Chapter 15 #2
The socks were thick wool that stretched to her mid-thigh, about six inches below where the dress stopped. There would be no bending over in this outfit.
When they reached the den, she’d hoped to find out something new, but it was just a lot of shop talk and logistics. She ended up dozing off on the sofa by the window and when she woke up, Ash and Stone were gone.
Marigold groggily sat up and stilled when she realized Hunter was still working at the desk. “Oh.”
“Enjoy your nap?”
“Um…” She brushed her fingers over her lips and sat up. “Yes.” Slipping off the couch, she tugged down her skirt, but not before Hunter got a glimpse of what was underneath.
His head remained bent over his work, but his eyes followed her every move.
“I’ll just…” She edged toward the door. Why was she explaining herself to him? She rushed out of the den and back to her room like a scared little rabbit.
Lights that were usually off were suddenly on. And music pumped softly from hidden speakers. She frowned at the pre-party ambiance and wondered where the others were. Several vases of fresh flowers had been set on surfaces throughout the house. And the furniture smelled of fresh polish.
She visited the room where Stone had taken her the day before. A steady thump spilled into the hall, alerting her that someone was in there. Then she heard heavy masculine grunting between each beat.
She entered the dungeon-like room they called The Cave silently, her eyes combing over every shadow and apparatus, until she saw the source of the sound and her lips parted.
There, on the far wall, stood Stone. He faced away from her, his back a map of swollen muscles and sinew.
Sweat glistened on his tanned flesh as Ash swung a whip, several feet long, into his back.
She gasped, as the whip snapped over Stone’s back. Ash turned and stilled. “You shouldn’t be here.”
Eyes wide, she looked up at Stone’s splayed body in horror. “What are you doing to him?”
Stone’s shoulders bulged and heaved as he caught his breath, arms suspended overhead. “What the hell, Ash?”
“Sorry. We have company.”
Stone craned his neck, but couldn’t quite turn. “Who?”
“Marigold.”
She rushed to Stone. “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine.”
“I wasn’t speaking to you. And why do you have him tied up like this?”
Ash caught her arm when she got too close. “You can’t be here right now.”
“Let go of me.” She looked back at Stone, as he hung his head and caught his breath. The bunched muscles of his back glistened under a sheen of sweat, pulsing with each labored breath.
“You want to chime in here, bro?”
The room silenced except for Stone’s heavy panting. “Go.”
“But—”
“He said go.”
She stepped back at the lash in Ash’s voice.
She didn’t understand why he was hurting him. Had he broken a rule? A whip seemed such a harsh punishment. She couldn’t just walk away and do nothing. “Stone?”
“Please, Goldilocks. Just go.”
She blinked hard under the weight of confusion and retreated to the door, shutting it softly behind her. The crack of the whip sounded, and she flinched as if it stung her own flesh. She rushed away from the door, overwhelmed by how twisted things could sometimes get in this place.
Alone and unsure what to do with herself, she went to the kitchen, where she searched the tall wine fridge and selected a vintage chardonnay. Sometimes, when life got overly complicated, the simplest solution was a glass of wine.
She took the glass to the library and sat down with her Russian dictionary. By the end of the glass, she made it to the B’s. Not much was sinking in—mostly because her thoughts were distracted with worry for Stone—but she was starting to notice patterns in the language.
The door opened, and Hunter stepped in, so focused on whatever he came to find, he didn’t notice her curled up on the wingback chair by the window.
Book on her lap, glass in her hand, she stayed perfectly still and watched him search the shelves. For once, he didn’t radiate intimidation. He was calm and as unthreatening as a grizzly wandering the woods. Like every room he entered, this became his natural domain.
He pulled a book down, so utterly uninhibited in his quiet habitat, so relaxed. But the moment he turned away from the shelf, and spotted her, his disposition changed.
His gaze froze on her like a predator spotting prey. An invisible wall erected between them. A hierarchy of the food chain that announced where they both stood.
She opted for cuteness. “Hi.” She waved nervously. Maybe it was the wine. Sober her would piss herself at such a threatening look.
He obviously hadn’t realized he had an audience. “I was just getting…” He caught himself mid-justification and scowled. Hunter wasn’t one to explain himself. He lifted the book. Some Russian title she didn’t recognize, and then looked down at her lap. “What are you reading?”
Her cheeks heated. “I was…trying to learn your language.” She shouldn’t feel embarrassed for wanting to understand them better, but for some reason, admitting her efforts left her feeling incredibly self-conscious.
“I was bored,” she adapted, diminishing the value she placed on fitting in with them.
He crossed the room and tipped the book to read the cover. “That won’t help you.”
“I know. It was just a way to pass my time.”
He turned away and searched the shelfs. In the corner, where some reference texts collected dust, he pulled down an old hardcover and blew away a cloud of grime. “Here.”
She cautiously accepted the book but frowned at the cover. Even the letters were unfamiliar. “I can’t read this.”
“You can. It’s how I learned English.”
She cracked the spine, and the scent of aged paper tickled her nose. The yellowed pages smelled of vanilla and time, each one filled with handwritten notes in the margins—some in English, others in Cyrillic script that looked more like art than language.
“You wrote these?” Her finger traced one of the annotations, careful not to smudge the faded pencil marks.
Hunter dropped into the chair opposite her, the leather creaking under his weight. “When I was much younger.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, bringing with him the scent of smoke and something darker—the snowy outdoors maybe, or just him. “Ash taught me. Then I taught Stone.”
