Chapter 19

Dylan

Hunter leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

I clutch the vibrator beneath my head, under the pillow, feeling tears spring to my eyes. I let the toy go and roll over, burying my sobs in one of his pillows.

I want to be his. We weren’t just playing around. It wasn’t like that for me. I don’t want anyone else to touch me.

I felt his eyes on me the moment I walked into the Revel tonight. You look pretty.

My skin was on fire. Simple words, something he would’ve said when we were kids with his big eyes and kind voice.

I feel every word like I feel every touch. I feel every look like I feel his mouth.

I don’t want to be the little girl he grew up with. I want him to touch me and take me somewhere quiet and kiss me and …

I shake with my tears.

Did I misread everything? Again?

The way he gripped my hair in my bathroom. His breath in my ear. His eyes and how it feels like he’s fighting himself to not look at me all the time.

The way he asked if he could do what he did to me on the sink counter the other night.

I imagined everything I thought he was feeling. I wanted to hear the desire or desperation or some shit in his voice, so I did. I imagined he was mine.

I inhale, realizing he was on these sheets with someone else last night, and start to pull back.

They smell good, though. Freshly washed. Was he trying to hide what he did?

A door downstairs whips shut again and again, and in a minute, I hear laughter and music pump through the house. Footfalls grow closer, ascending the stairs, and then another door, perhaps across the hall, closes.

Farrow and his friends are back. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I start to dial Kade to make sure he’s okay. I don’t care who won the fight after Hunter grabbed me out of his truck, but I want to make sure he’s safe.

But I just check Snapchat instead, seeing a picture of his hand posted ten minutes ago with the dashboard of his truck in the background. His knuckles are skinned.

I shake my head. He’s fine. Letting the whole world know he got into a fight, which is just so cool.

I need to get out of here, and I don’t want Hunter to see. I’m going to bed, and tomorrow, I’m training.

Before I can stand, though, my phone rings. I see Quinn’s name on the screen.

I answer, pausing a moment before I hold it to my ear. “Hey,” I say, trying to make my voice sound normal. “What are you up to?”

“You looked so good in that jacket,” she sing-songs.

How did…

I sigh, wiping away my tears. Someone must’ve posted a pic of me. I look down, trying to pull the jacket over my stomach.

“It’s tight.”

“It’s perfect, I’d say.”

I can’t help but laugh a little, her voice easing the pain.

I rise from the bed, almost grabbing my vibrator, but I don’t want to risk the whole damn school downstairs seeing it. I’ll have to come back for it another time. “What are you doing tonight?” I ask her.

“Hanging with my parents.” I hear her chew something. “I spent the day at the bakery. Taking some inventory, making some treats to leave my mom.”

“Heading back tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” she replies. “I’ll be back for the holidays, though.”

And I barely saw her while she was here.

“Sorry I got…kidnapped on you,” I tell her, not exactly forlorn at the time, considering the night ended amazingly, but now I’m pissed about it. She, Aro, and I were having fun at the rink.

But she says, “It’s okay. It’s been a good visit. My dad was happy to see Hunter last night. He actually smiled. Hunter, I mean.”

I nod, because I don’t know what else to do. “He went to your place too?” I ask. “After his Mom and Dad’s?”

“No, I was hanging with Jared. We drove to Madoc’s and ended up staying a while when Jax and Juliet showed up.” I can hear the smile in her voice. “Hunter and A.J. played hide and seek outside for like two hours, and then we all joined in, but it sort of fizzled out when Jax started making out with Juliet and forgot to seek the rest of us.”

I smile, picturing them all hiding behind rocks and in trees for half an hour.

“We were all up until midnight,” she continues. “It was like old times, except for you and Kade not being there.”

Midnight?

He was in the Falls until midnight?

“Kade wasn’t there either?” I ask her.

“I didn’t see him at all,” she tells me. “He went out after the game.”

I wander to the window, watching the rain drizzle down the glass and lightning flash across the sky. The rope up to my attic sways in the wind.

“Yeah,” I murmur.

And all at once, everything I already knew and shouldn’t have denied floods in.

I knew better.

And yes, I believed it so easily. Because it hurt. It made me sick to think of him not with me.

“We’ll catch up tomorrow,” I say. “I gotta go, okay?”

“’Night,” she chirps.

I hang up and slip my phone into my back pocket, gazing out the window.

He’s so stubborn. He’ll let me believe the worst of him, just like the time Gemma Ledger came out of his bedroom when we were sixteen.

Of course, I found out later that he was hiding her for Kade, but I didn’t understand why he would let himself be misunderstood like that.

