“Does anything hurt, lass?” Hook kisses my hair. “Tell me.”
“No more than usual.” I sound tired. No, more than tired, I sound utterly worn out.
“I’ve already set a course for the Fairy Village. It’ll take us a few days to get there with the winds this time of the season, but we’ll get there. I promise you, Moira. We’ll get there, and we’ll find the Spinner. You’re going to be all right.” He gently takes my chin and turns my face toward his. “Say you believe me, lass.”
I want to believe him. Isn’t that how fairy tales end? Everything working out and the heroine sailing off into the sunset with her youth in one hand and her love in the other? But I can’t see that future. Not when I live in the shadow of Neverland, of Peter.
“She needs rest.” Sky gives Hook a pointed look.
“I suppose I’ll need your permission before I ravish her then?” Hook gives Sky a pointed look right back.
“Apologies, Captain.” Skylights grabs his bag and heads for the door. “Call me if her condition … changes.”
“You were going to say ‘worsens’.” My voice is still streaked with hoarseness from where Peter’s shadow strangled me.
“Sleep well” is all Skylights adds as he hurries out and closes the door behind him.
“No ravishing then?” I give Hook a half smile. “What sort of pirate are you?”
“The sort who will do any number of heinous, highly suspect, and seriously illicit things to you the moment you’re feeling better.” He kisses me, still fierce, but also with an underlying tenderness.
I run my hands along his sandpaper cheeks and into his impossibly soft hair. “I’ve missed you so much,” I murmur against his lips.
“I’ll never be parted from you again, lass.” He lays me down, then settles in next to me, pulling the blanket over us as he nestles me against his chest. “Rest now. We’ll sail her smooth and easy all the way up the island.”
“Has any voyage of yours ever been ‘smooth and easy’?”
“Now that you mention it …” He chuckles, the sound low and so damn sexy.
I may be worn out, but I’m not dead. Not yet. I push up and kiss him. He answers, his tongue sweeping against mine as he pulls me fully on top of him. Moving against him, I feel how hard he is, and I want it. All of him.
“You came for me,” I breathe and look down at him. “I mean, it took you a while, but—” I squeal as he turns me over and pins me onto my back.
“Do you have any idea what it felt like when I realized you’d run off?” His sexy growl vibrates through me.
“I—”
“Rhetorical, lass. Because I’ll tell you. I wasafraid.” He kisses me again, as if he can’t bear not to. “I’ve known fear on the sea plenty of times. Worry for my crew. But what I felt when I took off after you—that sort of terror …” He shakes his head, his dark hair tickling along my forehead. “It’s not something I recognize. It was like you had my heart in your hand, and you were squeezing it, lass. Squeezing the blood from it and killing me slowly, painfully, the way I deserve.”
“You always get so dark so fast,” I whisper.
He smirks. “You do that to me. Sent me straight to hell, you did. And when I saw that bloody coxcomb with his hands on you—” He bares his teeth.
“I’m here now.” I kiss him again and spread my thighs farther apart, his hard cock pressing against me in just the right spot. “I’m here.”
“Never again.Never. I’ll die before I’ll let him touch you again.” He kisses my cheeks, my forehead, the tip of my nose.
“It’s not as if you had a choice.” I want to soothe the beast inside him, the part that seethes and roils. “I’m the one who walked right into his trap.”
He glares down at me. “You did, lass. You ran away from me.” He plucks my bottom lip between his teeth and bites down lightly.
“No.” I gasp when he rocks his hips against me. “Notawayfrom you. I was only trying to steal the fairy dust from Geo so I could—”
He pulls back. “So you could what?”
Shit. I was about to say ‘fly away from Neverland,’ but with the thunderclouds gathering on his forehead, I realize that is the completely wrong answer.
“You wanted to leave me for good, lass?” His voice drops lower, flirting with lethal. “Is that what you planned?”
