Pure Illusion (24 page)

He
pulls my wet and sticky finger from his mouth and kisses it. “Are you, though?”

“I
am,” I say with a newfound resolve as I open my eyes. “I want my phone.”

He
gingerly lays my hand on the circular table, reaching inside his jacket with
the other. He slides it across the table and it thumps again my hand. “Thank
you.” I immediately scroll through all the missed calls from Max. There is also
a text from him:

Max
: Call me ASAP!

Me
: At lunch with
Hunter.
Will call right after.
Promise.
I have some things to come clean about.

Max
: Hunter?
Seriously?
What things do you have to come clean about? Are
you hurt?

Me
: I’ll explain
when I can. I have to go. Call you soon.

“…I’ll
try to answer them as honestly as I can,” Hunter says.

I
glance up from my phone, my brows furrowing in confusion. “What?”

“Have
you heard a single word I’ve said?”

“No.”

His
eyes dart between me and my phone, a frown curving his lips. “What are you two
talking about?”

“You
should be more trusting, Hunter. I don’t have a reason to lie about anything.
Just give me time and I’ll tell you
everything
soon. Now, what did you
say? I didn’t catch it.”

His
lips press into a grim line. “I said ask me whatever you want and I’ll try to
answer them as honestly as I can.”

“What’s
going on between you and Candy? Are y’all like together
together
?”

“What
Candy and I share is exactly what
Candy
and
I
share.
That’s her story to divulge. I don’t want to get into girly drama. She’s in a
tough place and I wanted to help her out.”

“Really?”
I ask, not sure
what to make of it.

“Yep.”

“Hunter the New Age Hero?”
I provoke.

His
gaze turns deadly. “Watch that mouth, your ass will thank you.”

“Whatever,”
I mutter, suppressing a smile. “Are you clean?”

He
makes a face. “I’m certainly not dirty.”

“No, silly.
I mean
physically are you clean? Should there be anything I should be worried about?
We didn’t use protection.”

“As
clean as clean can get. We can go get tested together if you want. We have the
same doctor, Isabel.”

My cheeks flam at the thought of Dr.
Marvin testing us both for STDs.
He has been my doctor since I was a
child. Dr. Marvin sends me holiday cards for God’s sake. I imagine him as an
uncle, though he looks more like a grandpa with wild gray hair and red circular
frame glasses that always rest on the lower bridge of his nose, as if he’s
always trying to get you to confess to something shameful. “Yeah, we should do
that…some time later.”

“So
you trust me?”

“I
don’t know yet.”

“You
let me fuck you without a condom, three times, so you must trust me to some
extent,” he murmurs through an arrogant smirk.

“I
need Hero’s number,” I ask, avoiding what he says entirely. I need to talk to
him about Green Frog.

He
eyes me warily. “Why?”

“It’s
important,” I whisper, feeling ashamed of myself after what happened between me
and Hero. I didn’t mean to hurt Hunter or Hero.

“No,”
he says simply.

“No?”

“No,”
he states firmly, “I’m not giving you his number.
Next
question.”

“Okay…Did
you follow me around campus?” I don’t know why I bothered to ask for Hero’s
number. I can make a much-needed trip to Cherry High to get in touch with Hero.
I don’t need Hunter’s permission to do anything.

He
blinks and then rakes his hands through his messy hair. “I did. I followed you
mostly everywhere you went. I had to make sure you were safe.”

“You
stalked
me?” My heart feels like it’s about to beats its way through my
chest.

He
lifts a brow and smiles.

I
swallow loudly and settle back into the chair. “I don’t know how I feel about
that. Do you stalk me now?”

“Not
all the time,” he says, his smile widening. “I do have a life of my own, you
know.”

“I
don’t want you to follow me anymore,” I declare. “It’s creepy.”

“You
never noticed before. Who told you?
Harmony?”

“No,”
I lie.
“Just don’t do it anymore.
Why did you and
Sally split?”

