Chapter 16 #2
He’s a little salty, and I think I can taste myself on him. Just being on my knees like this with his stormy eyes on me as I run my tongue along him—I feel powerful. I feel sexier than I ever have in my life. And I feel in control.
I start to work my head back and forth along him. With no clue if I’m doing this right, I grip his base and suck, hollowing out my cheeks as I bob my head on him.
“That’s it, lass. Ah fuck.” He pulls my head forward to his rhythm, and I suck and lick, doing whatever seems to drive him the craziest.
His hips piston, pushing forward again and again. “I need to see you, lass. Keep watching me.”
Warm water falls onto my calves from the overflowing tub, but neither of us care.
I look up at him, my eyes watering as his cock head flirts with the back of my throat. Then I feel him get even harder.
“I’m—” He groans, his cock spurting into my mouth.
I’m surprised by the force of it. It squirts onto my tongue, and I instinctively swallow, but more of it flows out past my lips and drips down my chin.
He’s still watching me, his breath heaving. “Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Bloody fucking hell!”
“Did I do it right?” I lean back, letting him fall from my lips, and he pulls me to my feet.
“Devilish minx.” He wipes his come away from my chin, then reaches over and stops the faucet.
“In.” He lifts me into the tub, then climbs in behind me, water sloshing everywhere as he pulls me against his chest and uses his wet hand to clean my face off.
“Are you okay?” I turn to look at him over my shoulder.
“Okay? I’m …” He lets out a long breath.
“Have I finally stumped the clever Captain Hook?” I spin in the water and straddle him. “Nothing to say?”
He runs his hands down my chest, his gaze reverent, as if he can’t believe I’m here.
“You should see me when I’m not a prune.
” I kiss him. Confidence rises inside me.
I just made the fiercest pirate in the world come and rendered him speechless.
Maybe I’m not as dowdy as I always assumed.
Maybe I can be sexy. Maybe I can fight. Maybe I will find a way to make sense of Neverland and save it from darkness.
Why does it all seem possible now that I’ve been claimed by a villain?
“You are beautiful, lass. Never doubt that.” He kisses me back, then holds me as we soak in the warm water.
As my body settles, my mind begins to wake back up.
So many nagging questions resurface, and I begin to think about what this means.
I just had sex with Hook. Hook said he’d wished for love and implied that it’s the reason the island started losing its magic and is also the reason I’m here.
But then why does everyone say I’m the answer to Peter’s wish?
It doesn’t make sense. And does that mean he loves me? Like loves loves?
“I can hear you thinking, lass.” He spins me and pulls my back to his front, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Let it go. Just be here with me. We’ll wash, and then I want to sleep with you.”
“We just did that.”
He snorts. “I want to feel you close to me in my bed. I’ve been wanting it from the moment we set foot here. I want to wake up with you in my arms.”
“Villains can be romantic at heart. Who knew?”
“I think most villains are romantics at heart.”
“How so?” I run my fingers along the surface of the water.
“I don’t believe villains are born. Not in the usual sense. Maybe there’s a vicious scoundrel here and there, but most of them are made.”
“Were you made?”
“Aye.” He puts his hand on mine, following my motions through the water. “I was a good lad for a time.”
“Like with your sister?”
“Aye. I think that’s when my fall began.
” He sighs. “As I got older, I realized even more that I had no control over what befell me. And quite a bit of bad things did. Still, I had a heart that beat for better days and hope for the future. I believed I could drag myself out of the slums of my village and make something of myself. I didn’t realize that I’d have to do terrible things, many terrible things, to make that happen.
I did them, though, thinking I could get by.
If I could only get an education and learn the ways of the nobility, I’d be able to speak their language.
I could pass for one of them. By the time I’d managed to enroll at Eton under a stolen name from a noble I’d gotten over a barrel for gambling debts, I thought I could perhaps change the course of my life.
I learned quickly that wasn’t the case. They knew, you see.
They knew. Even in my fine clothes with my adopted accent and my loose knowledge of how a noble should behave, they could smell the streets on me. ”
“What happened?”
“It was late. I was walking along the Thames to get back to my tiny flat far outside of the school bounds. I didn’t realize they were following me until the rope was already around my neck.”
I spin to him.
He points to a faint scar on the side of his throat. “They dragged me back to a tree and threw the rope over. I fought, but there were far too many of them. Like sharks scenting blood in the water, they all came for me.”
“Oh, god.” I run my fingertips along the mark.
“They hoisted me, my feet kicking, my arms flailing.” He closes his eyes as if he can still see it, still feel the rope around his neck.
“I passed out and woke under the same tree. I was soaked with their piss, my book and papers thrown into the river. They thought they’d killed me, I learned later. ”
“I’m sorry.” I can’t imagine what that was like. I don’t want to.
“Don’t be. I had my revenge. First on the ones who were there, and later—once I’d gone back to the streets where I belonged and amassed a crew and enough money to take to the sea—I preyed on the nobles.
Stealing their goods, sinking their ships, taking what I wanted.
I was a scourge.” He smiles a little. “That was before I ventured to the triangle and found my way to so many other worlds. Though this one is my home.”
“You chose Neverland?”
“Neverland chose me.” He picks through my hair, pulling out the pins Widow had so carefully placed. “It’s where I belong.”
“How many people have you killed?”
He sputters a laugh. “No foreplay for you. Right into the thick of it.”
“I don’t know. It just seems like maybe I should get to know the villain I’m in bed with.”
He picks the rest of them free and tosses them into the sink. “Come, lass, to bed with you then.” He rises and helps me from the tub, then dries me off with a towel a bit too vigorously as I protest.
By the time he’s done, I’m clean and dry, and then he carries me to his bed. “Here is where you belong.” He lays me down and climbs in beside me.
When he pulls me to his chest, I sigh. “Everyone’s going to know.”
“If they don’t know from the noises you made in the study, by god I’ll take you down there and do it again.”
I laugh. “Not necessary.”
“I’ll do it anyway, lass.” He kisses my hair. “After you’ve had a rest.”
“If you’re such a bad guy, why are you so good to me?” I yawn.
“You know why.” He runs his hand up and down my back, soothing every bit of me.
I do. He wished for love, and he thinks the island gave me to him in answer. But I still have that nagging thought about Peter. He made a wish, too. He thinks I’m the answer to it, too. Who’s right?
“I can hear the wheels turning again. Shut it down. Rest now. You’ll need your strength. We’re setting sail tomorrow.”
“To the Fairy Village?”
“Aye. To the far north of the island. You can’t get to it by land, not unless you cross the Silver Mountains. But that journey is treacherous, to say the least.”
“What happened to the fairies and the Guardians that are missing?”
“I don’t know, lass. I wish I did.” He pulls the blanket over us. “Sleep now. We’ll know more once we reach the village.”
I close my eyes and listen to the steady thrum of his heart. I didn’t plan on staying or going with him to the Fairy Village. I didn’t plan on having sex with him either, but here I am.
If I’m smart, I’ll steal the fairy dust from Geo and leave this island. But Tiger Lily and Hook both think my best chance of figuring out my place here—and the way to stop me from going full-on prune—is with the fairies.
I’m at a fork in the road. One path leads to the mainland, the other to Hook. Which one should I take? I know which one my heart wants. It’s here in this bed with me.
My mind starts to drift into sleep, my body worn out and my soul at ease.
That’s when I realize I can have both. I can meet with Geo and either steal or talk him out of the fairy dust, and then I can come back to Hook and sail with him to the Fairy Village.
That way I’ll have an out. If things go wrong, I can always use the fairy dust and get myself back home.
This is going to work perfectly. I love it when a plan comes together.