HUNTER (7 page)

“You should go,” she said, finally breaking her silence.

I wrote my number down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. “Let’s catch up sometime,” I said, handing her the number and stepping out onto her porch.

“Bye, Hunter.” She closed the door and I could hear her footsteps through her thin walls as they moved across the trailer home.

I peeked in her mailbox before leaving. There were a number of letters addressed to a Liam Silverstone.

Liam Silverstone. The name rung a bell.

CHAPTER TEN

Greg had come back from the Congo a completely changed person. Hunter, on the other hand, hadn’t changed one bit. He was still just a selfish ass. And the whole bad boy thing was just plain pathetic. It was cute and innocent enough when we were kids, but we weren’t kids anymore. Everyone laughed when my dad caught Hunter trying to climb the wall up to my bedroom, when we were fourteen. When Hunter took Ms Lyle’s car for a joyride, when we were in the eleventh grade, we all got a kick out of it. No one got hurt.

Now, there were consequences for being a bad boy. It wasn’t cute anymore.

If Liam knew Hunter came over, I couldn’t even imagine what he might do. Before Hunter came home, I didn’t think Liam would ever so much as yell at me. Apparently, I was wrong. A few hours before Hunter showed up at my door, Liam came home, screamed at me, and gave me a mean shove into the counter. Who knows what he was capable of if he was pushed any further? I wasn’t exactly hoping to find out.

I quickly cleaned up Hunter’s coffee cup, leaving mine dirty so that Liam wouldn’t catch on. I even cleaned Hunter’s shoeprints off the floor. One thing I couldn’t seem to get out was the smell of Hunter’s musk—that smell of wood, fire, and gunpowder, as if the Congo was still in his blood and his sweat.

I held Hunter’s phone number over the garbage but hesitated. I put the number into my purse.

And that was all there was left to do, but wait for Liam to come home from work. I couldn’t even watch TV. Liam had cancelled our cable. He said it was too expensive. I was left alone with nothing but my thoughts and that lingering scent.

I took a seat at the kitchen table, still two hours before Liam was supposed to be home. I didn’t want him to come home. I knew he would find something to set him off. He would manage to read into something I’d say and accuse me of doing something I never did. And how long could I put up with that for?

I could still smell Hunter. I could practically see him sitting with me at that table, too—smirking, probably thinking about how much he loves himself. He’d gotten another tattoo since the night before he left for the Congo. It was a date, in roman numerals, written across his forearm. It was too muddy to read, as if he’d done it himself with an old needle. He probably did.

He used to always make me go with him to the tattoo parlours when we were kids. His excuse was that I made him look older when I stood next to him, and the rules said you needed to be eighteen. I think he was just trying to impress me, show me how tough he was, getting inked up without ever flinching.

I wondered if he’d gotten any other tattoos in the Congo. He’d always talked about getting a quote tattooed on his side, but never got around to it. I couldn’t remember what the quote was—some song lyric. He would say that he wanted to wait until he was “the right weight,” afraid the tattoo would look funny if he kept putting on muscle after he got it. By the looks of it, he’d put on a good forty pounds of muscle since he shipped out. He barely fit his t-shirt. When he was sitting at the table, I could see every bulge and dip in his chest and arms.

What does a man need with all that muscle? He was strong before he left. I could still remember him pinning me down to that bed, driving his cock into me. If he’d pounded me any harder, he probably would’ve killed me.

Judging by the sheer size of his chest, it was safe to assume he had a lot of free time in that prison camp, a lot of time to work out. I had a clear picture in my mind: Hunter, glistening in sweat from the heat, with both hands clasped around a bamboo beam. He pulls himself up, touching his chin to the beam before lowering himself back down and repeating the process. Every muscle in his arms, torso, and back bulge as they flex.

I let my hand slowly lower down my stomach. I curled the base of my shirt up to my bellybutton and the tips of my fingers pushed under the waistband of my pants. My hand slipped down.

The prison camp must’ve been so lonely. The newspapers said they spent weeks in solitude, with nothing to do. It was surprising that Hunter, of all people, went five years without touching a lady. Knowing Hunter, he probably jerked off a lot.

The tip of my middle finger snuggled between the lips of my pussy, and gently drew circles against my clit. My whole body shuddered. I couldn’t help but wonder if he thought of me when he was in that camp.

I pictured his hand stroking up and down the length of his cock, beads of sweat still trickling down his glistening body. He gets harder and harder and harder until the throbbing tip of his member is nearly touching his sternum. The vein that lines the underside of his cock is throbbing harder and he begins to stroke faster.

My other hand slipped under my panties and two of my fingers penetrated my hole. “Shit,” I heard my voice mutter.

Hunter pumps his cock faster still, his eyes closed, his muscles tense. He’s muttering my name under his breath. He wishes he could just bend me over, stick it in me, and fuck me until my muscles go weak and I squirt all over his dick.

Then, he pulls out and flips me over just in time for his warm come to spray my tits.

I came. “Oh shit,” I said aloud, my hands down my pants and my legs convulsing. A shudder of pure elation surged through my body and my body was suddenly weightless, warm, as if Hunter was holding me tightly in his thick arms.

