23. Ella
Twenty Three
Ella
The cotton of his shirt felt soft against my bare skin.
It was stretched thin from wear and smelled faintly of cedar and mint, with a trace of something indefinable clinging to it like a whispered secret.
Slats of golden sunlight sliced through the blinds, painting stripes across the rumpled sheets and the floor.
The room hummed softly with the steady, mechanical breath of the air conditioner and the faint buzz of the fans of his server and computer.
The sheets were twisted around my legs like tendrils, heavy and tangled, reminding me of the night before.
There was a faint rustle of fabric, and I let my gaze sweep across the room sluggishly. Hunter was standing by the dresser, pulling on black joggers, the muscles in his broad back rippling.
The silence in the room was suffocating me. I’d always had a mad urge to fill it, and it took everything in me to keep my mouth shut and not blurt out the first thought going through my head.
There was a faint ache in my throat, a lingering reminder of what we’d done last night, and heat rushed to my cheeks as I spotted the dark marks he’d left on my hips.
I fucking loved when being claimed like this; I couldn’t even deny it. But then I remembered the sting of rejection. The one thing he hadn’t done.
Hunter touched me like he owned me, like I was his . But he hadn’t even kissed me. Did that mean I was nothing? Just a body?
Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I pretended to scroll through social media but watched him in the mirror out of the corner of my eye.
“You know, you could at least say good morning before disappearing like Batman,” I teased in a light, carefree voice.
“Morning.”
Ah, Robot Boy was back. Dry and flat as ever.
Resting the back of my hand against my forehead, I threw my head back dramatically. “Wow. Be still, my heart.”
His steely gray eyes cut my way. “You’re not really the quiet type, are you?”
I froze for a moment. The curious way he tilted his head clearly implied he wasn’t trying to be mean.
This was just Hunter being his oblivious, blunt self. He probably hadn’t meant it to land like it did, but it still hit me where it hurt.
A muted ringtone cut through the silence, and his brows furrowed as he glanced at the caller ID I couldn’t see from the bed.
“…correctional facility… do you accept the call…” was all I caught from the other end of the line.
Hunter muttered something about the gym, grabbed his keys — the clink of which was sharp in the otherwise still room — and left.
Without a kiss. Go figure.
The door clicked shut, the silence pressing in like a weight.
We’d only just started, and I could feel the nerves twisting in my gut. I needed him to look at me the way I’d imagined during all those nights we spent shrouded in darkness.
My chest constricted, my thoughts racing, trapped in the all-too-familiar spiral.
I hated myself for hoping for more, for wanting something he never promised.
But how was I supposed to ignore the way he touched me? Like I was his. Like I was everything. Pretending it didn’t mean anything felt impossible.
Sitting in the suffocating silence, I stared at the door for a long time after he was gone.
The phone in my hand, the screen having gone black from disuse, buzzed, making my attention snap to the notification popping up.
Dom: Are you still alive? Or did he kill you for leaving your leggings on the couch?
Ella: Ha. Very funny.
Dom: Just checking in. Haven’t seen you in a minute and he lowkey gives me serial killer vibes. Everything good?
I typed “ Yeah ,” then deleted it. Typed again, and eventually settled on, “ All good. Just busy. ”
If he knew what I was doing — why I agreed to this — he’d never look at me the same. He’d try to save me. Like we’d always done for each other. But I didn’t need saving, not this time. This time, I was taking care of him .
Back home, it didn’t take much to ruin a girl. Wearing a skirt even an inch too short, laughing too loudly, or allowing a boy to put his hands on your waist for one dance could be enough.
But I hadn’t just danced. I’d given him everything.
One guy. Just one.
We’d hooked up in the back of his truck under a bleeding Georgia sunset, the smell of hay and gasoline thick in the air. He’d told me I was beautiful, and I wanted to believe it. I’d wanted to feel wanted. For once, I’d wanted to stop doing what I was supposed to do.
So when he’d asked what I liked, what I wanted , I told him. Whispered secrets I’d never dared speak.
That I wanted to be taken. Owned. Used, like the kind of girl who didn’t care what anyone thought.
He’d promised he’d never tell, but by Monday, everyone knew.
My words and fantasies had spread throughout the school, being passed around amid laughter and the slamming of lockers. The boys repeated them with smirks and the girls looked at me with disgust; their holier-than-thou attitudes written all over their faces.
Slut.
Whore.
Wants to be used.
I’d wanted to disappear. Crawl out of my skin and vanish.
And then Dom had showed up, cutting through the hallway like a storm. Shoulders squared, jaw like steel, daring anyone to breathe wrong in my direction. When one guy had opened his mouth, Dom had slammed him into a locker so hard the sound had cracked like a gunshot.
