by Marie Hall
She hugged the hook to her chest, forcing him to scoot in closer since it was attached to his wrist. But she didn’t seem to notice, or care, almost like she’d done it subconsciously because she needed something to hang onto and it didn’t bother him to be used thus.
If the men above could only see what she’d turned him into, he’d be laughed off the ship.
“She’d met a guy at a club. Do you know what that is?”
“A gaming hell?”
She frowned. “Umm, not really sure what that is, but I’m thinking not the same thing. It’s a place we can go to drink, meet people, and dance. A great place to pick up losers usually.”
Suddenly he felt the wiggle of toes moving against his legs. He looked down. Was she trying to move them beneath his own? Deciding perhaps she was, he gathered her foot with his, and clamped it between his legs.
She smiled and so did he.
“Anyway, she met this guy. A doctor—he was always quick to correct my family about that, even though he was only a dentist and a lame ass one at that.” She glowered. “Dr. Kurt Smith. Smarmy bastard, blond-haired, blue eyed Ivy League grad. I hated him the moment I met him. But I was fourteen, so what did I know, right?” She wrapped her fingers around his hook and he didn’t know why, but he suddenly felt the need to touch her.
“Move over,” he growled, tugging at her, until she rolled over his body. Once they’d traded positions, he packed a pile of pillows behind him and leaned back. “Now, lay on your side and give me your hand.”
“What?” she laughed.
“Just give me your hand, woman.” And taking hers in his good one, he rubbed his thumb along the edge of hers, tracing the soft, smooth skin gently. She shivered, eyes going wide, but she didn’t pull back and he couldn’t fight the grin from tipping his lips. “Now continue.”
“You’re very bossy.”
He lifted a brow and waited.
Expelling a long breath, she nodded. “Anyway, as I was saying. I hated him. He was a spoiled, rich brat used to getting his way, and yes he was gorgeous, and yes he had lots of money, but it seemed like I was the only one who could see the ugly inside.”
His jaw clenched and the need to touch her intensified. He spread his fingers along her own, lacing their hands together. She sighed.
“And why did you not like him?”
She made a sound between her closed lips. “I just didn’t. I couldn’t explain why back then, which is probably why no one listened to me. Not my parents, and especially not my sister. Before long the two of them were living together. At first my sister was all happy and cool about it. But you know how when you know somebody and suddenly they start acting differently, but they won’t really tell you why?”
He nodded.
“That’s what was happening with her. One day she was just different. I idolized my sister. She was so pretty, and fun. I remember that about her. She was always so much fun to be around. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. She’d always tell me how she couldn’t wait until I turned eighteen, we’d have so much fun together. Anyway, the two of them dated for a year. And it seemed like the longer they dated, the less happy she became. One day I asked her why she was even with him anymore and all she did was shrug.”
She scowled and looked at him. “I mean, would you continue to date someone for that long if your only response is a shrug?”
“You’re asking the wrong man, little bird,” he said, trapping her ankle with his foot, “I don’t date. Not even with Talia. I saw her, I claimed her. In my world, it’s really very simple.”
Pink touched her cheeks and she smirked. “The cavewoman in me likes that approach.” She grinned, then turned serious once more. “I didn’t know it at the time, but he’d begun beating her. I should have had a clue, when all she’d started wearing was long sleeve shirts and pants. I mean my sister had a killer body meant for booty shorts and tank tops, I should have known, but I didn’t.”
In his world the beating of women happened. He never engaged in such activities, finding the practice wholly repugnant and beneath him, but it happened. If he didn’t want a woman, he’d simply make her leave. To beat her seemed the height of weakness.
“My parents, me, friends at her college, none of us knew. She hid it well.” She shook her head. “Then one day he asked her to marry him and she said yes.”
“Why?” he frowned. “Did she enjoy the humiliation?”
Trishelle scowled. “I seriously doubt that, but I think she was scared of him. Of what he’d do to her. Only after she died did we finally learn the full truth, she’d recorded it all in her journal. He’d threatened to kill her many times. I think she did it to protect us from him.”
He sighed. “I apologize. I did not mean to imply—”
She squeezed her eyes shut, running her foot up and down his calf, as if seeking warmth. “No, I know. It’s just a touchy subject for me. Even though it’s been ten years since she died, sometimes it feels like just yesterday.”
“Did he kill her?”
She brought their laced hands to her chest and any other moment he would have found a reason to trace the curve of her breast, it was a battle of wills for him not to. But even a pirate knew when the time wasn’t right and the time was definitely not now. In order to resist temptation, he withdrew his hand from hers, and ran it along her bare, upper arm. Goose bumps broke out on her skin.
“I think he did. The law though says he didn’t. A year after their marriage she committed suicide.”
His jaw clenched. “Did she feel like she had no other options?”
