Heart of the Hunter (19 page)

I turned around and gave her a smile that said
no
and
fuck off
at the same time.

“That was Deacon, an old buddy who was helping me with something last night.”

“Was he the one in the obnoxious car you were arguing with? What was he doing here? What was he helping you with?”

I jammed my phone in my pocket and grabbed my keys off the table.

“Yeah, that’s him. He’s good people. Well, I mean, he’s not, but he’s my people. He tracked me down and came through to warn me that the old man was probably not far behind. There’s a place not far from here where I’m going to lay low for awhile. A cabin in the mountains. We were on our way to check it out last night when, when I saw you.”

“When you rescued me,” she said as she clasped her hands together like some damsel swooning in a movie.

“Don’t fucking push your luck, little lady.”

“My
hero
.” She started to spin around like she was lost in some sarcastic fairy tale. She was mocking me, but all I could think about doing was picking her up and fucking her brains out on the table.

Goddamn it, you are fucking beautiful.

“People keep calling me that. Don’t make me slam you on this table and show you what a fucking nightmare I am.”

I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in for a kiss as she squealed with laughter.

Jesus Christ. I’m in deep fucking shit here.

“Not now, Hunter” she squirmed as I held her close. “I have to get home before Grace and Lucas wake up and realize I’m gone.”

She paused for a moment and looked up at me with her gorgeous face, blinking those green doe eyes.

“Do you want to,” her voice trailed off.

“What? Do I want to what?”

I regretted asking the question as soon as it left my lips. I knew that look. I had gotten it from a few misunderstood girls in the past.

Don’t do it, Kelly. Don’t ask the fucking question.

She turned her gaze to the floor and shuffled her feet a bit.

“Well. Lucas will be up soon, and Grace will cook a nice breakfast for us. Do you?”

Goddamn it, do not finish that fucking sentence, sweetheart.

“Do you want to eat with us?”

Shit. Fuck. Shit, shit, shit.

“Uh, I mean, I have to go check out this place and I don’t think Grace is really my biggest fan, darling.”

She looked back up toward me and bit her lip. She looked so fucking sexy.

“Well, I’m a fan of you,” she said, placing her hands on my chest and sliding them down to my waist. “And it’s my house. I want you to come. It would be good for you to meet Lucas and for Grace to see you in a setting where you’re not beating people to death.”

She was rubbing her body against me and my cock was starting to grow.

And
I’m
supposedly the one who’s the fucking devil.

“Kelly, do you really think this is a good idea?”

“Yes, I do,” she fired back, taking almost no time to respond. “Plus, I haven’t seen you put anything in your system other than whiskey and cigarettes today. A meal would do you good.”

I just stood there and stared down at her.

“And you still think this is a good idea? Take the piss drunk, tattooed, criminal home to meet the family at five in the morning?”

She looked up at me and smiled.

“Yes. You hold your alcohol very well. But I’m driving.”

She grabbed her keys from the table and walked to her car door, turning around and motioning with her head for me to come along. Reluctantly, I followed.

Of all the horrible, drunken decisions you’ve ever made, Hunter, this is the worst.

I walked over to her slowly and gave her a deep kiss. I felt her hands fall to her side and I reached down, grabbing the keys from her hand and breaking away.

“I drive,” I said. “Always.”

She stared up at me with a little devilish smile.

“That was a dirty trick to play on a helpless girl.”

She walked around the car and got in the passenger side as I fired up the engine.

“Yeah, well I’m a bad fucking man remember?”

I lit a cigarette and we drove into the sunrise together, side by side, almost as if it had always meant to be that way.

Chapter 36

Kelly

I
KNEW THIS WAS A
bad idea. I was barely prepared for Hunter, and I didn’t think for a minute that anyone else would be even close to ready. I wasn’t worried so much about Lucas, in fact, I was actually looking forward to he and Hunter meeting. Luke hadn’t had a man in his life since our father died, with the exception of Phil, and that wasn’t really someone I considered a role model. For all of Hunter’s demons and sins, there was an honest man beneath, a man with integrity and power, a
man
, plain and simple. If he could be who I thought he was, who I knew deep down he was, Lucas could use him in his life. Maybe the other way around too.

