Chapter 26
Crunch.
Crunch.
Slurp.
Crunch.
A bead of sweat rolls down Hunter’s temple in time with my cup’s condensation as it drips over my fingers. His dress shirt is damp, sleeves rolled to the elbows, stretching taut over corded forearms. My pussy flexes, wet and ready, just watching him work.
I pop another carrot into my mouth, then take a sip of the pineapple smoothie I picked up on the way to his place.
Slurp.
Crunch.
Crunch.
“Enjoying the show, Little Rabbit?” Hunter grins over his shoulder, catching me staring.
“Yes. Carry on, baby daddy.” I wave a carrot at the crib he’s almost finished assembling. “What other manual labor can I get you to do after this?”
His chuckle fills the air as he fits the last piece and steps back to admire his work. “I can think of a few things that require my hands. Some that require my mouth.”
My heart kicks as he prowls toward me, bracketing the rocking chair with his arms and leaning down to steal a gulp of my smoothie straight from the straw. Heat zips from my spine to that aching spot between my legs. I clench again as his scent wraps around me.
Sex has become a two or three-times-a-day situation for us. I’m always horny, and Hunter is always willing. I can’t get my fill. As soon as the post-orgasm haze fades, I want him again.
The need to give him the affection he craves has become a necessity for me. I want to be touching him at all times—fusing some part of ourselves together in order for me to function.
But with the high sex drive comes the mood swings, and I never know what will set me off—especially now that Vixey knows mine and Dove’s secret.
So when the doorbell rings just as Hunter is about to kiss me, irrational ire floods my bloodstream like a dam breaking.
“No,” I whine. “Don’t answer it.”
I’m about to thread my fingers through his hair when he kisses the tip of my nose, then stands. “I’m waiting on a package of Pepper’s diapers. It’ll just be a moment.”
“I hate that damn chicken,” I grumble, crossing my arms.
As if she hears me, Pepper squawks from her pen downstairs.
“You know what I love, though? Chicken nuggets!” I shout.
Hunter’s chuckles fade as he leaves, and like we’re attached by an invisible tether, the need to follow him grows with every second he’s gone.
Gathering my snacks, I head downstairs. In the kitchen, he’s glaring at a sheet of paper with a manila envelope on the island in front of him.
Slowly, his gaze lifts to mine. His amber eyes are lit like someone set a whiskey barrel on fire. “Hunter? What’s wrong?”
Silently, he flips the paper around. My breath catches.
You’ll go down too, Detective.
It’s been a few weeks since a letter appeared, but the fact that it’s at Hunter’s house is wildly confusing. “What the hell is that?”
“What do you think?” Hunter snaps.
I know he’s not upset with me, but his anger still feels directed my way, and I don’t appreciate it. “Don’t snap at me. Clearly someone knows about Nathaniel. Now they’re targeting you?”
Which is odd. The only people who supposedly know what happened that night are Abigail James, Phillip Keels, and us.
“I’m getting real pissed at whoever keeps leaving these letters. Why now? Why this long after his death?”
“Didn’t the letters start when we started spending more time together?” Hunter asks, sliding the paper back into the envelope.
Mulling it over, I realize: they started when Hunter and I had our night in the bathroom… when he told me he was letting me go.
An icy thought crawls along the edges of my mind. What if Hunter is doing this—herding me closer to him?
It shakes me to my core, just the very idea of it. It’s never crossed my mind, but now it flashes like a neon warning over his head as he watches me.
Maybe he was tired of waiting for me. Maybe the letters are his way of forcing my hand. At first I thought they were Siren-related, but now that he’s received one, all signs point to Nathaniel’s death.
“No,” I say slowly, watching for any sign that might lead me in the right direction with my conjecture. “They started after our night at the bar.”
Hunter’s brows screw together, his gaze dragging over the marbled granite. “Didn’t Nathaniel have a brother?”
Neil. I haven’t thought about the brother-in-law I never met in years. “He’d been in prison long before Nathaniel and I got together.”
Are you trying to throw me off your trail, Hunter?
Would he really go through these lengths to keep me close? My hormones are making it hard to tell if that’s absolutely crazy—or a little endearing.
It’s fucking crazy. There’s nothing cute about being threatened into someone’s arms.
