“Is she trying to kill you?”
“Probably,” Hunter murmured, unable to help but smile because she was fucking adorable when she was pissed.
She’d given up on giving him the silent treatment mostly because she wasn’t very good at it and had settled for slipping back into her minion role. The only difference now was that her smiles had gone from forced to overly sweet and her tone was polite even as she let him know just how pissed she was. Not that he could blame her, because he couldn’t. She’d been so fucking adorable when she’d handed him the beer, he thought with a wistful sigh.
“And is there a reason why she’s suddenly pissed at you?” Ryan asked, plucking the beer out of his hand and dumping it out before dropping it in the bucket with the rest.
“She found the file,” Hunter admitted after a slight pause.
“Oh,” Ryan said, putting a world of meaning into that one word.
“Exactly,” Hunter said, still trying to figure out how he was going to make this up to her.
“Then why is she still here?”
“Because I wouldn’t let her leave.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Hunter said, especially while he was stuck on house arrest and wouldn’t be able to get to her if anything happened.
But once he was off house arrest…
She still wasn’t going anywhere, he decided.
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“What’s that?” Ryan absently asked, as he pulled out his phone.
“I want you to look after her when this is all over.”
“Why?” Ryan asked, throwing him a curious glance.
“Because she’s really good at what she does and I plan on keeping her on after this,” Hunter explained, not bothering to point out that knowing that she was safe was the only way that he was going to be able to sleep at night.
“I see,” Ryan murmured thoughtfully before asking, “Now, by ‘really good at what she does,’ are you talking about sex? Because I’d like to get an idea of her qualifications.”
“She’s not my type,” Hunter said, as he hooked his foot behind the leg of Ryan’s chair and-
“Son of a bitch!”
-decided to see what his devious little assistant was up to.
Chapter 19
“This was a stupid idea,” Kylie finally admitted, as she gave up searching under the end table and sat up with a sigh as she glanced around the large office, wondering why she was doing this. She should just focus on doing her job and counting down the days until she could put all this behind her. It shouldn’t matter that he was struggling with this, but it did because she remembered what it felt like to be trapped.
Well, that, and she didn’t actually want to leave.
She liked it here, loved her job, and she even liked Hunter, and that was the problem. If he’d been a jerk after everything that happened, she could have ignored the pained expression on his face when he’d admitted that he was struggling without a second thought, but instead, he’d tried to make it better. He also hadn’t pushed her to forgive him, lost his temper, or tried to blame her for what happened like her ex-husband would have. Instead, he’d quietly accepted her glares, sat outside the bathroom door when her second encounter with alcohol ended like the first, and kept her from falling apart last night.
She still wasn’t happy with what happened, but right now she had bigger problems to worry about.
Maybe it rolled under the couch? she wondered as she leaned back over and-
“What the hell are you doing?” the man that she’d gone to five different stores for this morning asked.
“Can I help you with something, Mr. O’Mallery?” Kylie absently asked, wondering if Amazon would be able to deliver a new Nerf gun today.
“I’d love another beer,” Hunter drawled, making her lips twitch as she glanced up and-
“It doesn’t work,” she said, licking her lips nervously as she looked from the large Nerf gun loaded with a hundred, correction, ninety-nine small foam balls aimed at her to find Hunter leaning back against the couch, looking completely relaxed.
Not taking his eyes off her, he raised the gun and-
“Son of a bitch!” came the shouted reply from somewhere behind her as the large toy gun that she hadn’t been able to figure out fired a round.
“Really?” he asked, aiming the gun back in her direction.
Swallowing hard, Kylie licked her lips nervously as she glanced over her shoulder and-
“You bastard!” Ryan snapped when Hunter fired off another round, hitting his best friend in the knee.
“What’s with the gun, Miss Jameson?” Hunter asked, drawing her attention back to find the large Nerf gun aimed at her chest.
“Distraction,” she managed somewhat weakly even as she had to admit that she hadn’t thought this one through.
“Distraction,” he murmured, looking thoughtful as he asked, “From what?”
“To help keep your mind off your house arrest?” Kylie said, following the gun as it was raised and aimed towards her right to find Ryan reaching for the second Nerf gun and-
“Oh, come on!”
“I see,” Hunter murmured as he reached over and picked up the other Nerf gun off the couch. “And this has nothing to do with you wanting to shoot me?”
“Well, I mean, it has a little bit to do with that,” she admitted with a shrug, because she wasn’t going to lie.
“Fair enough,” Hunter said, nodding as he handed her the second Nerf gun and walked away, only to throw over his shoulder, “You might want to run,” and after one look at the panicked expression on Ryan’s face, she did just that.
*-*-*-*
“I surrender! I surrender! Oh, my God! I surrender!” Kylie yelled somewhat hysterically as she kicked the large Nerf gun out the door before slamming it shut and quickly pushing herself back away from the door, uncaring that she was in a pitch-black closet. She curled up in a ball as she prayed that the crazed man that had spent the last three hours hunting her would just take her gun and leave.
