Hunter’s Baby

by Alexis Abbott

  We laugh, and my heart pounds faster. It’s a reminder that every second I spend around Blossom is playing with fire, and this is a fire so hot it could burn us both alive. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. The more time I spend here talking to Blossom, the more I realize what a wonderful person she has become. She’s more than just a functional, adjusted adult. She’s a woman with hopes and dreams, her feet on the ground, and people who love her. She has everything. To want to step closer into that world is beyond tempting.

  But it would destroy her. It would destroy Flora, too.

  When we stop laughing, she looks at me with some searching gaze, and I don’t resist it at first. But when the silence has gone on too long, she puts both her hands around one of mine and squeezes gently.

  “I miss this, Hunter,” she says. “I don’t know about you, and I guess I made myself forget how much I did, but...I really miss this.”

  “I do too,” I have to admit. I feel her getting closer to me, and I turn to look deep into her eyes. I can feel her pulse racing against my hand. I know the look in those gorgeous eyes so damn well.

  Too well.

  I want to lean into it. I want to push her back against the deck and feel everything I’ve craved for years. I want to tell her that she and she alone has been the light keeping me sane and driven for this whole time we’ve been apart, that she’s the reason I can keep on going. I want to spill my heart and tell her how I’ve never stopped loving her after all these years.

  But those can’t be the words coming out of my mouth.

  “Blossom,” I say, covering her hands with my other one, “I’m a different man than I was back then.”

  “And I’m a different woman,” she says, not missing a beat. Her mind is quick as it is beautiful.

  “But I recognize her,” I say in a low, husky tone, and I bring my hand to her chin, holding her and boring into her eyes with mine. “I’ve changed in ways you could never know, Blossom. Ways that would frighten you. In my line of work, I’ve had to do some things that I’m not proud of. I’ve had to go to some dark places I couldn’t ask anyone to follow me through, much less you.”

  The look she gives me is so attentive, so knowing, that I feel like I’m standing before an angel and having my soul judged when she says the next sentence.

  “I know you’d never do anything without a good reason,” she says. My pulse races. If only she knew what she was saying.

  Or maybe she does? Those eyes are almost haunting. She’s insightful, possibly more so than I ever guessed.

  The lilac tree…

  ...does she know?

  Blossom

  There is some kind of unspoken question suspended in the air between the two of us. Hunter is looking at me with those dark eyes the color of wood smoke, the color of cloves, with a deep burning fire crackling in the shadows there. I can feel him watching me with the intensity of a fox stalking a rabbit through the underbrush. Like he is a predator I should fear. Like I’m exactly the flavor of prey he most desires, and at any moment, he could spring into action and catch me in his gnashing jaws.

  All around us, the forest thrums with nocturnal life. Owls hooting in the distance, rustlings in the trees and brush. And beyond that, the far-off, chilling howl of a wolf echoing in such a way that makes me wonder if it’s merely an echo, or just the identical replies of its pack as they wind through the wilderness. This cabin is lodged in the middle of nowhere, essentially. If someone wanted to lure me out to a violent, secret death between the pines where nobody could hear me cry out for help-- this would be the exact sort of real estate at the top of the list.

  As soon as that idea occurs to me, I feel a prickle of unease. The first and only little alarm bell dinging in the back of my mind, crying out to my brain that maybe this was a foolish idea to follow Hunter out into the woods. Into his own comfort zone. This is his territory, not mine. Even though I used to live in rural northern Maine, surrounded by rolling fields, rocky shores, and lonely forests, that was a long time ago. Five years. And those five years were not empty, simple ones. They seem like an eternity when I reflect upon them now. Like they expanded wider and wider to contain multitudes of turning points and milestones, all whisked far, far away from the whispers of the woods at nighttime. Five years spent in varying levels of solitude, isolated in a slow-moving cell in the middle of the city.

  Perhaps my sister is right. Perhaps I am naive. For even though I have grown up, had a daughter, gotten a job, escaped my parents’ stranglehold, and become a mostly-independent, self-sufficient woman of the city, I still have so many weak points. There are so many ways to trap me, to lure me away from safety.

