Chapter Eighteen
Hunter
Iwake up slowly, surfacing through layers of sleep as if I’m being dragged up from deep water. For one disorienting second, all I feel is warmth and the steady weight of a body beside me, and I hear the faint rustle of pages turning. Then memory crashes in, hard and merciless.
The shadow in the room.
The sickening sight of it looming over Dylan.
The stairs rushing up at me.
My knee throbs in time with my pulse, a dull reminder that I couldn’t.
I keep my eyes closed, not sure if I want to wake up fully or let sleep drag me back down. The room smells faintly of coffee and old wood. The bed creaks softly when Dylan shifts next to me.
I open my eyes and turn my head just enough to see him.
He’s propped against the headboard, one leg bent, a book resting on his knee.
His brow is slightly furrowed, his mouth relaxed.
There’s a small crease at the corner of his eye that wasn’t there when I knew him before.
He’s different from that smart-mouthed kid, but the same, too. I guess we both are.
I think of the shape in the darkness, standing too close to the bed. Too close to him. My stomach squeezes.
What if I hadn’t woken up?
What if stealing Matthew’s camera bag hadn’t been enough?
I clamp down hard on the spiral, but it’s too late. My throat tightens. Heat crawls up the back of my neck. The idea of someone touching Dylan, hurting him, killing him while I slept next to him, useless, turns my blood to ice.
I had been awake. I’d chased after the intruder, and he’d disappeared like a ghost before I tumbled down the stairs because my damned knee gave out.
Anger flares, eclipsing the fear of what could have happened, hot and without direction. At the intruder. At the situation. At myself. I grit my teeth until my jaw aches. I hate feeling weak.
Dylan turns a page, and the soft whisper fills the quiet, strangely soothing and achingly familiar.
How many Sunday afternoons had we spent at my house while my mother worked, with Dylan curled up next to me, reading a book while I watched football?
Too many to count. I’d never been happier than I was with him.
Then he was gone, and I’d been alone, wondering what the hell went wrong.
I’d moved on with my life. I was a kid back then, so of course I did.
My mother had enough to worry about. I didn’t want to add to it.
So I finished high school, went to the police academy, became a cop, and started building my life again.
I dated, got engaged. Did all the things I was supposed to.
Then I got shot and saw firsthand how weak the foundations of my life had really been.
I sigh. There’s no point in pretending anymore. The truth settles in my chest with unexpected calm.
I care about Dylan. I always have. Pretend relationship or not, danger or not, the line between then and now has been eroding since he walked into my office.
I forgot what this feels like. Not that I’d been unhappy before, but with Dylan, everything shifts from black and white to color. It would be so easy to love him again. And that terrifies me. I don’t know how I’ll go back after this.
I shift slightly, stretching my leg. My knee is stiff, but not sore. I’m back to the version of me since the shooting.
Dylan looks up, and his face softens when he sees I’m awake.
“Hey,” he says quietly. “How are you feeling?”
The concern etched into his features, real and unguarded, twists in the center of my chest. I clear my throat and smirk. “Like I got into a fight with a staircase and lost.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. “Staircases are known for their viciousness.”
I snort despite myself, then immediately regret it when I feel a twinge in my knee. Dylan notices—he always notices—and frowns.
He sets the book aside and shifts closer, careful not to jostle me. “Your pain meds are due in about half an hour,” he says. “I can grab them.”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, then sigh. “I mean, yeah, okay. In half an hour.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes searching my face. “You okay otherwise?”
Not, how’s your knee. Not, do you need anything? Otherwise.
I look away, staring at the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster form a jagged line that reminds me unpleasantly of the stair railing.
“I was a jerk earlier,” I say.
Dylan blinks. “You were exhausted and worried. We both were.”
“Still, I’m sorry,” I mutter.
Silence settles heavily between us, not uncomfortable, per se, but loaded with all the things we need to say.
I force myself to keep going. “I shut you out. I could feel myself doing it, and I did it anyway.”
He shrugs. “You’re frustrated.”
That’s putting it mildly. I tip my head back, and my gaze meets his. “The lines are blurring,” I admit. “Between what’s real and what’s not. Between us.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Hope, maybe. Or hesitation. Maybe both.
“For me too,” he says carefully. “For a while now.”
I shift so I’m sitting up against the headboard, mirroring Dylan. “That’s a problem,” I say, even though I don’t want it to be.
Dylan exhales. “If this is about playing at being together—”
“It’s more than that,” I cut in. I hesitate for a moment, then launch into what I’ve been feeling before I can change my mind. “Last night, when I saw someone in the room... all I could think about was him getting to you.”
Dylan stills.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” I continue, words coming faster now, like a dam crumbling. “What could’ve happened? What could he have done, and I couldn’t stop him? I couldn’t even catch him because of my knee giving out.”
“That wasn’t your fault,” Dylan says immediately. “Besides, I’m not exactly helpless here. It’s not your job to protect me.”
“I know that logically,” I tell him. “But logic doesn’t mean much when I can’t stop thinking of all the ways that situation could have turned bad.”
Dylan shifts closer, and his shoulder is warm against mine. “But it didn’t go bad. You woke up, chased him out, and got hurt doing it. Hell, you even had the forethought to copy Matthew’s files to your computer, so stealing the camera bag was for nothing. All in all, I count it as a win.”
