by Fox, Logan
“I’m here,” I mumble through reluctant lips.
“Again.”
“I’m fucking here, all right?”
Hunter tightens his grip around me, and I burrow into him as if I could dig a hole that will keep me hidden forever.
I wasn’t ready for this.
Could I ever have been? Not for this.
I knew it would be bad. That part of my mind had been shoved into a dark corner, but I knew it was there and sometimes I would want to peek inside.
I would shoot up instead because the constant threat of an overdose was easier to handle than unearthing the secrets I’d hidden from myself.
“You are.” Hunter’s voice seduces me into opening my eyes again. The world is still unsteady. His face is a moving picture—stern one moment, caring the next. “You are here.”
But not always. I went somewhere else. That dark nest of festering rage, shame, and guilt that skulked in the back of my mind is gone.
Instead, I have a whole new slew of memories. As if I can’t stop picking at the scab on my brain, I start going through them one by one.
Like a projector flickering against the wall of my mind.
First slide: my mother’s drawn face days before she died.
I squeeze my quivering lips together, but I can’t keep anything bottled up anymore. Hunter touches my face, and as if that was a trigger, all my dirty secrets come tumbling out.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Hunter
A tear flashes down Clover’s face, heading for her matted red hair. I brush it away with my thumb. Her eyes flutter. She presses into me, her hand finding mine and squeezing it painfully hard.
“I killed her.” The pronouncement emerges via an unsteady whisper.
And, instead of a patient priest, I begin arguing. Because I know you Clover. I know you better than you know yourself.
“You’re lying,” I whisper back furiously.
Cancer killed her mother—Clover had no part in it.
“I wanted her dead.”
“You were a kid.”
“So why did I pay for it, then?” Her eyes drill into mine, demanding answers she will not accept.
“This was never your fault. None of it. You did—”
“He was my punishment. The dark—” She cuts off, her body shuddering against mine. “Because I killed her.”
“That’s not how it works.” I put as much authority in my voice as I can, but Clover is still not convinced. Perhaps she never will be.
Unlocking the past is only the first step.
Next, you have to accept it.
It can take minutes, weeks. A lifetime.
And don’t get me started on forgiveness. I’m not an advocate.
I cup her face with one hand while she squeezes relentlessly at the other. “It's time to start looking ahead.”
As if just the thought makes her uncomfortable, she squirms against me.
I’m suddenly all too aware that the only thing between us is sweaty skin. I’d kept my boxers on, but for some reason I feel compelled to take them off.
But I can’t, because she still has my hand trapped in hers.
“I fucked up everything,” comes her pitiful moan. “I fucked up my life.”
“You’re not on your death bed, Clover. You still have your whole life ahead of you.”
“But I could’ve—”
“This is the path you chose to walk. Now you have to choose which direction you go. Backward…or forward.”
Her eyes find mine again, sparkling with desperation. “I don’t know how.”
“Then let me show you.”
“Will you?” Hope floods her face, parting her lips and smoothing the deep crease between her brows.
She bucks her hips, grinding her pelvis into me. I harden, and fervently try to stop the memory of how she sounded under me flooding my brain.
This isn’t right. Ayahuasca is never to be misused. What Clover’s feeling right now isn’t arousal—it’s relief. Perhaps, a zest for life that flickered out the same day her abuser first touched her. Now that it’s returned, now that she remembers what it feels like.
It was the same for me. I—
“You don’t believe in karma,” Clover says, eviscerating the thought from my mind. “But do you believe in fate?”
I’m about to say ‘no’ but the word dries on my tongue before I can get it out.
I don’t.
I didn’t.
I’m a scientist. There is no mathematical formula to explain something as ethereal as fate, or destiny. Pheromones, on the other hand, are triggering chemical responses in our brain. With her so close to me, in this hot, sweaty nest of ours, my body acts on its instinct to procreate with a fertile woman. Once safety is met, a person moves to the next step in the triangle of needs.
Sex.
We’re safe.
That’s all.
For Clover, she’s safer than she’s been since the age of sixteen.
Pheromones triggering chemicals.
That’s all this is.
Except…
I’m not a mathematician, so I wouldn’t be able to calculate the odds of one Clover Vos arriving at the Hill Institute. I’m certain they’re staggering.
That’s before another variable comes into play. Her particular addiction—heroin. It could have been alcohol, or cocaine, or anti-depressants.
But it was heroin.
That fact alone brought her to my attention.
And, so, the odds grow exponentially.
Her case could have been like the hundreds of others passing through my facility.
It wasn’t.
In some inexplicable way, the moment I touched her file, I was aware how important it was for me to read it. I took it home and studied it there to ensure there would be no interruptions as I processed her for the potential to become my first patient in this radical treatment program.
At that point, I’d never met her. There were no pheromones in play. Not back then.
Only pure conjecture. Logic. Reason.
