Hook (Neverland Novels Book 2)

by Gina L. Maxwell

  “Aye-aye, Captain,” Smee says in his faint Irish lilt and signature smirk. “I’ll keep a close eye on him.”

  Skylights laughs. “Don’t try gettin’ in his pants, Smee. You’ll scare the new guy off.”

  “Are ye kiddin’, lad?” Smee gestures to his well-built body, then circles a finger around his model-handsome face. “Who wouldn’t want this? Even you straight boys think about me, you know you have. Don’t lie now.”

  Everyone starts laughing and giving each other shit about who’s fantasizing about Smee, which I guess concludes our meeting. But that means I have to face a frustratingly sexy John Darling, who’s parked his fine ass in my loft, around my things, in my space, and I’m not ready for that. Not sober, anyway.

  “Meeting adjourned, boys,” I say, pushing to my feet. “Let’s go drink till we can’t see straight.”

  That gets their attention, and we all file out into the main part of the clubhouse. The old bar is still intact and displays a full range of alcohol on the mirrored shelves, with a fully stocked cooler of beer. We all get our own drinks—something that Starkey used to do as the lowest man in the Pirate hierarchy—texts go out inviting the regular party crowd, and then we proceed to get good and shit-faced.

  Well, they do. I get a good buzz on, then drink just enough to keep it without going overboard. If I go upstairs completely smashed, I’m liable to do or say things I can’t undo.

  Like fuck my new roommate within an inch of his life.

  Somewhere around three hours later, I leave the boys to their debauchery and head out. The whiskey’s taken the edge off any nerves I had earlier. There’s no reason any of this should bother me. We have a job to do. I’ve always managed to ignore John in the past; this’ll be no different. I’ll talk to him only when I have to, avoid looking at him, and beyond working together to bring Croc down, there’s no reason for us to interact at all.

  Yeah. This’ll be easy. I don’t know what the hell I was so anxious about.

  I have two entrances to my place. One is a set of stairs behind the clubhouse that lead to my deck, and the other set is accessed through my office. After relocking the office door, I head up. When I reach the top landing, I hear what sounds like rhythmic pounding muffled by the door. Pissed he’s not sitting in goddamn silence like I assumed, I enter the loft, slamming the door behind me.

  The floor plan is an open concept with this entrance being off the kitchen, which is in the back-left corner of the building. On the other side of the breakfast bar is the huge living room set up to face the rear of the property with that entire wall boasting big picture windows that look onto the deck and the other door. On the front wall are the doors to both bedrooms and the full bathroom between them.

  But none of those places are where my eyes are glued right now. No, I’m looking at the front-left corner of the loft, opposite the kitchen, where I created an open area for working out. It has a treadmill, a complex weight system, free weights, and a heavy bag hanging from the ceiling. A heavy bag that John—a shirtless John—is currently working over like it threatened his entire family.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

  Chapter Seven

  Hook

  He stops, dropping his wrapped hands to his sides as he turns to face me, his chest heaving with labored breaths and sweat glistening on his skin. His very tattooed skin.

  “Working out,” he says between breaths. “I got bored.”

  “I mean, what are you doing covered in fucking stick-ons?” I don’t think that’s what I meant originally, but now it’s all I can think about.

  John looks down at his own body as though he forgot they were even there, which gives me time to take them all in, too. An American Traditional-style rose with crossed daggers behind it on the side of his neck, the words No Shame, No Mercy curve under his collarbone, a squawking raven is on his upper left arm, a skull and crossbones on his right pec, and a grim reaper with a scythe along his ribs on his left side.

  My throat goes dry, but my mouth waters with the images my alcohol-weak brain flashes of me licking each and every fake tattoo plastered to his body. Of me cupping his cock through those thin track pants and squeezing until I feel him shudder beneath my touch. Of me shoving him full of my hard dick again and again until I explode and mark him as mine. No shame, no mercy? I’ll show him exactly what that expression means.

