THE FOLLOWING MORNING I found myself surviving a six-hour shoot in downtown LA on quad shot lattes and protein bars. Hunter had wolfed down two between setups and sipped his coffee every spare moment. I hovered quietly over his shoulder and watched him assess composition and angles through his lens before turning back to our model.
She was the wife of a wealthy head of a certain Pacific Northwestern outerwear company. This was her anniversary present to him, and I couldn’t deny that she was young, beautiful, and had had enough surgery to keep her nipped and tucked for many decades to come.
I packed his camera snugly into its padded bag once we’d finished. My stomach chose that moment to growl ravenously. “I’m starving. I need to eat, and then I need to see these pictures.”
His laugh filled the room before he said, “I didn’t know I would be working to the tune of your gut today.”
My cheeks flushed red as I lifted the bag over my shoulder and caught his dancing eyes. “Sorry.” I scrunched my face and shrugged my shoulders.
“It reminds me what a shit boss I am to not even give you a break, so lunch is on me.” He pulled the camera bag from my shoulder and slid it over his own, dusting a palm along the curve of my ass as he did it.
Thirty minutes later, Hunter and I sat in pajamas with lo mien and egg rolls spread out between us, his MacBook open on the coffee table of the luxe hotel room we were sharing. I watched fascinated, lifting a pile of noodles to my mouth with chopsticks, as Hunter chewed and tilted his head, browsing through the photos he’d taken earlier today.
I adored him like this. Hair damp from the shower, soft jersey shorts hanging low on his hips and a plain white tee defining his broad physique. I found myself distracted and shifting, wanting to slide onto his lap and discover the delicious sin that resided there. I didn’t understand him, but I found that I didn’t want to. He held his own personal brand of magic, and I was just content that he graced me with it.
“Look, if I soften the curve of the breast right here.” He mumbled out loud as the cursor worked over a small area. Hunter zoomed out on the photo, adjusted the contrast a finer shade, and then sat back, his eyes assessing his handiwork with a sense of self scrutiny I’d never seen anyone else posses.
“It’s perfect,” I offered.
“It’s not right.” He shook his head before punching a few buttons on the keyboard and slamming the top closed. He was shoveling chopsticks piled high with noodles in his mouth before I could even come to terms with what had happened.
“I hope you saved that. I really did think it was perfect.” I reached for the computer before his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist in warning. His dark gaze pierced me, pinning me to my seat, my muscles rigid and senses on high alert.
I loved it.
“Don’t touch.” His gruff voice fell on my ears, reminding me of his original warning, and sending slow lustful curls unfurling down low in my belly.
“I’ll go back to it later. Don’t touch my stuff, Erin.”
I raised an eyebrow, my eyes glancing from his thick fingers wrapped around my wrist and back to his darkening eyes assessing me.
“Yes…” I glanced away, trying to contain the word that so easily teetered on my lips. “Sir,” I said softly. His eyes sparked for a moment before veiling over with dark and delicious lust. I knew I’d be calling him that again. And again.
If I’d only known then his brand of all-consuming love would ruin me.
“Come here.” Before I knew what was happening, Hunter was on his feet and hauling me to the seating area. “Stay.” He sat me on the sofa and turned to fumble with something on the nightstand.
Slow beats filled the room from a small speaker, and my nerves immediately shot to standing when he sauntered back to me with a dark quirk of his lips. Hunter’s fingers trailed through the dark curls of my hair and brushed them over one shoulder. His fingertips trailed across my shoulders and goose bumps burned across my body before I felt his soft lips place a reverent kiss at the nape of my neck. My core flooded and tears pricked behind my eyelids. This was feeling — all feeling.
The deep thrums of the bass guitar charged through my blood as Hunter’s fingers danced up my skin, trailing the dips of my elbows, over my biceps and back down again. Exploring his hard body with my own fingertips, I caught his wrist here, a bicep there, before my fingers finally curled at his neck and brushed across the cold chain that was ever present. His muscles tensed before his fingers curled under the hem of the tank top I’d intended to wear to bed.