  Hunter is the lure. My honey-sweet memories of berry-stained kisses under the white lilac branches have carried me out of the safety of my apartment in Albany and floated me all the way here to Ithaca, and now to the hunter’s cabin in the woods. Because I know now that I can no longer ignore the twinge of paranoia muffled underneath my joy and surprise at seeing Hunter again. I can’t keep lying to myself about why I’m here. Sure, it has something to do with that horrific murder and my podcast dream and my desire to become a crime reporter. But it’s much more than that. It’s a deeper, more instinctual drive that has brought me three hours from home.

  Those white lilacs. I can no longer brush them away as part of the great cosmic coincidence that brought me back to the man I love. The man whose past five years are still partially obscured by mystery. He gave me no minute details. No names. No precise locations. He’s never mentioned a permanent home or address. Hunter has a job that keeps him traveling, keeps him on the road all the time, bumping from one neck of the woods to the next. I have listened to so many true crime podcasts. I have stayed up late, rocking my daughter to sleep by the dim light of a table lamp while my free hand scrolls through article after article about unsolved murders and mysteries. I’ve read hundreds of pages about the psychology behind most serial killers. I’ve seen pictures of crime scenes. I’ve read police reports, listened to 9-1-1 call recordings. I have delved into the kind of bloody, bone-chilling world of nightmares that people like my sister would be disgusted by. I know the tricks these killers keep safely tucked up their sleeves. They leave tracks sometimes, whether on purpose to taunt the public and the police or by accident. They leave calling-cards.

  White lilacs.

  The pure white blooms at the crosshairs, at the intersection of Hunter’s life and mine, the flowers that brought us together. By chance? Maybe. Still, I may be naive, but even I have lived enough of life to know that coincidences this huge don’t come along very often.

  There is a question hanging from my lips, dangling in the air between us, but I cannot seem to give it breath. Because I know that if I do, it will irrevocably change things between us. If I dare to ask this deadly question, there’s no telling how far down this crevasse Hunter and I might fall together. And I have to ask myself something else first.

  Do I really want to know?

  But before I can waver in either direction, Hunter swoops in to swallow up the question with a passionate kiss. It’s the kind of kiss with a weight to it. In this case, five heavy years of forced separation, of life changes big and small, of clinging to empty hopes and broken promises. Five years of self-induced isolation and loneliness. I’ve never taken another lover. Not since I lost the only one that ever mattered to me. Because I still held hope that I’d see him again, and because I knew that even if our paths were never to cross again, I would never, ever find another man I wanted so badly as I want Hunter. At the tender, foolish age of eighteen I made my choice: to fall for and follow this man, with all his darkness and his secrets, hopelessly in love to the very end, wherever and whenever it may come. And judging by the passion, the near-desperation in the way he kisses me, I have a feeling his five years have been spent in a similar fashion. He has walked alone, waiting for me. And suddenly, for the moment, it doesn’t matter much to me what he’s been doing during all this time
. It doesn’t matter who he’s been with, if anyone.

  It doesn’t even matter to me what he’s done or who he’s done it to.

  Right now, I am his angel, and he is my prince, and come what may, this is what I want.

  So I lean into the kiss, parting my lips ever so slightly as his hands slide up to cup my face. His thumbs trace over my rounded cheekbones, follow along my jawline, and back to lightly stroke my hair, pushing the loose locks of blonde hair back behind my ears. We have no need for words right now. We might as well be under those lilacs again, only five years older and five years more desperate for touch. His tongue gently probes into my mouth and I allow it, our lips moving together softly at first, then harder. My entire body is warming up from my toes to the top of my head. I can feel that aching between my thighs, my arms hooking around him as his hands rove down my frame. I’ve grown up a little since we were last together, and I feel him groan appreciatively as his hands cup my much-fuller breasts. He gropes them hungrily, his fingers dancing over my nipples, squeezing and rolling them between his fingers through the thin fabric of my oversized night shirt. I press myself harder into his hands, sighing as he breaks our kiss and begins to lightly nip at my neck. I’m just as ticklish there as I always was, and with every gentle bite and kiss, I shiver and moan, getting slick between my legs in anticipation.

