by Nicole Fox
“Each of the men who are dead, whose photos have been on display, were men who ruthlessly came after me, my daughter, my friend, and Hunter. They shot at us, and they killed two innocent people—Mari’s parents. They drugged me and beat me, they kidnapped me and my daughter and threatened to kill her before my eyes as they pressed a gun to her head. Hunter was the one who defended us and protected us. He was the one risking everything for our sake. Everything he did, every life he took, was in self-defense, and in our defense. And that’s who Hunter Perrin is. A protector and defender to the victims of domestic abuse.”
The prosecutor looked at her, then the judge. “No further questions.”
She wasn’t sure what that meant. Did he not know how to respond, or did that mean she’d gone too far and said the wrong thing?
Hunter’s attorney stood up next. He walked over to her. “Thank you, Ms. Powers, for your honest assessment of Mr. Perrin.”
She nodded.
“Can you tell us now, what Jeremy Beale, your ex-husband was like? Explain why you feel Hunter acted in self-defense.”
Vanessa went into full detail of what her life with Jeremy had been like. It was painful at times, to admit to the way he’d treated her and to feel like she was ashamed of it, of staying with him for so long. But she had no choice. She’d been told before that she had to make Jeremy look like every bit the monster he was.
“Hunter saw the photos,” she continued. “And I told him about everything I told you. Jeremy had hired him to kill me, so that was a pretty clear indicator to Hunter that Jeremy wanted to harm me. Then all the men who followed us and shot at us, us being kidnapped, and being shot at again, being drugged. I think when you consider all of that, it’s easy to see that Jeremy would not have stopped until I was dead, or Hunter, or Opal, or all three of us.”
“Thank you, Ms. Powers.” He gave her a small smile and she was dismissed from the stand.
# # #
Hunter could feel Vanessa’s presence behind him. His heart pounded so loudly, he tried to calm it so he would be able to hear what was about to happen. He couldn’t swallow and he could barely breathe. He wasn’t sure who seemed to be winning the case. His lawyer assured him things had gone well for him, but could he really believe that? Did it even matter?
Maybe it would have been better to have stayed in jail and not gotten out on bail. Then he wouldn’t have had those six weeks with Vanessa and Opal. They’d been the best weeks of his life. Buying a house and starting their family, being together for real with nothing hanging over them, nothing keeping them in fear.
He couldn’t go back to prison now. He’d lose everything. Once again, he decided that he’d rather die than face Vanessa leaving him and moving on, or to have to end things if she refused. He couldn’t do it. He wanted her and the life they’d started. He wanted to marry her and be hers forever. And he wanted to love and care for Opal as his own, too. He wanted the whole picture more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.
But with his past and all he’d done, there was no way he could win this. He had to face reality at some point. His lawyer had to tell him it’d gone well. He was telling Hunter what he wanted to hear so he would stay calm. Who wanted a panicking client on their hands? He’d killed Jeremy and a lot of other men, and he had a history of killing. They’d be crazy not to find him guilty. He’d find himself guilty if he were on the jury.
And that was it. He really did feel like he deserved to go to prison. Why should he be happy? He hadn’t earned it. He had done nothing to think he could have this beautiful family, the love of this amazing woman. His whole life, he’d been a fuck up. From the time he was little, it was drilled into his head. He was dumb and couldn’t do anything. He wasn’t good enough at sports, he didn’t clean fast enough, he didn’t talk quiet enough. It was always something, and for everything he did wrong, there was a fist, a smack, a belt.
He’d tried to redeem himself with his first kill. He thought he was saving someone who loved him, someone who had suffered like him and seen past the junk into the real him. He’d been willing to do anything for her, anything to be seen for real. Yet that had fallen apart, too.
His ten years in prison had only served to make him angry. He learned how to kill better. He’d decided while there that he would become a hit man, that he’d gladly face prison if it meant taking out those who’d done wrong in the world. He thought about killing his girlfriend, to pay her back for lying. But when he’d found her, she was so wrecked on drugs, he hadn’t needed to bother. She’d paid herself plenty.
And then there was Vanessa. Who’d actually truly seen him. Who loved him for real, for his true self. Who would be by his side forever. She didn’t see him as only a criminal. She saw him as a hero. A true hero to her and Opal. Their love and admiration made him want to be better. They made him want to give up the life of crime and be that family man he’d never pictured himself being. They made him want to live a real life, not this going from job to job, killing people for a living life.
The foreman stood and put an abrupt end to his mind’s wanderings. He thought he was going to throw up. He watched, sweat trickling down his temple, as the man opened the piece of paper.
