Hook (Neverland Novels Book 2)

by Gina L. Maxwell

  “Open.”

  On a whimper, he obeys, and I shove them deep in his mouth. With great effort, I slow my fuck down to match the thrust of my hand, reveling in the way he moans as he sucks and tongues my fingers like they were my cock. Pulling them back out, I gather as much of his saliva as I can. Viscous strands of shining spit keep us tethered, bottom lip to fingertips, in a sloppy-sexy display. Then I lower my hand to slather it all on his dick and start jerking him off with hard and cruel strokes.

  “Oh my God,” he gasps, dropping his head back onto my shoulder. I take advantage and attack his neck with my mouth as my hips work up to their previous punishing pace. My hand switches to fast, concentrated pumps over the sensitive flare of his fat cockhead. I can feel him getting close with the way his ass strangles my dick as I piston inside his tight sheath like a battering ram hell-bent on destroying him for all other men.

  “Oh my God, that’s so good. Fuck fuck fuck, I’m gonna come. Captain, please let me come, fucking please please please,” he begs, squeezing his eyes shut and fighting to hold it.

  My natural inclination to deny him permission, to edge him over and over until he practically explodes, is absent tonight. I’ll never last long enough to do him any justice. I’ll have plenty of time to play with him, but right now is not that time.

  “Do it,” I growl against the edge of his jaw, biting it for good measure. “I want to feel this ass strangling my dick as you come all over my hand. Do it, Johnathan. Come for me. Come for your Captain.”

  My big, strong man arches his back, every muscle strung taut as he shouts to the heavens. His cock throbs inside my grip, and thick white ropes of cum spurt from his tip, covering us in a warm, sticky mess. And just like I knew it would, his ass clenches and pulses around me like a beating heart, milking my own climax before I’m ready.

  The fire swirling at the base of my spine and gathering in my balls suddenly rips through my cock. I curse and moan and curse some more as I fill the condom, wishing I was filling John up instead, branding him from the inside. Soon, I promise myself. Very soon.

  I give us each a couple of minutes to revel in the afterglow or whatever ridiculous name people give this heady post-orgasm sensation, but we’re not in a position where I can let us linger for long. I need to get him out of those cuffs before his arms get too sore.

  Gritting my teeth, I pull back to let my softening cock slip out of the greatest fuck I’ve ever had. He hisses a protest at the separation, and I can’t say that I blame him. I already miss his heat surrounding me, which is the complete opposite of my usual need to sever all physical contact once sex is over.

  “Shhh, just relax,” I say against his temple as I reach between us and gently massage the lube-slick area to ease it back to its normal state. My dick twitches when I imagine someday doing it to make sure my cum stays where it belongs, but lucky for John, I’m too wrung out to start anything again so soon. “You okay?”

  Sighing, he says, “I’ve never been this okay in my entire life.” Then he turns those gorgeous eyes on me and smiles. “Are you okay?”

  “Smart-ass.” I crush my mouth to his for a quick, bruising kiss. “Let me take care of the condom quick, and I’ll let you out of those cuffs.” I pad over to the bathroom where I tie the rubber off and toss it in the trash before washing my hands and taking a towel back with me.

  I find John kneeling on the floor, slumped against my chair, like his legs couldn’t hold him up anymore. His jeans are still pushed down to mid-thigh, leaving him completely exposed. Canting my head, I pause to admire the view.

  “Hook,” he barks. “Cuffs.”

  “Watch the attitude, Darling, or I’ll forget where I put the key.” That’s a lie. I know his shoulders have to be in need of a good massage, and as a responsible Dom, I’ll give him one. In my bed. That may or may not (it absolutely will) lead to a round two.

  John just looks up at me and laughs.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I can get out of these without the key.”

  “You brought trick cuffs with you on an undercover op? What are you, twelve?”

  He shakes his head. “Not trick cuffs, and I can still get out of them in under thirty seconds.”

  Narrowing my eyes, I cross my arms over my chest. “Prove it.”

