by Bella J.
She looked away and at the road in front of them. “Just drive, Ace.”
It wasn’t long until they came to a stop in front of a huge black iron gate. On either side of the gate were white pillars with statues of gold lions sitting like they were staring out over their kingdom. They looked more like beasts than lions to her.
Hunter pressed the buzzer and stared straight into the security camera. The gates slowly opened and they made their way down the driveway. While she stared at the landscaping, the beautifully manicured lawn, flowers, and trees, Scarlet thought back to a time when she used to live on an estate. When she used to sit in the backseat of her mom’s car, staring out at their gardens while they drove to church on Sundays. Her sister would sit next to her and Scarlet would envy her in her beautiful church dresses. Because Willow was older, she got to wear make-up and knee-length dresses long before Scarlet was allowed to. Her sister’s hair would always be loose, curls hanging down her shoulders. Scarlet’s hair, which was just a shade darker, would always be tied in a ponytail since it would annoy the crap out of her hanging all around her face.
The memories stabbed through her heart, and she closed her eyes, pushing it all back. Scarlet didn’t want to think of those times. She didn’t want to remember all the good she once had in her life. It was over. All those good times no longer existed except for in the far back corners of her mind. And if there was a way for her to be able to erase all those memories that would resurface every now and then to torture her, she would do it. Having no memories at all was better than having all the good memories that continued to haunt her. You couldn’t miss something you didn’t know you had.
They stopped in front of what Scarlet could only explain as a motherfucker of a house. It was a huge three-story mansion, with more windows than fucking walls.
Scarlet gaped at the architecture in front of her.
“Impressive, huh?” Hunter opened his door and got out.
“Very.”
Scarlet took one last glance at the mansion in front of her, noticing that the front door alone was probably wider than her entire damn apartment. Taking a deep breath, she opened her door…and hit Hunter right in the face.
“Fuck!” he bellowed, and grabbed his nose.
“Shit. I’m sorry.” She jumped out and tried to get a look at his face. “I didn’t see you.”
“No shit.”
“Hey, what the hell were you doing by the door anyway?”
He paused and looked at her while pinching his nose. “I wanted to open the fucking door for you.”
She balked. “You what?”
“Open the door for you. You know, that’s what men usually do.”
Dumbfounded, Scarlet stared at him as he let out a few soft groans while rubbing his face. And then she burst out laughing.
His eyebrows slanted inward. “What’s so fucking funny?”
“You.” She continued to laugh. “Your face is starting to look like a damn Christmas tree.”
“I’m glad you find my injuries amusing.” He pushed past her and headed up the stairs. “Come on.”
Scarlet still snickered. “So you wanted to open the door for me, Prince Charming?”
“Shut up.”
They were still on their way up the stairs when the huge-ass front door opened and Adam came walking out…with a damn towel wrapped around his waist.
“What’s this about, man?” Adam held his arms out wide.
“I need your help.” Hunter stopped in front of him and glanced down at the towel. “Please tell me there’s something beneath that towel.”
“What kind of a guy do you think I am?” Adam grinned, and then unwrapped the towel. “Of course I’m not wearing anything under the towel.”
“Good God.” Hunter tried to look anywhere except at Adam’s schlong.
Scarlet, on the other hand, kept on staring. “Wow, that’s impressive.”
Adam looked down at his package and then at her. “I know, right?”
“It’s like a dead rabbit hanging there.”
“Okay.” Hunter pulled Scarlet closer and placed his hand in front of her eyes. “Adam, put that dead animal away, would you?”
“Oh, believe me, it ain’t dead.”
Adam covered up and Hunter took his hand away from Scarlet’s eyes.
“So what’s up, Goldilocks?” Adam crossed his arms in front of his chest just as two girls came running out of the house wearing nothing but thongs and nipple patches. Silver star nipple patches. So the underwear model seemed to be a Twisted Fable regular as well.
The girls squealed like damn horny teenage girls when they found Adam and then basically glued their bodies onto his.
“Girls, girls. Please.” Adam placed his hands around their waists and kissed one—with tongue and all—before turning to the other and kissing her too. If Scarlet had eaten that morning, her breakfast would have been splattered all over the thirty thousand dollar paving right about now.
“Adam!” Hunter barked.
“Go wait for me in the Jacuzzi, girls. I’ll be right there.” Adam let go of their waists and smacked them both on their semi-naked asses as they ran back into the house.
Scarlet frowned at Adam. “Man whore much?”
“Go fuck yourself much?”
“Quit it.” Hunter stepped forward. “Adam, we don’t have time. I need a car.”
Adam glanced at the Hummer. “You have one.”
“A car that isn’t registered in my name. And then I also need access to your beach house in Winnetka.”
So that was the favor Hunter was talking about on the phone. It made sense. Obviously, Wolfe had figured out Hunter was helping her, otherwise he wouldn’t have sent those guys to his apartment. So it would only be natural to assume Wolfe would be on the lookout for Hunter’s Hummer.
