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Chapter 14

Hunter

“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s me.”

I don’t know what I’m doing, but the words just come out.

That’s who she thinks of. The first person she saw when I opened the door. Kade.

To be fair, we’re built the same now, and I rarely wear a cap. He wears one often.

But he wears body spray, and we carry ourselves differently. Does she really not know it’s me?

I sink my body into hers, trying to ignore how good she feels underneath.

“Be quiet, Dyl,” I add for extra measure. She hated it when Kade called her that when we were kids, and maybe I want her to keep thinking I’m him.

Maybe I’m afraid she’ll be disappointed, finding out I’m not, or maybe I’m tempted to see what she’s like with him when no one else is around.

I move down her body, working to untie her laces. “How’ve you been?” I ask, trying to mimic Kade’s husky but relaxed tone.

She shifts, her arms pinned between her back and the seat. “Oh, you know…nothing is ever my fault.”

I smile. “Whatever takes the focus off me with our parents, right?”

She laughs, that easy camaraderie they always had like a truck on my chest.

“Shhh,” I warn, retying her laces properly. She won’t be able to run in skates if we need to, but there are too many things in this junkyard that could hurt her feet. Skates are better than nothing.

I check out the windows. One figure moves ahead, shining his flashlight into cars.

I take out my knife and turn her over just enough to slice the zip tie around her wrists.

She exhales hard, rubbing her wrists. “What took you so long?”

I sheath my knife. What took him so long…

As if he can always be counted on to come and save her.

I slide the knife back into my pocket. “Were you waiting for me?”

“I’m not sure that’s the right word,” she teases, “but I always expect you.”

I come back down on her again, and she doesn’t resist. Not one bit.

Her breathing stutters, and she shivers.

“Cold?” I ask.

But I don’t wait. Pushing up just a little, I hold my hat to my head and pull off my T-shirt. I cover her with it, noticing the hard points of her nipples through her tank top.

“Thanks,” she says.

She huddles in close, warming her fingers against my stomach.

She’s fucking freezing. Her hands are like icicles.

She lingers there, slowly grazing the backs of her hands and then her palms over my skin.

Whistles shoot off through the night air. “You can run!” Stoli shouts.

Followed by Dirk, “We’re always up for that!”

I shake my head. They don’t go anywhere without Kade. He sanctioned this? What the fuck?

But she still thinks he’s made of gold.

“Hunter really doesn’t give a shit, does he?” I look down at her, our lips inches apart. “Where the hell is he?”

But I don’t think she’s looking at me. Her lids are down but not closed. I can see her blink. She’s staring down at her hands on my stomach. “Always closer than I think,” she murmurs.

Her fingers grow lighter, touching me more than warming herself now, and she moves her thighs out from underneath me, letting my body settle in.

Heat pools low in my stomach as my groin presses into hers. “Miss me?” I whisper.

She nods. “But I’m not going home.”

“If you’re not careful, they won’t want you back.”

“Will you?”

My cock twitches.

Until I remember that she thinks she’s talking to my brother.

“You’re mine to protect,” I tell her. “And to punish.”

Her nose brushes mine, and I swear I feel her roll her hips into mine as she pulls my T-shirt off her body.

“I need your protection right now,” she says, sounding so innocent.

“Dylan…”

I ache everywhere as I wrap my arm around the top of her head, hungry to feel every inch of her.

She grips my hips, and I don’t know if it’s her or me, but we’re pressing into each other hard. She’s going to feel it.

“It’s just pretend,” she whispers, her voice so small. “When they find me, they won’t stop you from whatever you’re doing. They’ll leave. Just pretend.”

She caresses my stomach, and I groan, taking her mouth.

An electric current sweeps through my lips, trailing along my jaw, and I just can’t stop. I deepen the kiss, needing more. Her soft mouth, the taste, the feel of her between my teeth... For a second, I just take it. I don’t give a shit who she thinks I am.

I sink into Dylan’s mouth, her tongue dipping in to touch mine again and again, and I feel her moan reverberate through her.

Oh God, I want this. Just her and me, alone in rooms. I want her in my arms, smiling at me. She’s the place I feel most alive.

Her whimpers hit my ear, but they don’t belong to me. They’re not because of me.

I rip myself away. “We can’t.”

She drags her fingers up my stomach, grazing my jaw with her lips. “Should’ve thought about that before you paid the Rebels to kidnap me and tie me up, Kade,” she says. “My dad won’t like that.”

I shoot up, wrapping a hand around her throat and dipping my forehead into hers. “You threatening me?”

She gasps, grabbing my wrist with both hands, but I see the smile peek out on her face. She doesn’t fight me.

“We’re getting close!” they shout outside. “Aren’t we?”

But I look down, seeing her bare stomach in her little shirt. I run my hand down her chest and slip a finger under her hem, pausing to see if she resists. When she doesn’t, I move my finger back and forth, inching the shirt up and over her breasts.

My cock strains against my jeans as I take in the outline of her. I need more light. Fuck, I need to touch her.

“Look what I got in my family,” I taunt. “It would be so easy. Our parents wouldn’t think twice about us being alone together anytime we want.”