His knuckles dusted up the curve of my waist as the ribbed cotton pulled over my body. I sucked in a quick breath when he pulled the fabric over my head and my hair fell in a curtain around my shoulders, causing the cool air-conditioned room to caress the lace fabric of my bra and raise my nipples to aching peaks.
“Jesus,” Hunter growled as his hands danced across my aroused flesh, before he dipped beneath the waistband of my sleep shorts and every alarm that my body had went off at full alert. “So fucking beautiful,” Hunter uttered as his fingers teased at my waistband and his lips found the hollow beneath my ear. He wasn’t kissing — what he was doing was worse, so much worse. He was teasing, just like he always did.
“Tell me what you want,” he growled, and I grew wet.
“You,” I breathed, caught up in him and the heavy music notes flooding my senses. His scent, his touch, him.
“Me what?”
“You. I want you inside me,” I whimpered as my knees buckled. Hunter’s hands clenched around my waist, his fingertips digging so deeply it nearly had me cringing with pain.
“Erin, from the first moment, I…I should have told you…fuck.” His eyes shot up and caught mine. I stood there with quiet anticipation, until his eyes seemed to harden with resolve, and he finally spoke. “I want to shoot you tonight.”
My eyes widened before my head did a slow nod in ascent. I couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe, but I could agree. There was a flickering awareness in my tummy that I would soon know what it felt like to be on the opposite side of his lens.
Hunter swayed my hips back and forth in his warm palms, his thumbs hooked in the waistband of my shorts, and with his lips at my ear, he whispered the words and hummed along to the tune while the cotton slipped down my thighs to the floor.
Within minutes, my body felt like smooth silk and melted butter as my hips swayed of their own volition and Hunter’s palms disappeared. Seconds later, he was laying me back on the inky black couch. My heart ached and my stomach fluttered as he twisted from his crouch on the floor, looking at me through the different angles of his lens. He snapped pictures, tipping his head to one side or another, that slight frown I’d grown to adore appearing on his face as he lost himself in thought.
“We need to take more off.” His eyes bore into mine and gone was the mischievous sparkle that was normally present. “Do you mind?” Hunter’s crooked smile glanced from the vee at my thighs up my body to land on my eyes. “Just the panties.”
I breathed in a few slow, torturous breaths. Just the panties. Whoever heard of just the panties? My nerves screamed for oxygen and the relief that it carried, the much needed lifeblood that would allow my brain to function normally again.
“Okay.” My stomach flipped painfully, unsure whether to run to the bathroom and toss up my lunch or wrap myself in his strong, golden arms and ride him until we were both coming and screaming and sated. “Okay,” I said again more confidently and hooked my thumbs in my panties.
“Let me.” His deep voice carried in the cool air between us, and my stomach coiled and unfurled again, slow circles twisting up my insides with nervous bliss. The pads of his fingers hooked beneath my panties for the second time today, and my thighs rocked back and forth, waiting and wanting like a whore.
“Still,” he whispered, and without reservation, I did what I was told. I held my breath as he peeled the black fabric down my thighs and slowly revealed my glistening pussy to his eyes. His
lower lip pulled taut between his teeth as his eyes flicked open and closed a moment before turning up to me.
“Perfect,” he murmured and then pulled a string of pearls from his pocket.
“So perfect,” he breathed as he draped the string along the damp folds between my legs. The cool stones tingled and buzzed as arousal surged and pulsed.
“Do it for me,” he instructed, and without being told, I knew what he wanted. I took the string of freshwater stones from his fingers and trailed them across my core, dusting them along my abdomen, coiling them in the dip of my navel. And all along, he snapped away, hundreds of pictures I guessed by the time we were done and from every single angle I could have imagined.
I relaxed when he finally sat back on his ass, legs crossed and eyes riveted to the LCD screen, the beeping of the button as he reviewed the photos he’d taken the only sound over the drugging music.
“You’re fucking stunning, Princess,” he murmured and wrapped me in his warm arms, pulling me into him. “I’ve been warring with myself,” he said as he drew me towards the bed.
