, and she relucantly drew back from him.

She did not get very far. For a man who had been fighting his inate sense of propriety to be in there and help her he was now relucant to let her go. His arms were still tightly wrapped around her, the only concession he made to their need to breathe was to rain warm, wet kisses from her mouth to her ear, down her neck and across her collarbone. The sensations produced by the feeling of his warm mouth on her damp skin caused her to moan, the sound of which caused him to groan.

That low, sensual groan made Elizabeth weak in the knees. Her legs would have collapsed under her had Will not been holding her so tightly. But he was, so when she sagged he merely swept her up in his arms and carried her to a nearby chair. She could not help the startled gasp and shiver escape her as the rush of air caused by the movement of him picking her up sent a cool breeze wafting over her wet clothes. It was a stark reminder that she was still in her wet undergarments.

Something that Will had noticed as well. "Shouldn't you be doing something about these wet clothes?" he murmured softly in her ear as he sat down on the chair, seating her gently onto his lap.

"I was," she murmured back, keeping her arms firmly locked around his neck in case he suddenly remembered that this was not proper and made a hasty exit from the room. "But I needed help in removing a certain torture device, and then I was distracted by my very handsome fiancée."

For a moment, she thought she had pushed Will too far, finally making him realise that he should not be there, that they should not be doing this before their wedding. But he surprised her yet again. "Maybe we should do something about that."

"What do you have in mind?" she asked, leaning her head closer to his.

He took the hint and gave her a soft kiss. "Stand up", he whispered against her lips. When she looked at him askance, he added, "Trust me."

It was hard to resist him when he was looking at her like that. Slowly Elizabeth slid off his lap, making sure that she kept her arms linked around his neck. His hands stayed on her hips as she rose, and he seemed in no hurry to leave. Rather, his hands traced around her waist, seemingly searching for something, she knew not what until his fingers found the ties to her voluminous petticoats. These he loosened, and he stretched the wet material out, letting the garments fall to the floor and pool at her feet, leaving her standing in front of him in nothing but a pair of damp bloomers and a wet chemise.

His brown eyes looked up at her, and she was amazed that they seemed to darken as he gazed. That molten gaze took her breath away, as did the feeling of his hands tracing up her sides under her chemise. She drew in a shuddering breath just as his thumbs brushed her nipples, making her release it with a loud gasp. Her legs buckled, and she would have fallen had she not kept her arms around his neck and had Will not brought his hands back to her waist to steady her.

"Easy there," he murmured. "I think it might be better if you sat down." He suited actions to words by pulling her back on his lap again.

"I thought we were supposed to be doing something about my wet clothes," she whispered, brushing her lips across his cheek.

"That's true," came his whispered reply. "We don't want you to get a chill now, do we?" He pressed a gentle kiss to her lips and leaned back, trailing his hands up her back and down her arms to her wrists, the callouses from his smithying and swordplay making her shiver. His large hands encompassed her slender wrists easily, but his touch was gentle as he pulled them from around his neck. He brought her hands to his mouth for a moment to lightly kiss them before raising her arms above her head.

His actions confused her greatly. "Will?"

"Shh," he silenced her protest with a brief kiss as he trailed his hands back down her arms and her sides to her waist. She understood what he was up to when she felt his fingers grip the edge of her chemise and slowly pull it upwards. She kept her arms in the air and her brown eyes locked with his as he divested her of the wet undergarment, suddenly nervous. It was not like they were used to being in each other's company in various stages of undress. Even when she had been kidnapped by Captain Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl she had been more fully clothed than she was about to be.

The chemise discarded, Will brought his hands back to her waist, warm against her damp skin, and she wrapped her arms around his neck again. For a long moment he continued to look into her eyes, his gaze not straying downwards at her half-naked form. But the gaze was intense, making Elizabeth shiver, though not from cold; and she involuntarily shifted in his lap, her breasts heaving as she laboured to breathe. Her movement caused him to draw in a shuddering breath, and he almost reflexively looked down at her. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her heaving breasts, and one hand slowly trailed up from her waist to trace one lightly before cupping it in his large hand.