In a loud voice, he read, “We, the jury, find the defendant, Hunter Perrin, on the count of first degree murder, not guilty.”
His lawyer slapped him on the shoulder, and he felt Vanessa kiss his neck. Around him, people were cheering and clapping and celebrating. No. He couldn’t have heard right. They were celebrating the fact that a murderer was going to jail, that was all. They couldn’t be happy about him being free. Not someone who’d done what he’d done.
He stared straight ahead, blinking at the foreman. What had he just said?
“Are you okay?” Vanessa whispered.
He shook his head.
“It’s okay, baby. We did it!” She jumped over the wall that separated them and threw her arms around him.
His lawyer shook his hand and congratulated him. He let Vanessa lead him out of the courtroom as other people congratulated him. They walked out, and he stood in the bright sunlight for a moment before turning back to look at the court house. The court house he was not inside of right now in handcuffs.
A slow smile spread across his face. “I’m free. I’m really free.”
Vanessa laughed and threw herself against him, kissing him deeply.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Hunter
“I’m really free,” Hunter said again.
“How many times are you going to say that?” It had been at least a dozen times since he walked out of the court room.
“Until it sinks in, I guess.”
“Well.” She reached over to run her hand along his thigh. “Could I do this if you weren’t free?”
His erection bulged under her touch. She squeezed him gently and he moaned.
“If we had a conjugal visit?” he asked weakly.
“That’s only if we’re married.”
“Oh.” He moaned again and pressed up against her hand.
He reached over and rubbed his finger up and down her groin.
“See. You couldn’t do that if you weren’t free,” she said.
She didn’t blame him. It’d taken a few minutes for it to really sink in for her, too. He was really free to go and wouldn’t be spending years behind bars. They could be together, and now that Jeremy was dead, they were free, too. She and Opal were truly free for the first time in their lives, and it was all due to do Hunter.
The gratitude washed over her and she had a sudden fierce desire for him. She moaned as he touched her, then pulled the car over to the side of the road.
When the car stopped, she shut off the engine and threw her leg over the center console to straddle him. He grabbed her hips and his hands were all over her, caressing, rubbing, pinching.
She’d worn a skirt to the trial and he took full advantage of it, running his hands along her thigh and up under the skirt. He dipped his
fingers under her panties, where she was already wet.
“This is a problem.” He tugged on her panties.
She tried to wiggle out of them, but there wasn’t much room in the car’s seat. He gripped them from either side of her and pulled until they tore.
She leaned forward to kiss him, biting along his neck and ear playfully. She could barely stand the desire she felt for him. All she knew in that moment was that he had to be inside of her.
She reached down and tried to hurriedly unzip his pants. They were tricky, though, in this position. He raised his hips enough to get them unzipped and pulled down.
She reclined the seat a bit and positioned herself over him. He grabbed her hips and pulled her down, thrusting deep inside her in one swift movement. She let out a cry of pleasure and almost came right then.
She rode him so hard, the whole car shook. The windows fogged with their hot breath and she almost laughed at how much like teenagers they seemed.
They didn’t last long. Things were too hot, and they were too charged up. In a few more short thrusts, she came, and he came shortly after. She stayed sitting on him, feeling him pulse inside her.
# # #
Hunter looked up at her, his heart bursting with joy. “Marry me.”
She laughed. “Hunter. You’re inside of me. You can’t propose from the inside out.”
“I just did. Marry me. Be my wife forever.”
“You’re serious?” Her face lost all humor. “You’re really serious?” A grin broke out across her face.
“Of course I’m serious.”
“Yes! Yes!” She covered his face in kisses and he thought that in that moment, life could not get any better.
As she kept kissing him, he started to get hard again. He wanted her so badly, he could lie here all night taking her again and again.
She moved her hips back and forth, feeling that he was getting hard again. “Mmm. Round two?”
“Of at least five or six.” He took her hips and ground them back and forth on his dick.
“Perfect.”
She moved in a circular motion, speeding up as he became fully hard again. Every time she moaned, he thought he would explode.
Then she stopped and gave him a mischievous look. “What if we… do something different?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What did you have in mind?”
She climbed slowly off him and turned herself carefully so that she was facing away from him. Then, as she lowered herself, she guided him into her ass instead. Her tight ass felt so good and squeezed him so hard, he had to stop her from moving for a moment to keep from coming too soon.
“God, yes,” he said.
He reached around to circle her clit and her groans of pleasure increased. She started moving again and he couldn’t help it. Hearing her like that and feeling her, he came.
