by Katee Robert
It still leaves me feeling unsettled. Maybe it’s because divorce seems like a flavor of failure, and that’s not something I’ve ever had much peace with. Yes, that must be it. I can’t change my nature, even when it’s concerning a sham of a marriage.
Hook shifts, and the sheet slips lower on his waist. Dark hair dusts his bellybutton and trails south. I saw him in all his glory last night before, during, and after the shower, but that doesn’t stop me from tugging the sheet down, inch by inch.
Now that I have more time to study him, I notice faint scars. Small circular ones on his chest that I recognize as cigarette burns. A jagged scar on his thigh that must have been horrifically painful when it happened. My attention turns back to the burns. Those are from his father. I’d bet my last dollar on it. Hugh Hook had an unfortunate name and an even more unfortunate temper. He’d worked for Peter’s father and then for Peter when he took over the territory. I remember bloodshot eyes and a temper that warned me to keep my distance, though even the most foolhardy person in Peter’s territory wouldn’t touch me for fear of reprisal.
No, that privilege was Peter’s and Peter’s alone.
I shudder. Like Hook, I have my own scars from the time I spent helpless in this territory. Unlike him, mine are all internal. Scars on my very soul, wounds that still bleed at the most unexpected times.
I desperately don’t want to think about that. Not now. Not ever. In the dark of the night, sometimes I lie awake and fear creeps in. Fear that I’ll never be free of Peter. Fear that the abuse he dealt during those four years will continue to poison anything good for the rest of my life.
He took those years from me. I desperately don’t want him to take my future, too.
I close my eyes and take long, slow breaths. One after another, until the frantic circling of my thoughts eases, just a little. The fear isn’t gone. It’s never really gone. I’ve just learned to live with it.
I don’t examine my motivations too closely as I climb to my knees and shift to kneel between Hook’s legs. I want to do this, so I’m going to do this. As simple as that. I run my hands over his thighs. His breathing stays deep and even, but his cock twitches. I almost laugh. The man is nothing if not consistent.
“Hook.” He doesn’t move, so I brace my hands on his thighs and give him a squeeze. “Jameson.”
He opens those dark eyes still fogged with sleep. “Morning.”
“It’s about to be.” I stroke his cock. “I want to suck your cock. Now.” It’s framed as a request, but from the way he narrows his eyes, he knows it’s anything but.
Still, he doesn’t move. “I’ll allow it, Tink. This one time.”
He’s not talking about the blowjob. He’s talking about my topping from the bottom. Instead of answering, I lean down and drag my tongue up the underside of his cock. He lengthens beneath my touch, and I allow myself one last look before I take him into my mouth. There are times when a hard and fast blow job is the name of the game. Not now. I explore him with my mouth the same way he explored me with his last night. Learning him. Memorizing his taste and feel against my tongue.
He laces his fingers through my hair and pulls it back from my face. I open my eyes and look up his body to find him watching me. His smile is nowhere in evidence. No, he looks at me like he’s the big bad wolf and I just wandered into his forest.
I suck him harder, and his grip tightens in my hair. I hold his gaze as I work his cock, and I’m not even sure what I’m trying to convey. Pure lust, maybe.
Hook gives a deliciously deep growl. “You’ve made a mistake, beautiful girl. Waking me up to that hot, wet mouth. You’ll be lucky if I don’t command you to be my alarm every single fucking day.”
I’d do it. I don’t even know why, but I’d do it. Seeing him like this is almost like seeing him without his mask. He’s not the charming, boisterous man who moves through this city, hiding everything behind that fucking smile.
The truth of him is that he’s just as much a survivor as I am. That he’ll fight until he can’t fight any more in order to never go back to feeling helpless again. That he’s mine. At least in this moment.
“Suck me harder, Tink.” His voice is low and almost angry. “You want this? Fucking finish it.”
Though part of me wants to keep teasing him, I obey. I give myself over to sucking his cock. Taking him as deep as I’m able to, using my fist to make up the difference. My jaw aches, but I welcome the pain. It means I’m still alive, still here.
His fingers tighten in my hair, and he curses as he orgasms. I drink him down, watching every expression play over his face. He looks fucking wrecked, staring at me like he’s never seen me before, like I’m some kind of phantom who wandered into his room to give him one hell of a morning blow job.
I give him one last long suck and sit up. “Thank you for last night.”
“Don’t thank me. It was driven entirely by selfish desires.” He moves faster than I anticipate, grabbing my arms and hauling me onto him. I squirm, but he bands his arms around me, keeping me in place. Hook’s dark gaze flicks over my face before finally settling on my mouth. “Good morning.”
I feel like I’ve been stripped bare, which doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. He’s the one who just showed me far too much. I should be feeling secure in my power, at least for the moment.
Instead, I’m fighting not to shake.
This time, when I thrash, he releases me. I bolt from the bed, practically running to the bathroom and closing myself in. I lean against the door, breathing hard. What the hell is wrong with me? I press a shaking hand to my chest. My heart feels like it’s trying to break through my rib cage. I can’t catch my breath. Is this what dying feels like?
