by Coralee June
“I don’t expect you to clean up my mess, Hunter. I can handle myself. I wanted to tell you the truth about what led me here, but I don’t want you to go back to working for Gavriel. You’re happy here. I’m just worried about Nicole. I don’t know what to do.”
“I will handle Gavriel,” Hunter gritted. His voice was unyielding, as if there was no room for discussion.
“I made the deal, and I can handle the consequences,” I replied. “I’m the one that wanted to see you.”
My response made Hunter chuckle. “You’re weak, Roe. The kind of consequences Gavriel Moretti is known for will keep you up at night. I know what it’s like to have death on your conscience, and you aren’t cut out for it. I will handle this shit with Gavriel so you can leave. How much time did he give you?”
A sense of relief filled me, but it was short-lived. If Hunter was going to fix the situation with Gavriel, then that meant I had no reason to stay here. “Two days,” I blurted out in relief. I was thankful that he would help with Nicole.
Hunter stroked his jaw while simmering over my words. I knew that he wanted me gone, and the moment he spoke with Gavriel, I’d be out of here.
“You can stay here while I figure this shit out with Gavriel. But what happened last night can’t happen again,” he said. I nodded my head while averting my eyes from his heavy stare.
“Agreed. I’m not going to be able to move on if we keep doing things like that. It sends mixed messages when you tell me how much you hate me, then fuck me into oblivion.”
“Agreed,” Hunter began. He dug his fingers into my upper thigh, and I hadn’t even realized he was holding me there. I was sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, staring at his hand and wiggling in my seat. Here we were talking about not taking things too far, and I was already sucked into his orbit. Hunter looked down, realizing what he was doing. Snapping his hand back, I whimpered at the loss of his touch.
“Besides,” I chuckled darkly, trying to play off the moment with humor. I leaned back until I was pressed against the door. Every inch of space between us felt like a deeper breath. “I don’t think your harem of pussy would appreciate sharing.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. “There’s not a lot of options in the desert, and I don’t do exclusivity.”
I patted my lips with my index finger in contemplation. “That bartender—Manny, was it? He seems kind of cute,” I teased.
Hunter’s eyes flashed with darkness for the briefest of seconds, but I caught it. It looked like furious jealousy and hate with one single glance. And then it disappeared. He fixed his face into a soft, easy-going expression like nothing was wrong.
We went quiet again for a lingering moment. “Thank you again for talking to Gavriel,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry I got you involved in that again.”
“You never really leave the Bullets,” Hunter replied. “Only way out is death or jail.”
“Then why did you leave?”
Hunter chuckled. “Just because I can’t escape it doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” Hunter stared at my sports bra and the way my stomach dripped with sweat for a moment before dragging his eyes back up to me. “It’s crazy how easily I want to slip back into that role,” he murmured.
I cocked my head to the side quizzically. “And what role is that?” I asked.
Hunter ran his hands down his stomach and stared at the center console for a moment before looking back up at me. I breathed in, expecting another hurtful thing to spew from his lips, but instead all that hit my nose was the smell of rosewood. Rosewood. He still smelled the same. “It’s so easy to want to protect you, Roe. It’s so easy to want to take care of you. You’re far more dangerous than Gavriel, Roe.”
“What do you mean?” The back and forth was so fucking confusing and was driving me crazy. I just wanted answers. “I’d kill for him, sure. But I’d die for you.”
I swallowed, absorbing his declaration while looking out the passenger window at the hazy pink sunset. Maybe Hunter didn’t hate me. Maybe he was terrified of what his obsession did to him. I knew the feeling. It’s what made me fly across the country to meet with Gavriel. It’s what made me forgo pride, self-respect, and a sense of self-preservation, all for the hope that he’d love me again. My obsession terrified me, so I could understand why he needed space. It was like neither of us could breathe when we were around one another.
But there was something else, too. Another factor I missed. Hunter was filled with guilt, and it felt like he had more sins he wanted to atone for. I knew about our intertwined past, but maybe there was something I missed. Either way, I hoped I got to the bottom of it.
