I don’t know what I expected him to say, but the blunt order takes me aback. “What?”
“Don’t play coy with me, boy. Grab your fucking cock over your underwear.”
I do, and the pressure from my hand forces a groan from my chest.
“The next time you balk at one of my commands, I’ll assume it’s a nonverbal no and we’ll be done. We clear?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
I haven’t done anything other than grab myself because I have a feeling if he wanted me to do something else, he’d have told me. But now that I’ve started, my body is urging me to keep going, do more, chase down that mind-bending moment that leaves me in a state of tingling euphoria.
“Darling.”
“Yes, Captain.” My voice is thick with gravelly lust, and I don’t fucking care. Let him see how much he affects me. Let him see how much I want him. This is my truth, and he deserves every bit of it.
“Show me,” he says, almost as though he’d just heard my thoughts. “I want to see everything.”
Eager to obey, I shove my right hand into my briefs and palm my heated flesh as my left thumb anchors the waistband under my sensitive balls. Arms at my sides, I stand with my heart racing and hard cock straining. I’m on lewd display, exposed for this man who makes no move to do the same for me. He’s still very much covered in black pants, and with the shadows in the room, I can’t tell if he’s even the slightest bit hard.
He makes some kind of gruntish sound, like a “huh” without the actual word. “Looks like little John Darling is all grown up.”
“You felt pretty grown up yourself the night you pushed me against that wall.”
He narrows his eyes the slightest bit before recovering. He might not like being reminded of the effect I had on him that night, but it was a moment I’ll never forget.
“Too bad you’ll never know for sure.” His gaze drops to my throbbing erection. “I suggest you stop talking and do something with that.”
I don’t make him suggest it twice. I gather saliva in my mouth, then take it out with my fingers and slick it over my cock. I give myself a couple of long, slow strokes and hiss out a breath at the friction making every nerve dance. Up and down, I grip and twist, keeping a steady pace while I use my other hand to roll my balls and tug on my heavy sac.
“That all you got?”
Shit, he sounds bored. I don’t want him bored. I want him aching like I’m fucking aching. “What do you want? Tell me and I’ll do it.”
James pulls his bare feet back and leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “I want you to fuck yourself like it’s my hand.” The steel is back in his voice, every word a command that I want—no, need—to obey. “I want you to jack yourself like it’s my fingers encircling that billy club you call a cock, my calluses dragging along the pulsing veins, my thumb roughly grazing over that fat head as pre-cum leaks from its slit.”
“Christ,” I bite out through clenched teeth.
His words alone are doing more for me than my own hand is. I might be staring at him staring back at me, but what I’m seeing is the image he painted with the added details my mind has filled in for me. In bed, I’m on my back with him lying next to me on his side. We’re kissing and he’s jacking me off as I do the same to him. His cock is thick and hard, the top of my fist bumping over the sensitive ridge of his glans and sliding back down. I squeeze. He groans into my mouth…
My strokes are getting faster, less coordinated, more erratic. Every erogenous zone in my body has relocated to my dick. The intensity is unreal. I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m so close. Dropping my head back on my shoulders, I squeeze my eyes shut and mentally start listing the different MMA submissions. Arm bar, triangle, rear naked choke—
“Eyes on me, Darling.”
Jesus. My lids fly open and my head snaps back to center, shocked to find him standing only a couple of feet in front of me. He’s tall and ridged with muscles, and I want to tongue and suck on his nipple rings and fuck fuck fuck.
“Close them again and I’ll bind your hands for a lesson in orgasm denial.”
I groan. I’ve never had a lover control my orgasms. Yet the idea of James telling me when I can come—and when I can’t—sends sparks of electricity sliding down my spine to swirl heavily in my balls.
“Yes, Captain,” I rasp.
A new stream of pre-cum leaks from my tip and spills onto my fist as I pump myself harder and faster.