A knock on the other side of the door. “Tink.”
“Leave me alone.” I sound just as desperate as I feel. Worse, there’s a thickness to my voice that mirrors the feeling clogging my throat. Oh no.
“Open the door.”
“No!”
I actually hear his sigh over the blood pounding in my head. “We need to talk about this.”
“The fuck we do.”
Another pause, longer this time. Finally, he says, “I’ll give you thirty minutes. When I come back upstairs, you either open the door or I break it down.”
I hear him walk to the elevator, hear the doors whisk shut. Only then do I slump to the floor. What the hell is wrong with me? Hook systematically broke me down last night and then swaddled me in tenderness while I recovered. There isn’t a single damn thing he could do this morning that would top that scene. I’m the one who initiated things.
My body isn’t listening to logic, though. My fight or flight responses are all tangled, pushing for me to act and act now, screaming that I’m in danger. I can’t combat it because I am in danger.
For the first time, it’s not what Peter might do to my body that I’m afraid of.
It’s what Hook could do to my heart.
Chapter 13
Hook
“You’re not focusing.”
Nigel isn’t wrong. Twenty minutes into this meeting to go over anything pertinent that went down last night and my mind keeps wandering back to Tink up in my bedroom. How she woke me up with a demand to give me a blow job. And then promptly bolted and locked herself in the bathroom.
I shouldn’t have left her like that. She was obviously out of sorts and fucked up, but I can’t be sure that staying would have helped more than it hurt. Which is why I’m sitting here, listening to my cousin go over information that I can guarantee I won’t retain. I drag my hand over my face. “Sorry.”
“How are things coming with her?”
I huff out a rough laugh. “How do you think? Fighting or fucking. Those are the only two modes we have.” Fucking isn’t on the menu right now, either. I’ve laid out my terms, and I’ll be damned before she convinces me to walk them back. I’m the unstoppable force to Tink’s immovable object, and I have to be the one to win. Too much rests on it.
Though I’d be lying if I said fucking her had anything to do with securing the territory against further coups. The marriage was enough to get that ball rolling. No, I want Tink on her knees for me. I want her. Full stop. That’s reason enough for me.
“You could try talking to her.”
I give him the look that deserves. Nigel sighs. “Fine. Fuck. Do what you want. I’ve already put out the news of your wedding. Had some of the kids talk it up on social media, too, in case he’s monitoring that.”
Hard to say. Peter was always a traditionalist, though I suspect it’s because he doesn’t trust new technology. Social media makes the rules more fluid and can get the unwary into trouble, especially when they move through the shadows like we do. Illegal activities and the publicness of the internet do not go well together.
“He’s got people watching us. One way or another, he’ll know she’s here soon.” If he doesn’t already. The knowledge gives me a petty level of satisfaction. Everything of his is mine now. His territory. His people. Even his woman. Tink having belonged to Peter at one point doesn’t make the list of reasons why I want her, but the truth is less important than perception.
A challenge of one monster to another.
Nigel leans back and stretches his arms over his head. “I’ve already reached out to Hades to negotiate having our people pick up her stuff.”
“Good.” It might make her feel more secure to be surrounded by her shit. And she’s got her clothing business to take into account. That won’t stop just because she’s living here. She’d gut me if I so much as suggested it, and I’m not cruel enough to carve away one of the things she fought so hard to establish in her independence. Especially when it’s presents an opportunity to be such an asset.
That doesn’t mean she’ll be able to move around with the same ease she used to. She’s no longer an employee of Hades and in possession of a neutral place as a result. She’s mine, and there are legions of strings that come with that new role.
I file that away as one more thing we have to talk about. Fight about. The same fucking thing.
“Hook!” Colin comes skidding into the room, his eyes too wide.
Instantly, I’m on my feet. “What’s going on?”
“It’s her. Tink. She’s …” He looks over his shoulder like he expects her to appear there and rip him a new one. When he finds the hall empty, he tenses further. “She’s trying to leave. Edgar is holding her off, but it’s not looking good.”
Considering Edgar is six-five and nearly three hundred pounds of muscle, I don’t want to know what Tink’s doing to make it look bad. I share a glance with Nigel, and we both decide speed is the best option because when I sprint after Colin, he’s right on my heels.
The scene I find in the entrance of the building would make me laugh if I didn’t have the intense desire to throttle everyone involved. Edgar is blocking the double doors as best he can, using his body as a shield. Tink stands in front of him, holding a truly impressive knife. It looks like something a hunter would use, large and serrated. Where the fuck did she get that?
“Tink.” I put enough snap in her name that she actually looks at me. Apparently the time apart has not calmed her down any. She looks just as panicked as she did when she ran from me earlier. It makes me want to go to her, but there’s the knife to consider.
And the fact that she’s threatening one of my people who is simply doing his job.
“Put the knife down.” I hold her gaze as I say it. “Now.”
She bares her teeth at me. “Make me.”
“Oh baby, you do not want me to do that.” Wife or not, I can’t let her undermine me in front of an audience. I start for her. Her eyes go wider yet, and the little asshole takes a swipe at me. It’s a good strike, fast and low. If I were anyone else, she might have actually succeeded in gutting me.