She pulls me by the back of my neck, trying to get me down. “They’re coming. I hear them.”

I want to come down on her. I want her skin against mine. “I can’t.”

“It’s just pretend.”

“I can’t.”

I’ve gone too far already. She’s going to hate me for what I’ve already done, and Kade will never let me forget this.

“It’s just pretend,” she begs again.

I feel myself between her legs, and she lifts a knee, her skate banging against the seat. I groan, knowing the only thing keeping me from being inside of her is our clothes.

“Dylan…” I plead. “Please.”

She rolls her hips, her breasts flashing in the moonlight, and fuck…

I drop down, opening my mouth, but…

I stop, hovering over her nipple by just a hair.

I lift my hand, about to cup her at last, but I pull back before I do. Sweat covers my forehead, and she drops her hands again, caressing my stomach. I can’t. We can’t. I want to, but she wants him. I can’t do this.

Her breathing slows, and her body calms.

“You know, it’s funny...” She glides her nails up and down my stomach. “Kade is so ticklish,” she says.

I open my eyes, just realizing they were closed.

“You don’t grow up with someone and not know that,” she tells me. “I could never touch him like this without it being torture for him.”

Her fingertips trickle over my skin, and I go still, a chill sweeping through the car.

“Hunter isn’t ticklish at all,” she points out. “Not here anyway.” She rubs her thumbs over my abs.

I growl and push up, but she catches me, circling my waist with her arms. “Why did you do that?” she asks me, looking up into my face with a crack in her voice.

She knew? She knew the whole time? I think back to when she started touching me there. She must’ve realized then.

“Why?” she demands.

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

I try to pry her arms off me. “Let go.”

“Look at me.”

It’s the sadness in her voice. It stops my heart.

Looking down, I can just see her eyes. “I couldn’t kiss you there,” I say, tugging down her shirt to cover her breasts. “Not when you were giving your permission to Kade.”

“And I would’ve let you, knowing you weren’t him.”

My lungs empty.

Her hold on me loosens, but I don’t try to escape anymore.

“Your fingers are thinner,” she whispers, a smile in her voice. “The hair peeking out of your hat hangs over your ears. And Kade has that triple triangle tattoo, same as your mom’s, on the left side of his torso.”

“He does?”

She nods. “She took him to get it on you guys’ last birthday.”

And I wasn’t there. Mom and Dad wanted to come and see me, but I had football clinics. They dropped off presents, and I took a raincheck for dinner and cake. Which I also eventually canceled.

I should’ve been there. My mom should’ve had that experience with both of her sons. I would’ve loved to get that tattoo.

Dylan shakes her head. “You fooled me for a minute, but only because it’s dark.”

I can’t help but laugh a little. I don’t know why I thought she wouldn’t know me. Kade and I are identical, but everyone can tell us apart. Even before puberty struck, and we developed very different personalities and style, it wasn’t hard for people who loved us to pick up on body language and expressions. Dylan’s known me her whole life.

And she let Hunter kiss her.

I caress her face, dropping my forehead to hers. “I—”

But then…the door behind me whips open, and I’m yanked out of the car. Stoli slams the door shut, and then his hands shove me in the chest so I fall back against it.

I look up, seeing Kade step in front of me.

I freeze, equal parts dread and longing hitting me at once. I haven’t looked him in the eye in months.

“It’s so nice to finally see you,” he jeers.

I rise up, and he pushes me back again.

“Kade!” Dylan snaps, still in the car behind me. I hear her trying to open the door, but my weight is against it.

Kade lifts my arms and slaps my chin to the side, inspecting me. “No cuts, no bruises. They’re treating you pretty good. You must be cooperating.”

Pretty well. Not ‘pretty good,’ I used to correct him. I’m going to let it go this time.

“I like it here,” I straighten my spine and look at him eye to eye. “No one gives a shit about my car. Or my dad. Wanna trade places?”

“Is there a Starbucks?”

I chuckle. Kade never apologized for his comforts. I really loved that about him. If anyone ever gave him shit about his preppy clothes, corporate coffee, or fitness tracker, he would simply say ‘who should I be instead? You? How much does that pay?’

He always knew that no one who’s coming after you is doing better than you.

And I think I finally understand.

“Think about it,” I tell him. “You could take my place for a day. I’m due for a visit anyway. I miss A.J.”

And my parents, everyone.

But he just grins. “That’s Hunter.” He looks at Stoli and Dirk standing just behind him. “Can’t breathe on my hill, so he suffocates on his own.”

They smirk, and I feel the car bounce a little behind me. Dylan is climbing up to the front seat.

“You’re right.” I swipe my baseball hat off the ground, having lost it at some point when they grabbed me from the car. “Leaving the Falls didn’t help a lot. I still think about you too much, and why you were such a godawful prick to me for so long.” His eyebrows dig deeper, and I fit the hat on my head, the bill at the back. “But the thing I just realized is that you’re obviously thinking about me, too, aren’t you?”

His jaw flexes.

“Does he talk about me?” I ask his friends, glancing between them. “He bitches a lot, I’ll bet.”