She didn’t need long, though. He circled her clit faster, until she cried out louder than she ever had and dug her fingers into his thigh hard enough to leave marks.
“Oh God,” she said. “Now, that was the best sex of my life.”
He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. “And now we can do that for the rest of our lives.”
Epilogue
Vanessa watched out the window. Opal rolled around the yard, back and forth with her new friends. They each had water guns and took turns squirting each other.
Once Opal had returned to school and Vanessa to her job, things had finally settled some. Opal told everyone that she decided to go by her other name, Opal, instead of Katrin. They were both glad to leave the fake names behind for good. But then, something else started to happen. Opal became a normal kid. She started talking about friends and asking if they could come over. She got invites to their houses and to parties. All the things Jeremy had never wanted her to do.
Now Opal had a flourishing social life. Vanessa had to download a new calendar app just to keep up with it all. Today, three of her best friends were here. Her and her besties, as they called each other, were playing cops with the water guns. Opal, always the dauntless hero who runs around saving the day and taking out bad guys. Today, the “bad guy” was their family dog, Archer. Poor Archer, the good-natured terrier, was often subjected to these games. Luckily, he didn’t mind being squirted in the face and saw it as just a way to get a little drink and chase the kids.
As she watched, the group turned and ran toward the house. They stormed into the kitchen.
“Mom!” Opal said, breathless. “Can we have Popsicles?”
Her red cheeks were round and bright against the sweaty hair that clung to her forehead. She loved to see her daughter playing so hard.
Vanessa reached into the freezer for the box. “Looked like you guys were having fun out there.”
“We were,” her friends agreed.
“Archer loves to be the bad guy,” Opal said. She slid into a stool at the breakfast bar and patted the dog on his head.
Archer sat by her side, watching carefully, licking his chops in hopes that something tasty would drip from the stick in her hand. Opal sucked at the red Popsicle, making her whole mouth red.
“So, who won?” Vanessa asked as she put the box back in the freezer.
“I caught the criminal!” Opal announced.
“And I helped!” Samantha said.
The others chimed in. “Me too.” And then, “I was a spy. I was really helping, even if you didn’t know it.”
They all wanted to be the good guys, putting away the criminals. That was all Hunter’s influence. Opal told everyone she could that her step dad saved lives for a living. She wanted to do the same when she grew up.
Of course, people usually assumed she meant he was a cop or doctor or even a firefighter. But she always corrected them, and said proudly with a glint in her eyes, “He’s a bodyguard.”
It had been the perfect line of duty for him to move into. Once the trial was ended and everything was settled with the plea deals he’d made for the other hits he’d done, he had to find a new job. The police would be watching him too carefully. Nicholas had suggested it, actually. He said since he was so good at protection, and didn’t have a problem shooting if he needed to, or to risk himself to save someone else, that he was made for the job.
It still let Hunter take out bad people while protecting the good, but it gave him a legal way to do it. He knew all the cops around town, anyway, and had gotten a good reputation with them, and often had their help.
Mostly importantly, it was safer, though still dangerous enough, and it meant he could come home at the end of the day. She didn’t have to worry as much about him. It had turned out perfect, just like everything else had.
She glanced over at him. He was already looking at her. Behind him, on the wall, was one of their wedding photos. He’d made her happy every before then, and every day since, and she knew that with him, she was always safe. Most of all, her heart was safe with him.
# # #
Hunter couldn’t help staring at his wife. His wife. He loved to think that, to call her that, to tell others that. He’d given up using her name in conversation just so he could say “my wife” as much as possible.
The kids ran past him, back outside. The door slammed and Vanessa blinked at the sound.
“Oh,” she said.
“What?”
“I wanted them to have these, too. Something a little healthy at least.” She held up a baggie of baby carrots.
“I’ll take them out.”
Hunter kissed her before taking the bag from her hand. He walked out to the kids and heard their game.
“Now, wait here a minute,” he said to them. “Let me teach you a thing or two.”
He put on his silly southern accent and stuck a carrot stick in his mouth like it was a toothpick. He pointed another carrot at Archer, who stood in front of him, ropes hung loosely around his neck.
“You see here, now,” he said. “You go trying to tie up yer perp too soon, he might get away. You got to at
tempt to de-escalate the situation first.”
He got down on his knees and addressed Archer. “Now Archer, what exactly were you doing out at this time of day, barking around these kids?”
The kids stood by, watching, eyes glued to the scene.
Archer licked his chops and stared at the carrot. That dog would eat anything.
“Don’t you have anything to say for yerself?” Hunter asked. “Can you tell me how you know these kids?”