by Anna Katmore
“Peter is all right. My men took care of him.”
“Did you hurt him?”
I hate to see the fear in her eyes for my brother when she obviously doesn’t remember at all who I was to her. “No. I’m just making sure he’s keeping his nose out of this so you and I can have this conversation alone. It wasn’t nice of him to interrupt us last night.” That came out in an irritated growl, unfortunately. No chance to take it back, but I don’t want to scare her. This time I take two steps toward her, which she immediately mirrors in the opposite direction. What she doesn’t know is that only one more step and she’ll bump into the tree behind her. My chance. She’ll be trapped.
I walk on, ignoring her gasp when she hits the dead end. “You’re right,” I tell her and keep my voice soft as I lift my hand to her face and stroke my knuckles down her cheek. “He hates me now. In order to get to you, I had to force him to do something that changed him. I made him break the spell.”
“What spell?”
“Hmm?” I know she said something, but I completely missed it because I’m sucked into the beauty of her eyes and stunned by the fact that she lets me touch her. Blow me down, she didn’t even flinch.
“You said he broke the spell. What spell?”
“The spell that stopped time in Neverland,” I answer absently. It’s suddenly so hard to concentrate. She’s too beautiful. Does she even know? The wisp of her hair I rub between my fingers feels soft like the rainbow-essence the fairy extracted from my clothes. I hook the strand behind her hear, dipping my head just a little to breathe in her amazing scent that intoxicated me the first time I carried her in my arms.
Her soft hands come up to rest on my chest. If she wants to push me away, she’s not trying very hard. “If you have everything, why did you come for me?”
Encouraged by her lack of resistance, I run the tip of my nose from the bridge of hers down to the tip. So close, her warm, hitched breath feathers against my skin, and I like it. Then I realize she’s not pushing me away at all. She’s actually feeling me up. I take her face between both my hands and tilt her head up, just a little, so she’s looking me straight in the eyes when I tell her, “Because you’re the reason that made thinking of eternity bearable for me.”
It’s the truth in my voice, I think, that she hears and that makes her gasp as she realizes I don’t want to cause her any harm. All I want is to crush my mouth to hers. And she certainly sees that coming too. Her fingers claw slightly against my chest, digging into my shirt. Gentler than should be possible for anyone in my very position, I touch my lips to hers.
Angel doesn’t bite me, hiss, or spit at me. Neither does she scream murder like she threatened earlier tonight. She just lets me kiss her and I know I’m one step closer, even if most likely she still has no clue of who I am. Our lips mold together. Tender. In a slow, soft rhythm of their own. Heck, she feels so good, tastes so good, I want to eat her up.
But there’s still some hesitance in her kissing me back. Surrender, I want to yell at her. How can I make her trust me completely? How can I get through to the girl that slept in my arms at Mermaid Lagoon? I don’t know. But I do know that I won’t let her go now…for nothing in the world.
I deepen the kiss. My tongue sweeps through her mouth and tangles with hers. Oh, the glory of kissing Angel again! And she so easily relents. Every last doubt is blown from my mind that she really is giving everything right now. No matter what she thinks of me, no matter how scared she might be, she wants this as much as I want it. My hands drop to her shoulders, and I run my fingers down her arms until they come to rest on her waist. She actually shivers.
When she inches back but let’s me rest my forehead against hers, she whispers against my lips, “Who are you?”
The truth is I no longer know the answer myself. I’ve been a pirate for such a long time, but when I’m with this girl there’s always only one person present. “I’m Jamie,” I tell her on the same whisper and kiss her again.
This time, she gives in to me completely. It’s not my tongue that tries to catch hers anymore, but hers that starts to explore my mouth. Like finally feeling the gravity that’s been between us from the start, she clings to me as if there’s no other man in the world she ever wants to kiss again. My arms react of their own accord and wrap tightly around her, pulling her harder against me. I love that little moan of hers that I catch with my mouth, I love her trembling hands that roam up my chest and get a grip in my hair at the back of my head. Frankly—I. Love. Her. She’s been mine to hold from the beginning, and I’ll find ways to convince her of it time and time again if needed.
