Taking Him (Lies We Tell)

by Jackie Ashenden

  “It’s not a bondage outfit, idiot,” she said. “I’m Dark Shadow. From my game.”

  Hunter leaned his elbows along the back of the chair in front of him. “You’re dressed as your own heroine?”

  “Promo.” The muzzle of the gun wobbled a bit. “And you’re sounding a touch judgmental, Chase.”

  A small bolt of surprise went through him at the snarky tone in her voice. Ellie never got angry with him. Never showed her anger, period. She wasn’t one for confrontation, tending to retreat in on herself when she got mad or when other people got mad at her. And yet now she stared at him with a decidedly belligerent look in her startling green eyes.

  “What’s up, sweetness?” he asked mildly. “You sound prickly.”

  “Nothing’s up. And I’m allowed to be bloody prickly if I want, okay?”

  Hunter glanced down at the table, noting the number of empty cocktail glasses on it, then back at the wobbly muzzle of her gun. Looked like Vin had been right to suspect Ellie had had a little too much to drink. But who’d have thought such a sweet girl would be such a mean drunk?

  “So exactly how many cocktails have you had?”

  “Not enough. Keep still. I want to shoot you.”

  Hunter gave an inward sigh. “Go on then.”

  Ellie mimed pulling the trigger. “Bang. You’re dead.”

  “Feel better now?”

  “Since you’re still standing, not particularly.”

  “Ah, so the problem is me, is it?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?” Sarcasm dripped from her tone.

  Hunter gave her another measuring look. Obviously she was spoiling for a fight, which was very un-Ellie-like of her. “How about we discuss this in the truck?”

  “No.” She waved the gun at him, her chin tilted at a mulish angle. “I don’t want to discuss this in the freaking truck. In fact, you can piss off. I’m going to get myself a bloody taxi.”

  Huh. Ellie had never been difficult—in fact normally they got on very well. So where had all this hostility come from? Was it the alcohol? Shit, this was so the wrong night for her to suddenly get pissy with him. He didn’t have the patience for it. Making an effort to stay calm, he said, “Why get a taxi when you have a perfectly good truck waiting to take you home?”

  Ellie eyed him. “Vin sent you, didn’t he?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yeah, actually it does. I’m not some teenager out past curfew you have to ship home, you know.” She fiddled with her gun. “I’m an adult and have been for some time.”

  Oh Jesus. He’d had a full-on fucking day and his mood had not been improved by the discovery of an invitation to his brother’s wedding sitting in his mailbox. He was already unsettled by the prospect of a family get-together and a drunk Ellie was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now.

  Hunter glanced down at his watch. Christ, it was nearly one thirty. “Adult or not, it’s late and I need to get you home. So get in the bloody truck.”

  Her eyes widened at his tone. Then she folded her arms. “No.”

  Slowly, Hunter pushed himself away from the chair. Briefly debated picking her up, throwing her over his shoulder and carrying her. Discarded the idea. Someone would probably call the cops and he’d be done for kidnapping or some shit like that. Of course he could leave her here, but that would never be an option. Ellie Fox was precious, not only to him but to Vin as well, and he’d be damned if he’d leave his best friend’s little sister drunk and alone, no matter how obnoxious she was being.

  He narrowed his gaze at her. “Get in the truck, little girl.”

  “Oh my freaking God! Did you just call me little girl?”

  “Yeah, I did. If you insist on acting like a child, I’ll treat you like one.”

  A look of outrage crossed her face. “A child? I am not a—”

  “It’s one in the morning, you’re drunk, you’re being difficult and you’re wearing a slutty outfit. I’m not leaving you here.”

  “A slutty outfit?” She sat bolt upright in her chair. “My costume’s got nothing to do with—”

  “Like I said. You’re drunk. In a bar full of freaks. Wearing a slutty outfit. Give me a lecture about your right to wear whatever the hell you want another time, okay? I’m here to take you home and that’s what I’m going to do.” He folded his arms. “So be a good girl and go get in the truck.”

