A Worthy Opponent (Wicked Villains 3)

And then there are the piercings. I once heard Hercules describe Hook as a sexy pirate and he’s not wrong. Between the long hair and the neatly trimmed beard and the rings he has on multiple fingers and … My attention snags on the labret piercing nestled below his full bottom lip. I can’t look at his mouth without wanting to kiss him, which exactly the wrong kind of mentality to have about this shit.

“See something you like?”

“My jailer.”

His grin only widens. Hook’s perverse like that. It doesn’t matter how many times I turn him down or how mean I am, his response is always to seem downright delighted by me.

* * *

It’s a marked difference from the few times we interacted before, when he looked at me with pity and some emotion I never dared name. Peter’s other men either ignored me or lusted after me—at least when he wasn’t looking. Not Hook. I could always feel his attention drilling a hole through my carefully curated numbness.

I don’t know what changed in those months between my leaving and his taking over the territory. He tried to see me once, but I couldn’t stand the thought of any connection to Peter touching my fragile new life. Plus, I didn’t trust him. Hades might have promised me safety, but if Hook dragged me back to Peter, would he pursue? I didn’t know, so I went the safe route. I hid.

There’s no pity in Hook’s dark eyes now. No, there’s just pure delight at my snark. I don’t understand it, and I don’t trust it. Even in the Underworld, there were Doms who saw my attitude as an invitation to break me down. I learned to avoid them, but I don’t have the safety net the club offers now.

He waves a casual hand at the atrocity that is his closet area. “I’ll send for your shit. Put it wherever you like.”

I sift through the words for a hidden meaning but find nothing. “And then what?”

“Tonight we announce our happy union in the only appropriate way for people like us.”

I know what he means even as I try to deny it. There’s only one way to communicate this kind of big change to the entirety of Carver City. It’s possible I’m wrong. “How?”

He pushes to his feet. “The Underworld.”

“No. Absolutely not.” I swipe my hands through the air as if that will make a difference. “You said no sex.”

“I said I wouldn’t fuck you, and I won’t until our terms are met.” He wades into the mess of his clothes and digs through the middle wardrobe while I gape at him. Surely he can’t mean … He definitely doesn’t mean …

Hook retrieves whatever he was looking for and stalks back to me. He holds out a hand, and I gingerly place mine in his. It’s hard not to notice how much larger he is when his big palm is dwarfing mine. I watch numbly as he slips a ring with a giant-ass diamond onto my finger. It fits perfectly, which will piss me off later, when I’m not so shell-shocked. “What about you?” I don’t mean to ask. I really don’t.

He laughs. “I have one, too.” He pulls a matte black ring from his pocket and slips it onto the ring finger of his left hand.

I hate that he was so sure of me that he bought rings. I hate that mine is a princess cut diamond that’s simple and elegant and exactly what I would have chosen for myself. I yank my hand from his. “I’m not going to the Underworld tonight.”

“You don’t have a choice.” He unbuttons his shirt in slow movements. “Unless you plan on hiding in this room like a coward for the rest of your life, you have to play the game. You know that, so stop wasting both our time fighting over something that you know you can’t win.”

I watch helplessly as he shrugs out of his shirt. “What are you doing?”

“Showering.” He kicks off his shoes in the approximate direction of the rest of his clothing. “Want to watch?”

With how the shower’s set up, I won’t have a choice, and he knows it. I paste a bored look on my face. “I’ve seen the show. I’m not interested.”

“Ah, but this one’s different.” His hands fall to his pants.

I almost lick my lips before I catch myself. “Why is this one different?”

When he speaks again, the amusement is gone from his voice, leaving it deeper. “Because this show is for you.” Hook walks away before I can come up with a response to that, which is just as well because I don’t have a response to that.

I stumble to the bed and sink onto the edge of it. The moment I do, I get a whiff of the clean scent of laundry soap, and I almost laugh. The bastard cleaned his sheets in preparation for me. Of course he did.