La Martinique. Sand. A woman washing in the surf, skimming dried sand from her bare arms and legs, her long dark hair curling down over the tanned skin on her back.

Jack Sparrow had held the scrap of lace against his lips and watched her from the shade of the jungle's edge, waiting for the moment she would return to his side--the opportune moment when he would slip the shimmering onyx-stone ring around her finger. Possessive and claiming her, not just as a student or to sate his lusts: no. She would be his, just as she had made him hers.

It had all worked out remarkably well until she'd left him, coolly and without allowing him any words on the matter. The onyx Thieves' Ring had been traded away quite shamelessly for information; he'd found it at Tia's shack and given it back to the beautiful con-artist on the Queen Anne's Revenge. The rest of their tale, he realized, was still unwritten.

And now, this, here, with Buffy--Jack shivered. She was not like Angelica at all. She was an unknown quantity, really: unlike any woman he'd known. And that was frightening all on its own, but he would not let it terrify him tonight. Hungry lips claimed hers as Jack lifted her against him once more; this time, though, he had no intention of bringing her anywhere.