Hunter's Promise

by Billi Jean

  She knew every inch of his cock now—what he tasted like, how big he really was—so each time he filled her, she grew closer. She squeezed down on the thick dick when he paused to adjust her, and nearly climaxed at his low growl. He started driving in harder. Her climax didn’t burst, though. It grew and grew until she cried out sharply in surprise each time he dove in and she didn’t fall over the edge.

  With a low moan, he released one breast and pressed the palm of his hand down on her mound, driving into her with a rough groan when he did. The position hit her clit, driving her crazy.

  “So freaking wet and tight, Hunter. Come for me.” He did something with his hand on her pussy. Everything disappeared, eclipsed by the pleasure soaring through her from her toes all the way to her pussy and deeper. She knew Rick was there, felt him swell so big it half frightened her, but she couldn’t do anything but moan in pleasure.

  Rick lost his pace, and even in the midst of her orgasm she cried out louder as he started to climax. With a wild cry, he tightened his hold on her breast as he groaned heavily. He fell against her, but still managed to keep her hips tilted so their position didn’t change.

  “Oh!” she sobbed as he bit down on her shoulder. She blossomed higher, spiraling faster along with him. Only Rick and what he did to her remained, until she felt as if he’d driven himself into her soul.

  “Baby,” he groaned, cinching the lines that connected them tighter and tighter.

  I love him.

  The thought shouldn’t be terrifying. Everyone she knew who loved someone was happy. But loving Rick Kincaid scared her to death.

  Kincaid took a second to rest his head on Hunter’s slender shoulder, then shook them both with a laugh he couldn’t seem to stop.

  “I lasted longer the second time. It’s got to be some damn first time race to the finish thing,” he grumbled, cupping the heavy weight of her breast in his hand.

  She tightened her hand on his and kissed his jaw.

  “Or you,” he added.

  “I can’t believe—”

  “You just forced me to do that,” he finished for her and pulled free with a great deal of reluctance. Her bare butt was super-hot and smooth to the touch—and was sexy as hell, all rounded and perfectly plump. He jerked his pants up and tucked his still-tingling dick away, before she managed to bring hers up over her lush butt. He helped her adjust her clothing—being a gentleman and all—and got one long, incredible kiss for his efforts.

  “Baby, you rock my world. Next quickie I want is going to be while I drive one of those hot rod snow vehicles but none of that amazing mouth, okay? Just you sinking down on me as I drive.”

  He watched in surprise as her cheeks grew pink with a pretty blush. He caught her hand before she could pull away and tipped her head up. Her blue eye was filled with worry—about what, he had no freaking clue. She just thrilled him from the damn soles of his feet to the tips of his hair.

  “Was outdoor sex too much? I checked first. No one is around for miles, or I wouldn’t have had your pretty ass out for no amount of money.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head.

  “So the outdoor sex was good?”

  She’d climaxed for him three—if not four—times, so he was hoping she’d enjoyed it. When she’d come for him just from his hands and mouth, he’d been so turned-on he feared squeezing her too tightly.

  “Hunter, an answer would be nice, baby,” he reminded her gently. Something was up, either the climaxes, which he knew were sometimes emotional highs, or…something else.

  “It was hot, but maybe we need to get back to the mission?”

  For him, he’d never left the mission. Telling her she had always been a part of that wasn’t going to sit well. He got that much about women. Still, he was guy enough to take charge.

  “Good, now, we can do that and discuss that damn amazing blow job you just delivered.”

  “Rick,” she whispered, sounding scandalized.

  “What? You want me to call it something else?”

  “I don’t want you to talk about it.”

  “I do, so that leaves us where? I think I can give you some pointers, you know, for next time, but really, that was about close to damn perfection as a man can get, so maybe you should just wing it.”

  She muttered something unflattering under her breath about him and Little Rickie, but he patted her butt and stepped away from the immediate swing of her arm, then back over to sling his over her shoulders and kiss her.

  “Settle down. I think we go around back, okay? It’ll be harder to get in, but worth it.”

