"Don't bother, you're not in there."

At the sound of her voice, Hook starts, and Henry's book closes with an audible (and hasty) thump.

Emma does her best to bite back a grin, keeping one eye on him while she opens the bottle of wine she's liberated from David's collection. Her guest clears his throat as he sits back on the couch, arms stretched out on either side of him, and she has no doubt she's about to receive an extremely inventive excuse as to why he was scanning her son's book so avidly his nose was almost touching the paper. "You sound very certain that young Henry's book contains no mention of me, Swan. Have you already perused these pages in search of me?"

Ah, the old 'answer a question with a question routine, she thinks. One of his personal favourites.

He'd been casting curious glances at Henry's book on the coffee table from the moment he'd arrived, and it seems he wasn't able to resist when she'd gone to open the wine. Having overheard some of their most recent conversations, she can only assume she has Henry to blame for Hook's current interest in learning more about the various versions of his namesake. At least they haven't gotten to the Google stage yet, although she can only suppose that's coming, and dear God, can she pre-emptively ban Henry from owning a laptop, like right now?

"Admit it," she shoots back as she pours two glasses of red wine, thankful that she'd managed to successfully dissuade him from producing his perpetual flask of rum. "You wanted to make sure they'd got your hair right."

"Not to mention my pretty face." The light of battle shines in his eyes at her jibe, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "No, your son had already informed me that my handsome visage doesn't appear on the pages of his beloved book." He grins up at her as she walks towards the living area. "But enough about me, love. I believe I asked you a question you have yet to answer."

"Shut up and drink your wine." Emma hands him one of the glasses as she rounds the corner of the couch, doing her best to ignore the brush of his fingertips against hers as he takes it from her.

"Come on, Swan," he inveigles softly, one dark eyebrow arching. "You can tell me."

Puffing out an (overly, she admits it) dramatic sigh, she drops down onto the other end of the couch, conscious of keeping him at both a literal and emotional arm's length tonight, because her parents have gone out to dinner and Henry is staying at Regina's. She should have revelled in a night alone, but instead found herself asking Hook if he wanted to keep her company. No big deal, she'd told herself at the time (a rushed conversation outside Granny's) but now she's not so sure, because no big deal might have been a slight miscalculation on her part.

He's been sitting on her couch for less than an hour now, and she feels as though she's covered from head to toe in itching powder, and the temptation to scratch one particular itch is gnawing at her insides with increasing ferocity with each passing second. She meets his gaze steadily, determined to keep this evening's schedule on the straight and narrow, and not just because her parents don't tend to linger over dinner.

"That book is one of the most important things in my kid's life," she tells him. "I've read the damned thing from cover to cover more than once, trust me."

He smiles at her, and she feels the warmth of it from her scalp to her toes. "Ah, but that wasn't what I asked, was it?"

Apparently they teach mindreading at piracy school in the Enchanted Forest, Emma thinks mutinously, because he's completely right and he knows it and she knows that he won't let it go. She takes a long sip of wine, vaguely appreciating her father's taste in vintage even as she struggles with the temptation to simply give in and stop deflecting for one freaking moment. "Okay," she finally says, because screw it. "If I admit that I read this book again after meeting you in the Enchanted Forest to check if you were in it, will you shut up and drink your wine?"

"Yes, I will." He drums the fingers of his right hand lightly on the back of the couch, his smile widening. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?"

He looks so pleased with himself that the impulse to punch him hard in the arm fades slightly. Taking another sip of wine, she studies him over the rim of her glass. "To be honest, I was kind of disappointed."

"Are you saying you'd like to know more about me, Swan?" He presses his hand theatrically over his heart. "I'm honoured."

"No, just looking for ammunition."

His face doesn't exactly fall, but there's an odd ripple in his expression, like someone's tossed a pebble into a still pool, and she suddenly regrets her words. "But while we're on the subject," she goes on quickly, "you know a lot about me." She has the sudden sense of biting off more than she can chew in more ways than one, but she can't do a U-turn now. "I hardly know anything about you."

