Hunter & Prey

by Kira Barker

  “What’s back there?”

  “Where?” Darren wanted to know, momentarily getting distracted by my shoulder, judging from the light kisses he planted all over it.

  “That door. I never noticed it before. Guess you haven’t had it installed just last week?”

  “Highly unlikely,” he murmured, but then dutifully paid me his full attention. “There’s a maintenance room behind it, I think.”

  “You think? Isn’t this your house?”

  He gave a noncommittal grunt as he went on steering me toward the stairs.

  “James does all of that work, or knows who to call. Honestly, right now I’d rather be in my bedroom than the maintenance closet.”

  It made sense that a house as large as this one had a separate space for that. Come to think of that, it was likely that it also housed central heating, and I still hadn’t found out where exactly James did the washing and cleaning. And I had to agree, the bedroom sounded a lot more interesting right now—or ever.

  Upstairs, Darren slowly peeled me out of my clothes, then carried me to the bed where we spent a substantial amount of time otherwise occupied than with sleeping. Unlike the night before, I drifted off quickly with his warm, firm body wrapped around me, holding me close the entire night.

  I woke up in the morning with the sun still minutes from rising, judging from the red that tinted the early blue of the sky. The cocoon of blankets around me kept me warm, but the bed was definitely missing something without Darren in it. A quick pat over to the other side of the bed revealed that he must have only just gotten up, the residual heat not completely dissipated yet.

  As I lay there, snuggled into the pillow, I thought to myself that I could really get used to this. My schedule for the day was cleared, and I could do whatever I wanted to do. I didn’t have to get up, shower, or make some random guy’s day while ignoring my own needs—day in, day out. I could just remain in bed, wait for Darren to come home again, and fuck me senseless just like he loved to do, without the memory of someone else bugging me in the back of my mind.

  The house was completely silent around me, but as I kept listening, I heard the telltale sounds of Darren using the toilet in the master bathroom next door. Smiling contently, I closed my eyes again and waited to doze off; he usually got up way before my time, and unless he wanted company for breakfast, he let me sleep. Only that now I was awake, and so was my body, and the very idea of sneaking into the bathroom and accosting him in the shower brought me faster out of the bed than a tray of sweetrolls could have accomplished.

  The bathroom was huge, adding enough nooks and crannies that I could peek inside and make sure that he didn’t see me right away. He was just stepping into the rainforest shower, steam billowing around him as the hot water hit his naked body. Even with the glass fogging over quickly, I had a very good view from where I remained leaning next to the door, drinking in every inch of him. How his skin stretched over taut muscles, how said muscles tensed and moved with every motion. As usual, he was very industrious in shampooing his hair, then rubbing his hands all over his body, leaving soap suds behind.

  I was just about to leave my place and join him when he stopped, his back to me, hands out of sight. I paused, figuring myself caught, but then he leaned forward, one hand pressed against the wall, the other still in front of his body. I watched his shoulders and back tense, then relax, his free hand the only part of his body still moving.

  So he was jacking off in the shower, now, was he? As much as I loved getting very up close and personal with those parts of his anatomy, I didn’t mind watching the show for once.

  A few inches to the side, and I got a better view, now being able to see most of his cock. He was well under way to getting hard, but took his time, his motions slow and deliberate as he kept stroking himself. Every few turns he would stop and run his thumb over the head, rubbing it exactly as I knew he liked.

  I felt myself respond to his arousal, wetness and heat cumulating between my thighs. Still, I didn’t touch myself because that felt somehow sacrilegious. This moment was his, not mine, and that made it special somehow. So all I did was watch. Watch as his cock grew painfully hard and his motions faster and faster, until he let his head fall back and came all over his hand, the steady stream of water washing all evidence away.

  A truly beautiful, perfect moment—until I heard him whisper a single word.

  “Juliette.”

