“Might have been unpleasant for my ma. Let’s make a deal, love. Tell me what it is you want to fix so badly, and I’ll answer your question.”
Not a fair trade. Not even a bit. Tink frowned at the water, cursing the way his voice, smooth and rich as caramel candies, enticed her to play along. She was naked for goodness sake! With night descended and water cocooning her in its embrace, she could almost forget it.Almost.
Reluctantly, she raised her arm out of the water and jingled the broken bracelet.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I was broken.” She glanced back at him again, taking in the way the moss glowed against his tanned skin. “When pixies come of age, we’re given a bracelet. It lets us travel from the Sylvanna Vale to the rest of Neverland through our pixie doors. You might know them as flower rings or stone circles.” She turned away, studying the variations in the rock through the haze of steam. “There are many guidelines we’re to follow when we visit human lands, but only a few strict laws, ones established by the ancients to keep us safe. If you break one, your bracelet breaks, and you’re banned from using the doors.”
“You can’t go home.” His voice held something she’d never heard—sorrow.
Tink bit her lip and shook her head. “Can’t see my family. Can’t even tell them I’m alive.”
“What did you do that’s so horrible?”
“Does it matter? It’s done. I’m an outcast. Banished. Condemned.” The words spilled out like a torrent, unstoppable as the ache in her chest. “I don’t belong anywhere anymore.”
Her hands fisted in the spring’s heat. She dropped her gaze to the tendrils of steam rising from the pool. “But if I get that pearl, I can fix this. I can become a real pixie again. I can go home. I—”
Water splashed behind her.
Tink gasped and whirled around to find him chest-deep in the spring.
“James.”
The name cut straight through her panicked thoughts. She blinked, sucking in air. “What?”
Hook waded through the water until Tink craned her head back to look into his solemn, steady gaze. “My name is James.”
James.
His hand brushed her side, just over one hip, warm as the waters around them. That touch, so brief and gentle, broke the tethers that locked her in place. James, he wasJames—not a merciless pirate captain, not someone she’d stolen from, not someone who’d taken her captive for revenge. No, he was just a man, bare-chested and breathing heavily. In his eyes, she saw the mirror of her own desire, a hunger she could no longer deny.
Tink stepped closer until the sodden fabric of his pants brushed her bare leg and his strong form blocked out the glowing plants beyond. Without another moment of hesitation, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his face down to hers.
Soft, moist lips crashed against her own. A hint of the sea teased her tongue. Their first kiss had been tentative, deceptive—at least on her part. Her only focus had been getting her dust across his lips, in his mouth, and letting it work its magic on him. She’d barely had time to savor the strength of his body underhers, the coarse stubble of his shadow of a beard as it scraped her delicate skin.
This time his kiss consumed her, drowned her like a tidal wave and pulled her down into the depths of the sea. By all the revered elders, she couldn’t focus on anything but Hook.No…James.
Skin met skin as he wrapped her in his embrace and pulled her close.Durin’s beard, his chest is hard. Smooth. Warm. It was like embracing a marble statue in the heat of the midday sun. Tink leaned against him, desperate to feel, to sink into his kiss. All her worries washed away, lost with the flick of his tongue against her own, his breath in her lungs.
Her legs wound around him, eliciting a groan that rumbled deep in his chest. Strong fingers cupped her backside, pulling her tight against him in a daring, intimate way that set her core aflame. If only he’d stripped off his breeches. She had half a mind to rip them off, reveal his cock, and slide down onto it. Her core clenched tight as she nipped at his bottom lip and imagined his girth. He’d be well-made. He had to be. And it’d been so long…
What did it matter if he was a lousy pirate? Tink ground against him, savoring the bulge that teased her taut nub. Her hands fisted in his hair.Holy Flora, he wants me too.
A delicious tingle trailed down her wings and along her spine. Tink let her legs go loose, sliding down his body. Her hands followed in a seductive caress as she continued their kiss. Down his neck, over strong shoulders, down his chest to—
Her fingers stilled over the pendant on his necklace. It’s wasn’t a pendant. It was a ring. Too small and dainty to be his.
Tink jerked away, severing their kiss and sliding from the arms of the man holding her.
Water sloshed around her as Hook straightened, a lusty moan slipping into the air between them.
A ring. He was wearing some woman’s ring, and still he looked at her like that, like he might devour her or bring her to climax over and over and—
“Love, your wings are shimmering.” He rubbed at the stubble on his chin. His eyes hooded further. “For me?”
“Ugh!” Tink swept her hand across the top of the pool, sending a wave of water splashing toward the filthy pirate.
“Hey, what?” He straightened.
