Hunter (HC Heroes Series Book 8)

by Donna Michaels

  Or anyone, for that matter.

  “Well, he’ll have to settle for one of Loni’s bear claws because I’m not interested.” The lie almost sounded truthful.

  “Said the moth to the flame.” Mel winked.

  She snorted. “Well…this moth has been burned and learned her lesson. Besides, I have a very important little man in my life who is my life. He gets all my attention and deserves it.”

  To her relief, they all nodded.

  “Dillan is irresistible,” Loni said.

  “Yeah, can’t blame you there.” Lori nodded.

  Abby set a hand on Christa’s arm. “But what about you? Trust me, you need someone to have fun with, to let take care of you sometimes. It’s okay to give yourself permission to focus on you once in a while. It doesn’t make you a bad mom.”

  Out of nowhere, her throat heated then her eyes burned while the others agreed. She swallowed and nodded but remained silent as she got a grip on herself.

  “Thanks,” she finally said. “You are all good friends. I’m not used to having someone in my corner. Not since Stef and her sister, Chloe, in college.”

  “Hell, honey, we’re your whole room,” Mel said, the conviction in her eyes matching her tone. “You need us, we’re there.”

  “Yeah, you need to spend alone time with Hunter, just holler,” Abby said. “I’ll be happy to watch Dillan.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Yeah, just give us a shout.”

  Again, the women rallied around her…only she would never take them up on it. Especially with the sexy badass.

  She sighed and shook her head. “Not Hunter again.”

  Mel chuckled. “Sorry, honey. You can deny your attraction to the guy all you want but we’re not buying it.”

  “Yeah, we’ve all been there, done the denying ourselves,” Rylee said. “So, trust me, we know the signs.”

  Lori nodded. “And you’re showing several.”

  “That might be true but I’m still not going to act on it.”

  The others chuckled, clearly not believing a word she’d said.

  But it didn’t matter. They weren’t the one who needed convincing.

  It was her. And she was convinced. Determined, even.

  She’d be fine…as long as the guy wasn’t sweet on her and didn’t make a move.

  Otherwise, her determination might not win out.

  Was that so bad?

  She had the sinking suspicion that prolonged exposure to Hunter may reveal that answer.

  Chapter Three

  Late the next morning, Hunter was at ESI preparing his gear for his next op, which was taking place tomorrow afternoon. He’d spent the morning doing maintenance on two of the company SUVs with Dex but didn’t bother to pull a third one apart since he’d never finish before his tattoo appointment in twenty minutes.

  Besides, the vehicles Mac had on the maintenance roster were the two he and Dex had done earlier. The third was just one Hunter had considered working on to keep busy. Even though he was a master at waiting and could hold a hunched position without moving for hours, for some reason, he’d developed a restlessness he couldn’t explain or assuage.

  It was damn annoying.

  He zipped up his pack, shoved the gear in his locker then slammed the door.

  “Hey…hoe…what’s that locker ever done to you?” Carter asked, grinning at him from the doorway.

  Knowing the guy didn’t really expect an answer, Hunter shook his head and walked past his buddy into the hall. No sense in mentioning that restlessness when the guy, no doubt, would tell him he needed a good woman.

  Seemed to be the general consensus from his buddies as of late.

  “Just making sure my pack is ready for tomorrow,” he told Carter anyway.

  He returned to the garage where the others were still polishing this or fixing that or hitting the heavy bag, or helping Rylee do some last-minute investigating into any known enemies of the Italian CEO they were guarding tomorrow.

  “I can’t believe you already got your gear ready,” Carter said, joining him near Mac’s workbench. “You still have lots of time. You need to learn to slow down. Relax.”

  Hunter almost laughed. It would’ve been the first time in years.

  “You seem to forget your training,” he said. “It’s thinking like that that could get you killed.”

  Carter nodded. “True. And you seem to forget we’re no longer in the military, fighting terrorists, psychopaths, pirates and other such evil. You’re in Harland County. The good ‘ole U.S. of A.”

