10. Hunter
Ten
Hunter
My eyes were burning. I’d been working too long on this code for Sasha, but my brain wouldn’t shut up until I had a solution for this particular problem.
This better count as part of my fucking repayment.
Shrouded in nothing but the dim, bluish glow of my screens, the silent air was filled with the faint hum of my server and the blast of the AC.
The things one does for family, especially when said family’s ties bleed into places most people wouldn’t step near.
Sasha had me testing some vulnerabilities in different firewalls, and I was so close to cracking them, I could taste it.
My phone buzzed on my desk, but I was so immersed in the lines and lines of code, I didn’t immediately check it. Then came the second buzz, and I stopped short.
Who the fuck was double texting me?
When her name flashed across my screen, I was frozen in place for a second before practically lunging at the phone.
Ella: Hey. I need your help.
Ella: Serious shit. You free?
My pulse spiked before my brain caught up.
I reread it. Once. Twice. Four times. Still hit the same way.
This was the second time she was coming to me for help.
The first had been back when Hailey and Colt were neck-deep in that blackmail fiasco, which I’d handled for her as much as for them.
Now here she was again, and I couldn’t help but fucking preen. I was the person she came to when she needed help.
That meant something, right?
Adrenaline, or maybe something more nefarious, was rushing through my veins as I took a second to breathe. Fuck . My girl had me riled up without even trying.
This was the moment I’d been waiting for.
Playing the long game always paid off. You just had to be patient enough to know when to pull the thread — and make her come to you instead.
Let’s not fucking kid ourselves. There was no way I’d ever tell her no, but I found it never hurt to play it a little casual.
Hunter: What kind of help?
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she’d bite.
Ella: Spreading incriminating evidence?
I actually snorted. This was too fucking easy. Anticipation coiled inside of me.
My girl wanted help? She’d get it.
I was burning for her, and she had no idea she was stoking the fire.
***
Ella waltzed into my house like this was casual. Like I wasn’t going to lose my mind about it later. Like I didn’t want to lock the door behind her and fucking devour her.
Keep her all to myself until she came to realize there wouldn’t be an escape.
Not now, not ever.
Hoodie. Legs bare. Hair up in her signature ponytail.
My Blaze didn’t need to put any effort in, and she was still fucking ruining me.
The last time she’d been here, I got my first real taste of her, and I was dying for a repeat. Only, I couldn’t fucking scare her away. Not now, when the pieces were finally falling into place.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said dryly, like my pulse wasn’t pounding in my ears.
“You’re so funny,” she quipped. The muscles in her toned legs flexed as she sauntered through the room.
Goddamn it. I swiveled away from her to hide my growing erection under the desk.
Ella perched her little perfect ass on the corner of my desk, her leg nearly brushing my arm. I inhaled slowly, trying to calm every instinct in my body to pounce.
Sure, come sit next to me like you’re not wearing the end of my self-control as an outfit.
She smelled like orange blossoms, and as her thick, definitely grabbable ponytail swung over her shoulder, I caught a whiff of her hibiscus shampoo. Fuck, I wish I could say that was irrelevant.
There went my fucking cock, tenting my joggers like I was a fucking sixteen-year-old again.
Her hoodie was riding up, exposing the soft skin of her upper thighs. A hint of ink peeked out from under the hem for a beat.
I clenched my hands into fists to stop myself from hauling her into my lap and examining the intriguing black lines up close and personal, preferably with my tongue.
I quirked a brow. “So, what exactly do you need me to do?”
“I need to spread some information–”
“I believe the words you used were ‘incriminating evidence’?” I asked with my head tilted, blinking once.
How she always got mixed up in shit like this was beyond me. Luckily, I protected what was mine.
Ella huffed. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t do shit.”
“Sure, you didn’t.”
Her lips parted, and her hand flew up to her chest. “Excuse me, I’ll have you–”
“Yeah, don’t really need the whole rundown.”
I was being a dick on purpose, but it needed to be this way. Now wasn’t the right time to let her in, not before all the pieces were in place.