"Elizabeth," he breathed, dragging his eyes away from his hand to look into hers. "You're so beautiful."

Whatever else he might have said then was forestalled by Elizabeth tangling her fingers in his dark hair and moving her head down to meet his lips. It was, by far, the most passionate kiss that she had instigated, and her forcefulness momentarily took him by surprise. Only for a brief moment though, he just as quickly responded with an equal passion, his tongue duelling with hers as he took control of the kiss, his hand fondling her breast. His other hand moved round her tiny waist to trace lightly up and down her spine. She moaned into the kiss, shifting on his lap again so that she had easier access to his mouth. This meant sliding one leg around so that she was now straddling him, moving closer to him as his mouth plundered hers. Their lips never parted except to allow a quick inhalation of breath before being drawn together again.

But soon those quick breaths were not enough to get the air they needed. Just as Elizabeth began to feel really light-headed, Will gently broke away from her mouth to trail his lips across her cheek to her ear. Pressing a kiss to the hollow behind her ear, moved down the column of her neck, leaving warm, open-mouthed kisses in his wake, occasionally alternating them with little nips. She moaned at the sensations evoked in her, and she began to move in his lap, unable to sit still.

She felt him chuckle against her neck, but he did not speak. Instead, he continued his path down her neck and across her collarbone, stopping at the hollow of her throat. There he began to suck softly at her skin, the hand stroking her back coming up to gently grasp her shoulder, his other hand never ceasing on her breast. Her moans grew in pitch (but not volume) as his thumb rolled over her hardened nipple, and she could not stop her hips from slamming down on his lap. This movement left her pressed hard against him, against a part of him that she had never felt before. A hard part that strained against his breeches and throbbed against her; the feeling of which made her gasp, and then moan.

With a groan, Will pulled back from her throat, both hands moving down to grasp her hips. "Elizabeth..." he trailed off, looking into her eyes, his breaths coming in heaving gasps. She was similarly lost for words. All she could do was stare down into his passion-darkened eyes, her hips instinctively pressing into his. When the moment became too much, she lowered her head to his and started kissing him with abandon. He responded just as passionately, his hands guiding her hips as they moved with his. The thrusting of their hips together, the sensation of that hard part of him pressing so intimately against her made her tear her lips from his and throw back her head in a loud cry.

The sound of which made Will stop. He lifted his head from where he had been pressing his lips against the hollow of her throat again, and slowly guided her hips to a halt, gently easing her back so that she was seated more on his legs than right against him. Trying to steady his heavy breathing, he spoke again. "Elizabeth."

Confused as to why they had stopped, Elizabeth looked down at her fiancée. "Will?" she questioned.

"We should stop." he responded.

"Why?" It was something that she did not mean to say; it just slipped out, betraying her feelings. She did not wish to stop.

Luckily he did not take offence at the question or her tone. "Believe me, I do not wish to stop either, but that is exactly the reason we need to. The wedding is only three days away. We should save this for our wedding night. Besides, your father is undoubtedly worried about you since the storm started, and he's bound to send the carriage for you. We wouldn't want to be caught like this."

"You're right," she agreed reluctantly, shifting so that she was seated in a less compromising position, vaguely protecting her modesty with her arms. "But you have to promise me that we'll pick up where we left off three nights from now."

He leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to her lips. "You have my word." Sitting back, he smirked. "I trust you can finish dressing without my help?"

Her answering grin was decidedly impish as he helped her to stand. "And what if I said that I needed more help?"

He chose not to take the bait. "I'll wait for you out there."

She smiled, and turned her back to him to pick up the dry shirt that Will had earlier given her, holding it to her chest as it allowed more modesty than just her arms. Strangely, now that their passions had cooled somewhat, she was feeling a little shy. But she still loved Will, and she did not want him to think that she regretted their actions. "Will?" she called, turning back to where he was just about to leave the room. "I love you."

"I love you too, Elizabeth."