Hook (Neverland Novels Book 2)

by Gina L. Maxwell

  “We talked business, Darling,” he bites back, shifting into a higher gear. “What else would we talk about? He’s my fucking boss.”

  Which brings up another line of questions. “Why is that, by the way?”

  “Why is what?”

  “Why is he your boss? Why do you work for the asshole who abused you and the other kids? A criminal with no moral compass who doesn’t care who he hurts or kills to gain power.”

  His laugh makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “I think you forget you’re talking to a criminal with no moral compass.”

  I scoff. “Don’t give me that shit. You might be a Pirate, but you live by a code. It’s a limited one, but it’s still a fucking code.” He answers me with silence, so I fill it. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Which one?”

  “Either of them. Hell, any of them.”

  “Then that’s your answer, isn’t it?”

  He’s trying to appear apathetic, but his body is strung tighter than a drum. Something had to have gone down in that office. My gut’s telling me shit is not right, and everything in me needs to know what it is so I can help him. “Come on, Hook. You’re not sticking around for the fun of it. Does it have something to do with him training you to take the shop over? Is he holding that over your head?”

  He yanks the wheel, taking a left turn so fast I can’t believe all four tires stick to the road, and I barely stop myself from slamming into the window.

  “One more word out of your mouth, Darling, and I’ll find a better fucking use for it,” he growls. “Call Smee. Tell him to pick up the Dust and meet us at the Jolly Roger. We have work to do.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  John

  CRASH!

  The distant sound of glass exploding rips me out of my fitful sleep. In one fluid motion, I grab my Glock from under my pillow and pop to my feet, wearing only the boxer briefs I wore to bed. Bracing my gun with both hands, I make my way out of the bedroom. Once I clear the main living space, I do the same with the bathroom and Hook’s bedroom—which is empty.

  Where the hell is he?

  The thought of him taking off without me knowing where grates on my nerves. I tell myself it’s only because his actions might affect the case and I can’t risk any surprises, but I know it’s so much more than that.

  From the moment I successfully inserted myself into his life—regardless of the reasons why—I resent anything that takes me out of his presence. I can’t protect him if I’m not watching his six, and I can’t assure myself he’s not doing something destructive if I can’t see it for myself. All of which is fucking ridiculous, because James Hook isn’t some naive kid who needs my help. He’s older than me, has more experience in surviving life than I’ll ever have, and is the captain of a motley crew of criminals.

  He’s a Pirate with a heart as black as the ocean on a moonless night; he doesn’t need anyone for anything, much less me. And yet…

  And yet I can’t kill this compulsion I have to care for this man who doesn’t want to be cared for.

  I check my watch. It’s a little after four a.m., which means I’ve been asleep for less than an hour. We didn’t get back from the club until almost two; then James went straight to his room and kicked the door shut behind him. He hadn’t said two words to me all night. Hell, he’d barely spoken to anyone, instead choosing to communicate through glares and silent commands his crew members must have been familiar enough with to understand.

  Another crash sets my heart pumping with adrenaline and focuses my senses. The sound came from the ground floor of the clubhouse. I decide to spare the extra fifteen seconds it takes to yank on my jeans; then I use the stairs off the kitchen that lead to the office. If someone’s broken in, I have a better chance at sneaking up on them coming from the back.

  Once I’m downstairs, I stick close to the shadows along the hallway leading to the main room. I keep my steps silent and try to listen for any signs of movement up ahead but hear nothing. When I get to the end of the hall, I place my back against the wall and grip my sidearm with both hands, keeping it pointed at the ground and my finger off the trigger. Taking a deep breath, I round the corner as I lift my arms and do a quick scan for potential threats.

  But all I find is Hook, slouched in a wide armchair wedged into the far corner. The room is dark with the sole exception of the wall sconces on either side of the bar that give off barely enough light to see what woke me up—the shattered whiskey glass and broken Jack Daniels bottle littering the floor over by the bar. Looks like he did some cathartic vandalism before grabbing a fresh bottle and settling into the chair.

