Chapter 23
Rayne
In my memory, Hunter seemed different.
In high school, he was terrifying and beautiful, all at once, like we had a living dragon inside our halls.
And I just watched him.
The art he made.
The way he always knew the answers when a teacher called on him in class.
The way he’d wait to walk home in front of me and Weston after school each day, even though he never spoke to us.
I snuck into his room and read a page of his journal, once. It was well-worn and completely full of written words on every page. But when I flipped it open, the one page I landed on was enough. I didn’t want to see more.
On that blank page, he’d written one sentence.
The same sentence, three times.
“I will always be alone.
I will always be alone.
I will always be alone.”
The final one had a streak of rusty red across it, and lied to myself when I thought it must be acrylic paint, not blood.
Who writes that, at age sixteen? Who thinks something like that at all?
When I heard a sound in the hall I dropped the journal like it was a murder weapon. I snuck away from his room like a criminal fleeing a scene, my heart pounding in my chest.
When I walk into the Double Daggers party, it’s the first time Weston chooses to speak to me since that night.
He arrived before I did, and he’s standing near their pool table downstairs, while some girl I’ve never met squeezes his bicep.
“They’ve got a full bar,” he says to me, nodding toward the kitchen. “I think they’re trying to outdo us after our last party.”
“Daggers guys always try their best,” I say, giving the girl a polite smile when she smiles at me.
Hunter comes in a few moments after me.
He moves close to my side, and Weston immediately stands a little taller.
“You follow him around like a dog, now, Hunter?”
Hunter’s expression is like stone.
He hasn’t been in a good mood all day, and I know he wants to hit his brother for saying that.
“We walked over together,” Hunter says simply. “I just had to put my coat in the front closet.”
I feel Hunter’s hand slide over my lower back, and my body doesn’t know what to do with the sensation.
It turns me the fuck on, because every time Hunter puts his hand on me I respond like an addict to his touch.
But I can also feel Weston’s eyes burning into me.
He’d just said the first friendly thing to me in days, and now he’s glaring daggers at both of us.
“Let’s go grab a drink,” I tell Hunter.
“No,” Hunter protests. “It seems like my brother still has something he wants to say to us.”
“Oh, this is your brother?” the girl on Weston’s arm says.
Wes nods. “Caroline, this is Hunter. Hunter, Caroline.”
“Pleasure,” Hunter says, reaching out to shake her hand. Hunter smiles for the first time all night, and Weston seems to retaliate, drawing Caroline closer to him.
“We were just saying it might be nice to go on a hiking date tomorrow,” Wes says. “After the snow melts away.”
“It’s going to be so beautiful,” she says with a nod.
“Weston loves hiking. Always used to be his favorite part when our father would take us camping.”
I know that’s a lie.
On the one camping trip where their father let me come along, Weston refused to ever go on hikes. He preferred swimming in the river with me.
And Hunter, as always, was off on his own. He chopped firewood for hours, wielding the axe with precision, then, at night, he went out with a flashlight in the woods, trying to find a bear.
“Caroline!” another girl shouts from the front door, and they run toward another.
The moment Caroline’s gone, all of the false pretenses between Weston and Hunter drop away in an instant.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Wes says.
“If I end up needing to save your life, that isn’t what you’ll be saying.”
The way Weston looks at Hunter makes me pause.
I’ve never realized how strong Wes actually has gotten, over the past few years. None of us are weaklings, but there’s no doubt that if Hunter didn’t have a knife, Weston could probably take him in a fight.
He postures like he knows how strong he is, too. He takes a step forward, nearly getting in Hunter’s face.
“Dad called me earlier, by the way,” Wes continues. “He says you have to actually show up this year for Christmas.”
“Dad can call me and tell me that himself.”
“Hunter, come on. Let’s go grab that drink,” I say, feeling like I’m stuck between a viper and a bear. “I’m sorry, Wes.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t need your apology. Just know that my brother is manipulating you, Royal. I’ll be here to pick up the pieces when he hurts you.”
Hearing Wes talk like that is almost worse than if he was still mad at me.
I grab Hunter’s hand and tug him toward the kitchen, and finally, he relents and comes along after me.
The party is more crowded in the hall and in the Double Daggers house kitchen. I’ve always liked Onyx House better, but the Daggers guys renovated their kitchen a couple of years ago and it looks good, at least, with gleaming marble countertops and a fancy stainless steel stove.