  Hunter pushes my long blonde hair over one shoulder to free up the other, and he tugs the loose-fitting shirt over my shoulder to expose my collarbone. He leans in and kisses it while his hands play with my breasts, squeezing and feeling them up like we’re still two innocent lovers in in the moonlit fields. He moves his way down slowly, one hand sliding around to grab my ass while the other roves down my front. He kisses my lips again softly while his hand travels down between my thighs, and I inhale sharply, surprised and turned on by his forwardness.

  “You don’t waste any time at all, do you?” I whisper breathlessly.

  “I think five years is long enough to wait,” he growls in reply.

  I can’t argue with that. I’m not wearing any panties under my black pajama shorts, and when he tugs them to one side, his fingertips just barely brush along my slick folds, making me tremble and whimper. I want more. I need more.

  “I never thought I would get to feel you again like this,” Hunter murmurs, slipping his fingers underneath my shorts and lightly stroking up and down my opening.

  I’m panting heavily, both arms outstretched so that my hands can brace myself against the wooden wall of the deck. I’m leaning back as he bends down, getting a better angle to slowly slide two long, thick fingers inside my dripping cunny. My hips buck involuntarily as my head falls back and I choke out his name. “Hunter!”

  “So wet for me, just like you always were,” he murmurs. His fingers push all the way inside of me to brush against my g-spot, making me shiver and grip the wooden posts so hard I might get splinters. As his fingers slide in and out of me, Hunter looks up at me with lidded eyes, his lips parted as though he’s just dying to taste me.

  “I-I haven’t even-- been touching myself-- all these years,” I breathe, “because I knew it would never-- feel as good-- as the way you touch me.”

  “Fuck, you have no idea how sexy you are, Blossom,” he growls, shaking his head. “I’ve been dreaming about touching you like this for five long years. Five hard years.”

  While his two fingers slip in and out of my aching hole, his thumb starts to gently circle my clit. It’s such an overwhelming sensation that I have to gasp for breath and hold on tight. My legs are shaking, and I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to hold myself up. Luckily, Hunter seems to notice how much I’m struggling, and he kneels down in front of me, tugging down my shorts and tossing them aside before hooking my left leg up over his shoulder. He wraps a strong, powerful arms around my right leg, keeping me steady while he leans in. Hunter pushes up my gray night shirt and I grab hold of it, bunching it up over my taut stomach to keep it out of the way. I look down at him, my chest heaving as I fight to keep breathing. I’m so overwhelmed and shocked by what’s happening that it hardly feels real.

  Hunter is here, and he’s touching me. He’s leaning in, pushing three fingers inside of my pussy now. I’m so slick, I can feel my honey dripping down his arm onto the wooden deck. And when he dives in to start suckling at my clit, I cry out, convulsing with pleasure. I tremble and moan, nearly losing my grip on the wooden post, but Hunter holds me up with his strong arms. And he doesn’t let up for a second. I can feel his appreciative moan vibrating up through my pelvis as he devours my pussy, licking and sucking my clit while his fingers pump into my tight, clenching hole. He eats my pussy like it’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted, like he can hardly stand to take a moment to breathe before diving back in.

  We’ve wanted this for so long. Both of us. With every move he makes, with every sigh that falls from my lips, it becomes abundantly clear to me that I don’t even care what brought us here together tonight. I don’t care if it’s fate or coincidence or some wild cosmic conspiracy-- as long as I have Hunter touching me, loving me, giving me the satisfaction and wholeness I’ve been lacking for five years, none of the details matter.

  I need him. He needs me. And I intend to do everything in my power to keep us together this time. I won’t lose him again. Not if I have anything to do with it.

