“I missed you.” I stretched, entertaining the haunting vision of him in front of me. “I wish you were real.” I brushed a fingertip to his jawline and whispered it along the stubble I could nearly feel beneath my fingers.
“Erin.” His hand caught my wrist. “I am real.” He placed a kiss on the underside of my wrist before hauling me into his arms. “Are you drunk?” He groaned into my neck, and it wasn’t until I inhaled the soft smoky scent that curled around my nostrils and fogged my brain that I knew he was really there.
But there was something else about his scent. Something familiar, like fireworks, but so out of place. My eyes widened in the darkness as realization dawned. Hunter smelled like gun powder.
“What happened to you?” I tried to focus my eyes in the dark night, my hands tracing his chest and biceps feeling for anywhere he could be harmed. “Did someone shoot a gun?” My eyes widened as the slow reality seeped into my brain.
“I’m fine. I met JW at the shooting range.” His eyes darted away and left my insides feeling hollow. “I’ll tell you more later, but we have to go.” He hauled me from the bed and pushed me into my walk-in closet. “Pack what you can’t live without.” He opened a drawer and shoved a handful of panties into the nearest bag he could find. I swallowed the anxiety that vibrated through my muscles and pushed a few shirts and jeans in the bag.
Within a few minutes, Hunter was wrapping me in a warm sweater, kissing his way up my clavicle and along the curve of my neck, and once bundled against the chill of the dark night, I was spirited off by Hunter. Again.
I lived in the four-story walkup that was Hunter’s mansion for the next three days, wrapped in his cotton-white sheets, where I discovered the map of his scars, and hummed against his lips that I loved being shut-in with him. The world could fall to pieces around us and I wouldn’t care.
One afternoon, Hunter and I worked opposite each other at his kitchen island. He was lost in his pictures while I worked on his website, beefing up my meager design skills to give his business a fresh look. His head popped up and he asked, “Erin, can you run down to my office and grab the black folder in the top right drawer?”
“Sure.” I stood and placed a quick kiss on his upturned lips before striding down the long hall to his office. Rifling through the pile of paperwork in his drawer, I found a stack of photos of Hunter in fatigues in the desert. Hunter’s vibrant smile drew me to his face in all of them. He stood out in the groups of soldiers carrying weapons or messing around in the barracks. Curious, I lifted the stack and flipped through a few more until one of a teenage Hunter and someone else caught my eye. Hunter’s smile was unusually tortured. Gone were the flashing bright white teeth as if he was mid-laugh, and instead stood a disgruntled young man, hiding.
He’d already begun to fill out, no sign of the scrawny underdeveloped teen he’d spoken of that day at the diner. He was tall and lean with faintly etched muscles dusted with golden hair. And his body was clean of tattoos, other than the Roman numerals etched at his knuckles. The first ones he’d gotten to cover the scars given to him by his mom’s boyfriend. Before her boyfriend had killed her.
My heart twisted for the boy he’d been, the one that looked haunted as he stood in this picture next to a man that equal parts saved his life and then ruined it so callously. Anger boiled as I searched for the familiar Hunter I knew somewhere in the lost green eyes of the boy in the photo.
The door opened then and Hunter peeked in, a worried frown on his face. “What’d you find?”
“A picture.” I flipped it for him to see. An odd mix of emotions crossed his face.
“JW was there for me a lot through high school. He made sure I graduated. I didn’t get it; my mom didn’t give two fucks about school. But thank God he did.” He pulled the picture from my hands and flipped it over. “After my mom died, I thought I would die with her. I had no one until JW brought me into his home, gave me a warm meal—even when my mom was alive she didn’t give me that.” He laughed ironically then shoved a nervous hand through his blonde locks. “JW paid for the funeral. He claimed the body of my mom because I was too young. JW stepped forward. Gave her a pretty grave over a hill.” Hunter’s eyes drifted and glazed with something down deep. “I never forgot that.” Hunter’s eyes cut back to me. “JW gave my mom the burial she deserved. She may have been a junkie but she was lost in herself, I couldn’t blame her for that. She’d hold me at night after one of her strung-out boyfriends started crashing the house and taking what little money we had. It was fucked up, but she was all I had."