  “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “There is no way you are going near my butt with that Little— Big —Rickie.”

  “Holy shit.” He busted up so badly she slugged him, and he still couldn’t stop. It had sounded as if he was being fresh about her cute butt, but he hadn’t meant that at all. “Baby, I was talking about circling around behind the house over there,” he wheezed, still laughing so hard and trying to block her mini-attack he couldn’t talk straight. Damn she was fun.

  She froze, dropped her hands to her hips and glared for about ten seconds, then stomped off, muttering about him in just a loud enough voice for him to catch that he was somehow so screwed the next time his pants were around his ankles.

  Impressed with that interesting threat, he followed, keeping a few steps back as she stormed her way through the deep snow and over the ridge in an angle to do what he’d suggested. He felt sorry for her after a few short minutes and tugged her to a stop and took lead to break the snow down.

  “I really wasn’t aiming for some of that cute butt. Rickie is a big boy, so the last thing I want to do is hurt you. Maybe we can try you on top though, give me a break from all the hard work.”

  “Rick, be serious.”

  “Right, I like being in control, but I’ll share if you want. Sex in the shower would be fun, or maybe bathtub. You have one in one of those places of yours?”

  “Where do you live?” she asked, after not answering him for a few hundred yards.

  “I don’t have a place. I go home sometimes, to my folks’ house, and I have a couch at Gray’s place, but I kinda stay at hotels, I guess, more than anything. I’m usually on a mission.”

  “You don’t have a house?” she asked, giving him an incredulous stare, even with only one good eye.

  He tapped her on the nose. “You make that sound insane, but I just never got around to it. I’m a busy guy—or was. Now I don’t know…maybe I’ll get a place.”

  “Why now? Do you have more time?”

  “I rented an apartment in L.A.,” he hedged, not wanting to get into the full reason. He’d never met anyone he’d wanted to settle down with until her. “When I was covering your house, it was convenient, but I didn’t go there often.”

  “Then you do have a place.”

  He winced. Not really. It came furnished and just didn’t feel right. He’d paid for a year, and stayed less than a week. Hunter’s house in L.A. was cute. Homey really, which surprised him. Bangkok hadn’t been. The place in Boston hadn’t been, and he sure the hell didn’t like the old place she’d grown up in.

  “How many houses do you own?” he asked, wondering if she had more.

  “Me? Two. I really only stay at the L.A. place. I tell people I live in Boston, but I don’t go there. Bangkok is mine, yeah, but not really. I mean…it’s deserted. No one lives there because it’s haunted or some such.”

  “And the one we were just in?”

  “That’s not mine.”

  Flat, clear and firm. He knew that, though. “Odd isn’t it? You growing up there and the Coven being only a few miles away. You never knew them?”

  “What? Sorcha?”

  “Yeah, you are a Jade witch, part of this Celtic thing.”

  “No, I’m not. They made it seem that way, so I would fit in.” Again, a statement, something she completely believed.

  They’d reached the ridge above the
house, pretty quickly too. There wasn’t a sign of anyone. No tire tracks, no prints outside. But would there be?

  “Sense anything?” he asked.

  “No, nothing. It seems clear,” she whispered. She’d crouched by him, serious and back on mission, not burning hot with passion and giving him everything he’d ever dreamed of and then some. The image of her blowing his mind was going to stay with him for a long time. The visual of her pink lips spread wide for his thick cock was burned into his frontal lobe. At least the new erotic snapshot eased the other, more disturbing pictures of her in pain.

  “How are we…you know, getting down this?”

  “Rope?”

  “Oh, no we’re not.”

  He smirked and ruffled her blonde hair. She’d not put it back up or put on her baseball cap. He had his hat back on, but he could still feel the way she’d run her fingers through his hair and dug her nails in his scalp with just the right amount of toe-curling pressure.

  “We seriously aren’t using a rope. That’s two hundred feet.”

  “It’s more like fifty,” he corrected her.