  I’m rocking my hips now, riding against his face and his fingers even though he’s the one in control, and I’m getting closer and closer to climax. I can feel it approaching, that pent-up release hurtling toward me like a tornado.

  “Oh god,” I gasp. “Hunter… I’m so close.”

  He growls, “Good. Give it to me, angel. I want to taste you.”

  Hunter’s fingers pump into me faster and harder, striking that deep, delicious spot within me every time while his tongue laps at my clit. My whole body is tensing up, preparing for orgasm when suddenly, there is the unmistakable sound of something-- or someone-- moving around inside the cottage. Both of us freeze up instantly. Hunter looks up at me from between my thighs and I stare down at him, biting my lip. We pause for a few moments, listening closely.

  It dawns on me that it could be Sage or Flora getting a glass of water or something, but on the off chance that either one of them comes outside to the deck to check on us, the last thing I need is for my sister or my daughter to find me in a compromising position. Without exchanging a single word, Hunter catches on and gets to the same page. He hastily helps me step into my shorts and pull them up before he stands up beside me, tall and steady. I’m a little disappointed to have been interrupted just before I could finish, but I know I have to be careful. Besides, I fully intend on picking up where we left off as soon as an opportunity presents itself.

  Hunter turns to me, his lips parting to say something, probably about Sage or Flora, when there’s another sound from inside the cottage. And this time, there’s no mistaking it for either of the girls. My stomach twists with anxiety and my eyes go wide. Hunter looks toward the cabin with his jaw clenching, and holds an arm out in front of me, as though to keep me back. That tells me he heard the same thing that I heard: heavy footsteps, probably wearing boots. Neither of the girls could sound like that, even if they tried. Hunter reaches into a pocket of his work jacket and pulls out a blade that glints in the moonlight. A hunting knife.

  As he stealthily moves toward the door to open it and go investigate, a dark realization passes over me: the Ithaca killer uses a hunting knife.

  Hunter

  Every nerve in my body is under my complete control. This is where I thrive-- hunting in the darkness, stalking my prey, striking with quick and deadly precision. But this time, I’m not the true hunter. We’re being hunted by someone else, and I’m not about to take that lying down.

  As I stalk forward through the house, the knife in my hand may as well be an extension of my arm. Before I started killing, I trained day and night with knives of all lengths and types, and I mastered t
heir use. Whether it’s a freshly killed deer or a living man, I know how to handle myself with a knife as easily as a martial artist handles his fists.

  I keep a hand back behind me to discourage Blossom from getting too close. I know she won’t just stay put like I want her to, not because she’s defiant, but because her only child is in this house with whoever is intruding on us. Not even I could practice that kind of self-restraint. I’d already be on top of whoever was in the house. But I have to be cautious as much as I can. One wrong move, and the intruder will get away.

  And I’m very interested in knowing who’s here.

  I was supposed to be out of the cabin by tonight. I was supposed to get all my stuff out and be long gone hours ago, but when I first rented the place, the owner told me it didn’t really matter, because he was out of town and wouldn’t be back for a few more days.

  That meant that whoever is here knows my schedule.

  No burglar who knows what he’s doing breaks into a cabin knowing that nobody’s staying there. There’s rarely anything worth taking unless they’re just looking for a quick smash and grab, in which case he wouldn’t show up while our cars are parked outside. But why would he come in anyway after seeing those cars? My mind is racing, and I’m trying to think of who might be hounding me like this. There’s no time, though. I have to keep my entire mind focused on being ready for anything.

  I step into the living room and can hear rustling in the kitchen. It’s soft, like someone searching carefully. But if the intruder is in the kitchen, he can’t be looking for valuables, can he? What the hell is this guy’s game?

  I’m perfectly silent as I stalk forward, listening to the sounds of things getting moved around carefully and only daring to step down on a new board as something else gets moved in the kitchen. Just before I reach the doorway, the sounds stop, and so do I. There’s a moment where I feel the entire house go still, and my muscles tense up.