Crossing the room, I peek my head out the door, seeing Mace coming out of the bathroom. She sticks her tongue out at me on her way back downstairs. I smile a little because she likes me. If she didn’t, she’d ignore me.

Music thumps below, howls and loud chatter filling the rooms, and I head down, seeing Hunter, Constin, and Farrow around a small table. Hunter rolls dice, then Farrow scoops them up to take his turn. Others stand or sit, filling the living room to the left and the dining room to the right. Hunter’s car keys sit on the table next to him, a scattering of cash piled in the center.

I stop at his side. “I want to go for a ride.”

I feel the others’ eyes on me, but Hunter just tosses more bills into the pile, rolling again. My bike is still down in the mill district, but I don’t really want to go for a ride on that. I want to get out of here for a little while with him.

He doesn’t look at me. “It’s raining.”

Farrow sees Hunter’s roll, chuckles, and snatches up all the cash.

“I’m bored,” I tell Hunter.

“Get upstairs,” he says. “Go to sleep.”

“I’m bored.”

His jaw flexes, and I wish everyone would go away. I want him to myself.

“Then hide,” Farrow suggests.

He looks at me, amused, and then stands up, announcing, “All the girls hide.”

A round of silence, followed by gasps of excitement follow.

“Just the girls?” some guy asks.

A glint of mischief touches Farrow’s eyes because how old-fashioned to assume men don’t enjoy being prey once in a while too.

“Fuck it,” Farrow says. “Whoever wants to be found by me.”

Squeals and shuffling go off as everyone scrambles, and I lean down, waiting until Hunter looks me in the eyes, distracted, before I slip his keys off the table and hide them in my fist.

“Bet you won’t be the first to find me,” I say softly.

Backing away, I avoid the stairs, taking the hallway leading to the kitchen. He doesn’t want to play, but there are lots of guys here who will.

He won’t like that.

“One, two…” Farrow starts counting. “Three…”

Twisting around, I dash into the kitchen, out of view, and step through the thin stairwell door. Codi sits at the kitchen table, sketching. She looks up at me and then back down.

I close myself into the spiral staircase and press the wall to my left, watching the panel slide right.

The stairs are wooden, unlike the stone ones in my house. I jog down, closing the panel again, and descend into the basement. I noticed yesterday morning when I rushed through here to sneak into his bedroom, taking the spiral staircase all the way up to the second floor, that this area of the house was renovated while the one in mine wasn’t. It makes sense if this was a house Ciaran used, while the one next door was left to rot.

Walking briskly, I push through the basement door and into the backyard that’s encased by a wall, whereas mine is surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence. Rain pours down on me, immediately plastering my flyaways to my face.

Holding the keys in my hand, I leave through the wooden door to my left, sneaking under the windows of his house, and beneath the tree next to mine.

His car is parked where he left it when he dragged me out, threw me over his shoulder, and carried me up to his room.

He should’ve just taken me for a ride, like I wanted. Now, I have to leave his Camaro downtown because I’m going to get my bike.

Fitting the key into the lock, I twist it and pull open the door, but a hand shoots out and slams it shut again.

My heart skips a beat as I look down at slender fingers, tanned with the veins coursing just underneath the skin. Water pours over his hand, and I can see our reflection in the window with light coming from the porch.

He covers my back, his chin resting at the side of my head.

“I’m going to get my bike,” I say calmly. “You’ll have to stop me.”

“You think I can’t?”

“I think you can’t.”

And I watch him watch me in the window as I pull down the zipper of the tight little jacket Quinn gave me, revealing I have nothing on underneath. No shirt. No bra. I don’t smile, and I don’t smirk.

My heart is trying to beat out of my chest.

The curves of my breasts peek out, and he exhales hard, pressing me into the wet glass. “Dylan,” he pants. “We’re on the street. Stop.”

“I can’t.”

His hand circles the front of my neck, and he bows his forehead into my hair, breathing in my ear.

“Would you even know if I were Kade or Hunter right now?” he asks in a dark voice. “Because you seem to get us confused a lot.”

“I know you’re Hunter.” I press my body back into his. “You feel like him.”

“And what does he feel like?”

The heat of his body covers my back, and I suck in a breath, turn my head, and kiss the corner of his mouth. “Like I’m going to let him have his fun,” I say. “No toys this time.”

I nudge him with my nose and grab his lip with my teeth, his hand tightening just a little on my throat as he groans.

“Get in the car,” he orders in my ear.

And I couldn’t say no if I tried. He opens the door, and I clutch my jacket shut as I scramble inside.

He climbs in, shutting the door and combing his wet hair over the back of his head. “Keys,” he growls.

I tighten my fist around them, watching annoyance light up behind his eyes when I don’t do what I’m told.

“You fucking Trents love to pick a fight, don’t you?” he spits out.

