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“Good girl,” Hook whispered as he stepped into his room and kicked the door shut behind us.
No, no, no.I was not okay with what was happening. I flailed, but the moment I pulled my hands from my backside, I felt the threat of another smack and kept them firmly in place.
Then I was falling backward. I hit something lusciously soft with the perfect amount of bounce, and that mingled scent of warm leather and citrus surrounded me again, making my mouth water and my skin prickle. I was on his bed.
I scrambled back toward the headboard. “I don’t know what you think is happening tonight, but if you try anything—”
Hook held up his index finger and ticked it back and forth. His eyes were slightly hooded, like the thought of bedding me was arousing to him, but the scowl on his face was a bit confusing.
“Do not insult my honor again. I have never and would never take an unwilling woman sexually.” He was standing at the edge of the bed, glaring down at me. “Don’t get me wrong…” His gaze slid over me, every inch of me, and that heat pooling in my middle turned positively molten. “The thought of stripping you naked and making you come so hard that your body melts in the afterglow. . .” He licked his lips. “It is enticing.”
A jolt of need—purely sexual, animalistic need—almost had me clambering to my hands and knees and crawling toward him. When he licked his lips again, the wet heat of my pussy soaked into my panties. Goddess save me. How could a pirate be that freaking hot?
He inhaled deeply, his eyelids fluttering for a moment, before exhaling in a rush and shaking his head. “Or it would be enticing, if it weren’t for that mouth.” Then he turned on his heel and headed back toward the open door. With his hand on the knob, he said, “The key to this door is next to your dagger. Lock it the moment I leave and do not open it again, for any reason, until sunrise.”
12
HOOK
I stood on the other side of the door and closed my eyes as I listened. She didn’t move off the bed right away.
Had I managed to scare her so badly that she wouldn’t dare to move from the place I’d left her? Surely a woman with her fire couldn’t be that fragile.
But what if she was? What if that grit was all for show?
I ran a hand through my hair, tugging at the ends. My behavior was completely unacceptable. Never in all my many years had I spoken to a woman that way; at least, not one I hadn’t already bedded. And I swatted her bottom, twice!
The memory of how that sting felt against my palm sent a dangerous tingle across my scalp, but when I heard the lock engage, a little of my frustration bled off. Then something slid against the door and plopped softly on the floor. A peek through the gap beneath, showed me the hem of her leather jacket and just a hint of her lower back. The ink swirling across her soft skin there did nothing for my self-control.
Was she saying something?
I pressed my ear to the cool wood, but I could only make out a couple of her words. It clearly wasn’t a conversation she’d intended anyone else to hear. A gentleman would have stood quietly and edged away from that door. He would have given the woman the privacy she deserved.
When it came to Never, I was anything but a gentleman. I moved slowly, quietly sitting on the ground outside my own room, and leaned back against the door, just the way she was.
* * *
At least an hour went by with us sitting like that. Her mumbling had stopped about twenty minutes in. I’d expected to hear her get up after that, but there was a gentle thunk against the wood, probably from the back of her head, and she’d stayed where she was.
One of my men approached me with a curious look on his face, but I pressed my index finger to my lips and motioned for him to keep moving. He hesitated, but the don’t-question-me look I gave him was enough to convince him to move on. Never was finally calming down; I could feel the shift in her energy in the air, and I didn’t want to move from that spot until she’d settled.
A few minutes later, a feminine yawn drifted to me, and she scooted away from the door. Good. With any luck, she’d lay down and try to get some sleep. The trek to find her brother in the morning wouldn’t be an easy one.
I finally pulled myself away and made my way up to the helm, nodding to William as he stepped aside. “Anything to report?” There was a sharpness to my voice that even I didn’t recognize.
William, ever the professional, ignored it. “No, sir. I suspected your little show and tell with the girl might bring the urchins out in force, but something else must have their attention this evening.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the heavy clouds slowly rolling in from the south. “What do you make of that?”
“Might be a problem.” We both looked toward the flag fluttering on the bow. “It appears to be headed this way, though not too quickly,” he said with practiced indifference. The weather around and between the islands was unpredictable. Winds could shift on a penny, and storms, even the largest and most devastating of them, could dissipate in seconds.
I grabbed the handles on the wheel and adjusted my stance. “Tell the men to stay below deck and get some rest. I’ll take watch tonight. If the swell looks like trouble, I’ll sound the alarm.”
William folded his hands behind his back and offered me a perfunctory nod. “Yes, sir. What about the girl?”
Part of me wanted to send William in to check on her, to make sure she’d found her way to bed, but a new face likely wouldn’t help anything. “Leave her be. I’ve given her the interior key. With any luck, she’ll stay holed up in there until sunrise. Speaking of…” I held my hand out. “I’ll need your key for the night, just in case.”
He pulled the worn cast iron key from his pocket and dropped it in my palm with a sly smile. “Just in case.”