  I stand still, unwilling to give up the rare chance to study an unguarded Captain Hook. He’s still in his all-black club attire: fitted V-neck, jeans that hug his ass and thighs, and his ever-present motorcycle boots. His head is resting on the low chair back, legs spread apart, body relaxed with the bottle clutched in his left hand. I’d think he was sleeping except for the fact that his right hand is moving in some kind of repetitive motion.

  I squint, trying to sharpen my focus in the dim light to see what he’s doing from this far away. As my eyes adjust, I finally see his hand splayed against the exposed brick wall, his thumb bent and moving up and down on the gray mortar between the bricks. Mortar that’s stained unnaturally dark.

  With his blood.

  A memory sparks to life of a brooding boy with a bleeding thumb after he’d taken a shower—a shower with walls made of tile and grout. Oh Jesus. The acid in my stomach churns. How many times has he shredded his thumb like this? Does he do other forms of self-mutilation? I have plenty of questions I don’t have answers for, but I don’t have to wonder what triggers this. All those years ago at the school, he’d been downstairs with Croc in his office.

  Just like he’d been with Croc earlier today.

  I still don’t know what happened between them. Not today and obviously not back then. But I’m not looking at everything with the eyes of a sheltered kid anymore. I’ve done a lot of growing up over the years, and I’ve encountered a lot of things that made me sick in my time as a cop. When your job is to protect the innocent, you’re forced to face the evils that threaten them.

  With the wide-open eyes of a more worldly man, I’m starting to suspect things that I can’t bring myself to think about. If I do, I’ll find Croc and spill a thousand times more blood than what’s dripping from James’s thumb.

  For long moments, I stand in place, unsure what to do. Undoubtedly, he wants to be left alone, to suffer his darkness in solitude. But everything in me wants to go to him, to comfort him. Something I know he’ll reject, maybe even despise me for. The possibility of provoking him into wedging more space between us almost has me retreating.

  In the end, I can’t do it. James can reject me all he wants, but I can be just as stubborn as he is, and I’m not leaving until I’ve helped ease his pain, even if only for tonight.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hook

  Muscles grip my bones tighter, even as something inside of me releases on a sigh.

  He’s here.

  I didn’t hear John come in, and it wasn’t because I was too deep in my own head to pay attention. I’m always on high alert. No one’s ever gotten the drop on me, and they never will. But with years of martial arts and law enforcement training, he can move ghostly silent when he wants to. Doesn’t matter, though. Even with my eyes closed as they are, I knew the second he entered the room.

  Because whenever he’s near, I can sense him.

  I feel him moving toward me now. The closer he gets, the more my skin tingles, his presence charging the air with electricity like an approaching storm. I don’t move, but I crack my eyes open just enough to see him. My heart thuds harder in my chest with every slow step he takes, closing the gap and eliminating the space I need to keep a level head around this man who makes me question my fucking sanity.

  Unable to look away, my gaze roams over his bare
upper body, taking in the way his tattooed muscles ripple with every movement. His jeans are unbuttoned and hardly zipped, as though he’d hastily done only what he needed to keep them from falling off his trim hips. He steps around the shattered glass—courtesy of my recent outburst—and places his gun on the bar as he passes.

  I’m assuming he heard the crash and came down to investigate. I picture a half-naked John skulking in the shadows, his big hands locked around his gun, arms straining with tension and ready to take out the nearest threat. Fucking hell. My cock starts to wake up, growing harder by the second, and I almost groan in relief. The redirection of blood flow from my pulsating thumb and the brief distraction from the toxic shit in my head is like getting my first taste of air in hours.

  Finally, he reaches me. As he stands between my spread legs, I focus on keeping my breaths even, determined not to show him how much his nearness affects me. I am a rock. An island. I don’t need him. I don’t need anyone.

  Then why do you want to chain him to your bed so he can never leave?

