“What happened to the music?” he asked, crooking a brow as he finally noticed the silence in the room.
I shrugged and affected a nonchalant tone. “I don’t know. It stopped all of a sudden while I was in there,” I said, gesturing toward the bathroom. “Maybe your battery died?”
He went and picked up the decoy phone, frowning as he turned it over in his hand. “Huh. That’s weird. It was on full battery just an hour ago.”
“I’ve heard Spotify can really drain phones,” I said in a sympathetic tone. “If you want, you can log in on mine instead?”
Hunter put the phone down and looked back at me, eyes dark and lips slightly parted. For a second I thought he knew everything, and he was about to choke me until I gave his real phone back. Instead he stepped closer and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, making me shiver.
“It’s fine. We both know I didn’t really come here to eat pizza and listen to music,” he said, leaning down so his mouth was only inches from mine.
Suddenly I was shaking where I stood, utterly terrified of where this was leading to. I knew it was all part of the plan, and I thought I could handle a few simple kisses, but now that it was actually about to happen, an alarm bell was ringing in my mind, begging me to stop.
No one had ever kissed me or touched me before. Not unless you counted…. no, I wasn’t going to think about that. I couldn’t.
Hunter suddenly pulled back, face clouding over. “Wait… I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
My forehead wrinkled. “Why not?”
He sat down on the end of my bed and sighed as he ran a hand through his hair. “Because it’s not true,” he replied. “You were right.”
“Right about what?”
“What you said on Monday. I’ve treated you like shit ever since you arrived here, and it’s all because you make me feel…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
I sat down next to him, brows lifting. “Feel what?”
“Like I’m spinning out of control,” he muttered. “You’re so fucking beautiful, Laney. So smart. So perfect. I’ve never met anyone like you before, and it drives me fucking crazy.”
My eyes went wide as saucers. “Oh,” I whispered. I wasn’t expecting that.
Hunter looked over at me and let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Laney. So sorry.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned forward. “When you came up to me the other day, and you were brave enough to be honest with me about how you felt around me, I realized I needed to step up and do the same. Stop being such a fucking coward and admit the truth. Not just to you, but to myself. And the truth is, I’ve been a real piece of shit.”
I raised my brows. “Yeah, I guess you have.”
“I’ve tormented you. Set you up. Done fucking horrible things.”
“I know. I was there,” I said. “I just never understood why. That’s part of the reason I went up to you and asked to hang out with you. I wanted you to tell me why.”
He let out another deep sigh. “I guess you remind me of a time in my life when things were bad,” he said softly.
My brows pinched together. “Why?” I asked. “Do I look like someone who hurt you?”
He averted his eyes from mine again. “Something like that, yeah. I can’t really explain. Not now. But I want you to know I’m sorry. I know it was wrong to treat you so badly, and I want to start making it up to you,” he said. “So that’s the real reason I agreed to come here tonight. That’s why I brought you those corny fucking flowers and chocolates. I know it’s practically nothing, but I figured it’s a start. One I don’t really deserve, but hey… you were nice enough to give me a chance.”
I swallowed thickly. “I guess I was, yeah.”
He swiveled his body on the bed so that he was directly facing me. Then he touched his hand to my chin and tilted it up so that I was looking right into his eyes. “I know you have no reason to trust me or believe me, but I swear, from here on out, I’m going to do everything I can to show you how sorry I am.”
“Okay,” I murmured. By now I was reeling with shock and confusion. I had no idea this evening would take such a drastic turn.
“Do you believe me?” Hunter asked, eyes widening slightly.
For a moment—a brief, foolish moment—I knew he was telling me the truth. I just knew. But that had nothing to do with common sense or logic. After everything he’d done to me, I had no reason to believe this wasn’t some sort of trick.
“I… I don’t know,” I said, my voice scarcely above a whisper.
He reached out to stroke my cheek, his touch gentler than I ever thought was possible for a guy like him. “Please believe me, Laney. I’ll do anything to prove it.”
He looked so earnest, so genuinely remorseful. His fingertips on my skin ignited something inside me, burning right to my core, and in that moment, I began to believe him. Began to believe in us.
All those conflicting things I felt when he was around… they made sense now. I wasn’t crazy or broken. There was actually something real here. Something we both needed.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I believe you.”
Hunter breathed a sigh of relief and pulled me closer to him. His cologne filled my head, all woodsy and spicy, so masculine it made my heart flutter and my limbs turn weak and boneless. My skin was hot all over, burning with a mixture of fear and need, but when Hunter put one hand on my chin and tilted my face up to look at him again, all the fear evaporated.
There was such sincerity in his passionate gaze that I couldn’t help but surrender to it. It made me feel alive in a way I had never experienced before, and for the first time since the incident four years ago, I didn’t feel a scrap of dread or reticence about having a man’s hands on me. Instead I felt strong, like I was finally regaining a few scraps of the power my piano teacher stole from me all those years ago.
I wanted Hunter to kiss me. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him to feel me, hold me, stay with me through the night.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I know I don’t deserve it.”
I thought he might kiss me then, but instead he pulled me into another tight hug, letting my chin rest on his shoulder.
