Heart of the Hunter (23 page)

I had met Kelly only a day earlier, and yet, there I was, promising the girl I would never let her go, and that nothing could ever hurt her. The most fucked up thing about it was that I wasn’t lying. Kelly, Lucas, even Grace, were now my responsibility and I would be goddamned if I let anything happen to them. I couldn’t stop what was coming my way and I didn’t care to. If my old man came knocking, I would answer with the full force of hell behind me and the cocksucker would get everything he deserved, maybe more.

I had thought that Kelly was a hazard to me, that being with her would only slow me down and fuck up my life. What I realized in the last day was that my life was already beyond fucked up and, for better or worse, she was a part of it. There was no shaking her. I wanted her, I claimed her as mine, and now I was going to do whatever it fucking took to keep her by my side. Maybe she didn’t deserve it, and I knew goddamn well that I didn’t, but that’s just the way it was now. I didn’t have a choice and she didn’t either. I saw it in her big, beautiful eyes every time they stared up at me and I knew it in my gut. The girl ran through my veins like a drug and I knew I’d never be without her so long as there was air in my lungs. We satisfied a need in each other, some animal fucking desire that couldn’t be replaced by anything. No amount of murder, mayhem, and self destruction could clear my head of her or drive her away from me. Our lives were now molded into one, and there wasn’t a fucking thing either of us could do other than accept it. There was a fight coming and I needed all my strength focused on that, not trying to outrun a truth that now consumed both of us.

“Luke? Lucas, where are you?” Kelly’s voice shook me out of my head and back to my feet.

“In the barn, Kelly,” a little voice called from a distance. “This place is so cool.”

I looked over at Kelly as she used her hand to shade her eyes from the sun and arched her back as she stretched out from the drive. I thought she was going to spill out of that dress and I wanted to take her on the car right there. I walked up behind her and pressed my growing erection against the small of her back as she sighed and wrapped her hand around the back of my neck.

“I want to fuck you right now, right here,” I whispered as I put my teeth on her earlobe.

She moaned softly and pushed her body back into me.

“What are you going to do to me first?” she cooed as she slid her body up and down against mine. I squeezed her hips and pulled her ass against me. She was soft and pure and I wanted to fucking ravage her.

“I’m going to rip that fucking dress off and,” I said, but she stopped me.

“Hunter, wait.” She moved her body off of me slightly and called out across the field. “So, what do you think, Luke? Good place to spend a day?”

The kid. Fuck. Why did we bring him?

“This place is awesome. Come see the barn. It’s huge,” he said as he ran up.

There was something else huge I was about to show her, pal. How about you fuck off back to that barn for a few hours?

I felt Kelly’s hand slide off my neck and drop down over my body until it reached my own hand.

“Hey, pal, your sister and I have some things to take care of. Why don’t you?” I started and Kelly squeezed my hand. I stopped talking and I didn’t quite know why.

“Sure, Lucas. You go on ahead and Hunter and I will be right there.”

The kid smiled and took off again toward the barn.

“Kelly, I don’t know how much longer I can last here, sweetheart. If my cock gets any harder, I’m going to fucking pass out.”

She turned around and wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing her chest against mine and biting her bottom lip. She was ready. She needed me, but something was hiding behind her eyes.

“Hunter, your life. I can’t lie to you and say I’m not worried about how I can be a part of it. Sure we’re fine today, but what about tomorrow? Or the next day?”

“Kelly, I told you, you never have to feel that. Nothing will ever happen to you while I’m around. You’re fucking safe, darling. Whatever might come is coming for me and I can’t stop that. I don’t want to. But, sweetheart, it will never touch you.”

I wasn’t lying to her. She had to fucking know that.

“I know,” she started, “but.”

“But fucking nothing,” I said as I pulled her close to me. “This shit with my old man, who I am, whatever comes of it, I’m the winner. You fucking know that.”

Her eyes went toward the ground and I could see she understood. She wasn’t fully ready for me and what I brought, but she fucking understood.

