Hunter

by Jacquelyn Frank

  Hunter grabbed her ankle and grinned, dropping her knee into the crook of his elbow instead. At her raised brow he said, “It’s better for your leg.”

  “So long as you don’t lose that amazing intensity, I don’t care if you put my ankles behind my ears.”

  “We’ll try that later, after the charley horse eases.” Hunter moved over her and into her once again, making her gasp and moan with lusty relief. He joined her, the urgent need to ride her coming over him as if he had never been interrupted. Except this time, his thrusts were deep and determined, a slower more focused cadence that made her go utterly mindless with reaction. Her back arched, her body reaching to meet his, and Hunter felt his entire spine rushing with heat as the visual stimulus of her reactions to him burned through him.

  “Oh baby, you are on fire,” he gasped as he reached for her mouth with blind need for her taste. “I feel you burning around me. Like wet flames ...”

  Tatyana clutched at his sweating skin, her fingers sliding to and fro over him in time with the surges of his body. “I’m ready to come again,” she moaned, “I need you ... wild and hard. I need you and your beast, Hunter.”

  Hunter nodded, but he would have agreed to anything at that point. He took her instruction to heart, however. His mouth dropped to her breast and his teeth plucked roughly at her. He shifted so his every inward thrust ran over her widely exposed clit for a good minute before finally hitting into her so hard that the smack of their flesh echoed into the room.

  “Oh God,” she moaned in a high-pitched warning.

  “You need to say something to me,” he ground out between panting breaths. “Or I’m going to stop.”

  “What?! No! Oh God, don’t stop!”

  Hunter grinned evilly as he caught up her other leg, lifting her ass up off the bed and realigning himself into her. He rode her until she started gasping out chains of pleasured noises, obviously coming on a quick crest. Then he stopped, dead still inside of her, fighting for breath as she keened out in dismay. He was burning with the desire to ejaculate, his own release right on the brink of going beyond his control. It was her enthusiasm and vocal cries of ecstasy that did it to him.

  “You’ve been in my mind all of this time, haven’t you?” he asked, shaking sweat out of his eyes as he punctuated the query by sawing into her like a bow drifting over the strings on a violin, creating perfect notes.

  “Yes!” she cried, her head jerking back restlessly.

  “Then tell me what this is all about. What are you doing?” he demanded of her.

  “Make me come first,” she begged him, “and then I’ll tell you how much I love you. Please! Later!”

  Hunter had never loved a woman before. Nor had he come even close to it. So, he had never really experienced why people thought that feelings of love were among the most powerful psychological aphrodisiacs around. Not until her declaration clicked over every pleasure neuron housed in his body. Only his roaring realization of how lost his heart was to her kept him from ruining her brimming release. He would barely remember what happened next, except to say it was the closest he had ever come to blacking out from an orgasm. He had lousy rhythm, gritted his teeth through the whole thing, and saw black blobs floating before his eyes as he came into her.

  Tatyana didn’t need much finesse in any event. She felt his recognition of his feelings for her racing through his mind and felt how it lit the fuse of his release. The knowledge allowed just the act of him pressing inside of her to pour himself out to ignite her body. She lit up like a blazing marquee, dazzling and announcing its news to all comers. She was in love, and he was, too.

  Hunter released her aching legs and gathered her up against his slick body, hugging her tightly as he maneuvered them into comfort onto the pillows and under a sheet and comforter.

  “I’m anticipating the cooldown after heat like that,” he said, still breathing and speaking raggedly. “We’ll be freezing our asses off in another sixty seconds.”

  “And he’s thoughtful, too. Will miracles never cease?”

  “I was just thinking the same thing about you,” he said as he reached to kiss her against her temple. “Am I going to find out what’s wrong with you someday soon? You have your head on eerily straight for someone so young. Where’s the downside?”

  “Hmm. Where’s your optimism?” she countered. “I do have that temper, though,” she reminded him. “And I’m stubborn. I can be sneaky. Willful. Domineering. Oh, and ... I get horrible PMS.”

