Текст книги "Blindsight"
Автор книги: Adriane Leigh
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eight
We walked out of the elegant restaurant tucked away on a side street of Lisbon later that night. Hunter had hustled us out of the house and down the short hike in the mountains, no easy feat in heels, so I’d worn my sneakers and carried the five-inch death traps, and then we’d taken a car into the city.
My mind whirling with the knowledge that we would be leaving at three A.M. to get to our flight on time, I couldn’t wait to put my feet up and relax—a book and a bubble bath had been my original plan—but if I couldn’t do that, at least I’d had some great food.
“That was amazing.” I closed my eyes, soaking up the soft guitar music filtering out of a downtown apartment. “I could eat those clams every day for the rest of my life. Where is the car picking us up?” I finally turned when I realized he’d stopped behind me.
“Let’s go somewhere.” He reached for my hand and the moonlight glinted off his corn-silk hair and gave him an other-worldly glow that pulled at the corners of my heart.
The energy he had was boundless and intoxicating. “Sure,” I smiled, and with our hands still locked, he tore off down the street.
“We passed a bar that looked great on the way in.” He turned a tight corner and we kept walking.
“Are you sure?” I frowned and slowed.
“Yeah, right around this corner I think.” He tugged me along and turned the street corner where a couple people spilled out. I raised my eyes in surprise. These weren’t the normal tourist fare we’d seen dotted all over during the daylight.
“Seriously?” I grinned as Hunter hauled me up the old stone steps and into the hot and crowded bar. A live band played melodic chords on stringed instruments while the mournful voice of a woman lamented in Portuguese. Hunter urged me onto the dance floor, and after two craft beers, the crowd suddenly looked friendlier, the night much younger. I was spinning in Hunter’s arms in no time, laughing and giggling as I stumbled on his feet. He laughed and held me like a gentleman, swaying and dipping me, and then we’d start again. After the third song, my forehead was damp and I couldn’t peel the smile from my face.
“I need another drink,” I hollered to my beautiful blond companion.
As the slow beats took a turn on the floor, his arms wrapped around my waist and he pulled me into his lean body. “I want you another song.”
My muscles rippled with sensation, every nerve responding to his on each level, from the tips of my toes to the hairs on the top of my head. He had me.
“You okay?” He placed a soft kiss at the cleft of my neck.
“I’m perfect,” I answered, eyes still closed, relishing the feel of his body dancing against mine.
“We can go home if you want.” His voice lowered an octave and I knew instinctively what that meant. We would continue the foreplay we’d toyed with all day. I could feel it throbbing between us like an incessant heartbeat, strong and steady. Lust. Mad, raging, wild lust.
“I want to go where you want to go,” I offered, compliant with him in every single way, something I had never, ever been with anyone else.
“Good,” he gruffed, the warmth of his breath heating and chilling me all at the same time. “Ready?” he murmured, his forehead pressed to mine, lips nearly breath to breath.
“Always,” I breathed. I would follow him around the world and back. I already had.
“A friend told me about this place,” Hunter muttered as we wound down a twisty side street a few minutes later.
“How many friends do you have?”
“I’ve met a lot of people,” he answered before turning down a grassy path. “I think this is it.”
I glanced up to find the ruins of an old building, hundreds, if not even a thousand years old. “Wow,” I said when I felt Hunter’s palm at my back, his thumb weaving small figure-eights above my bottom.
“It’s tough traveling the world and never getting more than a weekend in a location, but my favorite part is getting to see the city at night. It’s an alternate perspective. Bent reality and intrigue. Mystery and beauty all rolled into one.” He said the last sentence on a soft note, his fingertips trailing across my wrist and tickling me just enough to cause goose bumps. “Wanna go inside?” he murmured, and butterflies raged in my stomach, pounded against my ribcage, and shot up my throat looking for an escape. I wanted to kiss him, to press my fingertips across the hard angles of his chest, our pelvises pressed together while he fucked me with his tongue in the soft moonlight.
“Would you rather enjoy the view from here?” His throaty voice moved closer to the shell of my ear, the soft hairs at the base of my neck tingling and rising with arousal.
“Yes,” I finally uttered, more desperate for him to push me into the tall grass and fuck me until I couldn’t think straight. He’d left me sitting on the edge all evening. The things he’d said at the shoot earlier had been rattling in my head on a loop and kept me in a constant state of anxious arousal.
“Something else on your mind?” He pulled me from my thoughts when his fingertips flirted with the hem of the dress brushing in the breeze across my thighs.
“Maybe.”
“Jesus,” he pulled me into his arms then, the warmth a comfort against the cool breeze. His forehead dipped and his lips took mine in a pressing kiss. Soft, but with edge, just like everything he did. With his fingertips still roaming at my inner thigh and his other hand pressed against my waist, his tongue shoved past my lips and darted, fucking me in a way I’d been dreaming of since I’d first set eyes on his sculpted, sensual mouth.
