Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
LOLA
Song- Sin So Sweet, Warren Zeiders
By the time he’s finished cleaning the wound on my hand and wrapping it in a bandage so carefully you’d think he was handling porcelain, the shaking has stopped.
I’m not scared here. The adrenaline has nosedived and left behind an exhaustion so deep it’s settled into my bones.
“Hunter?” I call out, wandering from the living room.
My hip really hurts.
I find him in the kitchen. Standing at the stove with his back to me, stirring a small pan with the kind of concentration most men reserve for engines and power tools.
He’s making me hot chocolate. The real kind. Melted dark chocolate into warm milk in a pan. Just how I like it, though I don’t remember telling him that.
He just gets me. Without having to say the words.
I lean against the doorframe and smile. It’s the first real one in hours.
“Yes, baby?” He turns to face me, still stirring.
“Please, could I use your shower? Maybe grab one of your T-shirts?” I tug at the hem of my bloodied top. “I can’t go home to Violet looking like I’ve been on set at a horror movie.”
I laugh. But it hurts. Everything hurts.
And the truth I’m not saying out loud is that I’m scared to go home. Reese owns that building. He has the keys. He could walk in any time he wanted.
Hunter turns off the gas and crosses his arms. Leans back against the counter and studies me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“You can shower, yeah.” He nods once. “Then you’ll be getting into my bed and sleeping there. And in the morning, you’ll be waking up in my arms. I’ll make you breakfast, and then I’ll go with you to your apartment and pack up all of yours and Violet’s stuff, and you’ll be moving here.”
I frown. My mouth opens and closes. My brain is trying to process the sheer volume of decisions this man has just made on my behalf in the space of a single breath.
“I—I can’t just expect you to house us. I’ve got a viewing for a place on Monday.”
I stop talking because he’s already moving.
He crosses the kitchen in three strides and presses his finger gently against my lips.
“Lola. You’re staying right here, on this ranch, with me.
And Violet, she’s going to have her own place on the land in one of my guesthouses.
” His voice is calm; anyone would think he’s reciting facts instead of upending my entire life.
“I can’t sleep at night knowing you two are out there alone when I have all of this to keep you safe.
So please. Come and live at Sterling Ranch. ”
I open my mouth to argue, and he grins. He already knows what I’m going to say. “And no. Not until you find somewhere else, firefly. I know what you’re thinking.” He motions between us. “This is not a temporary thing. Alright?”
I place my hands flat against his chest. Feel the steady thud of his heart under my palm. And I look up at him, this time really looking at him.
This is the man who was arrested yesterday. Who lost the mother of his child. Who has every reason to shut the world out and barricade himself inside his grief. And instead, he’s standing in his kitchen at midnight, making me hot chocolate and offering me a home.
“I have one question to ask you first.” My voice is quiet. “And you aren’t going to like it. But I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me the truth.”
He nods. “Shoot.”
“Did you kill your ex-girlfriend?”
His eyes close. Just briefly. A flicker of pain crosses his face that’s so raw it makes my chest ache. But then he opens them again, and he looks at me.
Not through me. Not past me. Not at the wall over my shoulder.
Directly into my soul.
“I didn’t. And I’m going to prove that I didn’t. I’d never do that to Wyatt.”
I smile and cup his cheek with my bandaged hand. “Then I believe you.”
He takes my hand and presses a kiss against my knuckles so gently it barely touches the skin. “I’d never hurt you, city girl. Never.”
“Goes both ways, cowboy,” I tell him. Because part of me believes he needs to hear that too.
He’s guarded, I know that much.
And when he leans in and kisses me, every single doubt swirling around in my head dissolves. His lips are warm and slow and impossibly careful, like he’s making a point of showing me what a man’s hands should feel like. What they should do. How they should hold instead of hurt.
“Now,” he murmurs against my mouth, “let me show you to your new room and test how you like the bath.”
I don’t get a chance to respond. He lifts me into his arms, my legs wrap around his waist, and my hands lock behind his neck.
“Hunter Sterling.” I pull back to look at him. “Do you ever let your women walk anywhere?”
His face changes. The playfulness drops away, and something serious takes its place.
“I don’t do this. Ever.” He holds my gaze. “You are my woman.”
That makes me smile. And it takes some of the pain away, not all of it, not even most of it, but enough. He makes me forget why I’m running.
Because to him, I’m Lola. The city girl who tripped on a rock and fell into his arms at a birthday party.
