Hunter: MC Romance (Hell Reapers MC Book 1) (15 page)

Perky and full of life Laura pranced her way over to my cubicle, folding her arms over the little grey wall that separated me from the empty neighboring workstations. She gave me that overly cutesy smile I’d grown to know over the many days of slogging through articles together with her. “So,” she said.

I perked my eyebrows up at her, only kind of casually glancing in her direction as I highlighted a few words on the document.

“How’s the super secret job going? Amanda’s going to be pissed if this gets you leverage with Gates you know.”

“It’s going,” I shrugged.

“Such a deep and insightful answer,” she mused in a mocking tone, laying her head against her hands on the small wall.

“We all can’t be philosophers like you,” I said, a smirk walking along the lines of my face. “It’s going great, actually. Almost too well.”

“Too well is a problem?”

You don’t know the half of it. “Of course,” I boasted, “I live for the thrill. For the challenge and the chase of a hard won task.”

Laura tittered to herself, “Yeah that’s why you had to fall into this gig instead of being given it.”

“I have my lazy streaks.”

“Truth,” she agreed. “Word around the office,” Laura started, burying most of her face in her hands, so that only her nose and eyes peeked out at me, like she were a scared little rabbit, “is that you’re digging up dirt on some gangsters.”

My chest prickled with heat and I straightened out my back in my black office chair, “They’re not
gangsters
,” I ardently defended. “They’re a band of brothers and sisters, a motley crue of well-intentioned extremists doing the dirt that the public fears to do, so that we don’t have to.”

“How romantic,” Laura teased, “sounds like you’re getting caught up in this story you’re weaving. Is it true? Or are you just wanting it to be? You know you should take off those rose colored—“

“It’s the truth,” I said sharply and dashed my yellow marker through another word, “it’s what I’ve observed.”

“In two nights? Come on, Jess, you sure you believe that?” The sound of neighboring telephones going off punctuated the air.

“If you’d spent any time with them at all, you wouldn’t be so quick to judge.”

Laura rolled her shoulders, “Maybe, still seems pretty sketchy.”

“Your face seems sketchy,” I japed.

“Cruel,” Laura replied, “cruel and unusual punishment of a concerned and loyal friend.”

We shared a small laugh between us and I felt my phone buzz. I dipped into the pocket of my pants and produced it, seeing that it was Sabrina trying to call me. I looked over to Laura, “Sorry. Gotta take this.”

“Who is it?” She nosily asked.

“Doctor none of,” I sassed, “you know, none of your business? It’s just Sabrina.”

“I see where your allegiances are,” Laura made a funny, screwed up face, “better sleep with one eye open, Ives.”

“I’m quivering,” I responded, bringing my thumb to the green icon of my screen, “you just can’t see is all.”

Laura took her leave and I answered the phone.

Sabrina was using her low, husky Ghostface from Scream voice, a common prank of hers: “What’s your favorite scary movie.”

“The one where you never stop calling me.”

Sabrina had what could only be described as a case of verbal diarrhea, “You know, I try really hard to keep you cheery.”

I snorted, “You do a good job, for it not being your professional career.”

“Imagine if it was,” she chuckled. “How’s things? Shit, are you at work right now?”

“Yep,” I looked over my shoulder, feeling eyes on me but noticing nothing unusual. “So I have something to tell you, but you cannot tell a
soul
, seriously Sabrina.”

“Well now you
have
to tell me. Don’t give me blue bits.”

“I spent the night with one of the Hell Reapers. I, uhm,” I rested my chin on my fingers, a wave of heat licking at my chest, “I kind of
spent
the night. You know.”

There was what could only be described as a giddy silence before the storm known as Hurricane Winters. “You, you slept with this dude? No. Way. You slept with him?!” She was so seemingly stunned she had to ask twice, her mouth racing with a dozen different thoughts and assaulting my ear with each and every one.

“Y-yes would you just—“

“Christ on a cracker Jessica! You just met these dudes I don’t want to have to award you the blue slutty ribbon award, but I think you’re kind of a major contender right now – you could go national if you tried my girl. I’m a weird mix of proud, intrigued, jealous and slightly dubious of your conquest; you never jump a boys bones like that.”

Just listening to her flurry had a draining effect on me. But it was a love hate kind of relationship that I had with her way of dissecting and commentating my life choices. “Yeah,” I said simply, “well the big leagues for professional courtesan can wait, I’m not doing it again. It was a huge, huge mistake.”

I had to pull the phone away from my ear when Sabrina howled. “In what way? You know you liked it. Oh Jesus, you
loved
it, didn’t you? I can hear it in your voice,” she gasped, “you have feelings—“

“I do
not
have feelings!” I protested so loudly and stupidly that I saw Robert, who was a good twenty feet away, poke his head up above the cubicle of his workspace. He was a good and kind man, though quite bookish; he had coke-bottle sized glasses and a thinning comb over of black hair.

Sabrina chuckled, “Excuse me while I fan myself off at being so right it physically pains me to feel this way.”

“Okay, okay. Maybe…
maybe
I have some feelings—“

“Oh yes, oh yes, oh hell yes you do. We’re meeting this week at my place, no is not an answer and yes you have to bring the wine this time,” Sabrina was no doubt driving her place of work insane at the moment, as I imagined her doing some kind of silly jig. “Get a bottle of that Raven’s Wood Merlot.”

I caught a glimpse of some man in the distance, moving from desk to desk and cubicle to cubicle. He was carrying a rather large bouquet of red roses; which were my personal favorite. It was impossible to make out just who it was though, as the person’s face and most of their top half was obscured.

“Jess?” I heard Sabrina call out, “hello-o-o.”

There was a pit that began to form in my stomach, “Still here.”

