She kept looking at him, saying nothing, and Hunter couldn’t help but wonder what she tasted like…
Unconsciously, without his permission, he felt himself leaning into her, closing the distance that separated them. Her eyes fell shut and she angled herself towards him. She wants me, too.
Just as their lips were about to touch, she pulled back. No, flew back. In a split second they went from having not even an inch between them to have five feet. Hunter’s heart was racing in his chest, his cock pushing against his zipper.
“I’m sorry,” Rain muttered, clearly winded. “I, uh… the river is just ahead.”
She turned and began walking towards the river, and he watched her go, brushing a hand through his hair. Releasing a sigh, he began to follow her once more.
As they arrived at the water’s edge, Hunter stared at the rushing water, sudden clarity hitting him. Was this the river he’d dragged himself to? Did that mean…
“Rain?” he asked. He watched her shiver. “Is this where you found me?”
She turned towards him, face as soft as ever. “Yes,” she answered. “Right over here,” she muttered, pointing towards the river bank.
He walked towards her, his steps slow and deliberate. Rain remained where she was, frozen in place as she stared up at him. When there was about a foot of space between them, he spoke.
“You dragged me from here to the bunker?” He was shocked. How had he not realized that?
She nodded and smiled softly.
“How?” he demanded.
She shrugged. “You were dying. You needed help. I didn’t have a choice.”
“How do you keep doing that?”
Her eyebrows scrunched and she tilted her head ever so slightly to the right. “Doing what?”
“Surprising me.”
She bit her lip and looked down, their height difference causing him to completely lose sight of her beautiful face. He couldn’t have that.
Hunter gently placed a finger under her chin, lifting her head so that he could look at her face again. “Thank you,” he said, brushing his thumb against the skin of her cheek. “Really. Thank you.” He let go of her and backed away, strolling towards the river’s edge.
“Who attacked you?” she asked after a minute or so of silence.
Hunter sighed. He might as well be honest. “UNR officials.”
He heard Rain’s breath hitch. “How many of them?”
“Only three.”
“Only?”
“I’ve taken on far more.”
The river was flowing wildly, possibly indicating an incoming storm.
“Why did they attack you?”
“A woman was being assaulted by them.” He thought back to the redhead, to her screams. He thought about how she panicked when he tried to help her and how his damn moral compass nearly got him killed.
“You tried to help her?” She sounded hopeful.
“Of course I did. Except she didn’t want my help.” Hunter frowned thinking back to that day. “Once I pulled her away from them she started screaming for their help. They attacked me from behind. I thought I had knocked them out, but I was so concerned with helping her that I…” his voice trailed off. Rookie mistake.
“You risked your life to save a woman from the UNR?” Now it was her who approached him.
“Yes.”
“Why?” Her eyes looked pleading. Why was that? “Why would you risk yourself to help her?” The question sounded frantic as it left her lips.
“Why did you risk yourself to help me?” he asked simply.
Her stare faltered. “I don’t like to see others hurting.”
Hunter half-smiled. “Neither do I.”
She quickly turned away from him, so he turned back to the river, staring at the steady flow of rushing water.
Rain is keeping secrets.
“Why were you in a position to be attacked by UNR officers, anyway?” Her voice momentarily pulled him from his thoughts.
“I think story time is over for today,” he responded solemnly.
That’s fine if she’s keeping secrets, he thought to himself, so am I.
***
It had been pouring for three days straight. While of course, they could go outside, it was unwise. Rain didn’t want water getting into her little underground home, and she didn’t have any more clothes for Hunter to use if his got wet.
And so, they stayed in the bunker and stared at the walls.
Suddenly, Hunter shifted in his chair. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I have an idea,” he said with a smile that screamed trouble.
“You’re up to no good,” Rain muttered. She crossed her left leg over her right, leaning back into her couch and raising an eyebrow at Hunter. “Are you going to fill me in?”
He just kept grinning at her. It made her heart beat faster and her skin feel hot. While she wanted to look away from him, she just couldn’t. Try as she might, she couldn’t deny the magnetic attraction she felt towards Hunter.
“How about we get to know each other a little?” He raised his eyebrows and smiled with his whole face, eyes lighting up with excitement.
Rain felt uncomfortable. “I- I uh,” she started. “I don’t really understand. Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?”
“My brothers and I used to play this game when things got really boring. One person asks a question, and you have to answer it honestly, no matter what. And if you don’t answer it, then you have to do something, like take a drink of whiskey or do something crazy that the other guys tell you to do.”
His eyes lit up when he talked about his brothers. “How many brothers do you have?”
The corners of Hunter’s mouth pulled into a slow smile. “So does that mean we’re playing?”
She rolled her eyes and shifted on the couch. “We don’t have whiskey. And we don’t have space to do many crazy things.”
Hunter leaned back and put his very obvious thinking face on. His eyes widened and it was clear to Rain that he’d come up with a solution.
“If you refuse to answer a question, then you lose a piece of clothing.” Hunter’s smile was absolutely wicked.
