Chapter 6 Hunter
“Hey, did your Iconic reset? Mine changed my settings on its own, apparently. I know they’re new and still working out bugs, but it’s irritating as fuck.”
Wrenley ignores me, eyes glued to the brunette he’s chatting up. He oozes charm on a regular day, but it’s starting to grate on my nerves with how he’s carrying on—like he plans to take her home.
My attention drifts across the room to where Bunny stands at the bar, no doubt waiting for Dove to show up.
It’s rare for her to grace us with her presence without that short bundle of pink fluff she calls her best friend, and when she looks up and catches me staring, the corner of her pillowy mouth tips like she’s just won a round I didn’t know we were playing.
I hip-check Wren out of the way and sink the nine ball into the left corner pocket.
“Anyway… some badge bunny tagged me in a photo, and the stupid app let her. She works at the coffee shop around the block from the department, and when I went in for a drink, she claimed she meant to tag a different Hunter.”
Wren snorts and finally looks at me. “Sure, she did. I’ll bet you got an earful from your Bunny, didn’t you?”
The brunette clings to his side like a leech. Her friend—a willowy blonde who’s probably giving herself a headache with all the lash-batting she’s been doing at me—sidles up with a sultry smile full of sinful promises. Ignoring her, I move to the side to make another shot.
I couldn’t care less that it would take nothing to have this woman on her knees, sucking my cock in seconds. Hell, both of them look ready to be taken out back by the dumpster, and they’d still make us come with a smile—accommodations be damned.
There’s nothing I hate more than a desperate woman.
That’s rich, considering you’d sell your soul for the woman who keeps refusing you.
“She certainly wasn’t happy about it…” I glance at Wren, but his attention has already drifted. I follow his gaze and spot Dove.
Where my girl is all dark leather and sex on stilettos, her friend is spun sugar in pink—sweet enough to give you cavities and a stomachache if you overindulge.
Wren’s been permanently nauseous since he met her, though it’s taken weeks for the idiot to diagnose his metaphorical ailment.
He still won’t get out of his own damn way when it comes to the little sucrose sweetheart, though I suspect it’s because she resembles his mother—a monstrous woman I hate with every fiber of my being.
He starts toward Dove, then freezes when Ryan—an officer who’s had an on-again, off-again sexual situationship with her—walks in.
My gaze darts between Dove and Ryan’s awkward encounter and Wrenley trying to wrangle his attention back to the brunette, clearly fighting the urge to storm across the bar and wedge himself between them.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think he’s spoken to her since that night,” I state calmly, referencing a couple weeks back when Ryan and Wren went at it in the men’s room over Ryan’s crude comments about Dove.
“I don’t care.” He shrugs and rounds the table to take his shot after I miss. “She can do whatever the hell she wants.”
Rolling my eyes, I watch Ryan brush Dove off and disappear. Both women look confused. I almost laugh. Wren warned Ryan to stay away, proverbially marking Dove as his after Ryan implied she’d be fine being shared by his buddies.
So why won’t he claim her? No fucking clue.
“Sure, she can. You’d let her waltz out of here with anyone tonight, wouldn’t you?” The women beside us scowl, unhappy we’re discussing someone else. I ignore them. “Is that what it’ll take to make you admit how you feel?”
“I don’t have… feelings… for her,” he mutters, pouring another beer from our nearly empty pitcher.
“Oh, but you do. You’re attracted. You’re intrigued.”
“Don’t you find this conversation ironic?” he bites out.
“Not at all.” I clap his shoulder. “I have no such delusions. I’m in love with Bunny, and I’ll tell her—and anyone else—exactly that. But if you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. If you don’t own your feelings, you’ll lose her to someone who will.”
He scoffs, causing the head on his beer to fly through the air. “Who? Ryan?”
“Anyone.” I glance toward our women, now surrounded by tequila shots. Patrón is water to them. I’m not convinced they could survive without it. I often wonder how they function after drinking so much. “She’s a catch, Wren. Stop letting the fact she’s better at your job than you are get in the way.”
He hums, pretending not to care. I’m about to push when a man drops onto the stool catty-corner from Bunny and strikes up a conversation before she can even blink. My hackles rise as Bunny meets my eyes across the room. One delicate brow arches—a dare to interrupt.
