Hunter's Desire

by Meg Ripley

  Jesse led her down onto her back and stretched his body over hers, slowing their pace and creating a calm, peaceful moment between them. He kissed her softly, running his palms along her arms to her hands to pin them down to the bed on either side of her head. His mouth traveled down to her neck, then onto her chest. The slow, tender pace left her gasping and arching against him, desperate for him to release the pressure building low in her belly. Finally he reached the valley between her hipbones and he let his tongue trace the soft swell between them before dipping down to flick through her folds. Madison let out a strangled cry, completely relinquishing herself to the feeling and letting go of all of her control.

  ****

  She opened her eyes and saw that Noah had walked around to the side of the bed and was now standing beside her. He watched Jesse nurturing her with his tongue, then turned his slumbering eyes toward her. Arousal had taken the vibrant edge off of the blue shade, making them look deep and velvety. Noah reached down and took her hand out from under Jesse's, bringing it up to wrap around his own hard cock so she could mimic the flicks of Jesse's tongue with rhythmic strokes.

  Jesse drew her taut, swollen bud into his mouth and gave a hard suck, bringing a short scream from her throat and causing her to bend her knees higher and spread her thighs further so only the tips of her toes touched the mattress on either side of him. He took the invitation, suddenly lunging forward so he rose up over her. He paused to kiss her, and then slid deep inside. Madison's hand fell away from Noah as Jesse gathered her against him and reared back until he came up onto his knees so she straddled him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her so that her breasts rose and fell tightly against his chest as she rocked in his lap.

  The position brought them face to face and she stared into his eyes, leaning forward to briefly rest her forehead against his. Sweat beaded on his skin and she licked it off of his shoulder, following the flick of her tongue with the graze of her teeth. Behind her she felt Noah rest one knee on the mattress and then his tongue was on her back, trailing down her spine until it reached Jesse's arms. She rode Jesse harder, bringing him deeper inside her until she felt like she couldn't accommodate any more. Finally she stopped and pushed down on Jesse's shoulders to still him.

  She climbed off of his lap and turned to Noah, using one finger to beckon him closer. Jesse moved out of the way and Madison used her hands on Noah's chest to guide him onto his back with his head rested on the pillows. She straddled his chest on her knees and leaned forward to take both of his wrists. The gesture brought her breasts directly over his face and he lifted his head slightly to suckle on of them, briefly grazing his teeth across her nipple.

  Madison took one of his hands and brought it up to the post above him, wrapping his fingers around it and squeezing to show him she didn't want him to move.

  "You started this," she murmured, and repeated the move with his other hand so that he gripped the posts on either side of him, "Now you're going to finish it."

  She gave him a hard kiss, biting his bottom lip, and then slid backwards along his body so he could feel the heat of her core and the brush of her breasts from his chest down his belly. When she got to his hips, she rose up on her knees and grasped the base of his erection so she could hold it and tease the tip between her thighs. It slipped through the slippery fluids, but she kept her hips just high enough to prevent him from entering her, reclaiming her control and delighting in the deliciously tormented look in Noah's eyes and the groans that poured from him as she continued to use him to stroke herself.

  Using her other hand, she reached behind herself and grasped Jesse's wrist where he stood at the edge of the bed. She led him until he stood beside her, and then dipped her head to take him into her mouth again. Noah grunted, the sound telling her that watching her with Jesse pushed him even closer to the brink. She could hear the wood of the bed creak and he strained against the posts, wanting to touch her, but behaving admirably.

  Jesse's hand came to the back of her head, gathering her hair out of the way so he could guide her into a fast, steady rhythm. She moved Noah's cock against her to mirror the speed until she heard Jesse let out a gasping moan and felt him release into her mouth. Slowing her pace, she sucked the hot, salty streams from the tip and swallowed luxuriously, smiling as Jesse fought to steady his breath. Suddenly Noah's hands grabbed her hips.