Adam narrowed his eyes and suddenly looked all kinds of serious. “What’s up, Hunter?”
Scarlet looked over at him and saw Hunter was staring at her before turning back to Adam. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“I don’t doubt that. But the fact that you’re actually on my doorstep asking me for help means this shit probably runs pretty deep.”
“Adam, don’t ask questions I can’t answer right now.” Hunter looked back at Scarlet again. “Because I don’t have the answers myself.”
Those green eyes of his stared at her like he was willing the answers out of her. But what could she tell him? What kind of answers could she give him that wouldn’t make her seem like a weak woman, a statistic, a name on a list of millions of other girls and women struggling with the same kind of demons? All the answers he was looking for would make her seem like a twisted individual with a sick past—tainted and corrupted. And why the hell did she suddenly care what he thought of her?
“Fine,” Adam interrupted her thoughts. “You know the access code to the beach house, and you know where the garage is. Go pick a car.”
Hunter grabbed her hand and was almost halfway down the stairs. “Thanks, man.”
“Any car except for the—”
“I’m taking the Bugatti.”
“Goddammit,” Adam cursed behind them, but Hunter didn’t slow down and rushed around the house toward the garage, still holding her hand. Why did he keep on doing that? Why did it seem like he was grabbing her hand every chance he got? And why the hell did she like it so much?
“Fuck me.” Scarlet stared at the garage, which was bigger than Hunter’s entire apartment building. “How many cars can one guy have?”
“Adam has a thing for cars.”
“And pussy, apparently.”
Hunter snorted. “Yeah.”
Scarlet followed him while he walked straight down the middle of two rows of cars.
“Here.”
They stopped in front of a silver and black Bugatti, and Scarlet tried really hard not to seem impressed by it. “Nice wheels. But wouldn’t we kind of have a giant flashing red sign above our heads in a car like this?”
“Not where we’re going.”
Scarlet looked his way. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
She leisurely walked around the car, admiring every curve of the world class sports car. “You say that like you actually think I trust you and that I will just go with you wherever you want to take me. But I’ve got news for you, Batman, I’m not that easy.”
Then like a fucking lightning bolt, Hunter had her pinned against the car, glaring down at her like he didn’t know if he wanted to kill her or devour her—which might just be the same thing.
“You need to start talking, now.”
“Whatever about, Mr. Keaton?”
“About what the fuck is going on.”
“I told you—”
“You told me squat. Do not for one second think that I actually believe this shit you have going with Wolfe is as simple as you standing in the way of him getting a hold of Granny’s fortune.”
Scarlet lifted her chin. “I told you what you need to know. You do not have to know anything more.”
“When I’m the one with the gun risking my life, I need to know more—a whole lot more.”
Usually, Scarlet had all kinds of comebacks. Lacking wiseass and snarky remarks hidden with a healthy dose of sarcasm was not something she experienced on a regular basis. But being this close to a man who, for some weird and wonderful reason, had her insides all tangled up in a bundle of raging, fiery hormonal mess—she had nothing. No witty comeback. No sarcastic slap in the face. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
He pushed harder against her, his hands flush against the roof of the car. Having approximately six feet and seven inches of pure steel and muscle towering over you, green eyes that could melt the panties off any woman within a nanosecond staring down at you, now that was what Scarlet would call a great recipe for mind-blowing sex—or a giant fucking disaster. She also had the memory of how his lips felt against hers still fresh in her mind, making it even more difficult to not think about warm breaths, sweaty bodies, and cries of pleasure peeling the plaster off the walls.
The more she stared into his eyes, the brighter his determination beamed from those beautiful green irises of his. And for a reason completely unbeknownst to her, she was suddenly overthrown with the need to tell him everything. Not just what she thought he needed to know, but everything. But could she trust him? It had been so long since she allowed herself to trust anyone. Yet here she was wanting nothing more than to be able to trust a man she had only known for twenty-four hours—a stranger.
She inhaled sharply. “Fine. If we can manage to get away, I’ll tell you everything.”
“Everything, Scarlet.”
“Yes,” she blurted out. “I said everything, didn’t I?”
“Good.” He stepped back, giving her some breathing space, allowing her mind to think of something other than having his body all over hers. Just as he was about to move around the car, he stopped and turned to her. “And that back there, in the elevator…”
“You mean when you kissed me?”
“Yeah. That.”
“What about it?”
“I was just trying to help you get a grip of yourself. So don’t read anything into it.”
If it wasn’t for the cold, hard look in his eyes, or the way he stared at her like she was some sort of disease trying to infect him, she might have called his bluff. But it was there, written all over his face that she had no reason to believe that their little tongue fucking-fest had affected him the same way it had affected her.
The kiss was nothing more than a distraction, a way to get her raging panic under control. Of course it was nothing more than that. What the fuck was she thinking?
