Page 37 of Hook

"Is there anything else you want to ask me?" Hook leans up on his elbow, looking down into my eyes.

"You’re not going to want to talk about it." I say and bite the corner of my lip. I did only a bit of digging into his background on the computer, but I really want to know more. I want to know what mistakes he made that no one else knows about. I want to know more about this man that I'm falling so hard for.

"You won't know until you ask me. I've got nothing to hide."

"Why did you go to jail?"

"Which time?" Hook replies right away.

I let out a breath and search for the right answer. "Start from the beginning?"

He leans back again on the bed; this time he folds his arms behind his head and looks up at the ceiling. "The first time I was picked up for stealing. I was a minor. My mother had used all of our money to buy drugs. There was nothing left in the house, not even water." I tried to get a job, but being so young, no one was willing to give me a chance. So one night, I walked into Walmart and just started eating everything I could get my hands on. Once I thought no one was watching me, I grabbed a backpack off the rack and filled it up with everything I could. Turns out I musthave had some really expensive tastes because when they caught me and rang up everything I was trying to steal, it came out to more than five hundred dollars' worth of food. The backpack I'd taken was one of those big camper backpacks; it was two hundred dollars alone.

That was the first time they sent me away to juvie. After that, I beat up this guy who was trying to get one of my school friends to follow him into a dark building. I didn't know that he was a cop, and no one wanted to believe me when I told them what he was trying to do to my friend. This time they sent me away for a year. After that, I was an adult and tried my best to stay out of jail, but it seemed like I was always in a situation where I either had to defend myself or someone else, and when I tried to prove that I was doing the right thing, no one wanted to believe me. The last time I went to jail was because I was trying to stop a man from nearly killing his wife and child. The wife didn't want to testify against her husband, and the prosecutor took one look at my record and concluded that I was the aggressor." He finally let out a breath, and when I blink my eyes, I can feel the tears roll down my cheeks.

"Don't do that. Don't you cry for me."

"How can you ask me not to cry for you. That's horrible, especially when you only tried to do the right thing." I wipe the tears that are still coming down my face.

"Yeah, I tried to do the right thing at the start but once I realized that the bad thing felt so good it was hard to get me to stop. I could've gone to the cops about the man beating on his wife. I could've told an adult about the guy who tried to lure my friend away. There were plenty of other options for me, but I chose the most gratifying of all the options. I chose crime."

He grabs hold of my chin and lifts my face so I'm looking at him. "I'm not a good man, Bea. I keep telling you this, but it's like you don't believe me."

I pull my chin away from him but don't take my eyes off his. "That's because I don't. Even after I read all that mess online about what they said you'd done, something deep in my heart knew that it wasn't the whole story. Sure, you might have done something bad, made a few mistakes, but that doesn't mean you're a bad man. You're not as evil as you're trying to make yourself out to be. In fact, I think you're kind of noble, just a little rough around the edges." I smile at him, and he shakes his head with a soft chuckle before he lets it flop back against the pillow underneath him.

"You're impossible, you know that? One day you're going to do something for your own good." He runs his fingers through my hair, and I let my head fall back to his chest. I'm comfortable—more comfortable than I've been in a long time.

When I was still with Lance all those years ago, I always felt like I was on eggshells while I was in his presence. I always worried about what I might do to tick him off. I don't have to worry about that with Hook.

What I am worried about right now is the fact that no matter how much I try to tell myself that what's going on between him and me isn't that serious, I know I'm just lying to myself. If I don't fight it hard, I'm going to end up falling in love with Hook. The issue is, I don't know if he's still going to want me after all this is over. What if Lance wins? What if, for some reason, Hook is taken away to prison again? I don't know how I'd be able to live with myself, and I know for sure Hook will never be able to forgive me.

On the other hand, everything could go right, and we could be rid of Lance forever, but does that mean Hook is still going to want me afterward? Our relationship happened so quickly I can't really be sure of his feelings for me, besides, of course, the insatiable lust and his protectiveness. But from what he's told me about the reasons he's gone to jail, it's clear that he's protective of everyone.

On top of all that, even if everything goes right and Hook wants to be with me, I'm not sure I can deal with being involved with someone else who lives their life on the wrong side of the tracks. The constant fear that the cops are going to come barging in to take one or both of us away.

When I finished with Lance, I promised myself that I'd live a simple, straight, and narrow life. It would be boring as hell, but I wouldn't have to worry about the law anymore.

The thoughts whip around my head as Hook and I lay in bed just holding each other. He rubs his hand up and down my shoulder, and though he's not saying anything, I know he's deep in his own thoughts as well.

Just before I'm about to drift off to sleep, Hook speaks. "You know you can do so much better than me, right?"

It breaks my heart that this man doesn't see himself as worthy, that he doesn't think he could deserve someone like me. I guess that's what happens when the first thing people do when they see him is run in the opposite direction. I don't want to be another one of those people who judge him and write him off for dead just because of his past mistakes. I may not know what the future holds, but I know right now I'm here with him, and there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

"Hook, you can't scare me away. Get used to it because I'm not going anywhere." I nuzzle even closer into his chest and close my eyes to get some much-needed rest.

Fifteen

Hook

Bea is sleepinglike the dead. I've gotten up, washed, and dressed before going out to the main area of the clubhouse where most of the guys are either playing ping pong or lazing around.

"What the hell were you doing to her?" Pipe asks me the minute I step into the area.

"None of your business," I answer but don't stop the smile from crawling up my face. I laid it down, if I may say so myself, but I don't want to brag about our sex life with the guys. What happens between Bea and me is private.

"Bullshit, I need to make it my business because the way she was screaming for the Almighty, I was about to walk in your room with a pad to take notes."

"You creepy fucker. You just want to get a glimpse of Hook's ass," Semi barks in Pipe's direction.