  She still shook her head hard. “No, I’ll follow this ridge—”

  He stood and unlatched his pack, dug in it right after, then pulled out his rope, aware she’d stood as well and was watching him with what could only be chalked up to fear on her face. All they’d been through and fifty feet scared her?

  “I’ve done this before, much higher, and the rope is top of the line. We do it all the time—”

  “I don’t. I’ll walk.”

  “We stay together, and that”—he indicated the sun tipping over the gorgeous mountains—“says we don’t have time for you to walk.”

  “Rick, I am not going down that tiny piece of rope with your heavy butt.”

  He laughed. “I, my sweet little tongued darling, am not taking no for an answer.” He ignored her protest and secured the rope to an enormous maple. “I’m tying our line here. The maple is strong, the roots are deep and it will hold us better than the pine trees. We hook you to me. I hook to the line and we lower down bit by bit. I’ll even let you check all the bindings.” He worked as he talked, not sure if her silence was good or bad. She was tense, clearly not happy, and from the way she was biting her lip, thinking hard about how to stop him.

  “I can gate us there.”

  “Really?” he murmured, sure she was bluffing. It was fifty feet.

  He finished the last link and tested each one. He’d left enough line to do double the drop he’d estimated.

  “You get me to hold you, while I get this to hold me. But I’m going to loop this around that cute waist, and this”—he indicated a latch release—“is your safety. Anything happens, anything at all, and you hook this to this line, here”—he indicated his control clip—“and you bring us down. No matter how fast you go, this will always stop you if you jerk it this way.” He demonstrated then glanced at her. Her face was paler than the snow.

  He dropped the instructor mode and pulled her in by her hands. They were freezing cold. He was still warm from the hike, the amazing sex and setting up for the drop. She was scared. “You’re scared. I get that. Heights, huh?” he asked, rubbing her hands.

  She nodded reluctantly against his shoulder.

  “Well,” he sighed. “This is going to sound tough and uncaring and it’s not, but I’ve trusted you from day one, put my butt on the line for you and watched your back all with the firm, solid trust that you will have it. Now it’s your turn. Trust me, Hunter—me, to see you safe, and keep you that way.”

  She tightened her small hands on his parka at his words, and he could feel the way she trembled. She was so small that at times with her, he forgot. He could always meet her eyes, but he realized, holding her and ducking his head to brush his cheek to hers, it was because she always had her head up. He was a good solid six inches, if not taller, than her. She was delicate, but had endured so much. He wanted to buy a house, put her in it, and spend the rest of his life simply taking care of her, far away from all this danger—raise some kids, have some fun, do normal shit.

  “Can you do that? For me? Trust me?” he finally asked. If he wanted her safe, the best way to achieve that was to finish this mission. Clear her name, save his men, then they could both go walk beaches somewhere warm and sunny before they bought the farm.

  She didn’t agree easily. He liked that about her. She didn’t rush to say yes or push him away with a no. She thought about it. All of what he was saying, he hoped. He felt her ease a little in his arms. She turned her head, resting it cute as heck on the grip she had on his parka, and sighed.

  “Okay.” Her breath came out like a cloud of smoke. He wanted to squeeze her as tightly as he could, but held off the feelings of winning something a great deal bigger than her agreement. Her trust. A little bit at a time she’d begun to trust over the past few days, but this, he could sense, was going to change the game. Or maybe it already had, he thought, kissing her forehead, reminded that she’d given him much more than she’d ever given another—man or woman. Her body and her story. No one had either before him. Or at least since he’d begun watching her.

  “Good girl. Now, don’t be scared of hurting me or us dropping if you panic. I’ll get us down, no matter what.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he agreed, and slowly let her out of his arms.

  It was a big step. Whether it was bigger than the others, he wasn’t sure, but something had changed with Hunter. He hoped it was something good.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Hunter had been scared in her life, but she wasn’t able to concentrate on those times with the two hundred feet of open air beneath her boots. She was sure she was hurting Rick with her hold on him, but he didn’t complain.