  "Let go," he growled and Madison complied, gasping as he impaled her.

  His sounds were wild and unchained as he drove into her harder and faster; moments later, she felt him pulse and he roared as he spilled into her body. The feeling was enough to topple her over the edge and she gripped him, milking him with the tight tremors of her body until she collapsed, shuddering, in his arms.

  ****

  Two weeks later, Madison settled in front of her computer to check the website. It was Halloween; time for Noah and Jesse to post their special about her house. Considering the amount of investigating that they did the first night, and the fact that the final night hadn't fared much better in terms of exploring the house beyond the secret passage where the three of them hid from the rest of the crew, she was very curious to see how they pieced together an evidence video.

  Taking a sip of spicy pumpkin coffee, she clicked the link and immediately had to put down the mug. The screen filled with the stark white lines of an audio analysis, the peaks spiking in time to the indistinct whispers and low moans of the recording.

  The caption read "Disembodied Voices" and she covered her mouth to muffle her laugh.

  The screen changed to the feed recorded by a camera apparently set up in the doorway of the parlor, aimed toward the stairs. In the darkness, she saw a shadowy image move past, pause, and then bound up the stairs. It was dark and there was no audio attached, but she knew she was watching her own nearly naked form rush up the stairs to her room. Seconds later, two more shadows crossed in front of the camera and went up the stairs.

  "Shadow figures," a voiceover of Noah said mysteriously.

  Madison bit her bottom lip as the screen changed again to show the feed from a camera positioned at the end of the hallway. The recording appeared to show the door to her bedroom swing shut on its own, then the screen returned to the audio analysis for a few more minutes of muffled moans and whimpers. She writhed against her seat, pressure building between her thighs as she listened to what others would think was evidence of spirits—and what she knew to be evidence of very talented spirit hunters.

  When the video ended, she picked up her phone and scrolled through until she found Noah's number.

  "What are you up to tonight?" she asked when he answered.

  "Nothing," he said back, the heat in his voice ratcheting up the excitement in her belly.

  "Want to come trick-or-treating at my place?"

  THE END

  Deadly Fortune

  Rachel’s life has been a constant struggle. After scraping by to get through college, years of sacrifice have left her with little reward. Chained to a desk in a dead-end position, she often finds herself asking, “Is this really all there is?”

  Her luck suddenly changes when, one morning, she notices an anonymous transfer into her bank account for two million dollars. As she comes to grips with her sudden windfall, she finds her life threatened by an anonymous group who is hell-bent on prying her away from her newly gained fortune. A dangerously handsome stranger named Dylan mysteriously arrives just in time, claiming to be sent to protect her for reasons he won't disclose.

  Will her new irresistibly hot—but evasive—bodyguard be able to protect her, or will she end up paying the ultimate price for her new fortune?

  PART ONE

  Rachel groaned into her pillow as the sound of Muse’s “Hysteria” ripped her out of the depths of an intense sleep. She reached out blindly, groping for her phone on the bedside table, trying to decide whether or not it was worth it to cue the snooze function. It would only net her an extra nine minutes—just enough time to start drifting off ag
ain before the alarm came back on—but the weight behind her eyes, the heaviness of her arms and legs against the soft, warm bed, was so tempting to give into.

  She pulled her face free of the pillow and opened her eyes, staring dumbly at the still-playing alarm flashing on the screen. She knew if she didn’t make up her mind soon, she would be fully awake, and there would be no point in tapping the snooze icon. Groaning again, she tapped the icon and dropped the phone onto the bed next to her, curling up. She could at least pretend, for the moment, that she didn’t have anywhere to be.

  Rachel was still hovering in the mental space between asleep and awake when the alarm went off again; her brain had started to perk up into function, insistently cataloging everything she would have to get done that day, in spite of the deep-seated desire to return to sleep. God, I don’t want to go to work, she thought, sitting up in bed and reaching for her phone to shut off the alarm for good. She could have, theoretically, hit the snooze button one more time; she only needed twenty minutes to get ready for work, and the alarm was set to forty-five minutes before she had to leave. But she was awake; there was no point in pretending anymore.