  Other than opening my eyes all the way, I don’t move, curious as to what he’ll do next. After a few seconds, he grabs the bottle of Jack from me and takes a healthy swig before setting it out of reach on the floor. I arch a brow, then retaliate by grabbing a smoke from my pack on the side table to my left. I place it between my lips and light it with my Zippo. The cloves crackle as I take a long drag, the tobacco burning down and the red-hot cherry making the space between us glow.

  Exhaling a long stream of spice-scented smoke, I fall back on our regular script. “Go back upstairs, Darling.”

  It’s lacking my usual bite of command, but I don’t have the energy—or maybe the desire—to correct it. He can stand there all fucking night for all I care. Closing my eyes again, I take another drag…and almost choke on it when I feel the cushion dip under John’s weight.

  My eyes snap open to find his hands braced on the chair back as he straddles me, his knees hugging my hips. This is the part where I demand to know what the hell he’s doing. Except my brain short-circuits when he lowers himself onto my lap, his firm ass settling onto my thighs and—fuck me—his hard, denim-clad cock pressing against mine.

  I watch him as he moves his hands to my shoulders, then slowly trails down my arms. His expression is one of determination, a single-minded goal swimming in that honey gaze. To seduce? No. To distract, I realize, as his left hand curls around my bloodied thumb, pulling it away from the punishing mortar, subtly protecting me from myself. Taking care of me like he did that first night we met.

  I resent and appreciate the action, just as I resent and appreciate this man and everything he does—everything he makes me feel.

  I should pull my hand away from his, but I don’t. A voice in the back of my mind is warning me to be wary and stay on guard. That I should be pushing him away, both physically and mentally. But as he plucks the black cigarette from my fingers, takes a drag, and releases the smoke in a stream above my head, I can’t seem to remember why.

  “Look at you,” I muse. “The good boy doing bad things. Since when do you smoke?”

  He shrugs one powerful shoulder. “I’ve been known to do things out of character from time to time.”

  “For undercover work.”

  “Usually,” he says, regarding the cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, “but now I’m starting to see the appeal in doing things simply for the sake of being bad.”

  John’s lips wrap around the tip of the filter again, and the way his cheeks hollow as he draws the smoke into his lungs gives me ideas of him sucking my dick. Just as he’s about to exhale, I grab his jaw with my left hand and drag his face close.

  “Open,” I command.

  Amber eyes stay locked on mine as he obeys. Inhaling, I drag the white plume of smoke from his mouth into mine, careful not to give in to the temptation to close that last inch between us. As much as I hunger to take what I want—what we both want—I can’t bring myself to surrender to this need. If I do, I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to come back from it. Somewhere a world might exist where a man like John Darling can be with a man like me…but this isn’t fucking it.

  I release him as I exhale and take my cigarette back. John’s bad-boy act is hot, but for some messed-up reason, I prefer the original version. He’s only been living the life of a Pirate for a couple days, and the small changes he’s made to fit in—temporary as they may be—grate on me. Although, the view of his tatted and ridiculously ripped body is going a long way in making me forget everything but the fantasies now running through my mind.

  “I hate that you do this,” he says, lightly squeezing the base of my shredded thumb as he presses my hand on his warm chest, holding it to him as though he expects me to pull it away. I should. I will. Any second.

  John rakes his teeth over his lower lip, his tell for when he’s unsure about something. It makes him look more like that boy I used to ignore than the man I can’t seem to.

  “What happened today in that office?”

  Whoosh. His question is like a punch to the solar plexus. So much for forgetting. The conversation in that office has been on a constant loop, one I’ve been trying like hell to sever. Almost succeeded, too. Now my breaths pick up and my pulse spikes with Croc’s words slicing through my mind yet again.

  “So, you don’t want the new guy to work under me. What’s the matter, James? Afraid JD will want what you didn’t?”

  “Considering you don’t have a pussy between your legs, I highly fucking doubt it,” I bite out with my fists clenched. “I need the extra manpower. I can’t be a good little lapdog and do what you want if you don’t give me what I need to do it.”

