12. Maddison
Maddison
I don’t speak. And it’s not because Hugo almost crushed my windpipe. I simply have no words for how I feel –no words except one. Safe. I feel safer than I’ve felt in my entire life.
Reid drives us home while Mace follows in the car I borrowed.
Hunter sits next to me in the back, his arm around my shoulder as I rest my head against his chest. I reach for his free hand and wipe at the russet-colored smears on his palm.
Hugo’s blood turns to dust. I haven’t asked what happened after I left.
When we reach the house, Hunter leads me straight towards my bedroom.
“What do we tell Ash?” Reid asks, waiting for instructions by the entrance.
Hunter rakes his fingers through his hair. “Let’s get some eyes on Ray Forsyth first. According to Hugo, he’s sniffing out opportunities in Lancelyn Heights. It could be important. That’s what we tell Ash.”
Hunter’s about to usher me into my bedroom, but I hesitate.
His brothers are watching, and even Mace’s usually guarded gaze reveals a hint of concern that I doubt he wants me to notice.
“Thank you both for today,” I tell them, gulping past my sore throat.
“I don’t know how you found me, or realized what a stupid position I’d put myself in, but…
” It’s emotion clogging my throat now. “Thank you.”
“I’ll ask Connie to make you one of her special concoctions,” Reid says. “They’re quite potent, but they work.”
Mace adjusts his features into a more familiar scowl. “Just don’t drive afterwards. Anywhere .”
“Don’t worry, I don’t intend to sneak off again,” I reply, accepting the reproach. I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m not leaving Hunter’s side if I can help it.
Mace shrugs. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Liar,” I say, sharing a smile with Reid because Mace is already walking away.
Once I’m in my bedroom, Hunter makes me sit on the bed. I’m expecting him to tell me to get some sleep, or order me to stay in my room out of trouble, but instead of leaving me to stew in my own stupidity, he disappears into the bathroom. I hear him running a bath.
I close my eyes and explore my abdomen with tentative fingers. Hugo has perfected his punches over the years, hitting hard, but not hard enough to require medical attention. I’m sure he just likes hearing the grunt of air forced from my lungs with each hit. But experience was my teacher too.
“Is it bad?” asks Hunter.
He’s resting against the bathroom doorframe, his shirt sleeves rolled up as he watches me.
I shrug. “It was only two hits,” I say. “And I know how to tense at just the right time to lessen the blow.”
Seeing the lines that crease Hunter’s brow is worse than any injury. It’s like a stab to the heart, and a sure sign that I’m feeling more for this man than is good for me. I lean forward to unbuckle my sandals, clenching my jaw as I breathe through the pain that ripples through my bruised abdomen.
A shadow falls over me. “Let me do that,” Hunter says, crouching down.
“Is Hugo still alive?” I ask as he pulls off my sandal and massages my foot.
“For now,” Hunter says without looking up. “But I can’t promise for how long.” He takes off my other shoe, then stills. “I know I said I wasn’t one of the bad guys, but I’m not a good guy either, Maddie.”
I cup Hunter’s cheek, inviting him to lift his head. “You’re good to me, and that’s enough.” It’s more than enough. No one has ever been this good to me before.
When Hunter leans towards me, my eyes close and my lips part, but he plants his kiss on my forehead, leaving me wanting. I’m losing hope that he’ll ever kiss me properly again, but when he pulls me to my feet and leads me to the bathroom, he makes no attempt to leave.
The room is filled with wild mint and lemon scented steam, and the bath is full of bubbles. Hunter checks the temperature and adds a little more hot water. Once he’s satisfied, he stalks back to where I wait for him, completely under his spell.
His smile has a touch of a smirk as he starts unbuttoning my cotton shirt.
He’s waiting for me to object to this level of intimacy.
I don’t. I let him strip me to my underwear, and when I simply wait, he unhooks my bra.
His knuckles brush against the curve of my breasts, but he doesn’t play with my nipples. They harden anyway.
Hunter crouches down to pull down my panties, and as I wriggle out of them, I’m aware of how wet I am.