  Disbelief pulled at Hunter’s brow. He turned to face the guy. “Carter, there’s evil everywhere.”

  How the hell could the guy not see that? Christ, had love made his buddy that soft?

  If so, he was definitely not interested.

  “Yeah.” Dean nodded, dropping the rag he used to polish his knife. “Evil isn’t selective. Doesn’t sleep or take a vacation.”

  Carter sighed. “I know that. I’m just saying you can’t keep living in ‘on guard’ mode twenty-four/seven. That’s not living, man.”

  For Hunter, it was the reason he was still living.

  Even though he was no longer the silent, swift justice the military had used him to deliver, he sure as hell couldn’t unlearn his training in twelve short weeks.

  “I’ll tell you what I can’t believe,” Cooper said, straightening from punching the shit out of the heavy bag in the corner. “I can’t believe Hunter actually helped Dex change oil and didn’t get one speck of dirt on his white shirt.”

  The guys laughed, and Hunter’s lips twitched.

  “If you were dirt, would you want to mess with Hunter?” RJ asked, his gaze still on the gun he was cleaning at a nearby table.

  This time, Hunter’s mouth actually curved while his buddies laughed.

  “Hooyah,” Cooper said, lightly bopping RJ on the head.

  No one could deliver a line like RJ.

  Meeting Dean’s amused gaze, he nodded. He got the impression the former SEAL agreed.

  “Hey, where’s Mac?” Cooper asked, returning to the corner.

  Dean sat down across from RJ and picked up his discarded rag. “At his place, doing maintenance on the chopper.”

  The helicopter housed in a hanger on Mac’s ranch was a beauty. Hunter had the privilege of piloting it last weekend during training because Mac had wanted to jump out and plummet to the earth with the guys.

  “You know,” Cooper said, glancing out the door. “I don’t see Stef’s car behind the mall. What do you want to bet she’s working from home today?”

  Carter snickered. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”

  “It is if you’re Mac,” RJ said with a straight face.

  Hunter’s lips twitched again as the others outright laughed.

  “It’s almost noon, RJ,” Dean said, setting his rag down again. “Time to clean up before we meet the girls for lunch.”

  Hunter’s mind switched gears. That meant it was almost time for his session.

  Carter set a hand on his shoulder. “And you’re meeting Christa, right? Man, you have some restraint. That girl looks at you like she can’t wait to get her hands on you.”

  “Yeah.” He frowned. “To tattoo me.”

  Cooper snickered. “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

  Hunter glared at the guy, who raised his taped hands and both brows. “It was just a joke. How come everyone laughed before?”

  “Because I’m funny,” Carter replied without missing a beat.

  Despite knowing it had been meant as a joke, Hunter hadn’t found it funny.

  Probably because he found Christa a little too intriguing.

  “So, are you honestly going to stand there and tell us you don’t like having Christa’s hands on you?” Cooper asked, continuing to push his luck. “Or are you using this tattoo as a way to work up the courage to ask her out on a date?”

  A date…?

  The Bonefrog wa
s a bonehead.

  He held back a grunt. “You’re a riot.”

  Hunter hadn’t gone on a date in years. A one-nighter? Sure. Occasionally, but even those never lasted the night. They were more of a one-timer. The last one had been a few months ago after he’d finished a job in Rio. But dating? No. He had no interest in dating.

  So why the image of a certain, brown-eyed tattoo artist flickered through his mind was a mystery he decided not to ponder.

  The memory of their last session was still fresh in his traitorous mind. The way her hair smelled like fresh apples as she’d leaned over his arm to ink had upped her appeal when her fingers had actually touched his skin to cleanse it and his heart had performed that slow roll again.

  He’d felt warmth funnel into him from her touch. It was an odd but pleasant feeling.

  But as if a switch had been flipped, the minute he’d stepped outside onto the sidewalk, his body had returned to unresponsive mode.

  “Just because you’re silent doesn’t mean you’re invisible,” Cooper said. “And you haven’t answered my question about Christa.”