Leaning forward, he puts his wine glass on the coffee table, then resettles himself on the couch, his body turned towards hers. He's made himself at home while still dressed in his usual black from head to toe (his heavy coat is thankfully hanging on the back of a kitchen chair and his boots are in a heap on the floor and God, even his socks are black) and he should look out of place sitting on Mary Margaret's shabby chic couch, but he doesn't. "Ask away."

Emma blinks. "You're serious?"

"Quite serious, love." He gestures towards himself with his right hand, a sweeping flourish that she's determined not to follow with her gaze, because she's already having enough trouble keep her eyes to herself. "I'm an open book as far as you're concerned."

She stares at him, her head swirling with everything she's ever wanted to ask him and everything she doesn't know about him. "Well-"

He gives her a smile that should come with a flashing danger signal. "On one condition."

"I knew it." She sighs loudly. "There's a catch, right?"

"Pardon?"

"There's always a catch with you."

"You may ask as many questions as you wish, milady." He goes on smoothly as though she hasn't spoken, his wide mouth curving in a slow smile. "And afterwards, I may ask you one question."

She opens her mouth to speak, but he holds up his hand. "The catch, as you so charmingly put it, is that you must tell me the truth." His gaze locks with hers, and she feels her breath catch at the back of her throat. "The complete and utter truth." Reaching for his glass, he lifts it to her in a toast. "Do we have an accord?"

She should say no. She should find that bloody Pirates of the Caribbean DVD and distract him with it. Because no matter how much she wants to know more about him, she already knows she's not ready to answer whatever it is that he's going to ask her. She opens her mouth to speak to say no, and hears herself promptly agreeing. "Deal."

Damn it.

"Tell me about your brother."

He feels himself flinch. He should have been expecting the question, should have known that Emma Swan was a determined woman, and he's already brushed her off once, and while he would gladly tear out his own heart and offer it to her on a silver platter, he doesn't know if he can -

"I don't mean how he died." She's shifting on the couch beside him, closing the gap between them, her hand fluttering in the air between them as though she might touch him. "Tell me about him."

She doesn't want to know how Liam died. She wants to know how he lived, and the thought makes his heart sing.

She's watching him carefully now, her eyes soft with an emotion he doesn't dare define, and he suddenly feels as though he could spend another three hundred years searching for someone who makes him feel as this woman does and come up empty-handed and empty-hearted at every turn.

"His name was Liam, and he was ten years older than me," he begins slowly, "a fact of which he took great pleasure in reminding me on a regular basis." He pauses, his thoughts filling with Liam's face in a way they haven't since leaving that cursed island, and then Emma's hand is on his arm, the warmth of her palm warming him through his shirtsleeve.

"You don't have to-" Her eyes are filled with concern. Concern for him, he realises, and a subtle warm twist through his chest.

"I've had precious few intelligent folk with whom to converse for the last few centuries, Swan." He takes a generous swig of his wine, but he's not going to hide behind his drink. Not tonight. "Even fewer who are interested in hearing tales that don't involve plundering and pillaging." He offers her a smile, but it feels tight on his lips. "If you would care to listen, then I will like to tell you."

She squeezes his arm gently, just the once, then leans back, picking up one of the many decorative cushions and cradling it in her arms. "Tell me about him?"

He does.

He tells her how Liam had been his hero from the moment he'd been old enough to stagger after him on unsteady wean legs. How Liam was only fourteen when he'd left home to join the King's navy, and how he had missed his older brother every single day. He tells her how Liam had tracked him down in a dirty portside town after their father had abandoned him aboard ship - Emma starts at this revelation, her fingers digging into the cushion cradled in her arms - and how he'd convinced his Captain at the time to take him on as a cabin boy.

He starts to tell her the story of the first time he'd tagged along with Liam on shore leave, but something about her expression gives him pause. "You alright there, Swan?"

"How old were you?"

He swallows hard. He's spent three hundred years avoiding the minor details of that particular event, and the only other person he's even discussed this with is Baelfire, and that just makes this all the more fragile a conversation, but she's looking at him expectantly, and he decided a long time ago that he would never lie to her. "Seven."

Emma lets out a shaky breath, her gaze locking with his, and he sees all his fears and grief mirrored in her bright eyes. "That's how you knew." Her mouth trembles faintly, and he sees the white of her teeth as she presses them against her bottom lip. "On the beanstalk. About me."