Yet all of that led to this.
The two of us alone in this lean to, naked bodies twined together like mating serpents.
So no. I don’t believe in fate or destiny, soul mates or horoscopes.
But I do believe that, sometimes, things happen for a reason. The evidence is in the way people’s lives will coalesce. To an outsider, the events that brought them together seem random. But to a theoretical scientist, the fact that there’s nothing there is the singular proof that dark matter exists.
Sometimes, even a scientist has to have a little faith.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Clover
I’ve never felt this exposed, this vulnerable before. My skull is split open, and anyone with a pair of tweezers can come pick through my gray matter. The worst part is, I can’t close it up again. My thoughts, my emotions, my memories; they’re nothing but rice grains spilling on the floor. The more I try to scoop them back, the more they escape through my fingers.
I’m literally losing my mind.
I’m hot, but feel frozen inside.
Stifled, but lonelier than ever.
“Hunter…” I whisper.
He couldn’t have heard me, and I don’t have the strength to—
“I’m here.”
With my eyes squeezed closed, his voice blooms neon yellow flowers in my mind. They fade a moment later, leaving me in the dark.
“Don’t stop talking,” comes my fervent plea. Nothing more than a whisper, but he hears me.
For some reason, he complies.
“This is wrong.”
“No. It’s not.”
“We can’t…You’re warm now. I should…” But his voice trails away in the wake of a golden meadow.
“Don’t let go.” I twist my hand in his hair—the only thing I can think to grab—and put my forehead against his.
He’s right—I am warm.
I’m so warm that I
’m sweating. My fingers and toes have stopped prickling, and feeling is coming back to my arms and legs.
But if he lets go of me, I’ll never stop falling. His body is the only thing anchoring me to this dimension. Without him, I’ll drift into oblivion.
“Okay.” He sounds reluctant. “But just for a little while.”
“Forever.”
“Clover.” He makes an angry sound, and I’m finally able to open my eyes. His face is a blur until he draws back enough for me to focus on him. From his expression, I know what he’s about to say isn’t going to be pleasant, but then his gaze softens. He searches my face as if he’s never seen me before.
“I need you, Hunter.”
“You don’t need anyone.”
“I’ll be lost without you.”
“You never needed me. You just had to trust yourself.”
“And you.”
Hunter ducks his head a little. “And me.”
In that moment, I have never seen anyone as humble or as proud.
He got me to open up when I was not only a closed book, but one of those old-school grimoires with like locks on it and shit. Chains, to make sure it didn’t escape the library.
But, at the same time, all it took was him opening up to me.
I’ve misunderstood my attraction—my fascination—with this man.
Wealthy.
Available.
Powerful.
I only ever needed two out of the three to commit to seducing a man to lend me his bed for the night. Sometimes, I’d get away with a week or two. It all depended on how busy they were, how idealistic their minds.
Idealists, you see, believe that inside every hooker lies a heart of gold. That, sometimes, the philanthropic endeavors of billionaires are not just for show. That, someday the need to help mankind, the whales, the rain forest—whatever fucking ecological or humanitarian disaster was pending—would overwhelm their greed.
I aided in those fantasies. Charity, with benefits. Let Clover stay in your penthouse suite for a week, feed her, buy her some drugs. She’d fuck you every night until your Viagra ran out, and then she’d even let you spoon her.
But not Hunter.
I had no intention of staying at his place. Fucking him, yes. That I won’t deny. But he was never a conquest. I merely wanted to unravel him.
Except, he’s not the kind of man to come undone after one night in the sack.
I slide my leg between his. It’s so easy because we’re both lubricated with sweat. It might have been entirely unintentional—which I doubt—but he’d turned this ramshackle cabin into a veritable sweat lodge. With the fire blazing in one corner and the only source of ventilation being the chimney. To say it’s hot in here is an understatement.
Firelight paints every surface not hidden in shadow. In the orange light, Hunter’s brown eyes take on a demonic cast.
I slide my hands over his hips and tug at the hem of his boxers.
His eyes are so intent on me that it’s as if he’s reading my every thought.
If that’s the case, then he knows what I want. Is he going to chicken out, or is he going to transform into that delicious beast that took what he wanted without any expectation of consent?
Because I won’t settle for anything less.
It’s his prize, my punishment.
My punishment, because I didn’t trust him, and I should have.
His prize because he saved me when he could have given up.
I don’t know of anyone who’s ever stuck around long enough not to give up, and if he’s the first, then he’ll be the last. If Hunter wants me, then I’m his and he can do whatever he wants to me.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Hunter
This isn’t what I wanted.
Let me rephrase—this is exactly what I wanted, but not now. Her therapy is proving to be a success—but to be certain, I will need to run a psychological profile on her. I can’t do that in this goddamn cabin.
I also can’t give her what she wants.