“I know, Hunter. I really do. There’s no place I’d rather be than by your side. There is no place I have ever felt safer. I just know that there is something coming for you and I’m afraid. I can’t help it.”

I looked down at her and pushed her chin up with my hand so she was staring into my eyes.

“I know you’re afraid. And I’m not going to fucking sugar coat this shit for you, you should be. My life is not safe. I’m the fucking bad guy, Kelly, and don’t you ever forget that. But you have to fucking know that means that I will do anything, fucking anything, to protect what’s mine. I don’t give a shit about the law or God or whatever else normal fucking people care about. I’ve got a place reserved in hell and I will drag any motherfucker that even considers hurting you down there with me.”

I could feel my chest heaving and my jaw clenching just thinking about someone other than me touching her. There wasn’t a chance in fucking hell that anything would happen to her.

Kelly smiled as she looked up at me.

“So, we’re safe today?” she asked.

“You’re fucking safe, always,” I said as I drove my lips down on hers and slid my hands to her backside and under her skirt. She opened her mouth more and I kissed her harder as she breathed deeper and deeper. She was mine and I wouldn’t let anything come between us. Not my old man, not her fucking small town, nothing.

She slowly took her lips away and sighed as she rested her head on my chest.

“Then let’s just enjoy this. Today, this beautiful property, our time here, just for today let’s not think about anything else. Please?”

She meant it and I suppose it was the least I could do for her. She got dragged into this fucking nightmare of a life and now she was here to stay. Her and everyone she cared about. We were safe for the moment. No one but Deacon and Grace knew we were here and even if the old man was hot on my heels, he wouldn’t be knocking today. Might as well give her a little fantasy before the shithole reality that is my existence really set in for her.

“Sure, darling.”

I put my arm around her neck and pulled her head into my side as we walked toward the barn. Today she could pretend this was our life.

When we got to the barn, she ran in and started goofing around with Lucas. She smiled at me and I lit a cigarette as I sat down on a bale of hay, taking note of every tool or broken piece of wood I could jam into a motherfucker’s throat, should life come calling sooner than I thought.

Chapter 44

Kelly

“K
ELLY, WATCH THIS.”

Lucas came running from somewhere behind me and launched his body through the air onto a pile of hay, and then lay there laughing. I hadn’t seen him so happy in a long time. Not that he was sad, I just hadn’t really seen him happy. I guess the same went for me as well.

I looked at Hunter, sitting across the barn and had trouble turning away from him. He was hunched over, smoking his ever present cigarette. A single ray of sunshine danced across his face from a hole in the roof. That man, that bad guy, had taken my life and changed it in one day. He had saved me from a life I didn’t even know I’d been living and, even though he brought hell with him, it was exactly where I needed to be.

This moment, this peace wouldn’t last forever. I knew it couldn’t. But as I watched his eyes dart around the barn, I felt more than ever that I was being looked out for, that I could completely let go and he would make sure that I would be just fine. He may be the bad guy, but he was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

“Hey, you,” I called over to him. “What are you thinking about, all serious over there?”

He turned his head back to me and smiled, pointing the two fingers holding his cigarette at me. I knew he had more things on his mind than just me, but I could feel myself blushing because I knew I was a part of whatever was going through his head.

Lucas stood up and continued to throw himself around the barn, squealing with laughter the whole time, and Hunter just sat there, nearly oblivious, staring deeply into the end of his cigarette.

I made my way over to him and put my hand on his shoulder.

“Hunter? What’s wrong? Is it me?”

He looked up at me with an almost furious anger in his eyes.

“Now, what in the fuck would make you think that anything about you was wrong?”

I smiled down at him and put my hands to his cheeks as he stared up at me. His eyes softened.

“Darling, you are about the only thing that is fucking right in my life. The only thing that has ever been right.”

I could feel his hands behind my knees, slowly moving up the backs of my thighs. I gazed down into his beautiful blue eyes and saw all the pain. Both the pain he had caused and the pain that had been brought on him. There was no regret in him, just the look of a man who had seen all the terrible things this world had to offer. A man who had lived. A man who had made an awful world his instead of giving in to it. There was nothing wrong. This was just his life and I was now part of that.