“Why?” The breathless word fell from my lips as my brain built up with pleasurable excitement.
“I’m bad for you, Erin.” His hands cupped my jaw, his lips hovering against my own. “But then I think maybe I’m the best thing for you.” His fingers kneaded at my waist and ran delicious circuits, lighting a current of lust in my body.
“What are you talking about?” I struggled to grasp his meaning. He was complex, his words always brewing with hidden meaning and innuendo. Was he good for me? Wasn’t he? Did I care?
“Soon. I’ll tell you soon,” he said, and with both his hands wrapped in my hair, I fell for him.
His hard body caged me in on the cotton duvet, fingers digging into my sides, hands running between my thighs, and lips everywhere. His tongue flicked at the hollow of my waist, licked around my navel, trailed along the concavity of my ribs, and then scraped at the lace covering one nipple.
“God, yes,” I whispered on wasted breaths as my fingertips trailed up his arms and over the dark ink that I’d been yearning to touch.
Raised flesh flowed under my skin as I roamed his biceps. Across his shoulders I found more. Over the inked forearms, still more.
He was covered in scars.
My eyes shot open as a ball of pain lodged in my throat. Every single tattoo that decorated his body covered a mark that he’d wanted to forget. Or remember. Was he living through the pain every time he saw them in the mirror?
My fingertips tightened around his upper arms, and I forced my mind to focus on him as his large hands roamed my curves while the music pumped on. Up my thighs he kneaded and placed kisses until finally he pulled the lacy fabric down my breasts and his lips attached in long hard sucks. I arched and clutched at his head and moaned before his fingers slid between my legs and massaged between my soaked folds. The muscles of my core bunched and tightened as my hips thrust off the bed while Hunter’s expert fingers worked me to a frenzy.
“Cum on me, Princess,” he hummed in my ear before one finger slid deep inside, curving and massaging relentlessly while his thumb turned figure-eights at my clit. My breathing grew shallow at his words, and just as I was about to unravel, his fingers were gone and his palms were fisting at my hips as his tongue drove into my pussy and licked in feverish strokes.
I rocked my hips, but his heavy hands held me in place. I couldn’t move if I tried. I didn’t want to. With my hands in his hair, fire pulsed through my body and strung my muscles into tightly bunched masses of useless energy. Hunter’s hand kneaded at my breast and pinched and twisted at my nipple as the ripples of pleasure burned from my toes to the hairs standing up at my neck.
The world swam, and before I could think twice, I was tucked under Hunter’s arm, my head across his broad chest. “Go to sleep, Princess.” His hand stroked delicately across my hair as he pressed his nose into my waves and inhaled.
“I still want you,” I mumbled, drunk with the promise of sex.
“You have me,” came his simple reply. “Sleep.”
I sighed, my eyes falling closed, one palm spread across his chest and fingering the dog tags that lay beneath the cotton. And for the first time, I felt him. Not the mystery, not the boss, not the man I pined over and rubbed myself to between the sheets at night. Despite my fucked up history in life and love, I felt him, and despite it all, it didn’t terrify me.
eleven
I WOKE SNUG UNDER Hunter’s arm, an alarm bleating in my ear. We were departing from LAX at six and by the time we were back in Chicago, we were cranky and exhausted. I was looking forward to crashing in my own comfy bed when Hunter’s hand slipped up my thigh in the backseat of his car. A corner of his lips lifted and his eyes warmed. I fell into them a little more then. I saw nothing of the bad boy he projected to the world, and everything of the genuine, warm, and compassionate man that sat across the leather from me.
“I’m so glad you came with me, Erin.” His hand squeezed high on my thigh and his warm, inked finger pressed so close.
My eyes fluttered closed and a smile turned my lips. “Thank you for inviting me.”
“I don’t know how I ever traveled without you.”
Hunter tucked me under his arm and escorted me into his home in the warm afternoon light. Without saying a word, Hunter opened the front door and guided me straight to his cozy master bedroom and the duvet-covered king bed. With dark hair cascading around me, Hunter snuck it between his fingers and then brushed his nose in the clean locks at my neck. I heard him inhale and then a small groan escaped his lips.
