another one of my pawns. “Nothing, you’re just acting like a brat right now.”
No, he didn’t.
No. He fucking didn’t.
We’re back to this again?
“How the hell am I acting like a brat?”
“Do you not realize you’re slamming the pawns onto the board all because I’m in the lead? A little harder and you’ll shatter them.”
“I’m not slamming them.” Another one down.
“You just did it again, brat,” he points out.
That’s it. I’m done. So done with him always looking at me like I’m that little girl he remembers meeting all those years ago. I’m not a goddamn child—I’m a woman.
Out of my seat in what feels like a single step, I loom between his spread legs. My knees graze the outer edge of his seat, that’s how close I bring myself, balling my fists at my side.
“Don’t. Call me that,” I grit.
“Would you prefer kid? Perhaps baby?”
My stomach whirls at the last one but I shake it from my mind. “I said stop.”
“Or what, kiddo? Are you going to throw a temper tantrum on me?”
Slamming both hands onto his arm rests, I bring my face inches from his. “Stop fucking calling me that!” I sneer, vision tunneling on him and him only.
Callan’s eyes burst in sudden shock, taking me aback. That abrupt flare of my rationality dissipates as quickly as it’d sprung up. Why is he looking at me like that? He’s speechless, unmoving, regarding me in...wonder? I don’t understand what’s warranted such a reaction until he does a final sweep of me from head to toe, then morphs into a beast I’ve never seen up close right before my very eyes.
It’s a clear spurred reaction. To me? Do I look like that right now, too?
The skin beneath his eyes is shadowed with black veins, the whites of his eyes drowning in a crimson sea. He isn’t baring his fangs, but I suppose if he felt truly threatened, he would.
I’m not scared, though.
I’m as stunned as he is, probably more considering this is my first encounter with him in his true immortal form.
Seeing him like this does something to me. Something immediate, I can’t explain it. My vision seems to close in on him further and the first thing that comes to mind is that common room. The parlor, too.
I want him to do that to me. A whisper in my mind, yet the truth no less. Dangerous in every sense of the word.
But Hook lives for danger.
Which is why the next thing I know, he’s grabbing me, fingers digging roughly into my backside as he yanks me into his lap. My legs fall on either side of him, hands falling to his chest to support myself. Those vampiric features fade as we stare each other down.
Breathless.
Static.
And I thought seeing him in that state was enticing.
But seeing him beneath me, this trunk of a man, feeling his hard body against my soft planes...
Holy shit is this really happening?
“What the hell are you doing?" I'm barely breathing in his hold, immobilized as his palms sail gently up my figure.
“I'm calling checkmate, love,” he grins, “that's what.”
“We’re not done playing,” I remind him.
“Yes, we are. You can’t play nice and since it was my idea to play, I get to call.” Leaning in closer, his nose starts up my neck.
I barely manage, “That’s not fair,” as he inhales me along the way.
“Life isn’t fair, my little pixie.”
Tell me about it.
“So what now?” I breathe, head tilting of its own accord, my body willingly molding to his touch as if we were, in fact, within the confines of that common room.
I can almost hear those sounds going off around us, amplifying the sense of arousal claiming me with every passing moment.
“You know what. We agreed,” he husks.
“But you didn’t actually win. You distracted me with your stupid, fucking taunting and—”
“That smart mouth.” He chuckles, trapping my jaw in his grip. The way our stares burn against one another—it’s never been like that before. “Why do you insist on playing this little game, like you don’t want me to devour you? Like you don’t want me to erase what remains of that little boy?”
I try to get a word in, but he’s hushing me in an instant, dragging a finger to my lips. “You’re mine already, you know, have my blood pumping through your veins. Let me give you what we both want.”
“I can’t resist you anymore,” I blurt, and it’s not of my own accord. It just comes barreling out in nothing more than a