“I don’t-” Rain started, but she stopped as she looked down at herself. Oh! The realization quickly hit her. “But I don’t have a lot of clothes,” she muttered as she stared down at herself. She wore a pair of black leggings, the only leggings she owned, the same ones she had worn when she escaped. On top, a baggy gray sweatshirt that fell off her shoulder that she had found down at the river bank a few months back. Underneath those she did had a pair of panties that she’d treasured and a black tank top that ended just above her navel.
“Then I guess you’d better tell the truth,” Hunter winked.
Rain began fidgeting with her hands, debating in her head what she should do or say next. She began chewing on her lower lip when Hunter spoke again, shocking her from her thoughts. “Hey, Rain, we don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. I was just playing around, I thought it would break up the boring, rainy day.”
She looked to his face and saw the sincerity in his smile, the concern in his eyes. She let out a deep breath. “No, I want to do this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She was. Rain had several questions for Hunter that she’d like answered, and she wasn’t going to let her worries keep her from getting the answers she wanted.
“Well, alright then,” Hunter smirked. “Ladies first?”
She would start with the easy question. “How many brothers do you have?”
“By blood, none. I was my father’s only son. But I have three brothers who would kill and die for me, and that means far more to me than blood does.”
Rain smiled at the thought of Hunter’s friends. “What are their names?”
He smiled as he relaxed into his seat. “You only get one question, but since you’re new to the game, I’ll give you a pass. Sawyer, Derek, and Hayden.” He squinted his eyes at
her, the smile still plastered on his face. “Do you have any siblings?”
She let out the air she had been holding in her lungs. “None,” she shrugged. “I had always wondered what it would’ve been like to have had a sister, or better yet, a brother.”
“Why would a brother have been better?” Hunter laughed.
Rain smiled softly as images of her dream began dancing through her mind. “He could’ve protected me.”
Hunter sat up in his chair, leaning forward slowly as he furrowed his brows. “Protected you from what?”
Rain was jolted from her thoughts when she realized she’d said too much. She painted on a smile. “You are not new to the game and I will not give you a pass. My turn.”
Hunter raised an eyebrow, then smiled and shook his head. “Fair enough,” he conceded.
“Are you really a farmer?”
His eyes locked on her, his stare burning right through her as he seemed to chew over whether or not he’d answer. If Rain was being honest with herself, she didn’t mind much either way. She welcomed a chance to see Hunter’s bare muscles again.
“No,” he finally answered. Then he laughed. “But I did follow in my dad’s footsteps. That part wasn’t a lie.”
So what are you? Rain wondered to herself. She didn’t speak the question aloud this time.
Once he realized she wasn’t going to ask anything further, he asked his own question. “Where were you before you ended up in this bunker?”
She swallowed hard and debated her answer. A slight misstep of the truth wasn’t lying, right? “I grew up in the seventeenth district.” It was true, she had. She just chose to leave out where she had been between the district and the bunker.
She could see on Hunter’s face that he wanted more. His eyes had widened when she mentioned the district, but he forced himself to stay quiet. She giggled.
Thinking about where they were before they ended up in the bunker brought Rain to a weird place, and suddenly, she found herself blurting out a question she knew without any doubt that she should not be asking.
“Do you have a woman back home? A wife? A partner? Somebody waiting on your return?” The moment the question was out, she regretted it.
The smirk on his face only made her regret it more.
“No,” he said. “There is no woman in my life who is not you.”
She swallowed hard.
“Is there a man out there searching for you?” Hunter smiled.
Yes, Rain thought to herself, and I’ve been hiding from him for years. She slipped her leggings down around her ankles and tossed them to the side of the room. Sitting on the couch, she figured that was her least revealing option. Much less revealing than answering that question.
“If you don’t answer then you forfeit your right to ask. I get another question.”
Rain shrugged. “Go for it.”
“Would you go on a date with me?”
Rain was quiet.
As the silence stretched between them, Hunter’s shoulders fell and the smile faded from his face. Her heart was racing and her hands were getting clammy.
“You don’t want a date with me,” he muttered, nodding to himself. “I could have figured that out.” He chuckled. “My bad.”
He stood as if to walk away, but Rain called his name. She moved to the edge of her seat, straightening her back and fidgeting with her hands in her lap.
“It’s not that I don’t want it…” she started. “Well, maybe I don’t. I don’t really know.” She looked to see him furrowing his eyebrows. “I- I, uh, I don’t know what a ‘date’ is.”
Hunter’s eyes widened at her confession and she desperately wished she could become invisible. She felt far too self-conscious under his stare.
“You’ve never had a date?” he finally asked.
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s when you spend an evening with somebody who you like, and who likes you.”
Rain shifted. “You mean, like having dinner with family?”
Hunter laughed and shook his head, moving towards her and plopping down on the tiny couch. His weight caused the couch cushion to dip, and Rain sank into it, her bare leg brushing up against him. It sent a chill down her spine, as touching him always seemed to do…
“No, no. It’s somebody who you like romantically. More than friends.”