Yeah, screw you. I unlock the passenger side door and grab the handle, but in less than a second, he’s on his knees, punching the lock back down, and yanking me by the backs of my legs until I’m on my back. Hovering over me, he holds my wrist, and I fight back as he pries his keys out of my fist.

I shoot up, but he shoves me back down, his eyes not on mine anymore. He gazes at my breasts, my jacket having fallen open, and the hard points of my nipples aimed straight up at him.

“And just like a Caruthers, you don’t know how to finish one,” I taunt.

He smiles, challenge accepted. Taking his seat, he starts the car and shifts into Drive. I push myself up, but he pushes me back down and fists the waist of my jeans, keeping me on my back.

He speeds out of Knock Hill, and I grunt, trying to get his hand off me. I almost start kicking, but I don’t want him crashing.

I thrash a little, his eyes turning to me every once in a while, watching my breasts bob back and forth with the struggle.

We travel uphill, into the forest, before he pulls over, parking under the trees. He kills the engine, the headlights going dark, and rain spills down all of the windows.

I watch him rise up onto a knee, pull the back of his T-shirt over his head, and hover over me. He starts to unfasten his belt with one hand, and my heart leaps into my throat. I dart up, yanking his hands away from his jeans, gasping when he tugs my jacket off my shoulders.

“In the car?” I breathe out. “You mean Caruthers don’t do it on thousand-thread-count sateen sheets? Isn’t your skin too precious for leather?”

I shove his body off and flip over, reaching for the door, but he pulls my jacket off the rest of the way and comes down on my back, pinning me to the seat.

“My father never took issue with your dad’s pissy attitude,” he whispers in my ear, pinning one hand on the armrest and slipping the other underneath me to cup my breast. “You know why? Because he knew he’d have the last laugh. He knew one of his boys would be having a lot of fun with you one day.”

He thrusts into my ass, our jeans between us, but I can still feel him. I close my eyes, feeling myself grow wetter.

My phone vibrates in my back pocket, followed by a ring, and I reach for it, but he gets it first.

“Kade,” he says. “You want me to answer it?”

“What—”

“I think he’d come and save you if you asked,” he tells me.

But instead, Hunter rolls down the window, and I look up just in time to see my phone fly out the window.

“What the fuck?” I snap, fighting hard now.

It’s raining, goddammit! I texted my dad, telling him I’d call tomorrow. He’s going to ask why I’m calling from a weird number when I use the phone Hawke gave me.

I grip the door, trying to pull myself out from underneath him as he rolls the window back up. Rain spatters my arms.

He releases me, and I spin around, backing up to my door and covering my breasts with my arms as I scowl.

One knee is under him, the other foot on the floor, and I gaze up his long and lean torso, my eyes finally falling to where his jeans hang.

“I’ve waited a long time for this,” he tells me.

For what?

But he’s already opening his door and climbing out. Without another word, he reaches in and grabs my ankles, hauling me out of the front seat and into his arms. Rain falls on my skin, hitting my eyelashes as he looks up at me, and before I know it, he’s slamming the front door shut and opening another one, lying me down in his back seat.

I rest my arms at my side, loving his eyes all over me. “I’m so mad at you sometimes.”

He starts to climb in, rain from his hair dripping on my chest. “How mad?” he asks. “Hmm?”

Diving down, he catches one of my nipples between his teeth, biting. I gasp and then whimper.

“That mad?” he asks me.

Then he sucks off the water, taking as much of me as he can into his mouth.

My eyelids flutter, tingles flowing under my skin.

I arch my back, giving him more of it. “More.”

“This mad?” he continues, licking and kissing.

Unbuttoning my jeans, he pulls them down over my ass, finding I’m not wearing underwear, just like I wasn’t wearing a bra. He stares down at me, between my legs, and I wait for him to start to unfasten his belt. Unbutton his jeans.

But instead, he clutches my thigh, runs his thumb up my pussy, opening me before he comes down and covers my clit with his mouth. I shudder, the wet warmth of his tongue sending a shockwave through me. “Please, Hunter, don’t do that.”

He stops immediately, his mouth hovering over me, and I can feel his heavy breaths as I clutch his shoulders.

“Do I…” I don’t know how to ask. “Is it…do I taste okay?”

He drops his head, his wet hair grazing between my legs. “I don’t want to stop,” he begs. “Please don’t stop me again.”

I nod, and he yanks off the rest of my clothes, lifting my knees and spreading my legs wide. I start to cover myself a little, shy, but he’s already coming back in to taste. I groan, holding his head and rolling my hips into his mouth as he sucks, licks, and dips his tongue inside me.