He
sighs, exasperated. “I was tired of the lies and deception—the girl plays more
games than PlayStation. If it makes you feel any better, I was only trying to
replace what I didn’t have. She was a great distraction and she used me like I
used her. Sally liked what I offered and I like what I got.” He shrugs
nonchalantly.
“Nothing more, nothing less.”

A
frown curves my lips as my brows snap together. “Why did you get engaged then?”

He
studies me for a moment before he replies, “She asked me. I was in no position
to deny.”

“What
does that even mean?”

He
shrugs again, unwilling to elaborate.

“Did
you love her?”

“I
loved what she did,” he mutters as if talking to himself.

“What
did she do?” I ask, truly intrigued.

“She
wounded me,” he says in the same tone, and my heart plummets to my stomach.
“She fucking ripped me apart and I taunted her to do it harder the next
time…She never disappointed, Isabel. Just because my scars are not visible
doesn’t mean I don’t have them. She scored me like the way I scored you.”

“I’m
sorry,” I manage to say from my tight throat.

A
puzzled expression crosses his face.
“For what?”

Reaching
out, I caress his face. “That she hurt you. No matter how you treated me, you
didn’t deserve that…you didn’t deserve whatever damage she did.” 

His
facial features relax and get soft in a way it makes my soul ache. His large
hand locks around my outreached one by the wrist and brings my palm to his
mouth and kisses it before releasing me. “Why did you harm yourself?”

My
eyes roam over his left shoulder, seeing nothing but the bloody and dreadful
past.
“Because I wanted to feel.”

Hunter
cocks his head to the side, an inquisitive look in his eyes. “Is it that
simple?”

“Yes.
The funny thing about cutting: you do it to feel. It’s something you can
physically see and touch. People do it for different reasons. I did it because
you took away everything I knew and it felt like the entire world was caving in
on me. I didn’t get how you couldn’t need me anymore. How easily disposable I
was to you. I couldn’t cope without you, Hunter.”

I
don’t realize I’m crying until he reaches out and touches my wet cheeks. “Trust
me, Isabel. If I had any other option, I would’ve picked them instead. Hurting
you…I didn’t want that. But the pain and the misery were necessary. I didn’t
need you to jeopardize the safety I provided for you. I’d take all the pain
away if I could.” His thumps swipe under my eyes before he drops his hands.
 

“Okay...Why
did you cut me out of your life?”

“To protect you.”

My
face contorts into bafflement.
“To protect me?”

“Yes.”
His reaction is aloof and controlled as he gauges mine.

“From
what
?”
I ask in
disbelief.

His
jaw muscles twitch. “I can’t say.”

“You
can’t say or you won’t say?”

He
avoids the answer all together by staying silent.

“You
know, Hunter, truth is not the same as silence. Why can’t you just tell me?
What’s the big deal? I don’t understand.”

“That’s
just it:
you don’t understand
.” His beautiful features twist into a hard
mask of frustration and fury. “You don’t understand anything that’s going on.
Do you know how fucking long I had to endure this
bullshit
? Do you even
care now?”

“Of
course I care, Hunter,” I assure softly, reaching out to touch his fisted hand
over the table. “I’m just confused about everything. I care for you. I love
you, Hunter. I love you so much.” Most of the irritation leaks from his body as
my thumb moves back and forward across his the skin of knuckles. “We don’t have
to do this now if you don’t want to. Okay?”

“No.
You have questions, so ask away,” he replies dryly.

“You sure?”

“Don’t
give me a chance to rethink this, Isabel.” He sounds like he’s talking about
something else entirely…like us.

Forcing
myself to swallow past the huge lump in my throat, I nod. “Why did you come
back after all these years?”

He
stares down at the plastic pudding cup with far-off expression. “I was at the
funeral and I saw you. That connection or lifeline we have never went away. I
knew you were hurting and scared and feeling alone. I had to be there for you.
I swear it wasn’t a choice.” His eyes take on a glossy and unfocused look. “It
wasn’t even an obligation. It is a pure essential
need
that I am there
for you. You are my responsibility. You were always my responsibility from the
very beginning, Isabel. You’re mine.”

My
fingernails dig into the table as my lips part and eyes widen. “Hunter.”

