The Hunter

by Shen, L. J.

  The Hunter

  Copyright © 2020 by L.J. Shen

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without prior consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial use permitted by copyright law.

  Resemblance to actual persons and things living or dead, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  About This Book

  Epigraph

  Playlist

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Preview of Pretty Reckless

  Books by L.J. Shen

  Connect with L.J. Shen

  To Yamina Kirky and Nina Delfs. Thank you for being absolutely fabulous.

  Boston’s debauched elite is going up in flames, and it’s the Fitzpatrick family that set it on fire.

  I didn’t mean to star in a sex tape, okay?

  It was just one of those unexplainable things. Like Stonehenge, Police Academy 2, and morning glory clouds.

  It just happened.

  Now my ball-busting father is sentencing me to six months of celibacy, sobriety, and morbid boredom under the roof of Boston’s nerdiest girl alive, Sailor Brennan.

  The virginal archer is supposed to babysit my ass while I learn to take my place in Royal Pipelines, my family’s oil company.

  Little does she know, that’s not the only pipe I’ll be laying…

  I didn’t want this gig, okay?

  But the deal was too sweet to walk away from.

  I needed the public endorsement; Hunter needed a nanny.

  Besides, what’s six months in the grand scheme of things?

  It’s not like I’m in danger of falling in love with the appallingly gorgeous, charismatic gazillionaire who happens to be one of Boston’s most eligible bachelors.

  No. I will remain immune to Hunter Fitzpatrick’s charm.

  Even at the cost of losing everything I have.

  Even at the cost of burning down his kingdom.

  “I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

  ―F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

  In this book, she isn’t.

  “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody”—Fergie

  “The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows”—Brand New

  “Kill and Run”—Sia

  “Truly, Madly, Deeply”—Savage Garden

  “One Armed Scissor”—At The Drive-in

  “When You Were Young”—The Killers

  “Lullaby”—The Cure

  Once upon a time there was a magic castle in which everything wilted but the soul of one boy.

  He was six when she met him.

  The girl had arrived with her mother to prepare a festive meal for his family. She roamed the hallways, gliding over the marble floors of his mansion on socked feet. She was five—far too young to appreciate the grand arches and courtyards of roses. She slid back and forth, occupying herself until her mother was done, while thunder cracked outside.

  It was the kind of winter Bostonians talked about for years afterward, unyielding and persistent. The dark sky shot needles of hail down on the castle, the ice banging over the curved windows angrily. The girl slid toward one of the Gothic windows, pressing her hand against the cold glass.

  She was surprised to see a small shadow lying on a sunbed by the pool, out in the rain. A boy. He lay very still, letting the downpour hit him without resistance. He simply took it, accepting the punishing lashes of hail on his skin.

  Panicked, the girl began to pound the window. What if he was injured? Unconscious? Dead? Did she even know what death meant? She heard about it sometimes, when her parents thought she wasn’t listening.

  She banged the glass harder. His head turned slowly her way—lazily, almost like she was of no importance.

  His gray-blues met her light greens.

  “Come in!” she shouted, looking left and right to find a door handle.

  He shook his head.

  “Please!” she cried.

  “They’re sending me away.” She read his moving lips, but couldn’t hear him. “I’m leaving.”

  “Where? Where are you going?” she called.

  But he just turned around, angling his face toward the sky, welcoming the whiplash of the hail.

  His eyes were open, she noticed. She followed his gaze, looking up at the black velvet of the night. There was no moon. No sun. The earth seemed so terribly lonely without one of them to watch over it.

  The girl wondered what would happen if the sun kissed the moon.

  She had no idea she’d find an answer to that question one day.

  Or that the person to give it to her would be that very lonely boy.

  Present

  “Time to wake up, Captain McCrabson,” my friend/angel on my shoulder, Knight Cole, announced. The tip of his Margiela sneaker nudged my back.

  Based on the hard surface underneath my aching muscles, I gathered I’d crashed on the floor again. And by the sticky feeling in my groin, followed by the breeze rolling through my neatly trimmed pubes, I knew I’d shoved my cock into holes I shouldn’t have the night before, and I was gloriously naked.

  I groaned, squeezing my eyes shut and rolling over on top of another warm, naked body. Tits. I felt tits. Nice, plump, and natural. Without opening my eyes, I brought a nipple into my mouth, suckling on it idly.

  “Want some coffee with your milk?” Knight wondered aloud.

  My hand descended its way along the chick’s stomach, down to her holy grail. She was wet and hot, arching her back, her thighs quivering with need. I began to rub her swollen clit, prepping her. My cock yawned its way into a semi, just as another body pressed against me from behind.

  Jackpot.

  “Taking your coffee with milk is like going down on a woman with a condom on your tongue. The Italians would exile you for less,” I murmured, eyes still closed, my lips against this girl’s skin.

  “Thanks for the imagery,” Vaughn Spencer, my other good friend, quipped flatly.