I let out a contented sigh, and then I happened to dart my eyes to the right, where my dressing table stood on the other side of the room. I wanted to see the two of us reflected in the mirror; wanted to see how well we fit together.
That was when I saw it—the tiny little smirk turning Hunter’s lips up at the corners. And then I knew. I felt the awful truth rippling down my spine, raising the little hairs on the back of my neck.
I was right earlier. He was lying. Playing with me.
For some reason—a reason that still eluded me—Hunter had chosen me as his prey from the first moment he saw me, and tonight was just another part of that. The dramatic irony of that statement wasn’t lost on me, either. Hunter. Prey.
People like him often used gifts and endearing words to soften up their targets—like the flowers, chocolate, and heartfelt speech I received earlier. They did this to lull their target into a false sense of security so that they’d never see it coming when they finally decided to pounce and destroy them.
And look how easily you fell for it, I imagined him saying to me once he had his way with me. Look how stupid and pathetic you are. So desperate for love you’d believe anything.
My heart hammered as my whole body started to shake with adrenaline. On the back of it all rode a dark wave of anger. Part of it was aimed at him for messing with me yet again, and the rest was aimed at myself for falling for it, even if it was only for a few seconds.
I suppose I couldn’t entirely blame myself for that, though. Hunter was a bad guy, but I didn’t think he’d be so bad that he’d try to trick me into sleeping with him by pretending to have caught real feelings for me.
I knew that seemed hypocritical, because I tricked him into coming over here in the first place, ostensibly for sex, but I never actual
ly intended to take it all the way. He did. He was just that ruthless.
I gritted my teeth, wondering what made him this way. Did something happen to him to turn him into a callous asshole with a severe lack of empathy, or was he just born with something off in his brain?
Did he have any form of conscience at all, or was he pure evil?
What did he get out of hurting other people? Pleasure? Simple amusement to stave off the boredom?
As my mind raced with all of those questions, I tried to figure out a way to extricate myself from our embrace without making him suspicious. If I was too abrupt, he might figure out that I lured him here as part of a greater scheme.
Before I could think of a single excuse to make him leave, he pulled back and crushed his mouth to mine. His lips moved slowly at first, soft and playful, and then his tongue ran along my bottom lip, begging me to deepen the kiss.
My lips parted in a shocked whimper, giving him all the opening he needed.
He devoured me, hot tongue swirling relentlessly around mine, exploring my mouth with wild urgency. At the same time, his hands ran through my hair and over my body. I struggled to control my breathing as he teased me, caressing me through the thin satin of my nightdress, his rhythm slow and steady.
As my body responded to his touch, I felt every part of my stoic resolution to rid myself of him shrivel down like plastic in a wildfire. This was so bad, so wrong, but it felt so good I couldn’t stop.
Just one kiss is fine. It’s part of the plan, I told myself to try to justify it all. You need to do it, or else Hunter will get suspicious. It doesn’t have to mean anything.
I let out a gasp as he traced my collarbone and moved his mouth down to kiss it. As his lips explored the base of my neck, one of his hands roughly cupped my left breast, and a bolt of electricity shot through me. Then I was lost. Completely and utterly sucked into everything he was doing.
“Please….” I whimpered, desperate for more.
The logical part of me was trying to claw its way to the surface again, telling me this was terribly wrong, but I tuned it out, floating in a pleasant fog of ignorant lust as tingles raced up and down my spine.
“Please what?” Hunter said softly, moving his mouth to my ear. “You want more?”
His words went straight to my core, and I nodded frantically. “Yes,” I whispered.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he murmured, a slow smile spreading across his face as he leaned in to kiss me again.
Oh, I know, I silently replied. I know…
This time there was no softness in his kiss. It was hard and fast and urgent, even a little painful in its intensity. A good kind of pain, though, one that made me shiver with pleasure.
I let out a moan, and Hunter pulled me onto his lap so that I had to straddle him, legs wrapped around his hips. Then my fingers were in his hair, and one of his hands was sliding between us, reaching up between my legs until his fingertips were stroking the lacy front of my panties.
“Wait,” I said as a bolt of fear suddenly shot through me. “Stop.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, lips on the shell of my ear.
“It’s just… I’ve never…” I faltered, drawing in a deep breath. “I haven’t done this before.”
He pulled back, crooking a brow. “Never?”
“No. I—”
He cut me off, holding a finger over my lips. “It’s okay. We don’t have to do anything you aren’t ready for,” he said in a low murmur. “I just want you to feel good. You tell me to stop, and we’ll stop. Okay?”
Stop! Stop! Stop!
The rational part of my mind kept shouting at me to end this now, but I still didn’t want to listen. I’d never felt this before, this heat between my legs; a fire I already knew would burn out of control if I didn’t do everything I could to quench my body’s thirst for Hunter.
“Yes.” I nodded fervently at him, breaths coming faster and faster as his hand traced the top of my panties in slow, deliberate circles.
He looked right into my eyes as he did it. “Is this okay?” he asked.
