Just that little touch lights a fire inside me. Something about him, about the way he looks at me like I’m more than just a woman caught up in a world where she doesn’t belong. He looks at me like he’s hungry for me, like he knows me from some ancient world in another lifetime where the two of us were joined in every way two humans can be.
“What?” I move closer, my chest brushing against his as I tilt my head farther back. “What will happen?” I dart my tongue out and wet my lips.
His breath catches, and he leans down and kisses me hard, his hands going to my waist as he yanks me against him.
I squeak and grab his shoulders as he presses his tongue along the seam of my mouth. When I open and he delves inside, my entire body turns into liquid. I melt into him, wrapping my arms around his neck as he leans me back, his tongue stroking mine as he reaches down and grips one of my thighs, bringing it up to his hip.
When he turns me and presses me against the wall, I moan. He swallows the sound, his rough kiss full of urgency and heat. I’ve never been kissed like this. I don’t even know what it is. It’s like another language, one that Hook speaks directly to my soul. He devours me, sucking my tongue and gripping the back of my neck with his hand. Angling my head, he tongues me deeper, a groan lofting from him as he presses his hard length against my sex.
I’m wet for him, my body open and wanting, begging for more from this man of nightmare and myth. It’s wrong. Everything about him is dark and tarnished, but I want him all the same. I can’t stop, not when he kisses me with a fierceness that turns my blood into lava and my mind into a writhing pit of filthy desires.
When he reaches between my legs and cups my sex, I whimper, and when he rubs my throbbing clit, I gasp. He finally relinquishes my mouth and kisses to my throat, sucking my skin between his teeth, his rough beard scratching against my flesh. What would it feel like on my thighs? I shudder at the image of him between my legs, his deep blue eyes on me.
“Hey, we’re doing a barbecue out back if you—” Widow’s voice dies away as she opens the door to my room.
Hook lets out a growl that’s more animal than man.
“Oh, shit.” Widow slams the door.
I take a breath and try to remember myself. But I can’t. All I can do is stare at Hook, at my savior, at my killer, at my avenger, at my kidnapper, at the man I can’t seem to figure out.
“I didn’t intend to … I …” He shakes his head, seems to collect his thoughts, then presses his palms on either side of my head as he leans toward me, towering over me with the darkest glint of desire in his eyes. “Let this be a warning to you, lass. If you look at me like that again, I’ll have your knees pinned to your ears and my cock so deep in your sweet cunt that you’ll feel me for days.”
I can barely catch my breath. “If that’s your version of a threat, you might need to work on your ‘scary pirate’ skills.”
That pulls a smirk from him, the temperature in the room lowering a few degrees. Only a few though, because I still feel the heat coming off him in waves.
“Then again, Peter might take that threat a little more—”
His face instantly sours. “I don’t want to hear that cur’s name.”
His quick wrath is almost like a slap.
I wince back, but he doesn’t give me any room.
“Afraid of me now that you remember him? Is that it?” His voice turns cold, hard.
I reach for any thought, any combination of words to defend myself. “Why do you hate Peter so much?”
His nostrils flare, his eyes igniting with blazing fury. “Because he’s a vile, arrogant child who plays at being a god!” He seethes. “A parasite that destroys everything and everyone around him. Because he brought you here. Because he stole you away and drowned you in this nightmare, his nightmare. Because he touched you.You.” His voice breaks, the pain and rage crackling like the glass of a broken mirror. “Because he hurt you,” he finishes on a whisper, his lips so close to mine that we share breath and soul and roiling emotion.
I don’t know what I expected from this fearsome pirate, but that wasn’t it. Not the way he sounds like a wounded animal. Not the way he looks at me with a mix of regret and pain. My heart—a cloistered and protected thing, soft and untried—suddenly cracks open, revealing lifeblood that mingles with his.
“I’m all right.” I press my palms to his cheeks, the stubble rough under my skin. “I’m right here, James. I’m not hurt.”
He pulls in a deep, shuddering breath, then—as if remembering himself—he blinks and pulls away from my hands.
I let them drop, unsure of what this means or where we go from here.
“Come down for supper. Then rest. You need a break.” He leans closer, so close I think he’ll kiss me again, then he pushes off the wall and strides from my room.
* * *
Widow plopsdown next to me. There’s a roaring fire in the middle of the diamond created by the cottages. Sparks of embers fly up to the half moon, bright as they leave the flames then darkening as the shadows eat them up.
“So, I’m going to need details.” She elbows me lightly as I take a bite of the crispy fish Cookson claims he made just for me.
“No details.” I chew, then have to stifle a moan at how good it is. It’s somehow buttery even though it was cooked over an open flame.