I grab her wrist and wrench her arm away from both of us, holding it wide so she doesn’t cut herself by accident. “Drop it.”
“Die in a fire.”
My patience, already worn thin by too much stress over too short a period of time, snaps. I twist her wrist, and the blade clatters to the ground. She’s still fighting because of course she’s still fucking fighting. The woman will come back swinging as long as she draws breath and, while I admire that part of her as much as the rest, it doesn’t change the fact that I cannot let her challenge me. Not like this. Not when I’m holding on to the power in this territory by my fucking fingertips.
I grab Tink and haul her over my shoulder. She’s kicking and punching and hissing like a pissed off cat, but I ignore her as I turn and stalk back through the building to the elevator. I ignore her demands to be put down the entire ride back to my suite. I stalk to the bed and toss her onto it, careful to ensure she lands on her ass in the middle of it.
“You dickwad!”
I’m on her before she has a chance to do more than push up onto her hands. I press my palm to the center of her chest and keep her from sitting up farther, but I don’t force her down. I’m not even really holding her down, just exerting enough pressure to stop her from rushing the exit again. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You don’t get to ask me that after manhandling me like I’m some kind of … I don’t even know what! It’s unforgivable!”
She’s worked herself into a frenzy, and under different circumstances, I might be able to dredge up some sympathy for how fucked her life’s become. A part of her has to see recent events as representation of her being right back where she started—the woman of a territory leader. A pawn.
I can’t afford sympathy right now, because I am a territory leader. If I was just a man, the rules would be different, but I am so much more. The responsibility of it threatens to break me on the best of days and this is hardly that. I press her back to the bed and try to keep my voice tight and contained when all I want to do is roar in fury and frustration. “You pulled a knife on my man.”
“He wouldn’t get out of my way.”
As if that makes it okay. I glare down at her. “Don’t pull that twisted logic bullshit. Not with me. You are my wife—”
“Yeah, you keep reminding me. Maybe you should tattoo your name on my ass.”
“Don’t tempt me.” The threat is heavy in my voice. My name on her ass would satisfy a primal part of me that I don’t make a habit of letting out to play. I’ve learned better than others there’s little this world gives me it won’t take away again. Food. Shelter. Even family. It’s all temporary when it comes right down to it. If you don’t have power, someone else who does have power will determine if they’re in the mood to allow your very survival. I’ve been the former. Now I’m the latter, and I’ll fight tooth and nail to never go back again. If it was only me …
But it’s not. It hasn’t been since I took over the territory and it never will be again.
Losing my place as its ruler means hundreds of people at the mercy of a monster like Peter. If not him, then another who’s willing to kill their way to the top. I’ve done unforgivable things to ensure I remain on top. Things that have stained my soul in a way I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from.
When I was a kid, I didn’t have a choice. I was born into this world, and I did what it took to survive. Same as Peter and my father, when it comes right down to it. When we were kids, everything was outside of our control The choices we make as adults? We have no one to blame but ourselves. I have no one to blame but myself.
It doesn’t matter. It can’t matter. I’ll keep doing them because there are too many people who depend on me not shying away from making hard choices. Better that I bear the scars than stand by, unharmed, while innocents are victimized.
Innocents like Tink was when Peter first drew her in.
And that’s the kicker. I don’t want to hold Tink with a loose grasp the same way I have with relationships in my past. Fucking and fun is all I was ever down for, and every single person knew the score before they came to my bed. This is differen
t. She is different. When I’m with her, I want to strip her down, clasp a collar around her throat, brand her ass—do whatever it takes to ensure she’ll never leave me.
I take a slow breath and remove my hand. I haven’t hurt her, but overwhelming her with my larger body is inexcusable.
A lot of shit I’ve done to get my ring on Tink’s finger is inexcusable.
Her mouth opens, and her brain finally seems to catch up with her emotions because she shuts it without firing back some additional impulsive threat. Finally. I sit back. “You are my wife. Your actions are an extension of mine. Threatening my people—our people—is out of the question.”
“You can’t trap me here.”
“What the fuck do you think is going to happen the second you walk out on the street? Peter got to you in Hades’s territory. How much more likely is he to get to you here, where he still has plenty of people who remember the good old days when he let them run rampant? Where those same people only remember you as the woman who belonged to him?” I want to shake her. “Think, Tink. Stop panicking because you realize you’re falling for me and get your head on straight.”
She sits up so fast, she almost smashes me in the face with her forehead. “I am not falling for you.”
Fuck, but this woman can drive me up the wall quicker than anyone else in existence. “I see,” I say evenly. “You feeling emotionally vulnerable after sucking my cock this morning has absolutely nothing to do with your erratic and dangerous behavior downstairs.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “I was not acting erratic or dangerous.”
“Yes, you were. You know the last person to threaten Edgar with a knife in what was supposed to be a safe space? Peter.” She flinches, but I keep going, drilling the point home. “He threatened the people who pledged their loyalty. He bullied and used his power to get what he wanted and let his every whim decide his actions.”