  Chapter Two

  A hot flush crept up Ellie’s neck. Hunter stood opposite her, all dark and sexy, a hard look on his perfectly sculpted features, a look he never normally gave her. A look that for some reason she found insanely hot. Which only made her angrier.

  Sliding her feet off the table, she pushed herself up and out of the chair in a sharp movement. Only for the ground to shift unexpectedly under her feet. She stumbled and a warm arm curved around her waist to steady her, a familiar, spicy smell engulfing her. A smell that was all Hunter. A combination of the woody scent of his aftershave, worn leather and sun-warmed skin. Reminding her of all the days and nights she’d spent as a kid with him looking after her, reading her stories, playing games, watching TV. Helping her with her homework. Distracting her from the depressing reality of having a mother who more or less lived in mental health institutions, a father who’d disappeared from her life when she was still a baby and a brother who was struggling to keep their tiny family together.

  Hunter, who’d always given her the attention she’d never gotten from anyone else. Who’d made her feel loved and cared for. And who would never see her as anything more than a child.

  Angrily she jerked herself away from him, struggling to retain her balance. “Go away, patronising jerk,” she muttered. Part of her—the drunk part—badly wanted a fight but the more sensible—and more sober—part whispered that perhaps a crowded bar wasn’t the best place for it. That perhaps she should do what he said, at least until they were somewhere private so she could let him have it properly.

  “Suit yourself.” Hunter stepped away. “You sure you can walk?”

  Ellie gritted her teeth, willing the floor to stop moving. “Yes.”

  “And have you finished acting like a sulky teenager?”

  Asshole. “Goes both ways, Chase. If you treat me like a child, I’ll continue to act like one.”

  Hunter eyed her for a moment. “I wouldn’t go around making stupid statements like that, sweetness. You might find your behind getting spanked.”

  For a second a vision popped into her startled brain of herself over his knee with her jumpsuit down around her ankles and her bare buttocks reddened from his hand. Adrenaline spiked, her breath catching.

  Hunter raised an eyebrow and she felt her blush deepen. “Don’t be a prick,” she said, feeling even madder with him and hoping to God he couldn’t read her mind. Then again, maybe he should. That’d teach him. “I’m not two years old, you know.”

  “Apparently. Though I’ve seen no evidence of it. Come on, the truck’s in the street.” Without waiting for her, he turned and began threading his way through the crowd to the bar entrance.

  Ellie took a short breath, trying to calm her racing pulse, confused and angry and still stupidly turned on by the unexpected spanking fantasy. Crap, she was so out of control, and that wasn’t a good thing tonight. Not with him around.

  Why not? Perhaps that’s what you need. Perhaps being out of control and less inhibited is a good thing…

  Oh man, she didn’t need that thought in her head. It was too tempting. Made her think of doing things that were completely out of character. Things such as going down on him in his truck, tasting him while he put his hands in her hair. While he moaned her name. Yeah, that would be one way of making sure he knew he wasn’t her babysitter any longer.

  Outside, the street was full of its usual quota of late-night drunks, obnoxious club-goers and out-of-control teenagers. A crowd of young men—a stag party from the looks of things—catcalled Ellie as she went past. One of them reached out and hooked an arm aroun
d her waist. “How much, darling?” the man slurred drunkenly in her ear.

  Ellie, already annoyed, pushed him away with rather more force than strictly necessary. The man got a little annoyed himself, cursing and trying to make another grab at her.

  “Hey,” Hunter said mildly, coming up beside her. “Hands off the lady, buddy.” His tone was good-natured, but the drunken idiot clearly saw something else in his eyes because the guy held up his hands in a “hey, she’s all yours” gesture before walking on down the road with his mates.

  The moment did not do anything for Ellie’s mood. “Don’t say a word,” she said shortly. “Especially not ‘I told you so’.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetness. Come on, the truck’s over here.”