On the other hand… have I driven him to this?
He wasn’t even worried when the first letter arrived.
“I don’t know, Bunny. This screams stalker, and I don’t know who else would fit the profile. Didn’t you say he contested the will?”
I move around him and sit by Pepper’s pen. To my surprise, she wobbles over, softly clucking at the wire.
“Yes, but I never heard from him again after they ruled in my favor.”
Pepper stares up with inky beads for eyes, and I find myself reaching over to stroke her mangy-looking feathers.
Neil doesn’t make sense. He’s in prison.
He wanted Nathaniel’s money for lawyers, but if my late husband had wanted to help, he would have.
And I had no desire to stay tied to that family beyond the name—and that’s only because changing it is a pain in the ass.
“Well, look at you two.” I snap out of my reverie to see Hunter leaning on the island, arms crossed, a smile stretched wide across his handsome face.
Only then do I realize Pepper is leaning into my hand, letting me pet her. It’s the first time she’s allowed it.
What changed, you spicy nugget?
“I think you should move in.” Hunter’s abrupt statement ricochets off the walls.
Logically, I know he wants to keep me and the baby safe.
But a large part of me is now stuck on this theory that perhaps it’s him sending the letters and trying to spook me into his arms for good.
I don’t know why I can’t let it go—like the moment I thought it into existence, the idea latched on with spindly, hooked fingers and embedded in my chest.
“I don’t want to give up my place.” Pushing to my feet after one last head scratch, I head for the door. I need space to think, and time to convince myself that I’m going crazy. I want an answer, so I’m clinging to the most hair-brained theory I can concoct.
“Bunny.” Hunter catches my hand as I pass, pulling me back to him carefully. “It makes sense. We’re together. We’re having a baby. I don’t want to raise our child in separate homes.”
Frustration tinges his cadence, and his body is tense—gearing up for a fight, no doubt—because he knows he’s about to piss me off. Yet he barges on anyway. “I’m not asking you to wear a ring. Take your own room if you want. I just want you nearby. And to know you’re safe. Is that so bad?”
“Why do I have to give up my home for that?” My words are so sharp, I can feel their bite. And yet, I can’t seem to stop. “Why are you trying to isolate me, Hunter?”
“Isolate you?” He rears back like I slapped him. “Bunny, I’m not trying to isolate you. I love you, and I’m trying to keep our family safe.” He steps in, splaying his large palm over my stomach. “I’d never forgive myself if something happened to either of you.”
His earnestness bleeds into my marrow. However, my walls remain high and impenetrable. “This is moving too fast. I told you—I didn’t want strings, and yet here we are, practically living together with a baby on the way. I just… need space.”
“And I need you to get over your insecurities. This isn’t a game anymore, Little Rabbit.
There’s another life involved. I don’t see the point in keeping the house your abusive piece of shit husband beat you in.
I don’t want my child raised in a place where their mother lived with another man,” Hunter bites out.
He’s close to losing his temper, as I so often push him to do. Since we found out about the baby, he’s reined it in, but I can feel the angry heat radiating off him. It’s suffocating, and my heart clenches as it brings me back to a time when that same energy was a staple in my life.
With a choked breath, I step back. I try to bite my tongue to keep the nasty words from flying between my lips, but they force themselves out anyway. “At least it gives me a place to go when I don’t want to see your face. You’re acting just like him.”
Tears prick my eyes as I spin on my heel.
“Bunny! Wait! Please don’t go. I’m sorry.” A vortex of panic and regret swirls in Hunter’s words.
It pulls at my heartstrings, but Nathaniel’s face is all I can see. “Too late, Hunter.”
“Bunny! Please!”
“What, are you going to get on your knees and beg?” I don’t know why I say it. I’m certainly not prepared for him to do it.
But when I glance back, Hunter sinks to his knees. “If that’s what it takes, yes. I’ll beg.”
The image breaks me. This man—who has done so much for me and only asked for love in return—is on his knees, ready to beg, even though I keep handing him nothing but heartache over and over.
Heat floods my cheeks. I stride back, gripping his shoulders as all the guilt I feel pushes out any suspicion that remains. “Get up. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
Instead of rising, he wraps his arms around my middle, resting his cheek between my breasts. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m sorry you feel like I’m pushing you to do something you don’t want.”