There was a satisfied sigh and then the closet door that she really wished she’d thought to barricade was opening.
“That was fun,” Hunter said, as she found herself picked up and thrown over his shoulder. “Let’s play again.”
*-*-*-*
June
“Oh, that’s unfortunate,” Kylie murmured with a pitying sigh and a sad shake of her head, as she reached over and picked up the Boardwalk deed card from the meticulously organized array of cards that she’d arranged in front of her as though she didn’t already know how much he owed her.
Oh, did she fucking know…
“That will be two thousand dollars,” she said, as she glanced down at the mortgaged property cards and the small stack of ones in front of him before looking up at him with an, “Oh, did I win again?” and an innocent expression that had his eyes narrowing on her.
“Rematch,” he bit out through clenched teeth.
“I guess we could play again,” Kylie said with a shrug as she reached for the dice and he decided that the Monopoly board was going to meet the same fate as the Clue game.
*-*-*-*
July
“Oh, God,” Hunter moaned, unable to help himself as Kylie worked her magic. “Just like…that.”
There was a heavy sigh and then, “Why must you make this creepy?” Kylie asked, but thankfully never stopped scratching.
“Just keep doing that,” Hunter said, closing his eyes on a groan as she continued scratching the skin surrounding the band secured around his ankle that had been driving him fucking crazy lately.
“Still creepy,” she mumbled, careful of the small plastic GPS device attached to the band that was irritating the shit out of his skin.
“Harder,” he said on a groan, as she worked her neatly trimmed nails over his skin.
“What have you been scratching with?” Kylie asked, as she s
topped scratching so that she could run her fingertips gently over the scratches that a fork, pencil, and a paperclip had left behind.
“Woman,” he growled in warning, as he cracked one eye open to glare at her.
“God, you’re spoiled,” Kylie muttered, shaking her head in disgust even she as she reached for the soothing ointment that she’d picked up for him earlier and-
“Mmmm, that feels so damn good,” Hunter groaned only to feel his lips twitch when she asked, “Are you going to keep doing that?”
“Are you going to keep scratching?” he returned.
There was a pause and then, “Yes,” she said, sighing heavily.
“Then yes.”
“Definitely spoiled,” Kylie muttered, but thankfully for the sake of his sanity, she kept scratching.
*-*-*-*
“Wait! Let’s talk about this!”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Miss Tompkins,” Hunter said, as he tried to gently pull the small woman clinging to him off, only to sigh heavily when she shook her head frantically and tightened her hold around him.
“You’re not going to drown,” he promised her even as he gave up trying to pry her away and wrapped his arms back around her.
“You don’t know that!”
“We’re in the shallow end,” he pointed out, glad that she couldn’t see him smile since she’d probably go for his balls.
Again.
But that one was his fault. He shouldn’t have warned her that they were going swimming until he had her in the pool.
“You can drown in an inch of water,” she pointed out weakly.
“You’re not going to drown.
“Why are you lying to me?” Kylie demanded, pulling back far enough so that she could send him one of those cute glares that he liked so much.
“Do you know what I’m thinking?” Hunter asked, releasing his hold on her so that he could push a wet strand of hair back behind her ear.
“That I hate you?”
“No.”
“That you’d fit in nicely in Hell?” she asked, blinking innocently.
“No,” he said, chuckling as he carried her towards the deep end, “I was thinking that we should probably see how you’d do in the deep end.”
“What? No, I was kidding, Hunter! I was kidding!”
“So, you don’t hate me?” he asked, pausing a few feet away from the deep end.
“Well, I mean, you did drag me into the pool and-”
“Wrong answer,” Hunter said, sighing heavily as he headed back towards the deep end.
“Wait! I don’t hate you! I don’t hate you!” Kylie yelled somewhat frantically, which he decided to take as a sign of her devotion.
“And you trust me?” he asked, because he felt that really should be cleared up before they continued.
“I’m not sure that I would go that far,” Kylie said only to quickly change her mind with an exasperated sigh and a chuckle when he turned right back around. “Fine! I trust you. Are you happy now?”
“For now,” Hunter said, because something told him that they were going to have to go through this all over again when they moved onto the underwater portion of this lesson.
*-*-*-*
August
“Why do I have to sit over here?” Kylie asked, as she took her time selecting the next delicious morsel that she planned on devouring.
“You know why,” Hunter said, looking up from whatever he was doing to the Jeep’s engine to glare at her. When her car finally died yesterday, and she had a feeling that the man glaring at her had something to do with her car’s demise, she’d decided to take her chances with finding a used car online. She’d managed to find a Jeep with low mileage that only needed a little bit of work and Hunter decided that he would be the one doing the work. Since it gave him something to do, she didn’t argue.
“It was an accident,” she pointed out, only to bite back a sigh and shift to get more comfortable on the large workbench where he’d deposited her with orders to stay after she’d accidentally knocked a wrench into the engine.
“Are you going to let me have a cookie?” he asked, as she stared down at the beautiful basket of cookies that arrived for her earlier.
