A Worthy Opponent (Wicked Villains 3)

Especially not where my heart is concerned.

I still can’t make myself leave Hook’s embrace. I take the comfort he offers, soaking it up like a flower seeking the sun. I can’t seem to help myself.

Seconds tick by into minutes. I keep expecting him to ask me what triggered the safe word. I really should know better by now. Hook is too smart. He planned too carefully, was there easing me from step to step, studying every reaction and adjusting his course accordingly. There isn’t a single damn reason for me to have safed out, and we both know it.

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs against my temple. “I pushed you too hard.”

The words burrow beneath my skin, leaving sick guilt in their wake. My shakes have subsided, but I make no move to leave his embrace, and he holds me just as firmly as he has from the moment we assumed this position. If I’m smart, I’ll let him shoulder this guilt, deserved or not. Hook isn’t heartless, no matter what I fear. If he thinks he edged into harming me, he’ll back off. A desperately needed reprieve and …I can’t do it. I can’t be that cold, even if I’m the one who will pay the price in the end. “No, you didn’t.” My voice sounds as if I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes.

“Tink—”

I know better than to speak truths into this delicate space, but I can’t seem to stop myself. It’s becoming a horrible habit around Hook. “I’m so afraid.”

He goes rigid beneath me for the span of a heartbeat. A tensing and then it’s gone, and he’s as relaxed as he’s ever been. I recognize it for a lie now.

I close my eyes. “It’s not your fault, not really. I can’t trust you. You see that, right? Except I kind of want to trust you when you tell me I’m safe, and that is the scariest thing of all.” I think I care about you. I think it might be even worse than that. I might be falling for you. Words I can’t—won’t—speak. If he knows my heart is teetering on the brink, nothing will stop him from a full-scale siege. If the last few days have taught me anything, it’s that I don’t stand a chance if all the brakes are gone.

“I’m not him,” he speaks slowly, softly, but no less intensely for it. “You are not the same person you were. Fuck, Tink, you were sixteen when he got his hooks into you.”

“I obviously haven’t learned my lesson.”

“I’m not him,” he repeats, though this time there’s something else in his deep voice. Something like … hurt.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I am messing this up, and I don’t even know what this is. Fake marriage. Revenge plot. A whole lot of lust. I worry my bottom lip. Even my mental list feels a bit like a lie. I finally shift back enough that I can see Hook’s face.

For once, he isn’t offering me a single damn thing. He’s shut up tighter than the vault in Hades’s office. Only the faint tension in his body gives him away. I open my mouth, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. I don’t comfort. Hell, I don’t even communicate that well unless it’s snark. Negotiating a scene is a whole hell of a lot different than navigating this emotional minefield.

“I know you’re nothing like him,” I finally manage. If I were a better person, I’d leave it there. An acknowledgement of our shared trauma, a nod to the fact that this thing is nothing like anything I’ve experienced. I’m not a better person. I’m a scarred creature who only knows how to strike out, again and again, until it’s left alone. Until there’s no one else. “But you’re no Prince Charming, either.”

I expect Hook to set me down and walk away. It’s the only rational response. He’s handled my aftercare. If I’m not fine now, I’m recovered enough to handle the rest myself. Only a masochist would want to keep spending time with me, and that’s not his kink.

He smooths back the few tendrils of my hair that have come free of the braid. “And you’re no pure princess locked in a tower. We’re alike, you and me. We’ll survive whatever life throws at us, no matter the cost. There’s no place for innocence in our world, and there’s sure as fuck no place for chivalry, either.” He presses a soft kiss to my forehead. “For better or worse, Tink. We have time to figure it out.”

But he’s wrong.

Time is the one thing we don’t have.

Chapter 18

Hook

Tink seeks me out in her sleep. It might amuse me that she’s a cuddler under different circumstances, but with the mountains currently left to scale, the taste of what we could have is almost painful. It doesn’t stop me from holding her close and breathing in the unique scent of her shampoo. It’s something floral I can’t place, a note of sweetness against the spikes she so carefully hones to keep the world at bay.