  John stays where he is, sitting on his heels, and never once takes his gaze off mine. I can’t see what he’s doing behind his back, but his arms are definitely doing something. I almost get distracted with the way his muscles bunch and shift with his movements, but my curiosity is stronger. As I get to the number twenty-five in my head, John brings his arms around to the front, his open handcuffs dangling on one long finger.

  “Holy fuck, that’s hot.”

  He arches a playful eyebrow. “Escaping custody is sexy?”

  “Have you met me?” I deadpan. When he laughs, I hold out my hand and help him up. As he puts himself back together—totally pointless since I plan on taking him apart in less than five minutes—I ask, “How’d you do it?”

  Slipping one of his boots off, he holds it up. “Special aglets on my shoelaces.” Then he shows me the tiny metal shiv that tucks into the tip of his lace.

  “I’ll be damned,” I say, rubbing my beard. “Teach me.”

  “You want me—a task force officer with the FBI—to teach a known criminal how to escape from handcuffs? I’m not sure that would be wise on my part.”

  I cross my arms again and raise a single brow in challenge. “And I’m not sure it would be wise for me—a known criminal—to fuck a pretty-boy TFO anymore.”

  His eyes widen. “I’ll order you the shoelaces tomorrow.”

  “Good idea. Now get your ass in my bed, and if you’re not naked in the next thirty seconds, I’ll edge you so long you won’t remember which one of us has a rap sheet.”

  Smiling from ear to ear, he sasses back with an, “Aye-aye, Captain.” Then he slips his other boot off, turns in the direction of my bedroom, and moves slower than a bride single-stepping down the aisle.

  So Bratty Johnathan makes his debut appearance. Chuckling, I grab the loose end of my belt and yank it from the loops with a thwick thwick thwick that echoes in the silence of the loft. I hear him whisper a curse before double-timing it into my room, but he’s too late. He chose the game. I’m more than happy to play it.

  Ready or not, Darling, here I come.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  John

  I glance up at my rearview mirror again and pull off the interstate. So far, so good. My destination is only thirty minutes away, but I’ve been driving around for two hours to make certain I don’t have a tail. I was probably fine after the first hour, but there’s no harm in being extra vigilant.

  Shifting in my seat, I wince, but a grin quickly chases it away. For the last three weeks, we’ve been entrenched in all manner of Pirate business during the day. But at night—and sometimes in the mornings—James has been fucking me senseless. I’ve never been so sore or so happy in my whole damn life.

  Every day his walls seem to get a little lower, his defenses a little thinner. He appears more relaxed when we’re in the loft now, whereas before he was like a tense beast confined in a cage of his own making. I’ve even managed to drag the occasional bark of laughter from him. Each time, he looked just as surprised at his reaction as I was. And each time, he promptly affixed his signature scowl and pretended like it never happened, which then made me laugh.

  He’s sleeping more now, too. When I moved in with him, I noticed he rarely slept, preferring instead to read in the living room. But once we started having sex, he switched to reading in bed while I slept tucked into his side. After about a week and a half, I realized he was finally sleeping more hours in the night than he was reading. I was excited to think that maybe our great sex life and my company in bed was reversing his insomnia.

  Then I learned that his problem isn’t insomnia; it’s nightmares.

  James doesn’t wake up from bad dr
eams like most people, though. He doesn’t thrash or shout out or bolt upright in bed. He jerks himself awake—his eyes snap open, his breaths come fast and shallow, and his heart races like a jackrabbit—but he just lies there, sometimes for less than a minute, sometime more than five, as he tries to get everything to slow down.

  The first time he had one with me, I woke up when his body jerked hard under me. That time, he got up right away, slipping out from beneath my arm. I didn’t let him know I was awake, but I watched him grab his book and leave the room. I didn’t fully understand what happened. Not until the next morning when I asked him about it, and he shrugged it off like it was no big deal. That’s when I knew it was a very big deal.