I look at him, really look at him, and the sincerity in his gaze steals my breath.
“There’s something else,” I say. My pulse pounds in my ears. “This act between us... sleeping together... maybe we need to stop. It’s starting to feel too real.” The words taste wrong the second they leave my mouth.
Dylan’s eyes slide to me, his expression inscrutable. “You don’t want it to be real.”
I do, more than anything, but there is no going back. “I don’t know how to do this halfway with you. I never have with you, and if I let myself want this, want you, then I lose you all over again when it’s over.”
He’s quiet for a long moment, then he smiles, soft and a little amazed. “You know, being your pretend boyfriend has been the best time I’ve had in a long time.”
My heart stutters. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m really not,” he says. “The fake part was supposed to be the cover. Somewhere along the way, it just stopped feeling fake.”
I swallow hard. “When this is over—”
“If,” he corrects gently.
“When this is over,” I repeat, stubbornly, “what happens to us?”
He sighs softly and leans closer. His hair tickles my cheek. “Maybe we just... keep seeing each other. No more pretending.”
I study his face, waiting for the catch. Waiting for him to take it back.
The room feels too small all of a sudden, too warm, charged with possibility.
“You’d want that?” I need to hear him say it.
“More than anything,” he says, no hesitation.
His words knock the last of my defenses loose. Something inside me shifts, painful and satisfying all at once. A release.
“Okay,” I say, breath unsteady. “Okay.”
Somewhere in the inn, a floorboard creaks. For a second, we both go still.
He reaches for me, giving me plenty of time to pull away. I don’t. His fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt, his grip firm and grounding, and when he kisses me, it’s unhurried, certain. His mouth is warm, familiar, and my chest aches.
I lean onto my side and pull him against me. The kiss deepens, but there’s no rush, no desperation.
“Your knee,” he murmurs against my lips.
“I’m good.” Really, I’m so wrapped up in his taste, his touch, I barely think of my knee. Hell, I’m barely aware of anything else.
His thigh slides between mine, and I instinctively grind my cock, already hard and straining against my sweatpants, into him. I let out a low groan. The friction, his fingers tangled in my hair, and the kiss growing hungrier and more desperate by the second are driving me half out of my mind.
We break apart long enough to strip. Dylan settles on his back, and I brace myself over him, mindful of my knee.
“Tell me if your knee—” Dylan starts.
“I will,” I promise.
My mouth finds his again. We kiss deeply, slowly, intimately, in a way that makes my throat swell with emotion. My lips move over his jaw, down his throat. His skin is warm and tastes faintly of salt, and his scent, clean pine, teases my senses, fueling my growing hunger.
I work my way down his flat, muscled stomach, letting my tongue trace the grooves between his abs. Dylan groans helplessly. His hips lift, and the tip of his straining cock grazes my collarbone.
I grin and look up, but he doesn’t notice. His eyes are closed, head tipped back against the pillows, and his body strains with need.
“You’re beautiful,” I say, the words slipping out before I can stop them. Not because they’re untrue. Dylan is the most beautiful man I’ve ever known. But it’s not exactly poetry. I’ve never been great at expressing my feelings.
Dylan’s eyes flutter open. His gaze locks with mine. “You too. So beautiful.”
My face heats up, and my chest squeezes. I dip my head and suck his cock into my mouth.
“Fuck,” he gasps. His hands grip my hair, and my scalp stings, sending a fresh wave of need rolling through me.
I continue to work him with my mouth, fast and hard, until he’s writhing beneath me.
I pull back long enough to slick my fingers with lube so I can start to work open his hole.
By the time I add a second finger, Dylan is begging me to fuck him.
I pull off his cock. “Soon,” I promise.
“Now, please,” he whimpers, the sound going straight to my already aching dick. I’m desperate to get inside, but I won’t risk hurting him. “I can’t hang on.”
“I think you can.” I scissor my finger, stretching him and earning another needy groan that singes my nerve endings. But I give his cock a break, mouthing his tight, round balls instead.
“Holy shit!” Dylan’s fingers tighten in my hair. “Please. I’m ready. I am.”
I ease back and roll a condom onto my cock. My knee is stiff, but it doesn’t hurt. Not that I’d notice if it did. I’m too focused on Dylan and the hunger gnawing inside me.
I shuffle closer, making sure my good knee is taking most of my weight, and ease his knees over my shoulders, rolling him back onto his back. The tip of my cock is positioned at the edge of his entrance.
“Yes, finally. Fuck me,” Dylan says, voice rasping with a frantic edge.
I grin, sinking into his perfect, tight heat slowly. Once I’m all the way in, I wait, straining and shaking, while I give him time to adjust before I start to move. It doesn’t take us long to find our rhythm.
I’m lost in the heat of him, and I feel my balls draw tight. I’m close already. I take his cock in hand and stroke him until he lets out a ragged moan and spurts across his stomach and chest. Then I follow him over the edge.
Afterward, we lie tangled in each other’s limbs, the world narrowed to the quiet room and the rhythm of our breathing. Dylan’s fingers trace idle patterns on my chest, and for the first time since I woke, the memory of the shadow loosens its grip.
Whatever came before, Dylan is back. And this time, I don’t want to lose him. It doesn’t erase the danger we’re facing, or fix everything that’s broken. But it feels like a beginning, and for now, that’s enough.