Hunter leans closer as if he knows too, but he doesn’t lick or taste me, or do any of those things I want him to do with his tongue.
Instead, he kisses the reddened marks on my belly that are deepening into bruises.
I go to thread my fingers through his hair, but he straightens up, and my attempt to guide his kisses lower fails.
“Bath,” he orders, taking my hand.
He helps me into the bath, and I sink into the warm suds. My aches start to ease, but other muscles contract as I take in the man standing over me. Hunter circles the edge of the bath, moving out of sight where he thinks I won’t see how he’s reacting to my bath-time.
He lifts up my hair, keeping it out of the water as I sink a little deeper. “Do you want to get your hair wet?”
“It doesn’t matter, everywhere else is wet.”
My words hit their mark, and there’s a soft groan from behind me as Hunter sinks to his knees.
He drapes my hair over the bath and grabs a loofah. “I thought you were running back to Hugo,” he confesses as he lifts one of my arms and begins washing me. “It crossed my mind that you might use what you’ve learned of our plans against us.”
I entwine my fingers in his briefly. “I’d never betray you. And if ever I had to run, it would be in the opposite direction to Hugo.”
“Unless he was standing next to a fucking library,” Hunter growls as he moves his attention to my other arm. “You put yourself in harm’s way for a load of dusty books for fuck’s sake. Haven’t you got an App on your phone, or something?”
It would seem Hunter hasn’t completely let go of the anger I’d felt radiating off him when he’d appeared over Hugo’s shoulder.
My twisted brain had leapt to the assumption that he was angry with me, but this grumbling man behind me is not a monster.
Or if he is, then I am too. I’d wanted him to slice Hugo’s throat right there in front of me.
“It’s not the same when I read on my cell phone,” I say with an easy smile despite my dark thoughts. “I was missing the smell of real books.”
Hunter sweeps my hair from the side of my face, and uses the loofah to gently graze my neck before moving it lower. I feel his breath next to my ear. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
Heat pools at my center, and I ignore the pain from my bruised abdomen as I draw my legs up. I pull the loofah from Hunter’s hand and drop it over the side of the bath. It’s his hands I want on me, and I guide his fingers to my peaked nipples.
Lips press against the sensitive skin beneath my ear as Hunter palms my breasts, his fingers kneading my flesh.
“I only came in here to bathe you,” he whispers.
I turn my head, searching out his lips. “That might have been what your head was thinking, but it looked like your cock had other ideas when you helped me into the bath.”
He offers just one tender kiss. “My dick has a mind of its own.”
“So do I,” I warn. “Get in the bath, Hunter.”
“Maddie…”
“Hugo told me that little birds get their necks snapped, but I’ve never felt as strong as I do with you,” I say. “That’s how much you’re ruining me, Hunter. Now get in.”
Hunter snatches his hands away, and I lose the warmth of his touch.
I sit up, tucking my knees under my chin, too scared to turn around.
I’m expecting to hear the door close behind me, but instead I hear the snap of cotton as Hunter tugs off his shirt with half the buttons still fastened.
I press a satisfied smile to my knees when I hear his belt unbuckle.
Items of clothing flutter to the floor one by one.
“Scoot up,” he says in a gravelly voice from high above me.
As I slide forward, he steps into the bath.
His legs stretch out on either side of me and his thighs press tight against my hips.
He wraps an arm around my waist and tugs me back into him.
I ignore the jolt of pain he accidentally causes, and concentrate on the delicious discomfort of his erection pressing against my spine.
His mouth returns to the side of my neck and he laps up the moisture on my damp skin. “He didn’t break you.”
“And neither will you.”
“I’m not going to–”
Anger flares. “For pity’s sake, will you stop telling me what you refuse to do, and concentrate on what you can do,” I snap.
Hunter chuckles, and his warm breath cools my skin. “I think someone needs help relaxing.”
“Then help me.”
He trails his fingers along my hips and down the sides of my thighs. “Lift your legs onto mine,” he whispers. When I do as I’m told, he moves a hand to my center and it disappears beneath the suds. “Good girl.”