My fingers went to his waist and my nails dug into the muscles at his sides, sinewy and tight beneath the pads of my fingers. My pussy ached to feel him. A small sigh fell from my lips as his hands found their way up to my neck and wrapped around at the nape. Warm, rough palms abraded my skin and sent chills flittering through my insides and between my legs. I shifted and tilted my head to the side, begging him silently to fuck me. To use me and possess me with those intense, calculating eyes.
“Stay with me,” his rough voice growled, and my stomach fell to the floor.
“Yes,” I uttered, my breath so light it left my head swimming. His arms wrapped me up then, and he pushed us both back on the bed, pulling the white cotton around us. His leg thrown over mine, wrapped up in his arms, I fell asleep to the smoky scent that seemed to emanate from his neck, entering into a dreamland where real life fell away, and all that was real was him and I, here. Pure and unhurried, without a thought in the world. As I closed my eyes, I made my decision.
Tomorrow I would finally make it official.
I SAT IN A SILENT waiting area anxiety pressing in on me.
I fished my phone from my purse to check my messages in an effort to distract myself from the upcoming meeting. Hunter was usually up and checking in on me long before now. Realizing my phone was dead, I plugged it into the charger I kept tucked in my purse and waited for it to power on.
A barrage of messages from one demanding Hunter Ellis lit the screen up before my phone rang, echoing through the quiet room. “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I caught the disapproving glances before I answered the call.
“Hello,” I hummed, a smile in my voice.
“Where the fuck are you?”
“What? I left a note—” I stumbled, my brain failing to comprehend the harsh language he rarely used.
“And why was your phone off—are you okay?” The anger in his voice gave way to desperate urgency.
“I’m fine,” I whispered, still in shock. “I left a note on the coffee pot. I had errands to run, and I didn’t realize my battery had died until just now.”
“Fuck.” I heard him sigh on the other end. “I’m not even out of bed yet. I saw you were gone and thought the worst possible thing—wake me up next time. I’ll take you myself,” he finished, his voice weary.
“Okay,” I said softly, melting into his concern. “You’ve got a showing
tonight; do you want me available?” I asked, referring to a showcase at a prestigious gallery.
“Yeah, definitely. Are you around today?” he said, and I felt the fight in his voice fading. Something deep down warmed and curled inside me. Maybe Hunter needed me as much as I did him.
“I’ve got a few things to do. What do you need?” I offered, my anger long gone.
“I just work better when you’re around,” he replied before a series of beeps echoed over the line. His burner phone. “Fuck. What now?” he grunted, and my brain landed on just one of the unanswered questions I had that surrounded him. But before I could give it half a thought, he said, “I’ve gotta go. Just…be careful, Erin.” And the line went dead.
Be careful? I frowned as I stuffed my phone into my bag and waited for my name to be called. I chewed on my bottom lip.
A secret. I knew Hunter had one; I felt it in my bones. I just couldn’t place my finger on it quite yet.
Until one thought occurred to me. With anxiety coiled in my gut, I rushed from the waiting area without concern for yet another missed appointment and stumbled into the bright sunlight, my mind swirling with the one idea I’d been dumb enough to overlook. Hunter had a girlfriend. Or worse, a wife.
“Fuck,” I mumbled and slouched onto the nearest bench as tears trailed down my cheeks.
twelve
I’D SLIPPED ON A sequined dress and added a few soft curls to my hair, and with an enticing floral scent emanating around me, I’d directed the driver to the address of the event I’d promised Hunter I would attend with him tonight. If it weren’t for my commitment to the job, I would have bailed and curled into the fetal position all night, my mind running away with the possibilities of Hunter’s secret. There was no other indication he was involved with someone else, and I would know, wouldn’t I? I was his PA, spent time in his home, in his bed.
My muscles coiled as the cab slowed to a stop at the curb. I handed the driver a twenty and yanked at the hem of my dress as I ducked out of the cab and into the gallery, hoping Hunter was still here.
Blindsight: The Series (Complete Erotic Suspense STANDALONE) Page 5