  She took a deep breath and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, climbing down and scrubbing at her slightly greasy-feeling face. Rachel decided that a big glass of water, a toothbrush, and some face soap would complete the process of transitioning out of sleep and into waking life. But first, she absolutely had to get the coffee started.

  Rachel wandered out of her bedroom and into the kitchen, blinking sleepily as her feet shuffled along the rug; for the moment, she was determined not to check her email, or even to look and see what was going on amongst her friends online. The quiet of the house, so early in her day, was not to be interrupted by considerations of the incredible mess waiting for her when she arrived at work. Her body moved automatically as she went into the small apartment kitchen: turning on the faucet, rinsing the coffee pot, scooping coffee into the basket, reaching up to retrieve a glass from the cupboard. Slowly but surely, her body was coming awake, her brain losing the lingering fog of sleep.

  While the coffee brewed, Rachel downed the glass of water in a few rapid swallows, washed her face, and brushed her teeth, sitting down heavily at the tiny table in her dining room—a second-hand rescue from when a distant aunt had passed away while she was in college, and her cousins had needed to get rid of as much of the woman’s hoarded furniture as they could. She poured herself a cup of coffee and added milk and sugar, giving it an experimental, necessary sip before she finally unlocked her phone and tapped on the email icon.

  A resigned sigh gusted through her lips as the screen loaded, showing somewhere between fourteen and twenty new emails. Rachel took a deep breath and began to skim the previews, her eyes taking in subject lines and the first sentence or so of the messages themselves. She mentally prioritized them based on who they were from, whether or not the subject line said “urgent” and her own experience. It had been a little over two years since she had gratefully taken the job of Administrative Assistant, feeling the hot breath of student loan debt collectors on her neck. She had worked hard to get as many scholarships as possible to make her way through college, but Rachel had been forced to resort to loans when there was simply not enough money.

  About a year into working for Elite Advertising, Rachel had come to the conclusion that the job was never going to get any better. She knew that her superiors had low-balled her on their initial offer, counting on her desperation to get a job—any job. She knew that they had no intention of appreciably increasing her pay, or giving her any kind of promotion; she had proven herself to be too efficient to make the argument that additional responsibilities merited an increase in pay. Whenever she tentatively raised the subject, she was met with “But you’re so capable; this will only take up a few minutes here and there in your schedule.” The thought of abandoning the job, of finding something better, had occurred to her more than once—but the very real possibility that she would leave one dead-end only to step into another held her back.

  Rachel shelved the topic of the day’s work in favor of checking in on her friends for a few minutes. She glanced at the time—she still had ten minutes before she needed to start getting ready in earnest. Scrolling through her feed, Rachel frowned enviously at pictures of one friend’s exotic vacation—something she could never scratch up enough extra cash to afford—and a coworker’s new car. They can afford to bump pay for the sales team, but not for the girl practically running the place, she thought bitterly, closing out the app before her resentment could bloom out of proportion.

  She decided to rub a little more salt in the wound, and opened her banking app, thinking that she would make a couple of plans—maybe pay a couple of bills—before she got dressed and made up for the day’s work. Logging in, Rachel went through her usual mental routine of trying to estimate just how much she should have in the bank, recalling the groceries she had bought a few days earlier, the lunch she had treated herself to after forgetting the Tupperware holding her leftovers. When the screen finished loading, she glanced at the total and her mouth fell open in shock.

  “Two million dollars? What the hell? What—how—it’s got to be a mistake,” she said, shaking her head and blinking her eyes to clear them. But the total still showed the same amount. Rachel tapped the account details option and saw, to her amazement, that it had come from a transfer, showing as posted just that morning.