  He doesn’t have them every night, but since that first one, every time I wake up and he’s not next to me, I pad out to the living room. I don’t say a word when I pull him out of his chair and lead him over to the couch. Once he’s sitting, I stretch out and lay my head in his lap, offering him my silent support without forcing him to talk or change his coping mechanism. Then I drift back to sleep while he runs his fingers through my hair as he reads his book. It’s not exactly the recommended therapy for dealing with nightmares like his and all the suppressed trauma that’s causing them, but it seems to help him.

  For now, I’m glad I can offer him some measure of comfort when he needs it most. I think it says a lot for how far we’ve come, and things are only going to get better with time.

  Turning my focus back to the mission at hand, I check the mirror one last time. Satisfied I haven’t been followed, I pull into an industrial park located north of Neverland. I park the car and walk over to where Matt Henderson is leaning against his black sedan. He’s in his midforties, lanky with dirty-blond hair, a hawkish gaze, and an ever-present cigarette from his two-packs-a-day habit. He’s been my SSA—Supervisory Special Agent—since I became a task force officer with the FBI. He’s a bit of a hard ass, but he’s a good man, and we get along well. I’m used to seeing him in a dark suit, but today, he’s wearing casual clothes—jeans and a black lightweight hoodie—in case anyone does happen to see us together, it isn’t obvious who he is.

  “Matt,” I say by way of greeting as we clap hands in a quick shake. “Good to see you.”

  “You too.” He drops his cigarette butt to the ground and crushes it with the toe of his boot. “Sure you weren’t followed?”

  I quirk an unamused brow in his direction. “I’m not even dignifying that with an answer.” His laughter has a slight wheezing quality to it thanks to the smoking. Then, unbelievably, he lights up a fresh one. “That shit’s going to kill you, Henderson.”

  “Yeah, well, if I didn’t smoke, I’d stroke out from the stress of this job and then I wouldn’t be around to enjoy our clandestine meetings, so there’s that.”

  “If meeting with me, clandestine or otherwise, is the best thing you have to look forward to, you might want to reevaluate some of your life choices.” A sly grin curves my lips. “Not that I blame you, you’re just a little old for me is all.”

  He slaps a hand over his heart. “Wow, that hurt a lot more than I thought it would. I can’t believe you called me old.”

  Chuckling, I change the topic to business. It’s nice to be out and not have to worry about being someone else for a while, but I shouldn’t be gone longer than a few hours. “What’s the status on Starkey? Have they backed off him now that Croc’s happier?”

  Henderson’s eyes slide away from me as he takes a long drag on his cigarette. A chill crawls over me. “Matt, what is it? Did something happen to Starkey? For fuck’s sake, tell me.”

  Matt comes off the car, his stance no longer lazy but agitated. “We don’t know how he’s doing. We don’t have a contact in the prison anymore.”

  I narrow my gaze. “What do you mean? What happened to Fallon?”

  Seth Fallon is another special agent. They sent him into the prison to work in the security office. He’d know about any scheduled visits via the required forms he was in charge of processing. He’d also have access to any security footage. Not that we’d be able to use any of it in court without cutting through a lot of fucking red tape, but he’d be able to see if any unauthorized visits to Starkey happened. He didn’t have the clearance to do much else than be our eyes and ears inside a prison run by a corrupt warden and guards.

  Matt blows out a stream of white smoke and scratches his chest, the thing he does when he’s anxious. “No one’s heard from Fallon in over a week, John. He’s MIA.”

  Oh fuck. Please fuck no. Seth is a great guy with an awful sense of humor and fantastic hair. He has a beautiful family. I’ve met his wife and three little girls. Girls who might grow up without their father thanks to Fred fucking Croc, the ringleader of this shitstorm circus.

  “Goddamn it!”

  Turning, I pound my fists on the hood of the car, then hang my head as I breathe slowly through my nose.

  “I know,” he says, his tone softer than normal. “Look, we’ve got guys searching for him. Let us worry about recovering Fallon.” The word “recovering” makes my gut churn. That’s not the kind of word you use for someone suspected of still being alive. “I mean it, kid. You can’t afford to lose focus when you’re in the belly of the beast. Can you still do the job, or do I need to pull you?”