My heart thundered as one of Hunter’s hands dove in my hair and his tongue delved deeper, his lips bruising with passion before he finally pulled away, his breaths quick and shallow. His eyes fluttered closed just as I opened mine. “I wanted to shoot you against that tree today. The entire fucking time I wrapped the leather around her I thought of your body. Your dark hair. I wondered if your perfect pink lips matched your nipples. Fuck, Erin. I shouldn’t touch you for so many reasons, but you look up at me with those big dark eyes, and my dick pounds.”
“Hunter, I—”
“I’m serious, me touching you is wrong in every way, but I don’t think you want me to stop anymore than I want to.” Words clogged in my throat as I tightened my fists on his biceps. “But I’ll give you all the time I can.” He wove his fingers in mine. “Now, let’s get closer.” He pulled me down the path to the entrance of the building as my stomach rolled with cartwheels.
That kiss. Jesus Christ that kiss was incredible. But why was he so persistent that he wasn’t good for me? Wasn’t that my decision to make? He was different from anyone I’d ever met. The sweet reverence that emanated from his beautiful irises warmed the chilled chambers of my heart. Looking into Hunter’s eyes felt like seeing into my own soul.
His hand fell away from mine then, and I turned to hear that familiar click and found Hunter, head behind his camera, taking pictures of a half crumbling stone archway with small heads engraved at the corners.
“Sorry, the moon hit that corner in just the right angle; I had to capture it before it was gone.” His face appeared apologetically.
I smiled. “I love seeing you work.” I was pulled into his gaze, his swirling depths lit in the shadowed light.
“Some people are bothered by the click.”
“Not me. It’s comforting.” I slid my hands out to his wrists, unwinding the strap he’d twisted to keep the camera safe, and brought it to my face. I aimed, focused the lens, then clicked. “I want a copy of that one.” I grinned after inspecting the finished image, handing it back to him.
His eyebrows lifted with amusement until he saw the picture. While the moment when I’d snapped it had been lighthearted as most everything with him was, the picture was not. In the photo, his face was caught in a look of conflicted contemplation. I shuddered at the memories that must be imprinted in his mind.
“I’m deleting it,” he huffed, and I heard beeps on the camera as he pushed buttons.
“No!” I reached a hand to stop him. He pulled away and a sardonic smile lit his face.
“I don’t take photos of myself. Let’s leave it at that.” The tone of his voice told me it wasn’t up for discussion.
“A photographer that doesn’t take photos of himself?”
“Leave it, Erin,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Let me take one of you then.”
“Nuh—uh.” I tucked a strand behind my ear and looked to the ceiling again.
“I’ve been dying to take a picture of you since we met. Let me,” he pleaded, his voice thick with emotion, though I couldn’t understand why.
I sighed and stood in place, crossing my arms awkwardly. “Okay.”
He circled me slowly, his eyes scanning my form, assessing the angles, the light, the composition, I assumed, until he finally stopped. I chewed on my bottom lip, begging him to take the God damn picture.
“Relax.” His soft voice filled the night air and whispered across my skin, loosening my arms, causing the nerves to hum and jump. I closed my eyes for a beat and breathed through my nose, relaxing my lips and allowing the breath to fall out just as a click filled the night air.
My eyes shot open, but the last thing he saw was me. His eyes were riveted to the camera, wide green orbs transfixed on whatever image he saw. “What?” I took the couple steps to him and bent my head to see the photo.
Somehow Hunter had captured what I was sure was my only good angle. I was sure I didn’t look like that, never had, it was simply the very best me I could be after a day of makeovers and glamour shots and heavy photoshopping. The light hit my angles in just the right way to add dimension, my eyelashes falling across the tops of my cheekbones and casting a gentle shadow. It was a breathtaking image, regardless of the subject.
“Wow,” I breathed when I could finally speak. “You’re amazing.”
“I knew you’d be perfect,” he murmured so quietly it was much more meant for himself.
“Anyone could be in that picture and it would be astounding,” I said with complete honesty.
“Hardly. And you don’t need a douchebag like me to give a gorgeous girl like you compliments, so don’t ask for them.”
“What? I—”
“This photo is stunning because you are in it. That background could be anywhere, a ranch in Texas, or the fucking moon, and it would be as stunning.”
“You’re insane.”
“Let me shoot you.” He cut me off and took another step closer. “I mean it.” Hunter pulled me into his arms. My breath heaved in the dark night, our chests touching, my hardened nipples brushing against his pectorals just enough to drive me mad. “I want to shoot you. You know that photo in my foyer?” I nodded in response, my eyes locked on his. “I want you there.”
My mouth fell open and images swam through my head of Hunter and sex and that fucking click I loved.
“Do you want to be there, Erin?” He pulled me to him, my chest still pressed against his, my nipples so fucking hard I was afraid he could feel them.
“Yes,” I said with all the confidence I could muster. He blinked, his mouth open, his fist flexing around my elbow before it slowly eased.
“That was easy,” he finally exhaled and placed a slow, delicate kiss across my lips. “I can’t wait to shoot you.” He nipped at the corner of my lip, his teeth dragging along the bottom and pumping blood between my legs.
“We should get back; we have to be up in a few hours for that flight,” he reminded, his palm now settled at the nape of my neck, holding me in place.
