Unafraid

“Some buddy.”

I join him behind the bar to pour some sodas, but Hunter is still watching me, too close for comfort. “Can I get you anything?” I spit, sarcastically.

“Just a date,” Hunter says with a grin, “I’ll leave the rest up to you. I bet you’ve got some things you’d like to do…”

I fumble under his gaze and spill soda all over my shirt. “Now look what you’ve made me do!” I exclaim, frustrated. I don’t stick around to hear his protests of innocence; I storm away, down the hallway and into the storeroom, where I know I’ve stashed a couple of spare tanks for emergencies like this.

I strip off my damp shirt, cheeks hot with embarrassment. How am I supposed to focus on anything with him there, just… watching me? Every move the man makes, it’s like he’s some designer ad campaign come to life, so relaxed and easy, and meanwhile I’m acting like the stupid klutz, yelling at people and spilling stuff everywhere because I can’t stay cool knowing he’s in the building.

Damn him, and his endless confidence.

“Brit?” The door opens, and before I can grab another shirt, Hunter steps inside the small room. His eyes widen at the sight of me stripped to my skirt and bra. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry!”

My pulse kicks. My first instinct is to dive behind the shelves, but then I see the expression on his face. He’s frozen, drinking in the sight of me, something bright and rapturous in his eyes.

It’s the first time I’ve seen him shaken since the moment he stepped out onto that rooftop last night, and I’m sure as hell going to make the most of it.

“Heard of knocking?” I ask calmly. I slowly stroll over to the far shelf to grab a fresh tank top, taking my sweet time to pull it from the bag and shake it out. I glance back at Hunter. He’s still staring at me, looking like I just whacked him over the head with a two-by-four.

I hide a grin. “Or, you know, giving a girl some privacy?” I finally gesture for him to turn.

“Oh. Sure. Yeah.” He snaps out of his daze, spinning quickly to face the wall.

I pull on the shirt, giving silent thanks I picked a cute bra today: black lace with a purple trim I sewed myself, delicate and daring all at the same time. It’s a cheap shot, getting the upper hand like this, but I’ll take any advantage I can get when Hunter can slay me with a single smile.

“You can look now,” I tell Hunter, smug, but when he turns back to me, that casual grin is back on his face. He’s pulled himself back together, and my brief victory is nothing but a memory.

“Cute bra,” he smirks. “Is that one of your designs?”

I yank my shirt down and refasten my apron. “You a fashion expert now?”

“I know my way around a pair of panties,” Hunter winks, and despite myself, I smile. “How about you give me a private show sometime?”

His gaze slips over me like honey, and I can’t stop myself imagining what it would feel like for his hands to follow their same path. Slipping my lacy straps aside, peeling the soft silk over my body, easing the lace down my thighs…

I shiver.

I can’t. It’s too dangerous. As much as having the old charming, gorgeous Hunter back was a problem, this is so much worse. Because this isn’t just a handsome boy here in front of me, it’s a devastatingly sexy man.

Who knows what pleasure he’d show me—or what havoc he’d wreak?

I force myself to focus on that, the bitter aftertaste any kiss would leave. “You don’t get a hint, do you?” I snap. “I’ve told you a hundred times to just leave me alone—”

“No.” Hunter interrupts me, moving closer. Suddenly, he’s just inches away, so close I can feel the warmth radiating from his body. So close that there’s no mistaking the dark intensity in his eyes. “You haven’t. You’ve bitched, and bantered, and turned me down. But you’ve never told me to go.”

My breath catches. Hunter stares down at me, determined, the chiseled planes of his face shadowed in the dim storeroom light. “Say it,” he demands. “If you want me to go, just tell me, and I swear I’ll never bother you again.”

I open my mouth. The words are there, so simple on my tongue, but nothing comes out. One simple lie, that’s all it would take, and I’d be free from him forever.

But it’s still a lie. I can’t do it, not to him. Not when Hunter is the only truth I’ve ever known.

I exhale a slow sigh and press my lips shut in defeat.