As I ease back and gaze down at her face, her breaths take a few seconds to cool down. A sweet, soft blush sneaks to her cheeks that makes her all the more adorable. Although she tries to pull back from me and her fingers loosen the death grip in my hair, I don’t let her go. With my hands firmly where they were the past couple of minutes, she should figure out herself that she can’t pull off a kiss like that and then just put that annoying distance between us again. No freakin’ way.
I take a moment to catch my breath myself. Then a smirk comes out to play. “You like it, don’t you?”
“Listen.” There’s no volume in her voice just yet, so she forcefully clears her throat and tries again. “I don’t know what just happen here, but it’s certainly not the right thing to do to kiss a savage pirate after midnight.”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. We can change the after-midnight-part to whenever you want.”
She gives me a hard glare. “It’s certainly not the after-midnight-part that concerns me.”
I know, but I couldn’t resist teasing her. When she places her hands over mine behind her back, however, and pries my arms away from her, my easy smile goes into hiding. “What? You’re still scared of me?” She holds my gaze for a moment then lowers hers to her toes, and it dawns on me. “No, you aren’t. The kiss awakened something, didn’t it?”
“Will you leave me alone if I say no?”
“No.”
Her eyes shoot up to mine. She gasps. “But you promised. Last night—”
“Love, I’m a pirate. I make promises all day long only to forget them a minute later.” Strangely enough it’s the promises to her that I tend to keep. “You might have stood a chance of getting rid of me if you really felt nothing. But what happened between you and me just now was definitely not nothing. So, I’m afraid this time you won’t get your way with me.”
“What do you mean?”
What I mean? That I have magic dust left for one more night. If I go back to Neverland without her then, I might not see her ever again. But if I take her with me tonight, there’s enough dust left to bring her back in a little while. Heck, I’ll not leave alone for sure. All the fighting for Angel, all the shit I put up with and put Peter through to finally get to her—that sure wasn’t only for a dance and one helluva kiss.
When Angel sees the determination in my eyes, her body tenses like taught wire. In a brave dash to the left, she tries to escape, but I’m faster than her and have my fingers wrapped around her wrist the instant she moves. “Sorry, I can’t let you do that.”
Spinning her around, I press her back flush to my chest and whistle, using two fingers of my free hand.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” The girl actually stomps on my foot. Not as bad as the blow to my chest she gave me the first time we met, but still quite impressive. I wince.
“See, I only have one more night in your world,” I growl into her ear, “and chances are, you won’t let me see you again tomorrow. I can’t have this. We’re going back to Neverland, now. You and I.”
“Are you crazy?”
Maybe a little bit, but that as well is just her fault.
“What about Peter?” she hisses.
Why the hell does she always have to care about him more than me? “Peter will stay behind. I’m not going to hurt him.” When my men abducted him from the ball and tied him up to the hi
ghest branch of a birch tree in the park not far from here, I just couldn’t bring myself to slice his throat, however much he’d deserved it. “He’s after all my brother. But I won’t let him interfere with this again.”
The tighter I hold Angel the harder she struggles in my arms. It doesn’t matter, she can fight me all she wants. In the end, she’ll be happy I did this. Hopefully.
On my signal, Smee dropped one end of a rope that now dangles in front of us. Wrapping it around our bodies, I press one hand over Angel’s mouth to kill the scream she just barely got started and shout, “Get us up, Smee!”
A steady pull begins. We’re lifted into the air, out of her garden, through the shielding magic clouds and onto the Jolly Roger. I hate to frighten Angel like that, but as it is, I don’t see any other way at the moment. “Set sail!” I bark to the crew as soon as we stand firmly on deck. Well, I stand and Angel still squeals in my arms. “We’re going home!”
