“You were in love with him.”
“We had so much in common,” she sought to explain it without revealing everything. She didn’t want Hunter’s pity. She didn’t want him to treat her as if she might break. She liked that he was passionate and physical and constantly challenged her to keep up with him and she never wanted that to change. And it would. His very nature was protective.
“It was cancer,” she said before he could ask more. “He fought it for so long. But in the end…”
His arms tightened about her, gently holding her close. “I’m sorry.”
The hospital. The smell. The sickness. The tiredness of that damn battle. Days, weeks months of medication and treatment. Success, set-backs, uncertainty. It had been such a rollercoaster and she and Jack had been on it together for so long. But in the end their paths had diverged.
Just thinking of him made her heart ache now. Because that relationship compared to this?
Hunter had said experiences weren’t a competition. And it wasn’t right to compare either. He was right. But she still felt guilty. And she was still holding so much back. She didn’t want to tell Hunter the rest—not about her own illness, or what had happened to her sister. Those things couldn’t be changed. Couldn’t be helped.
But she almost did. Part of her ached to open up to him completely, but she didn’t want to see pity on his face. She didn’t want to scare him. She didn’t want to think about either the past or the future. She could only have this moment. But he was so curious—too curious. And she ached to understand him too. Because she recognized that loneliness in Hunter. It mirrored her own.
“Why do you want to know everything? Why is it so important to you?” she asked.
He was a seeker of knowledge. Hunting information, people. Avidly learning and seeking. An insatiable curiosity for absolutely everything. He silently watched the world, seemingly fascinated. Thirsting for more. Always thirsting.
“Because the most important things I can never know.” His voice dropped to little more than a whisper as he rested his head on hers. “I’ll never know who I am.”
She frowned but she couldn’t lift her head to look at him, he was holding her too securely. “What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. I don’t know who I am.”
“You’re Hunter Shaw.”
“And that’s just a name I picked. Poetic irony for Hunter. Shaw because it was common enough.”
She blinked, listening intently. “You chose your name? What was it before you changed it?”
“The name she gave me.”
“She?”
“The woman who raised me as her own. But I wasn’t hers. My sister Beth and I weren’t related by blood at all. The woman who raised me wasn’t my mother.”
A horrible, horrible feeling grew inside her. “You don’t know who your mother is.”
“I don’t know anything. Mother, father, where I was born… whether I was given up or—”
He broke off.
Luisa waited silently.
“She said she saved us. That could be the truth, or it could have been the ravings of a madwoman who travelled from town to town, living on the outskirts, keeping her children home from school and from prying eyes.”
“Oh Hunter.” She felt the tension in his entire frame—different to anything she’d felt in him before.
“We were lost kids. She didn’t do anything too awful to us. Nothing worse than a spanking when we talked back. But the uncertainty… we shifted so much. When I was nine, Beth was twelve and talking back at bit more. I guess she started asking questions Martha didn’t want her asking.” He sighed. “I wonder if Beth remembered more than me. I don’t know how long she’d been with Martha.”
“Do you know how old you were when she took you in?”
“I don’t have any baby photos. I don’t have any aunts and uncles or cousins. I don’t have neighbors I grew up with. I don’t have anything…”
“Where’s Martha now?”
“She died when I was fourteen. That’s when I found out our whole life was a lie.”
“You went into the foster system?”
“For as short a period as I could.”
“And Beth?”
“Who knows.”
She tightened her arms around him but still couldn’t look up to see into his face. There was nothing she could do to make this okay for him.
“I went into the army because it was a place to go. A fraternity. Routine. Food. But in the end, I needed my freedom as well. Not to be told what to do without knowing all the why’s.”
Because information was power. Sometimes it was all there was.
Now she understood.
And he deserved so much better than her.
“After she died I found out she’d lied to me all my life.” He sighed. “She betrayed Beth and me. That’s why she didn’t push for them to search for Beth. She was afraid they’d ask too many questions about her. About me. She didn’t want them to take me away from her.”
Luisa couldn’t imagine his sense of betrayal. And of isolation. “You’ve tried—”
“Everything. Of course. DNA, missing persons… so far there’s been nothing. I don’t believe I’ll ever know and perhaps it no longer matters.” He shrugged and suddenly released her to step back, putting distance between them. “So that’s my sad little story.”
“Hunter, I’m so sorry.”
He just shrugged again. He regretted talking to her about it. That was clear.
All she wanted was to hold him again. She wanted to offer him comfort in that age-old way. To literally come together and escape everything if only for a little while. But he’d turned his back. Shutting her out. She sensed he could not bear to be touched anymore right now. She needed something to diffuse the situation. Something that wouldn’t require him to say anything more.
“Let’s go out on the water,” she suggested, pushing past the croak in her voice. “It’s soothing,” she added lamely when he just looked at her. “Fresh.”
“To clear our heads?”
As impossible as that was. “Yeah.”
