Authors: Kelly Favor
They had been deposited at a small airfield, and Hunter had told Kallie that he had a car waiting for them.
It wasn’t just any car. It was a brand new, black Mercedes. It even smelled new, and she could tell it hadn’t been driven more than a handful of times.
Hunter had told Kallie that he wanted to bring her someplace special today, but she still wasn’t sure exactly where he was taking her. She both liked and feared the unknown quality of their time together.
He wasn’t forthcoming with many details about his own life or even about his opinions. Instead, he tended to ask her a lot of questions about herself.
“Five brothers?” he said, for like the twentieth time since she’d told him that about herself earlier.
“Yes, five brothers. All of them very protective—so watch your step.”
“I feel protective of you, too,” Hunter replied, as the car hugged a turn on a back road that cut through a dense forest.
Kallie laughed and shook her head. Yes, her heart thrilled when he said these things, but she reminded herself that he’d said nice things that first night and then nothing. He’d disappeared. Only luck had brought them together again.
She debated asking him about his writing and telling him that she’d just coincidentally been reading his book, Blue Horizon. But something told her that it could spoil the moment.
He hadn’t even mentioned his writing or left any opening to discuss that sort of thing, so despite her desire to talk about it, Kallie didn’t say a word.
“What’s your family like?” he asked. “Do you miss them?”
Kallie thought about it. “Yeah, I miss them a lot. But then again, after awhile, living so close to them was becoming stifling. Everyone in my family is in each other’s business. I wanted to get away from that and find out who I am when I’m not with them.
Does that make sense?”
Hunter nodded, glancing at her. “It does, Kallie. A lot of sense.”
He turned onto a wider road and then pointed up to a large hilltop. There was a really strange castle-like structure sitting a top the hill, as if surveying everything below.
“Wow, that is one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Is that where we’re going? Like a tour or something?”
Hunter laughed. “Something like that.”
They began driving up the road, which winded its way slowly along the hillside, climbing higher and higher. The castle was directly above them now, and below them was an incredible view of the entire region.
They arrived at the top of the hill, and now it was clear that this was a modern version of a castle. It wasn’t something that had been built in the eighteenth century or anything. There were huge glass windows that looked out but also allowed her to look in and see bedrooms, a living room, and a modern kitchen.
“Holy crap, this is where you live,” Kallie muttered.
“Yeah, one of the places. I also have a place in L.A. and apartments in New York and Tokyo.”
“Must be nice.”
“It is,” he said, “but not as nice as making that drive just now with you in the car.”
“Sure, sure.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“I’m serious, Kallie. You think I’m trying to impress you with all of this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well—is it working?”
She didn’t answer him and just got out of the car instead. She turned three hundred and sixty degrees and looked at the view from the hilltop. “You must love waking up in the morning when this is what you see each day.”
Hunter nodded. “That’s pretty much why I bought the place. I thought, this is a place where I can really appreciate this life I’ve been given. And you know, feeling closer to the sky—it kind of reminds me…” he trailed off.
“Reminds you of what?” she said.
His eyes grew far away. “It just helps to remind me that I need to appreciate each and every moment.” He shrugged as if to dismiss it, but Kallie felt as though he hadn’t told her the real story behind what the house meant to him.
They walked to the front door and he took out his key ring and put a key in the lock, opening the door to his “castle” like they were going in some ranch house in the suburbs.
“You don’t have any crazy security system or something?” she asked.
He laughed. “This whole place is wired for closed circuit TV, pretty much.”
She looked at him to see if he was joking. He didn’t laugh.
As they entered the very open, very modern home, she wondered again just what Hunter’s deal was. Nothing about him was obvious, she couldn’t tell what was real and what was fiction.
It actually reminded her a lot of the novel he’d written—especially some of the qualities of the main character. Maybe there was more truth in his book than she’d thought when she’d been reading it. Assuming it was pure fiction, she was starting to wonder if maybe he’d put more of himself in those pages than he did anywhere else in life.
Hunter walked her through various rooms, all of which had a different feel and color scheme—but the one underlying theme was modern. Minimalist, with just enough furniture and creature comforts to make the space livable and even attractive, however Kallie thought it was missing a soul.
It felt cold, she thought, as if Hunter had decorated it solely with his intellect and completely left his heart out of the matter entirely.
“Want to have a drink on the terrace?” he asked.
“You mean, the castle tower? We won’t be attacked by elves out there, will we?”
Hunter laughed. “God, that would be so cool if we were, wouldn’t it?”
The sun was starting its slow descent in the sky as they went out on the terrace with a couple of beers gotten from Hunter’s minimalist fridge downstairs.
There was an iron railing surrounding the entire platform, and a small white table in the middle, with two chairs. Nothing else.
Hunter went to the railing and leaned over it, looking out at the landscape below.
“Every time I come out here I just feel like—this is it. This is why I’m here.”
She wasn’t quite sure what he meant, but it seemed like he enjoyed speaking in riddles, so she didn’t bother to ask him to elaborate.
Kallie joined him at the railing, liking the feel of his arm next to hers as they looked over the edge. “Do you ever get scared being up so high?” she asked, as her stomach did a little uneasy roll at the feeling of being on the edge of a huge precipice.
“Nope. I don’t get scared of anything anymore.”
“Why not?”
He looked at her, grinning. “Are you trying to get in my head, figure me out?”
“I’m just trying to get to know you.”
He sipped his beer. “Well let me ask you something. What’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?”
Kallie looked at him. “That’s a depressing question.”
“But that’s what you just asked me.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, you just didn’t know it.” He smiled, and it was as if the sun was shining on her. His smile was so infectious, his humor so endearing, that she was unable to think of why he sometimes made her uneasy.
