by A. E. Fisher
I wasn’t fixed.
When I woke up the next morning, my guilt was still there, the pain was still chained down inside of me. I wasn’t ready to let it go, and I probably never would. Somehow, though, even in the wake of everything, I felt a little bit lighter. It made looking back at yesterday’s events, at the mistake I had made, thinking I had seen Noble, not quite so despairing.
My other reflections on last night consisted of mostly embarrassment and shame, and a little pissed off at Hunter’s bitch speech. There was also a little bit of something else.
Hunter no longer held all the labels I had stamped on him over the course of the last two weeks. I had seen a glimpse inside of him last night, and I saw his own guilt, the one he kept locked up deep inside himself, and all the pain that came along with it. There was something much deeper than the scratch on the surface I had seen. Something far more painful.
The bitch speech I could understand. It was his way of trying to understand my actions. Not that I forgave him for it. Nope, the pissed-off feeling I carried around was dedicated to him, and I made full use of it by ignoring him, which I knew annoyed him more than any argument I could have with him.
That was only a fraction of all the thoughts related to Hunter that had taken residence in about, I don’t know, forty-nine-point-nine percent of my brain. And with Adair taking up the other fifty percent, that left me with naught-point-one percent to think about me.
And that precious naught-point-one was used to think about the fuel of the world.
Money. Or more like, my lack of it.
My clothes were worn through; my best pair of jeans having ripped in the crotch yesterday after picking something up off the floor and making me hightail out of the kitchen. Hunter had been watching me with Adair propped up on his lap as they watched some bike program on the television, his gaze lingering far too long on the T-shirt that was a little too small, with the slim line of waist it exposed when I lifted my arms.
He had taken every moment to remind me that I needed some new clothes when he would “accidentally” brush past me, his fingers grazing my skin through the rips in my jeans. Or the way his eyes would stare at the waist of my loose pajama pants as if he might develop telekinesis if he looked at them hard enough in the hopes they might fall or reveal more than they should.
I admitted that I’d had the same pajamas for a while, but the money I’d had in my savings account when I had left had gone into buying Adair whatever he needed when he was born. I bought what I could from charity shops for myself. I didn’t need luxury so long as I had Adair.
Having a live-in pervert watching me every two seconds was beyond annoying. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but our attempt to hide the attraction we shared had gone out the window for Hunter. Something had changed for him, and for some reason, he made it loud and clear he wanted me.
Not that I wanted him. Nope. I was more than happy to stay on my side of the line, where I had drawn a boundary between me and my son’s uncle. That was all he was. That and the object of my fantasies I shared with the detachable shower head in his bathroom. But that was still on the safe side of the line so long as nothing like the icing incident ever happened again.
I sat with my sewing kit at the breakfast bar, my torn jeans splayed across the white marble surface. I was trying to put the thread through the eye of the needle for the umpteenth time when a hot burst of heat burned against my hip.
I jumped at least six feet in the air as I turned to face Hunter, who was looking at me with that dark amusement in his eyes. I swear he enjoyed the way he made me jump.
“You look like you’re having a bit of trouble,” he murmured beside my ear, the vibrations going straight to my core.
“You should leave me be, then,” I hissed, trying and failing once again to get the thread through. “For Pete’s sake!” I threw the needle and thread onto the counter, and if looks could kill, that needle would be the first to go.
Hunter chuckled, and if I wasn’t so pissed off, I would revel in the feel of his chest reverberating against my spine.
I had made a good attempt at not using my nose until Hunter wrapped his whole body around mine. Then I gasped as his jeans and you-know-what pressed into my ass.
“There you go.”
Distracted by the feel of his body, I hadn’t noticed Hunter had weaved the thread through the tiny eye of the needle with expert swiftness and had handed it back to me.
“How did you—”
“You know what they say about big hands.” Hunter winked and stepped back, and my body protested at the absence of his heat. My brain seemed to combust.
Hunter turned and went back to Adair, who couldn’t take his eyes of the Harleys roaring across the screen.
I turned back to look down at the needle with a glare. “Traitor.” Then I moved to sew up the break when the thread slipped loose and fell against the marble top.
I stared down at it for what felt like the most trying moment in my life.
“I give up!” I snapped, sweeping the needle across the surface and hearing it ping as it flew into the sink.
I looked down into the drain and realized that it was my only needle, feeling all the anger go down the pipes with it, leaving me tired and exhausted.
I slumped against the marble surface and felt like crying.
“My life is far too stressful,” I whined into my palms.
I could feel his gaze from across the other side of the room.
Don’t look! Don’t look! my brain cried, but I looked anyway.
Hunter had his arm thrown over the back of the chair, his face fully on me, and he smirked.
I take it back.
If looks could kill, it wouldn’t be the needle first.
It would be Hunter.
Chapter Fifteen
Hunter
“I’ve given you money,” I repeated for what seemed like the ten-thousandth time.
“I don’t need it.” She spun away on the kitchen stool, looking down over yet another pair of jeans that had torn. It was the second this week.
“Go out and get some clothes.”