I knew him; I felt his pain; I was him. “You don’t have to explain,” I said, my gaze flashing between Hunter’s soulful eyes and JW’s calculating ones in the photo. “It almost seems like he was grooming you to take over as boss someday.” The thought ran errant through my mind.
“He was.”
My heart raged in my ears at his admission as I looked up to the man standing over my shoulder.
“He knows now it will never happen,” Hunter said, the frown deepening on his otherwise beautiful face. "He’s been different the last few years. He’s on edge. You can see the gears turning behind his eyes. The guys told me he’s making rash decisions. Quick to pull the trigger.” Hunter pushed a hand through his blonde hair with worry. “I have no idea what’s changed.”
“Maybe business is getting the best of him. He’s in his sixties now, right?”
“Retirement?” Hunter huffed.
“Or maybe law enforcement? Aren’t they cutting down on crime in the city? I’ve seen those neighborhood watch flyers everywhere lately." I scrunched my nose thinking how the last few months they’d begun to dot the city blocks.
"The FBI always has a handle on JW. There’s a mutual understanding, JW keeps crime low on the streets and the Feds look the other way as long as he stays inside the bounds."
I nodded, letting his words digest, sad to find that I wasn’t at all surprised by the corruption that laced the city streets. "You think he’s close to going out of bounds?" I asked as Hunter followed the memories in his mind that the photo brought back.
"Maybe," he mumbled and rubbed a hand at his neck working at a knot.
"Here." I moved behind him and worked my small palms at the bulging muscles of his deltoids. Low grunts fell from his lips and blazed a searing hot path of arousal between my legs.
"Are you afraid?" I asked finally, focusing on the bumps and ridges of his muscles.
Hunter shook his head. "Fear is failure. Faith and preparedness lead to results." Hunter sounded more like the military man than I’d ever heard him.
"Do you ever take these off?" I asked, fingering the dog tags that hung loose around his neck and thinking of him laced up in combat boots and defending a nation. It fit him perfectly, ever the protector.
His own fingers twisted and latched with mine so our hands held the chain of his military identification together. "I’ve never taken them off."
"Why?"
Long silent moments stretched between us.
"I don’t want to forget where I’ve been," came the simple answer.
"Do you need the reminder? Aren’t the tattoos enough?" My hand dropped from his and traced down his rippled biceps and forearms, reading the scar tissue that razed his skin.
"Maybe someday. Not right now," he said, looking off in the distance.
"Why not now?" I whispered as my fingers danced across his damaged flesh. "The war is over. You’re safe."
"It doesn’t feel like that most days," he said quickly and stilled my hands on his own before hauling me around his waist to sit in his lap. "I’ll take them off if they bother you," he murmured against my lips.
"It they’re important to you, don’t take them off until you’re ready." I hoped my answer would suffice. I wasn’t sure anything could. This man felt deeply—to the depths of his core—and he put himself through the memory of the horrors of war every day. He was a masochist, emotionally abusing himself with memories. I hoped somed
ay I could ease the clouds obscuring his own reflection.
Hunter hummed against my lips then pulled away, tossing the photo of himself and JW on the desk and grabbing the folder he’d been in search of. "You grew up in Clearview, right?" Hunter asked as I followed him out the door of his office. We entered the kitchen and his fingers immediately went to the keyboard.
"Yeah." I returned to my spot across from him behind my own screen. "My mom bought the house when I was two. We were in East Town before that. I don’t really remember living there though."
"East Town? That would be early eighties, right?" Hunters forehead crushed with frown lines as he thought.
"Yeah. Why?" I looked up from my screen.
"Well, wouldn’t it be something if..." Hunter trailed off before his eyes cast down to his computer screen again as he tapped a few more keys.