  He shook his head in disgust. “Never realized you were a nagger, Coop. I have no idea how poor Abby puts up with you.”

  “She loves me, and I love her right back,” Cooper replied with a grin. “And she’s always honest with me and herself. You should try it.”

  “He’s not wrong,” Dean said, with Carter and RJ nodding. “Not all women are untrustworthy, man. You need to take a chance.”

  Although he knew the guys were trying to help, it was falling on deaf ears.

  Every one of them were in relationships. If that was what they were spouting, he wasn’t biting. Relationships required that trust they were talking about and trust required no secrets. Considering he was full of those, most of which were dark and deep and destined to stay that way, then a relationship was well out of his reach.

  He held Dean’s stare. “My heart is too damaged to share and I’m pretty sure my soul is gone, so there’s not much left to offer any woman foolish enough to look my way.”

  There. He’d laid it out for them. Now maybe, they’d drop the damn “relationship” subject.

  A deep furrow creased the guy’s brow. “I used to have that same, jaded thinking, but I was wrong. And so are you.”

  Cooper strode close and actually dared to step in Hunter’s personal space.

  He raised a brow.

  “Stop bullshitting yourself,” Cooper said, which shot Hunter’s other brow up. “If an amazing woman can love a man who was the result of a bastard raping his mother, then you sure as hell can find someone to overlook your past and embrace the man you are.”

  Well, hell. Hunter’s raised brows slammed together. He’d suspected Cooper had carried secrets, but he’d had no idea it was a messed-up father.

  He set a hand on the Cooper’s shoulder without thinking. “You do know you’re nothing like that asshole, right? You’re a great dad to Mindy.”

  Hunter had no idea where any of that had come from, but he realized he’d meant it and it was something Cooper needed to hear.

  “Wow.” The guy blinked. “I feel like I should give you a hug or something.”

  He released Cooper’s shoulder and narrowed his gaze. “Touch me and I’ll kill you.”

  The guys laughed and Hunter felt his lips twitch again.

  Several minutes later, he was walking toward the back of Melancholy Ink with Carter, glad to escape that conversation. It had gotten weird, fast. But he reminded himself it was only weird because a little bit of his old self had broken through and he wasn’t used to showing feelings let alone feeling them.

  It was a small breakthrough. And also something he needed to get used to if he wanted to return to the man his grandfather had respected. And he very much wanted to find that man again.

  “You’re really going to ignore the attraction between you and Christa?” Carter asked as they crossed the alley.

  Hunter exhaled. “Yes. She can do a hell of a lot better than me. Besides, I’m the last person she’d want as a role model for her son.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Carter lifted a shoulder. “Seems to me a trustworthy, reliable, responsible, sharp-shooting, medal-earning war hero is a damn good candidate.”

  A pang of some unknown emotion flickered through Hunter’s chest. Damn. Was that really how Carter saw him?

  He stopped at the door and blinked at the guy.

  Carter sighed. “Hunter, you always have been and always will be that guy to us. You’ve put your life on the line for our unit more than anyone else, even Sinjin, so don’t even think of calling me nuts.” A grin twinkled in his buddy’s eyes as he cupped Hunter’s shoulder. “And I hate to break it to you, but you are a hero. So, deal with it.”

  After a quick slap to Hunter’s shoulder, Carter punched in a code, opened the door, and nudged him inside the office of Melancholy Ink.

  “Hi, Hunter.” Mel smiled, getting up from behind her desk to wrap herself around Carter. “Hey, handsome,” she said before lip-locking the guy.

  “Oooh, give us a kiss. Give us a kiss,” Lex, the hilarious cockatoo chanted before making a lip-smacking sound from his tall perch in the corner of the office.

  Some days, the bird stayed in a big cage in the ESI garage next to Dex’s bird, Marilyn. The conversations those two held were way too distracting and he and the guys hardly ever got any work done.

  “Get a room,” Lex said before he wolf-whistled.

