Hook's Pan (Kingdom, #5)

“Yeah, that. Totally that. Wow, I should let him kidnap me more often.”


Then, kissing the tip of his nose, she got up and walked to the dresser where he kept his pitcher of water. “Let me clean you this time,” she said.

Crossing his arms behind his head, all he could do was pant and stare at the ceiling. Now that the fog of lust had cleared, he was able to analyze this. Something had changed between them. That’d been fierce, untamed, wild. And infinitely more than just sex. Had she felt it too?

Her touch, her looks, it said she did. He couldn’t be the only one feeling this wild level of desperation and need. Could he?

“I feared he’d kill you,” he finally admitted, not only to her, but to himself as well. “That I’d never see you again.”

She twirled on her heels. “What?” Her cheeks were rosy and flushed. “But I am leaving, Hook. If not with Peter, the fact is I can’t stay.” Dipping a rag into the pitcher, she returned to his side and gently cleaned his body as she pulled her lower lip into her mouth.

What did that look mean?

He trembled at her touch. Was that what she really wanted? Or was she just saying that because she thought she should? Passion like that, it couldn’t be faked. No, this didn’t make sense, but did you always have to understand what everything meant? Wasn’t it just enough to know you enjoyed another’s company? Why did everything always have to get so complicated?

She was supposed to leave. That’s what he’d wanted too. Until she’d been kidnapped, until her absence had shown him what a liar he’d been, until they’d just made love. Not sex, love. And that’s what it was now. It was a bonding of two like souls, the type of connection he’d craved since losing his Talia.

Trishelle had called to him from their first verbal sparring match.

But maybe she wasn’t ready, maybe she still believed leaving was the only way. The best way. Did he still have time to prove she was wrong?

“I’ve come to admire you, Trishelle. I enjoy your company and had he snuffed out your light I would have…” He clenched his jaw. He would have razed the entirety of Kingdom down to a cinder. That’s what he would have done. He’d have turned into the true villain history had always made him out to be.

Tossing the rag to the floor, she placed a finger over his lip and crawled back onto the bed. Her green eyes were intense as she gazed on him. “Are you asking me to stay?”

On the one hand, he knew he had But this was fast. What if he was wrong? What if it was just sex? What if what he mistook for passion was nothing more than compatibility?

They barely knew one another. Not that that’d stopped him with Talia, but when he loved, his love consumed—it burned bright and hot and wild. That type of passion could kill a man, it almost had the first time.

On the other hand, he didn’t want her to leave either. He wanted more than three days. They needed more time. He wanted to tell her that, share that with her, but something inside him sensed that this epiphany might be his alone. Because she was looking at him with panic in her eyes—the little bird was ready for flight.

“I know that Danika is my fairy godmother and desires me to find my happiness, but I am not certain you think you should stay.” He twined a blonde curl around his finger, letting it slide through his fingers like water, before turning his attention to her breast.

She looked good in nothing but a smile.

Toying with his hair, she scooted in closer to him. “No, I don’t think I should. I like you, but I barely know you. Not to mention the fact that I’m really not sure love exists, not the pure, beautiful kind anyway. My parents might still be married, but they shouldn’t be. All they do is fight and yell and cheat on each other, it’s pathetic and makes me miserable to see it. My sister’s husband, well,” she snorted, “you know how that went. The only romance I’ve seen in a while is Betty and Gerard and I’m not sure that one will last either.”

Until now, Hook had always assumed a woman wanted nothing more than to shackle a man to her hip. That all her hopes and dreams in life, her only aspiration was to find love. Even with Talia, it’d been that way. She’d been in love with love. Unlike Trishelle, he did believe in love, because he’d experienced it firsthand, but he also knew and believed it to be rarer than stealing a dragon’s opal from within its nest.