“Wow. Their fridge is the size of a small country,” I tell Hunter, trying to make small talk.
He ignores it, frowning. “I’m so fucking tired of people who can’t accept help.”
“He’s not going to be happy for a while. Especially if you touch me like that.”
Hunter’s eyes meet mine, electric with anger.
“You fucking love it when I touch you. Is that wrong?”
I pour him a little bit of straight whiskey, and I add some Coke to my own glass.
“You know it’s not wrong.”
“Then I’m going to touch you whenever the fuck I feel like it. If you asked me to fuck you right in the middle of that living room, I’d do it. I don’t care if he sees. I don’t care if he throws some fucking tantrum like the spoiled prick he is.”
“Come on, Hunter.”
He breathes deeply. “Wes has been through a lot. But so have I. If he’s going to turn things into a competition, over and over again, then I’m not backing down. He can choke on that girl’s tongue in his mouth while I give you my cock.”
“Stop.”
I put my fingers on his mouth gently. He grips my wrist and shoves my hand away, coming in to push his lips against mine.
He pins my back up against the wall and kisses me for the first time today.
When he got back from wherever the hell he was all day, he seemed angry. Tense. A lot more so than usual.
He grips his fingers around the front of my long-sleeve grey shirt, holding it in his fist. He’s channeling his anger into his kiss and I’m a glutton for his lips on mine.
My cock responds, because I can’t help it when Hunter gets like this.
I love it when he’s rough.
I just don’t know what’s going on under the surface.
He breaks off and moves close to my ear, still clutching the front of my shirt.
“I need to use you,” he utters.
“You will. Later.”
I feel his breath on my earlobe. “I need to use you now.”
He pushes his groin up against my leg and I feel him, hard as a rock just like I am.
I glance around the room.
The double doors that lead to the backyard are tucked behind a rack full of coats and a group of people all looking down, focused on a card game they’re playing.
“Doors outside. Over there,” I tell him, nodding over. “I’ll give you my mouth, but you need to make it quick.”
He sighs, biting down on my earlobe. “I’ll come in a fucking second if I’m in your throat right now. Need it. Badly.”
My cock throbs under my pants, and I take Hunter’s hand again.
“Let’s go. Before somebody we know walks in and starts trying to rope me into beer pong.”
We chug the rest of our drinks.
I keep my head down as I walk through the party toward the doors, but Hunter doesn’t give a fuck, and makes no effort to stay under the radar.
I push open one of the doors, just enough for us to slide through.
The night air outside feels cold. The snow has stopped, but there’s a thin white layer of it over the leaves and the hedges in the yard.
I close the door with a faint click, shutting out the sound of the party.
“Get on your knees,” Hunter murmurs the moment the door is shut, and he puts his lips on my neck, sucking a slow, hot kiss there.
“You’re not fucking my mouth right outside these windows,” I protest, but I can hear him undoing his belt already. “Goddamnit, Hunter, come over here.”
I walk off toward the snow-covered gazebo at the edge of the big yard.
As he walks behind me he never stops touching me. He squeezes my ass hard, then gives it a firm smack as I walk.
Then he comes up closer, wrapping his arms around me from behind, one of his hands finding its way to my lips and the other resting on my throat, enveloping me from behind.
He gently drags his fingertips along my lower lip.
When I open to give it a little suck, he closes his other hand tighter on my neck.
My cock is aching now.
We haven’t even made it to the gazebo, but he stops me in place.
Two of his fingers are on my tongue. I lean my head backward a little, giving him better access to my throat.
The front of his body is pressed up against my back, and heat is like a blanket from behind, warming me in the chill of the air.
“You’re being so good for me,” he says softly near my ear. “Letting me have you when I need to get off.”
He slides his fingers out from between my lips, and I let out a little gasp when his hand comes up underneath my shirt. He uses my spit to slide his fingertips over my nipple.
“I know you need me,” I tell him.
I can hear the pent-up frustration in his voice when he whispers at me.
“All the fucking time.”
He lets me go, heading into the gazebo and undoing the top of his pants.
I look back and see that our shoes made footprints in the snow as we walked. I kick the powder around a little, trying not to leave the most obvious trail if anyone happens to come out.
The back doors of the house are still closed.
We’re safe, at least for now.
I walk up the few steps into the gazebo and Hunter’s on the far end. As I approach, he already has his cock in his hand. It’s the most desperate I’ve ever seen him, and Hunter doesn’t usually act needy like this.