Page 54 of The Last Lost Girl

I’m feeding Captain Hook. I can’t help but giggle.

“What’s so funny?” he demands. He doesn’t slur, but his words are fuzzy around the edges.

I believe the good captain is tipsy.

“This!” I laugh. “You.”

“I’ve never brought a woman to The Ropes and had her laugh at me before.”

That dries my amusement like a gust of Mojave wind and suddenly I’m parched. The only problem is that my wine glass is empty. And so is Hook’s.

“Another pear!” he demands.

I consider denying him, but then I decide I don’t want to, so I take a sliver and hold it up to his pretty lips. His teeth nip my fingers as he takes a bite.

A shiver slides up my spine. “Was that necessary?”

“It was,” he purrs, moving closer. I inch away again.

When he takes a bite of the next piece, he leaves just a pinch of fruit, then dives back to get it when he finishes chewing. His lips are soft on my skin. His tongue swipes my fingers and I gasp. My traitorous heart thunders.

Hook looks smug as he swallows the remnant, knowing how he affected me. I suddenly wish Belle had taught me how to better hide my emotions.

Something soft lands on my thigh and I reach down to find the rope that he wore all evening draped across it. I heave a complaintive sigh. Then I peek over at him. “Do you come here every time you’re in town?”

Hook’s eyes narrow. “Not every time.”

“But you have… friends, like Paris has friends.”

Hook’s head tilts, that slashed brow quirking. “If you want to know the details of my sex life, Precious, all you have to do is ask.”

“I… No! I just…”

He gives a playful wink. “I’ll tell you my secrets if you tell me yours.”

I laugh to distract him from the reply he expects, because I have nothing to tell. I’ve never even had a boyfriend.

A very loose description of my educational life would be that Belle homeschooled me, on her own terms and in areas she felt I would best benefit. There was no curriculum. And the lessons came when Belle caught a whim for one. So, I didn’t know anyone else my age. I had no friends, as far as I remember, until I was hired at the Aquatic Center for the night shift – hours that literally no one else wanted.

Devin is my work bestie, my only friend other than Belle, and he’s never been anything more. He asked me to kiss him once, just to prove there was nothing between us, which I already knew but totally took him up on because I’d never been kissed and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And it was… unfortunate. There was no spark, no butterflies, no burning in my stomach. We immediately agreed never to do that again and skipped happily back to bestie land.

The pirate’s suspicion is written in the faint lines on his forehead, and for a long moment it feels like I’m sitting beneath a neon sign that reads VIRGIN! in all caps.

“We should head back,” he rasps.

I quickly agree, even as I know that leaving with him will give the town yet another signal that we’re together, or about to be. The worst part is that I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have Hook’s full attention. To become his friend for a time. He said I wouldn’t have the constitution for it and like I have every time he’s challenged me so far, I feel the need to prove him wrong.

A kiss from him couldn’t be unfortunate. What could he do with his pretty, wicked mouth, his hand and hook?

The fairy wine was obviously a mistake. I meant to use it all on him to make him pliant and chatty, but I made myself pliant instead.

We scoot our chairs under the table and weave through the suddenly silent room. Everyone wears sullen colored, homespun clothes and I’m in vibrant red, showing more flesh without trying than our server when she was.

Hook’s hand lands on the small of my back. I’ve seen the possessive gesture in a zillion Hallmark movies, but never thought it would feel so good. I wonder what it would feel like to have him back me against a wall, put his hand on it beside me, and lean in like they do in books.

He doesn’t take his hand off my skin when we step outside.

Or while we traverse the veins of walkways and bridges.

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