She’s fixated on me, and it’s no surprise. I opened a door to a hidden part of her mind, and for that she’s grateful. Even if she wasn’t the Clover Vos that slept with wealthy men for the brief respite they offered her, I would never have let her repay the favor like this.
Except…
Maybe it’s the weed.
Maybe it’s the memories twining over my mind. How helpless, how abandoned, how fucking needy I felt when I went through this exact same episode eight years ago.
She wants—needs—comfort on every level. Emotional, psychological, physical.
This cabin should have provided the physical, but perhaps it fell short. Understandably, to a city girl, a cabin in the woods could never compensate for the penthouse of one of New York’s finest hotels.
Bears, bugs, birds that wake at dawn.
She wants more, and I feel compelled to provide her with everything she wants.
Why?
Because I’m only fucking human.
I’m forever throwing myself into my work. When I need release, it’s more convenient to take a ten-minute shower. I’ve never been in a relationship, and I’ve never slept with a girl more than once.
Nothing personal.
I’m a busy man.
I’ve never spent a minute considering who should be my perfect partner in life.
Yet now, in this moment, I do.
I don’t even know what my requirements are, but Clover checks every single one of them.
This could be lust, but I’m immune to that.
This could be love, but I don’t believe in that crap.
So I’ll write this up as some highly explosive mix of pheromones. Obviously, my DNA wants to fuck the shit out of hers, and I’m powerless to stop it.
Perhaps our children will be on the spectrum. Intellectuals to such a high extent that they struggle to communicate with lesser humans like their own parents.
If only.
Again, it could be the weed.
Her flame-red hair.
The stormy irises crowded out by those magnificently dilated pupils.
Or perhaps it's this cabin, wrought in its own plethora of sentimental memories.
It was here, after all, where, for the first time, I understood that I was not to blame for what was done to me. After a lifetime of being informed that I was weak, stupid, useless…I realized I wasn’t.
A feeling like that isn’t easily dismissed.
Clover gasps and I’m drawn to the present with the speed of a bullet train.
My hand is on her bare breast. The other between her legs.
Yet I have no memory of moving.
Just as she probably has no memory of arriving here. Perhaps she will never have memory of this.
I can’t.
I won’t.
But the carnal appetite building inside me takes no heed of my pathetic morals.
I want Clover. I want her now. I don’t care how she feels about it. I don’t care what state she’s in.
Consent is for the meek.
I stopped being a victim a long time ago. I’m used to getting what I want, when I want it. I bend people to my will, sometimes without them knowing.
I guess we all have evil in us.
Some more than others.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Clover
Electric fire rips through me, forcing me into this moment.
Hunter’s hand is between my legs.
He’s watching me. Waiting. Expecting me to protest?
But he doesn’t understand—I want this. I need release. Surrender.
Doesn’t he realize I can only lose control if I no longer have hold of it?
To say I’m a dominatrix might be overkill, but in the past I liked to order my men around. They liked it too, so don’t you dare fucking judge. Those CEO’s, those Managing Directors, they spent every minute of their lives ordering people around. Their release was having me instruct them. For them to obey me
.
I didn’t use whips or wear stilettos to bed. Nothing as ridiculous as that. But I took what I wanted. Sometimes, I let them take what they needed, but not until I’d been satisfied first.
Now, for the first time, I didn’t want to have to think. I didn’t want the responsibility of leading this encounter. I wanted Hunter making the decisions. I wanted him to take what he wanted.
He’s making me wet and ready for him, his hand between my legs. I lift my knee to give him better access to my cunt, and he immediately slides his fingers inside me.
I might still have been tripping, I don’t know. But whatever he gave me already peaked, and now I’m coming down. Not as hard as I would have if this was ecstasy or meth, but the world still isn’t quite right.
I let out a low chuckle.
When the fuck was it ever?
“What’s so funny?” Hunter demands, his words brushing my mouth.
“What did you give me?”
“Ayahuasca.”
I laugh. “What the fuck is that?”
“The Mother plant.”
“That’s some Freudian shit right there,” I say, unable control my giggles.
Fingers wrap around my jaw, forcing them apart. Hunter’s eyes are a darker shade of red-black when I look at him.
“Respect her.”
I manage a nod, but I’ve obviously pissed him off because he thumps his fingers into me as if he wants to tear right through me. I let out a strangled moan and yank his boxers over his hips. He twists as if he wants to get out of my grip, but I follow him and grab hold of his cock before he can get away.
He hisses at me, eyes fluttering closed as I give his dick a hard pump.
“What’s going to happen now?” I ask him.
Because there’s always a tomorrow.
It’s usually better not to talk about it, but I’m baiting him because I know he’s holding back on me. I want him furious, and I don’t know why.
Because then I know he’ll punish me? Am I still hung up on the fact that I deserve punishment?
My head whirls, and it’s impossible to find anything solid to grab hold of. I mean, what does this all mean?