  “Good to know,” he said. “So, which of those thought it would be fun to flirt with something really damn dangerous just now?” He frowned as he thought about it a little more now that he was calmer. “You don’t understand ...”

  “I understand better than anyone. When you seal off this room to protect my mind, that leaves only my head and yours open for occupation and random or specific eavesdropping. I’ve gotten to know you pretty well recently. I definitely know how your mind works. Frankly, I’m shocked that you would mistake any part of yourself as being like your brother. I don’t care about all that genetics crap and the history of your blood relations,” she said before he could argue, waving his objections off with an impatient hand. “And I want you to know I’m highly insulted that you think my children will turn out to be little monsters. Especially in this kind of environment. It’s an insult to me and to your kids to expect bad things from them without ever giving them a chance. Children can sense those things. How do you think they will feel if they realize their father expects them to be perverse and evil right out of the gate?”

  “I think it’s ridiculous to dismiss ten generations of warlocks, as well,” he retorted sharply. “If you get careless they will give in to that darkness they could be born with.”

  “Oh. You mean like you just did? You lost yourself to that side of yourself, yet I’m still here to tell the tale. And it’s a really cool story, if you ask me. But I’m post-orgasmic, so I could be biased.”

  Hunter sat up suddenly over her, looking down on her with a dark frown. “This isn’t a joke,” he said gravely. “What you did was dangerous. Don’t you get it? There’s a killer inside of me.”

  “Don’t you get it,” she shot back, “there’s one inside of me, too! Or did you forget who killed your bastard of a brother?”

  “I take joy in what I do, damn it!” he barked sharply. “I just took pleasure in treating you like ... like ...”

  “Please!” she scoffed. “You couldn’t treat me like your brother did if you tried! You haven’t got the capacity to be that sick and twisted! A rough lover doesn’t make a rapist, Hunter. And exactly what part of all of that made you think I wasn’t enjoying myself? The screams of pleasure? The begging for more? Maybe it was the ripping orgasms.”

  She punctuated her sarcasm with a popping slap on his shoulder, making him smirk in spite of himself.

  “Was that supposed to hurt?” he asked.

  “No. It’s supposed to ... oh, shut up. Jeez. The worst thing I have to fear from you is your obnoxious maleness, and frankly, growing up with seven brothers, you don’t scare me one damn bit.”

  “I can see that” He chuckled softly, reaching to brush back her hair. “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to say it’s bound to happen. Look at Dimitre and Annali. They just had a really painful misunderstanding, but they got through it. They survived. I want to believe that you and I are more than strong enough to survive, too. I love you so much already, Hunter, after only so little time. All I can think of is how much I will come to love you if we have a lifetime together. But you have to trust not only me, but yourself. This isn’t ten years ago. You know what you are and aren’t responsible for. What you are and are not capable of. Yes, you made mistakes, but they are human errors, and they are forgivable. If they weren’t, do you think the people in this house would ever have craved your return as much as they did? Is it really that hard to accept that people love you—mistakes, genetics, assassin, a
nd all?”

  Hunter knew she was right. There was no longer any reason to doubt how this household felt about him. Even Asher had come to forgive him enough to entrust him with a visit from his sister Amber. Amber herself had never blamed him as much as he had blamed himself. He was hard on himself for good reasons, he thought. Not because he enjoyed self-flagellation, but because it was so important to himself to keep on the proper path. He never wanted to see within himself the evil he saw in his brothers.

  “You don’t have the capacity, Hunter. You never did,” she said vehemently, reaching to wind her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her warm body and warmer kiss. “You take joy in your killing because you know you’ve just saved the lives of untold numbers of innocent people. You know you are freeing captive familiars. You take joy because you know what you are doing is good and it thrills you! And you think I wouldn’t want a man like that to be the father and guide for my children?” She kissed him again, making his heart race with that same joy he felt after a victory as Sentinel.

  He drew back, looking down into her jade eyes as they blazed with love and faith in him.