“Okay, Mr. Grumpy. Newsflash, I think you do. So you’re just gonna have to listen.”
Her leg brushed against my arm as she adjusted her position, her skin feeling like fucking silk.
Jesus Christ, how was I supposed to survive this?
I didn’t move a single fucking muscle.
Ella was talking about spreadsheets and embezzled funds. Something serious and probably illegal.
My only contribution so far was breathing unevenly.
She scrolled through receipts and forwarded me the information I needed to make her request happen. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop watching the freckle constellation on her collarbone.
My girl had called it “serious shit.” She had no idea what serious looked like. But she’d see.
The worst fucking part was, she had no clue what she was doing to me.
I should probably move away.
Be responsible.
But she was already under my skin, branded there whether she knew it or not.
By the time she had finished her unnecessarily long-winded story, I had only retained the most basic parts, but it didn’t matter. I’d grasped the gist of it.
There was no question of me helping her, there never had been.
She had no idea what I’d do for her, no idea what she was sitting next to.
“This is felony-level chaos,” I simply said, barely suppressing a smirk, after she’d finished her little story.
Ella just shrugged. “Mhm. But who doesn’t like a little chaos?”
I took a second to let my eyes wander over her body. On the outside, I was cool and assessing, but on the inside, desire and lust were consuming me.
Ella was dangerous. She made me want things I’d spent years convincing myself I didn’t need.
“I don’t.” I deadpanned.
It was true. Except when it came to her, apparently.
“So why do this then?”
As if on autopilot, my fingers began to fly over the keyboard, and I felt her curious gaze rest on me.
Not on the screens or on the code. M e.
Her eyes were tracking every movement of my hands, slow and deliberate, like she was cataloging them.
I didn’t look at her. If I looked her way right now, I’d fucking snap. But I felt the air change — thicker, slower, charged.
Her breathing shifted, just a little, the barest fraction.
And it hit me. What if the attraction wasn’t one-sided? What if she was already thinking about it?
My jaw locked, a muscle ticking as I kept typing.
My girl had no fucking idea how much I thought about her, about all the things I’d do to her.
How often I imagined those same hands she was watching right now wrapped around her thighs, buried in her hair, curled tightly around her throat.
Not hard, but just enough to let her know who she belonged to.
I’d never type again if it meant I could put these hands on her.
But I didn’t look at her. Not yet.
Just raised a brow like I didn’t feel her gaze.
Like I wasn’t building a whole damn religion out of the way she looked at me.
Let her squirm in it a little.
She moved closer to take a look at what was on my screen — yet another barely-there touch of skin to skin.
My brain blue-screened. Ella touched me, like it didn’t mean anything. Like it didn’t ruin me.
Teeth clenched, I slowly exhaled through my nose, trying to focus despite my cock straining against my sweats. Blindly, I started clicking through the files she forwarded.
This was too easy.
I routed it through three regions, staggered the timestamps, and added noise to the metadata. It was clean work, if I do say so myself. Not traceable, just like Ella requested.
At least not to anyone but me .
Typing was muscle memory, but I could feel the heat creeping up the back of my neck ever so slowly. I allowed my eyes to flick her way for a second.
“This is a favor. You will owe me a favor in return.” I didn’t need the favor, all I needed was a reason to keep her tethered.
Ella raised a brow, still looking amused. “Depends on how clean you make it.”
She said it like a dare, and I let out a quiet scoff, more out of reflex than humor. She thought she was being clever, but she had no idea what she’d just invited in.
The kicker was, she even looked pleased with herself.
Challenge accepted , her expression said.
My girl didn’t realize I wasn’t doing her a favor; I was building her a fucking cage.
Ella leaned in to skim the page of the drop script, squinting like she understood it, even if she didn’t. Then she just leaned back.
“You got this, right?” she asked. She made it sound so simple, like handing someone your loaded secrets was casual. Just another Thursday night.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll handle it.”
“Cool. Then I won’t worry.” She just nodded.
