“I wasn’t—ah!” I can’t think when he moves against me. Each stroke builds a fire deep inside me, one that’s swirling in a circle with tighter and tighter rotation.
“You aren’t leaving me, lass.” He runs his teeth along my jaw line. “I won’t let you. I ought to spank you—and I will soon—for even thinking it.”
“That’s a bit, um, kidnappy, of you.” I gasp when he bears down, grinding on me just right.
“I’ll do worse than just kidnap you.” He skims his tongue down my throat and licks my jugular before pressing his teeth into me. “I’ll tie you to this bed and have my way with you in a million depraved ways. Your pretty mouth, your tight cunt, that perfect little asshole that I’ll fill with my come—all of you. I’ll give you so much pleasure it feels like torture, lass. I won’t stop. Not until you realize this is where you belong.”
“With you?” I’m so close, my body primed to burst in sparks.
“With me. Forever, lass. You and me.” He surges against me, and I cry out as my orgasm fractures through me.
He takes my mouth, swallowing my moans as my body rides the sensation of bliss, the complete unwinding of me. I let it all go, like a piece of ribbon blowing in the wind, the ends free and floating. He takes it all from me—my fear, my pain, my endless fatigue—he takes it and gives me heat instead. I want it all, everything he has to give. Peter has drained me, but James Hook has done nothing but fill me up. With trust. With love.
When I finally come back down, he smooths his rough palm along my cheek. “Better, lass?”
I take in a deep breath and let it out. “Better.”
He smirks. “I don’t mind a dry fuck, but I’ll be honest, I can’t wait to be inside your hot, slippery cunt again.”
“You talk such absolute filth, James Hook!” I laugh and press my lips to his, then have to stop so I can laugh some more. “Total sailor mouth.”
“You love it, lass.”
“I do.” I moan as he rolls me over and snuggles me onto his chest again.
“I knew you would. Your mother told me you had a prudish streak that hid something a bit more saucy.”
I groan. “She did? She said that?”
He nods. “I suspect she was right on that score.”
“I can’t believe you two talked about me like that.” My cheeks flame hot as I bury my face in the crook of his neck.
“I was starved for news of you. Always wanting to know more and more. The more I learned, the harder I fell. I loved you before we ever met, lass.”
Once again, I can’t find my words, couldn’t catch them even if I had a butterfly net and a head start. Hook always has me on my back foot, now more than ever.
He squeezes me lightly and kisses my crown. “Rest now, lass. You need it.”
“I do.” I can’t argue it. My body is worn out, but my mind keeps going back to Peter, to the horrors he’s wrought on me.
He strokes my back. “Would you feel better if you tell me about it?”
When he said he knew me, he wasn’t lying. I’ve always been a storyteller, and I’m sure my mother told him that. If I can retell things, or even tell them in ways they didn’t happen, I can make sense of the world—not completely.Nevercompletely. But enough so that I can rest easy in my own skin, at least for a time.
“Do you want to hear?”
“I want to hear every thought that enters your peculiar head, lass. And that’s a fact.”
“Peculiar, eh?” I smile.
“Very.” He kisses my hair again.
I let out a deep breath and begin—telling him what happened after I was dragged away by Peter’s shadow and held prisoner in the cave. He grows tenser as I go, and when I tell him about Peter trying to take advantage, I think he might levitate off the bed. But he calms as I tell him about how kind the Guardians were and how they vowed to protect me.
When I come to the end, to the part where I finally found him again, my brain goes nearly quiet. In his arms, that’s where I can finally rest, finally stop looking for meaning in a world that has none.
“I should’ve been there.” He sighs into my hair.