“Hunter? Kelly? Are you watching?” Lucas called from the other side of the barn.

“Fuck no,” Hunter said flatly as he stared up at me.

I slapped his shoulder and turned back to Luke.

“Sure am. Let me see your best jump,” I called out.

With a look of determination in his eyes, Lucas took a few steps back and ran full speed before throwing himself through the air and onto a pile of hay.

“Whoa. Look at you go.”

Lucas stood up, proud of himself, and yelled over to us.

“Hunter, did you see that?”

I looked down at him as he called over.

“Sure did, pal. You got some decent air that time, you know? For a little kid.”

“Who are you calling little?” Lucas said as he came charging over. “And what is air?”

Hunter smiled and shook his head as he stood up and put out his cigarette.

“It means you can jump, punk ass,” he said as he blew out a stream of smoke. “Now listen, your sister and I have to get the house ready and you’ve made a hell of a mess in this barn.”

He walked over to the corner and grabbed a broom.

“Now, if you’re such a big man, you can get treated like one. Take this broom and sweep up all this hay that you’ve been throwing around. When you’re done doing that, gather it all up and pile it over there,” he said, pointing to a corner with the broom as Lucas listened intently. “And when that’s all done, make sure this floor is swept up. I’ll be back to check on this shit and it better be as clean as I expect it to be. You got it, pal?”

Lucas looked around the barn, at the massive task Hunter had just given him.

“This is going to take
forever
. I thought you were going to teach me how to throw a football?”

Hunter looked down at him and shoved the broom in his hand.

“Hey. Football is a man’s game, and men take care of their goddamn work before they have any fun. Are you a man or what?”

He grabbed the broom out of Hunter’s hand and stared up at him.

“I’m a
man.
”

“All right, that’s what I thought. Now, clean this barn up and don’t come out until it’s done. Got that shit?”

“Got it.” Lucas turned immediately and started following the orders Hunter had just barked at him.

“Wow,” I said. “I can barely get him to clean his room.”

Hunter turned to me and brushed the hair out of his face.

“He just needs a man to tell him how it is, is all.”

I put my hands on Hunter’s chest and slid them down to his waist.

“Don’t we all?” I sighed as I hooked my fingers through his belt loops. “Now, what were you saying before about my dress? There was something you were going to do.”

He reached up and put his hand in my hair, tugging it and forcing my eyes up at him.

“Get your fucking ass inside. Right now.”

I laughed and took off out of the barn, looking back every so often as Hunter slowly made his way toward me.

He pointed at the window upstairs.

“Inside. Now”

I ran inside and up the stairs. I knew what was coming this time, and I could feel myself already wet for him.

Chapter 45

Hunter

I
COULD HEAR KELLY GIGGLING
as she ran into the house and up the stairs, and I felt myself picking up the pace in my steps.

God fucking damn you, sweetheart. I’m going to take you to another fucking planet.

This girl was something else. I didn’t give a shit about what was coming my way anymore. The only thing I could think about was getting inside that house, tearing her dress off, and shoving my fat cock into her delicate little pussy. I loved watching her take all of me in and the look on her face as she begged for more.

I walked through the door and paused for a moment.

Hold the fuck on, pal. Get your shit from the car. That pussy isn’t going anywhere and you can’t pretend there isn’t a gang of degenerate fucks on their way to kill you.

I turned and walked back to the car, popping the trunk and grabbing my duffle.

“Hunter? What are you doing?”

I looked up. Kelly was hanging out the window, crossing her arms so she was pushing her tits almost out of her dress. I could feel my cock shoot up and slammed the trunk down hard.

“Get your fucking ass inside that window. I want to see you waiting for me when I get up there.”

She smiled and pulled her body back inside, closing the window behind her.

I don’t think that will keep the kid from hearing us, sweetheart, but whatever.

I went through the door again and climbed the stairs. When I got to the top, I saw Kelly standing in the middle of the bedroom, dress unzipped and hanging from her shoulders, touching herself for me.