“Look at that.” His voice is husky as he takes a step closer and studies what I’m doing. For him. “You’re already making a mess. Imagine how you’d be if I actually touched you.”
“Shit, yes. Please, please touch me.”
“You haven’t earned my touch, Darling. Besides,” he says, “you say that now, but you’d regret it in the light of day.”
“No, I wouldn’t.” That’s a lie, or maybe a wish. But the moral and responsible part of me—the only part that’s not drunk on the heat of this moment—knows he’s right. And I fucking hate that part of me right now.
“You would,” he insists. “And I refuse to play the bad boy to your good one. I won’t give you a convenient excuse to explain away what you truly want. Now squeeze harder and yank faster. Because the next time you fucking beg me to take you, Darling, I might just give you what you want. But if I do, I won’t be gentle with you. I will goddamn ruin you.”
I let out a string of curse words between my erratic breaths, and my strokes get shorter and faster until everything is concentrated at the top near the head of my dick as my orgasm bears down on me. I’m close, so fucking close. Flames are licking along the base of my spine, drawing my balls up tight.
Fiery blue eyes hold me captive. I’m unable to look away, unable to move forward. I’m in a holding pattern of torturous pleasure. I bite my lower lip so hard I taste the coppery tang of blood, praying for my release.
“Do you wish that was my hand on your cock?”
“Yes.”
“Do you wish that was my cock in your hand?”
“So much.”
“Would you want me to come on you? Mark you with long stripes of my hot cum all over your chest and stomach?”
“Fuck yes.”
“Then do it. Right now,” he commands harshly. “Mark yourself for me.”
I roar as my orgasm explodes through me, aiming it just in time as my cock pulses in my hand and shoots ropes of cum across the ridges of my abs and pecs. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath and keep my legs from buckling with the aftershocks.
James leans in. Still careful not to touch me, he whispers in my ear. “Welcome to the dark side, Darling.” Then he turns and ambles back to his chair, stretching out like a lazy cat as he replaces his sexy-as-fuck glasses and picks up his book. Without glancing up, he dismisses me with a casual, “Go clean up.”
On autopilot, I tuck myself in and make my way to the bathroom, half-dazed and wondering if I’m not actually dreaming this whole thing. But no, I know that’s not true. Because as imaginative as I am, I never could’ve conjured up something as hot as that in my dreams. That was all James.
I use a washcloth and reluctantly wipe all traces of “his mark” from my body. After tossing it in the hamper, I study myself in the mirror. I’m a twenty-six-year-old man, accomplished in my field, respected by my peers, and always professional. I’m a rule follower. A by-the-book kind of guy.
But I haven’t always done the right thing.
When I was young, I risked punishment every time I snuck out with Wendy to spend time with Peter and the Lost Boys, all with the hope of seeing Hook. All with the hope that he would finally see me.
And now he has.
He sees me, and he wants me. But for how long? James isn’t the type to do things on anyone else’s terms. He does them on his. I can stick to my principles and not let anything happen between us while we’re working this operation, but I think once this is all over and he’s done his
short stint in prison, James won’t bother sticking around Neverland. He never said as much, but it’s a gut feeling I have, and I’ve learned to trust my gut.
I won’t give you a convenient excuse to explain away what you truly want.
“Screw it,” I mutter, making my decision as I head for the door. I can compartmentalize the mission and keep it separate from what happens in this loft, same as he can. I’m not going to waste whatever he’s willing to give me while I’m here because of a few professional guidelines.
Yanking the door open, I stride into the main living area, ready to admit what it is that I truly want…
But he’s gone. The chair is abandoned, along with the book and his glasses, and his bedroom door is now closed.
“Shhhhhit,” I say as I plow my hands through my hair. I’m still all messed up from what just happened. Must be the endorphins or the blood hasn’t made its way back to my brain. Getting involved with James Hook would be the worst thing I could ever do as far as this case is concerned. And if I’m being completely honest, it’s probably not a great idea for my heart, either. Because what used to be a boyhood crush could easily turn into so much more if I let it.