I shudder. “Ah…”

“Fuck,” he whispers, dragging the tip of his tongue up both sides of my clit before sucking on it so softly.

I moan, rocking my hips. His hand comes up, holding my breast as I fuck his mouth, and I thread my fingers through his hair, feeling the orgasm start to rise. He licks me again and again, then sucks, and I hear him groan.

My orgasm climbs, but I don’t want to come like this.

Part of his body is still out in the rain, and I claw at his back, feeling his cold skin. I sit up, forcing him to rise, and start unfastening his belt. “Close the door,” I tell him, looking up into his eyes. “I want you inside me.”

I open his jeans, but he grabs my wrists. “Are you sure?” he asks.

And I smile, because, as always, he protects me.

I dip my tongue out and lick his stomach before nibbling it with my teeth. “Why do you think I pick fights with you in the first place, Caruthers?”

He pushes me back down on the seat, pressing his body into mine and covering my mouth with his. I wrap my arms around his neck, tasting myself on his lips. I moan, the kisses getting harder and faster, and firecrackers go off underneath my skin as his mouth travels down my neck. He keeps going, over my breasts, down my stomach, and then he bites the curve where my thigh meets my hip.

“Hunter,” I moan.

“Are you still on birth control?” he breathes out.

I nod. Since I was fifteen. Our whole family knows everything about each other. My mom told me it was to regulate my period, but I’m pretty sure all parents give out that excuse.

He stares down at me. “Can I not wear a condom?” he asks. “I want to…” He swallows. “I want to feel it my first time.”

His first time…

We’re each other’s firsts.

I gaze into his eyes, whispering, “You can come inside me.”

I want him to.

He swoops in again, kissing me, and all I taste is him. Hunter’s scent I’ve known my whole life, his skin and toothpaste and the musk of his bodywash.

He reaches in and pulls himself out, the head of his flesh crowning my entrance. I hold my breath.

“What did you say about a Caruthers not finishing a fight?” he mocks.

I blink. What?

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said,” he coos, smiling over my lips.

“Shut up,” I pant.

He pushes inside me, and I wince. “Hunter,” I whimper. “I’m nerv…”

But he’s already thrusting again.

And then again.

I breathe shallow, feeling myself stretch as he sinks inside me, his hips rolling into me again and again. I hold his body, feeling him gasping, too, and after a couple more times it doesn’t hurt anymore.

I press my forehead into his chest, squeezing my thighs around him, stunned for a minute.

He takes my face and tilts my head back, looking down into my eyes. “Are you okay?”

I relax my legs a little, spreading them wider. “Don’t stop.” And I kiss his lips, lying back down and letting him look at me while I move underneath him.

In less than a minute, his mouth is on mine again, our pace picking up as he grips my ass, burrowing deep inside me.

His cock hits, making my whole body shudder, and I moan against his mouth. “Keep doing that,” I plead. “Right there. Yeah.”

Planting a hand on the door, he lifts up to watch me as he pumps. “You feel so good. Tighter than my fucking hand.”

I bite my bottom lip to keep from smiling. I like hearing that.

Sliding in and out, I roll my hips in rhythm with him, looking down to watch him slide in and out. I pull him in harder and faster into me, my orgasm building again, teasing and rising.

I whimper over and over again. “Come inside me,” I beg against his mouth.

“Say it again.”

I thread his lips with mine. “Come inside me.”

He groans.

I mouth. “Come inside me.”

“Oh, Dylan.”

He props himself up, and I arch my back, taking what he can’t hold back anymore. He thrusts hard, and I wrap my legs around him, holding him as he goes deeper and deeper. My eyes roll back a little as my orgasm breaks free, washing over me, and I come, shivering underneath him.

His dark blond hair is messy and beautiful and hanging in his eyes as he groans over my lips. “Fuck, Dylan.”

He thrusts once hard, and then again, and then…once more, spilling his cum inside me. His lungs empty, he drops his forehead to mine. I hold him, running my thumbs over his cheeks and feeling rain or sweat, I don’t know, but I do know I loved everything that just happened.

After a minute, he raises his body, sliding out of me a little, and that’s when he stops and flinches.

“What?” I ask.

He just blinks and then shakes his head. “I don’t have a towel.”

And then he laughs, more to himself, and I feel like I missed something.

Sinking back in, he moves down, circling my head with his arms.

I smile, but I try to hide it.

“What?” he asks this time.

I shrug. “I was your first too.”

He chose me like I chose him, but thinking back on all the years, I wonder how much of it was ever a choice. I wonder now, how I didn’t see this coming.

“Well, the night is still young.” He brushes my nose with his. “Wanna be my second and third, as well?”

I wrap my legs around him again and bury my smile in his neck.