Regret (Shattered Secrets Book 1)

by Bella J.

  He remained still for a few seconds, afraid to move, not wanting to hurt her further, yet every muscle in his body was strained as he struggled to keep control. Slowly he moved, easing back, before moving forward again. He wanted to give her body time to adjust to him, to absorb all the new sensations he knew swept through her.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered when her cries died down a little.

  “Yes,” she choked out, her voice low and soft. “Don’t stop moving.” Again and again he moved in and out of her. Soon her moans of pain turned into beautiful sounds of pleasure.

  Just as he had suspected, both of them slipped off the edge within a matter of minutes. It was just too intense, too powerful to not let go. There was no way Hunter could have held on any longer. But thank God, neither could she.

  Just as they both reached the pinnacle of their release, Hunter crushed his lips against hers, kissing her like he would die if he didn’t. It was the single most beautiful, most precious moment of his life. She was his, and he was hers. The way it should be. The way it would always be.

  The second they came down from their high, he gently eased out of her, knowing she was probably aching all over. He hated that she had to experience this kind of discomfort because of him.

  “Blue, you okay?”

  Her eyes were closed and her face flushed. A single tear moved down her cheek as she nodded a silent yes. Leaning down he kissed away the tear, tasting the saltiness of it on his lips. He showered her cheek, her neck, her chest, every inch of her skin with his kisses, trying to let this beautiful moment between two lovers linger for as long as possible. Then he rolled onto his side.

  She turned her head and looked at him. “I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

  What the fuck? Disappoint him? By God, it was the best fucking experience of his life. He felt more satisfied than he had ever felt before.

  He gripped the back of her neck tight, his gaze fixed on hers with intent. “That was the most beautiful moment of my entire fucking life.”

  It truly was, and he knew nothing would ever be able to top that moment.

  Chapter 27

  Present

  Scarlet nestled her head deeper into the pillow. Hunter was on his side, slowly tracing his finger up and down her waist like he was committing every curve, every inch of her skin to memory.

  The minute they stepped into the house earlier, Hunter tore the red dress right off her—literally. The entire foyer was currently littered with red fabric—and broken pieces of furniture, along with one smashed portrait of some or other half-naked woman painted in reds and yellows. It looked like a battle zone.

  Naturally, Scarlet gave back just as hard. The claw marks on Hunter’s arms and neck were proof of that. Sex between the two of them was like war, a battle of passion and untamed desire that took complete possession of them both. And either they were too weak to fight it, or they were strong enough to embrace it.

  Scarlet closed her eyes, her body aching in all the right places, yet more satisfied than she had ever been. How was it possible that within the span of a few hours everything changed so drastically between them?

  Lighter. Easier. It was like something shifted and the attraction that had been there ever since they first laid eyes on each other no longer felt like something they needed to deny. In fact, it felt like they had no choice but to act on it. To give in to the need and consume each other. The way she felt when he touched her, it was like her soul came alive. And when her fingers would glide over his body, she felt his strength radiate from every ripped muscle, every well-defined ab, and the broad expanse of his back, and it made her want so much more. She never wanted to stop touching him, and she never wanted him to stop touching her. It just felt right…and odd.

  Was she…was she falling in love with him? Was that even possible, for her to fall in love? Scarlet had never been in love before, she didn’t know what it felt like, what love was supposed to be like. The only glimpse of love she had was the sordid, twisted love Brent had confessed to her. It was ugly, it was malicious, and it was evil. But this, with Hunter, it was different, and she didn’t know what to make of it.

  “So are you going to tell me why you chose this word?” His gaze followed his finger as it traced over the ink on her skin. Torment.

  “Are you going to tell me about yours?”

  “Maybe.”

  For a moment they glanced at each other. It was already clear they were both screwed up from stuff that happened in their pasts. And after what happened in the restroom back at the bar, she was certain he knew what happened in her past, but she wanted to know what happened in his. What about his past had him so bitter, so sad that he felt the need to punish himself in a cage every night?

  She wanted to know what demons he carried around, what kind of pain he needed to live with, and she was ninety-nine percent sure that it was because of a woman. A blue-eyed woman. That was the only reasonable explanation why he had the “never blue eyes” rule.

  Scarlet lifted her hand and placed it over the tattoo on his chest, a heart being squeezed by a hand. “Tell me about this one.”

  His hand paused and Scarlet could feel him tense, pain radiating all around him. For a moment, she didn’t think he would answer. Maybe it was just as painful for him to say the words out loud as she knew it would be for her to admit to someone what Brent had done.

  But then his green eyes locked on hers. “Sometimes shit happens and it has the power to squeeze the life right out of you little by little.”

  It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. The pain that coated every word, and the way his eyes instantly lost their vibrant shade made Scarlet wonder if she really wanted to know what had fucked him up so badly.

  “The blue eyes?” she asked softly, tracing every intricate line of the human heart on his chest with her fingertip.

  He didn’t answer. And that was answer enough.