“No,” she said, shaking her head because they were just too beautiful to share.
“There’s over a hundred cookies in there. You can’t eat them all,” Hunter pointed out.
“Oh, but I can,” Kylie said, selecting a particularly yummy looking butterscotch oatmeal cookie.
“You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“Worth it,” she said with a firm nod and a sigh as she savored a bite of the delicious butterscotch deliciousness.
“Want to tell me why my men sent you a basket of cookies?” he asked, as her attention went to the selection of oatmeal raisin cookies that weren’t going to survive the night.
“Because they adore me,” she said, popping the last bite of cookie in her mouth before adding, “That, and I make sure that they don’t have to deal with you directly,” with a shrug.
“I’m not that bad,” Hunter bit out, nearly making her choke on her cookie.
Clearing her throat, Kylie said, “You scare them,” as she selected a particularly juicy-looking oatmeal raisin cookie and took a bite. God, they were so good, she thought even as she decided that this should only count as one cheat snack. Maybe she could freeze half of them for next week, she thought as she-
“Do I scare you?” Hunter asked softly, drawing her attention to find him suddenly standing between her legs.
“No,” Kylie mumbled weakly, as she found herself looking into Hunter’s green eyes, because he didn’t scare her.
At least, not in the way that he thought.
With one of those incredibly sexy grins that wreaked havoc on her heart, he leaned in until his lips were brushing against her ear and whispered, “Liar,” making her breath catch as he plucked the cookie out of her hand.
“My cookie,” she mumbled sadly, as she watched him finish off her precious cookie with a wink that had her eyes narrowing and had her deciding to go see if there was any of that expired beer left in the fridge.
*-*-*-*
September
It took Hunter a minute to figure out what was going on and when he did…
He ended up grunting when the woman that he was quickly learning was bossy pushed him over. Once she’d finished pushing him out of the way, and God, she really was fucking bossy, he turned over to glare at the small woman taking over his bed.
“We lost electricity,” Kylie said, answering his unspoken question as she settled in next to him only to pause, reach over and-
“That’s my pillow,” he bit out with a glare that she had no chance in hell of seeing.
“Mine now,” Kylie said with a satisfied sigh as she curled up next to him and left him there, glaring down at her until he grumbled something that even he didn’t understand and found himself curling up behind her. When she shifted back with a pointed wiggle, he sighed heavily, making sure to sound put out as he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her closer.
“Better?”
“Much better. Thank you,” she murmured, making him smile until she added, “But I’m still mad at you,” making him narrow his eyes as he stole his pillow back.
He should probably look into getting a generator, he thought as Kylie stole the pillow back and snuggled back against him. Once he had his arms back around her, he pressed a kiss against the back of her neck to let her know that she was safe. He closed his eyes and savored the feeling of having her in his arms only to feel his lips twitch when she wiggled, demanding that he hold her tighter.
Something that he was more than happy to do.
Chapter 20
October
“What…what did you say to him?” Kylie asked hollowly as she stood there, staring down at the phone in her hands.
“Nothing,” Hunter bit out angrily, as he slammed the desk drawer shut.
“I could hear him crying all the way upstairs,” Kylie said, shaking her head in disbelief as she glanced down at the phone that he’d thrown at the couch when she walked in and noted that it didn’t have a button for speakerphone, which kind of terrified her.
“He shouldn’t have fucking called this late,” Hunter snapped, opening another desk drawer only to slam it shut seconds later.
“Who was it?” Kylie asked, frowning as she placed the phone back on the charger.
“Wrong number.”
“I see,” she murmured absently, as she watched him slam another drawer shut. “Is there a reason why you’re in a bad mood?”
“I don’t need a reason,” Hunter said, leveling a glare on her.
“No, no, of course, you don’t,” she murmured absently, as she debated something only to sigh and turn right back around when he shoved the desk chair out of his way, slamming it into the wall, and making her realize that she’d put this off for long enough.
With that in mind, Kylie headed back upstairs to her bedroom. Once she reached her bedroom, she grabbed the comforter off her bed and checked the alarm clock by her bed to make sure that she still had time. After a slight hesitation, she walked over to the desk that Hunter got for her after he got sick of waking up to find office supplies stabbing him and grabbed her iPad.
She normally slept in his room whenever they lost power, she was having a rough night, or that time he’d convinced her to watch the first Saw movie. Sometimes when she was working late at night, he would join her and end up falling asleep next to her. A few times, she’d woken up in the middle of the night to find him sleeping next to her. She was guessing those were the nights when he struggled the most, making her wonder if tonight was one of those nights.
He’d been stuck in this house for eight months, counting down the days until this convention so that he could escape, and now that it was here…
“I can do this,” Kylie said with a firm nod, as she closed her eyes and slowly exhaled. She could definitely do this, she told herself even as her nod quickly turned to a frantic shake of her head and her shoulders slumped in defeat, because she really didn’t think that she could do this. At least, not without panicking, which was something that she fully planned on embracing at the moment.
Devastated (Anger Management Book 1) Page 11