I drain my beer and grimace as Wrenley sinks the eight ball. “Next round’s on you, Hunt.”
“Yeah, yeah. Rack ‘em again.”
An hour later, I’m about to lose my shit. Bunny’s practically in the guy’s lap, letting him murmur in her ear while she watches me over his shoulder.
It would hurt—especially since she knows how I feel. If the roles were reversed, I’d be a dead man. But sometimes I think this is what she needs to get off.
It’s like she wants me to go caveman and claim her in front of everyone. I’d gladly do it—except she won’t surrender the one part of her I want most: her heart.
Any guy would be lucky to have even an iota of her time, but that’s not enough for me. Bunny hurt me once. I swore I’d never let her do it again. But damn if she doesn’t press my buttons to get a rise out of me.
My cock is the only thing that should be rising when it comes to you, Little Rabbit. Not my anger.
I’m seconds from ripping the guy’s head off when Dove hops down from her stool, blue eyes set on Wrenley. She looks like she’s giving herself a pep talk as she makes her way over to us. Meanwhile, he’s murmuring to the brunette—too low for me to catch.
“The bubblegum princess is heading straight for you,” I announce.
He barely turns before Dove reaches us and blurts, “Do you wanna get out of here?”
She looks hopeful, nervously smoothing her velvet pink dress as she waits for his answer. I want to smack Wren with my cue when he wraps an arm around the brunette’s waist and pulls her close. “Actually, we were just about to leave.”
Fucking hell. You dense dope.
Dove looks like she might be sick. I feel for her. She mustered the courage to ask him out, and he rejected her—even though I know the idiot would like nothing more than to take her home and lay her out like a candy buffet.
“Right.” Her voice cracks. Out of the corner of my eye I see Bunny watching the wreck, ignoring her own guy. “I’m sorry. That was stupid of me to ask. Have a good night, Wrenley.”
Wren’s spine snaps straight. Dove’s face flushes as our eyes meet for a second before she turns away.
I like Dove. As Bunny’s best friend, I think of her as a future sister-in-law.
And I don’t like seeing family hurt.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I drop my cue on the felt. Wrenley’s frozen, looking like he wants to go after her but needs a boot in the ass.
Wish granted, fucker.
Before I can think, I’m storming after Dove. My brain is two steps behind my body, which has gone on autopilot. Sometimes a grand gesture is the only thing that gets things moving again. Wren and Dove are at a standstill, just like me and Bunny.
Even though it’s the craziest idea I’ve had in a while, and there’s absolutely a chance it will backfire spectacularly, I reach for Dove. She must see Bunny’s bewildered expression, because she turns to me, confusion etched into her pretty features.
“Bunny, I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.” I can’t look at my little rabbit. She’s about to get pissed enough to kill me. I cradle her best friend’s face, praying to whatever god is listening that this will force Bunny to admit how she really feels. “Dove, just fucking go with it.”
Then I press my lips to hers.
Bunny
Icy tendrils wrap around my chest, slowly climbing into my esophagus and turning my insides into a frozen wasteland.
Shock isn’t a strong enough word to describe what I’m feeling.
No—watching Hunter kiss Dove is more like a punch to the gut that steals the air from my lungs.
It’s betrayal and rage, despair and realization, all warped into a bomb of disturbingly potent jealousy that blasts violent shrapnel straight into my heart.
I feel the blood drain from my face with each agonizing second that ticks by. Dove squeals against Hunter, preparing to shove him away. But I can’t sit around and watch any longer.
Like a scared rabbit, I flee. I vaguely register Dove crying out after me, but all I can think about is escaping the bar and going home.
The crowd parts easily as I push through, tears blurring the city lights into hazy spots as I hurriedly hail a cab.
Thankfully, it only takes a few seconds before I’m secured in the back seat, numbly reciting my address before I let the tears fall.
“Rough night?” the cabbie asks, his rasp suggesting a lifetime of smoking. He’s an older gentleman with a big, bushy mustache and thick caterpillar brows that raise when I huff a laugh.
“I just watched my—” I cut myself off because Hunter isn’t my anything. “Never mind. Yeah… it was a rough night.”
My phone dings with an incoming message.