Her eyes widened at that. “You like me romantically? More than friends?” A man like Hunter? Her?
He laughed again, and it shook the couch and Rain with it. “I might. Say yes to a date with me and you’ll find out,” he winked.
She smiled, finally, some of the fear washing away. Her heart was still racing, but that was something she was starting to get used to being around Hunter so often. She turned and looked at him; his beautiful golden eyes, his messy brown hair, his dark shadow that had formed on his jaw in the three days since he had last shaved.
Hunter was a man with secrets, but Rain couldn’t deny the wild attraction she felt towards him. “Okay,” she finally gave in. “Yes, I would go on a date with you.”
Hunter clapped his hands together and shot up from the seat, smiling and quickly moving back towards his chair. He was about to sit down, but then he stopped, turning towards her again.
“What?” she asked.
“You’ve really never had a date with a man? No man has ever asked you for one?”
A chill ran down her spine. “No.” Her response was firm, her voice controlled.
“Their loss,” Hunter replied.
Rain stood and moved towards the bedroom. She was ecstatic at the confession from Hunter, and his persistence with her, but she couldn’t shake the memories that began to plague her. “I need a minute,” she muttered as she closed the small door behind her.
Behind the door, she put her hand on her chest, rubbing the area as she worked to steady her breathing. One breath in, count to four, one breath out, count to five, and repeat. It was a small space, if she didn’t get herself together, Hunter would know, and it would ruin everything.
Hunter may have been the first man that Rain had ever wanted, but he certainly wasn’t the first man who had wanted her. She began to feel sick as she fought herself to bury the memories… and to keep her breakfast down.
***
“Hi there, my love,” Alan said to her as he entered the room. Rain looked up at him, at the smiling face, the schoolboy good looks, the nonthreatening blonde hair. Her stomach churned with nausea.
As he sauntered towards her, she tried to move away from him, but the heavy metal chains around her ankles stopped her. She winced as the metal cut into her leg, shuddering from the pain of metal slicing into her already raw skin.
He kept coming closer.
“You know, darling, you wouldn’t have those chains around you if you didn’t keep trying to run away from me.” He spoke to her as if she was six years old, a little girl in need of discipline. “Are you ready to behave, now?”
She spit in his face.
Shock at her own actions pulsed through her as she realized what she had done. Then, when the shock had ran its course? Fear. Rain had never felt so afraid in her life.
Frantically, she began apologizing, saying ‘sorry’ over and over again in a hopeless attempt to alleviate the impact of what she had done. He simply stood there, emotionless, slowly wiping his face and turning to smile at her.
“Hush, hush, now, darling. I’m not mad at you,” he muttered, stalking around her as she shivered where she stood, cemented to the ground and terrified for what would come next. “If I were in your shoes, I’d have done the same thing. Those nasty chains would turn any person into a beast, especially a young girl like you.”
She trembled.
“What are you,” he started, “seventeen years old?”
Rain couldn’t stop herself from shaking. “I-I’m s-sixteen.”
“Ah,” he laughed. “Who could blame a sixteen year old for such childish behavior? Certainly, not
me. I’m understanding, Rain. I understand you. And because of that, I am not mad at you.”
Rain tried desperately to slow her breathing. It’s okay, she told herself, he said he isn’t mad. The moments dragged on, and each second felt like an eternity.
Rain finally found some success in calming herself, and then he moved and stood before her, taking her face in his hand and angling it up so that she was looking at him.
“But, now, darling, all actions have consequences.” Her eyes widened, and as if to simply prove her wrong, her heart began racing faster than she ever thought possible.
She looked up at him as terror pulsed through her, and then he struck.
She didn’t see anything. One moment, it was his smiling face, and the next, it was black. Rain opened her eyes and saw stars, her cheek throbbed and her head spun. She was on the ground, now… had he done that? She squeezed her eyes shut again as the knives pressed forward from behind them, the pain becoming too much to bear.
She touched a hand to her cheek and felt moisture. Blood.
A blow to her side sent another jolt of pain through her. A yelp burst from her mouth as she curled into a ball and begged for it to stop.
She was so busy fighting off the pain that she didn’t notice his hand creeping up her thigh until it reached the edge of her gown. She flinched and pulled away from him, desperately praying to be anywhere but here.
“Do not pull away from me again, Rain. You haven’t seen me mad yet, and I don’t think you want to.” He smiled and tilted his head, feigning concern on his face, but Rain saw right through it. She saw that he was evil to his core, she saw the fury burning in his eyes.
But when he moved towards her, she did not shove him away again. As his hand ran up her thigh, she sobbed, but she did not flinch.
“Tell me that you want me, Rain,” he said softly. She continued to sob. “Tell me that you want me,” he demanded, rage seeping out with each word.
“I want you,” she gasped.
“Say it again.”
“I want you,” she said, tears falling from her eyes as she squeezed them together and pretended to be far, far away.
Born to Fight (Can't Resist You Book 1) Page 4