  “Pay no heed to me, old sport.” My available hand patted the flesh behind me, curling the other chick’s leg over my waist. Where are my condoms? Why were Knight and Vaughn offering me coffee and conversation instead of a rubber? They should be fired and replaced with wingmen who’d actually help me score. Not that I had any trouble in that department. “Just throw me a rubber before you leave, will ya?”

  “Give your cock a timeout and wake the fuck up.” A muddy boot found its way to the side of my head, threatening to squash my skull.

  Vaughn, AKA the devil on my shoulder.

  On anyone’s shoulder, really.

  I had a love-hate relatio
nship with the motherfucker.

  Love, because he was, after all, one of my best friends.

  Hate, because he was, despite the abovementioned title, a cunt of gargantuan proportions.

  My eyes popped open. The rest of my body signaled my brain that this orgy might die prematurely. Grains of sand and dirt from his boot dusted my temple. I felt my nostrils flaring, my pulse spiking up.

  The girl in front of me, Alice, grinned sleepily as she curved her back, plastering her breasts to my chest encouragingly. Shit. I was still fingering her. It was hard not to when she made all those delicious noises. I removed my hand from her pussy reluctantly. The girl behind me, at least, had the decency to stop humping my leg like a guinea pig that had just discovered its genitals.

  “Get your filthy-ass boot away from my face,” I hissed through clenched teeth, “before I snap your spine and use it as a scarf.”

  Both Vaughn and I knew this was an idle threat. My manicured hands weren’t big on violence. In fact, I wouldn’t hurt an ant if it killed my entire immediate family. I mean, I would be mad. Livid. And I’d sue for emotional distress, for sure. But get my hands dirty? Nah.

  It wasn’t fear of fighting that stopped me but the sheer indolence that came with my aristocratic upbringing. As the son of Gerald Fitzpatrick, owner and CEO of Royal Pipelines, the biggest oil and gas company in the United States, I rarely needed to rise to the level of taking care of my own shit. The Fitzpatrick family was the fourth richest in the entire US of A, and that made me a lazy, self-entitled asswipe.

  “You and another dudebro tag-teamed five chicks yesterday.” Vaughn kept his foot on my temple.

  This violent act was probably the highlight of his week. Why he couldn’t find the simple joys of life in booze, women, and overpriced clothes from aging rappers was beyond me. He made everything seem so fucking complicated.

  “I did?” My eyebrows shot to my forehead, genuine surprise tinged with pride filling my chest. “Are the Guinness people on their way here? Will they bring actual Guinness? I find stout to be far superior to lager.”

  “Smash his skull. He deserves it,” Knight groaned above my head.

  That was rich coming from him. He had a history with booze that could rival Lord Byron and Benjamin Franklin at an all-you-can-drink Koh Samui bar. Now that he had a girlfriend, I worried that if they were ever to conceive, she’d give birth to a bottle of tequila and two tickets to Coachella.

  “I also answer to God and Damn, Hunter You’re So Big,” I mumbled, briefly considering a quick nap under Vaughn’s boot.

  Hey, it wasn’t like he’d shifted any real weight onto it.

  The two girls unglued themselves from me. They were now making background noise, picking up their clothes, getting dressed. I checked my surroundings for the first time since opening my eyes. I was in Vaughn’s living room, judging by the plush, crème upholstery, dripping chandeliers, and 8k-a-piece brass lamps.

  The carpet felt sticky, and the blinds were torn. Daddy and Mommy Spencer would be glad to get rid of their asshole spawn, who was flying out to England for an internship soon.

  “You fucked up big time.” Knight hoisted me out from under Vaughn’s boot, hurling me on the sofa and throwing a quilt over my now-impressive, raging hard-on.

  He didn’t look directly at me as he spoke, like it was my fault I’d been blessed with a physique fit for constant nudity and an eight-inch dick.

  “All I heard was the word fuck, and I’m definitely game for that.” I patted the table next to the couch, found a pack of cigarettes that wasn’t mine and a lighter, and lit one, puffing smoke upward. I only smoked occasionally, but couldn’t pass up the opportunity to look like an asshole when it presented itself. “Why’d you cockblock me?” I squinted, pointing the cigarette between Vaughn and Knight, who stood in front of me, hands on hips, full-fledged and shit.

  “There was a leak.” Vaughn’s icicle eyes tapered with displeasure.

  I waved him off with the cigarette. “That’s just a natural discharge designed to tell you the female body is ready for mating. You’d know that if you fucked women who were alive. Is this about your parents’ carpets? Because I’ll send Syllie the bill.”

  Syllie—Sylvester Lewis—was my father’s right hand and COO back in Boston. He did solids for me on the reg. His job, among others, was to keep me alive and out of trouble, which meant he was basically set up for failure. I didn’t call him often, but when I did, it was because I needed to bail out of something heinous I’d gotten myself into.

  My parents hated when I gave them bad press.

  So far, Syllie had helped me pay fines, avoid a DUI charge, and discreetly deal with a nasty case of the crabs.

  “A leak on social media, you moron,” Knight clarified, leaning down to flick the back of my head.

