“Just get the contract signed and try not to get yourself in too deep with this girl. She’s not good for you and we both know it.”
I eye him briefly. Why does everyone in my life think Scarlet is going to break me?
Why is it that I refuse to listen?
~
The next check-in is harder.
I almost call, but I’m not that much of a coward.
“Beast, can you get Charm to the Kingdom? I need to talk to you.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then an answer. “Yeah. Of course.”
~
They don’t take it well. Beast does that sharp eyed stare he does, like the bastard can read my fucking soul, while Charm goes quiet and furious.
“You can’t just skip out on the Kingdom because you want to get laid,” he says, breaking the silence.
I stiffen. “This has nothing to do with sex.”
“It’s Scarlet,” he snarls, “Of course it has to do with sex.”
“You don’t get to throw stones about this,” I snap, “Neither of you. You haven’t always put the Kingdom first.”
“The difference,” Beast says softly, “is that when we put something before the Kingdom, there was a good reason. Charm did it for the girl he collared.”
“So because I’ve got no chance with her, you think I shouldn’t care at all?” I demand.
“You passed caring a long fucking time ago. This obsession is dangerous,” Charm says, “You need to let her go.”
~
I was seventeen and I was stupidly, impossibly happy.
~
“No.” I say softly.
Charm’s eyes go hard, angry, and—there it is—hurt. “Beast, do you remember when you were under an NDA? Did you keep secrets because you wanted to?”
Beast shakes his head slowly. “Shit, Wolf.”
“Trust me, brothers. I know what I’m doing. I swear to god, I know what I’m doing,” I say, staring at Charm with a pleading expression.
He finally sighs. “I don’t like it.”
“But you’ll trust me?”
He nods reluctantly. “I’ll trust you.”
And I’ll take that.
~
There will be more consequences when Mal comes home, or bothers to even call home. My brother has a controlling streak a mile and a half wide, and he won’t let this go.
He won’t trust me this easily like the others do, but right now—
I park my bike in her driveway, just behind Hunter’s Mustang and Scarlet’s ridiculously oversized truck, and try not to think about why the hell that looks right.
Hunter is standing at the front door when I walk up, a pleased half smile on his lips.
“Cachorro.”
“Hunt.”
He pulls me into him abruptly and kisses me, deep and hungry and wet, his tongue fucking into my mouth, his hand on the nape of my neck.
“You’re gonna scandalize the neighbors, babe,” Scarlet says from inside, smirking.
Hunter laughs and pulls me into the house and I hear, distantly, the door shutting behind me.
Apparently they’ve forgotten that this is an all-business arrangement, and yet, in this moment, I can’t bring myself to care, either.
Chapter 9.
There are things you cannot know about a person until you’ve shared space with them, until you watch them stumble around half awake, face still creased with sleep, dignity stripped away by the disorientation of morning.
You can spend a lifetime watching, half of one fucking them, and you can be there for every small and large occasion, but until you live with a person—it is hard to truly know them.
I didn’t think I’d ever see Hunter in any way but poised and in control. He’s quiet about it, content to follow Scarlet’s lead, even when he’s the one pulling all the strings.
But after two days of living in Scarlet’s mansion, I come to a solid conclusion.
“He really isn’t a morning person, is he?”
Scarlet is almost giggling as she leans against me on the couch and we watch Hunter shamble through toward the kitchen and the promise of caffeine.
She sounds almost gleeful when she says, “He hates them.”
“You’re both sadists,” Hunter grumbles, his voice a full octave lower than normal and shaking through me in a way that’s kinda insane. He crumbles onto the couch, jostling against me and leaning his head against the back cushion with a sigh. “Why are we up so fucking early?”
“Board meeting,” Scar chirps, all kinds of happy, and I smother my smile when Hunter groans.
Board meeting means cousins, which means I need to be on my toes, not distracted by the too-adorable sight of Hunter just out of bed.
We’ve found a strange routine in the past few days. I go jogging with Scarlet in the early mornings, when she bounces out of bed and leaves Hunter there, still sleeping. We make breakfast and if there’s nothing pressing at the office, she’ll work from her laptop, sitting cross-legged on the couch while I read or work out in the home gym. Around nine a.m., Hunter stumbles out of the bedroom and the day begins in earnest.
Here’s what I’ve learned about them: they work together perfectly, with a familiarity that is breathtaking. It leaves me aching, hurting in the most delicious of ways.
Scarlet is insanely brilliant and her drive is almost scary in it’s dedication. She works from the moment she wakes up to late in the night, when Hunter pries her laptop or tablet from her hands and pushes her gently toward bed.
That’s the other thing—Hunter is impossibly gentle with her, giving her this sweet kind of care that makes my breath catch.
Somehow, against all odds, I fit here.
With my own quiet work and the clang of free weights in the gym, the steady rhythm of my shoes slapping the pavement next to her, my voice filling in the gaps in the conversation at night while Hunter makes dinner—Scarlet can’t cook and he kicks her out of the kitchen every time she tries—it’s almost painful how well I fit here.
