Chapter 1 #2
I grew quiet for a second and thought about the unsettling scene I’d just left in my house.
“My mom was taping up the cupboards so that the aliens don’t get inside.
I decided to walk outside and wait for them.
Figured being kidnapped, studied and eventually dissected by green men would still be better than living with my mom. ”
“You need to send her to one of those institutions where she can get some help.”
A wry laugh spurted from my mouth. “Help? You just used the word institution. Does an institution sound the least bit helpful?”
He sighed loudly and a cloud of beer breath followed. “I’m just saying there might come a time when you can’t handle her craziness anymore. She’s too much, Amy. She’s going to hurt herself, or worse, she might hurt you.”
Hearing him call me by my name always sent me off balance for a second.
He only said it when he was trying to sound fatherly or serious, like now.
Otherwise, I was Street, or Street Corner Girl, a nickname the Stone brothers had come up with when I was twelve and in a desperate attempt to make money, I’d turned my corner lemonade stand into a kissing booth.
“She’s the only family I’ve got.” I shot to my feet and had every intention of marching back inside.
But his giant hand wrapped around my arm, and he pulled me onto his lap.
“That’s not true and you know it. I’m your family. Colt and Slade are your family.”
My throat tightened as he said it. Growing up, the four of us had been stuck in similar slices of hell.
But as bad as my father had been, he was fucking Santa Claus compared to their dad, Hank.
Sometimes it seemed impossible that they’d all survived to adulthood.
But they had, and while they weren’t leading completely respectable lives, and while a lot of the people in town made a point of crossing the street to not have to pass them on a sidewalk, they’d all grown up with the innate sense that cruelty was wrong.
An unintentional lesson they’d learned from their awful dad.
But their horrid life had scarred all of them, physically and emotionally.
Feelings and love were hidden under layers of stone.
Jade had found a way to chip through Colt’s rock hard facade, but Hunter was a much harder piece of granite to break.
Hunter tightened his hold on me, pulling me closer to his warm body. The earlier tension drained out of me like it always did when I was in his arms. They were like a steel barrier to anything bad or dangerous in the world.
I rested my head against his shoulder. “Why is it that even when you’ve said something that irritates me, I still manage to dissolve into a hot puddle of need when I’m with you.”
“I think my little Street Corner Girl needs a raunchy roll in my bed sheets.” His hand smoothed along my leg and pushed up the bottom of my t-shirt. The cool air brushed over my panties.
“Is that all you ever think about?” I asked.
“I would be lying if I said no.”
I peered up at him. “Kudos for honesty then, but I don’t kno—” My breath pulled in as his fingers scooted under the crotch of my panties. I was like melted butter in his arms. Hunter knew I could never say no to him. But, sometimes, I wished to hell I could.
Moisture seeped from my now throbbing pussy.
“Ahh, Street, you’re so fucking wet, I might have to take you right here on this damn porch.”
I curled against him and kissed his neck. “Too cold and the aliens are watching. Carry me inside.”
He pushed his finger inside of me, and I arched my back to take in more of his touch. My soft groan floated off the porch and away on the salty breeze.
“Don’t know if I can stop, baby.” The gritty darkness in his voice matched the stormy night.
I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself to make my point. “A blanket and a warm room. Please.”
He withdrew his fingers, and my breath drifted out with them as if he’d pulled the oxygen from my lungs at the same time. With ease, he stood with me in his arms. I clung to him as he opened the front door.
I kissed his neck as he carried me down the dark hallway. He kicked his door open and stepped inside. He walked around the maze of dirty clothes and shoes and lowered my feet to the ground. I’d always been aware of my slight, thin build, but I always felt extra small standing in a room with Hunter.
His brown eyes were glazed with need as he reached for my coat. He pushed it off my shoulders. “What would I do without you, Street?”
“You’d still be fucking every girl in town.” I hopped up on my toes. “But you’d miss me.”
“Damn right I would.” He lowered his mouth over mine.
There were times when we’d forego the kissing.
It was too intimate. Kissing came with too much connection.
Kissing made it harder for me to accept that he’d never give me his undivided love.
It reminded me that he just really had no love to give.
Tonight, his tongue stroked my lips with a tenderness that nearly brought tears to my eyes.
He was never going to be completely mine.
I was his, but a terrible double standard had always been wedged between us.
I’d spent nearly as much time telling myself this was never going to be anything as I’d spent trying to reconcile our lopsided relationship with my heart.
Hunter lifted his mouth long enough to pull my t-shirt off.
I was stripped down to just my panties. He reached down, took hold of my waist and lifted me up onto the bed.
I relaxed back as he knelt on the floor between my legs.
It was rare for him to take the time to make me come first before climbing on top of me.
Not that he ever finished before me. He always made sure not to.
He could stay hard as long as I needed. And his skill in between the sheets was one of the reasons saying no to him was so impossible.
That, and the reality that I loved him so much it hurt to think about.
His fingers dragged my panties down past my knees and off my ankles.
I was naked. Everything about the man was powerful, menacing, intimidating.
Having him kneel between my thighs made me so fucking hot, I knew it wouldn’t be long.
His long black lashes lifted, and he gazed at me over the mound of crisp hair between my legs.
We never needed to say much to each other.
We knew each other so well, it was almost as if he could feel everything I was feeling as he touched me.
And he touched me now with that incredible skill that made him so fucking irresistible.
He lifted up on his knees and leaned his massive body over me to kiss my lips. “There is nothing I hate more than seeing my Street Corner Girl sad. It’s not natural. When that face has a frown, it feels like this fucked up universe has turned even more upside down.”