I opened my eyes, pulled my hands out from my panties. I looked around the room, overwhelmed by the sudden anxiety that Liam was home. He wasn’t, thank God.

But now I had another excuse to clean. My fingers were dripping wet and my crotch was damp. I’d squirted. I hadn’t done that since…

Since I slept with Hunter.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The internet had come a long way since I left for the Congo, which I discovered with a quick stop in at the local library. It had come such a long way that I barely knew how to use the damn thing. I had to get one of the librarians to help me, which I was happy to do, seeing as the librarian was a surprisingly young and surprisingly hot woman.

She was the complete opposite of the librarian stereotype, save for the pair of glasses that sat at the end of her nose. “What do you want to do?” she asked, taking the seat behind the computer and aligning her fingers at the keys. She smelt like flowers and horny nightclubs.

“I was just hoping to look up an old friend,” I said.

“The best way to do that is with a Facebook account. Do you have one?”

“No.” I didn’t know what that was, but she set one up for me, and tried to show me how to use it.

It was mostly gibberish, though I got the part where she said, “Type your friend’s name in here and you should be able to find him.” She was right. I found Liam Silverstone of Nintipi, Kansas; occupation: Junior Foreman at Nextek Solutions. He only had a couple of pictures posted, mostly of him slamming cans of cheap beer and a couple pictures of him holding up a dead buck by the antlers.

There was only one photo of him and Kyla. He was trying to look tough, scowling into the camera. It made me wonder what Kyla saw in the loser. In the photo, she was sitting next to him, with her legs across his lap—those thick, juicy legs. She had a big smile on but she didn’t look happy. I knew what Kyla’s smile looked like, and that wasn’t it.

Liam’s final picture was of him in the Middle East, dressed in full camo, holding an M240 machine gun. Son of a bitch was a US Marine. I was more surprised at myself for not suspecting as much based on his other pictures—and the fact every second asshole in Nintipi went into the Marines, myself included.

I didn’t even have to type Nextek Solutions into a search engine. The website told me all I needed to know with a single click.

My librarian helper came back to check on me. “Everything working for you?” I swear her blouse was open one button lower than before. She still smelled like flowers and horny nightclubs.

“Yeah, thanks. I think I got all I needed.”

“Aren’t you Hunter Sykes?” she said. “I mean—Sergeant Sykes.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw you on the news. Were you really in a P.O.W. camp for five years?” Her eyes lit up as if it were some kind of achievement.

“Yeah. Four and a half, really.”

“That’s incredible. I bet you have some amazing stories.”

“If that’s what you want to call them,” I said with a laugh.

She put on her best sad puppy face and bit her lip. “It must have been really hard. I’m sorry.” She wanted me to fuck her. I’ve seen those glowing eyes and that little lip-bite more times than I could count—and it always meant the same thing.

She would have been a good time. I could picture those firm, perky tits bouncing so slightly while her tight tush slapped against my lap. Had my blood not still been boiling from the thought of Silverstone hitting Kyla, I just might have taken her into the back room and fucked her brains out.

My blood wasn’t going to stop boiling until I confronted the ex-Marine. “It is what it is. Thanks for showing me how to use the computer.” I continued towards the door but she ran up next to me.

“I think you’re really brave,” she said. “I can’t imagine how scared you must have been.”

“Yeah. I just did what I could to survive.” I reached for the door.

“Could I ask you something? And I totally understand if it makes you uncomfortable in any way.”

“What?”

She bit her lip again. Hell, I thought she was going to ask me right then and there to stick it in her. “I’m working on this book. It’s kind of a history of Nintipi book, for my Masters’ thesis. I’d love to interview you for it—learn more about the Boys from Nintipi, and their mission in the Congo.” The history of Nintipi? There once was a shithole town called Nintipi. From the day it was created, it was a shithole and nothing interesting ever happened. To this day, Nintipi is still a shithole. The end. “The Boys of Nintipi has a good ring to it, right?” she asked.

Anders’s face flashed through my mind.

“Yeah, maybe. I need to get going, though,” I said.

“Can I get your number? We don’t have to do the interview now. We can do it whenever—wherever. Your place, my place, here, it doesn’t matter. The corner of her mouth was curved upwards and her lips were pressed thin, as if she was trying to hold back a laugh. By the looks of it, she wasn’t talking about any interview. I guess there was some benefit to being somewhat of a celebrity.

I jotted down my number and gave it to the girl. “I’m Erin, by the way,” she said as I turned to leave. I smiled, nodded, and left.

Nextek Solutions wasn’t hard to find, and it wasn’t far from the library either. The blue and white Nextek logo was clearly printed on a small sign, stacked with fifteen other signs that stood tall above the town’s warehouse district. All the companies shared warehouse space—there were only four warehouses between the fifteen companies. And they all shared a reception room.

It was more like a waiting room at the DMV than a reception area, with a long line of desks, each occupied by a different tired-looking woman, fifteen in all, one for each company. Nextek was at the very end, and the receptionist looked particularly tired.

I asked her if Liam Silverstone was working.