  Her mind spun for a moment. It still had to be a mistake; someone had tried to send a transfer to their kid, or to a family member—maybe even a corrupt politician—and had gotten some of the digits wrong on the account number. Rachel looked at the time, wondering just how long the hold period would be for the customer service line. She chewed on her bottom lip and considered. On one hand, she absolutely had to get ready for work—she would be late if she didn’t. On the other hand, Rachel thought it was entirely possible that, assuming the transfer into her account was a mistake, she would probably face a much bigger problem later down the line if it wasn’t corrected quickly.

  She called her boss, leaving a voicemail saying that she had to take care of a personal issue and would be a few minutes late getting in. Rachel then pulled out her debit card and dialed the number on the back of it, fidgeting in her pajamas as she entered her account information and passcode. She tapped her foot lightly on the floor as the hold music played, her heart beating faster. What if it isn’t a mistake? She thought, her brain barely—barely—daring to hope. But how she could have ended up with two million dollars in her bank account without it being a mistake of some kind was impossible to comprehend. No one she knew had that kind of money. The wealthiest of her friends and family were only making—at most—a hundred thousand or so per year.

  Her mouth was dry and she sipped at her coffee, forcing herself to breathe slowly. The customer service agent finally came on the line, and Rachel explained her dilemma. “That is…certainly an odd situation,” the woman on the other end of the phone said, sounding nearly as surprised as Rachel was. “I’ll be happy to look into that for you in a little more detail. Would you be okay with holding?” Rachel told the woman that she would, even though her skin was crawling, even though she felt an instinctive fear that just by alerting the bank to the discrepancy, she might—at any moment—find her door kicked in by unknown “others.”

  When the woman came back on the line, Rachel eagerly told her that yes, she was still there. “I’ve looked everywhere possible,” the woman said, with a mixture of confusion and certainty in her voice. “There is no way that the transfer is even possibly a mistake. I was even able to call up the original bank form that was used—and your name was specified, along with your account number. We use a redundancy system to guard against errors; it doesn’t always work, but it’s clear that someone apparently wanted to give you two million dollars.” The woman paused. “I guess… congratulations?” The phone almost slipped out of her fingers, and Rachel barely manage
d a coherent reply before ending the call.

  As she sat in numb silence at the table, a dawning realization came over her. I don’t have to go to work today. She smiled slowly. If I’m careful, I don’t have to go to work ever. She began to laugh, eyes wide, shaking her head in shock at the turn of events.

  ****

  Two days later, Rachel had formally quit her job, not even giving notice, and submitting a resignation letter that, if formal and moderately polite, at least provided some food for thought to any of the people in HR who might have actually concerned themselves with a disaffected employee. She had not given specific reasons for why she was leaving so abruptly; to Rachel’s mind, the fewer people who knew about her unexpected windfall, the better. But the question of just who had sent her the money, why they had sent it to her, continued to plague her in the back of her mind, even as she went about putting plans into place to not only protect it, but to make it last as long as humanly possible.

  She had gone into the bank the same day and spoke to a manager who had been unable to discover the source of the transfer—it had been done anonymously. The trail was worse than cold; the manager told her that deliberate steps had been taken to obscure the identity of whoever had sent the transfer into her bank account. “Whoever gave you this money sure doesn’t want anyone to know it was them,” he had said, shaking his head at the vagaries of the wealthy.

  Rachel decided to forego the pursuit of her mysterious benefactor for the time being. When the bank manager had suggested that she work with the bank’s wealth management division, she was more than happy to go along with his idea, knowing that while she had ample experience making twenty dollars last for a week, she had very little notion of how to live with millions. She knew that decisions would have to be made—whether to invest, what to invest in, how much money she really needed to live every year, all the myriad of choices that came along with a sudden windfall. Taxes, charities, debts to be paid off; did she want to buy a house, since she had the money to pay for it outright? Did she want to get a new car to replace the old jalopy she had scrimped to purchase when her first car had finally, irrevocably died?