  She took her hand off his chest and slipped it under her pillow.

  “I was seventeen when it happened,” she started, and Hunter remained still, his gaze following his finger over her body.

  “He didn’t pass his medical evaluation, so he was discharged. Sent home.”

  Hunter’s hand slowly moved over her hip.

  “No one thought it was true. Brent never showed any signs of being mentally unstable.” Deep inside her chest, Scarlet felt her heart being squeezed—slowly—with every word she spoke. Like Hunter’s tattoo.

  “Until he showed me exactly how unstable he really was…in a shed…where no one could hear me scream for help. Where no one could hear me cry as he—”

  “Stop.” Hunter gripped her waist tightly. “Stop. Don’t tell me more.”

  “But I thought you wanted to know.”

  “I don’t need to hear the details. I already know. And knowing what he did to you is enough to make me want to kill that son of a bitch in the most unimaginable ways. I want to see him bleed from a thousand different wounds—wounds I inflicted. I want to hear his screams for hours, days before he takes his final breath.” He took his hand off her waist and pulled it through his hair before turning on his back and staring at the ceiling.

  Tears threatened to escape, but Scarlet swallowed them back. Too many tears had rolled down her cheeks already in her lifetime. But the thought that her torment, the hell she went through, affected Hunter like this made her heart swell inside her chest. Did he really care enough about her to feel this way, to feel like he needed to make things right for her?

  Scarlet took a deep breath. “That’s why he’s so desperate to find me. He wants to make sure I don’t spill his little secret and jeopardize his chances on getting his hands on Grandma’s inheritance.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  She closed her eyes, trying to muster up the courage to talk about her life. To just finally let it all go. “I never knew my father. Right after my sister’s father divorced my mother, she had a brief affair with some man.”
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br />   Hunter sat up on his elbows. “Your sister?”

  “Yup. My sister.” Scarlet almost choked on her words. It was the first time Scarlet had spoken about her sister to anyone. It wasn’t a topic she liked to discuss. “No one knew the name of the man my mother had been seeing back then. She never told anyone. Hence why I was given the family surname—Wolfe—and not my mother’s since she kept her married name.”

  Hunter narrowed his eyes, a big frown forming on his forehead. “So where is your sister now?”

  “Some place far from here.” She cleared her throat awkwardly since the words seemed to choke the air out of her. There was no way she would be able to talk about her sister. Not yet. Those wounds were far from healed, and talking about it would just aggravate them more.

  “So,” Scarlet continued. “My mom died when I was twelve. A stroke at the young age of thirty-eight. Which is why my sister and I ended up living with our grandma. My sister’s dad was in the military, and he was hardly ever home.”

  Hunter just nodded, and she felt him touch her hand with his, gently rubbing his thumb over her fingers. It was the softest, subtlest touch—yet it felt so strong that it somehow comforted her. Something she had never felt before.

  “And the tattoo?”

  “I couldn’t carry the torment and the pain inside of me any longer. I thought to wear it permanently inked on my skin would somehow lessen the burden inside me.”

  “Did it work?”

  “No.”

  Hunter continued to stare at the ceiling. “It didn’t work for me either.”

  They lay there in silence, the heavy cloud of all their pain hanging over them. Two broken people searching for their place in the world. Two broken souls that would probably never get put back together. What a pair they would make. Fucked-up, meet fucked-upper.

  Unable to stand the smothering silence, Scarlet sat up on her elbows. “I suppose I don’t have to guess what the Blue stands for.”

  He didn’t move, or even blink. It was like he wasn’t even there anymore.

  “Is that her name?”

  “Was.”

  Scarlet balked.

  “It was the name I used to call her,” he continued softly.

  Holy shit. “Is she…”

  “Yeah.”

  Scarlet looked down at her toes sticking out from under the black sheets.

  “Did you love her?” Dammit. Scarlet wanted to mentally slap herself for asking such a stupid question that had absolutely nothing to with her. “You don’t have—”

  “I did. I loved her.” He finally turned to face her, his dark green eyes filled with so much emotion it almost knocked the wind right out of her. “I loved her more than anything. I would have died for her. I would have sold my soul for her. But instead, I watched them bury her.”

  This time his words rocked her to her core. It felt like it shook the very foundation beneath her. The knowledge that he had loved someone else so completely, so irrevocably, was something she now wished she didn’t know. It made her chest tighten, her insides crawl, and her heart feel like it was about to stop beating at any second. There was no way she would have been able to say something to that even if she wanted to. The anger in his stone cold voice was nothing but a disguise, a concealer of the pain that he actually felt. The regret.

  Hunter let out a breath, and then got off the bed and walked to the window.

  “And that tattoo on your back?” Scarlet got off the bed and walked after him.

  He turned around. “What about it?”

  “I saw it at the fight earlier when you took your shirt off.”

  She placed her hand on his shoulder, urging him to turn back so she could take a closer look. There were heart shapes that decorated the inside of the circle, the intricate lines weaving the hearts together, giving it a maze-like effect. The tattoo covered almost his entire upper back. It was beautiful.