  I felt my muscles lock up before my mind even fully registered what was going on. Had he really just jerked off to the image of another woman? The idea was so ludicrous that, at first, I really didn’t know how to feel about that.

  Was she one of his clients? His favorite porn starlet?

  Or, worse, a long-lost love?

  While my mind was torn asunder with conflicting feelings, Darren sagged against the wall of the shower, remaining motionless. He turned half around, his cheek now pressed against the cold tiles, eyes screwed shut against the water still beating down on him. I knew that this was my cue to leave unless I wanted to be discovered, but I found myself rooted to the spot.

  Then a sound wrenched itself from him—low enough that I barely heard it—and his face screwed up in anguish, his hand, before loosely resting on his thigh, curling up into a fist. It took me a moment to puzzle out his expression—pain and grief, if I wasn’t completely wrong. And he wasn’t just keeping his eyes shut from the water, he was crying.

  Something cold and hard settled deep in my stomach, and after letting all the air escape from my lungs in one impossibly long breath, I finally managed to tear myself away and traipse on silent feet back into the bedroom. My mind was blank, with random thoughts zooming through my head way too fast to make sense of them.

  I knew I had two options now. One was to get dressed as quickly as possible and bolt, but that would make him suspicious. As curious as I was about what I’d just observed, I knew that he wouldn’t respond well to me asking. I always took my time in the morning, and after last night it would have looked even worse if I’d just up and disappeared in record time.

  That left option two, which was to dive back into the bed and pretend I hadn’t been awake at all. And that was exactly what I did now, where I remained paralyzed under the blanket, incapable of doing anything but simply stare straight ahead at the empty pillow beside me.

  It took forever—likely closer to ten minutes—for Darren to be done in the bathroom and come back out. I didn’t look, but I heard him move around, as quick and efficient as always. I screwed my eyes shut now, trying to keep my face blank in that oblivious sleep look, using sheets and pillows to my advantage. But from the corner of my eye I watched him walk to and fro, pull on his shirt, zip up his pants, expertly knot his tie. The entire time his face was neutral, his thoughts and emotions closed off to me, but not in a strange way. He simply looked like any other guy getting dressed, likely lost in thought over what was on his agenda for the day.

  Then he was done and turned to go, making me exhale slowly in what I wasn’t sure was actual relief. Yet at the door he halted, then turned around and walked back to my side of the bed, where he leaned over me and planted the softest of kisses onto the corner of my mouth. His scent washed over me, laced with clean water, fabric softener, and eau de toilette—so typically him, so typically home. Despite what had just happened, I felt myself smile, and some of the weight lifted off my chest.

  He was gone when I moved onto my back a few moments later, his kiss still lingering with me. Staring at the ceiling, I rolled my eyes at myself, then hid my face in my hands.

  What was this man doing to me? How could he both bolster my confidence like no one else, and turn me into a silly, insecure nitwit at the same time? He had never given me a single reason to doubt that I was the woman he held dear in his heart—the woman he loved.

  Try as I might to tell myself that it didn’t matter, I couldn’t completely disband the lingering unease keeping a tight grip around my throat. She was likely just some gir
l he’d once known, who might have meant something to him then, but now he had me. I’d known that he came with baggage from the start—who above the age of thirty hadn’t been deeply wounded by someone before, or lost someone, or missed that one golden opportunity? I was sure that this was going to turn out as something completely harmless, but I knew that, unless I found out, this wouldn’t leave me alone.

  Who was Juliette?

  Chapter 19

  As expected, the butler was no help whatsoever.

  By the time I was dressed—my clothes, as usual, magically dry-cleaned overnight—and walked downstairs, he was waiting with my customary cup of coffee already in a travel mug. Out of spite I kept them all in my kitchen and always “forgot” to return them. They already took over a substantial part of my counter.

  I tried to engage him in conversation, but he lingered barely long enough to get the door for me and inform me that my cab was waiting, and closed it not a second too late behind me. I hadn’t even managed to get a single question in edgewise, but then I wasn’t sure if I would have trusted his answer had he supplied one.