  “All right, the hardest part is over. Now we just continue down.”

  “The hardest part?” she asked, not in the least embarrassed that her teeth chattered and her voice came out like a squeak.

  He dropped them a few more feet and she tightened her grip on his jacket, not the arm he had around her waist like she wanted. That arm and a small, very small, rope were all that kept her from falling to her death.

  “It’s always harder to get over the edge than it is to go down. This is cake, now. Fifty feet, nothing big. You’re doing great.”

  She was terrified. Not doing great.

  “If you could breathe a little, that might help,” he teased.

  The teasing didn’t. Nothing did. It wasn’t the fear of death. It was the complete lack of control. Her vertigo spun the world around topsy-turvy, and no matter what she did, she felt blackness dim her vision. Rick couldn’t hold her if she passed out. She’d be dead weight. They’d die. He’d be killed and it would be all a blank to her because she had blacked out.

  “Just breathe. Here.” He anchored her face to his chest as gently as he could. “Just take a few breaths, that’s all. Talk to me. Why do you think you’re not a Jade witch?”

  She wanted to cry, to beg him to just take them back up, to stop the climb down, but he kept up the steady jerk and drop, jerk and drop. Each time she felt her mind spin.

  “I think you’re a Jade witch and all, simply because so far Aubrey’s not been wrong on one single thing. She’s ancient. Heck, she looks from this century, but you’ve heard her talk. Why don’t you believe her?”

  “My sister. She and my mom said I was found. They brought me home. I was garbage, and no one wanted me.”

  “They did, so you weren’t garbage,” he said harshly. In a nice voice he said, “Maybe they stole you from someone.”

  No one wanted me.

  We didn’t want you. Why would anyone else?

  It was a litany she could still hear today—how much they didn’t want her but had to have her and raise her right.

  But Kincaid wanted her. So they were wrong on some of that—maybe more, too.

  “Hunter?”

  His tenderness startled her, but she trie
d to latch on to what he was saying, anything not to think about the way her boots dangled above the drop.

  “I was left behind,” she whispered, tightening her fingers on his jacket. “In a garbage bin.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I saw a news article on it, with my family as the kind people that found me.”

  “So what? They could have killed your mom and taken you.”

  She blinked and frowned. “No, they were insane, but they didn’t kill people.”

  Animals, they killed animals.

  Maisy—her kitten.

  She’d forgotten that horrifying day, but now, the image of Margaret’s mother holding the small white and gray kitten surfaced. She’d been young, very young, but she could remember the fear when the kitten was found in her room and the panic at how tightly Margaret’s mother had held it. Her uncle had been there, shaking his head as if she’d disappointed him. Margaret had been the one to toss the kitten down the well in the basement. She could still hear its pitiful cries. She could still feel the painful guilt she’d experience at its death. They’d threatened to put her down there—again—if she brought another animal in the house.

  “One rodent is enough. We have to suffer you. We’re not taking on more animals.”

  “What did you say?” Rick asked, stiffening against her.

  Horrified, she realized she’s whispered that aloud. “I… It’s just a memory, not a pleasant one.” They had found her. If she’d truly been a Jade witch, Sorcha would have known her parents. They would have raised hell over her being missing. No one ever had. Sorcha didn’t even know where she’d sprouted from, she’d once said.

  “Baby, you and I have to talk about this past of yours a bit more if that’s one of a few of the memories you have stored away.”

  “I’d rather not,” she whispered painfully.

  “Yeah, I know, but you might have to. Look, I had a normal childhood. I can’t compare and I know it. My folks were overprotective, kinda corny, but they tried hard and we got raised with the understanding they were there for us. I know you didn’t. I know you had it much worse. I can’t shake the feeling that they took you. I don’t believe in coincidences, and them just happening to find you and abusing you? Come on. That’s just… Well, it’s hard to swallow. And as far as the Jade thing, if Aubrey says you are, you are, so stop and think on that. Start that genius from that point and work your way out from there.”