“But
my possessions are always tarnished,” he resumes talking like I didn’t interrupt,
“I didn’t just one day decide I had enough of you and I wanted you and me to be
over. I didn’t wake up and want you suddenly out of my life. It was so fucking
hard, Isabel. So fucking hard…the hardest decision I’ve ever made. But one I’m
glad I did.” His haunted eyes flicker up to me and steal every wisp of oxygen
from my burning lungs. “You were torn away from me and I’m the one who ripped
the seams apart. It’s something that I have to live with for the rest of my
life. I’m willing to live with that as long as I can guarantee your safety.
I’ve failed at so many things, Isabel. You’re my only triumph.”

I
don’t care who’s around or listening anymore because I burst into to tears.

Sweet Isabel

 
Hunter and I
stumble our way to his bed, leaving a trail of disregarded clothes and shoes.
His muscular body forces mine down on the mattress. My breath quickens as
Hunter looms over me, dressed in only his boxers. His dark eyes slowly run down
the length of my naked body. I feel myself flush, but I bravely hold his steely
gaze. Something in the atmosphere shifts and changes between us; it’s as
evident as predator and prey, male and female, strong and weak. Vulnerability
exudes from me while power emits from him.

Instinctively,
I sit up and cross my arms over my bare chest. His eyes narrow in a disproving
way. “You like it rough, Isabel?”

I
turn my head, staring at the white drapes.

I’m
startled when Hunter speaks. “Answer me!”

“Yes,”
I whisper almost too low to hear.

“Look
at me, baby,” he orders in a softer tone.

My
eyes hesitantly lift to his. “Yes, I like it rough, Hunter.”

A
slow and sexy smile plays on his lips. “Rough is how you’re going to get then.”

My
breath hitches. “Are you going to tie me up?”

His
index finger runs the length of my arm, causing me to shiver. “I don’t think my
baby is ready for that.” I’m oddly a little disappointed.

“I
like it soft and gentle too.”

“Is
that right?” he whispers, grinning down at me.

“Yes.”

Can
this be any more embarrassing?

“I’ll
see what I can do then.” He cocks his head to the side, intently gazing at me.
“How sore are you?”

I
stretch and most of my joints protests and there is also a distinct ache
between my legs, but now I can’t differentiate if it’s from sex or from
longing. “Sore.”

“Too sore to play?”

My
eyes fall to the floor, face flaming. “I would be very much appreciative if you
would take it easy on me,” I whisper, feeling my entire body immensely heat
under his gaze.

His
hand grasps my chin, tilting my head so I can stare him directly in the eyes.
“We don’t have to do this, Isabel. I can tell that you’re afraid of me. It
hurts but I can deal. I know you don’t completely trust me yet—you are
absolutely right to do so—but maybe with time I can earn what I discarded long
ago. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t expect the world from you. I love you,
Isabel.”

My
arms dropped from my breasts to my sides as I close my eyes shut and savor his
words.

“I
love you, Isabel.”

I
feel his knuckles skim down my cheek as his other hand weaves through my hair.
My eyes flutter open to Hunter’s soft baby blue eyes on mine. “I love you,
too.” I lie back against the mattress and spread my legs to him, for him. It
takes him no time to settle between them but not inside me yet. “I can never
say no to you.”

He
smiles down at me, all pure and all genuine. “I better take care of you then.”

I
press kisses all over his face and neck, not caring where or how desperate I am
for him, I just want to savor and relish in this moment. I kiss everything I
can: his eyebrows, nose, lips, cheeks,
ears
, chin, and
long his jaw and neck. I am greedy and impatient and I’m too happy to be
concerned about it. Wrapping all four of my limps around him, I crush him to
me, never wanting to let him go.

“Baby,”
he breathes, running his hands down my body.

“I
never want to let you go,” I confess, tears spilling down the sides of my face
and into my hairline. “I want to wrap you inside of my heart where you can stay
forever and ever. I want to hold you there for-ever. I love you so much.”