  “Did I tell you that I love you?” he asked softly.

  “Not in so many words ... out loud,” she said with a light laugh.

  “Did I tell you I’ve never been in love before, Tatyana?” The seriousness of his tone and statement made a visible impact on her. She could only swallow audibly and shake her head. “I figure,” he said softly, “I was just waiting for you to wake that up inside of me, just like you were waiting for me to wake your magic inside of you. I’d say that’s a hell of a trade.”

  “I’ll let you know if I agree, after the brain hemorrhaging stops.”

  “It will. You’ve already gotten stronger; you just didn’t notice it yet. You are going to be a hell of a witch one day, angel.”

  “I hope to be. I’m glad I’ll have you to guide and teach me. I trust you. Not just with me, but with my brother’s life, too. With the life of my future niece or nephew. With the lives of our future children, as well as the raising of them.”

  Hunter exhaled, slow and steady, staring down at her. “I am going to marry you and be the father of our babies one day,” he both warned and promised her. “I’ll be happy to give us time to learn each other even better, but that is always going to be my goal.”

  “I promise you,” she said with a teary laugh, “I have no problem with that idea at all!”

  Epilogue

  “Did he get down on one knee and everything?”

  “Of course,” she laughed. “And he looked very handsome doing it, too. I could barely speak.”

  Asher grinned and tucked a hand behind his head, shifting in his infirmary bed with only a little discomfort, a marked improvement from a week earlier. “That must have been rough on him. He’s very private and hates to draw attention to himself.”

  Annali snorted at that. “Usually, but this time he wanted to enlist every human being in a ten-mile radius to help him. I swear, there wasn’t a soul in that restaurant who wasn’t aware of what was going to happen ... except for me! I didn’t know whether to hit him or hug him, I was so flustered!”

  “Well, I’m glad you got over that enough to say yes,” he chuckled, reaching to squeeze the fingers of her left hand, making the new diamond on it sparkle with fabulous brilliance. Asher’s smile faded a little, his brown eyes turning a bit more serious. “How’s our Grace doing? Any improvement?”

  “It’s going to take time. A lot of time. Gracie never pictured herself being a victim before. She’s always been a survivor, always struggled and fought tooth and nail, but she never experienced a defeat like this. She doesn’t know yet that it wasn’t her fault or failure that made it happen. She won’t accept help or even affection from anyone ... except for Hunter. All of my hope for Grace lies with Hunter.” Annali smiled with a little flash of recollection. “He saved me physically the night he destroyed Evan, but during the year afterward, he was the one who truly saved my mind and my soul. Ryce too, of course, but Hunter ... well, it’s hard to explain.”

  “No, hon, I was there. I saw it from the outside. It’s not the same, I know, but I saw what he did for you. I’m glad he’s here for her. For all of us.”

  “Including you?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He looked at her sheepishly. “I’ve come to regret a lot of what happened after Amber died. Mostly thanks to Amber herself. She refused to come to me for two years, did you know that?”

  “No! I didn’t! You always said that Amber blamed Hunter for her death and told you so every night. You even said it to Hunter before he left. Asher! What a terrible thing for you to do! He believed you!”

  “That’s probably why I did it,” he said regretfully. “I knew he would. I was so angry back then and I felt so victorious when he left. Until I realized Amber was furious with me for doing it. Even then, it took me two years before I started having even a single regret about my behavior. It wasn’t until she felt that break in my anger that she finally came to me. It took a long time before I truly understood everything clearly, but Hunter had been gone for six years or more by then.”

  “But you started searching for him,” Annali said.

  “Yeah, but he was way off the grid. No credit, no banks. No medical records. No coven that I could find. I even asked Ryce to call him home, but he refused.”

  “He had made a promise. But it was good you did. It let Ryce know you were ready. Ryce couldn’t have made that scry for Hunter any sooner or any later than he did. It was meant to be this way. Without knowing Dimitre as we all did, we wouldn’t have acted so definitively to bring Tatyana over. Besides, Hunter has found something very precious in her that I don’t think he ever expected to deserve in his life.”