I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat and nodded as Hunter wrapped his fingers in my own and led me through the overgrown field and back to the sidewalk. The moon cast a haunting shadow of the old stone building behind us, and as sleep tore at my eyes, I almost fell in love.
nine
I sat camped outside the same red brick home I’d come to know all too well. He was my primary target, but she’d become tangled up in it, no matter how dishonest it felt watching an innocent woman every day. I grit my teeth together, half wanting to warn her, throw in the assignment and tell her to run from the man she thought she loved. But she’d made her bed, gone into a life with eyes wide shut, and now she was forced to handle the consequences.
I heaved a sigh, only watching her half-heartedly as she buzzed around the empty house. I still hadn’t laid eyes on him. For such a popular guy, he sure kept to himself.
As if he was laying low because he knew he had a trail. Of course he didn’t know – I was a pro, highly trained with a very specific skillset that allowed me to fly under the radar and observe every moment of any situation that most glossed over as unremarkable.
But still I was here, knowing he could show up at any second. I was convinced that she was in the dark on every vile thing he’d done, but I always wondered, if she knew, would she stay? The question rang between my ears like the incessant chop-chopping of a Blackhawk, haunting me long after it should be out of earshot.
Erin climbed the stairs to her bedroom after dark and tucked herself in bed with her phone, golden lamplight casting the only glow. I zoomed in on her screen, which from my position I had a remarkably good view of, and caught her looking at sexy black and white photos. It was only a minute before I noticed one hand snaking between the sheets and the soft cotton rising and falling between her thighs.
I watched with attention, feeling every part the stalker I’d become, when her eyes fell closed and lips parted on shaky breaths, I snapped away, hoping I’d never need to use these photos. Hoping they’d never see the light of day, wishing I could burn them along with all the other evidence that may implicate her.
ten
“Need you, car will be there in thirty,” Hunter grunted over the phone the following Tuesday morning as I stood in the bright sunlight of my kitchen. He hung up before I could even reply. I set my phone back on the counter. Within hours of landing in Chicago, he’d called to tell me there was a chance we’d be in LA before the week was out. I guess that was his confirmation.
I shot up the stairs, jumped in the shower, and then threw on a pair of shorts and a cotton shirt. I was just shoving my laptop in my bag when my phone rattled. My mother.
My loving, doting, suffocating mother.
“Where have you been?!” came her shrill voice when I answered. I held the phone from my ear and groaned. Maybe I should have just texted from the car.
“I’ve been calling all weekend! I drove by twice and no one was home.”
“I got a new job!” I said brightly, hoping to end her spiel in its tracks.
“Doing what?”
I began to tell her how I’d gotten a job and been whisked off to an exotic locale, excitement bubbling in my voice, before she cut me off and said she couldn’t believe I’d left town without telling her.
I groaned. My mother was a difficult person to say the least. At best, she was undiagnosed depressed, and at worst, I shuddered to think of the plethora of diagnoses a mental health professional would see fit to bestow. The best I could do was try to keep her at arm’s distance, which was difficult when she lived less than twenty minutes away and expected me to report in like an eight-year-old.
“You’d better watch yourself, young lady. Not everyone has your best interests at heart, ya know.” Her admonishment rang loud and clear over the line. Another fuck-up for Erin, she was saying. Running full steam ahead into another relationship blinded by the idea of love. I’d heard it all before. Was she right? Certainly when I was young and more impulsive, but at twenty-nine, I’d made enough mistakes and learned at least a few lessons.
Therapy had taught me that I was a classic case of paternal abandonment with resulting daddy issues, which apparently translated to my falling into bed with any man that flashed an interested glance and never failed to leave me drowning in a vicious whirlpool of lust and heartbreak in a matter of months.
But this wasn’t lust, and there wasn’t any room for heartbreak. It was business.
Taking the job with Hunter wasn’t a mistake; it was a financial necessity.
“I need a job, Mom. If I’m going to try to make it in this city, I need a job, and I’m more determined than ever to make it on my own.” I said with an air of defiance.
“Well, I bet it would have been nice to have someone to talk to about this new job, but if you didn’t want to talk to me…” And there it was – the pout. She had a marvelous way of sweeping the air out of someone’s lungs with guilt and shame piled stories high.
“Maybe, but I had to make a quick decision, so I did.”
“You know how you are with those.” I could see the condescending look in her eye from twenty minutes away.
“I know, Mother, but I thought you’d be excited. I’ve always wanted to travel, and this photographer is so talented, he’s won awards and everything. I’m only a PA; I’m not anything more than someone to hold the reflector and get the coffee, but hopefully it’s a start. And it’s good money.”
“How good?” Her interest was piqued again. Oh, my mother, always driven by selfish tendencies and dollar signs.
“Very good.” I allowed myself the one slip. I usually avoided talking finances with her. She had a way of taking advantage of even the smallest openings.
“Erin—”
“Look, Mom, I have to run,” I interjected, realizing the car would be here any moment and I’d already given her more time than I had to give. “I have a million things to take care of, and then we’re headed to—”
“Okay, okay. Just keep an eye on yourself.”
“I will,” I replied. “Love you.” I hung up, relieved to finally be off the phone and off to see Hunter again.
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.
