Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
“Easy now, lass!” Hook clutches me to him. “You’re all right.”
I breathe deeply, as if I’ve been long underwater and just breached the surface.
The ache is gone, the dullness of my senses pealed back until I can experience everything again, perhaps even better than before.
The only pain left is on my back, but I don’t care.
It’s nothing to finally feeling alive again.
“Am I okay?” I look up at Hook.
“You’re wonderful.” He kisses my forehead. I feel it, the warmth of him and the love he bears.
I turn and look around, but my gaze falls on Tinker Bell. Her light is gone, her skin a dull gray.
Reaching for her hand, I take it in mine. “Thank you.”
She’s already cold, her essence gone and a shell left behind.
The Spinner takes her in her arms and stands. “She will be given the rites of our people. I’ll take her to the mountains.”
I stand too, my body moving under my command with ease. I took it all for granted, and now that I have it back, I marvel at every little thing.
“Will they forgive her?” I stare into the Spinner’s opal eyes. “She didn’t have to help me, but she did. More than I knew. She wanted to stop Peter, but she couldn’t.”
“She fell under his spell, though she also helped give him the power to weave it in the first place.” The Spinner doesn’t give me anything more than that.
But I suppose she doesn’t want to make a promise she can’t keep.
Tinker Bell’s legacy isn’t something I can simplify, not after she caused so much pain.
“I understand.” I place Tinker Bell’s hand on her stomach and let go. “Thank you,” I whisper again. “For everything.”
“You know where you must go.” The Spinner rises from the ground, floating on her ethereal wind. “The island will balance the scales one way or another. If it doesn’t, we will all perish.”
“I know the way.” Hook stands beside me, his arm going around my waist. “I will take her to the heart of the island.”
The Spinner’s gaze flicks to him. “Are you satisfied?” she asks with surprising venom.
Hook grips me tighter. “I know what I’ve done, Spinner. All the evil, the mistakes, the bargain I made. But I’d do it all over again for Moira.”
She floats backwards, clearly displeased with his answer. “You gained your soul, but you never lost your savagery.”
“From your lips to god’s ear.” He smirks.
I elbow him. “Not the time,” I whisper.
“Take him and go. The island grows wilder now. I fear we have only a few more full moons left before the shadows take over for good and beasts rule with bloody maws. There will be none left on the island but nightmares.” The Spinner’s face softens a bit as she floats closer to me.
“You are always welcome here among your people, Moira. Your line is a blessing.” Then she sours again.
“James Hook, however, is hereby banished from this village. To set foot here again will bring pain of death.” She turns and moves into the woods, her glow fading slowly.
“We’re leaving. Now.” I tug on his arm. “Let’s go.”
He looks to argue, but I give him a glare. “Don’t.”
“You’re beautiful when you want to harm me, lass.” He yanks me into his arms and kisses me hard on the mouth, his hands going to my ass and squeezing.
We don’t have time for this, but that doesn’t stop me from wrapping my arms around his neck and deepening the kiss. It’s like I’m feeling him for the first time, the heat of him and all the hard muscles along his body. Not to mention the hardness in his pants. Holy shit.
When he finally pulls back to breathe, he takes my arm and walks me toward the sea. “You owe me, lass. You owe me quite a bit.”
“Excuse me?”
“When you wouldn’t let me kill Anne. Recall that?”
“Oh.” I recall him saying he was going to eat me alive and ‘leave nothing for seconds’. My face goes hot at the memory of his filthy words.
“As soon as I get you to my cabin—” He glances around. “Maybe before—”
“No! We have to get out of here. You aren’t safe.”
“You aren’t either, lass. Not once we’re alone.” He licks his lips, and I stumble. Taking my arm he leads me into the surf, then helps me into the rowboat.
His sailors are already using the other one, taking turns sending the crew back to the Jolly Roger.
“Wait, is everyone all right?” I peer into the darkness for familiar faces.
“We lost nary a one.” Hook grabs the oars and starts pulling hard, shooting us away from the shore.
Something tickles at my back, then flutters past my face. I scream and swat at it, which sends a ray of pain shooting down my back.
“What is—I have wings?” I get a crick in my neck as I try to turn and look at them.
“Pretty ones.” He nods, still rowing at an inhuman pace. “I intend to kiss them all over when we get to the tender part, lass. But this is not tender.” His eyes eat me up even though I’m doing everything I can to get a look at the wings on my back. “What I feel for you right now is anything but.”