“I have clothes.”
“They,” I growled, pointing down at the pile of material on the countertop that was barely held together by a single thread, “are not clothes. They’re rags. Go buy new ones.”
“No, they’re not!” She pulled the leftover fragments close to her chest. “They’re my clothes!”
“Like I said, they’re not clothes.” I reached over to pull them from her, but she leaped out of the chair faster. My hand remained in the air as my gaze rose to meet her face. “I’m warning you, Mallory.”
“Warning me?” she scoffed. “I’m not some petulant child.”
“You’re acting like one,” I snapped back, stalking around the breakfast bar until I faced her as she took a small step of retreat toward the stairs. “I’m fed up with this shit. Buy yourself some new clothes.”
For the last four weeks, I had seen her wearing those tiny clothes, and at first, I hadn’t minded the way her jeans hugged her ass, or the way her shirts crept up a little too much, or the way her nipples almost peeked out of the top of her bras. But after seeing that third pair of jeans rip out of the five pair she owned, I’d had enough.
“Go buy yourself new clothes before I take it upon myself to burn them all.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” She tightened her hold on her jeans as she looked up the stairs to where her bedroom and that tiny suitcase she still hadn’t unpacked lay under her bed.
“Oh, I would.” I took a step toward her, and she took another one back. “You want to walk around naked?”
“It’s not like there’s anything to see.”
I stopped and let my gaze rake down her body, making sure she felt it.
When she shivered, I knew I had made my point.
“Don’t look at me like that!” she snapped, straightening her back. “I’m not buying new clothes, and that’s that. If you wan
t to spend your money that badly, Adair needs new shoes, and a hat for the sun, and—”
I grabbed her arms and yanked her forward, bringing her flush against mine. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” she retorted, her body fitting deliciously into the curve of my front.
She wriggled against me, trying to escape, and I let out a growl. She stopped, looking up and down and every single place but my eyes.
“Stop spending your money on spoiling Adair instead of buying the things you need.” I slid my hands down to her waist, splaying my fingers over her hips. I didn’t miss the pink blush spreading across her cheeks.
Brushing my thumbs over her abdomen, I felt the soft ridges of her stretch marks. My gaze traveled down to them, seeing the faint little scars marring her otherwise flawless skin.
When her tight stomach muscles flinched against my touch, I let my hands wander farther south.
“Hunter,” Mallory breathed out. “Let me go.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t?”
“I’ll uh …”
I slid my fingers inside her waistband, brushing the edge of her pants, and she gasped, followed by a sweet little moan. It almost unmanned me right there.
My vision became so tunneled that I had to fight the need to crush my lips against hers, but it wasn’t the time. Not yet.
I looped my fingers into her beltloops and pulled. The button didn’t even snap, but it left a gap between her waist and jeans that could easily fit—
I stopped.
Mallory saw what I was doing and jerked back, snapping my fingers out of her jeans. “What are you—”
“Mallory.” I looked up at her face, knowing how pissed she was and not caring. “How long have you had those jeans?”
The anger on her face stuttered, and it was almost as if I could see the walls slamming up.
“What does it matter?”
“Are they the same jeans you had when you were pregnant with Adair?”
Her gaze snapped to my eyes, not looking away. “No,” she lied. Big mistake.
“You’ve had the same clothes for over four years!” I bellowed, my anger climbing.
“I said I haven’t!”
“You lied!” Every damn time she lied, she looked straight at me—a novice liar’s mistake.
“So, what? I like my clothes.”
“That’s not liking your clothes. That’s salvaging them. And guess what? You don’t need to.”
“No, I like them.” She stole a glance down at the jeans clutched in her arms, and I could see the flicker of a frown cross her face. She didn’t like them. Not one bit.
“That’s it,” I snapped, throwing my arms in the air. If she wanted to be stubborn, let her be stubborn. I couldn’t give more of a fuck if I wanted to.
I turned and made it halfway toward the back door where I could see Adair rolling around on a small trike I had ordered him, which Mallory hadn’t complained about of course, when I felt a sharp tug on my shirt.
“Don’t walk away from me!”
Screw it.
I turned and dropped my shoulder to her waist and stood. She let out a sharp squeal as I wrapped my arms around her knees.
“Keep wriggling, and you’ll fall.”
Mallory let out a sharp squeak of protest, but I was already heading for the stairs.
“Put me down!” she hissed.
“No.”
“You can’t leave Adair outside!”
“Anna and Kay are out there; he’ll be fine.” In fact, Anna and Kay had fallen in love with Adair so much they were around too often for me to get much alone time. Not to mention they had monopolized most of Mallory’s time when they were around. Damn club women.
Mallory struggled, and I loosened my grip. She tipped forward down my back, and since I was about halfway up the stairs, she let out a shriek of doom. I tightened my grip again, holding her tightly on my shoulder.
“Stop struggling.”
“You bastard!”
I shook my head. What happened to submission?
I marched toward her room, swung open the door, and before she could yell any more obscenities, I threw her on the bed. She bounced onto it with an umph and scrambled onto her hands and knees as I stood over the bed.