He sounds so sad, and I realize this is our theme song, playing again and again like a broken record.
This is how it’s always going to be with us—me hurting him, time and time again, going around in circles because of my stupid trust issues. It’s weighing on him, and he’s so damn undeserving of it.
Cradling his cheeks, I lift his head. “I do want it.” Tears stream down my face as all thoughts of him sending the letters evaporate—Hunter would never do something like that. “I promise I do. It’s just… hard.”
“I know, baby. That’s why I’m trying to be patient.” Melancholy softens his delivery, and we cling to each other like we need the other to breathe. “You have to start letting me in, Little Rabbit. I thought we were making progress.”
“We are.” I sniff. “We are, I promise. I’m sorry. Can we… table this until after the holidays?”
After I kill my last victim and retire the Shadow Siren—for a while, at least. And after I figure out who’s stalking us.
“Okay.” He stands, thumbs smoothing beneath my eyes. “I hate it when you cry. I hate it more when I’m the cause of your tears. It breaks something inside me every time.”
I rise on my toes to kiss him, but he pulls back with a small smile, unlocking his phone. After a few taps, Pony by Ginuwine pours through the speakers.
“I was going to save this for after we finished setting up the nursery,” he says, grinning. “But I want those tears erased from that beautiful face.”
Lust instantly heats my body, vaporizing any lingering embers of unhappiness. Whatever tears clung to my lashes dry as he unbuttons his shirt, intent on erasing our fight.
“Sit down, Little Rabbit. It occurred to me the other day that while you gave me a lap dance the night we met. I’ve never returned the favor.”
Hunter drags the chair I previously occupied over. My mouth waters at the ripple of muscle. Every trace of anything but desire vanishes as he guides me to sit.
“Now let big daddy show you his moves,” he whispers, rolling his hips against mine.
“As long as you never call yourself ‘big daddy’ again.” My fingers find his waistband, and the second his cock is free, I’m a goner.
Stupid fucking hormones.
Pepper lets me check on her while Hunter sleeps, strangely enough, even allows me to touch her again. Maybe it’s because the dogs are at Dove’s and the house is calmer, despite our earlier argument.
“Have we formed a truce, you spicy thing?”
She clucks softly as I pour a glass of water. Hunter exhausted me. If the color of the sky is any indication, we slept through the afternoon and into the early evening after he gave me three glorious orgasms.
His phone lights up on the island, dragging my gaze from the bay window that overlooks the street.
Fucking Gwendolyn.
I could really use your help tonight. We could order dinner and go over the files at my place?
Or we can go to one of your jazz bars? Fit in some dancing between work.
One of these days, I’m going to wear you down, Remington.
“Yeah, and I’m going to put you in your place the next time I see you, you little tart.” I set the glass down harder than necessary, earning a sharp squawk from Pepper.
It enrages me that she even knows he likes jazz. Or dares talk about dancing with him. Hunter swears he’s been clear he doesn’t see her that way. So if she keeps pushing, we’ll have problems.
Movement flickers at the edge of my vision. I turn back to the window.
Like a spilled drink, adrenaline races through my veins, goosebumps breaking out along my flesh as I take in the shadow standing outside, peering in with a blank expression.
Dark eyes. Sandy blond hair.
Nathaniel.
Blinking, I scrub my eyes, trying to wipe the image imprinted on the backs of my lids.
It can’t be.
It had to be a trick of the light.
Opening them again, the shadow is gone.
Like the stupid girl in a horror movie—the one who dies first because she does all the wrong things—I rush to the window. Hands splayed on the glass, I scan up and down the street.
Nothing.
My heart slows, inching back toward normal.
“Now you’re seeing things. Get out of your head, girl,” I whisper. Pepper clucks behind me, like she agrees.
“Bunny?” Hunter’s voice rings from upstairs, threaded with panic.
“In the kitchen!” I call back. I swear I hear his audible sigh of relief, and I wonder if he’ll ever stop expecting to wake and find me gone.
Tugging down the hem of his old gym shirt to cover my backside, I take my water and head for the stairs, giving Pepper one last head pat.
Note to self: check if paranoia intensifies during pregnancy.