  Hunter felt his lips twitch again. Today was a record day for that, and he chalked that up as progress too.

  Then the bird decided to mimic the sound of woman moaning, and of course that was when Christa entered from the front.

  “Hi, Hunter. Thought I might find you back here,” she said, pretending not to hear the bird. However, the beautiful flush spreading up her neck and into her face, enhancing the warm, espresso color of her eyes and adding color behind the tiny angel tattooed where her neck met her shoulder, gave her away.

  A heated awareness slowly seeped through Hunter and it was damn amazing to feel his body flicker to life.

  He stood there a moment, shocked by the sensations. Each time he met her, his body thawed a little more. His decision to hire the woman to tattoo him was a good one.

  At this rate, he could be fully back to his old self by spring.

  Realizing she was staring at him, Hunter nodded. “Hi, Christa.”

  Carter and Mel had finally untangled their bodies and lips and were now blatantly grinning at him.

  “Crystal blue…persuasion…” Lex sang.

  Mel chuckled. “Guess that’s close enough to Christa in his mind.”

  “Yeah.” Christa smiled. “Come on, Hunter. Let’s get started.”

  Again, he nodded and followed her through the door, but not before he heard Carter whisper, low for only him to hear, “Yeah, Hunter, get started.”

  He was going to kill the guy.

  Later.

  Right now, he had an appointment with an angel.

  Chapter Four

  Straight ahead, Hunter had a clear line of sight to the front door and a portion of the lobby reception area. Jose, one of the other artists, sat at the front desk talking to a client while two others occupied chairs in a row he could only partially see. There were probably more. The place was popular, but none of those clients were here for Christa because he had a two-hour session booked that he’d cleared with Mac before making the appointment weeks ago. And it worked out well, since today was a scheduled down day at work.

  To his left were four doors, each leading to an artist’s room. She called it a booth, but it had four walls and a door. He followed Christa into the second one from the front. Even if he hadn’t been inside once before or saw her name on the door, Hunter would’ve known this was her room by the scent of fresh apples that lingered in the air and the photos of her work lining the walls.

  She had a unique style. It wasn’t bold or innocent, it
was somewhere in between. Strong. Confident…real. A person didn’t just start tattooing like that. It came from years of practice and experience, of living and feeling…and damn, he knew by Christa’s art that she’d had a tough life but always saw the light.

  That was why being in this room, surrounded by her art, surrounded by her scent, was so important to Hunter’s rehabilitation. It was the key to unlocking his ability to feel.

  “Okay, you can take off your shirt and hang it here,” she said, closing the door to reveal several hooks, which he’d already known about from his prior visit.

  Not bothering to point that out, he unbuttoned his shirt and hung it on the back of the door. Before he turned to face her, Hunter could feel a shift in the air. It was hot and charged, as if it had a life of its own.

  This had happened the last time and he’d thought perhaps he’d imagined it but now he knew otherwise.

  “So…” She cleared her throat. “Have you had any issues with your arm?”

  He turned around to find her gaze on his tattoo and that gorgeous flush on her skin again. The urge to touch the angel tattoo on her neck was strong, so he kept his hands at his sides and gladly angled his body away so she could view the work she’d done on his arm.

  Startled by the feel of her soft touch as she brushed her finger over her work, Hunter reeled back slightly.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  He glanced sideways at her and shook his head. “No. Sorry. You just startled me. My brain was elsewhere.”

  Yeah, up his ass.

  He inhaled in an attempt to dislodge it, but her fresh apple scent was even stronger with her in his personal space. And now he detected some type of spice.

  Heaven.

  Which had no place for him.

  He straightened his spine. “How would you like me?”

  The question was regarding tattooing, but his mind immediately conjured up an image of them naked, sweaty, and panting with her riding him reverse cowgirl in the chair…

  Damn. That was dangerous. Now he’d never get it out of his head.

  “Uh…” She cleared her throat again and blinked, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of heat flickering through her eyes and he knew she’d had a similar thought.