Not Lola Jackson, the fashion heiress. The model. The influencer.
Just Lola.
He carries me up the stairs like I weigh nothing and nudges open the bedroom door with his shoulder. He stops in the doorway so I can see it.
“Now this…” he whispers against my ear, “is where lots of research will be conducted.”
I stare at the four-poster bed. The dark wooden walls. The white rug that contrasts with the floor and the warm lighting pooling from the bedside lamps. It’s masculine and clean and beautiful in a way that feels entirely like him.
He closes the door with his foot and carries me through to the ensuite.
My jaw drops.
It’s the size of my entire apartment. A built-in bath that looks like a hot tub, deep enough to disappear into. A waterfall shower with stone tiles. A TV mounted on the wall, because apparently, this man can’t go ten minutes without an option to watch something.
“This is pretty awesome,” I tell him.
He smiles. And it’s the kind of smile that reaches his eyes, softens the hard edges of his jaw, and makes me forget, just for a second, that the world outside this room is on fire.
“Yeah. It is. I love this place.”
I look at him. Standing in the doorway of his bathroom, this enormous, tattooed cowboy who carries a gun to his own front door and makes hot chocolate from scratch. The one who just offered me a place to live without a single condition attached.
He sets me down on the edge of the bath and starts running it. A concoction of different bubble baths gets thrown in one after the other, and the steam rises up carrying lavender and something sweet I can’t name.
It smells divine.
“Do you have any bath bombs?”
He tilts his head like I just asked an alien question. “No. You want some? I’ll stock up.”
“I’ll be fine without, cowboy.”
I bite back a smile as his fingers find the hem of my top, and I lift my arms. My eyes squeeze shut as pain fires across my ribs and a hiss escapes through my teeth.
He peels it off gently.
“Stand,” he orders softly, and helps me to my feet.
With a careful touch, he peels off my leggings and panties. I look down as his eyes land on the bruise blooming across my hip, purple and angry and spreading under my skin.
My breath catches as he leans in and presses his lips there. A kiss so delicate it barely makes contact. Like he’s trying to undo the damage with his mouth.
I feel so broken. So weak. And yet, when he looks up at me from his knees, I still feel beautiful.
Using his shoulders for support, I step out of the last of my clothes. One leg, then the other. Leaving me completely bare. Completely exposed.
He stands. Runs his hands through my hair, pushing it back from my face. But he doesn’t make another move. I can feel his brain working, the gears turning behind those dark eyes, the internal negotiation between what he wants and what he thinks I need.
“Why am I the only one naked?” I ask.
He smiles and clears his throat. “I’m assessing how to behave.”
That makes me laugh. He’s cute. “Why? Just be you. That’s kinda why I like you, Hunter.”
He takes a deep breath. And when he exhales, something shifts behind his expression. A door opens that he’s been holding shut. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Lola. A lot of shit you might want to run from.”
I bite down on the inside of my mouth. My fingers find his belt.
“Hunter… I’m quite aware you aren’t just a ranch owner.
” I hold his gaze. “You do bad things, and people are scared of you. I don’t care about that.
All I care about is who you are to me. I want the real Hunter.
That’s all. The one you’ve shown me so far. ”
He nods slowly, taking in every word.
“So don’t assess how you think you should act. Just do it. Show me who you are.” I pause. “And in return, I won’t hide who I am from you either.”
He runs his tongue along his teeth. “Sounds like you’re tryin’ to negotiate there.”
I look up at him through my lashes. “I am. Now what do you really want to do with me while I’m standing here, buck ass naked in your bathroom?”
A low groan escapes him as I cup his hard dick through his jeans.
“I wanna taste your sweet pussy, firefly. I want to watch you suck my dick. I want to hear you cry out my goddamn name.” His voice drops.
“Mine. I want to come inside you. Make you mine. Tie you up. Spank you. Choke you. Make you cry tears of pleasure, not tears of pain.” He pauses, his jaw flexing. “Fuck. I want everything with you.”
My cheeks burn. My thighs press together. I can’t stand this a second longer. “And you aren’t doing any of that because…”
His fingers trace along my collarbone. Then they wrap around my neck. Just enough to turn me on. To make me more desperate for this man.
This is what I need. Not to feel like some weak girl who ran to him. Not to feel like a burden in his home. I don’t want to feel Reese’s hands on me. I want Hunter’s. All over me. Everywhere.