“So you gave her my number?”
“You had a deal with my family. In order to keep our part of the bargain, you need to answer this PR chick.”
“Stop messing with my phone.”
But I couldn’t fully be mad at him when he was trying to help. Again.
“I’ve never messed with your phone. Just your panties.”
“Ha.”
Hunter kept staring at me, his smile big and mischievous and full of things I hadn’t even known you could feel.
No.
“You did not touch my panties,” I whispered, shocked, flustered, and… Actually, I couldn’t start counting all the things his confession made me feel.
He raised his arms in surrender. “I plead the fifth and kindly ask you not to check my pockets.”
“There’s nothing in your pockets.” My eyes flared, but I couldn’t stop smiling. What was wrong with me?
“Bet. So don’t check them.”
The need to find out whether he was pulling my leg or not overwhelmed me. The ego boost would be intoxicating if he told the truth. My eyes traveled down to his sweatpants. He was hard.
So hard.
The ridge of his cock was long and thick and pointing to his stomach. I swallowed. If kissing Hunter felt so far removed from anything I’d experienced with Beau, I wondered how having sex with him would be.
Divine.
Euphoric.
Destructive.
I then proceeded to wonder how dumb I could possibly be. I’d signed a contract vowing to keep him celibate. I couldn’t sleep with him.
I looked away, munching on the skin around my thumb. When I heard Knox still shuffling around in his room, I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned around and stuffed my hand in Hunter’s pocket without giving him any warning. My fingers collided with his penis, and I almost jumped back, when I felt something. A piece of fabric. I narrowed my eyes at him, stopping dead with my fist around the fabric.
“No.”
He gave me an exaggeratedly sweet look, batting his lashes.
“Stop pretending to be innocent. Your innocence died a long time ago.”
“That it did, bloodied and screaming. All the same, it could be Knox’s lingerie. He is a fine-looking specimen.”
I snorted. “I’m pulling it out.”
“Hey, that’s supposed to be my line.”
I tugged at the fabric. My fingers shook around it.
Yellow.
With red spots.
Did I have red and yellow underwear? I racked my brain trying to remember. But it wasn’t my underwear. It was a bloodied piece of cloth. It looked like part of a shirt. I realized it was a piece of the shirt the guy he’d fought with at the pub was wearing. Hunter had kept it. Shame, excitement, disappointment, and every single other feeling in my emotion basket slammed into me all at once. My eyes darted up.
He curled his fist around mine, so we were both holding the fabric. He leaned down. His lips brushed mine.
“Fuck, you are easy to rattle. Your ass is so mine for the next five months.”
“Get away from me.” But my words lacked conviction. They were empty, hollow, wispy.
“Submit, prey,” he growled darkly.
“Fight harder for it, Hunter.”
“I’ll swallow you whole.” His breath caressed my cheek and ear, sending my hair flying with warmth. “You don’t know my kind. Arrow-proof.”
A dark, delicious quiver ran down my spine as he whispered that.
Knox came back when we were a fraction of an inch from a kiss, with me hanging on to the remainder of my self-control with bloody fingers.
He stood in front of us with a cardboard box full of equipment, cutting the charged moment with a metaphorical knife. “Ready to play?”
Hunter looked back at him, completely poised, calm, and in control, smiling devilishly.
“Always.”
I replaced the clock in Syllie’s office after everyone had left.
It was just the cleaning ladies and me, vacuuming, gossiping, ohh-ing and ahh-ing to the distorted Filipino station they blasted from a radio.
The clock was the easy part. Earlier today, I’d gone down to the parking lot and put a tracker on Syllie’s car. One of Da’s accountants had stepped out of his Model X Tesla when he saw me on all fours, fingering the bottom of Syllie’s Mercedes like some auto-fetish creeper.
“What on Earth are you doing?” he’d demanded, looking down his nose at me—testament to the fact that Da hadn’t claimed me as anything other than a glorified PA, minus the generous rack.
I had to think fast. “Getting high on fumes,” I said without missing a beat.
Yeah. That was the best I could come up with. Shut up.
“Is that a thing?” His saucer eyes widened.
Considering he was approximately a thousand years old, I figured he’d buy it. I pretended to wipe my nose with the sleeve of my blazer, grinning.
“Gives the best high. If you haven’t tried it yet, are you even living?”
“Will you teach me how to do it?” His plump face twisted in question.
Being the cool kid sucked balls in Boston. Plus, this particular cool kid didn’t even have any friends—other than Sailor, who was a potential fuck buddy, so I couldn’t get attached.