Page 41 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

NEVER

I blinked into the darkness, dread seeping into my bones. Not again.

Despite the lack of light, my surroundings were painfully familiar. I knew every line of the bedposts, every curve of the settee. My only saving grace was that my brain refused to accept what it was seeing.

My heart, on the other hand, desperately wanted to believe. It ached to be in that room, enveloped in Hook’s scent. But my heart had almost fooled me before.

I’d come so fucking close to giving in so many times.

Just one thought, and I could be with him. The only thing that stopped me was reminding myself what that one thought and that brief moment would cost me.

So, I did like I’d done at least a thousand other times and dug my fingers into the dirt to anchor myself, to remind myself that I couldn’t go back. No matter how much it hurt, and no matter how vivid the dreams were that taunted me.

“Never?” Hook asked quietly.

It was like someone grabbed the dagger piercing my heart and twisted it viciously. He sounded like he was close enough that I could reach out and touch him, but I knew better. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting of tears and tried to will myself awake.

“Love, look at me.” A warm hand touched my arm, and I jerked, clutching the ground harder.

Only it wasn’t dirt between my fingers or hard ground beneath my back. It was impossibly silky sheets and a mattress so soft I could have cried from that small comfort alone.

I pried one eye open to find Hook propped up on his elbow beside me. Concern creased his brow as he reached over and brushed his thumb along my cheek. “Breathe.”

I sucked in a hitching breath and let it out in a rush.

“Good. Now, do it again.”

With the way he was looking at me, it took me a second to get my throat to unlock a second time, but I finally managed another uneasy inhale.

“This is real,” he said softly. “You are safe here with me. Your family is safe in their realm.”

I wanted to believe him. I was trying. In the back of my mind, I vaguely remembered talking with Rue and the crushing relief that came with her reassurance that my brother, Angie, and Lily were all thriving. The human realm was mending, and the space between realms was on the mend too.

Then there was Leo and his weekly rants about the parade of eligible women who were practically throwing themselves at him for a shot at being the next alpha’s mate.

By the time Hook peeled my fingers away from the sheet and pressed a gentle kiss to the inside of my wrist, I was almost convinced.

“Tell me?”

A knowing smile curved his lips. “I love you.”

More of the tightness in my chest eased, and I closed my eyes. “Tell me again. ”

“I love you.” His warm whisper in my ear triggered a riot of goosebumps.

Those three words had become my anchor to reality. Even in my deepest, most convincing dreams in the Alius, my mind never let him torment me with them.

“Again,” I breathed.

His lips skated along my jaw to that sensitive spot just below my ear, pulling a moan out of me. “Would you rather I show you?”

Desire pulsed through our connection, another blistering reminder that this wasn’t one of the dangerously tempting dreams I’d had during my time in the Alius. There was always an underlying ache in those fantasies, a painful longing for something that was just out of reach.

Hook’s desire in real life was different. It carried a heavy dose of anticipation and an unshakeable confidence. The man knew what he wanted, and he knew exactly how to get it.

His lips and fingertips traveled slowly down my body.

Every touch, every sensation, seemed to wake up a different part of me.

His gentle kisses along my shoulder made my fingers twitch with the need to reach out.

The sharp suck on my nipple made my core clench.

And when he worked his way between my thighs, finding just the right rhythm and pressure with his talented mouth, my toes curled into the sheets as my back arched.

I dug my fingers into his dark hair and held on for dear life as he wrung one orgasm after another out of me, until I was covered in a sheen of sweat and panting with pleasure. But I already knew he wasn’t done with me.

Before the Alius, Hook had loved to tease.

He would bring me to the edge and hold me there until I was ready to break.

Then he would back off, let the feeling recede, and build me back up again.

He would do it over and over, until I was wound so tight I was in physical pain.

But it was a delicious kind of torture, and the orgasms after those edging sessions were mind-blowing.

Now, months after making one of the hardest—and easiest—decisions of my life, he still hadn’t regained his taste for edging me. Maybe he never would. We were both different now, in a lot of ways.

Instead of taking that rollercoaster car to the top of the peak and inching it back down, he greedily pushed me over the tipping point.

But the man was still insatiable as ever, and he never stopped with just one.

He would do it again and again, until I was a boneless puddle of bliss that had nothing left to give.

Then he would do it one more time.

By the time he climbed up my body—his eyes and energy demanding more—every muscle in my body was trembling.

“I don’t know if I can,” I breathed.

His answering smirk made my heart hiccup in my chest. “Was that a challenge?”

He didn’t wait for an answer before grabbing my wrists and pinning them to the bed with one hand. The stretch when he lined himself up and pressed into me made my breath catch.

Had he always felt this damned good?

He slid his deliciously hard cock back and repeated the slow slide, pulling a mewl out of me. “What were you saying?”

I closed my eyes and rocked my head back and forth because I couldn’t remember. All I knew for sure was that I wanted more of that stretch and more of that pressure.

Maybe it was his size or his shape or the angle, or maybe it was pure fucking magic, but he always managed to hit a spot inside me that set my blood on fire and made the tips of my toes and fingers tingle wildly.

“One more, love,” he said, his breath hot against my neck as he ground into me again.

That was another thing I never got quite right in my fantasies, the way his body felt when he was on top of me, skin on skin, with his weight pressing me into the mattress.

It was nothing short of heaven.

Anticipation rolled through our link telling me he was close, but damn him, I was closer. Another deep grind and I arched into him with a moan that I felt in every cell of my being.

It wasn’t earth-shattering. There was no explosion of pleasure.

The orgasm that overtook me was a slow wave that picked me up and made me forget gravity existed.

It was sinking into a hot bath at the end of a long day.

It was knowing, in my heart, that spending the rest of eternity in this realm with my pirate was the right choice.

It was coming home.