“Seriously get that wine this is happening we’re doing this,” she went on but my eyes were fixed on the man now, who was approaching me. He looked familiar, and my heart began to tap quicker and quicker still against my breast.

“Okay,” I responded flatly, “I’m gonna let you go my boss is looking right at me,” I lied and promptly hung up the call. I caught a couple more glimpses of the man and right before he got to me, I knew that it was
him
.

Jerry huffed as he set down the bouquet of roses on the neighboring empty desk beside mine. He looked proud and pleased, and it looked like he had even bothered to preen himself – not including the least of which seemed to be a shower.

It was then and only then that I remembered the foul stink of the man as he had invaded me. I could feel the roaches of fear and guilt and shame skittering all over my flesh.

His disgusting eyes crawled over me and he flashed his pearly white teeth in a smile, “I know you said you never wanted to see me again,” he started, “but when I saw you at the park, when you came—“

“I need you to leave,” I blurted with a rage twisting inside of me, “right now. Right. Now Jerry.” I don’t even know how he got past the front desk, I’d specifically let Alyssa and our security know about him.

He shook his head and the lines of his face twisted into confusion, his brows dropping and his eyes narrowing, “I don’t understand?”

I leaned forward slightly in my chair, my tone becoming a harsh whisper, “Clearly you do
not
. What part of ‘I never want to fucking see you ever again’ did you not comprehend?” I was never one to pray, but I found myself hoping beyond hope that nobody was watching us.

I never wanted to be seen near the man. Never wanted to be near him ever again.

“But wasn’t it fate?” Jerry asked rhetorically, his face scrunching into something twisted and angry; how dare I question what brought us together again? I questioned
everything
after a vulnerable mistake of my heart brought us into the same damn room, when we first met. I’d never been so sure of a moment I wanted to cut from my life than that one. “How else do you explain it, Jess?” He went on, he was always the creepy type – I just mistook it for something that it wasn’t originally.

“Explain
what
Jerry?” Even his name made my mouth sick, made my guts want to leave me. “Were you delusional enough to think I was there to see you?”

“We—“

“Let me make this clear to you,” I spat, the rage crawling up my spine like twin fiery snakes. I shot up out of my chair, sending it rolling backwards a couple of steps – my fingers dancing with electricity, the soles of my feet feeling as though they were kissed by coals. “I
never
loved you,” the venom dripped from my tongue, “how could I? How could anyone? Do you know what I hate about you?” I asked, feeling so weightless as I approached him. “Everything. There isn’t a singular redeemable quality about you as a person or human being.” I could see that people were looking now, I hadn’t realize how loud I had gotten.

Jerry swallowed, and looked as though he wished to step back.

I would not let him. I pinioned him under my gaze and brought my tone to a deadly susurration. “I trusted you, I trusted you enough to tell you what happened to me when I was just a little girl.” I felt the tears threatening to swell up, but I pushed them back. “And like the coward you are, like the slime you wish you could aspire to be; when I’d gotten sick of all of your lies and your bullshit and your constant cheating, your, your fucking
belittlement
of me—“

“Jessica—“

“No!” I shouted it so loud that my bones flashed with heat and I couldn’t even recognize my voice. All the memories flooded back into me, all the times I had told him ‘no’ and all the times I had fantasized about going to the police; all of the times that I blocked his number, the countless times I’d been polite enough – the numerous chances I gave him.

Everything swirled within my mind and plucked at my breast.

Robert called out to me, “Hey do you need security?”

“I do not,” I announced confidently. “I want you gone, Jerry,” I pushed a hard breath through my nose, “you made everything so much worse for me. I can’t even shower anymore without having a panic attack. The next time I see you, I
will
put the restraining order to use. When I say this, I hope that you’re sincerely listening through that thick skull – die away from me.”

There was a stillness to this storm. His nostrils flared and I could see the color had long since left his face, his cheek twitching for just an instant. Jerry looked all around, taking in his surroundings and making note of my co-workers that were watching him; a small gathering of people having stopped their daily routines to gaze like animals at the circus of drama. He sucked in a breath and became taut as a bowstring, his eyes looking over me, as though he expected me to get on my knees and apologize for embarrassing him.

Jerry moved over to the table where he had put the flourish of roses, sweeping a hand hard across the table and spilling them over the floor – grunting in a rage and stomping on them madly. Every press of his shoe was accented by the dramatic, piss boy whining that I’d come to know him for – petulant and resentful and completely full of himself.

He went for the chair next and shot it across the room, whipping his head back to me – the lines of his face becoming hard, the blue of his veins showing. “Spiteful
bitch
,” he shouted at the top of his lungs, his head thrusting at me and his eyes rounding like he’d just gotten high for the first time in his life.

If there was one thing that I could always count on, it was for him to be a coward – a man of truly rare action. All bark and little bite. Jerry quickly turned on his heel and walked as quickly as his stupid feet would take him, his screaming not coming to a stop when people looked at him; he made sure to give them their own personal dosage of misery before leaving the office.

I loosed a palpable sigh of relief, trying to ignore the shaking in my legs and the hurt in my heart.

Chapter 14

Hunter

It was turning into midday already and I still couldn’t get her out of my mind. Still couldn’t remove the glow she’d put on me; like I’d been blessed by the lips of some angel that I’d ripped from heaven’s charge.

I just couldn’t believe that she left without saying a word. Made the anger boil in my knuckles and a hurt slash at my chest.

Reyes and Jameson were guarding on the inside of the rented out shack of an apartment, along with a prospect we’d picked up. He went by the name of Chris Easy, always down to help, always slow to temper and always quick to bed a woman. He was a good kid at heart, reminded me of myself a little bit – or how I used to see myself at least; I’d always been kind of the opposite. Quick to anger, quick to fuck and quicker still to speak my mind.