  That left me with the next best source for candid information—the Internet.

  On the cab drive home, I Googled Darren and various combinations of “girlfriend,” “companion,” or “mystery woman,” but only got the same results I’d found when I’d looked into him before our first meeting. A few socialites, the odd celebrity, Alison more often than not, but no Juliette. I tried her name in connection with his, too, but the search came up similarly blank. On a hunch, I used my name and got exactly the same. Between the team Brigitte paid and Adam, I’d always made sure not to leave any trails online, so it should not have come as a surprise. But thinking back to Adam’s accusations now, I wondered just how much of a coincidence this could be, or simply the work of very selective screening to make the wrong kind of articles disappear.

  I thought about contacting one of the resident gossip sites next, but abandoned the idea before it could ripen into a full-blown disaster.

  Finally home, I retreated to my bathtub and continued draining my phone battery with useless searches. I was rather reluctant to drag up any details about Darren, but with not many other options left, I dove right in. Two hours later, I could pretty much confirm the few details he’d dropped here and there—his family background, nonexistent as neither of his parents had held a job worth reporting about, or any kind of money; a few older articles about his rise to fame, first in college, then straight into the courtroom as Alison Moss’s newest doberman; no mention whatsoever of any private details, not even hobbies or sports. Although he had a higher profile than most of my clients, it wasn’t strange not to find any further details about him. As a lawyer, he usually remained on the sidelines even with well-known clients, so why should anyone pay special attention to him?

  It was later that day when I sat down after warming up a microwave dish for myself while I leafed through a fashion magazine that I got a new idea. Cursing my lack of a tablet not for the first time, I got my phone out again and looked for magazine articles about Darren—not about his cases, but the kind that featured young professionals who’d made it ahead of so many of their peers.

  And that’s when I hit the jackpot, although it was only a very small one, I had to admit.

  The first article I found was in a local newspaper, highlighting college graduates who were about to embark on the great journey of starting their careers. The photo was typical nineties, but he hadn’t really changed much, except for opting for a shorter, much better-looking haircut. The article was a rather boring piece, but in the very last sentence I found what I was looking for—a mention of his “fiancée,” who he was looking for a new house with. But no name, no picture, just that one line.

  My heart skipped a beat, both with triumph and trepidation. Just because I had finally found something didn’t mean I had to like it.

  Next, I searched for him and any further mention of the woman he had been engaged to, but the next article I found, dated only five months later, already described him as one of the city’s most eligible bachelors. Something clearly must have happened in the meantime to change, but with my limited resources, I realized I wouldn’t find out anything further.

  Frustrated and still kind of conflicted, I started pacing, but that got me exactly nowhere. So I did what I likely should have done hours earlier and went over to Adam’s.

  Like the day before, he opened his door cautiously, and, if anything, even less pleased to see me. He asked me in but quickly made a detour to get my tablet rather than aim for the kitchen or couch.

  “Did you find out what was wrong with it?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, but after I did a complete wipe and reset the firmware, the issue didn’t show up again. I imported the last backup copy of the system I still had from three months ago, so any newer files are missing, but your bookmarks should sync up as soon as you log back into your accounts.”

  “Thanks,” I replied as I took the piece of crap electronics and looked down at it, not knowing how to go on. “Look, about yesterday—“

  He didn’t let me get any further, his tone now holding an edge, but not exactly unfriendly—just reserved. A worse slap in the face, if you asked me, but nothing I could change or didn’t deserve.

  “You made your point, and I’m not pathetic enough to beg. Yet. Guess it was about time to re-evaluate our friendship.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, unable to keep a note of pain out of my voice.

  Adam squared his jaw, but the sadness in his eyes let me hope that this was likely just a temporary thing.