And they know it. I catch it, when Scarlet watches me, her gaze a little too full and wanting, and when Hunter follows me with his assessing gaze.
I told her I could do this, and I will.
I just have to ignore how much it hurts.
I can do that.
~
Hunter still smokes, when he’s stressed or drinking. Tonight, after we spent most of the day in a too small conference room with Scarlet’s closest family, he’s both.
“You think they’re trying to steal her work?” I ask, stepping out on the porch. He’s slouched in the porch swing, as close to relaxed as I see him when he isn’t two seconds post-orgasm.
“Yes.” He watches me in the dim light and takes another drag on his cigarette. “Sal planted three viruses in her personal server, and two of her team are reporting back to him.”
I stiffen. “If you know where the threat is, why haven’t you removed it?”
Hunter gives me a patiently exasperated stare. “Because she won’t let me.”
Fucking hell. “She’s playing with fire.”
He nods. “I know. And she does too, but this is her choice, Wolf. We follow her orders in this.”
“Not if her orders get her hurt,” I say simply, “I won’t allow that.”
Hunter gives me a small tight smile and nods. “We’re together on that, at least.”
~
The hardest part is not the mornings, when I am a part of their lives, so naturally it feels strange to think of a time when I wasn’t here.
It’s not the afternoons, when I sit nearby, watching her work. It’s not even the quiet part of the evening when Hunter drags her away from it and forces her to eat.
The worst part is when the night is over, when she’s falling asleep over her research, and I murmur that she needs proper rest and she gives me a disgruntled glare before Hunter hauls her bodily away, tucking her into her big bed and sliding in after her.
I am left
alone, in the dark of the house, with nothing to occupy me but my thoughts about how much I hate being here, about how much more I want from this, and about how much I want to stay.
I can’t have it, and every fucking day I spend following her, keeping her safe, watching the way he dotes on her and the easy way we work together, I let myself forget that I am the outsider—that I don’t belong.
Every damn day, I buy the lie that I can keep this, that I can be here. I let myself believe that they want me.
And every goddamn night, Hunter gives me a small smile, a little cryptic and knowing, and will go to her bed, curling around her and watching me through the open door before I retreat to the room that they gave me when I showed up, to the lonely bed that is cold and empty.
Every night, I am slapped again with everything I don’t get to keep—everything I’ve wanted for so many years.
~
“It’s Sal.”
I blink up at Hunter. He’s scowling at his laptop like it’s personally offended him. If he’s figured out who the hell is threatening Scarlet, it probably has.
“You know for sure?”
He gives me a slightly offended look and I smother my smile. “Sorry, Hunt. I’m not questioning your methods.”
“Sure as fuck better not be,” he huffs, shifting so that his shoulder is pressed against mine and I can read his laptop.
“We planted some tech for him. I put some—“ he looks at me, catches my glazed stare, and grins. “I set a trap and he walked into it.”
At that, I do allow myself a small smile. “So now what?”
“Now we watch him. He’ll make a move against her.”
Sal Robins is the oldest cousin in a long fucking list of cousins. He’s smart and ambitious and has, for most of Scarlet’s life, been her second in command at Robins Tech.
This is gonna devastate her.
“Does she know yet?” I ask.
Hunter shakes his head. “No. I don’t want to tell her. It’s gonna break her heart.”
I snort. That’s putting it mildly. “Do we have any word on Rosalie?”
He sighs. “She’s looking at a couple weeks of rehab before they’ll release her.”
Scarlet bounced back from her car accident with very little downtime. Rosalie, though—she was old and she might be a spitfire, but that age was showing now.
“Does she know about the coup?”
“Scar refuses to talk to her. She doesn’t want her to worry while she’s healing.”
That’s such a Scarlet thing to do, and completely unhelpful in this moment.
Hunter shifts and smiles at me. “We’ll keep her safe, Wolf. We’ve always done what we had to in order to keep her safe, haven’t we?”
I go still because that—that sounds like he’s talking about a helluva a lot more than I want to discuss. “Not sure what you mean.”
Hunt stares at me and, very carefully, he takes the laptop and closes it, leaning forward to put it down on the coffee table and turning his attention to me. “Wolf, you’ve spent the past thirteen years helping me protect Scarlet. You’ve put yourself second to every damn thing she’s ever wanted, even when she’s not really sure what that is.”
I don’t want to do this. I’m not ready to confront all of our history.
“I don’t fuck over my friends,” I force out through numb lips.
He’s quiet and then says, “Why didn’t you ever say anything, after that first night?”
I close my eyes, and I can see him, the shoulders that were thinner than than they are now, the still solid bulk of him, the way his eyes had gone wide and dark and hungry when I whined and came under him.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be seeing that until the day I die.
“You were with her, Hunt. And I was half in love with her. Charm brought her to the White family home, when he came to see Mal. I liked Scarlet, you know. She was different from the Whites, and she just—she didn’t seem to give a fuck that I was some illegitimate bastard that suddenly became Sanford’s problem. She made me laugh, made me forget the shit for a while.”