I press my head against Hunter’s chest and close my eyes as I absorb the sensation of a hand that isn’t mine breaching the seam of my pussy. When his fingers press against my clit, my body jerks and I let out a whimper.
“Has anyone else ever made you come?” he asks as he rubs lazy circles around my swollen bud.
I grab hold of the sides of the bath. “No.”
Hunter palms my breast with his free hand while pressing the hard ridge of his cock against my back. His teeth nip at my neck. “Then I should warn you, this is where you get to scream my name, little bird.”
A moan vibrates against my pursed lips, and I’m lost in the sensation of his gentle thrusts against my back while I grind against his hand. When he pinches my nipple, I let out a cry of shock. “Hunter!”
“That’s more like it,” he says. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“Heat,” I say. His fingers at my center press harder and move faster. “So much heat deep inside me.” I stutter out a low moan. “And it just… It keeps building.”
Bath water rolls in waves, hitting my chest and splashing over the side of the tub. Hunter’s fingers creep lower. His thumb works me into a frenzy while his fingers press at my entrance.
“I want you inside me,” I plead. “I need you to invade me like you promised.”
Hunter groans against my shoulder. “That wasn’t a promise and you know it.”
“To hell with what it was. I want to feel a part of you inside me.”
His fingers remain tantalizingly close, but he refuses to enter me even as I jerk my hips forward. His other hand moves around the back of my thigh, and he lifts me slightly so he can slide his hand beneath me.
“You should be careful what you wish for,” he teases as a finger glides down the crease of my ass to press against my tight ring of muscle. And he keeps pressing until there’s a sting and his fingertip slips inside me.
“Not what I was expecting,” I say on a gasp, but I go with the ripples of pleasure that have my body trembling along with the bath water .
“Relax for a second,” he says as he pushes his finger a little deeper. “You’re doing so well.”
I release a shuddering breath when he’s knuckle deep inside me.
It’s an odd sensation, but it’s intimacy on a level I’ve never experienced before and my pussy throbs.
I begin grinding against his other hand as his fingers draw a figure of eight around my clit.
Tingles travel up and down my body, and I pant through the coiling pressure that tightens and tightens in my core.
As Hunter fucks me with his fingers, he presses his iron-hard cock against my back. I lean forward so I can slip my hand between us.
Hunter sucks my earlobe as my fist wraps around his shaft. “Take your hand away, Maddie,” he orders.
“But you need–”
“All I need is to hear you come,” he insists. When I rub my thumb over his crown, he hisses. “Do as you’re fucking told.”
When I don’t move fast enough, he pinches my clit just hard enough to send more tingles shooting up my spine. I yelp, then raise my arms up and over my shoulders so I can wrap them around his neck.
As Hunter’s hands work my body, I fall into a hypnotic rhythm, moving against him and through the warm water that caresses my skin. The water gets choppier, my breathing louder as his hands work faster. I don’t know how long I’ll be able to last. I can’t last.
“Hunter,” I moan as ripples of pleasure build into an unstoppable wave.
“Come for me, Maddie.”
My teeth clench, and I can only nod. Intense heat radiates from where his fingers invade and pleasure me, rising up through my belly as I clench and jerk at his touch.
My breath catches in my throat as a white-hot rush sweeps through me.
I tip back my head and release a guttural cry.
And there’s only one man’s name on my lips.
“Hunter!” I scream. “Oh… Just… Oh, my god!”
On and on it goes, taking me with it. I dig my fingers into his neck just to stop myself from floating away.
When the wave slowly recedes, Hunter keeps his finger inside me, and his other hand continues to apply pressure to my clit.
He isn’t going to stop. He shows no mercy as he keeps rubbing and massaging and teasing.
I’ve only just caught my breath when another wave hits me, and I don’t think I can stand it.
I know I can’t as my next orgasm hits and Hunter pulls his finger out of my ass, adding a whole new level to the sensations rushing through me.
“Hunter!” I scream as every bone in my body dissolves.
Strong arms wrap around my ruined body, and as I collapse against him, I begin to sob. I don’t know why exactly I’m crying. I just need to, and Hunter lets me weep until the water goes cold.