I held his gaze. It shouldn’t work like this, because I was letting him touch me when he was the enemy, but right now I felt powerful. I had him right where I wanted him, bringing me pleasure even though it gave him nothing in return. “Yes,” I said. “Keep going… please.”
I began to move my hips as his hand rubbed me over the top of my underwear, and we stayed like that, rocking our bodies with increased desperation, seeking release.
“You’re a dirty girl, aren’t you?” Hunter muttered against my ear as his hand worked between my legs.
“Yes,” I gasped.
I could feel my insides clenching around nothing, begging to be filled. Soft little moans left my lips, and I rocked my hips even faster, wishing Hunter would whisper more dirty things in my ear to push me over the edge.
“You want this, don’t you?” he said, grabbing one of my hands with his free one and moving it to his crotch. He was hard. Rock hard.
“Yes,” I whimpered.
“Tell me where you want it, dirty girl,” he muttered, slowing the movements of his fingertips between my legs.
“Inside me,” I choked out. I was building up to a crescendo so intense it felt like my entire body was about to implode.
And then it did.
“Oh, fuck!” I cried out as the first waves radiated from my core, jolting my whole body as if I’d been shocked by a live wire. My legs trembled, so weak I almost fell off Hunter’s lap, but his grip on my hips kept me upright as the pleasure soared through my system.
Clarity finally hit me with the last jolt of my first-ever climax, and all at once I came back to my senses.
Holy shit, what the hell was I doing?
I wasn’t supposed to kiss Hunter like this, grind against him, or ride his hand and come on him. I was supposed to feign sickness after one chaste little kiss and get rid of him. That was all.
Shit.
I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy, because Hunter was clearly an expert at this game. He acted like we were just fooling around like regular teenagers who couldn’t control themselves around each other, but the truth was that he was in complete control. Always. He could make me do whatever he wanted, because he made me want it too. Just the slightest touch from him sent me careening into space, all logic and reason vanishing into the dark abyss, and he knew it.
He made me feel like I was spinning out of control, and after the things that had happened to me in my life before RFA, I was a person who liked and needed to be in control.
I had to stop this right now, before I went down a dark path of no return.
“Hunter… I can’t.” I placed my hands on his chest and pushed him away, ignoring the primal part of my mind that was screaming for me to kiss him again, strip his clothes away, touch every inch of him.
He leaned back on his forearms, frown creasing his forehead. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
I couldn’t just tell him to get the hell out of here. Couldn’t arouse any suspicions from him. Not yet.
I got off the bed and stood next to it. “I don’t feel well,” I said, wincing as I clutched at my abdomen. “I think… maybe I have food poisoning.”
“Oh, shit.” Hunter’s eyes filled with concern. He really was an amazing actor. “Do you need me to get you something?”
I swallowed thickly and shook my head. “No, you should probably go before I throw up everywhere,” I said. “I’m sorry. It only just hit me a few seconds ago.”
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of you,” he said soothingly, trying to pull me close again.
I resisted him, pulling myself backward. “No. I don’t want to give it to you.”
He grinned. “If it’s contagious, I’d say I already caught it from you after what we just did.”
I put a hand over my mouth, acting like I was about to vomit at any moment. “I really don’t want you to see me like this. It’s so e
mbarrassing.”
He sat up straighter. “I don’t mind. Everyone gets sick sometimes. Let me take care of you.”
God, why wouldn’t he just stop?
“Please,” I muttered. “I need to be alone.”
Hunter sighed and stood up. “Look, I really want to hang around and make sure you’re okay, but I guess I can’t force you to let me stay,” he said. He took a step closer and rubbed the side of my arm. “If you start to feel any worse, and you need me to come back, just call me, okay?”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He suddenly seemed to remember that his phone battery was dead, and he went over to my desk and scribbled something down on a notepad. “This is the number to the main landline at my house,” he said, ripping the paper off the rest of the pad and holding it up. “You can use it if you can’t get through to my cell.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Are you sure you want me to go?”
I nodded. “Yes. Please. I’m really sorry.”
He stepped over to me and planted a kiss on the top of my head. “Don’t say sorry. It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I had sashimi for lunch, and it didn’t taste right. I should’ve thrown it all out and had something else,” I said with a low groan, leaning right into the sickness story.
“Well, now you know not to trust the cafeteria sushi,” Hunter said, arching an eyebrow. He stroked my hair as he spoke. “Feel better soon, okay?”
I gave him a weak smile. “I’ll try,” I said. “You can take the pizza if you want. It’s the least I can do after wasting your whole night.”
He chuckled softly. “I wouldn’t call tonight a waste at all,” he replied, wrapping his arms around my waist. He leaned down, mouth hovering over the shell of my ear. “I’d say it went perfectly. Apart from the food poisoning, I mean.”
I actually did feel a bit sick now. Sick from all the lies, and sick from the guilt of what I’d done.
After the awful thing that happened to me when I was younger, I promised myself that the first man I ever allowed to touch me would be someone who loved me. Someone who worked their ass off to prove to me that they were worthy.
Now my first orgasm had come from the skillful hands of someone who hated me instead, and worst of all, I let it happen so easily that he barely had to try.
Savage Prince: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Royal Falls Elite Book 1) Page 23
