It was late afternoon when Hunter was lying on the couch in the bedroom, staring at the ceiling. He tried his best to keep his mind blank—especially of thoughts about Scarlet and Blue. How did this all turn into such a damn cluster?
Never in a million years did he dream that the day he decided to help Scarlet, it would all come tumbling down into one giant heap of shit. Back at Adam’s house, they’d shared so many moments, and she’d trusted him. Scarlet trusted him by giving up the control she had fought so hard to keep. Now there was nothing left of that trust. He broke it. He fucked it all up.
The door creaked open, and by the cherry scent that wafted in, he knew it was her. One would think he was a fucking werewolf—or just too hung up over this woman. Either way, he was sure both sucked in equal measure.
Her light footsteps came closer, and he heard the sound of ice clinking in a glass. When he turned his head, he saw the glass of whiskey she had placed on the table next to him.
He smiled. “Should have known you’d find a stash eventually.”
She sat down on the bed, facing him and holding her own glass. “Did you know they have their own fully stocked bar in this place?”
“Nope.” He sat up and took the glass. “Would have been nice to know that earlier though.”
“That’s what I told Colton.”
Hunter’s gaze shot up to hers and he cocked a brow. “So you and Riggs on a first name basis now?” Why did that bother him so much?
“You jealous?” she challenged before lifting her glass to her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. Full, luscious, beautiful lips which seemed like they were made specifically for his pleasure only. For a second it was like he could still taste them—sweet, decadent, and downright toxic.
He shifted, trying to ignore the very unwelcome stirring in his pants. “I just don’t trust him, that’s all.”
She loosened her hair and he watched as her long, dark strands with a few red streaks fell around her oval-shaped face. The dark hair made her blue almond-shaped eyes stand out, like she had the power to look straight through to one’s soul. An angel—a supernatural force able to bring a man—him—to his fucking knees.
Scarlet cleared her throat. “I think you should give the man the benefit of the doubt.”
“Oh, like he did when he wanted to rip my head off yesterday?”
Scarlet shrugged. “You pissed him off.”
“I’ve seemed to piss a lot of people off during the last two days.”
They kept their gazes locked on one another. Everything inside him was begging him to go over there and take her in his arms. But he couldn’t be sure if it was the part of him that missed and mourned Blue, or the part of him that longed for and needed the woman sitting right in front of him.
Scarlet looked away first, focusing her gaze on the floor beneath her feet. “She wanted me to meet you.”
Hunter remained quiet.
“Willow. She told me the day before she died that she had agreed to run away with you. And she asked me to take her to you so that I could finally meet you.” She looked up at him. “I was going to meet this mysterious H my sister had been seeing for months.”
He took a sip of the whiskey, needing the sting of the alcohol. Talking about Blue with the woman he had fucked more than once who also turned out to be related to his dead girlfriend was not on his most-comfortable-topics-to-talk-about list.
Scarlet sighed and fell back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “When she told me she was running away with you, I hated you. I hated you for taking my sister away from me. But when she held that chain you gave her in her hands, I could see that look in her eyes. The look you only see on young girls who are in love. I wanted to beg her to stay, but I couldn’t ask her to choose between me and the man she loved. Even though I knew I would never survive it on my own…with him.”
Hunter heard the pain in her voice, the torment, and it killed him. It felt like his own heart was bleeding inside of his chest—feeling her pain. Taking his glass, he got up, walked over, and sat down on the bed next to her, not saying a word.
“She loved you, Ace. Willow really loved you.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, and fell back on the mattress, both of them staring up at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry for losing it yesterday. You didn’t deserve that.”
“I did. I deserved all of it.”
“No. You didn’t.” She turned to him, and he faced her as well. “Just like me, you didn’t know how all this would play out. The whole Blue, Willow connection is something neither of us could have seen coming.” She closed her eyes. “It wasn’t just you yesterday. It was everything. It was James, Willow…him.”
“I know.”
When she opened her eyes, her piercing blue stare bore right into him. “Yet you still let me do it. You still let me take it all out on you.”
“You needed to.” He shifted his hand next to his side just an inch and felt his pinky softly brush against hers. “And for some reason I seem to keep on wanting to give you what you need.”
She didn’t move her hand away, but he also didn’t attempt to further the touch. There was no denying that he saw Blue in Scarlet’s eyes, but for a moment, he saw the Scarlet he had seen a few days ago, before the whole Blue slash Willow saga erupted. He saw the woman he had rescued outside of Twisted Fable. The woman riding that damn Kawasaki motorcycle, making him so damn hard thinking of the power she could handle between her legs. The woman who was handcuffed to his couch wearing nothing but a black bra and leather pants. The woman whose mouth annoyed the living shit out of him, yet turned him on like a damn house on fire.
He also saw the woman who succumbed, who surrendered her body and mind to him for one night while he had her tied up, making her body his playground. That night, something shifted between them, the trust she showed in him—the trust he begged her to have in him. For the short while between that night and what followed the next morning, Hunter found himself thinking that there might be something worth sticking around for. Scarlet was the exact opposite of what he searched for in a woman. And there might be physical resemblances between her and Blue, but they couldn’t have been more different.
But one thing was starting to become clear—he was starting to care more for Scarlet than he thought would ever be possible for a man like him. And the more he lay there staring into her eyes, his finger still touching hers, the more he found himself wanting to stay. Wanting to keep her even after all this was over—which was a real bad thing…for him.
“I’m sorry, Scar.”
“I know.”
He felt the slight movement of her finger against his, and his gaze flitted down to her lips. So close. Her lips were so close to his, he could practically taste them already. All he could think about was kissing her, getting drunk on her taste. He inched forward, licking his lips.
“Ace?”
He paused. “Yeah?”
“Don’t kiss me.” She didn’t move. “I’m afraid that if you do, I won’t be able to stop.”
“And that would be bad?”
“Yeah.”
Hunter leaned forward more, his mouth so close to hers he could feel the warmth of her breath on his lips. He could see her pulse starting to race just by glancing at the vein in her neck, and she didn’t attempt to pull away. “I never thought about her while I was with you, Scar. Not once. Yesterday was the first time. All the other times I was inside you, it was only you and no one else. You need to know that.”
He continued to stare at her for a few seconds more before he pulled away and got up. As he reached the door, he stopped and glanced over his shoulder. “I truly am sorry, Scar.” And then he left.
He had said what he needed to say. She needed to know that all the times he was with her, it was just them. Blue was never there. Not once. Not like with all the others he had screwed over the years where all he would see was her face while he was buried deep in some woman’s pussy.
It was different with Scarlet. He might not have realized it right away, but after all the boulders of shit that came tumbling down around them, now he realized it. If he ever had another chance at love, it would have been with her—with Scarlet.
But that ship had sailed, and it was no longer an option.