She took one look at my expression and froze. Those sharp brown eyes rounded as she looked between me and the bed. Clever girl.
Her whole body shook, but I couldn’t tell if it was in fear or anticipation. Then, when her tongue darted out and dampened her bottom lip, I smirked. She fought against it as she shuffled up until her back hit the headboard.
“I … uh … You should …” She looked at the door over my shoulder, probably calculating the time it would take to escape if she could successfully get around me, and came to the same conclusion I did.
She gulped.
“I should what?” I growled, kneeling on the edge of the bed.
She looked so small, curled up on the bed as I stared her down. That’s where the submissive was hiding.
Flight kicked in, and she seemed to have screwed up her calculations because she took a dive for the edge of the bed.
I lunged for her ankles, my fingers engulfing her tiny joints, and pulled.
She squeaked as I flipped her onto her back, and then she found herself looking up at me, her legs spread on either side of my knees.
“Um … Hunter, I—”
“You what, Mallory?” I leaned down, covering her tiny little figure like a bear and rabbit. The sight made my dick twitch.
I moved my hands up to her thighs and back down behind her knees, lifting them up and against my hips as I settled between her legs.
“We shouldn’t be doing this.” Her chest rose and fell fast.
“Uh-huh.” I nodded, pressing my nose into the side of her neck and feeling her heartbeat thrum against my skin. I then ran my lips down the nape of her neck and across her collarbone.
“You’re Adair’s uncle. I can’t … You can’t …”
“Can’t what?”
Her legs flinched around my waist, her muscles tightening around my hips. “Can’t … You know …”
“No, I don’t know,” I growled, sliding my hands underneath that tiny shirt. “Say it, Mallory.”
“Have … sex,” she whispered.
I lifted my head and looked down at her, seeing a pleasant blush blooming on her cheeks as a wicked grin spread my lips. “Who said anything about sex?”
Her expression flared with that sass she had, and she opened her mouth to argue, but no way was I letting that happen.
I slid my hands underneath her shirt and bra, cupping her breasts and squeezed. She let out a tiny gasp, which turned into a soft moan as I massaged the round globes together, carelessly skimming my thumb across her nipples.
“You drive me insane, woman,” I growled, leaning down and pressing my lips against that sexy little bit of skin between her neck and shoulder. She moaned as I sucked hard on that spot until she was bucking beneath me.
“Hun … Hunter,” she moaned, practically shoving her breasts into my hands.
My name on her lips made me almost explode right there, and it was almost painful trying to regain some sense of control.
I grabbed her shirt, lifting it up and over her chest as my mouth came down and sucked on that perky nipple beneath the thin covering of her bra. She whimpered at the contact, bringing her legs up and locking them around my back as she buried her hands in my hair, pulling me closer to her breasts. When I turned from one to pay attention to the other, she tightened her grip.
“I want you …” she moaned out then caught herself.
I paused, ignoring the painful pull of her hands when I tore myself away from her breasts. I looked straight up at her, seeing her eyes glazed and full of lust, and the way her teeth bit down on her lip. Her battle for control.
“What do you want?” I found her nipples again and began teasing and rubbing the hard nubs as she gasped and wriggled aga
inst me.
“I … um …” She moaned as I tugged.
“Come on, Mallory.” I dipped my head beside hers, letting my lips and tongue brush against the hollow of her ear. “Say the words, and it’s all yours.”
“I want … your fingers,” she whispered, that edge of nervousness driving me crazy.
I leaned back to see the full crimson of her face, and the innocence she had all wrapped up and hidden away. “Fuck, you’re beautiful.” I felt no hesitation when I slipped my hand all the way inside her jeans, my finger sliding straight through her slick lips. “You’re soaking,” I groaned out.
“Please stop speaking,” she whispered, hiding her face with her hands.
I lifted my other hand, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them above her head. She tried to fight me, but the exact second my fingers rolled over that little nub, she was like putty in my hands. She groaned and bucked her hips as I rolled my finger in lazy circles around it.
I leaned in close. “You don’t like it when I talk dirty?”
“No.”
“No, you do? Or no, you don’t?” I pushed, my finger brushing the edges of her clit, making her moan and wiggle against me.
“I don’t like it,” she clarified.
I hummed, placing my face so close to hers that there were only a few millimeters between us. “You want to know what I think?”
She shook her head, but her tiny little panting made the act she was putting up damn near cute.
“I think you like it when I talk about how I love how wet you are. How I think your clit is damn near throbbing for me to put my lips on it and suck until you scream. How my dick is aching to be in your hot pussy. I bet it’s tight. I bet when I stick my cock in you, you’re going to—”
Mallory lunged, connecting her mouth with mine with such force I might find a bruise there tomorrow. She wrapped her tongue around mine and sucked hard, forcing it out to play.
I groaned and pressed back with a force of my own, pressing her down into the bed. I was sure I tasted blood between us but didn’t care to stop. When I released her hands, they went to my hair, trapping me as if she thought I might pull back. I wouldn’t.