Silence.

There’s a beat, and then victory blazes, fierce in Hunter’s eyes.

“Brit,” he whispers. I wait for him to make his move, breath catching in my throat, but instead of a rough hold, he reaches for me gently, lifting one hand to touch my face in a slow, sweet caress.

I tremble. His fingertips softly stroke the outline of my jaw, like he’s memorizing every contour, watching me so closely that I feel more na**d than when I was half-dressed.

It’s too much. I try to turn my head away, but he gently takes hold of my chin and keeps my face steady in place, so I have no choice but to meet his eyes again and lose myself in that piercing blue stare.

He sees right through me.

I can’t fight it with a quip or a barbed comment. I can’t break away. His eyes demand everything from me, and I have no choice but to surrender. I feel na**d, stripped bare, like all my fears and dreams and insecurities are right there for him to see. The worst of me, my darkest secrets.

Still, he doesn’t look away.

The moment stretches, nothing but the sound of his slow, steady breaths and my heartbeat, drumming faster in my ears as his fingertips continue their slow, agonizingly sweet discovery. My blood rises under his touch. Every movement, every whisper of sensation on my skin sends a new shiver through me, a ripple of something so fragile and tender I’ve never known before. I’m lost in the moment, everything around us falling away until my universe is nothing but the feel of his fingertips on my cheek and the endless blue of his eyes, and the heat of his breath whispering as he slowly, slowly closes the few tortured inches of space between us.

His lips meet mine.

Oh God.

It’s the kiss I’ve been waiting three long years to taste again, but it’s like nothing I imagined. Sweet and soft, hot and slow. My eyes drift shut with bliss as his mouth dances softly over mine. He’s barely touching me, but the shudder of pleasure that rolls through me is enough to make my heart stop and my legs buckle. Hunter wraps an arm around my waist, holding me up, and I sway into him, lost in the darkness. I’m drowning, overcome by the sweet torment of his lips and the feel of his body, so solid and strong against me.

Hunter pulls me closer and slips his tongue into my mouth, gently probing, teasing, tasting. I hear a sob rise in the back of my throat, a whimper of desire that sounds as if it’s from far away. My head is spinning, a dizzy sweetness rushing through my whole body, and with every new touch, it coils tighter, deep in the heart of me, aching for more.

I need him.

I arch against his body, lost in the slow stroke of his tongue on mine, but it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough.

More.

I reach up, pulling him closer, hungry to feel the broad planes of his shoulders under my hands and the hot taste of his kiss, deeper, stronger—

Hunter steps away.

What?

I feel a shock of cold air where his body used to be. My eyes snap open and I gasp for breath, confused to find him standing just a few inches away. He’s watching me again with that inscrutable stare, so I reach for him, but he catches my hands, keeping me back at arm’s length.

“Dinner, Monday.” Hunter says, and I marvel how he can seem so composed. That kiss has left me reeling, but he barely has a hair out of place. “I’ll call you.”

He turns my hands over to plant a soft kiss on each palm and gives me a smile, crooked and laced with promise. Then he’s gone, leaving me to sag back against the shelves in wonder.

What the hell was that?

I couldn’t believe it, seeing her again.

I should have known, coming back to Beachwood Bay, but somehow, I talked myself out of hoping she’d still be here. A girl like that, she wouldn’t stick around in a small town like this, not a moment more than she had to.

A girl like that was born to be free.

I liked to think of her sometimes, when I was stuck in class at Yale, listening to my boring professors ramble on about old, dead guys and their meaningless arguments. I’d gaze out the window, and imagine her off, hitch-hiking across the country, maybe, or working in a beach shack in California, or up in the mountains of Colorado. She could go anywhere. Do anything. But now here she is, looking as beautiful as the day I saw her last: still burning that angry fire in her dark eyes, still running away from me so fast you’d think I was the one who broke her heart, instead of the other way around.

I walk out of that storeroom still tasting her on my lips, still feeling the curves of her body, so goddamn soft and sexy against me.