I’m awash in new sensations—the wings at my back, the desire beating through me like a pulse, the slight edge of fear at how hungrily Hook is looking at me.
“Focus on the wings.” I reach behind me and touch one. It’s soft and thin, like a gossamer curtain stretched taut.
“I’m focused on you. Every bit of you. Mine.”
That’s when it hits me. I drop my hand, my heart falling into a pit. I’m not his. I never was. He wished for love, but that love isn’t me. I’m Peter’s boon.
“What’s that look for?” He’s still rowing hard, his intentions clear as he speeds us back to the ship.
I meet his eyes.
He finally slows just a hair. “Are you all right?”
“Let’s just get to the Jolly Roger, okay?” It’s odd that I feel safe on a pirate ship, but I do.
“That’s the plan.” He goes back to rowing viciously, his eyes unabashedly fixed on me.
I touch my wing again and get a glimpse of its pearly glow.
It’s beautiful. Like Widow’s but bigger.
They’re actually more similar to Tinker Bell’s.
Her loss is one that tangles inside me, because I didn’t know her, not the real her.
Everything I thought turned out to be wrong, but she was just as tangled as I am.
Together, we’re a gordian knot, incapable of solving, forever tied into each other, even if one piece has gone irretrievably dark.
“Lass, I know you’re going through a million emotions. The time will come when we talk about all of it.” He stops rowing as we make it to the ship. “But I need you to focus on just one.”
“Which one?”
He grabs hold of the rope ladder that hangs by the hull. “Lust.” Holding out his hand, he takes mine and guides me up the ladder.
“You are literally the worst.”
“That’s what they say.” His smirk is sexy, and I could swear he knows it.
Climbing the rope ladder still isn’t easy, but I make it to the top without falling over or bursting a lung. As soon as my feet touch the deck, Hook is behind me, his hands on my hips as he guides me to his cabin.
“We should talk.”
“We will.” He takes my hand and pulls me along.
Smee rolls his eyes as we pass.
“No one enters my cabin. No one even comes near the fucking door,” Hook snarls.
“Aye, Captain.” Smee nods.
“Set a course for the Crystal Caves.”
“But the Neverstorm—”
Hook whirls on him, and Smee seems to cave in. “I mean, Aye Captain!”
Hook pushes me into his cabin and slams the door behind us.
He’s on me immediately, his hands roving my body and yanking at my clothes.
My shirt is already ripped at the back—he must’ve done it when my wings sprouted.
He makes quick work of it, tossing the rags to the floor as he grabs my waist band and tucks his fingers in, then drags my pants down to my shoes.
Before he finishes taking them off, he presses his mouth to my sex.
I moan, my knees going weak as he knee-walks me to the bed.
When I sit, he strips me the rest of the way, spreads my legs, then buries his face between my thighs.
I yelp, his onslaught sudden and shocking.
He doesn’t hold back. His tongue licks all of me, and my hips jolt.
He grips them, his shoulders pushing my thighs farther apart as he devours me.
Falling back, I lie on the bed, my wings beneath me as he presses his tongue inside me, then licks to my clit.
“Look at me, lass. I want to see your eyes roll back when you come.” His voice is gravelly and raw, his gaze on me as I stare down at him.
He goes back to my clit, flicking it again and again until my thighs begin to shake.
Then he uses the broad side of his tongue to lick me, speeding up until my body winds so tightly I think I might break.
That’s when I release, his name on my lips as I arch from the bed.
He doesn’t stop, his mouth drawing more pleasure from me again and again as the orgasm seems to roll through me like thunder.
My toes curl, my fingers gripping the blanket, and my mind swimming in bliss as he gives me exactly what I need right where I need it.
“Eyes on me!” he snaps before sliding two fingers inside me.
I let out a keening sound, my entire being wrapped up in James Hook as he pleasures me.
When he seems to curl his fingers at just the right spot, my orgasm falls off another cliff, sending me splashing into the waters below as I writhe and take every bit of sensation he offers.
He groans against my wet flesh, his tongue still working me through every aftershock, every spasm that sends jolts of fire through my blood.
When he finally pulls back, he stands and looks down at me. He reaches behind him and grabs his shirt, pulling it over his head in that particularly masculine way. Then he unbuttons his pants. When his cock pops free, I wet my lips.
He shucks his pants all the way off and stands naked before me, his body sculpted by years of life at sea and scarred from a multitude of violent deeds. He’s a work of art. Perfection lives in every marred bit of him, a broken thing that I can’t help but love. Completely. Irrevocably.