  It wasn’t like my friends to be serious or worried. I sat up and secured the quilt around my narrow waist, resting my chin on my knuckles thoughtfully.

  “I’m listening.”

  (I wasn’t. I was thinking about who I wanted to fuck tonight.)

  Maybe Arabella.

  No, definitely Arabella. She was the hottest piece of ass that was still single in town.

  “Recap.” Knight clapped his hands once. “Yesterday, after Vaughn’s internship party, we came back here to kick it. You had an orgy with five girls on the main floor. At some point, some other guy butted in—pun intended—but mostly, it was you doing the fucking. It wasn’t in the media room, so phones weren’t confiscated. Vaughn and I were upstairs and couldn’t save you from your moronic self.” He turned to Vaughn, jerking his chin for him to finish the story.

  Vaughn crossed his arms over his chest and took it from there. “To make a long, excruciatingly gross story short, about a dozen people filmed the entire thing with their phones. Some uploaded it on YouTube, some to Twitter, some to Snapchat. Those were taken down, as far as we know. But the ones on the porn sites? Those are still available. And let’s just say what you lack in academic achievements, you make up for as an adult entertainer.”

  As soon as Vaughn finished his sentence, Knight handed me his phone, the browser open on said sex video. (Why did people call them tapes? That was so fucking eighties.) I hit play. It was the most popular site on the internet, actually. It was also free, which, I’d heard through rumors on the street, was something middle-class people were fond of.

  The video already had 1.2 million views and an 89-percent customer satisfaction rate.

  Damn.

  The tags on the video included: #FratParty #Orgy #Hotsluts #Cheerleaders #Billionaire #Anal #Oral #69 #Creampie #TagTeam #BestFriendsEx

  And all I could think was, I managed all those things in the span of twenty minutes with one dick? Im-fucking-pressive.

  I was dead-ass serious. Were the Guinness people coming for me, or what?

  The title of the porn video was “Polo Billionaire Prince Fucks Five Chicks.”

  The prince part was dope. It had a noble ring to it. Polo wasn’t my passion, but I still played it to please my never-pleased father. All the rest seemed solid as well, other than the frat party part. And since all of us were of legal age (I knew all the chicks in the video), I guessed it would be a bitch to take down.

  I watched as three fellow recent high school graduates—Alice, Stacee, and Sophia—giggled into the camera and strutted their way to me, asses dangling, high heels on full display. I was on the couch, getting sucked by a chick named Kylie while another one, Bianca, was circling my nipple with her pierced tongue. I was wearing an open varsity jacket with no shirt, my jeans rolled down to my shins. The camera zoomed out, and the person shooting the video and I pounded it. He lowered the camera to show that he was fucking Kylie from behind while she was sucking me off. He came on her lower back, stepping back and tucking in his semi. After five minutes of acrobatics, I somehow managed to get my hands, mouth, and dick on all five of the girls combined.

  The video was almost twenty minutes long, and�
�in my humble opinion—hot as sin. I looked up from it when I was done, handing Knight his phone back. There was a beat of silence as my friends waited for me to process the information they’d pummeled into my hungover brain.

  “Who was the other dude?” I yawned.

  “Brian something.” Knight scrunched his nose.

  “Branson,” Vaughn completed.

  “Brian Branson?” I blinked. Unfortunate name. “Wow. His parents hate him more than mine hate me.”

  “Not after the pile of porn shit you left at their doorstep this morning,” Knight commented helpfully.

  I hadn’t even heard of Brian Branson before today, but I’d shared a sexual encounter with him. Which I guessed was something I could say about the majority of people in Todos Santos. I slapped my thigh, moving on with the plan.

  “So, are we heading to Benny’s for breakfast or…?”

  “You idiot.” Knight white-knuckled his phone, resisting the urge to hurl it at me. “You’re in deep trouble. Stacee, Kylie, and Bianca are pressing charges against you. They’re already at the police station. We just got the text.”

  That explained why Alice and Sophia were the only ones here this morning.

  “For what? I wasn’t the one doing the filming. If anything, I’m as much a victim as they are.” I stubbed the half-finished cigarette on its pack to put it out, smoke skulking from my mouth as I spoke. “Besides, they can hardly claim it wasn’t consensual. I mean…” I motioned with my hand to Knight’s phone. In the video, Stacee let me pull out of her, peel off the condom, and jizz all over her face. She’d licked the hot, white cum from her cheek and giggled in delight while Kylie sucked my cock so hard she almost swallowed it. Not to mention Bianca, who did all the work while we did a reverse cowgirl with Kylie sitting on my face, bouncing it like I was a trampoline.

  “You’re as stupid as a rock, and sadly, just about as endearing,” Vaughn said gravely, turning around and lifting shit up, looking for something. “You’re an heir to a multi-million-dollar company. They don’t need a reason to want to sue you. You sneeze on them? They’ll say you gave them the swine flu. You hug them? They’ll claim you broke their bones. You fuck them…” Vaughn trailed off, finding what he was looking for on one of his lamps—my jeans—and throwing them in my direction.