  “These are a lot better than the ones available to the public,” he says. “They use these in movies and can last up to a week or more. I have five of each. I just remove the ones I have on every week to make sure they don’t start rubbing off and reapply new ones. No sweat.”

  Is he fucking kidding? There’s plenty of sweat. It’s on every inch of his exposed skin, and it’s driving me insane. “That’s not the point,” I bite out. “It’s an unnecessary risk. You could’ve just as easily shown up as unmarred as a baby’s bottom like you usually are.”

  I’m trying hard to make it sound like his tattoo-free body is a turnoff to me, when it’s anything but. I’ll admit Badass John has a lot of sex appeal, but there’s something about his straight-laced appearance that makes me think of all the ways I can dirty him up. So maybe the fake tats are a good thing. Although the way I feel right now, they’re not doing a very good job of turning me off.

  Meeting my gaze, he cants his head to the side. “How many of your guys don’t have tattoos?”

  I clench my teeth. “None.”

  “Exactly.”

  He grabs a hand towel and his water bottle from the floor. Wiping his face, he closes the distance, coming to stand a mere two feet in front of me. Close enough that I can smell him, the musky scent of his sweat combined with hints of his aftershave. Goddamn him.

  Smiling, he adds, “Gotta look like a Pirate if I wanna be a Pirate.”

  In a heartbeat, I’m in his face, my finger in his chest. “Let’s get one thing straight, Darling. You are not now, nor will you ever be a Pirate. You’re not cut out for this life, and I have serious doubts you can even pull this off. If you’re made and it puts Starkey’s life in jeopardy, I’m telling you right now, I’ll work you over harder than you did that bag over there.”

  Damn it. In retrospect, “work you over” might not have been the best choice of words as unmistakable heat flashes in his honey-gold eyes. It’s all I can do not to pin him against the nearest wall and kiss him until we’ve both forgotten why it’s a bad fucking idea.

  “Ja—”

  And there goes my buzz. He didn’t even get the whole thing out before realizing his mistake. If looks were swords, he’d be run through and bleeding out at my feet right about now.

  Fisting his hands on his hips, he blows out a breath and starts again.

  “Hook, you need to trust me if this is going to work. I have no intention of putting Starkey at risk. If shit goes south, we have a guy on the inside who can pull him out and get him to a safe house.”

  “What? If we can get him out now, then why aren’t we doing that?”

  “Because if we do, Croc will know he’s compromised. He’ll take measures to move the product, his operations, tighten security—he might even shut down until things cool off—but in the end he’ll go back to selling his drugs that make people sick or worse. Is that really what you want?”

  Growling with pent-up frustration, I stalk into the living room, rip off my jacket and throw it at the couch like I’m trying to put a dent in it. “This is never gonna work,” I mumble, raking a hand through my hair.

  “Yes, it is.”

  A warm hand grabs my forearm, but I twist out of his touch before the heat can sink in.

  He holds his hands up and takes a step back. “Look, I’ve got years of police experience, great instincts, and tons of training. They wouldn’t have given me this job if they thought I was going to fuck it up. The more you fight me on what we need to do, the more we put the mission at risk.”

  When I don’t say anything, he crosses his arms and levels h
is flinty agent glare on me.

  “The faster you let me do my damn job, the faster you get me out of your life. Something you’ve made clear you wanted from the first day we met.”

  I chuckle with no trace of humor. “Oh, Darling, you have no fucking clue what the hell I want. But if you’re ever curious, all you have to do is ask. Until then, remember this,” I say, stepping into his personal space. “When it comes to the mission, you might be in charge, but in here…” I swipe my thumb across a drop of sweat trailing down the rose tattoo on his neck, then suck it off my thumb while holding his gaze. “In here, I call all the shots. How’s that for clear? Crystal enough for you?”

  He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple tempting me to follow its bob with my tongue, but I hold firm. In here, I am king. In here, he will obey me. That is my non-negotiable demand, and the steel in my tone says as much.

