Lucky
I hadn't fucked in a truck since high school.
Honest to god, at the age of thirty-one, I should have felt stupid as hell. I would have, if it weren't for the fabulous fucking company I was keeping. The sex was mind-blowing – at least, I had thought so.
The way Hope had reacted told me different.
One minute, she was coming around my dick, and the next she was crying.
I had no fucking clue what I'd done wrong, and she wouldn’t fucking tell me.
"Hope," I continued to say, trying and failing to comfort her. "Tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it, sweetheart."
She shook her head and started to sob into her hands.
Jesus Christ.
I was two fucking seconds away from losing my goddamn mind.
She needed to start talking, and fast.
If someone had hurt her – if he hurt her – then she needed to tell me.
"Fuck this," I snarled, running my hands through my hair in sheer frustration. I slipped my shirt back on and threw open the truck door. "I’m going over there." Climbing out, I stalked back towards the alley. "If you won't tell me what's wrong, then I'll fucking make him tell me."
"No," she hissed, scrambling out of the truck to chase after me. "You need to stay away from him."
"Why?" Pain and anger churned inside of me. "Why, Hope?"
"Because…." She paused and exhaled a shuddering breath. "If you go over there, he'll know I've been with you and go to –" she quickly snapped her mouth closed, eyes wide. "Just… just don’t go over there, okay?"
"And what?" I shot back heatedly. "He'll throw a tantrum? Pick a fight? Let him. See if I give a fuck."
"I give a fuck," she strangled out.
Rushing to step in front of me, Hope pressed her hands against my chest. "I am begging you not to go over there." Tears filled her big, blue eyes as she looked up at me and said, "Hunter, if you care about me at all, you will stay away from Jordan... Please."
It took everything inside of me to keep my feet on the ground and not move my ass in the direction of the nearest cab.
Every instinct in my body demanded I do just that.
Red flags were flying up in my brain right about now, and my automatic reaction was to fix whatever was wrong.
Protect her.
"I had a moment," she continued to say. "A flashback. From that night…in the kitchen. Nothing to do with him."
With the whiskey clouding my brain, it took me a little longer than normal to comprehend what she was telling me, but once I did, a different kind of rage enveloped me.
One directed solely at David fucking Henderson.
"I'm taking care of that," I assured her. "He won't ever hurt you again, sweetheart. I fucking promise you that."
The hands she had pressed against my chest moved to my sides as Hope wrapped her arms around my body in a hug. "I don’t want anything bad to happen to you."
"It won't."
"It already has," she sobbed and then pressed her hand to my stomach.
She was worried about a little nick when the prick who'd caused it was six feet under already.
"Can I come home with you tonight?" she asked then, looking up at me with the loneliest blue-eyed expression I'd ever seen.
"Do you plan on staying home with me?" I countered. "Because if the answer's yes, then I'll take you home right fucking now, sweetheart."
Hope sighed wearily. "Hunter, it's complicated."
Yeah, I didn’t need to hear about complicated.
I wanted a goddamn commitment from her.
Something that told me she was as invested in me as I was in her.
She would never know just how badly I wanted to take her home with me.
But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t fucking go through another night of empty promises, and then having to drop her back off to him tomorrow?
I couldn’t do that again.
Last time, it almost killed me.
"You need to go home to your husband," I forced myself to say as I took a step back from her, breaking all physical contact.
She flinched, physically flinched at my words like I had just slapped her, when it was me who had been fucking wounded.
"Hunter –" she began to say, but I cut her off.
I couldn’t hear it.
I couldn’t fucking bear it.
"Get in your car, go back to Denver, and don’t call me until you're done with him…until you're ready to be mine," I instructed, masking the absolute fucking horror and pain I was inflicting on myself by walking away from her. "Because I can't share you."
I turned around and walked away before she could finish me off with another teardrop.
One more plea from her and I wouldn’t have the strength to go.