Then he slid off the hood of the car and walked toward his messy pile of filthy clothes.
“So you’re just going to leave me again?” I said, losing my nerve. I let my voice rise, even though I knew that would make him want to leave even more. I couldn’t help it. “That’s what you’re good at, right? This afternoon, before you saw me on the street tonight, now, every single time, the only thing on your mind is how you’re going to get out of this mess, even as you’re creating it. Big, tough, Hunter has to run away from a little girl before she gets her claws into him. Is that it? Is that what you’re so afraid of? Because if it is, you’re a coward.”
He didn’t look at me as I spoke. He made no sign that he even heard my words. He just began to slip his clothes back on.
“See. I knew it. Running away again,” I shouted.
Then he shot me a glance. I felt as if he was about to leap across the room and grab my throat.
“Who said I was fucking running away?” he said, seething through gritted teeth. “I’m putting my fucking clothes on.”
He walked back over to where my clothes were spread out, picked up my shirt and shorts and threw them at me. I caught them and covered myself.
“I said you had no fucking idea. I did not say I was fucking leaving you. Got that?”
I nodded my head as I slipped my shorts back on and slid my top over my head.
Hunter walked to the table and picked up his old buddy, Jack Daniels, and took a long drink. Then he slammed it down on the table and lit a cigarette. He pulled a chair across the room and sat on it, facing me.
He looked immaculate. Everything I wanted in a man was sitting in front of me. We had broken through every conceivable physical barrier and now the mystery that was Hunter was about to unravel before my eyes.
“It’s not just that I’m not a good guy, Kelly,” he said, flatly, as he took a drag of his cigarette. “I’m a fucking bad guy. I’m the bad guy, the one you’ve always been warned about by whoever raised you, and now I’m dragging you into my whole shit filled world with me.”
“Hunter, I don’t care,” I started but he cut me off.
“No, listen here. You do fucking care. You fucking care a lot, all right?”
He was sitting in his chair, smoking and shaking his head.
“Hunter, please. You made me say it. You know it’s true.”
He just stared back at me, blowing smoke and running his hand over the hair on his face.
“What’s true?” he said harshly.
I took a deep breath. It sounded strange now that I was going to say it in earnestness.
“What’s true, Kelly?” he said again, more insistently.
I got the impression that if I didn’t speak up soon, he’d get up and leave that garage, and me, forever.
“What you made me say,” I said, sounding weaker than I’d intended.
“What did I make you say?” he sighed, losing patience with me.
“That I’m,” I paused, trying to build up my courage to say what I needed to say. “That I’m yours, Hunter.”
His eyes widened a little then. He looked right at me. I had no idea what he was going to do. No idea if he was going to get up and walk out of my life forever. For a second I was afraid he might even strike me. The intensity in his eyes was overpowering.
But then it all softened in an instant, and the man I thought I knew returned.
The slightest hint of a smile crossed his lips, and his eyes became tender, almost loving.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know. It’s fucking true. I don’t want it to be, and trust me, sweetheart, neither do you.”
His blue eyes shot daggers at me, penetrating me every bit as deeply as his cock had, moments ago.
“Well, that doesn’t matter now does it? I’m yours, Hunter. You know it. I know it. Now, tell me what the hell does that mean? Because I’ve never felt anything like this in my entire life.”
I moved off the hood of the car and approached his chair. His eyes never left me the entire time, and I saw the small smile reappear across his lips. I stood in front of him, taking his head in my hands. He pulled me down onto his lap, and then brought his lips to mine.
He brushed his coarse lips against my soft, smooth ones. I basked in the warmth of his breath, the softness of his eyes, the scratchy texture of his stubble.
He let out a small laugh.
“It means we are both completely fucked, Kelly.”
Chapter 33
Hunter
KELLY WAS JUST STARING UP at me with her big, beautiful, green eyes like I was all she needed in the whole fucking world.