Smee gives me the lightest of frowns, but he knows better than to question me right now.
“All hands on decks, ye scabby dogs!” he yells out to the others and busies them with getting the Jolly Roger ready for departure.
Since I still have my hand over Angel’s mouth, there’s no sound coming from her. Yet by the way her chest doesn’t move for a minute, it’s not hard to figure out how much finding herself on the ship with actual pirates on it surprises her. Just like the first time I took her on board. What are sweet memories to me might not be so nice to her. Then again, she doesn’t remember anything, so we’re good on that front, I guess.
It’s probably not a good idea to release Angel just yet. A silent place to talk and explain everything seems to be the way to go about this. I lift her from the floor and sort of drag-carry her into my quarters. Heck, but that girl puts up a hell of a fight. It makes me smirk but not put her back down.
Once in my quarters, I kick the door closed and stop in front of my bed. “I’m going to let you go now. Just don’t freak out or run away. There’s a reason why I brought you up to my ship. So can you please just promise to stay here and we’ll talk about this?”
The hoped-for nod never comes. At least she breathes again, but way too fast through her nose. Not only can I feel her chest lift and fall under my embrace, but her warm breaths also damp my hand over her mouth in quick intervals. I decide to take that hand away first.
“You bloody, freaking pirate! Take your goddamn hands off me! You dirty liar! You kidnapped me!”
That was quite nice for round one. I cover her mouth again. “I meant I was doing the talking and you listen,” I say in her ear with some annoyance because of her swell of curses. Am I really that bad?
Angel thrashes about but, let’s face it, she’s a fragile girl and I’m—well, I’m a pirate. I know how to handle stubborn people. Too fast for her to see it coming, I push her flush against the wall and trap her, using the weight of my body behind hers. Both her hands now in mine, I lift them over her head and pin them to the wall too. Her head is turned sideways. It can’t be comfortable how her cheek rubs against the rough wall when she let’s go of round two of curses, but this time I don’t interrupt her.
Only when she becomes aware of me nuzzling her neck and the side of her head all this time, she falls silent.
“Feeling better now that it’s all out?” I tease her.
“Go to hell,” is her answer to that.
“Give me a chance here, Angel. Please. Let me tell you what really happened the last time you fell into my world.”
She snorts, but I get the feeling that she’s at least ready to listen. Whether or not, I have to try. “Peter saved you while dropping from the skies, but he wouldn’t help you find your home at first. That’s when we met. I took you on board, admittedly, with the worst intentions, but you stole my heart so easily—and I like to believe that I stole yours too. In the end, I could do nothing but help you get back to your world, because your longing for your sisters killed you, and your pain killed me.”
“And you got me back how?” she snaps after a moment.
As always, her sassy spirit provokes my smile, but I make sure to hide it from her right now. “Peter figured out that you had to actually fall to get back. And we managed that. But when you were gone from my life, nothing felt right for me anymore. I needed you. In the end, I guess, I had rather died than face a life completely without you.” There’s no need to tell her all about the drop into the volcano and the morning after with the fairies. There’ll be time for that later.
“So you did something to make Peter age and both of you came to see me in London.” From her flat voice, I can’t tell whether she believes that part or just reiterates what we both told her before of our own versions.
“I didn’t mean to make him age so fast. Actually, I had no idea it would happen, but yes, that’s pretty much how it all went. Of course he got mad.” And strangely enough I can totally understand. “That’s why he came after you first. See, he kept coming back and telling me how he was about to steal you from me. He even left this picture in my quarters the other night.”
Angel turns her head just a little more my way and her gaze finds me over her shoulder. “What picture?”
“The one where he carries you.” I can’t help the growl that comes with that memory. “I couldn’t believe how happy you looked in his arms.”
“He surprised me when he picked me up so quickly,” she snaps. Then her frown intensifies. “Why am I even defending myself?” she mumbles and turns her head as far away from me again as possible with the wall at the other side.