“You didn’t want to hurt her.”
I want to lie. My heart is pounding so hard it actually hurts in my chest. “No.”
He stares at me, all patient waiting and bright want, and I’ve never been able to resist him like this.
“Tell me,” he says.
I huff a sigh. “You were happy, Hunter. God, you could see it, every time I looked at you. I couldn’t take that from you.”
“Even though you gave up what you wanted.”
I shrugged, and I definitely didn’t say what I was thinking, both then and now. I’m a bastard throwaway. What I want isn’t important.
But I knew exactly how Hunter would react to that.
I swallow the last of my beer and shift. “I’m gonna shower.”
He doesn’t stop me when I leave the room.
~
I shouldn’t be surprised when the door to the bathroom opens.
I shouldn’t be, but I am.
Hunter steps in silently, and I watch through the glass door as he strips.
I’m very sure I should stop this, and yet—his eyes are bright and hungry, and I’ve never been able to say no when he looks at me like that.
He doesn’t kiss me when he steps into the shower, just presses against me, the hot water cascading around us and warming his skin. I shiver as he clutches me with a kind of desperation that makes my stomach twist, and then his lips are against my throat, pressing words that I can’t understand into my skin, and he’s shaking.
I’ve known Hunter for thirteen years, and I’ve never seen him like this before, not until this moment.
I twist, searching for his lips and he hums against my skin, sinking to his knees instead, licking away the water trailing down my body as he goes.
I’ve watched them through the years, and I’ve fucked them, when that’s what they wanted.
I’ve had this once—when I was seventeen and stupidly, impossibly happy.
I don’t ask. I have never asked.
Hunter’s hands frame my hips, holding me still as he licks the flesh in front of him, nuzzling closer, closer, and then he’s there, and my knees buckle. He holds me up, laughing around my cock, and I make a choked noise as I thrust up a little into that hot, wet heat.
He doesn’t stop me. His hands are soft and caressing on me, but it doesn’t stop me from fucking into his mouth, and I can’t stop myself from it. I’m gripping his hair tightly—when the fuck did that happen—and I groan as he goes down, until his lips are wrapped around the base of my cock and his nose is pressed into my skin. I can feel his throat working, struggling to not choke and his eyes roll up, find me, and I make a noise, sharp and broken, as I come.
Hunter’s eyes close and I feel his body jerk, feel him come wet and hot against my shin, and I groan because how fucking sexy is that? He swallows around me and sucks me clean until I’m gasping and twitching away, and he lets me go. He holds me up and climbs, a little unsteady, to his feet. He doesn’t lick his lips, and I can see just the hint of myself on them.
He’s watching me, bright and hungry, and that more than anything makes me move.
I pull him to me and I lick myself from his lips, lick the moan from his mouth, take the little gasp and the sharp nip of his teeth, take the way his hands go tight and hard on my hips, until I’m bucking into him and he’s breathing, ragged and wanting.
He doesn’t say anything when he pulls away. He kisses me gently, and then he steps away, out of the shower, and leaves the bathroom.
~
The problem with loving Hunter and Scarlet—because that’s always been part of the problem, loving them both—is that I can’t forget them. I’ve tried.
They won’t let me.
Chapter 10.
A week slides by and nothing changes. Day after day, I follow Scarlet while Hunter watches us with bright, curious eyes. I don’t think about the nights I listen to them
having sex, or the way Scarlet refuses to wear a bra under her tiny tank tops, or the way Hunter slides into my shower more often than he doesn’t.
I don’t think about the fact that Scarlet has watched him leave the bathroom and turned a smile towards me, but doesn’t say a damn thing.
We’re in this holding pattern, one where no one moves forward and we’re kind of perched in waiting, unsure of the next move.
Maybe I’m the only one who is unsure. Maybe they know exactly what they’re doing.
They usually do, and I’m usually the last to find out, which has always worked for me. I take the scraps I am given because it’s what I’m allowed. I’m too desperate to be greedy for more.
But as I watch them, and get used to the presence of Hunter in my shower, Scarlet in the mornings, and both of them, warm and familiar in the dark—I wonder how much longer I’ll take just the scraps.
When is this little bit that I’m given going to become too little, and who will I be, when I walk away from them?
~
I’m the one to suggest it, of course I am.
The Kingdom is mine. I can vanish there faster than anywhere else on earth, and with them both watching me constantly, I desperately need to disappear.
~
The music is low, a steady pulsing point throbbing in time with the flashing lights. The empty dais startles me a little, before I remember that Mal is still gone and my brothers are currently running the place without me.
Hunter sidles up behind me, dressed in his signature shades of gray, with Scarlet hanging on his arm, clad in a red and black dress so tight and small it barely classifies as clothing. She looks gorgeous.
They both do.
“You’re on your own tonight,” I say, careful to keep my gaze away from them, and I feel Scarlet’s grumpy huff, as well as the way Hunter holds her back.
He nods. “Of course, Wolf.”
Wicked Wolf (Wicked Ever After Book 3) Page 5