“Damn your hero complex all to hell,” I mutter to myself on the way back to my room. “The Pirate doesn’t want to be saved, and you don’t belong on the dark side.”
Chapter Ten
Hook
I oughtta have my ass kicked.
I don’t know what the hell I was thinking last night. Shit, I hadn’t been thinking; that’s the problem. The second he came out of his room in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs that clung to him like a second skin, I lost all brain function. It’s a damn good thing I was mostly hidden in shadows, because if I thought the view of his muscular back and tight ass was great, the view as he walked toward me was a goddamn revelation.
What happened next was not part of the plan. The plan being stay the fuck away from Darling. But I’ve never been particularly good at taking orders, and that extends to my own, apparently. If I want to get childish about it, I could say he started it. Standing in my living room in nothing but thin cotton that didn’t do shit to hide his cock that was getting bigger and harder the more he stared at me was like the adult version of saying Tag, you’re it.
We’re like two Adams in the Garden of Eden up here. Every time we’re around each other, it’s like the forbidden fruit—the fruit being me fucking his brains out—is hanging between us.
John’s the good Adam, doing his best to resist temptation at every turn. But me? I’m the Bad Adam. Temptation is like my foreplay, it’s what happens before the main event. And when something is forbidden, it might as well have a neon sign flashing come and get me.
So I did.
Not as much as I would’ve liked to, though. I should get a damn medal for the restraint I showed last night. But I meant what I said. I refuse to be put in a position where I’m even mildly coercing someone who isn’t thinking clearly. Last night, I was dancing on the knife’s edge of doing just that. If I’d caved and actually touched him, the few principles I hold myself to would’ve been trampled into the dirt in seconds.
It’s not that I don’t want to fuck John Darling. Being able to have John whenever I want, testing his boundaries in and out of bed has my dick hard just thinking about it—or it would if I hadn’t just jacked off three fucking times in the shower to the memory of him marking himself for me—but it’ll never happen because of his principles. I’m not doing anything unless he can admit in broad daylight that he wants the bad boy to fuck him six ways from Sunday. But he’s too set in his ways as a moral, upstanding good guy to do that. Not while working a case, anyway. And once this is over, I’m gone.
So, like I said, never gonna happen.
I finish tying my boots and pull on my black T-shirt before grabbing my phone and keys off my nightstand and shoving them into my pockets. Then, raking a hand through my damp hair, I steel myself as I leave the safety of my bedroom.
John’s already in the kitchen. He’s wearing a shirt, thank fuck, even if it is one of those muscle shirts bodybuilders wear when they work out. It’s better than nothing. Maybe I should make shirts a loft rule. Or coveralls.
“Morning,” he says, not glancing up at me.
There’s a twinge of annoyance—I’ll be damned if I’m calling it disappointment—that he can’t even look me in the eye after last night. It only proves I was right not to let things go any further than they did. Technically, Darling just had a jerk-off session in my living room.
While I watched.
And directed.
Fuck.
“Why the hell are you shoving a salad into my blender?” I ask, making a beeline for the coffeepot.
The corner of his mouth tips up slightly as he dumps in a scoop of beige powder. “It’s my kale smoothie. I have one every morning after my workout.”
“Because you hate your taste buds?”
He chuckles softly behind me, and now my mouth is tipping up in the corner. Which I quickly correct. I don’t do lighthearted amusement, and we’re not some happy couple sharing candid quips in the kitchen after a night in each other’s arms.
“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he says. Then he turns the blender on.
I lean back against the counter with my cup of coffee—I drink it black because I’m nothing if not on brand—while he purees the hell out of whatever disgusting things he has in there. When it’s done, he pours the bright green liquid into a tall glass and drinks half of it down in one go.
“Gross. Is that what passes for food in your life?”
“I don’t think of it as food; it’s fuel. I make sure I get all the nutrients I need, and I don’t put unnecessary crap into my body.” I don’t bother to hide my disgust. “It’s healthy. Just try some.”
