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“Swan, what are you doing?” Killian arched a brow at his wife, curled up by the fireside with her hair piled atop her head and a basket of yarn beside her. Her tongue poked out between her lips and her brow furrowed as she concentrated on whatever she was doing with the small metal hook in her right hand. She glanced up at him briefly before returning to her work with a grunt. “Darling, it’s the middle of the night…”
“Hush, I’m focused.” He crossed the room and peered over her shoulder at what she was creating. At the moment it looked to be a large flat swath of fabric-- a scarf? A blanket? He wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t about to choose the wrong option. Instead, he rubbed the back of her neck, suppressing a grin at her sigh of pleasure.
“You’ve been down here for hours. Come to bed,” he suggested. Her absence in their bed was what had woken him in the first place, and he wasn’t about to return without her. “This can wait until morning,” he added when he heard her yawn. He was winning her over, he could feel it.He kept up with the gentle pressure on the base of her skull, knowing she often held tension in her neck and shoulders.
“I’ll make coffee and we can watch the sunrise from the balcony,” he promised, leaning in to kiss the shell of her ear and yet she stubbornly persisted in her work. “I’ll make breakfast while you continue this craft of yours. Come now, love. I know you’re exhausted. What’s the rush?”
She paused in her efforts and turned to look at him, blush painting her cheeks a rosy pink. “I, uh, well...the last time we were aboard the Jolly... ” She made a terrible impression of his accent and cleared her throat. He fondly recalled that outing--it had been just the two of them, Henry otherwise occupied at the movies with Violet. They’d sailed out past the safety of the harbour and along the coastline for a while, enjoying a picnic on deck and entirely different pleasures as well once safely out of view of a spyglass. Her hair fanned out like spun gold, her skin luminous in the early evening glow off the water...Killian shook himself from his imaginings.
“What about it, love?”
“I may have ripped your blanket that second time we...in your cabin,” she bit down on her lower lip and he grinned broadly at her. “I figured I should replace it myself, so I’m learning how to crochet. It’s getting cold and I thought we’d need it soon. Well, and maybe want it again soon.” She smiled up at him and tried her best version of his own eyebrow arch. It was sweet and he echoed her expression with his own. Killian adored how much his Swan loved their time on the water, how much she’d embraced the Jolly as an extension of their home. The captain’s quarters had never been so filled with warmth and light as they were now that she accompanied him each night they were aboard.
She relented at last, standing and stretching her weary limbs. First reaching up toward the ceiling, which gave Killian the most enticing peek at her stomach, then down to touch her toes. At that point, he couldn’t resist and moved lightning-quick to slap the round swell of her arse. “Hey! Who do you think you are?” She rose up on her tiptoes, pressing an accusing finger to his sternum, and trying for ferocity but landing somewhere on the verge of laughter based on the sparkle in her eyes.
“Your husband,” he retorted, licking his lips and bending down to scoop her up. He tossed Emma over his shoulder, clicking off the lamp before packing her upstairs and to their bedroom. Killian was grateful Henry was staying the night with a friend so he wouldn’t wake to hear her shrieks of feigned distress now, or the filthy demands that poured from her in the hour that followed. Gods knew they tried their best to keep quiet when they weren’t alone, but it was freeing to hear his wife’s unrestrained passion as he worked her up time and again.
Both sated and on the edge of sleep, Killian basked in the pearlescent glow of Emma’s sweat-slicked skin in the moonlight. It was entrancing, the way her magic often shimmered like this, following the path of his hand as he traced little patterns across her skin. She hummed as if in thought, turning and brushing her lips across his. “Y’know,” she mumbled, “that blanket would go a lot quicker with a much larger hook…” His silver hook appeared suddenly in her hand and he shook his head at the impossible woman who had somehow chosen him.
“You, my love, are a goddess of mischief.” He set the hook aside, pulling her close and curling himself around her. “There will be no using the legendary weapon of Captain Hook to make a bloody blanket. Now, sleep Swan. It’s far too late already.” She mumbled something that sounded awfully like we’ll see about that , and both drifted off in the comfort of one another’s arms