“Could you help me find my dad?” My eyes lit with the possibility. “I don’t even know if I’d want to meet him, but just to know if he’s alive or not. He may even be in Chicago—"
“Slow down.” Hunter halted my ramble and I finally noticed his eyes were intent on the screen in front of him.
"Why?"
"That’s probably not something you want to get into, Erin. Heed your mom’s warnings. If she says he was—”
“You don’t understand, growing up with one emotionally unstable parent left me constantly reeling. I never knew if I could trust her or not, she was so manipulative, and prone to these horrific breakdowns that she somehow always blamed on me,” I rambled, letting the broken little girl inside me spill all her fears. “I remember Christmas night one year—I was twelve maybe—and after all the gifts were opened, our small dinner made…that was one thing, despite everything my mom always made holiday dinners for just the two of us. She wanted to give me the family feeling, and I’m glad she did, but so many of those night were so lonely.
“Anyway, I’d just crawled in bed after our Christmas festivities, but I snuck down the stairs that night when I heard her break a glass. I went to help her clean up the kitchen, and I found her slumped in the chair sobbing on the table. A glass of whiskey was clutched in her hand and the bottle already half empty. She’d really poured half of it down her throat in the hour it had taken me to bathe and get ready for bed. She was trashed and had broken a glass on the floor.
“I rushed to her and started picking up the glass before I put hands on her. She was trembling, still crying, when she finally looked up, and her eyes were so glazed over I don’t even think she knew it was me. I shook her, asked what I could do to help, and all she could do was shake her head before she finally stood up and threw an entire handful of pills in my face. Pills." I swiped a tear that was at my eyelid.
"They were Vicodin. Eight of them. I counted. She was going to kill herself." I shook my head living the memory again for the first time in many years. "Her look was so haunted. Cold. Like she blamed me. I hated holidays after that. She takes anything you hold sacred and batters it with blame and criticism until I can’t trust her with anything anymore, especially not my heart." Hunter wrapped a palm around my neck as I finished and pulled me to him fiercely. “I just always had this hope that my dad would love me, be more stable, if I could only find him. How could I possibly end up with two shit parents?” I chuckled ruefully.
“You didn’t deserve that." Hunter’s head shook back and forth adamantly. "But I still don’t think finding your dad is a good idea. Give your mom more credit—she was wrapped up in her shit, but she kept you safe and healthy. You may not know what you’re up against." He clasped my hand in his own, stroking my palm with his thumb as his green eyes settled into my memory.
This was how I would remember him. Not in paradise, or behind the lens of a camera, but here, holding my hand with his alive green eyes dancing back at me. These are the moments that would stay with me. It didn’t matter that he was hesitant to help me find my dad, what mattered is that he wanted what was in my best interest first, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how unfamiliar that feeling was to me.
ten
FRIDAY AFTERNOON, HUNTER DROPPED me off at ten a.m., pecking my lips and telling me he’d see me later. There was a cloud over his eyes that I didn’t understand, but I soon would.
Everything would be clear to me in the hours leading up to three forty-five.
At that time, as I sat at my desk chewing on my nails and wondering why I wasn’t on a flight to New York with Hunter right now, I heard the familiar sound of a key in the lock, and then the comforting beep beep beep of the key code to our security system.
Our. And just like that I fell back into being a couple.
“Welcome home.” I turned the corner to find the man I’d pledged my love and loyalty to just four short years ago, my nerves instantly churning wondering what mood he would be in. Frustration and anger often dominated lately, but I still held hope that the laidback guy I married would make an appearance.
“Hey,” Brant grunted, his eyes bloodshot and averted, before he dropped his suitcase at the front door and headed up the stairs for his bedroom. The one across from the master.
Because that was the other shameful secret I’d carried. When my mother was over, I made up the guest room as if it hadn’t seen a guest in years, but in reality it had had a bed companion every night in the form of Brant. I’d kicked him out of our bed over a year ago when, upon unpacking clothes from a recent trip he’d made, I’d found lipstick stains on his shirt and a heady floral scent that did not belong to me. It was only another nail in the coffin of our marriage.