  I shake my head and push off the car, locking away the personal shit until I can unpack it at a much later date. After I put Croc behind bars for the rest of his life. “I’m good. What else you got?”

  Matt reaches through the driver’s side open window to grab a file. Handing it to me, he says gravely, “We got an anonymous tip yesterday. We need you to check it out: see if there’s any truth to it.”

  I flip the file open and do a quick scan of the call transcript. By the time I get to the end, the air has been sucked out of my lungs. There’s a reason the FBI is involved in this case, and it’s not because of any new drug. If it was only about drugs, the DEA would still be handling it like they were in the beginning, long before I infiltrated the Pirates. No, the FBI got involved when we started suspecting there was more to Croc’s operation than just drugs. Something that made the Fairy Dust look like child’s play.

  “Jesus,” I grate out. “I was really hoping we were wrong.”

  “We still might be. We don’t know if this is a good tip or a setup. Going in without concrete proof could fuck everything up and Croc would walk.”

  Henderson’s right. I need to check this out, make sure the tip is solid before I do anything else. I can’t even tell James. Not until I have concrete evidence and a plan to take Croc down. Because if what I suspect about Croc and Hook is true, then this is going to bring a lot of shit to a very ugly head. Before that happens, I want to make damn sure I can deliver the head of the monster from his nightmares on a silver fucking platter.

  Taking a calming breath, I square my shoulders and meet my handler’s steady gaze. “What do you need me to do?”

  After thirty minutes of strategizing and hammering out a plan for some recon, I get ready to leave. I’m anxious to get back to Neverland so I can get started on this mission and report back to Henderson. “Thanks, Matt. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Make sure that you are,” he says, extending his hand. “Be careful out there, John. I want to nail this guy, but not at the expense of losing another one of our guys.”

  I swallow the painful reminder that we’ve already lost one and nod. A minute later, I’m back on the road and praying I’ll find enough evidence to drive the final nail into Croc’s coffin. But at the same time, I’m hoping like hell the anonymous tip is a bust, because that kind of nail is the one that will hurt the man I love the most.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  John

  I drop the clip of my Glock 19 into my palm to check that it’s loaded before pushing it back into place and tucking it into the waistband of my jeans at my lower back. Yesterday’s meeting with Matt shot this operation into phase two, and today’s meeting is
about getting into Croc’s good graces enough to lay eyes on what’s really going on at that warehouse. And I have to do it without James.

  Even if I thought it would be okay to tell him what I’m investigating, I still couldn’t tell him what I’m doing. All of his I-don’t-care-about-anyone bravado is a bunch of bullshit. All that guy does is care. And if he knew I planned on meeting with Croc alone at the place where all the heavy stuff happens, James would insist on going with me. But my way in is to pretend like I’m trying to split from Hook and the mundane work as a low-level drug pusher. My goal is to get the evidence we need on the first try to finally take Croc down and free James from his clutches once and for all. That means I have to get creative with the truth, for the good of the case.

  Taking a deep breath, I walk out of my bedroom and try to act as nonchalant as possible. I was less nervous integrating myself into a group of hardened criminals than I am lying to the man I love. Metallica’s S&M album is blasting from the stereo, something I’ve learned he loves to listen to as he lifts weights. Because of course he prefers the versions of the heavy metal band’s popular songs that are accompanied by the San Francisco Orchestra. As much as Hook plays up the role of uneducated gang boss in public, in private he’s more cultured than I am. He has an entire wall of shelves in his room with enough books in different genres and subjects to start a small library program.

  I head over to where he’s hefting a lot of weight over his head on the incline bench press. His legs are splayed in a tempting invitation to kneel between them, and his mouthwatering torso is covered in a sheen of sweat as his muscles ripple with his movements.

  “Hey, I’ll be back later. Gotta step out for a while.”

  My heart skips a beat when he places the bar back on the rack and waits expectantly for me to kiss him goodbye. Which I do. I lean down, cup his bearded jaw in one hand and press my lips to his, reveling in his salty taste and the subtle way he leans into my kiss.