  “Yes, Captain,” he says gruffly.

  “Good.”

  Then I turn away from him and head to my room for a long cold shower before he can see what it does to me to hear him utter those two simple words.

  Yes, Captain.

  That man is everything I shouldn’t want, which only makes me want him that much more. He’s a walking, talking, sexy-as-fuck temptation dangling in front of me. And the thing about being the bad guy is that I’ve never bothered to exercise restraint when it comes to something I want. I’ve always just taken it, consequences be damned.

  I’d better find religion, quick. Because if I don’t, there’ll be a hell of a lot of sinning going on in this loft.

  Consequences be damned.

  Chapter Eight

  John

  For the first time in my adult life, I might be out of my depth.

  Not on the job. I’m confident in my abilities for this assignment. I have a good team behind me, and the background they created for me is solid. Croc can look all the way back to my kindergarten records, and he’ll find that John Dorian McRae was excellent at coloring in the lines but also had issues with authority.

  No, it’s not the case that’s got me tossing and turning on these Egyptian cotton sheets (I guess he wasn’t kidding about enjoying the finer things in life). It’s the man on the other side of this wall. The man who sucked my sweat from the pad of his thumb and demanded I acknowledge his authority over me in this loft. And fuck if I didn’t want to agree before he even got all the words out. I would’ve done it on my knees if he’d pointed at the floor.

  And that’s what has me so twisted up—this insane desire to please James, whatever it takes. I want to give him what he needs, to make him feel good, if only in the context of the bedroom. But while I’ve always been in relationships where we switched off physically as tops and bottoms, I’ve never had any kind of submissive tendencies. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m very Type A. I like control and my routines, and the only time I ever take orders is from my superiors at work. Full stop.

  But with James…fuck, I don’t know what it is. Maybe there’s a part of me that’s still that little boy trying to impress the older kid and get him to like me or even notice me. Maybe it’s because I know he hasn’t had it easy in life and the idea of being an escape for him, however briefly, speaks to my protective side. Whatever the case, I can’t let it affect this assignment. Too much is at stake. I need to keep things strictly professional.

  Strictly.

  Professional.

  Growling at the ceiling, I kick off the sheet and get out of bed. All this thinking about James is making me thirsty, and since I’m not getting any damn sleep, I might as well get some water. I contemplate slipping on a pair of lounge pants over my boxer briefs, but that seems like a lot of work for a ten-second walk to the fridge, so I don’t bother as I leave my room and head for the kitchen.

  His place is nice, understated and simple. But it might as well be a hotel suite—tidy and functional, with all the furniture and appliances one needs but without any of the personal touches that make it a home. No pictures, knickknacks, or anything that would give any clue as to who lives here. I have a small house in the middle-class area of London. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s homey. I worked hard to put my stamp on it and fill it with things that remind me of the people I love.

  Opening the fridge, I grab a bottle of water and take note of the blender in the corner on my way out of the kitchen. Good, I’ll need that for my morning meal. I twist off the cap, drain half the water, and recap it as I pad my way across the huge living room.

  I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and instinctively reach for the gun that isn’t there. The water bottle drops to the floor and rolls under the couch somewhere as I try to recover from the near heart attack.

  “Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” I say to a very calm James who’s sprawled in the chair, bathed in the light of the full moon streaming in through the windows. He’s wearing only a pair of black lounge pants, his legs stretched out in front of him, his incredible torso on full display.

  Holy shit, this is the first time I’ve ever seen Hook shirtless, and my eyes drink in every detail like a greedy sponge. He has another tattoo—a large, three-masted ship flying a pirate flag that takes up most of his right side—his nipples are pierced with hoops, and his chest is lightly dusted with black hair that disappears at his sternum and picks back up under his navel. He has the frame of a swimmer, broad at the shoulders and tapered at the waist, with plenty of defined muscles in between.