“How long are you home?” I padded up the stairs behind him, holding the lukewarm cup of tea in my hands, both curious about what he’d been up to, and scared to turn my back on him.
“Few days only, then back to London.” He peeled off his clothes, tossing his crisp white shirt on the floor after stepping into the bedroom, turning to remove his slacks.
I averted my eyes out of modesty. I’d seen it all before of course, and Brant was a very attractive man, though not as tall as Hunter, he was just as imposing with dark eyes that cut across the room and seemed to expose the heart of every lie you ever told. Always thinking the worst, that’s how Brant was.
“Do you want me to get you anything?” I asked, thinking a drink may help to calm his nerves.
“Look, Erin, it’s been a long fucking flight. I’m only here for a business meeting in the morning. Believe me, if I could have avoided the trip I would have.” He shut me down before stepping in the en-suite, and I heard the spray of the shower.
“Okay,” I replied as I clutched at my cup, the pain of our failed marriage, his anger and negativity always boiling just beneath the surface, left me numb. Our life had been built on a stack of stolen cards. This house, the trips, the cars, how could I have been so stupid to think he’d risen so quickly at a company to make that kind of money? He’d always explained away the extravagant things with talks of bonuses and substantial commissions, but looking back, how couldn’t I have known?
I frowned and stepped into the rapidly fogging bathroom, watching his lean body through the transparent door as he soaped up his hair, rivulets of white lather running down the hard muscles of his physique. I was fascinated by his betrayal. Like marinating in the pain it caused, I was drawn to the secrets hidden behind his dark eyes.
“Something on your mind, Erin?” Brant called, startling me from my thoughts. I stayed silent, letting the air hang thick with the question. Brant swiped the soap out of his eyes and his bright blues flashed open to land on mine. They narrowed, then glazed with some sort of understanding, then seemed to harden and flick away again.
Yes, I believed one hundred percent Brant had it in him to have less than legal connections with a crime boss. What surprised me more than that realization was the anger boiling through my system directed solely at myself. I refused to be played a fool again, not with Brant, Hunter, or anyone else. My mother had taught me many things in her own special
brand of parenting, but at least she’d shown me by example how to be independent. Be strong. Be clever. Survive.
“Want to order out from Gino’s?” I sang out, affecting the normal melodic tone my voice carried. It was my turn to play the cards I’d been dealt. And the game was survival.
eleven
I watched her all fucking day and she didn’t move. As if she were hobbled by the gravity of bullshit she found herself in. I wasn’t really sure how much she knew about his side of things, but I could only hope she was innocent or all of this bullshit would be blown.
My jaw twitched when I saw him come in the room. I raised the binoculars to get a better view of the hardened face and dark eyes that played games and fucked minds. I wondered if he had any inkling the world he’d created was about to be shot to shit. Handcuffs or body bag? Which would it be?
I grunted with the intel I’d dug up on him. The stacks and stacks of files, the photos, a petty criminal record, and complaints of domestic abuse. His secrets weren’t buried as deep as he thought.
I watched her toss and turn in bed before I crawled out of the car and slid into the narrow alleyway and into their backyard. My eyes found the window he worked by, lit by a single lamp, hunched over his laptop. He was sipping something strong from a crystal tumbler and sweating over the mistakes. He knew something was wrong all right.
“Welcome to the shit list, motherfucker,” I mumbled, confident he wasn’t going anywhere tonight. In a matter of hours, their world would be turned upside down and front-page news for all of Chicago to dissect.
I’d watched her Googling the names earlier tonight, trying to piece together the facts in her own fogged mind. She was smart, but I had a feeling she only had half the clues, one side of the story.
I had the other piece of vital information that connected the entire intricate web. It’d been hard to find, taken me days of digging, but then one irrefutable piece of evidence had shown itself. One whisper thin piece of paper that had been buried for decades and brought the entire game into focus. I just wasn’t sure what would destroy her more, him or the secret.
Blindsight: The Series (Complete Erotic Suspense STANDALONE) Page 13