“If I may,” he cleared his throat, “perhaps what you’ve seen hasn’t been love at all. Because without respect and kindness, all you are left with is lust and desire. Without the affection, without the awe of one for the other, the lust will fade and then you have nothing but bitter memories which soon turn to hate. It did not ever seem your sister’s husband loved her. But as much as I loathe that French bastard, Gerard, even I can see the man is completely besotted by his bride. Of their love, I have no doubt.”
Her eyes were soft and dreamy as her gaze covered his face. “You aren’t at all what I expected. You know Betty and Gerard came to me, right before I came here. Told me you were my fated mate.” She laughed and shook her head, running her fingers along the warmth of his jaw, his brow. “My first thought was, no way. Not him. Not Hook. The man who plays with boys. Our stories have you all wrong.”
His grin was cocksure. He’d read the book even though all in Kingdom knew the stories were always skewed in favor of the so called ‘good men and women’ of the land. In his travels, Hook had learned one thing—no one person was entirely good, nor entirely bad. Even the most evil had a tender side and the most pure, the propensity for destruction.
“And how do they portray me?”
“Well the movies usually give you funky teeth, a ridiculous curly black wig that hangs to your waist, and, of course, the perpetual hook.” She flicked the tip of his, then ran her finger slowly along its curve.
“The wig is hanging in my closet.”
She blinked. “What? Really?”
He fought the grin.
A second later she slapped his chest. “You’re teasing me. Ohhh,” she murmured in mock disgust as she wagged her finger underneath his nose. Catching it, he kissed the tip. Eyes going round and soft, she breathed. “But seriously, how did you come to be here in Neverland?”
“I was born in Kingdom.”
Her fine brows gathered into a tight vee. “But I thought you came from England? That’s how the stories go?”
“The stories your kind lauds are often wrong.” He circled the fine tip of her rosy nipple. It puckered under his touch and he felt his body begin to respond again. Inhaling sharply, she nodded, lightly raking her nails over his chest. “All fairy stories start with a measure of truth, a mere kernel of it, really. But by the time it’s finished, they rarely resemble truth.”
A frown grabbed hold of her luscious lips. Lazily he traced the contour of her bottom one, the need to touch her constantly nearly overwhelmed him. He enjoyed her body, yes, but he enjoyed her. If he couldn’t convince her to stay, she’d leave him tomorrow. He could survive it, he knew that now, because he’d survived Talia. He’d go on with his life, pirating, looting, sailing the seas. Trishelle would go back to her life, eventually she’d begin to think of him as a dream, a memory born in the wee hours between awake and asleep. She’d question whether he ever really existed and eventually she’d forget him completely.
Maybe they didn’t know each other, so what. The condition of being brought to Kingdom was that you must stay three days—that didn’t mean you couldn’t stay longer if you wished. Hatter had, and now he was as much a legend as the fabled Captain Hook.
“But I don’t understand, Peter Pan was written by a human. His name was J.M. Barrie.”
“Such a gullible little bird.” Sliding his leg along hers, he lowered his chest until he was flush against her, chest to chest. Leaning in he breathed against her mouth, “Did you think the fae folk lived only in Kingdom?”
“Ohhhh,” she whispered and then couldn’t speak again because he was kissing her and she was panting and moaning and making his body shiver with need and he didn’t think it possible to crave the heat all over again, but he did.
She was ready for him the moment he slid in and this time it wasn’t fast and furious, it was slow. Like poetry, where each vowel is tasted, each word thought out, they moved as one. The silken touch of her hands smoothed over his back, glided down his ass, up his arms.
Her scent of roses filled his head, heart and soul… Maybe they didn’t know each other as well as he or she might like, but their bodies did. They moved together like they’d been doing it for an eternity. She knew just where to touch him, how to please him. And when he took her tongue into his mouth and thrust in one final time she shuddered into him.
And in that moment, staring into her flushed and beautiful face he knew he’d do whatever it took to keep her with him. Trishelle belonged with him, now it was just a matter of making her see that.
The pleasure was building, he pulled out before it was too late. She wrapped her hand around his cock, it took only two more swipes until he was shattering apart and gasping her name. His vision went black, his head full of Trishelle. Of her beautiful green eyes, her delicious, wicked tongue, and the sensual curves of her body. He came and came, trembling when the violence of his release finally began to fade.