He turned and walked—taking the idea like a drowning man grasping for a life-ring. The kayaks had been left pulled up high on the beach and it took nothing to drag them down to the water’s edge.
“Race you,” she challenged.
He was in the water well ahead of her. In only a few minutes he’d recovered his equilibrium, but she hated that he regretted telling her. And she hated that she couldn’t fully reciprocate. It was too late now. Her past was nothing on what he’d suffered. But more than that, he didn’t need to be burdened with her sob story. He had enough to deal with.
They paddled out past the breaking waves and parallel to the shore for a while. The sky was cloudless, a brilliant blue, the rising sun blinding. It was so beautiful. Yet all of a sudden she was utterly, unbearably tired. So tired. So heartsore. The shore seemed an awful long way away.
“Come onto mine,” he called softly.
She hadn’t realized he’d paddled up beside her. That he’d noticed her fatigue.
“I’ll paddle you back,” he added.
“And we let this one float away out to sea?” She shook her head. She couldn’t just abandon it.
“I’ll tie it to mine and tow it.” He reached out a hand and held her kayak steady.
She dived into the clear, warm water to try to rouse herself from her sudden funk and then swam the couple of strokes to come to the other side of his kayak. She trod water while he secured a small stretch of rope between the two. Then he reached down and pulled her up easily, his hands hauling her like she was lighter than the paddle. She melted at the sensation of flying through the air.
So like a girl Luisa, she inwardly mocked.
But the indulgence of having a big guy like him carrying her was too much. And here she’d been thinking she could help him. Instead he lifted the paddle over her.
“It’s not awkward for you to
kayak like this?” she asked guiltily.
“I don’t mind.”
She closed her eyes and leaned back against him. She didn’t think she’d felt so tired since those days at the hospital… she frowned and turned her thoughts away from that time. This was a different kind of tired. This was good and warm and she wanted to hold him the way that he was holding her—with compassion and understanding.
It was only ten minutes before he had them back at the shore-line. They pulled the kayaks up onto the beach. The staff came to help, waving them away with a smile.
And then she stood beside the big bed in his hut and looked at him, determined to take him the way she wanted to. To care. But now he wouldn’t quite meet her eye. As if he feared he’d revealed too much and didn’t want to see whether how she saw him had changed.
Of course it had. She understood him just the tiniest bit more. Still not enough.
“I don’t want your pity,” he said harshly.
“You don’t have it,” she answered back. “You have my admiration.”
“I don’t want that either. I’m no hero. I’m nothing special.”
She didn’t bother trying to argue that one. There was no point given the mood he was in. But she could show him. “What do you want from me?”
He looked at her then. His eyes swirled with emotion. “I don’t know anymore.”
She understood that too. She moved. “Then don’t answer. Don’t think about it. Just have me. Let’s just have this. Just for now.”
That was how she could handle it too. Just now.
He stared at her. She was naked, but he wasn’t looking at her body. He was narrow-eyed and staring right into her soul. And from his frown, he wasn’t liking what he was seeing.
“No?” She challenged him. “Don’t look at me then,” she said angrily. “If you don’t want to see what I can’t hide from you.” She turned her back to him. “Just feel me. Just fuck me.”
His hands swept down her sides and he turned her back to face him, pulling her into her embrace. He was so hard. And hot—angry hot. “No.”
She pushed him away. He released her so quickly she fell back, landing with a bounce on the bed. She heard him curse as she sprawled before him—a long string of verbalized frustration. She let her legs slide further apart. His curse words melted into a groan.
“Luisa.”
She didn’t answer other than to arch her back. They weren’t supposed to be sharing emotionally, only physically. She’d take this back to physical. To animal.
“Luisa.”
His hands gripped her hips hard, his fingers digging into her curves. She melted and braced at the same time. Her core heated in hungry readiness. He thrust powerfully, right to the hilt. She couldn’t contain the raw cry that ripped from her throat. His hands stopped her from being shunted across the bed. But he stopped, breathing hard, his eyes blazing like fire into hers.
“Don’t stop,” she ordered. “Don’t stop.”
She heard his breathing—deep and rasping and so close to out of control.
“Do it.” She didn’t just dare him. She demanded it. “Do it. Do me.”
He let out a feral grunt. No longer able to speak. He pumped. Pounding into her. His thighs slapping against hers. She gazed into his wild expression. Trying to absorb everything he was emanating. Such vulnerability mixed with hot emotion. She could feel him shaking.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he muttered hoarsely. “I don’t want it to change anything.”
How could it not? “Too bad,” she said.
She wasn’t going to lie to him. Not about this.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“You’re asking me not to feel anything for you?” She shook her head. “That’s impossible Hunter.”
“This wasn’t supposed to… I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“It doesn’t make any difference.”
She didn’t reply.
“Luisa.” His hands tightened on her hips and he stilled.
She gasped, worried he was about to leave her. “Don’t stop. Don’t pull back from me,” she begged. “Don’t hide from me.”
She wanted to see him at this most vulnerable moment. She wanted to lock that look of his into her heart and brand it into her memory.