  Not far away, parked under a streetlight, was his truck, Fox Chase Construction on the side of it. He unlocked it, pulled open the door for her. Ellie slid in and sat there silently seething as he got in the driver’s side.

  “All right,” he said as he closed the door. “Why the hell are you being such a pain in the ass?”

  Ellie leaned back in her seat, put her boots up on the dash and folded her arms. “I’m sick of you and Vin treating me like a kid all the time. Or some stupid damsel in distress needing to be rescued. Like just now for example.”

  Sodium glow from the streetlights flooded through the truck’s windows, highlighting the perfect bone structure of Hunter’s face, casting his eyes into deep shadow. His temper wasn’t easily roused but when it was, it tended to burn hot. And she could tell it was on the point of burning hot right now.

  “So you wanted to be pawed by some drunken dickhead? In that case get out. There’s a whole fucking city full of them outside.”

  “Like you’d let me get out in the first place.” She shouldn’t be pushing him like this, but the alcohol had loosened things inside her. Opened up the box of everything she’d kept locked away for years, and now it was all out, she’d be damned if she’d put it all back again. Besides, in another few weeks she wouldn’t be here anyway so perhaps it could stay out.

  Hunter was silent a moment, but the tension in his powerful shoulders was obvious. He let out an audible breath. “Look, I’ve had a hell of a day and I don’t want to argue with you while you’re drunk. So how about you drop the attitude and we discuss it some other time?”

  “No, why should I?” She stared at him, at the dark spaces where his eyes were. “You’re doing it again, you know. Shutting me down like I’m a kid with nothing important to say. I’m sick of it.”

  He put one hand on the steering wheel, half turning to face her. “I’m not shutting you down. I heard you damn well. You don’t want to be treated like a child. I get it. Fine. Is that it? Can we go now?”

  Ellie stuck her chin out. “No, that’s not bloody it.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake.” His hand moved, turning the key, and the engine started. “Tell me while we drive. And get your feet off the dashboard before I move them myself.”

  Ellie kept her boots right where they were. “Say please.”

  Hunter didn’t say anything, merely reaching out, grabbing her ankles and pulling them off the dash. “Thank you,” he said with exaggerated politeness. Then he twisted the wheel and pulled the truck out into the traffic.

  A small, hot ball of anger began to boil in Ellie’s gut. He didn’t speak as he drove, but she could feel the irritation radiating off him like heat from the sun. The kind of irritation adults projected with kids who didn’t do what they were told.

  God, she was so over it. So over being ignored. Being patronised. That’s all anyone ever did to her. Even at Green Frog, the game studio she’d been working at for the past few years and the place she’d felt most at home, a lot of the guys had been condescending. Mainly because she was the only female designer on staff. She’d put up with it because she’d had to, because she’d wanted to fit in and hated confronting people.

  No more.

  “I’m twenty-five, Hunter,” she said into the silence. “You do know that, right?”

  He kept his gaze on the road in front of him. “Of course I know that.”

  “And I’m a woman.”

  “I know that too.”

  “With actual tits and everything.”

  There was a small silence. Ellie set her jaw, refusing to be embarrassed.

  Eventually he said, “Any particular reason you’re telling me about your tits?” A thread of amusement wound through his voice. Amusement that set her teeth on edge.

  He drove with his usual careless ease, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on one muscular thigh. His attention was directed straight out the front window, and fair enough, he was driving after all. Still. Maybe it was the alcohol talking. Maybe it was the years of being ignored by all the important people in her life crashing down on her. But suddenly his lack of attention and his amusement made her feel angrier than she’d ever felt.

  How many more people in her life were going to ignore her? Put her second?

  She’d played second fiddle to her mother’s illness for years now, her brother too busy managing her to bother with Ellie. Hunter had been the only one in her childhood who’d paid her any attention. Who’d ever actually listened to her. Back then he’d been the older brother she’d always longed for. But then things had changed and she’d ceased to see him in brotherly terms.