“You don’t have to take care of me anymore. I take care of myself now,” I whispered, though we both knew that in this instance, it was a bald-faced lie. I couldn’t handle the Bullets and Gavriel. I should have never gotten involved. But I could handle Hunter Hammond. I could take his hate. Take his pain. I could take the abuse, because my obsession was like a sponge, and every cruel moment helped me understand him better.
HUNTER
I was going to kill Gavriel Moretti, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t do it efficiently. A single shot through the skull wasn’t enough. I’d need to draw it out, make it painful. I imagined myself wrapping my hands around his neck and squeezing until his devilish brown eyes popped out of his head. Maybe a slow-burning poison. Maybe I’d snap his neck just so I could hear the satisfying crack of his bones. It had been a while since I’d daydreamed about murder. I hadn’t wished to spill blood in ages. But the asshole deserved it, and I had a lot of reasons to be pissed right now.
He was probably smirking at his desk, thinking he had me right where he wanted me just because Roe delivered herself to him on a silver platter. We had a deal. She was always meant to be off-limits. She was a boundary he knew not to cross. I guess all bets were off when I went off the grid and disappeared here to get her out of my head. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that Gavriel would let me off the hook so easily. I always knew the job would one day catch up to me.
I just wanted more time.
More time to get Roe out of my fucking head. More time to enjoy my job and the horses. More time in my airstream trailer. More time at the bar. More time finding the sins of my past at the bottom of an empty bottle. Hell, maybe even more time with Roxanne. I didn’t love her, but maybe I could have settled down and possibly liked her eventually. I was older now. I wanted different things. I craved the simplicity my childhood didn’t offer me. I’d never felt settled before. I never had a consistent home with a foundation that wasn’t drenched in blood, drugs, and debts.
But now I was back to being the man hopelessly in love with a girl—no, woman—I didn’t deserve.
I dropped her off at the motel and drove back to my airstream, gritting my teeth the entire way. She wouldn’t look at me when she got out of the car. I wanted to follow her inside. I wanted to pry apart her thighs and bury my face there. I wanted to taste the memory of us on my tongue and punish myself with her pleasure.
But I sped off and didn’t look back. If last night taught me anything, it’s that one taste wasn’t enough. I’d relapsed big time, and it terrified me.
I distracted myself by weighing all of my options and figuring out how I wanted to play this. If I agreed to work for Gavriel, he’d always hold Roe over me. He’d know that he has easy bait to get me to cooperate, and I didn’t like that for a multitude of reasons. I wanted to be my own man. I didn’t want to be tied to any person, debt, or…Roe. I couldn’t be tied to her. Gavriel would happily stitch our skin together if it meant he could control me.
And the worst part was, I liked the idea of being tied to Roe. I wanted to blame Gavriel for my weaknesses. Use him as an excuse to give in—but I couldn’t. She definitely wasn’t making my job easy, either. Fuck if she didn’t look sexy as hell in the barn, shoveling shit and updating me on her life. Every time I swallowed, I could feel her lusty screams traveling down my throat. Every time she spoke, I could
feel her digging under my skin, tempting me with memories I’d worked fucking hard to forget. We’d changed, but the attraction was still the same. The obsession was still the same, too. It felt like I’d been walking on solid ground for the last five years, and now I was drowning in sinking sand. She was going to pull me under. She knew it, I knew it.
And Gavriel Fucking Moretti knew it, too.
Speak of the devil, my phone started ringing. I stared at the caller ID in annoyance. I wanted a bit more time to come up with my plan of action. He who made the first move always had the upper hand. The fact that he was calling me just proved he was armed and ready for mind games.