Closing her eyes, she rubbed her forehead. “Honestly, I don’t think she cared anymore. She was two months pregnant, but he beat her so bad she lost the baby. It broke her. I found her the next morning. Lying on the couch, pistol on the carpet, and a bottle of vodka on the coffee table.”
It suddenly made so much sense why she held herself back.
“So,” she laughed, a sound full of bitter regret and unshed tears, “now you know why I can never love. I will never allow that to happen to me. I belong to myself and that’s how I like it.”
He squeezed her arm and she gave him a wobbly smile.
“I am sorry,” he whispered, staring deep into her eyes. He held no admiration for men like that, in fact, it sickened him and he hated that Trishelle had to live through seeing that. Hardened as he was, he understood pain, the kind that kept you up at night, that made you howl in grief, the murder of a loved one. “Believe me when I say, I understand.”
She didn’t speak for a while, several heartbeats passed before she said, “Kiss me.”
Trishelle didn’t want to remember, he knew what was she was really asking. Because he’d drowned his sorrow this way many times. If he were a better man, he’d tell her no, that she might regret it when she returned home.
But he was a pirate through and through.
Turning, he pulled her warm body beneath his, resting his weight on his elbows. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and in her eyes he read her truth. She wanted this. Needed this, and suddenly so did he.
To lose himself in her, to touch her as he pleased. They’d been headed toward this moment from the very beginning.
Tilting his hips just slightly, so that his heaviness rested against her thigh, he started at the crown of her head and planted a gentle kiss at her hairline. She sighed. Sex was just sex to him. There’d only been one woman with whom sex had been worship.
He kissed her forehead, then watched as her lashes fluttered. The wet imprint of his lips marked her flesh. The glow of her skin, the breathy sighs falling from her lips…it made him shake, made him crazed to taste more, have more.
Her nose held a smattering of freckles, small ones that covered the bridge to her cheeks. Showering her rose scented skin with more kisses, he closed his eyes and tried not to think about the fact that he should just ruck up her skirts, slip inside and bring himself to oblivion. That holding her like this, touchi
ng her like this was feeling much too intimate and personal. But her confession deserved more than a mindless tupping.
Grinding his hips on her, a moan spilled from their lips. His body raced with adrenaline, with desire and need.
“Hook,” she panted, “please, please.” She wiggled, mindless in her mutterings. Nostrils flaring, he traced his nose along the line of her jaw, down the curve of her neck, blowing a hot breath across the hollow at the base of her throat. She arced as her nails dug into his back, sinking deep into his skin.
Growling, he settled deeper between her legs. All the tension and desire they’d been feeling was now churning to surface, hot and flammable. Her satin nightgown created exquisite friction against his hot flesh, he wanted to slide all over it, feel her nipples pucker across his chest. Grasping her hip, he slowly slid his hand up, massaging his finger deep into her flesh as he bunched the fabric tight in his fist.
Her mouth parted and a feral grin parted his own. He wasn’t done touching, kissing her… not yet. Tasting the hollow of her throat, he nipped and nibbled his way across her collarbones. Slowly, methodically, laving his tongue on the sweet, saltiness of her flesh.
“Yes.” She sank her nails into his back again, scoring them down his muscle over and over, marking his skin, making it burn, inciting the thrum of heat to a riot of lust.
Growling, he went lower still, kissing the crest of her breast.
“Mmm.” He wasn’t sure whether the noise came from him or her. Her shift was now up to her waist and her legs were wrapped tight around his ass.
Tonguing her nipple through the fabric, he rolled the tight bud around his mouth.
“Na…ugh,” she moaned and now her sharp, little nails were scratching the back of his skull, forcing him to stay right where he was.
Smiling, he nipped harder. She hissed, arcing high off the bed and freeing the back of his skull. Breathless, she looked at him, her jewel green eyes were bright with lust. Holding up his hook, he stared at her as he slid it underneath the edge of the fabric.
“You can make another,” he said, his voice sounding sex roughened as he lifted the shift.
Biting her lip, she tipped her head. Smirking, he used the hook as a blade, and with a sharp yank, tore it down the middle.
“Oh my God, that was sexy as hell,” she whimpered.
Shoving the fabric aside, he stared at the tips of her fine pointed breasts. The nipples were as pink and rosy as he’d expected them to be, like small coins, and so damn beautiful his mouth watered.
She licked her lips. His hook could do more than rip, this time he tipped it upwards and trailed it slowly up the flat expanse of her belly. Her stomach moved in and out with her heavy panting.
Circling her left breast with it, he stared in her eyes as he slowly lowered his head. Looking at her as long as he could, before taking the sweet nipple into his mouth.
Rolling it around his tongue, he suckled on it like he would a cherry. “So sweet,” he murmured.
Her hands roamed all over his body, wherever she could touch. Across his shoulders, down his arms, his chest, around his back and then clamped down hard on his ass as she ground her center on his hard, swollen length.