After his outburst, the whispers died. At least out loud.
Dom had never asked what happened or judged me. He’d just looked at me like I was still me, like I hadn’t been ruined.
And now it was my turn.
Hunter wasn’t like those boys back home. They’d been loud and cruel. All talk and no teeth. Hunter was quiet and lethal, a man who didn’t let anyone close. Not really.
But I was close. I was the one allowed to touch him, the one he trusted to sleep in his bed.
And for once, I could protect Dom by keeping this secret. By doing what needed to be done.
It was why I agreed to this, why I was here.
I hated lying to my brother, but I hated even more how much I was enjoying this arrangement. I didn’t want Hunter to see me as a deal; I wanted him to want me .
Fuck, I was the biggest idiot walking this planet.
Evidently, my text messages hadn’t convinced Dom that I wasn’t being kept chained in Hunter’s basement — not that it would’ve been a punishment — because he called me that night.
I knew he’d flown out to Cali for the weekend to see Sierra, so I was genuinely surprised to hear from him.
Hunter had joined me in the living room where I’d been watching one of my comfort shows, now lounging on the couch next to me and scrolling his phone in silence.
I hit Accept , and Dom’s face popped up on the screen.
“What’s up, sis? Tell me my favorite psychopath hasn’t eaten you alive yet. Wait, that sounded wrong. You know what I meant … right?”
Choking on my spit at the unintended sexual innuendo, my eyes instinctively flicked to Hunter, who returned my gaze looking unimpressed, though he had the faintest curl tipping the corner of his mouth.
“Show her the tramp stamp, babe!” Sierra hollered from the background.
“Shut the fuck up! You actually did it?!” I laughed.
For months, Dom had been joking about the only unclaimed territory left on his body being the strip of skin above his ass. So naturally, he decided to immortalize his girlfriend’s name there — like some kind of deranged property marker.
He even called it his tramp stamp of devotion. Said it was romantic. I said it was a cry for help.
Dom sounded far too proud of himself. “Hell yeah, I did. Go big or go home, right?”
“Big?” I snorted. “Dom, you got your girlfriend’s name tattooed above your ass. That’s not big. In some states, this would be considered a felony.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “It’s called commitment. You should try it sometime.”
“Classy,” Hunter commented flatly.
Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever seen two people who were more different than my brother and Hunter. Though on second thought, you could probably say the same about him and me.
The delusional part of me was still hoping he’d recognize me as his soulmate — something less dramatic would be acceptable, too — wouldn’t stop whispering that being different didn’t mean it was impossible.
Dom pointed at his phone like Hunter had won a prize. “See? Even Broodzilla gets it. Nothing says ‘I love you’ like permanently branding yourself.”
“Branding is for cattle,” Hunter deadpanned, tugging his hoodie over his head.
Dom smirked. “Yeah? Then what do you call all of your ink? You’ve got half a mural under there. Don’t act like you’re pure.”
Hunter’s eyes flicked up, slow and sharp. “None of that is random.”
This made me pause. The way he said it, low, steady, like a warning, sent a shiver crawling up my spine.
None of that is random .
Dom laughed, oblivious. “Sure, man. Bet one says ‘Live, Laugh, Love.’ Real deep stuff.”
“Not even close,” Hunter muttered, jaw tight as he turned away. His gaze flicked toward me for half a second, heat flickering behind those gray eyes, before it vanished.
My pulse jumped, and suddenly I was wondering what exactly the ink etched into his skin meant.
Hunter’s hand shot out and plucked the phone right out of my grasp like it belonged to him.
“Hunter!” I twisted toward him, grabbing for it, but his arm was a steel bar I couldn’t budge.
“Later,” he said flatly into the mic before ending the call with a decisive tap.
I shoved at his shoulder, straddling one knee over his thigh to get leverage. “You can’t just hang up on my brother because—”
“Because he’s annoying,” Hunter cut in, calmly.
“Hunter,” I hissed, my hair falling into my face as I stretched for the phone again. “Give it back.”
“Make me.” His voice was so low, I felt it more than I heard it.
My pulse spiked. “What did you just—”
He didn’t repeat himself. His arm stayed stretched out effortlessly while I scrambled on top of him like a desperate fool.
His free hand slid to my thigh, gripping just above my bare knee, where his rules said clothing didn’t exist.
My breath stuttered out. “Hunter…”
His thumb dragged in one slow stroke up my inner thigh. A spark detonated low in my stomach. The phone? Completely forgotten now.
“You were saying?” His mouth curved into something almost resembling a smile before his hand shot up to the back of my neck, pulling me forward until his lips brushed the shell of my ear.
The phone slipped from his grip and hit the floor with a dull thud as his other hand hooked behind my knee, yanking me fully onto his lap.