  Scarlet traced her fingertips over the inked lines. “It’s a Celtic love knot. I’ve seen one like this before.”

  Hunter gave a step forward and turned, blocking off her view of his back. “It’s a Celtic love symbol, Scar. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it in a lot of places.”

  Scarlet stepped back. “Yeah. Probably.”

  “Okay, enough with all the heavy talk.” He roughed a hand through his hair. “We should get some sleep.”

  And then Scarlet watched as he got on the couch, her eyebrows almost touching her hairline. “Are you sleeping there?”

  He glanced at her. “Where else should I sleep? You made it perfectly clear that I’m on the couch the other day when you didn’t even want me sleeping in the same room as you.”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, well, that was before I fucked you.”

  He snorted. “I fucked you, Scar.”

  “We fucked each other.”

  He raised a brow. “That’s a lot of fucking.”

  “And I want to do it again.”

  “So do I.”

  He got up from the couch and stalked toward her with the kind of swagger a man with all the power in the world would have. This man was the walking personification of confidence, like he knew he had the power to melt the panties off any woman. Which he did. Lucky for her, she didn’t wear panties half the time. There probably wasn’t a woman in this world who wouldn’t want to experience a piece of him at least once in their lives. Scarlet, for one, wanted to experience it every damn day for as long as possible.

  By the time he stopped in front of her, standing so close she could feel his breath skidding across her cheek, she was already rubbing her thighs together.

  With a body that towered over her, and eyes that spoke volumes, telling her exactly what went on in that dirty mind of his, he stared down at her. Promises of mind blowing sexual pleasure swirled around those green irises and Scarlet once again found herself lost in their depths.

  Hunter glanced down at her body. “When you’re standing naked in front of me like you’re doing now, there is only one thing I want to do, and that’s make you scream my name when I make you come over and over and over again until your body just can’t take it anymore.” He lifted his hand and lazily drew soft circles around her nipples with his fingertip.

  “Then what are you waiting for?”

  Hunter slanted his head to the side like he was contemplating all the ways he could make her shudder, make her body explode into tiny pieces of unadulterated pleasure. It sent the most powerful surge of anticipation straight from her core right up to her chest, her knees already turning weak.

  Gently he dragged his finger down between her breasts, slowly moving over her stomach, her navel, until he stopped just above her pubic bone. “I want you to trust me, Scar.”

  “I do.”

  “No, I mean really trust me.” With his other hand he took a red streak of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “I want you to not fight me. Just tonight, don’t fight me.”

  “You want me to give you control?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s the only way you will ever be able to trust me.”

  “And your need to control everything has nothing to do with it?”

  Hunter let go of her hair, but his other hand remained close to where she knew he was headed. “I won’t lie to you by saying that I don’t have my own selfish reasons for wanting control over your body. You need to let go, and I need control. We need each other.”

  Hunter’s lips kissed the spot just below her ear, sending shivers all the way down her spine. “But I do want you to trust me, and I also know that by giving me full control over you,” his finger slipped lower until it softly touched her between her legs, “over your body, is the only way for you to be able to fully trust me.”

  Scarlet’s breathing deepened as his finger slipped through her heat, and she knew her body betrayed her by letting him feel exactly how turned on she was. Even with the idea of giving this man complete control he still managed to have her bo
dy ignited with a kind of need that felt surreal to her.

  “Why is me trusting you so important?” Her voice sounded strained as he continued to move his fingers against her.

  “Because I feel something for you, Scar. It’s scaring the shit out of me, but I do. And I know you feel something for me too. Don’t deny it.”

  Scarlet swallowed hard as his eyes bore into hers. “Are people like us even capable of feeling anything, Ace?”

  Then he pushed his finger inside her, taking her by surprise, and she stumbled forward, grabbing onto his shoulders. Every sensual part of her was throbbing, aching…demanding.

  “You feel that, don’t you, Scar? The way your body is drawn to me, the way it responds to my touch? Whatever this is between us, it’s starting to consume us both and you know it.”

  He placed a soft kiss right at the corner of her mouth. “Give me this. Just tonight, surrender that fight of yours and let me have control. I need it with you, Scar.”

  “So do I,” she whispered. “I need control too.”

  “No. No, you don’t. What you need is to give it up. You need to let go. You pretend like you need control, but you don’t. Let me take it from you. Give me your control, and let me show you that you can trust me.”

  With his finger still working her between her legs, he gripped her waist with his other hand. She closed her eyes, allowing his touch to take her closer to the edge.

  “It’s not that easy for me, Ace.”

  Softly he kissed her collarbone. “I know. But just try.”

  She leaned her head to the side, exposing her neck, offering him more of her skin to taste. Somehow this man had the power to ease the pain inside her, to silence the voices. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to surrender to him. “Will you tell me why you need control so badly?”

  He stilled, his mouth just below her ear.

  “Tell me, Ace, and I’ll give it to you. I’ll give you control.”