“Then don’t hide from me either,” he growled at her.
Her breath caught in her throat. “I’m not,” she said. “Not now.”
She needed to see him unveiled. That in this one magical moment he was utterly hers. And she his. Open and loving. Living.
Everything changed. The kiss was the sweetest thing she’d ever felt in her life. For the first time in so very long, she didn’t feel like she was alone. She was utterly connected to him. They shared every breath, every heartbeat, in absolute intimacy.
He slid back inside her, groaning as he did.
“So hot,” he muttered. “So sweet.”
She licked the column of his neck. “So salty. So good.” She tasted the sweat of his straining body and knew he couldn’t hold much longer. “With me,” she panted. “Please.”
She wanted him right with her. This wasn’t a game. Not a race. Not a dare. This was just pure warmth. Pure emotion. Pure need. Down to her bones.
His jaw clenched. “Yes.”
Shuddering ecstasy tore her apart—entwining them together, not just physically, but in all those emotions she couldn’t bear to name.
“How does it keep getting better?” He groaned, his eyes closed, his forehead filmed in sweat. His chest rose and fell but she felt the laxness in his limbs. “How?”
She didn’t know. Right now she didn’t care. It just was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUISA’S EYES SNAPPED open, her subconscious screaming at her to rise and think and act. With the early afternoon sun, reality had returned. What Hunter had told her this morning finally sank in. His past.
Putting that alongside her future? Her stomach churned. It was impossible. Hunter Shaw had been badly hurt and he deserved so much more than what she could ever give him. She should never have given in to her lust for him. Hadn’t she instinctively known to keep her distance? Hadn’t she tried to? This had been only going to go one way.
But he’d snuck under her guard so damn easily. She’d been lost. He was so vital, so magnetic, so vulnerable. Now she was afraid. If he’d been the tough-as-nails man that he looked, then maybe she could stay and let it run its course. But he wasn’t.
And she could never give him all that he wanted or needed and certainly not all that he deserved.
He deserved to have unconditional, unending love and a woman who’d be with him always, who’d give him children—the family he’d never had.
She couldn’t give him any of that.
So she couldn’t be selfish and greedy. She couldn’t hold him to her, when all she was going to do was hurt him.
She had only one course of action open to her—she had to walk away. Before he asked for everything she couldn’t give.
She grimaced at that bittersweet fantasy. As if he were about to? She was only his vacation fling—his relaxation after a tough caseload. Sure, he was selective, as was she, so it was a privilege to be with him. But how arrogant of her to assume that he’d want more? This was all physical. They’d barely spoken before he’d come to the island—it was only about the lust.
But if he did ask? If he chanced to care? If that fairytale fantasy happened and he did want more?
He’d suffered such betrayal and such loss and he deserved happiness and a rich fulfilling life with friends and a family.
She couldn’t have any kind of future with anyone. But definitely not him. Not when she understood the poignant subtleties of all he’d be missing out on. She wasn’t going to let him sacrifice himself. She wasn’t going to be a disappointment to him too.
The question now was how she was going to get away. Sure, she ‘should’ talk to him. But he was stro
ng and he’d fight and she couldn’t lie to him and tell him she didn’t care for him—that for her it was over. Nor could she bear to tell him the truth—about her illness, about Jack, or about her sister Ellie. Or about how she felt for him. It’d change everything.
He’d be the one with pity in his eyes and she never wanted that from him. That’s why she’d understood when he’d said that to her.
But worse, he’d be the hero for her. He’d tell her it didn’t matter, that he wanted to be with her—simply to save her from being hurt. Even if it wasn’t what he really wanted, he’d put her feelings first in that protective way of his. That was the way he was built. He put other people first so much of the time.
She couldn’t let him do that. She had to put his needs, his future first. And there was no room for her in it. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind—that was a cliché for a reason. She knew exactly the right—painful—thing to do.
She looked down at him spread long on the bed. He was so handsome and right now, so relaxed. It was the perfect parting image.
He was so security conscious, so hyper-alert, she was afraid he’d wake before she got away. But he was in the deepest sleep. Even with the aching apprehension of what she was doing, she felt a small lick of satisfaction, because that had been her. Because she’d loved him hard in those moments earlier today. She’d given him respite for a few hours. He was gorgeous, this battle-hardened, vulnerable man. She wanted him to find someone worthy. She wanted him to have the very best.
He didn’t deserve to be with someone as broken as her. He deserved someone who could give him everything he hadn’t had. That was never going to be her. He didn’t deserve such a garbage hand in life. Nor did she, but she was already living it. He didn’t have to join her. She didn’t have to drag him down.
Hopefully he’d had enough of chasing her. She knew he’d be furious and that should be enough to end whatever warmth he still felt for her. He wouldn’t want to hunt her any more.
But she could be polite at least. She grabbed the notepad on the table and scribbled the most inadequate note ever.
Broken for Me_Be for Me_Hunter Page 10