There's a tremor in her voice, and he knows that he has lost control of this conversation, if he ever had it at all, and all he can do is hang on and hope his heart emerges unscathed at the other end. "Aye."

She looks at him for a long moment, long enough for his heart to start hammering against his ribs and his blood twitch with the need of her, her warmth and comfort. "He sounds like he was a very good brother to have."

"That he was."

"From what David told me, it seems you were the same to him." Again her hand is on his arm, her thumb idly stroking, a small, soothing caress, and he can no more stop himself from leaning into her touch than the sun rises each morning. "I didn't mean to dreg it all up for you again, I'm sorry."

He puts his hand over hers, barely managing to resist the urge to entwine his fingers with hers. "Don't be sorry, lass. It's been a long time since someone cared enough to ask."

And with that, her hand is gone, flitting away like a frightened hare, and he curses his careless words. His heart sinks as she tosses the cushion onto the coffee table, narrowly missing her wine glass. "So, what did you want to do tonight? We could watch a movie, or-"

He should be surprised by the abrupt change in direction, but then again, this is Emma Swan. "You've only asked one question, love."

She waves her hand, as if absolving him, and perhaps she is. "I'll take a raincheck."

He nods, filing away her curious answer to decipher at a later time when he doesn't feel as though he is about to take that last step off the gangplank with nothing but air and the black night ocean beneath him. "Well, before you drag out one of your son's strange moving adventures, perhaps you'll allow mei my /iside of our agreement?"

"Oh, but-"

"When was the last time you did something that was just for you?"

She stiffens, the air between them immediately changing, a faint crackling of awareness he knows bloody well is far from one-sided, and he goes on quickly, pressing his advantage while he has it. "Something that had absolutely nothing to do with being the Saviour and everything to do with being Emma Swan?" She blushes prettily, twin spots of colour staining her cheeks, but she lifts her chin and meets his gaze steadily. Her answer, when it finally comes, makes his own skin flush with heat. "When I kissed you in Neverland."

It's almost fitting, he thinks as he gets to his feet and slowly moves to sit beside her, close enough for his thigh to brush against hers, that both one of the worst and one of the best memories in his life have been on that bloody island. "Do you regret it?" He sees her throat work as she swallows, and his tongue burns to taste the pale skin there. "That's two questions."

"Pirate," he murmurs, more out of habit than anything else, because he's long changed from the man who would renege on an accord with her, and they both know it. "No." She doesn't move away as he rests his arm along the back of the couch, his fingertips almost but not quite touching the pale flax of her hair. "I have never regretted it." He's surprised she cannot hear the mad tattoo of his heartbeat. "May I ask a third question?" Her eyes are burning into his, seeing into him and through him, and it's all he's wanted for so long, he can scarcely believe this is real. "Yes."

He can feel the heat rising in his blood now. So close, so close, and he is about to take that final step off the edge of the world as he knows it. "Would you like to seize another such moment for yourself tonight, Emma Swan?"

She smiles, and with one word, sweeps them both away. "Yes."

This time, he kisses her. This time, it's slow and warm, an inhalation of taste and touch, her mouth opening like a flower beneath his. Her tongue dances with his, and that's where islow/i ends, because he is instantly, painfully hard, his cock drawing up tight and thick, the pit of his belly shuddering with lust. She wraps one arm around his neck, pulling him closer, pulling him down, and then she's lying beneath him and he can't think, can't breathe. "Emma-"

"Shut up." She kisses her own name from his mouth, her body arching beneath his, a subtle rocking of her hips that has him counting to ten (and then bloody twenty and thirty), before she shifts, her thighs falling open to cradle him, and his cock is pressed hard against the heat between her legs and he is halfway done for, gone before she's even touched him. A rough groan shudders through him as he fights the urge to simply take her, wrench down those blasted trousers and lose himself in the tight slickness of her body.

But this is Emma, and this is been the fabric of his dreams for so very long, and he will not be rushed. He also knows they will not be alone for long, and the knowledge is almost a relief, because possibility is far too tempting an option with the woman he's craved for so long twisting beneath him as though his kiss and his touch are setting her alight.