“I’m not sad.” I reached up and touched his face. I rarely allowed myself small intimate caresses like that. They were just as dangerous as kisses. “I just feel vacant.”
A sliver of a smile crept up on his face.
“Then allow me to fill that vacancy.” He sat back on his knees.
His hands slid up along the inside of my thighs.
He pressed his fingers against the folds of my pussy and spread me wide open.
He leaned his face forward. I curled my fingers into his hair and pulled in a long, shuddering breath as his tongue flicked against my clit.
His thumb took over as his tongue moved down and plunged inside of me.
I arched my back and pushed myself harder against his mouth.
With strong, callused fingers, he grabbed my legs and dragged my ass closer to the edge of the bed.
He dropped my knees over his shoulders and pressed his face against me.
His mouth devoured me as his thumb massaged my throbbing clit with just enough pressure to coax me close to the edge of an orgasm.
“Hunter,” my voice floated through the dark room, “God yes, don’t stop.
I’m almost there.” I squeezed my thighs around his face as his tongue stroked every deep, intimate part of me.
“Yes!” I cried out as my body split apart into a million pieces.
His mouth continued with a stream of soft kisses until my breathing slowed.
I stretched back with a luxurious sigh and gazed up at him as he pushed to his feet.
He reached to the back of his neck and yanked off his shirt.
A finely chiseled sculpture of muscle, ink and the thin scars of his brutal childhood, there was nothing more beautiful than Hunter Stone without a shirt.
I propped up on my elbows. “Do you want me to return the favor?” My words sounded long and lazy as if I was still drunk with it all.
“Nope. As much as I love that mouth of yours, Street, the only place I want to be right now is between your thighs with my cock buried deep inside that hot pussy I just had the good fortune to taste.” He grinned as he licked his lips. “Can still taste you. I might not wash my face for awhile.”
“You’re such a pig.” I grabbed a pillow and threw it at him. He deflected it easily with his rock hard forearm.
“Yes, I am and you love me for it.” He’d said the words with a laugh, but they pierced my chest like an arrow.
A cold, lonely feeling swept over me. Love.
How the hell could he tease me about loving him when he knew I was completely crazy about him?
It was all so damn lopsided. Hunter hadn’t noticed my change in mood, and I decided to mask it with a fake smile.
I sat up and kissed his hard stomach as I unbuttoned his fly.
His massive erection was straining to be free of his jeans.
I slid my hands along his waistband. As I pushed his pants down, something soft and silky, and very not Hunter-like, rubbed my palm.
I stopped. As I reached for the pink silk in his pocket, he tried to grab the panties first. But my small hand reached under his.
I plucked the pink fabric and yanked the underwear free.
Someone, the owner, I assumed, had scribbled her phone number on the crotch with a black marker.
I scooted back on the bed and dangled the panties from my finger.
I swallowed hard and stared at the underwear.
“Street, those— those belong to some girl.”
“Well, that’s fucking good to know. At least now I know they don’t belong to you.”
I flung them across the room. “I guess she didn’t have a cocktail napkin handy so she just yanked off her panties to make sure you had her number.
” I kept a cool exterior, but inside, my heart was splitting.
I knew he was sleeping around with a lot of girls, but, for sanity’s sake, I always just pushed it out of my head.
Otherwise, it was too much to bear. But the panties felt like a slap back into reality.
I scooted toward the end of the bed and reached for my own panties and t-shirt.
“Street, c’mon, you know this kind of shit is going on. Why are you getting so bent out of shape about it?”
Tears threatened but I blinked hard to keep them back. I pulled on my t-shirt.
“You know you’re my ‘go to’ girl. You’re the one I always want.”
“In between other fucks, you mean?” I sucked in a wobbly breath and reminded myself again not to cry. “Hunter Stone’s ‘go to’ girl. What a grand fucking title I’ve earned myself.” I stood up.
He reached for me but I stepped out of his reach. It took all of my courage to look up at his face. His face was always my breaking point. I could never say no to his face, but tonight, I had to place my own heart ahead of that damn face.
I shook my head. There was a flicker of hurt in his expression. Or at least that was what my aching, tender chest wanted to believe. “I can’t do this anymore, Hunter. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve inherited my mom’s lunacy. Why the hell would I put myself through all this?”
“Street— Amy— you know how I am?”
One sob escaped, but I tamped the others down.
“No, see you don’t get to use the fact that you’re an asshole as an excuse for shoving girls’ panties in your pocket.
You have fun with panty girl and every other girl you want, but I can’t do this anymore.
I need something to fill that vacancy, just like you said.
And it’s not just your mouth or your hand or that big fucking cock of yours.
I need you. All of you. And if you can’t give me that then I need to move on.
” I grabbed my coat and slipped past him.
He didn’t stop me, and I knew he wouldn’t.
I ran outside. Slade was just walking up to the house.
“Street, where are you heading?”
“The asylum, where I belong,” I muttered and marched past him. I sensed that he was still watching me for a few seconds. Then I heard his front door open and shut.
I reached my house and peeked in through the window. Mom was still busy taping shut the cupboards.
I turned around and headed down the street toward the marina.
The first raindrops fell before I reached the corner.
Lightning broke through the black sky and more rain followed.
I picked up my pace. Tears rolled down my face as I ran for the dock.
My dad’s boat, the Ranger, had few comforts and the engine hadn’t worked in years, but the small pilot house was a place to hide away from all the madness that filled my life.