Chapter 32

Kelly

We just lay there on the car. I don’t know how long it was, and I didn’t care to even think about it. All I could feel was Hunter’s body on mine and the foggy haze of satisfaction that was holding us both.

Hunter finally pulled himself out of me. He slid his hard and sweaty body across mine and lay with his back against the hood of the car. He was breathing, deep and slow, and he stared at the ceiling. He wasn’t leaving. I lay with my stomach pressed against the cool metal and gazed over at him.

This was a man.

Every inch of him was carved out of stone. His massive frame lay there on the car, completely satisfied by me. There was no second guessing and no insecurity. He knew who he was and he didn’t try to hide it. He wore his tattoos with pride and took what he wanted, when he wanted. As I watched his sweat run and drip over his hard chest and stomach, I realized that this man, this man that I had just met, would be inside me forever. I felt like I knew him better than most of the people I’d held dear for years. Everything surrounding him was a mystery, but the man himself was as simple and primal as anyone could be. Pure and unapologetic power. I wanted to stretch out and lay my head on his chest, but I didn’t want to break apart whatever thoughts were running through his head.

“Goddamn it, Kelly,” he said when he finally spoke. He rubbed the stubble on his face and swept the sweaty hair from his eyes. “I never came that hard in my entire fucking life. You’re fucking incredible, baby.”

He turned his head to the side and looked at me with his deep, blue eyes. He was serious. He wasn’t lying. He never lied about the things that mattered.

I smiled at him with pure satisfaction and slowly slid across the hood so that, lying next to him, our bodies were in contact. Then I leaned my head against the side of his chest.

I waited for him to slide away from me, but instead I felt him bring his arm around me and pull me closer.

Everything felt perfect.

I had never been with someone like this, and lying there in his massive arms, feeling his heartbeat through his chest, I felt more at ease than I had in years. More than that, I felt he did too.

“Kelly,” he said hesitantly. “I’m not, I’m not the guy you think I am. I mean, I’m not a good fucking person.”

I lifted my head so my chin was resting on his chest and I looked up at him with a gentle gaze.

“Who said I thought you were a good person?” I said slyly.

He slid his arm out from under me and sat up on the hood.

“No, listen, Kelly. I’m fucking serious here. You saw me beat up a couple dumb punks in a diner and, well, we’re doing whatever this is,” he said, and let his hand brush over the lips of my wet pussy, “but you have no fucking idea who you’re lying next to.”

He was leaning with his back to the windshield, I could see every tattooed muscle moving with each breath he took.

I pulled myself up and leaned against the windshield next to him, the cold glass feeling good against my hot skin.

“Well, so, tell me. Tell me who you are.”

He turned his head to the side and shot me a glance as he laughed reluctantly.

“You have no fucking idea” he whispered.

“So tell me,” I repeated, louder.

He looked at me and let out a sigh, as if he was seriously considering it. Then he shook his head.

“If you knew who I was, you’d fucking hate my guts,” he said.

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.”