“I feel like every question I ask you is a potential landmine.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. But sometimes talking is overrated, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She felt as though his gaze had suddenly grown more intense. She could feel the air change between them. And what did he mean by talking being overrated? Was he somehow insinuating that he only wanted sex, or was she the one with the dirty mind here?
“Sometimes, when I’m working with a screen writer,” he said, “I try to explain to them that every word a character utters, needs to serve the story. If the characters are just talking for talking’s sake, it’s not worth keeping. It’s just a waste, and most of the time it’s better to tell the movie with action, rather than dialog. That’s true not just in movies, but in life.”
“But you just used a lot of words to explain that theory.” Now it was her turn to take a sip of beer.
“Damn, I like a girl that can keep up with me,” he said, admiringly. He moved a step closer. His eyes were intent on hers.
“Are you testing me with all of this, Hunter?”
“Say my name again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just, use my name in a sentence again.”
“Okay.” She giggled and took another big sip of beer. “You’re making me kind of nervous, Hunter.”
“Am I really?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You’re just unpredictable. Like how you said you’d call and never did.”
He slid another step closer. “I already apologized for that.”
“If you’d really been interested in me, you would have called.”
“How sure are you about that theory?”
“Pretty certain. That’s like, relationships 101.”
“Oh, thanks professor. Sorry I came late to class.”
“No problem. You’ll just lose attendance points.”
He smiled, moving closer still. “You really can keep up, it’s not just a fluke.”
“And you really are testing me.”
“I don’t see how a student can give the teacher a test,” he said, leaning towards her now. His lips were practically touching hers.
“I think you’re being disruptive,” she said. “You might need to be suspended from this class.”
“Let me make it up to you.” And then he was kissing her, which was what she’d been wanting all along. It was practically all she’d thought about since that first night they’d met, and now it was happening again. And it was better than she’d imagined.
His tongue danced along her lips, playfully, but then he would drive his mouth so passionately against hers—she could feel the intensity of his desire. It was like a tiny candle flame suddenly blossoming into a conflagration, all-consuming, before dying back down again.
She wanted to match him but was frightened of where this could lead. Her body was betraying her mind at this point.
The fact was, Kallie didn’t really believe that Hunter was interested in anything more than a hookup. He wanted her sexually, but everything about him told her that he was a player.
She didn’t want to just be another notch on his belt, and yet she couldn’t seem to help the way his touch made her feel. She wanted him to touch her more than she wanted to be treated well.
And that, she knew, was a problem.
Soon the kissing had progressed. His hands were holding her hips, pulling her body into his, and when their bodies connected, it felt like a puzzle piece clicking in.
Kallie gasped at her own fierce arousal. She was wet. Not just regular wet, but drenched down there. Astonished and a little worried by her own sensations of excitement, she tried to slow down, pulling back from him.
He responded with renewed intensity. He reached up and grabbed a fistful of her hair and held it, his other hand on her face, bringing her towards him again. He kissed down her neck.
The top she’d worn today was very thin, and she’d also chosen to wear a bra that was so lacy it was practically non-existent. The end result was that her nipples were showing in stark definition through her shirt, and she was very conscious of it, as he kissed down her neck.
Part of her wanted to pull away and tell him to slow down, but a much bigger part of her wanted to tell him to go further—wanted to beg him, actually.
The hand that was holding her hair let go, and now both hands slid down to her waist as he kissed her neck and the top of her cleavage.
Hunter picked her up off the ground as if she was light as a feather, carried her to the table, and then he sat down on one of the chairs with her on top of him. She moved so that she was straddling him, and her crotch was pressed against his.
He moved beneath her, his hips swiveling in a way that gave her just an inkling of what things might feel like if they progressed a few steps further.
She liked what he was showing her, liked it too much.
Hunter took her by the hair again, this time with both hands, and pulled her in to kiss him.
Kallie was losing herself now, losing those thoughts of what might constitute a mistake, what might be considered going too quickly.
Coming from a large, conservative Catholic household—this was beyond fast.
She’d already gone ten steps beyond what she was supposed to do for the first six months, in only the first six minutes.
But she found that the more Hunter kissed her and touched her, the less she really cared. She was just in too deep with him, and at some level, she accepted that fact.
They kissed for a long time, as the sun continued to set, and the sky around them turned shades of purple. She felt as though she’d stepped into some futuristic science fiction dream, where girls kissed boys on spaceships that landed on mountaintops, and as the sky grew darker, she was emboldened.
It felt so private, so isolated, and nobody would have to know what she did with Hunter this night—not her family back in Ohio, not Nicole or Red, nobody would have a clue except her and the man she was with right now.
Their kissing grew even more passionate, and their lips explored each other as if they could learn everything about each other just by doing that alone.
But soon, Hunter was also growing emboldened. He began fondling her breasts through her top, and although he was rough with her, Kallie found that she got off on it.
She liked when he pulled her hair or grabbed her breasts firmly. It wasn’t angry, the way that asshole Brad had grabbed her—it was just—firm. Controlling. He liked to be in control in a way that pleased and sort of comforted her in some strange way.
And Kallie found that she almost wanted him to go further still, to take away any control she had left and remove all doubt from her mind. She knew how badly she wanted him tonight, but she didn’t know if she had the power to let herself truly go just yet.
“Come,” he said, suddenly breaking off from one of their long, extended kisses.
He looked in her eyes. “Come to bed with me.”
She swallowed. “I’m scared.”
“Don’t be scared. I’d never do anything to hurt you, Kallie. Never. Do you trust me when I tell you that?”
She nodded, although she had no real reason to trust him, and at least one or two solid reasons not to trust him. But somehow, and maybe it was just pure need, pure lust—she did trust him.