The admission cracked something open between them. Hunter, volatile and brutal, had once been a boy struggling with foreign words just like her.
“Could you teach—” Her words cut off, the request escaping before she could stop it. A blush crept down her throat. “Never mind.”
His dark eyes flickered with surprise, then consideration.
He dragged his chair closer, one massive thigh brushing the edge of her seat where her bare knee showed from under her short dress.
Recalling that Ash was the last one to touch her and what Hunter had said about her coming to him fresh, she self-consciously tried to cross her legs.
He noticed her posture shift and studied her for a moment, either trying to understand why her position turned from open to closed off, or he already knew.
Her heartbeat doubled as nervous energy rushed through her. “I’m sure you have more important things to do.”
He turned the page, ignoring her objection as he pointed to a passage. Small scars marked his knuckles, and his nails were clean and cut to the quick. Heat radiated from him like a furnace as he leaned down, his warm breath causing the small hairs at the back of her neck to rise.
“The alphabet first.” His voice rumbled differently when he wasn’t angry, deeper, richer, like aged bourbon. He dragged his finger over the foreign letters. “This letter,” his finger pointed to a symbol that looked like a backwards R, “makes the ‘ya’ sound. Like the end of ‘Россия.’”
“Rossiya,” she attempted the unfamiliar sounds, each syllable clumsy on her tongue.
“No.” He moved closer, and lifted her fingers to his lips, the scruff of his hard jaw sending shivers down her legs.
“Roll the R.” He demonstrated, the heat of his breath heating the palm of her hand.
“Feel it here.” Without warning, his fingers pressed lightly against her throat, right where the sound should vibrate.
Her mind leapt to memories of him choking her, and she wondered how this could be the same man. Her pulse hammered against his fingertips.
“Россия,” she tried again, hyperaware of his skin on hers.
“Better.” His hand lingered a moment too long before pulling away. “Next letter.”
For the next hour, Hunter transformed into someone she didn’t recognize.
Patient when she expected frustration. Gentle when she anticipated roughness.
He corrected her pronunciation with careful touches, fingers trailing beneath her chin to adjust the angle, a palm against her ribs to demonstrate proper breathing.
Each contact lasted seconds but burned for minutes after.
“This word,” he pointed to something scrawled in the margin, “means ‘yearning.’ But not in the manner of wanting food or sleep. It’s...” He paused, searching for the English equivalent while absently dragging his finger over her bare knee. “Soul-deep wanting. The kind that leaves you hollow.”
“Toska,” she whispered, testing the weight of it.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Тоска,” he corrected, his voice going rough. When she glanced up, he continued watching her mouth with an intensity that made her stomach dip and flutter.
The room had grown warm despite the frost coating the windows. Or maybe it was just her, burning up from the inside out every time he shifted and pressed against her ever so slightly.
She’d never been so hyperaware of a man’s proximity. Every time his scent wrapped around her, masculine and wild and utterly Hunter, her IQ dropped another notch.
“Try this phrase.” He flipped to a dog-eared page, his arm brushing the swell of her breast as he reached across her. “‘Ya ne mogu dyshat’ bez tebya.’”
She fumbled through the phrase, butchering the pronunciation, and stopped at his low chuckle. Was that an actual laugh from Hunter? The sound was as warm and as rare as summer snow.
“Sorry. I’m not good at this.”
“You’re thinking too hard. Feel the words instead.” His hand covered hers on the book. “Like this. ‘Ya ne mogu dyshat’ bez tebya.’”
His mouth was so close, each consonant teased across her skin like a caress.
The words flowed like thick honey from his lips, intoxicating and smooth.
She turned her head to watch his lips form the sounds, mesmerized by the way his language transformed him.
Gone was the growling beast. In his place sat a man who’d once been young and innocent, a boy with dreams and ambitions that manifested in the margins of this text while he learned to survive in a foreign place.
For the first time, she saw him as human and believed him capable of empathy. “What does it mean?” Her voice came out breathless.
His eyes met hers, darker now, pupils blown wide. “I cannot breathe without you.”
The air between them crackled. Charged. Electric. Her body leaned closer. Hunter’s hand, gentle but firm, pressed against her sternum, stopping her.
“Nyet, Lisichka.” She understood the word no and sank back, embarrassed all over again by his rejection. He stood, putting distance between them.
“I’m sorry.”
He muttered something in Russian that was far beyond her comprehension. “My fault.”
They both knew that was a lie, but she appreciated him freeing her from blame. “Hunter…”
He stilled. It was the first time she’d addressed him by name.
When he turned back, his eyes blazed with scorching intensity.
“Thank you…for teaching me.”
He hesitated, then finally said, “You’re welcome.”
She feared the moment he left the library would be the last time she ever saw this side of him. She wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. “Will you help me again?”
He stepped toward the door, hands clenched, jaw tight, muscles tensing. But he nodded. “Keep practicing. Your pronunciation needs work.”
“I will.”
He looked back and nodded. “Good girl.”
They both stilled. Why did that phrase drill right to her core. She held his stare, wishing she was clean for him, regretting that she’d let Ash convince her to—
“I have a call to make.” He pivoted toward the door, and then he was gone.
Breathless and burning, her hand closed around her throat where the phantom pressure of his fingers still lingered. The book lay open in her lap. She traced the words he’d written as a boy and reached for her wine but the glass was empty.
Slamming the book shut, she left the library and returned to the kitchen, stealing the bottle and taking it, along with the book, up to the privacy of her room.