“You’re killing me,” she moaned.
But the other breast needed attention too. Trailing a hot path across her chest, he groaned like a man starved, and proceeded to lave and suckle, giving the other nipple the same type of attention.
“Take your pants off,” she wiggled, attempting to tug them down.
With one final flick of his tongue, he sat up. “Mmm,” he licked his lips, “delicious.”
Her mouth parted and she fanned herself. “If I’d known you were that good at foreplay, I would have thrown myself at you so much sooner.”
Laughing, he undid the laces of breeches.
“No babies,” she said, planting a hand on his chest as he tried to crawl back on her.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he nodded. “I’ll pull out.”
“Oh this is so stupid,” she finally said, and then grabbing him behind the neck, pulled him back to her roughly, “but I just don’t care.”
She captured his lips with her own, there were no soft murmurings of love, or gentle exploration of tongues. She was nibbling on his bottom lip and when he parted them, she slipped her tongue inside. She wasn’t just tasting him, she was devouring him.
It made him ravenous for more. Not bothering to pull his trousers down all the way, he simply pushed them down enough to free himself.
“Trishelle?” Her name was a question, was she ready for him.
She simply nodded and when her hot sheath touched the tip of his cock it was all he could do not to ram it in. Clenching his jaw tight, he pushed the crown of himself inside.
A shudder ran through her, her thighs twitched and with a flex of her pelvis, she pulled him into her completely. He hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. She was so tight, squeezing him as if in a soft, warm fist. Silky and soft, moving inside her was heaven and hell, torture and rapturous bliss.
Together they moved, their bodies in synchronization. Thoughts escaped him, he was like an exposed nerve, nothing but touch and feel. Touching her, kissing her, he forgot where he was, who he was, because this was all there was.
Her and him and this.
Their rhythm increased in intensity, their breathing grew hard and blackness spiraled through his vision. He was close.
“Trishelle,” he whimpered, barely hanging on. His cock was ready to explode and he’d promised to pull out. “Are you close?”
“Yes, oh yes. Oh…James,” she moaned and then the sound turned guttural as her entire body began to quake violently.
Squeezing his eyes shut, clenching his front teeth together, he managed to pull out just as the orgasm rocked him. Grabbing hold of himself, he bent over, stomach clenching and unclenching as he literally seemed to expel the soul from his body.
After a while, she started laughing. Low at first, but the sound gathered and built and then he was joining her.
“I cannot believe I did that,” she grinned, peeking at him from between her fingers. “You might not believe this, but I don’t do that. Ask guys to have sex with me after barely knowing them. It was just that, I…I’m sorry, talking about my sister, it was—”
He could see the pain beginning to return and shook his head. “Did you enjoy me?”
She looked taken aback by his frankness. “Yes,” she finally admitted.
“And I enjoyed you. That is all that matters. Now let me clean up.” He planted a kiss on her brow, before walking toward the pitcher of water.
“Thanks,” she finally said and he nodded, wiping himself down. “Hook?”
“Hmm?” He tossed the wet rag into the waste bin.
She opened her arms when he turned to her. “You have a very nice ass, and I’m very sleepy.”
Chuckling, he made his way back to the bed, pulled her into his arms, and closed his eyes. In a minute, they were both asleep.
It wasn’t until hours later that he sensed something was wrong. That sixth sense keen in any good pirate, the skin tingling sensation that all was not as it should be. Snapping his eyes open he sat up and looked at her side of the bed. She was gone. Her clothing lay scattered on the floor and the cabin window was open.
“Smee!” he hollered, jumping off the bed and shoving his boots back on. In no time his door flew open. Twirling, taking only a second to take in his first mate’s rumpled appearance, he glowered. “Where is she?”
Brown eyes went wide, shoving blunt fingers through disheveled hair. Smee shook his head. “Who, sir?”
“Don’t get cute, if you’ve done something, I’ll cut your tongue from your mouth. Where is the woman?” He took a step closer, holding his hook high ready to tear into Smee’s soft flesh should he need to.
Taking a step back, holding his hands out in a placating manner, Smee swallowed. “Captain, I haven’t seen her. I’ve only just returned to my cabin for a rest
. She’s not been on deck, I swear it.”
A terrible thought gripped him. Running to the window, Hook peered out. “When did we cross the drop? I told you to wake me, when, Smee? When?” Marching to his closet, he pulled out a shirt and yanked it over his head.
“Two hours ago. I knocked and tried to rouse you, but you and the lady were indisposed,” he licked his teeth and looked down at his feet, “I am sorry.”
Using the heel of his palm to pound against his forehead, James growled. “Damn. Dammit! He’s got her.”
“Who, sir?”
Staring at his first mate as fury raced through his veins, all he could do was snarl out, “Peter. Pan.”