It might make her mad at herself, but it sure raises a stupid swell of joy in my gut. “You do, because somewhere deep down here”—capturing both her wrists in one of my hands now, I place my other on her stomach—“you feel that I’m telling the truth. You might not remember what happened with us, but you do still care for me.” I nuzzle her hair and revel in the wonderful scent of it. “Don’t you?”
She doesn’t reply with round three of cursing me, which could mean that she’s starting to let me in. It feels safe to ease my grip on her. When I let go, she doesn’t make a dash for freedom. Instead she keeps standing in this very spot, staring at the broken door in confusion for just another second, then she turns around with a scoff and stalks off toward the deck. Of course I follow on her heels, but with this first little success of breaking through to her, I restrain from grabbing her arm to hold her back. Where can she run to? We’re in the middle of a canopy of stars after all.
Or so I thought until I step outside. The velvety blue of the skies around us has disappeared. In its place the warm sun rises over Neverland. The Jolly Roger is descending, and it only takes another minute until she touches the familiar waters a little off shore. Damn, how long have we been in my cabin? It didn’t feel half as long as we obviously were.
With a gasp, Angel stops in the middle of the main deck and spins on the spot. “Where the heck are we?”
Sidling up to her, I put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “This is Neverland. My home.”
“How did we get here?” But instead of letting me answer, she rubs her temples, shakes her head and mumbles, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.”
“Angel—”
Her gaze shoots up to meet mine. “No, don’t! And don’t touch me. I don’t care if all you said is true or not. I want—no, I demand you take me back home this minute!”
“I will take you home.”
“When?”
“Eventually.”
“No. You take me back to London now!”
“Really, I can’t do that.” Feeling sorry and at a total loss with her, I grimace. “Just give me a little more time to help you understand.”
Folding her arms over her chest, she starts to tap her foot. “Now.”
Damn, that growl turns me on, but I can’t give her that. I shake my head. Which might as well have been a mistake. I can see the decision in her eyes even before she actually m
akes it, so this time I’m prepared when she whirls about and dashes across the deck. Rushing after her, I grab her around the waist right before she can jump off the railing. “Oh no, you don’t!”
And here we go for round four of Angel’s cursing. A show that obviously each and every member of my crew enjoys to the bone. The mangy dogs laugh their heads off at me, but I don’t care. For now I’m at my limits with Angel and her stubbornness. Damn, I didn’t have such a hard time convincing her of my love the first time, and that was right after I almost got the lass killed in the jungle.
I bend and toss her over my shoulder, ignoring her drumming fists on my back as I carry her to the cabin she once owned on this ship. The bilge rat who had to move out for her sake never moved back in.
Dropping Angel on the bed, I stalk back out, making sure I pull off the key from the inside and lock the door once I left. Her angry voice drifts through the walls. I can’t even say round five of her cursing began, because round four actually never really stopped.
After a deep sigh and raking my hands through my hair, I cut a helpless glance to the sky. Then I stride into my quarters, fully intending to give Angel a couple of hours to cool off. Maybe we can start from scratch then.
Peter Pan
PETER, FREAKIN’ HELL, how could you age so fast? Hook’s horrid voice still rings in my ears.
Struggling hard against the ropes that keep my wrists tied at my back and my body attached to this goddamned tree, I call him every foul name I can think of under my breath. It doesn’t matter how resentful he looked when he whispered an apology. It doesn’t matter how his sword in his hand lowered as if he couldn’t bring himself to end my life tonight. And it sure doesn’t matter that he called me brother.
I’m going to kill him for what he did to me.
And if he so much as harmed a hair on Angel’s head, I’ll be exceptionally slow with my skewering him too.
Dammit, what’s riding me here? I shake my head and snort. Hook would never hurt Angel. He loves her. My own lies must have gotten to me in the end. But that doesn’t change a thing. He’s good as dead. Shark bait as soon as I get free. If only I could loosen these bloody ropes. They cut deeper into my flesh the more I strain against them.
