Disclaimer: I don't own it. Everything you recognise belongs to J.M Barrie. No infringement is intended and I'm not making
any money from this story.
Summary: James Hook/Adult Wendy. Companion piece to "Fearless".
Author's note: Written for ScatteredLogic, who gave me the prompts "silk fan" and "orange".

Breathless
by Hereswith

The fan unfolds with a snick, and she trails her fingertips across it, the ivory sticks and the spread of flower-painted silk—it's pirate plunder,
she imagines—but she doesn't hold it up to hide behind, to blush behind, she's tingling with something new, the rush of discovery, like an
adventurer on passage to distant shores, Red-Handed Jill, as bold as she had ever been as a girl.

Putting the fan aside, she glances at him, following his motion with her gaze as he lifts a slice of orange from the plate in front of him, the
juice dripping onto his knuckles when he takes a bite, chews and swallows, her breath caught and released at the sight, her heart thudding
with memory, the echoes of her body's response to those fingers, that mouth, and he looks up, into her face, then offers her what remains
of the slice, without a word.

She sits beside him, as silent as he. It isn't pomegranate, the seeds of this fruit cannot keep her here whether she wills it or no, though the
gesture, the choice she makes, doesn't lack significance, so she hesitates, but those black brows of his are raised in challenge. She meets it,
bending forward to eat from his hand.

He watches her, but doesn't move and barely blinks, until the moment her bottom lip grazes over his thumb, the slight touch causing his eyes
to narrow and brim with a heat dark and deep. He says her name, his voice cracking open, and she doesn't know how or why or what is between
them, stretched tenuous as hope, but one step leads to the other, that is the way of things.

When she kisses him, he tastes both sweet and tangy, of orange and all the wonder of dreams.