I let it ring and ring and ring until it went to voicemail. Gavriel liked his employees at the ready, always standing with their dick in their hands and willing to jack off at his command. I stared at my phone while getting out of my truck. I wanted to pace in the sand but figured I could trick my body into being calm if I sat in the lawn chair, so I settled into the metal seat with rusted legs and bright orange paint. Ten minutes passed until he called again, and like a bad habit, I answered on the first ring. Maybe it wasn’t so bad if he thought he had the upper hand.
“Did you like the gift I sent you?” Gavriel asked without greeting. I ground my teeth, my jaw aching from the fury flowing through my jaw.
“Not particularly,” I replied.
“Such a shame. I wrapped it in a pretty bow and everything.”
“I didn’t ask for this, Gavriel. In fact, I figured you’d understand that when I disappeared for five fucking years.” I clenched my fist and stared at a lizard crawling under a rock near my foot.
“I see five years on that hippie compound hasn’t improved your temper,” he replied coolly. “A gift is a gift. You’ll take what I give you with a fucking smile.”
I let out a sigh. “What do you want, Gavriel? It’s been five years.”
“You haven’t even asked how I’m doing. Business is booming, by the way.”
“Isn’t it always? Spit it out, Gavriel. I don’t have time for your bullshit. Tell me what you need, and I’ll consider helping you.” I knew that would piss him off. Gavriel didn’t like needing anything, let alone needing to rely on anyone else. He liked control. He wanted the world to spin on his fucking command.
“I have a job for you.”
“Obviously.” Gavriel wasn’t calling to catch up. We weren’t friends. Weren’t the family he liked to preach about, either.
“It’s the kind of high-profile target that needs your expertise. He’s heavily guarded. In the public eye…”
I let out a sigh. He was probably a fucking politician. I had a certain knack for making hard to kill people disappear. “No,” I replied, not waiting to hear the reward for this kill.
Gavriel went quiet. I heard him shuffling through papers on his desk, and I waited for the pen to drop, for the threat to spill from his lips. “Roe was a nice girl,” he began. I didn’t like how he said was. “Her friend Nicole is a pain in the ass. It would be no skin off my dick to kill them both.”
Nicole was Roe’s problem, not mine. I didn’t give two shits about her. But if he thought for one second he could threaten my girl, then he needed to check his ego. He was definitely bluffing. I could too. “Go ahead.” The words turned to ash on my tongue. It was a dangerous game of dares and power.
Gavriel chuckled darkly. “Springs Motel? Right off the highway. She’s in room seventeen. She’s taking a shower right now, actually.”
My blood boiled, and my vision turned red. Standing up, I grabbed my truck keys from my pocket and jogged over to where I was parked. “You act like you don’t care, Hunter. But I know why you ran. You don’t want to be responsible for killing another person in her life, do you? First her father—”
“Don’t say another fucking word.” I couldn’t hear it. I’d worked too hard to forget that—to move past those old memories. Old guilts. Old debts.
“Don’t tell me what to do. I gave you a break, but vacation is over,” Gavriel began. His tone was unyielding. “Take the gift I gave you and get to work. I need this job done in two days, and if you aren’t headed here by then, I’ll personally take my gift back and bury her six feet under.”
I started the truck and peeled away from my airstream, barreling down the road and back toward the motel as fast as I could. I shouldn’t care, but old habits die hard.
“If you hurt a hair on her fucking head…”
“Don’t bother threatening me. I’m not intimidated by a man not courageous enough to be with the woman he loves.”
Loves? What the fuck did Gavriel Moretti know about love? He possessed. I didn’t know how Sunshine put up with him.
If I had to describe this thing between Roe and me, it would be more along the lines of:
Disastrous
Dangerous
Inevitable
Tragic
Toxic
Beautiful
Profound
Love
Love. Love. Love.
Love made people do deplorable things. “And yet you hire me to kill. I’m the best of the best, Gavriel. You might have an empire, but I have a knack for killing.”
Gavriel went quiet again, trying to regain the upper hand with strategic silence. “You have two days, Hunter. Don’t disappoint me.”