My brother’s eyes darken, and for once, he’s quiet. “And you know what else I found out?” I say, hearing Dylan roll down the window of the old car. “She didn’t sleep in her own bed that night. You were right about that.” I step in. “But she’s never slept in yours.”

“Hunter…” Dylan says.

“She sleeps in mine,” I go on, dropping my voice to lower than a whisper. “But you knew that.”

“What’s going on?” Dylan steps out of the car and looks between us.

“Do you want her?” I ask him.

“Stop it,” she tells me.

But I don’t. “You always acted like you did.”

Every time I was alone with her, he inserted himself. He talked down to me in front of her. Made fun of me.

“And you always acted like I was shit,” I say. “So, I left. And for what? What the fuck do you want?”

Dylan stands a little taller next to us in her skates. “What are you guys doing? What is this?”

I look over at her, hurt watering her eyes.

“There was so much you didn’t see,” I murmur.

It’s not her fault. As Hunter, I want her so badly. I always have.

As her family and her friend, I would tell her to get the hell away from both of us and meet new people.

“This is Hunter, Dylan,” Kade chimes in. “Still trying to be more than me. You’re never really alone with him. I’m always in the room.”

Tears fill her eyes, and I drop mine, knowing there’s a world of insults I could sling back at him right now, but nothing he said was a lie, either. I just wasted a fucking year being mad at the wrong people. None of this is his fault, either. It’s mine, because I wasn’t tougher.

Dylan pushes me away from the car and opens the back door, climbing in for her shirt. But before she crawls back out, Farrow and the guys are on the other side. He opens the back door and leans down.

“Come here,” he tells her.

He doesn’t wait, though. He grabs her and sweeps her into his arms. Tears are already streaming down her face.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kade barks.

Farrow just shoots him a look. “Not tonight.”

He carries Dylan off. “Let’s get you fucking drunk, huh? You deserve it.”

Constin, Calvin, and the guys trail them, and in a second, they’re gone. Except for one. He stands there, staring at Kade, defiant. Almost like a warning. It takes a moment, but I recognize him from stuff I’ve seen online. Noah Van der Berg, Jared’s new protégé.

Kade’s eyes dart between him and me, and he must figure he’d rather not have Noah seeing or hearing more, because he leaves, charging away with his friends.

I turn slowly, unable to fill my lungs with air as I reach into the car and get my shirt too.

“Look, I know I don’t know you, but I do know brothers,” Noah says to me over the roof of the car.

I pull on my shirt, avoiding his gaze.

“And I have one who hid behind bravado like Kade a lot,” he tells me. “Hid being the key word there.”

I slam the car door and meet his eyes. “So?”

“What you’re seeing and hearing from him…” He holds my gaze. “I guarantee you, is to hide a problem that has nothing to do with a girl.”

So, what does that mean?

He used Dylan as a way to hurt me? Why?

I never hurt him. He has a charmed life. Two amazing parents. Lots of friends. What problems does Kade have?

Noah leaves, and I’m left standing there in the middle of all the cars drowning in fog.

All of these vehicles were on the road when the dam collapsed during the storm twenty-two years ago. The traffic was bad, because of evacuations, and people literally had to climb out and run. When the water receded, they moved the cars off the road and meant to junk them later, but never did. So many people never came back. The town forgot.

All of the homes had families once, but most of the owners of these cars have moved on, their lives completely different than the last time they sat in them.

Shit can change really quickly. One second, you have a life, and the next, everything you own is gone.

For the past year, I’ve operated under the assumption that Kade and I would come back from this. Once I showed him that I was just as strong on the field, he would respect me.

What if that never happens?

And what if, in the process, I hurt Dylan, the best friend I’ve ever had?

I drive home as fast as I can, finding Knock Hill covered with cars.

People gather in the street, and every light in my grandfather’s house is on.

I park and walk up the steps, my heart hammering at the idea of seeing her inside. He said he was getting her drunk tonight.

Opening the front door, I enter the house, my ears filled with the music pounding out of the speakers that Farrow has positioned all over the living room. I step into the foyer, gazing around at Calvin, Mace, Arlet, Luca, and Coral at the dining room table on my left.

None of them are drinking. Or smiling.

But excited chatter and laughter goes off to my right, and I glance at Farrow sitting in the high-back chair, the guys and several other students at our school hanging around.

“Hi, Hunter,” some girl chirps.

I ignore her, fixing my gaze on Farrow.

“I wasn’t in on it,” he says.

“I know.”

It was Mace and the rest of them sitting at the table right now. Farrow has them in timeout.

“Where is she?” I ask him.

“Just went to take a shower.” He jerks his chin in the direction of her house next door. “I gave her a bottle.”

I go up to my room, close the door, and stand there for about three seconds before I snatch her vibrator out of my desk drawer.

It’s still her birthday.

I pull the charging cord off and wrap it in a hand towel, heading back downstairs and out the front door before anyone can stop me. Slipping through the Rebels partying on the sidewalk, I walk into her house and close the door behind me. Once upstairs, I approach the white door and knock.

It opens with a quick jerk, but not all the way. Dylan looks up at me through a sliver of space, still dressed and her lips red from our kiss.

“I have your bath toy,” I tell her.

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