  I feel like someone dumped water on my mental circuit board. I can’t think, can’t speak. And it’s not even the tattoo, the pierced nipples, the blocks of abs, or the dips of his V angling into his low waistband that has me completely tongue-tied. It’s the fact that he’s reading a worn copy of The Count of Monte Cristo and wearing black Clark Kent eyeglasses. He looks like a fuckable, badass professor relaxing at home. Good goddamn, this part of the assignment is going to be one giant exercise in sexual frustration.

  “What the hell are you doing over there?”

  A single eyebrow rises above the rim of his glasses. “If you can’t figure that out, you might not be as good of a cop as you think.”

  I roll my eyes. “I mean, what are you doing reading at nearly three in the morning? You have insomnia or something?”

  “Or something.”

  His tone has a hint of bitterness, or maybe resentment. Combined with the elusive answer, the wheels in my cop brain start spinning. “Do—”

  He lifts his book again and interrupts me with a forceful, “Go back to sleep, Darling.”

  I’ve accepted that he’s going to keep using my last name as a way to get under my skin, so it no longer bothers me. But fuck if I’m telling him that. “I wasn’t sleeping, either.”

  He lowers the book to his lap, and his eyes take a slow perusal of my body. Everywhere his gaze lands feels like an intimate touch, making me burn in its wake, and if I don’t distract myself, I’ll be pointing due north in seconds. There’s a trick I’ve used in the past if I found my mind wandering down a path that might lead to an awkward reaction. If I catalog the details of the person’s face and mentally file them away like I’ll need them for a report later, it keeps my mind out of the gutter. C’mon, cop brain, don’t fail me now.

  Jesus. How can someone with such a ruthless reputation be so goddamn beautiful? His features are an odd mix of harsh and lush that complement each other. Cold eyes are framed with thick lashes, his often-snarling mouth is made with sexy, full lips, and his granite-edge jawline is softened by his trim beard that looks like strands of black silk. My fingers itch to stroke it as my lips lay claim to his, then trail lower to where the silky strands fade into the top of his throat, kissing their way down…

  Fuck. So much for that trick. There’s no hiding my reaction to him when the only armor I have is a pair of gray boxer briefs. His eyes drag back up my body to meet mine, his mouth twisting into a smug grin. “Insomnia?”

  “Or something,” I answer huskily.

  “
Need help with that? A good release might be just the thing you need to get some sleep.”

  My dick is shouting YES so loud I almost can’t remember all the reasons that would be a colossally bad idea, but thankfully my logic does. Barely. Clearing my throat, I say, “As much as I would love to—and believe me, there’s nothing I’ve thought of more in the past few months than that—I think it would be best that we don’t cross that line while we’re on this case.”

  “And what line is that?”

  I frown. “Sex.”

  “Since I don’t plan on touching you, I think it’s safe to say I won’t screw with your lines. Pun intended.”

  If he isn’t touching me, does that mean I’m touching him? Will he demand a blow job? Would sucking him off even make me come? What am I talking about, of course it would. This is Hook we’re talking about, the man I’ve wanted since before I even knew what those tingly feelings in my belly meant. Getting my lips around his huge cock would probably make me shoot on contact, I want him that badly. But that’s still a form of sex.

  “You have three seconds, Darling. Yes or no. Two… O—”

  Before my brain even registers my mouth moving, I croak out, “Yes.”

  Chapter Nine

  John

  James pauses, like he’s waiting for me to take it back. I don’t.

  “Fine,” he says, “here’s the one and only rule: you don’t want to do something, you say no. Not ‘stop’ or ‘red’ or ‘pineapple’ or any of that other bullshit. You say no. Got it?”

  I nod. “Yeah. Got it.”

  James doesn’t react one way or the other. He simply removes his glasses, closes his book, and sets them both on the small table next to him before settling back into the chair, his elbow on the armrest and two fingers braced against his temple as he stares me down.

  “Grab your cock.”