I was released from the hospital that night after being treated for a few sore ribs and a sprained wrist. The Feds had questioned me about the minute to minute details of my abduction and the proceeding shootout that had apparently resulted in an armed and dangerous JW at large. I twisted my hands back and forth and told them I knew nothing of JW and Brant’s arrangement or the money laundered, I didn’t even know that they knew each other. The men nodded and made a few notes, overly polite and thanking me for my time, reassuring me that despite media reports, I had never been a “missing link” in the investigation.
Stepping into the hospital lobby, I found a silently sleeping Hunter hunched in a waiting room chair. I smiled, my heart filling my chest with gratitude and love at the sight of him. He was bumped and bruised, looking like he’d rolled in shit all night. I must not have looked much better. Stepping up to his large, hunched form, I ran a palm over his hard shoulder and up to the hot skin at his neck. His eyes flew open and landed on mine, a sad smile gracing his face. Both his hands reached for my own before he stood and wrapped me up in his big body.
Right where I liked to be.
“Let’s go home,” I mumbled into the cotton that smelled all Hunter, spicy and mouth-watering. My mind floated to a place in the not-far-off future where we would be a family of three. I didn’t know if tonight was the night to tell him, but I would. I had no idea what he would think, but I didn’t want to overthink it. I wanted a warm bath in his arms as soon as possible, and if then the time felt right, I would share the news.
“Fucking worst day ever.” Hunter threw an arm over my shoulder, tucking me into him as he walked with a cool stride out the sliding doors and into the dark night.
We slid into an idling taxi and Hunter rattled off his address before pulling me across the vinyl. “How are you, Princess?” he murmured into the crown of my head.
“Bruised. Tired. How are you?” I turned and dusted careful fingertips across the tightly wrapped bandage at his bicep. The memory of the jagged gash there had a shudder racing through me.
He shrugged before answering, “Been better.” He pulled me to him and snaked his nose along the skin at my neck, inhaling deeply. I settled into him, my arm across his broad chest, grazing the dirty cotton that hung loose with tatters from his time spent on the floor tonight.
“How did you escape? I thought you were dead.” The words I hadn’t wanted to face finally shattered through me.
Hunter sighed and pulled my trembling form against his. “They stabbed me with a fucking paralytic,” Hunter said and rubbed at his shoulder blade. So they’d used it on him too. He was never dead, JW had only wanted me to think that so I would give up what I knew. Which was nothing. Anger boiled in my veins at the violence this man had brought into my life for no reason at all. “I was awake when they dragged you past me. Still numb as the shit wore off, but it fucking killed me when you dropped to your knees, Princess. I would’ve lost it right there and given up the whole fucking plan to pull you into my arms and tell you I wasn’t fucking dead, if I could’ve fucking moved.” Pain choked his voice as his hands kneaded at my neck and shoulders, his body pressed to mine as if he needed to feel every inch of his body against mine. “When I finally thought it’d worn off enough that I could move, I yanked the guard’s gun from his holster. Gave him a flesh wound and ran to that office. When I opened that door and saw you tied up like that…” Hunter trailed off, one fingertip tracing the shell of my ear while his eyes glazed with violent fear. “Just really glad you’re safe.”
I swallowed the sharp knot in my throat. “JW is still out there.”
“Yeah.” Hunter said, his nose still buried deep at my neck. “I’ve got you, Princess.” His fingertips pressed at my scalp, leaving me with the aching need to kiss, fuck, be connected with him in every way to feel the safety I craved.
“Are we even safe to go back to your house? It’s like hiding in broad daylight; he knows exactly where we are.”
“Fuck,” he ran a hand through his short hair. “It’s the safest place I know right now. And if JW wants to fuck with me in broad daylight, let him.”
The cab pulled to a stop outside Hunter’s home and Hunter passed the driver a bill before pulling me out behind him. Once we were inside, he slipped off my sneakers, one by one, then pulled me into his big arms.
“Your arm!” I tried to wiggle free, but failed when his muscles tightened around me.
“Mouth shut. I need to feel you. I failed at protecting you; I need the night to make this better. Tomorrow we’ll deal with tomorrow, but tonight–you and me.” His searing greens captured mine and held me suspended, short of breath, and craving more. I nodded as Hunter padded up the sweeping staircase and into his master bath before settling me on my feet again.
The hot steam filled the room in short order before Hunter was undressing me, kissing me, tracing my bruises with his fingertips and his tongue, and then swallowing my mouth in long, languid strokes that stole my breath and caged my heart.