  Croc laughs. “That man’s not interested in pussy, not with the way he looks at you. Not saying I blame him. Always been something about you. Even for a non-faggot like me, ain’t that right?”

  I’d heard this shit so many times it doesn’t even faze me anymore. There are two kinds of closets that gays shut themselves into. The kind where you accept who you are but don’t want the world to know, and the kind where you refuse to accept who you are to the point your closet is more like a deep, underwater cave. I’m in the former. Croc needs an oxygen tank for his.

  For years, I’ve wondered if Croc targeted me because he could sense I was different from the other kids, even way back then. Or maybe there was something I did or said that tipped him off. Either way, I have to assume my preference for men is what got his attention, which is why I can’t forgive that part of me. I accept it, but I also hate it. It’s a weakness, one that can be exploited to ruin my reputation. Just as I threatened to ruin Croc’s once upon a time.

  “I don’t give a shit how he looks at me, as long as he does his job.” Swallowing back the bile in my throat, I force myself to add, “After that, you can do whatever the hell you want with him.”

  His lips twist into a lascivious grin that awakens the nightmares from my childhood. “Oh, don’t you worry about that, James. I’ll do plenty with him.”

  I’m vibrating with the need to kill him. To wrap my hands around his throat, crush his windpipe, and watch with satisfaction as that evil gleam slowly dies in his black fucking eyes. Instead, I dart my tongue out to lick my lips. Croc’s gaze instantly locks on to the move like I knew it would. Predictable, sick fuck. Then I use the distraction to stick John’s bug under the lip of the desk.

  He sneers. “I bet he’ll even take my cock without choking and crying like a little bitch. But then,” he says, stepping in so close I want to vomit, “nothing got me off faster than seeing those tears streaming down your face.”

  Shoving him away, I bolt for the door, his maniacal laughter following me as I flee from yet another of Croc’s offices.

  “Hook!”

  I snap back to the present and realize that wasn’t the first time John had called my name. My hand he’s still holding to his chest is now clutched into a fist, my blood marking his skin in a streak. I twis
t out of his hold and try to sit up, intending on unseating him, but he grabs the back of the chair and holds fast.

  Faced with the choice of wrestling him for my freedom or feigning apathy over my imprisonment, I sag back to my original position. “What the hell do you want?”

  “I want you to talk to me. You were thinking about earlier, weren’t you? Something happened. What was it?”

  Stalling, I take one last drag on the cigarette, squinting to keep the smoke out of my eyes. I pull on it long and hard, relishing the burn spreading deep in my lungs, then crush it out in the ashtray as I exhale off to the side. “Nothing worth talking about.”

  “But—”

  Glaring at him, I grate out, “Fucking drop it, John.”

  His eyes widen, no doubt just as surprised as I am that I called him by his first name. Desperate measures and all that shit. He’s too perceptive not to have at least some idea of what my problem is with Croc. He knows I wouldn’t still be screwed up from typical beatings when I was younger. And I can’t open this wound with him. I fucking can’t.

  “I don’t need a goddamn head shrink, all right? Stop trying to fix me.”

  John shakes his head slightly, like he can’t understand me. Welcome to the club, kid. “I’d have to consider you broken for that. But I don’t think there’s a damn thing wrong with you. Never have.”

  I study him, searching for the same pity in his gaze I’d gotten from Peter after he accidentally walked in on one of my “lessons.” The pity had been a thousand times worse than the humiliation. Seeing that on John right now will send me over the edge.

  But it’s not there. Instead, I find reverence and…desire.

  “Tell me what you need,” he says softly.

  His hands move to my stomach, and my abs jump at his touch. Even with my shirt as a barrier, his warmth seeps into me, spreading unsolicited comfort. My apathetic act is slipping with every shallow rise and fall of my chest, but I forge ahead like I’m not dying to feel him skin to skin.