At least he got over the not-looking-at-me thing, but I’ll happily go back to that if it means not drinking that shit. “Pass.”
He shrugs, then downs the rest of it before placing his glass in the dishwasher. “I’m grabbing a shower; then we should talk strategy. We need to get intel on what Croc is doing and where he’s doing it.”
“Yeah, fine.”
Instead of watching John walk across the loft, I force myself to grab the ingredients to make my own breakfast that doesn’t involve liquefied rabbit food. Thirty minutes later, I’m sitting at my small kitchen table, eating my eggs Benedict drowning in homemade hollandaise sauce with a side of bacon and hash browns.
“Damn, it smells like a diner in here.”
I glance up and immediately regret not keeping my eyes on my food. A freshly showered John dressed in criminal-casual attire of ripped jeans and a white T-shirt that stretches across his broad chest is making my mouth water more than my breakfast. “That’s the smell of real food, not that shit you choked down.”
He sits in the other chair and gapes at my half-eaten plate. “You made all of that?”
“Yep.”
“From scratch,” he says doubtfully.
I stop in the middle of cutting my next bite and glare over at him. “I like to cook. You got a fucking problem with that?”
“No, of course not. I’m just surprised is all,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck.
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Rubbing your neck. For one thing, it’s a nervous tell of yours. And for another, it’ll fuck up your stick-on tattoo.”
“I didn’t realize I was doing it,” he says, his expression thoughtful like he’s trying to remember every time he might have done it. “I’ll be more conscious of it, though, thanks.”
I shrug and dig back into my food, glad I managed to derail the chit chat portion of the morning.
“Anyway—”
Or not.
“—I was saying that I didn’t peg the badass Captain of the Pirates to be a culinary wizard, but it’s impressive. I only know the basics of how to cook what I need—steamed veggies, brown rice, baked
chicken and fish, that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d suffered through Delia’s cooking all those years, you’d have learned to make yourself good food, too.”
Shit. Why am I telling him these things? I’m like a loose cannon around this guy. I need to rein it the hell in. He’s silent for a bit, and it makes me wonder what he’s thinking, but I don’t look up as I continue eating. If I’m lucky, he’ll just let it go.
“What was life really like at the—”
“No.” I stop him before he goes any further, but the look in his eyes effectively ruins my appetite, so I shove my plate back.
I silently curse his stupid empathy. It’s not like I meant to bring up my tragic childhood, for fuck’s sake. Besides, our shitty dinners were the least of my problems at that school. But John didn’t take note of my flip tone, he only heard a sad tale of a boy with improper meals, because John has a knight-in-shining-armor complex. He said as much in the interrogation room that day. His entire mission in life is to save people from the bad guys of the world.
That’s great, good for him and the people he helps. But he needs to keep that shit aimed at someone else. There’s no saving someone like me.
“What’s the plan for today?” I say, leaning back and folding my arms over my chest.
He sits up straighter, and his cop face makes an appearance. Just like that, he’s all business. “What would you normally do?”
“Go get this weekend’s supply of Dust at the shop. Then tonight we hit the clubs and sell it.”
“Do you see Croc when you get the new supply?”
“Not if I can help it.”
He nods and scratches his stubbled jaw as he thinks. “Would you say he does more of his business at the shop or the shipyard warehouse you told me about?”
“Shop. He only goes to the warehouse for periodic checks on the production, as far as I know.”
“Okay, then we need to get a bug into his office at the shop since that’s probably where he makes his phone calls. Maybe if you distract him outside, I can sneak in quick.”
“Not a chance,” I say, shaking my head. “As soon as the door to his office closes, it automatically locks with an alarm that requires a code to get back in. And he doesn’t bring anyone into his office, either. He’s a cagey bastard, doesn’t trust anyone.”
Hook (Neverland Novels Book 2) Page 7