“There
is no place I’d rather be, Isabel. Keep me there, in your heart, and never let
me go no matter what, okay?” He commands, kissing my tears away.

“I
will never let you go,” I reply.

“Promise
me, baby. No matter what happens or what I do, promise to never ever let me
go…even when I’m unworthy and you want to,” he orders solemnly.

“I
promise, Hunter,” I vow, teary-eyes.

“Good
girl,” he praises, kissing and sucking his way down my neck. His hands sift my
hair, cupping the back of my head and holding my face against his.
“My beautiful, sweet Isabel.
How I love to love her.”

My
body turns into liquid underneath his as I close my eyes.

He
kisses both eyelids. “You are the only one who has ever counted.”

Moaning,
I tilt my hips up. My wet and aching sex is pressed into his hardness, but
Hunter doesn’t enter me.

“You
mean everything to me,” he whispers, bringing my hands to his mouth and kissing
each of my fingers. He shoves his face in my neck and inhales deeply.

“Just
fuck me already,” I beg.

I
feel him smile against my neck. “My baby needs me. I should get busy.”

I
cross my ankles around his waist. “Yeah, you should.”

***

Hunter
does “get busy.” He gives it to me soft and gentle and fast and rough. I loved
all the ways I get to have him but it’s much more than that…I love him. That
means I love any way and every way he decides to give it to me.

After
we come countless times, I lay my head to his chest, marveling at the sound of
his heart. He reaches out and tags a black handheld flat device from his stand.
“What is that?” I ask as it powers on.

“A Kindle.
I have over
four hundred books on here.”

“Really?
Let me see.” He
holds it out to me and I snatch away, smiling impishly. I am way too interested
in what kind of literature Hunter Knight reads. I swiftly scroll through the
books, surprised at what I find. There are a lot of fantasy and mystery and
thriller books, less love stories but there are a few sappy romance novels and
even a lot more darker versions of sappy romance novels, when I say darker I
mean
depressing
. Then there are very kinky S and m novels.

“That’s
my favorite as of now,” he murmurs pointing at a black cover with crushed
waffle cones bits, candy sprinkles, and blood smeared across it.

It’s
just tilted, “Sweet?”

He
nods, staring down at the Kindle in my hands. “It’s about this man named Lenny
who never craved for anyone or anything. He owned and worked at a little ice
cream shop in the French quarters of New Orleans. He had features of a handsome
gentleman but he was anything but. He didn’t date or charm women. He didn’t
find them useful—not even for sex. He jerked off almost every night thinking
about the only girl he ever cared for. Her name was Sweet. She died in a
hit-and-run when she and Lenny were nine. It happened right in front of Lenny’s
house and he was watching from the comfort of his living room window the entire
time. Lenny did eventually go to Sweet and get aid for her.

“She
took her last breath and died, staring right into Lenny’s eyes. He blamed
himself, because maybe if he went to get help sooner she would probably still
be alive. He lived every single day with the guilt and shame of it all, lived
that horrid scene of Sweet getting hit by that red truck every night, never
truly moving forward. Twenty-five years later he opens up a yellow painted ice
cream shop and names it Sweet in honor of her.

“Well,
one late August afternoon a woman strolls into the shop in a loose white
sundress and he froze when he laid eyes on her. She had the same green eyes as
Sweet and the same long, thick hair as her. She even had the same exact smile
as Sweet. Lenny remembered her face to perfection and she fit it to a T. But
could it really be her? After all those years could Sweet really be alive? When
the woman smiled at him it seemed heaven’s doors opened for him. She looked at
him across from the glass barrier of the rows of ice creams and asked, ‘Why
Sweet?’ He swallowed and released a small and strained, ‘What?’ ‘Why did you
name your store Sweet?’ the woman repeated. He smiled back and told her that
nothing is sweeter than ice cream.
The end.”

“What?
You’re lying,” I whisper, pinching the skin of his ribs.

“Yeah,
I am,” he laughs, grinning down at me.

“How
does it really end?”

“Sure
you want to know?” he teases.

“Yes.
Hunter.” I give him a harsher pinch but it doesn’t affect him.