He kisses her throat softly, then a little harder, finding the pulse that beats wildly beneath the curve of her jaw, revelling in the jagged sigh that echoes in his ear. "Your parents won't be dining at Granny's forever, love," he murmurs against her throat, but her only answer is to run one hand down his chest until her fingers reach the first clasp of his vest. Two seconds later, her hand is sliding inside his shirt, fingernails scratching just hard enough to raise gooseflesh.

Right, then.

He takes her mouth in a kiss, deep and fierce and wanting, tasting her until he can feel the gasp of her breath on his tongue, the trembling of the thighs tightening around his hips. He rocks against her, pushing his aching cock hard against the soft hollow between her legs, her answering moan of pleasure more intoxicating than the finest aphrodisiacs in all the realms.

When he finally lets himself touch her as he's so often dreamed, sliding his hand beneath her sweater, she bites down none-too-gently on his bottom lip, and he smiles into her kiss at her impatience. Her undergarment is a flimsy thing, easily defeated, then he is cupping the soft weight of her breast in his hand. She murmurs something under her breath at his touch, and when he swipes his thumb over the rise of a tight nipple, her hands are suddenly at his hips, urging him closer. He rocks against her as she arches against him, a slow dance that has his blood aflame and his cock pulsing to the beat of his hammering heart.

He hears the words please and harder in a small, plaintive voice at his ear, and the need in her voice would break his heart if the warmth of her body and her kiss and her smile hadn't already smoothed over every crack. Gods help him, her parents will be walking through that bloody door soon and there's no time for what he wants, but perhaps there is time enough for what she needs. And quickly, because the urge to simply take her is still vibrating through him, pounding at his very bones.

He kisses her again and again, rolling his hips against hers in slow, deliberate thrusts, delectable friction against that soft secret place between her thighs, letting her feel his hunger for her, letting her take whatever pleasure she can find, the release she's craving, no matter how stolen the moment. Her hands are everywhere, sliding between them, sliding down to cup his arse, her mouth hot and slick against his, and when she finally stiffens beneath him, her breath catching in a soft cry of surprise, he exhales in both frustration and relief, because a few moments later and the Prince and his wife would have been greeted with quite the surprise upon their arrival home.

Emma's eyes are closed, her breathing deliciously laboured. Brushing back the hair from her damp forehead, he ignores the painfully tight fit of his trousers and gently pulls her sweater back into place. At his touch, her eyes flutter open, and for a fleeting, terrible moment, he is afraid of what he is going to see in them. Then her clear green gaze meets his, and he sees her, truly sees her, sees himself through her eyes, and it's all he can do not to put her over his shoulder and carry her to the Jolly, the rest of the bloody town be damned, at least for tonight.

"You alright there, Swan?"

"Yes." She exhales softly as she lifts one hand to touch his face, fingertips cool against his cheek, her voice gentle in the quiet room. "But you need-"

The scraping of a key in the lock has them springing apart like a pair of bloody teens caught in the first flush of puppy love. He has enough time to be relieved that he didn't let her have her way with the rest of the buttons on his vest, then her parents are pushing open the door and Emma is sitting at the other end of the couch and saying in a loud, clear voice, "But if you don't watch the first movie first, you won't be able to follow the second one properly." She gives him a smile that wouldn't be out of place in a bloody convent, then turns to address her parents. "Did you guys have a good time?"

Gripped by the twin emotions of admiration and disbelief, he can only watch as she chats casually with her parents, looking as though being ravished by a pirate is the furthest thing from her mind. Finally, after he'd managed to pull on his boots with shaking hands and contribute to the conversation once or twice - much later he won't have a clue what he actually said – the Prince and Snow busy themselves in the kitchen area, boiling kettles and clanking mugs, and Emma turns to him with a smile that makes the breath come short in his chest. "I thought of a second question."

"Fire away, love."

She rises gracefully to her feet, smoothing her rumpled sweater with a surreptitious hand. "Feel like taking a walk?" Her eyes meet his, and the familiar thrill begins to hum beneath his skin. "Maybe towards the docks?" Her voice is low and throaty and meant for his ears alone, and he's never wanted her more.

"I thought you'd never ask."