Grace was the one I was worried about. I loved her with all my heart and no one, with the exception of my parents, had looked out for me the way she had. But she was an old fashioned, small town, woman. She didn’t like anything disrupting her quiet life and did not trust anyone who did that. What scared me most was that I was on a path to becoming exactly like her. While there was absolutely nothing wrong with that, it’s not who I was anymore. She would take some convincing and I was beginning to wonder if this morning would be the right time to do it.

As Hunter edged the car into the driveway and parked, we both looked at each other with the same hesitant eyes.

“Kelly, this is a bad fucking idea.”

“I know,” I said, as I turned my head back toward the house.

It
was
a bad idea. It was a horrible idea. But it was something that had to be done. Might as well just rip the band-aid off.

“Listen, you go on in, have some breakfast with the kid and Grace, and I’ll go check out this farm outside of town. I’ll come back in later and we can, shit, I don’t know, but you know I’ll come back tonight.”

I sat in the passenger seat and thought about what he was saying. Maybe it would be better. I could smell the whiskey off his breath and I was a mess. What would I say to Grace? How would I explain him being there when she woke up?

“Kelly, it’s not too late. We can change our minds. We don’t have to do this now.”

I looked over at him, his beautiful blue eyes, his chiseled arm reaching behind me and playing with my hair. I didn’t care anymore about what Grace thought. This dangerous man had chosen me and I wanted him. It was just the way it was and she would have to come to terms with it, just like I had.

“Yes, it is too late to change our minds, Hunter. This is something we’re going to do. Now.”

I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pack of gum, throwing it in his lap.

“There is no way this will help,” I chuckled, “but it will make me feel better.”

He stared at the gum and muttered to himself as he popped out three pieces and jammed them in his mouth.

“This is a bad fucking idea. A really fucking bad idea.”

We opened the car and made our way quietly up the steps and stood at the front door. There were no lights on and I couldn’t hear anyone moving around inside.

Thank God. No one was awake yet.

Hunter was opening the screen door, and went to turn the handle, when I grabbed his hand, stopping him.

“Kelly, what the fuck?” he whispered. “Am I coming in or not?”

I paused and looked at him.

“Yes, you are. But I’m not going to have her knowing I’ve been out all night with you. I want this to go smoothly and if I come in with you and your boozy breath she’s never going to go for this.”

He stared down at me and I could see his eyes getting wide with anger.

“Kelly, goddamn it, listen to me. I’m not fucking fourteen years old, and I’m not going to sneak into this house just to try and keep some lady from freaking the fuck out. This is bullshit and you know it. Either I’m coming in or I’m not. You know what? Fuck this. I’m not.”

He turned on his heels and started to make his way down the stairs.

“Hunter, wait,” I whispered forcefully, watching him turn around and stare me down from the bottom of the steps.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what she thinks of me or the whiskey on my breath,” he said, pointing at the window of the house. “I’ve got shit to do, Kelly, and you’re a part of that now, not that old bitty. I couldn’t give a shit what she thinks. Just you.”

I stood there and looked up at him. How would this ever work? Could it ever work? What did
work
even mean for us? I looked down at the ground and then back up into his eyes.

“I know, Hunter. Just come inside. Lucas will think you’re a superhero, and Grace, well, Grace will come around. She’s incredibly important to me and I’m even more important to her. When she sees how I look at you,” I stopped talking before I embarrassed myself.

Hunter sighed and spit out his gum, replacing it with another piece.

“Fuck it,” he said plainly. “What’s the point of drowning yourself in booze if you don’t do something fucking stupid to end the night?”

I looked up at him and smiled as he glared angrily at the door and shook his head.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’ve gotten me into, Kelly. But, shit, I guess it’s not half the mess I got you stuck in.”

He paused for a second and then pulled out a cigarette and spit out the fresh gum.