Brittany Ray.

Goddamn.

I stand in the parking lot, feeling like someone just knocked me out for the count. A dozen questions whirl in my mind. Why is she still here? Has she thought of me, even once, during the last three years?

How can a single kiss do this to me?

But most of all, I realize, I want to know who the hell put that expression in her eyes: the empty, aching bitterness that she hides behind her sarcasm and smiles. All this time, I’ve been imagining her out there, happy and free. Now I know she’s anything but.

Whoever they are, they better watch out. Because I sure as hell have some words for them. Words that start and end with the sound of my fists.

Brittany Ray.

I feel my heart pound, from shock and exhilaration and something more. The softness of her touch, the memory of her kiss.

Goddamn.

I shake my head and start walking.

By the time I make it back to the ranch it’s after eleven. The property sits, dark and still, the only light coming from the ranch hand’s cottage out on the edge of the field. Jake, my new hire, is probably watching ESPN reruns and drinking beer. I think about stopping by to join him, but I’m not in the mood. I’m too caught up in what just happened, with that heavy load of guilt, always sitting like iron in the back of my mind.

I make the rounds, checking the horses in the stable, testing the new gates in the paddock as I go. The smell of fresh paint is still lingering everywhere, mixing with the scent of hay and dirt and horse and country air.

Smells like home.

I have to grin at that. My mom would flip if anyone dared suggest the great Camille Covington’s perfect Charleston mansion smelled like an old stable, but even though I grew up in that house, it was never home to me. No, home was Grandpa Earl’s ranch, out here in the country. Every summer we got to spend here was like a gift: a whole month when we didn’t have to take tennis lessons at the country club, or dress for dinner, or stand around politely at my parents’ stuffy cocktail parties. A whole month when my brother and I weren’t paraded for the guests, like a prize they’d bagged on safari, some trophy to show off to prove their status as society elite. Jace was happy to play along, he always did anything to make them proud, but I never could stand it. I was the one sneaking out the bathroom window at the Governor’s Christmas party, or getting caught with one of the debutantes in the cloakroom closet.

Hell, sometimes I got caught with two.

Growing up in that house, life was full of rules and expectations and disappointment, but out here on the ranch, none of that mattered anymore. I learned it was all just static, a world my parents and brother may have bought into, but one that I didn’t need. Let Jace be the Golden Boy, stand beside our father at board meetings, and make small talk with my mother’s DAR friends; I was happy with the land and the horses and the distant horizon—and I swore I would leave all of their bullshit behind the first chance I got.

Except it didn’t turn out that way. Not even close.

My cell starts ringing as I head back to the main house. I know who’s calling, but guilt makes me pick up, all the same.

“Well, have you come to your senses yet?” Her voice rings with disapproval, clear down the line from Charleston.

“Mom…” I sigh, letting myself in. I flip the lights on, illuminating the homey, rustic main room still filled with grandpa’s old furniture and wood beams overhead. The main ranch house is open-plan, with a huge open fireplace dominating the room, and windows that look out over the paddock and fields.

“I can’t understand why you’d just take off like this, not even say goodbye.” Mom continues, “After we came all the way up for your graduation.”

“I told you not to,” I remind her. “What’s the use of some stupid ceremony when I already finished the credits? It’s all just for show.”

“It’s tradition,” my mom corrects, as if they’re not the same thing. “We’d planned a whole dinner, your father’s old classmates were coming. It was very embarrassing to have to cancel at the last minute.”

I make a beeline for the kitchen and take a beer from the fridge, gulping down half the bottle at once. I wonder for a moment if my parents even cared about my finishing college, or if, to them, it was just an excuse for another party, another way to brag to all their friends about their perfect family.

“So tell me, Hunter,” Mom changes tacks. “How long is this little rebellion of yours going to last? The summer? Longer?”

“It’s not a rebellion,” I growl, like I haven’t explained this a hundred times. “We had a deal, remember? I said I’d stick it out through school, but now I’m done. This is my life now.”