Chapter 68
Hunter
My heart is somewhere in my fucking throat.
And there is pain.
Or maybe that’s not it.
Maybe it’s my chest.
My stomach.
My bloody head.
I don’t even know anymore.
The ache is everywhere.
Beating, fucking pounding, gnawing at me.
I spent the entire game trying to keep myself in check.
I really did.
But now that we’re alone, everything I’ve been holding back is closing in.
Crushing me beneath its weight.
Swallowing feels wrong, breathing feels wrong.
Everything feels bloody wrong.
My fists clench, unclench, then clench again.
I keep repeating the same maddening cycle.
Clench.
Unclench.
Clench.
Clench.
Clench.
Unfucking clench.
Again.
Again.
Fucking again.
I try to hold on to that control I so desperately love, so desperately need right now more than ever.
But it’s impossible.
Because I have a feeling.
And I’m usually right when I have them.
Those feelings, I mean.
And I fucking hate that.
For once in my life, I’d like to be wrong.
Go fucking figure.
But I know it.
I know it in my damn soul.
I’m not.
Wrong.
“I’ll ask again,” I say, my voice darker than I’ve ever heard it. “What the actual fuck, Piper?”
She turns to look at me.
Her beautiful fucking face.
Those hazel eyes now full of tears.
And fuck me if it doesn’t feel like a blade straight through the chest.
No.
Through the back.
I don’t even fucking know anymore.
Maybe both.
It’s as though I’m being stabbed from every direction at once.
And in a way, I did this.
I did this to myself.
Didn’t I?
With my own fucked up obsession for this girl.
The girl who was always forbidden.
She told me.
I should’ve listened.
She told me that from the start.
She never fucking lied about it.
So can I really be angry?
She said it herself.
That one day I’d find out and hate her.
She said she couldn’t.
That we couldn’t.
That she shouldn’t.
That we shouldn’t.
And still, for some reason, I pushed.
I chased something I can’t even fucking name.
I look at her.
She’s retreated somewhere deep inside herself.
A tear escapes. My eyes follow its path down her cheek, over those beautiful freckles.
I can’t fucking watch this.
I move past her and grab the glass from the bedside table, draining it in a few gulps as I try to get a hold of myself.
Then I turn back to her.
“Tell me the lie.”
“There is no lie,” she whispers.
My chest tightens.
When had it ever done that before?
Never.
Fucking never.
I don’t do pain. I don’t let that disease, that weakness, invade my body.
So why the fuck is it happening now?
A crack echoes through the room.
She gasps and takes a step towards me before stopping short.
Ah, the glass.
I never set it down.
I lower my eyes to my hand and find blood spreading across my palm, slipping between my fingers before dripping onto the floor, where shards of glass now lie scattered at my feet.
I lift my head and look back at her.
“So,” I say, breaking the silence, “do you fuck him after you let me fuck you?”
She flinches, but keeps her head high.
“You have no right,” she says, “to disrespect me like that.”
Another tear rolls down her cheek.
“But do you?” I roar, all that hard won control finally snapping.
And thank fuck the music downstairs is loud.
“Do you fuck him? Is he taking what’s mine? Does he put his filthy fucking hands on my body?!”
I take a step, then another. Until I’m standing right in front of her.
She says nothing.
“Better question,” I say with a bitter laugh. “Are you cheating on me, or are you cheating on him?”
She just keeps looking at me.
Fuck that.
I cup her face in my hands.
“Answer me,” I grit out. “Are you fucking married, Piper? Is that what you just confessed?”
She says fucking nothing.
I close my eyes and press my forehead to hers, my hands still framing her face.
“Yes,” she finally whispers.
And there it is.
It bloody hurts.
A lot.
“Who?” I grit out. “Who is the soon to be dead man? Tell me now. The sooner I make you a widow, the better for my bloody sanity.”
“I can’t tell you that,” she answers so easily.
And somehow that only makes me angrier.
The very next second, I crush my mouth to hers. One hand grips the back of her head as I kiss her with all the frustration, anger, and desperation that rips through me.
“You’re mine,” I whisper into the kiss.
I take her lower lip between my teeth and bite hard.
“Fucking mine.”
I pull back and search her eyes.
But is she really?
I release her and put a few feet between us before turning towards the door.
“Hunter,” she says.
I don’t turn.
“Do you love him?” I need to know. The not knowing is fucking killing me.
She stays quiet for one long, agonising minute.
Or perhaps it’s only seconds that feel like minutes. Maybe they’re merely a few bloody seconds that feel like an eternity.
“No,” she finally whispers.
I wrench the door open and leave. I need out.
Away from her. Away from the bane of my existence.
I’ve just found out that the woman who’s become my every waking thought is married.
Bloody married.
But she’s mine.
At least, that’s what I’ve told myself.
The truth is, she never was.
I get into the car and speed through the dark, snow covered roads.
Fuck this.