He hung up, and I threw my phone in the passenger seat. “Fuck!” I screamed. Speeding down the highway, I raced toward Roe. Toward the sinking sand. Toward my greatest weakness.
ROE
I let the steady stream of water fall down my shoulders. I breathed in the hot steam, letting it open up my choked throat. The bathroom smelled like bleach and my vanilla body wash. Today was exhausting. I was emotionally drained but hyped up, too. My body ached from helping Hunter in the barn, and my heart ached from our conversation in his truck. I closed my eyes and tilted my head up and against the steamy stream, blowing water out of my mouth as words for a new poem hit me like a freight train. I loved it when this happened. I loved the serendipities of language and the way they greeted me at random times.
I spun around and faced the fogged up glass door of the shower. Dragging my finger along it, I carved temporary words with my finger in the moisture.
Loving you is delicate.
Nothing about Hunter was delicate. He was all hard. His cut muscles. His heart. His cruel words. He was like concrete, and I was a crack in the pavement that grew with time. My obsession stretched out during hot summers. It burrowed deeper and deeper until the road was split in two. Even the timelessly durable things could crumble. It was such a delicate thing, to be so hard. It made you break even harder.
I started writing more words, twisting letters and meaning with lazy assuredness.
Loving you is like dipping your toes in wet concrete. You’re tempted by the idea of permanence, then get stuck when it hardens.
I loved taking showers. There was something beautiful about the vulnerability of being naked and the process of washing away the grit of the day. It felt like a baptism, and I needed to feel new again after seeing Hunter. I wanted to be a shiny, polished little doll that wasn’t cut and scarred by the man I was hopelessly in love with.
I always came up with my best poetry in the shower, and today I was feeling inspired. I closed my eyes and took the finger I used to write the now fading words and trailed it down my body, thinking of the thin line of his lips. I sunk lower and lower, dipping my hand between my thighs and sinking into the pleading heat. I thought of his broad shoulders and strong arms. I thought of how gentle he was with the horses, the sweat dripping down his muscular back and abs.
I thought about his cold eyes and how devastatingly beautiful he was. I let out a sigh while writing poetry about Hunter on my clit with the tip of my finger. My soaking wet hair fell down my back, my hands trembled, and his name escaped my lips.
I imagined him at my back in the shower, bracing his hand against the tile and pressing into me. I imagined heated words
.
Your pussy is so fucking wet, Roe.
I want to taste your come. Drown in your pleasure.
I imagined him pushing me against the wall with water streaming down his back. I imagined our bodies aligning, his thick, hard cock pressing at my entrance.
A loud knocking on the door made me jump, jarring me out of the moment. I’d put the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, so it couldn’t have been housekeeping. The only person who knew that I was here was…
Hunter.
I quickly shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, letting droplets of water travel down my thighs. I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around myself. Running to the door, I peeked out the peephole then unlocked the deadbolt, opening it just a crack. Sure enough, Hunter was brooding on the other side, with his arms crossed at his chest and a frown on his face. I furrowed my brow in confusion at the sight of him.
He didn’t wait for me to greet him nor did he wait for me to properly open the door. Hunter braced his hand against the wood and pressed, nearly knocking me back as he let himself inside. I gripped the towel tighter against my chest. “What are you doing here?” I asked. Hunter ignored my question. He simply started walking the perimeter of the room, checking the windows, doors, and furniture. I watched in confusion as he ran his coarse hands over every available surface. I asked him again. “What are you doing here?”
Once Hunter had touched nearly every available inch of space in the motel bedroom, he turned to face me. “I had a little chat with Gavriel today.”
“I’m assuming you aren’t on my doorstep because your conversation with Gavriel went well,” I deadpanned.
“Has anyone stopped by?” he asked. “Any suspicious men?”
I rolled my eyes and dropped my towel, not caring about my nakedness. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. Bending over to grab the pair of yoga pants and a crop top from my suitcase, I let out a little groan as my muscles stretched to accommodate the movement. Fuck, today was a lot of work.