“Okay…Well
he finds out that the woman that looked unerringly like his beloved Sweet was
not. Her name was
Summer
. She visited the shop every
Sunday. They, in a way, became friends. He asked her out once and she denied
him. She told him she was happily married to a husband she truly loved. Summer
became his new obsession. But in a long story short, Lenny kills
Summer’s
husband and holds her captive in his basement for
months.

“
He rapes Summer numerous times and sees
a pummeled and
bloody nine-year-old Sweet bleeding out into the street each and every time he
does it. In the end he becomes more delusional and blames
Summer
for Sweet constantly haunting him and kills her with a hatchet. He chops her
limb from limb and puts pieces of her into the red cherry sauce for the ice
cream he serves to his devoted customers. There are four more victims, each
time younger, and each time he kills them and serves them to the blissfully
brainless people, who keep coming back for more. He’d been in misery for so
long that he wanted other people to actually taste it too…But they never did.
They told him his cherry sauce was sweeter and better over the years. It was
all over for Lenny when he adducted a nine-year-old girl who looked just like
Sweet. She was anything but, though. He confesses to everything he has done:
all the killing and such. One day she somehow undoes the restraints and creeps
from his basement and kills him with his own hatchet in his bed. She finds
peace within his death and grows up to be a contract killer.”

“Oh
my God, that was intense and depressing as hell. There isn’t even a happy ending.”

“But
there is,” he whispers, delicately tracing my eyebrow with is index finger.
“The girl that escapes falls in love with her first target. They go on to have
a happy and full life…until her husband wants to open a yellow ice cream shop.”

I
scrunch my face up. “I don’t like that story very much. Who would write
something so dark and twisted? When you were telling me about it, I couldn’t
breathe. I felt trapped like someone was suffocating me, like I was slowly
wilting away.”

“Maybe
those feeling isn’t such a bad thing to feel from time to time. You made it out
the other end okay to me,” he says softly, his finger moving down the bridge of
my nose.

“Only
because your arm is wrapped around me,” I mutter. “Who wrote it? They have to
really be fucked in the head.”

There
are several beats before he answers, “Me.”

I
feel my lips part and my eyes widen in shock. “What?”

He
shrugs nonchalantly. “I self-publish all of my work. I have a huge following
that love my novels almost more than I do. You should read them when you get
the chance, because you are my biggest inspiration.”

“Am
I Sweet?”

He
smiles a smile so lethal it stops my heart. “You are everything, my sweet.”

I
gasp and scoot away but he curls a hand around my bicep and drags me over the
mattress and back to his side. “Don’t worry. I’m not gonna chop you up into
little pieces and mix you in with ice cream if that’s what you’re thinking.” He
laughs cheerily and buries his nose in my hair.

“I
would never think that. Don’t be silly, Hunter,” I assure breathlessly. “It’s
just a lot to take in…that’s all. You wouldn’t own an ice cream shop, anyway.
You’re more of a bakery kind of man.”

He
shuts his eyes and tosses his head back, laughing so hard my body shakes with
him. “You should have
ran
when you had the chance. I
am never going to let you go now.” Though he’s laughing, I sense that Hunter is
one hundred percent serious.

“I’m
going to keep you to that.”

Hunter
reads me more of his work as my hands explore his magnificent body. He is truly
a talented author. I can vividly imagine everything he says. He’s brilliant and
terrifying but beautiful all in the same.

“I
love you,” I blurt out, interrupting him midsentence.

“Love
you more.” He gives me a closed-mouth smile and presses his fingers to my lips
and then caresses my face.

“Show
me how much more,” I whisper seductively, and I watch as his gaze darkens.

Hunter
lays his Kindle on the stand and moves between my legs. His finger slips into
me, causing my back to arch off the bed. “You are always wet, Isabel. You never
disappoint.” He finger disappears as he makes his way down my stomach. I gasp
and jolt up when his hot mouth is on me. He presses a demanding hand on my
belly and harshly shoves me back down. He licks me savagely, intentionally
missing my clit. My fingers thread into his silken hair as I tug.