  “We’re neighbors. We’re friends. But that’s it, right? When you feel lonely, you come over because you know that I’m hungering for any social interaction that doesn’t come attached to a three-letter agency, and then you leave when you got what you wanted. Why that surprises me, I don’t know. It’s exactly how your clients treat you all the time.”

  I could see that he was burning to rekindle our fight from yesterday, but after the Juliette incident, I was too strung out for this.

  “I get it. You’re mad at me. Sorry. Yes, you’re my friend, Adam, and that means a lot to me. Among other things, you’re one of the few people in this world who I can go to and completely be myself without having to worry about them either wanting to fuck me or assess how age is slowly eroding my marketability. If that’s not enough for you, I don’t know what to do about that.”

  It was maybe a little evil to turn his would-be guilt-trip back around on him, but I felt he deserved it at least a little. And I had to give him credit where it was due. He looked appropriately shaken but not too surprised at my words.

  “Guess we are who we are?” he proposed.

  “Guess so,” I agreed. “I should be going then.”

  “You should,” he said and hovered behind me on my way to the door.

  It would probably have been the sane thing to just leave it at that and return at a later date, but after my sleuthing hadn’t paid off, I couldn’t help but turn to the one source of information that was easily accessible to me that might still yield results.

  “I know that this is likely a really bad time, but can I ask a favor?”

  He shrugged, but when he saw the conflicted look on my face, he nodded.

  “Sure, what do you need?”

  “Can you find out what the name ‘Juliette’ might mean in regards to Darren? I wonder if that was the name of his fiancée that I read about in an old article.”

  I knew I’d made a mistake when I saw Adam’s features darken, but at least he didn’t directly launch into a continuation of his previous tirade.

  “Why do you want to know? Didn’t you just tell me that you didn’t care about the women who came before you?”

  “And I don’t. I just want to know who she was to him. Maybe it’s not even someone he had a relationship with.”

  “And you got the name from where
?” he wanted to know.

  I hesitated, but I could see that if I wanted him to look her up, I’d have to be honest with him.

  “This morning he was jerking off in the shower and he said her name. I’m likely just paranoid, but—“

  “Because calling out the wrong girl’s name when you come is the most natural thing in the world,” he jeered.

  “Whatever. Will you look into this? For me? I can pay you, too, if favors for friends are off-limits now.”

  He looked tempted enough by that offer, insulting as it had been intended, but then shook his head.

  “No need. Keep your hard-earned cash. I can’t promise anything, but as soon as I have time, I’ll do a quick search, maybe call a few people.”

  “You have people to call?”

  He shrugged.

  “Not someone I know personally, but, you know, with research dating back a few years, you might get better results by doing things old-school. Like call his college’s admissions office and whoever was responsible for the student body back then. If she was a college flame, someone might still remember her, or at least remember a woman of that name even if there was no obvious connection between them. And you wouldn’t believe what strange details reporters sometimes remember about stories they researched decades ago.”

  I was wondering if he was trying to tell me something, but I was pretty sure that my own history wouldn’t yield much if someone did that with me. Back in high school I hadn’t exactly been a prude, but not the kind of girl about to become a high-class hooker. And I’d always made certain that no one from college had any connections to Brigitte or any of the other girls.

  “Thank you. I really appreciate it,” I eventually said, then got the door for myself.

  “I know,” Adam called after me, then slouched back into his den, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

  I knew that it was stupid to wait with bated breath for anything Adam might find, but I still ended up pacing in my living room for the next hour. By then, I knew that it hadn’t been as easy as using a search engine I simply didn’t have access to, or he would have texted me already. That he was on the case I didn’t doubt, as it was his perfect chance to underline his point about Darren being not who I thought he was if he actually found some unflattering detail, or worse. I also knew that he wasn’t petty enough to hold out on me should he find anything non-incriminating, just for the sake of leaving me hanging. Whatever he’d done in the past, Adam was a good guy, even if he was burning to prove to me that Darren wasn’t.