Chapter 15
June 16, 2009
Hunter stared up at the eight-foot wall, wondering how the hell this was going to work. He understood why they needed to sneak around seeing each other, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
Blue’s family would never approve of him. They wanted boys with degrees and big fat bank accounts who wore pink sweaters tied around their shoulders dating her. Not wild, tattooed adrenaline junkies who dropped out of school before graduating and worked as a greased up mechanic. Plus, the huge-ass wall in front of him was proof that her family was definitely trying to keep a lot of damn people out—people like him.
He stepped closer to the wall and softly called, “Yo, blue eyes, you there?”
There was a rustling in the trees behind the wall, and he narrowed his eyes. “Blue, is that you?”
And from out of nowhere it seemed like the woman just dropped from the sky. Hunter grunted and stammered as her tiny little body fell right against his, and he just managed to catch her.
Her laughs filled his ears, but Hunter almost freaked out.
“What the fuck, Blue? You could have hurt yourself!”
She laughed some more. “Oh, relax, would you? I’m fine.” A soft hand cupped his cheek and she stared up at him with glowing eyes filled with mischief. “Besides, I knew you’d catch me.”
“Blue, you could have—”
Warm lips found his, cutting him off mid-sentence. Within three seconds she managed to kiss away all the worry and annoyance he felt over the fact that she could have seriously hurt herself by just dropping from a high as fuck wall. Now the only thoughts that ran through his mind were getting her naked and burying himself inside her as soon as possible, as much as possible, for as long as possible. God, this woman had him wound up so tight he didn’t even know if it was possible for him to be able to breathe without her.
All too soon, she pulled away, and he watched as she licked her lips like she wanted to savor his taste. “You worry too much, lover.”
“I will always worry about you.”
“Then you’ll grow old before your time.” She snickered and winked at him.
While he gently put her on her feet, she cringed, reaching down, and Hunter noticed the fresh cut that spread along her inner thigh.
“What the hell happened?” He crouched and placed his hand a few inches away from the cut.
“It’s nothing. I cut myself against one of the branches. No big deal.”
“Jesus, Blue.”
“Hunter, it’s not that bad.”
He got up and looked down at her. “We need to get that wound cleaned.”
“It’s really not that bad. Stop fussing.”
Stop fussing? How the hell did she expect him to stop fussing over her? Good God, that statement didn’t even make sense to him. He would never stop fussing over her—ever.
Hunter gave a step closer, pushing their bodies together while he looked down at her. “You are mine to fuss over now and for the rest of our damn lives. So I suggest you get used to me fussing over you.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and stared up at him with eyes that were practically begging him to take her against the damn wall. “And I look forward to all the fussing.”
He groaned and pushed his cock harder against her, the need to feel her burning through his veins. “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that, woman?”
While biting her lower lip as he continued to grind himself against her, he could see the desire slowly possess her—and he loved it. He loved how he managed to affect her, how she couldn’t hide the fact that she needed him. It was the most amazing feeling in the world witnessing her need, her desire, and her passion all directed at him. This beautiful uptown girl who could have any damn guy she wanted actually wanted him. A nobody. A dropout. A guy who, up until a few weeks ago, had no hope to amount to anything. Yet here he was, staring at the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on, having her in his arms, having her lips on his, pressing his body against hers and being able to claim her body every damn chance he got. How lucky could one son of a bitch be?
“Come on. Let’s go before I rip these clothes off you right here on the damn pavement.” He glanced down at the yellow sundress she was wearing. “And next time you decid
e to climb a tree, in God’s name wear a pair of pants.”
With his arm draped around her shoulders, they walked over to his newly bought secondhand Chevrolet truck.
Blue stopped. “Hunter, what is that?”
“A truck.”
“I can see that, but what I mean is, where’s your bike?”
“It’s parked back home.”
With a shocked expression, she looked up at him. “Why would you buy a truck?”
“Because it’s safer.” He shrugged.
“Since when do you care whether it’s safe or not?”
“Since I met you.”
With narrowed eyes she peered at him. “Hunter Keaton, tell me you did not buy the truck because of me.”
He walked over to the passenger side door and opened it for her. “Just get in. You’ll love the truck.”
“I love the bike.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest.
Hunter sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know, Blue.”
“And you love that bike too, so why buy the truck?”
Goddammit. Did this woman not understand what she meant to him? That he would lie, cheat, steal, and sell his soul for her? Did she not know that he was completely and utterly lost in her?
What the hell did he need to do to make her realize she was his beginning and his end?
Two steps and he was standing in front of her, staring down into her bright blue eyes. The breeze was blowing a strand of her soft blonde hair across her face, and he gently reached up, tucking it behind her ear.
“Because there is not enough bubble wrap in this world for me to wrap around you every time you climb on a motorcycle.”
Her eyebrows slanted inward. “You’re paranoid.”
“And that is entirely your fault.”
With one swift move he picked her up into his arms and she let out a little squeal, which shot straight down to his dick. “The sooner you realize you are mine and that I will fight the devil himself in order to keep what’s mine safe, the better.”
One of her beautiful smiles that always managed to make his heart beat faster spread along her face. “So you went from one-night stand, to lover, to boyfriend, to bodyguard all in a matter of weeks?”