  “A sentiment I’m partly to blame for, I’m afraid.”

  “Perhaps. But in the end even Hunter realized you were not the interpreter of what really happened that day. Only he could realize the truth of it and come to accept it based on fact and not emotional blackmail.”

  “Yeah. We had a pretty long talk about it when I first woke up from this.”

  “I heard you called him to you. I figured this was what would be discussed.” She squeezed his hand in return. “I’m glad there is an understanding between you two now.”

  “I told him I was sorry for what happened to Tatyana. It was like a nightmare, Annie. I was watching myself, feeling my body respond to something that absolutely horrified my soul, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. When Hunter literally showed up in the nick of time, I swear I wanted to kiss him.”

  Annali nodded. “I’m sure you did. But even if he hadn’t, what happened wouldn’t have been your fault. No more than it was Gracie’s. You were a victim, too, don’t forget. He held you prisoner for nearly five days.”

  “Yeah, well, he only beat the hell out of me the first day. Then sent a couple of Healers to fix me up when I guess he realized I could be useful. He messed with my head a lot. Did a few other things,” he said dismissively. “Nothing I can’t handle. Luckily the spell took up two days and no one could come near me while it was being cast. So actually, he didn’t have much time to screw around with me.”

  “I know his type,” she said grimly. “It only takes a few hours for them to screw around with you.” She studied his expression carefully as she said, “We have an empath in this house now. A wild-card Mentalist whose powers aren’t under her control. If you are hiding anything, Asher McBride, she might find it.”

  “She might. And she might not,” he said with a dismissive shrug. “Look, the worst of it was in that room upstairs. I am so glad she doesn’t see me as her attacker. I couldn’t bear her looking at me and thinking ... thinking of me doing that to her. Especially now she’s coming to live with us. And facing Dimitre would have been a nightmare.”

  “Well, making like Greg Louganis out of the window has earned you everyone’s forgiveness. We all know it wasn’t really you. The
blame and anger were focused solely on Braen, and he is dead now.”

  “How are all those familiars doing? Ryce said there were over two dozen.”

  “Two dozen salvageable. There were more that were ... beyond repair. Ryce has placed them in institutions. There’s nothing else we can do for them. Modern medicine and therapies might help, but ... well, we know better, I guess.”

  “Yeah, we do.” Asher reached up to touch her face when she turned it down to hide her emotion. “But twenty-four souls saved is a powerful number.”

  “Barely saved,” she edited him. “We have our work cut out for us trying to heal this group. Oddly enough, Tatyana has been a big help. She also suggested it might be good therapy to get Grace involved. I don’t think she realizes it, but there’s a bit of a psychologist inside of that girl. She sees things and understands egos very well.”

  “Good. She’ll need it if she’s hooked up with Hunter.”

  “Ash,” she scolded with a laugh. “Oh! Did you get to thank Amber for me?” As she said it, her hand rested instinctively over her lower belly. “If Dimitre hadn’t told me I was pregnant, I would have pitched a fit and demanded I go with them to Pennsylvania. It was a horrible fight, I’m told. Everyone came back injured. I shudder to imagine...” And she did exactly that, her slender frame shaking sharply with her thoughts.

  “I did thank her. She’s tickled to death for you, you know.”

  “So am I,” she said, her eyes lit with pleasure. “I never would have guessed my entire life could change so quickly.”

  “I never would have guessed you wouldn’t use a condom,” he snickered.

  “Oh, hush!” She scolded him with a swat as she blushed a deep scarlet. “I know it sounds terrible, but Dimitre said that, for the first time in his life, it never once occurred to him. He’s completely baffled and still trying to figure it out. I think ... well, I suppose I think that the Goddess works in very intriguing ways.”

  “Hon, that is the most enormous understatement of the year.” Asher grinned. “But I want to know if She’s ever going to work something my way. Oh! Or better yet, my vote is for Ryce. I would love to see him fall apart over a woman.”