That’s right. Let me take care of it.
At this point, I had already memorized the cadence of her worry for the times I’d need to remove it.
Most people couldn’t stand to sit with my silence, but she just took it in stride, like it was natural.
She didn’t try to fix my coldness, didn’t treat me like a broken vending machine of emotions. She just gave me her trust.
Contrary to her extroverted nature and the chaos that seemed to follow her everywhere, it wasn’t loud or dramatic. It was casual, and in a way, that made it worse.
I didn’t know what to do with something so gentle, handed to someone like me. But fuck, I wanted it anyway. When it came to Ella Kincaid, I was greedy.
I’d dismantle the entire system just to fucking make her mine.
Ella straightened up and stretched slightly, as if this whole thing hadn’t been a big deal at all, but just another night of plotting felony-adjacent chaos.
“Thank you, Hunter. You’re really the best!” She beamed.
My heart was pounding against my ribs, at the cusp of exploding. Then she reached over and squeezed my shoulder briefly.
Tingles spread rapidly down my arm, starting from the spot where her hand had rested.
Unlike the usual discomfort I felt when others touched me, her touch felt overwhelmingly exhilarating.
Every single fingerprint was a brand.
My whole body was tight as a fucking bow. Unable to form any words, I just gave her a sharp nod, watching her out of the corner of my eye.
“Gotta run now. Just let me know if you need anything else.”
You. To stay here forever. Obviously .
Ella gave me another smile before she left the room. She didn’t realize she’d crossed a line no one else ever has.
My skin sure as hell didn’t forget her.
She walked out casually, the door clicking shut, and I was still fucking recovering.
For a long time I didn’t move. Didn’t open the next program, didn’t look away from the door. I was frozen in time and space, endlessly replaying this moment, not to analyze it, but to relive it.
Blinking a couple of times, I finally snapped out of it. Fuck me. My balls felt tight as fucking rocks, and her scent was still lingering.
What would she have done if I’d bent her over my desk? Would she have been into it, or would she have pushed me away?
Funnily enough, I was fine with either option.
If I’d touched her, I wouldn’t have stopped. Not tonight. Not when she came to me, asked me for help, and trusted me with her mess like it was nothing.
She’d been in my space, sharing my air, and yet it hadn’t been enough.
But it had been a start.
Shaking my head as if it would clear my thoughts, I directed my attention back to the drop schedule and locked the final deployment to my command only.
Re-checking the encryption, I made sure there were no traceable points. Everything looked solid, routed through a web of anonymized channels, burner servers, and digital chaff.
Thinking five steps ahead always paid off.
Always .
Ella didn’t know it yet, but she’d never leave my web again.
***
The digital takedown was performing just as expected — flawlessly and, most importantly, untraceable.
The exposure of Sierra’s old sorority had gone viral. Screenshots, statements and transactions were all over social media.
Satisfied, I was watching it unfold when my phone buzzed in my hand.
Her name popped up, and my thumb froze over the screen.
My heart didn’t just skip a beat, it fucking detonated, then reset at a faster pace. My fingers clenched around the device, knuckles whitening.
Her message was short, yet I reread it. Twice .
Ella: You’re a menace.
Tucking my tongue into my cheek, I was biting back a smile. She sounded amused . Maybe even impressed?
But that might’ve been wishful thinking on my part.
I wanted her to say it again. Say it like she meant it. Say it with her fucking mouth against mine.
Hunter: You’re welcome.
Hunter: I’ll let you know when it’s time to pay up.
Smug satisfaction bloomed beneath my skin, not just because I succeeded, but because she came to me. Again .
I was unraveling her, thread by thread, and she didn’t even notice how tangled she’d become.
My jaw flexed, my leg bouncing under the desktop, too keyed up to sit still.
Ella thought I was a menace? Cute. If she thought this was me at my worst, she hadn’t seen shit yet.
You’re calling the wolf to the door and acting surprised when it shows teeth, babe.
I’d be whatever she needed me to be. The villain, the weapon, the sin she kept crawling back to.