“All right, listen. You don’t have to lie to her. Go inside on your own. I’m going to stand out here and finish this fucking cigarette, then I’m going to knock on the door. You tell that woman.”

“Grace. Please call her, Grace,” I interrupted.

“I’ll call her whatever the fuck I want, all right?” he said coldly.

I just gazed at the ground and tried not to poke the bear anymore than I already had.

“Fine. I’ll call her Grace. You explain to
Grace
that you went to lock the diner, your car died, and I came by and fixed it up for you. As a thank you for that, and saving your ass at the diner, you invited me for breakfast. You’re still a smart, good girl and I’m just a stray with whiskey on his breath, all right?”

I looked up at him and put my body against his, trying to give him a kiss.

“Thank you, Hunter. I’ll make it up to you,” I whispered as I slid my hands over his stomach and kissed his neck.

“Fuck, Kelly, goddamn it. It’s bad enough I have to do this, don’t make me go in there with a hard on. I already want to throw you up against the fridge and make you beg for mercy.”

I brought my hands away and walked up the stairs, smiling to myself.

When I got to the door, I turned around and looked at him. He was leaning against the car, smoking a cigarette, and gazing into the sun coming up to greet us. He looked like something out of a movie. His hair messed just right, bulging arms covered in tattoos, his face, beautiful and strong. This wasn’t a movie, though. It was real life. It was my life. I could feel my temperature rising and the familiar twisting of my insides that came with the thoughts of Hunter. I turned away from him and took a deep breath as I walked into my house.

Chapter 37

Hunter

O
H MY GOD.

I had lost my goddamn mind. I stood outside Kelly’s house, waiting to meet her brother and some woman who was playing mother goose like she had nothing better to do. I felt like I was picking a girl up for prom.

You never went to prom, asshole. You fucked some poor bastard’s girlfriend behind the school in your car and then went and got shit-faced at some bar where the bouncers knew not to fuck with you.

When I thought about it, it was almost exactly like prom.

Things never fucking change do they, pal?

I threw down my cigarette and stomped it out with my boot. I threw another piece of gum in my mouth and walked up the porch steps, cursing myself for being so fucking stupid. I went to knock on the door, paused, and then thought about turning around. I thought about hopping in her car and taking off down the road. For good. Then I thought about Kelly’s face when she realized I’d left. Her big green eyes filling with tears, her perfect lips shaking, then my mind went down to her body and the things I wanted to do to it. I could feel my cock rising and I knew there was no way I wasn’t walking through that door.

Fuck, Hunter. Get your shit together.

I knocked on the door three times, probably louder than I needed to. I heard small feet running down the hallway toward me.

“I got it, I got it,” a tiny voice shouted.

The door flung open. It was a little blond kid with the same green eyes as Kelly looking up at me.

Well, here we go.

The kid looked confused and just stared at me for what seemed like forever, before he spoke.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m a friend of Kelly’s. Who the fuck are you?” I said, staring right back at the little punk.

“I’m Lucas, Kelly’s brother. What do you want?”

What the fuck is this shit? It’s too early and I’m too drunk to be doing this. How are people up at this time and not fucking wasted?

“Your sister invited me for breakfast. I fixed her car last night. You going to fucking let me in, or just stand there asking stupid questions?”

The kid stared back at me like he was sizing me up. I couldn’t fucking believe it.

“Yeah, you can come in,” he said cautiously as he pushed the door open for me. “But you might want to watch your language. Grace always gets mad when people swear. She says it means they’re too stupid to think of anything better to say.”

Smart mouth motherfucker.

I walked past him and down the hall.

“Thanks, kid. I’ve been warned.”

As I walked down the hall, all the memories of yesterday’s fuck-fest with Kelly came flooding back. I thought about propping her on the sink as I ate her pussy. I thought about throwing her on the floor and opening her up with my cock, watching her face light up as I filled her with my come. I could feel myself getting hard and then I got to the kitchen door and saw Kelly and Grace having what appeared to be a
heated discussion
.