“What can I get you? Anything at all and it’s yours,” Hunter uttered against my lips before his warm palms trailed my torso and lifted me into the steamy tub. “Wine? A massage?” One hand kneaded at a sore shoulder.
“Just you.” I planted a soft kiss on his lips, urging him into the bath behind me.
His bulky form followed before I was tucked neatly between his thighs, his impressive cock nestled against my ass, his devilish tongue whispering across the nape of my neck and sending shudders of pleasure straight to my clit.
“The doctor said I should avoid sex for a few days” I said, remembering the warnings about physical trauma during pregnancy.
“You’re the one that sounds disappointed.” Hunter’s delicious chuckle filled my insides before he wrapped my fingers in his own and laid them across my waist. With his heavy hands draped over my abdomen, I couldn’t help but think of it swollen in just a few months’ time.
“Hunter–” I sucked in a breath, the results of the pregnancy test at the hospital burned in my memory. A blood test had confirmed it.
“What’s that, baby?” He nipped at my ear as my stomach began to swim. Could I do this? Could we do this? Maybe this was wrong, all wrong. Maybe bringing a child into this life was the worst thing we could do. Christ, maybe I hadn’t thought this through. I loved Hunter, but that didn’t make this the right decision.
“What’s on your mind, Princess?” Hunter’s voice lowered another octave, that gentle rumble vibrating through my back. His cock twitched, thick and ready. I swirled in the warm water, turning myself in his arms and pretzeling my legs around his narrow waist. Green eyes held mine, waiting for my confession. I trailed my fingertips across the light hair dusting his pectorals, the bronzed and faintly sun-freckled skin of his biceps, the ligaments and muscles that defined his broad shoulders, and the ink that covered all of it in intricate artwork.
“Will you tell me about the scars?” I finally asked as my fingertips fell over the raised bumps across his inner forearms. I’d chickened out. I’d leave this night as Hunter requested–just him and I–and tomorrow I would confront our future.
Hunter’s eyes softened before he leaned back in the tub, his eyes falling closed, blond eyelashes shadowing his cheekbones. “You know the scars on my right bicep and thigh are from Afghanistan. The knuckles are when I was thrown into the glass table by my mom’s boyfriend,” Hunter glossed over the few we’d already talked about. “The one on my left arm is a flesh wound from a bullet.”
“From the Army?” I assumed.
Hunter’s head shook quickly in response. “Crossfire, a mix up at JW’s place when I was in high school.”
“A mix up? Sounds like so much more than a mix up,” I commented.
“They always are, but you don’t ever call a thing what it is in JW’s world.”
I snuggled further into his hard chest, my fingertips dancing over the doves that faced each other on his pectorals. The softly shadowed tail feathers kissing the golden dust of his chest hair epitomized him. Sweet, loyal, peaceful, perfect, thrown into a world of rough edges and violence. “The wrist,” he twisted the wrist in question crossed with two black bands, “Those are burns.”
My eyes darkened as I tried to differentiate raised flesh and ink. “Burns from what?” My fingers caressed what had once been delicate flesh, now mutilated and ravaged, hidden behind a dark canvas of deeply imbedded ink.
“`Nother mix up. Punishment, I guess.” His eyes turned away with haunted memories.
“Did JW do this?” I was horrified at the thought. Hunter hadn’t taken this kind of punishment from JW, had he?
Hunter’s response was slow in coming, and my mouth dropped open in shock. “How could he?”
“It was my first job after he promoted me and I disobeyed him–refused to do what he asked. He had one of his enforcers take a blow torch to my wrist to teach me a lesson. I was only eighteen.”
“H-hunter,” I stuttered, unable to form a coherent thought beyond what a monster JW was. “What did he want you to do?”
Hunter licked his lips, his eyes cast down, breaking my gaze. “Kill.”
“Oh my God.” Small tremors quaked my hands when he caught my wrists and his piercing eyes caged mine.
“It’s all in the past.” Hunter pulled me back to him and ran a hand through my damp and curling hair, his fingertips getting wrapped up in the mess of locks. “All we have is right now and I’m making it good.” His other hand ran up and down my torso, massaging the muscles seductively.
“Hunter–” This didn’t feel like the right time, not at all, but it felt like the truth needed to be out and laid bare, because this man was the father of my child, and for him to protect me–us–from this monster that hung over him, he had to know all of it. “I have to tell you–”
“Shh, give it ’til morning baby. I just want you and I,” he hummed and swallowed my words with a kiss that pulled me from everything but his hands on my skin and his words whispering incoherent love notes into my neck.