  Hearing them come in that night, she’d stolen down the stairs, watching them from the hallway. Fifteen and fascinated by where they’d been, evidence of an adult life she was on the cusp of. They were talking, Vin laughing while Hunter gripped the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it up and over his head, hissing as if in pain. Vin whistled and Hunter turned, and then she’d seen it. His tattoo. Angel wings that covered his whole back.

  Her heart had gone still that night, breath freezing in her throat. The light had fallen across Hunter’s spine, the powerful lines of his shoulders clear, the graceful interplay of muscles in no way obscured by the feathers tattooed into his skin. In some old, primitive part of her mind, something had fallen into place. A recognition. When she’d been small, this man had always been her guardian angel and now the tattoo proved it. A beautiful angel. So beautiful. She’d wanted to get up and run her fingers over his skin. Trace the tattoo. The exquisite curve of each muscle. The line of his shoulders, his spine, his hips.

  From then on she’d been fascinated by him in a completely new way. A physical way. Wanting him. The untouchable Hunter Chase, who never had girlfriends and was notoriously picky with his choice of lovers. Who was reputed to like older, more experienced women. Which was fan-freaking-tastic because she was neither and never would be.

  Well, to hell with that. To hell with all the wasted years she’d spent loving him from afar. It was time to stop being such a pathetic nerd and take action. Be Dark Shadow, her kick-ass, take-charge heroine. Make him see her as she truly was. Not a little girl but a woman.

  “What’s so bloody funny?” Her voice sounded harsh in the close confines of the truck cab. “The fact that I have breasts or that I’m talking about them?”

  Hunter shot her a dark look. “Ellie, I don’t know what—”

  “They’re real, you know. If you stop the truck I’ll even show them to you. Or would that embarrass you too much seeing as how I’m still only a kid to you?”

  No, she wouldn’t cringe at the ridiculousness of the words. Or the raw edge of vulnerability that had somehow bled through. She didn’t care if he heard. If he knew. She’d given Hunter far too much power over her and her emotions, and it was time to take some of it back.

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, “I’m not laughing at you, sweetness. You know I would never do that to you.”

  But the words were like steel wool rubbed against an open wound. God, he always sounded like this whenever she was hurt or upset or angry. He’d go all gentle, soothing her like a child with a skinned knee. He never fought back. Most of the time he’d go
silent. And the times he wasn’t silent, he was merely impatient and irritated.

  “You can laugh at me if you want. I’m bloody hilarious. Ellie Fox with the amusing breasts.” She gripped the end of the zip on her jumpsuit. The zip that held the whole thing together. “Go on, take a look. I dare you to.”

  He didn’t, of course. He kept staring at the road. “Exactly how many cocktails did you have again, sweetheart?”

  Ah yes, of course. Blame it on the alcohol. Because there couldn’t be any other reason for her to act this way, right?

  Ellie stared at him for a second longer. Then she pulled down the zip of her jumpsuit.

  Hunter heard the sound of a zip being undone, but although Ellie’s drunken attitude problem was getting a little out of hand, surely she’d never go that far.

  “Ellie,” he began, “I don’t know what the hell—” Then the words died in his throat as he turned to look at her. She’d sat back in her seat, the halves of the ridiculous jumpsuit she wore hanging open, right the way down to…

  He jerked his gaze back to the road, a prickling heat washing over him. Shit. She was bare to the waist.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he demanded through gritted teeth.

  White skin. Small, pale breasts. Little pink nipples. Perfect. All utterly perfect.

  “Giving you something to laugh about.” She sounded defiant, challenging. “Because obviously the thought of me as a woman is somehow amusing to you.”

  His hands gripped the steering wheel tightly, trying to forget the sight burned forever into his brain. A sight he wanted to look at again. And again. Which was wrong on so many levels he could barely even begin to think about it.

  “Do you see me laughing?” he bit out. “For God’s sake, put your clothes on.”

  “Why? You’re embarrassed? You don’t have to be. It’s just me. I’m like a kid sister to you, right?”