The night he’d found out how badly he’d been manipulated. Used.
Vin looked down at the length of wood he’d been in the process of trimming, pulled a pencil out of his tool belt and made a mark on it. “You really need someone to go with you?”
No, he didn’t. Not really. But having a date made a good excuse to leave if things got…difficult. And considering Liz would be there, things were bound to get difficult because she could never leave the past where it should stay. Dead and buried.
“I don’t. But you know how it is with Liz.”
Vin gave him a look. “Still?”
Hunter met Vin’s gaze without flinching. “Still.”
His father’s wife may have dumped the seventeen-year-old boy she’d once manipulated, but that hadn’t stopped her from making advances on the thirty-three-year-old man. Part of the reason Hunter never visited his family if he could help it. When Liz was told “no” she got vindictive and made things unpleasant. Hunter didn’t care about a bit of unpleasantness—Christ, he could be unpleasant right back—but not at a wedding. His relationship with his brother was fraught, but he didn’t want old family history to disrupt the guy’s wedding, or make Amy, his bride-to-be, unhappy.
“Man, that woman is fucking unbelievable,” Vin muttered. “You’d think she would have given up by now.”
“She’s angry and bitter and insecure. She needs to prove herself somehow.”
“Please tell me you’re not defending her, mate.”
“Fuck no.” Hunter gave a short laugh. “I’m not seventeen anymore.”
“Thank Christ for that.” Vin looked down at the wood, made another mark. “So I guess turning up by yourself isn’t ideal.”
“Not really. There’s Amy and her family to consider too.”
Vin didn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he suggested quietly, “Why don’t you ask Ellie?”
A stillness gathered inside Hunter.
He looked away from his friend, unable to meet the other man’s gaze, so what had been in his mind for two whole days now wouldn’t show on his face.
Ellie’s body against his back. Ellie’s hand on his cock. A touch he hadn’t allowed any woman for years. The blinding pleasure of it. And the desperate, relentless ache for more.
“Not a good idea,” he said. “I don’t want to drag her into it.”
“You won’t be dragging her into anything. Liz will behave herself if you have someone with you. And hey, get Ellie to wear her Docs and ripped tights and she can handle pissing your Dad off too.”
Or her Dark Shadow costume, unzipped…
“No,” Hunter said, almost roughly. “I don’t want her anywhere near my fucked-up family.”
Vin frowned at him. “Something’s going down between you two, I can feel it. What’s the deal?”
The deal was that Ellie Fox had touched him and now it was all he could think about. He’d never thought of himself as being lonely. Never thought the past sixteen years without touch had been a problem. Screwed up to shit, yeah, but not a problem. Until she’d put her hand on him and made him understand how much he’d been missing it.
But not from just anyone. The only person he wanted touching him was her. Yet he couldn’t exactly tell her brother that.
Hunter steeled himself and met Vin’s sharp blue gaze. “There’s no problem.”
He hated to lie but he simply had no other choice. He’d been seventeen when he’d begged Liz to run away with him, thinking himself in love with her. Thinking all her touches and admiration and the things she let him do to her meant she loved him too. But then he’d found out he’d only been a glorified sex toy for a lonely, vindictive woman whose husband had been neglecting her. That he’d been used.
Afterwards he’d felt so dirty. Tainted in a way he couldn’t tell anyone else about because what teenage guy would be unhappy about a hot, thirty-eight-year-old woman coming on to him?
But he’d trusted Vin enough to tell him. And Vin had accepted it silently. Then asked if Hunter could look after Ellie for the night. A declaration of trust in return. Hunter, who’d been used and manipulated. Who’d felt dirty and broken, was somehow still good enough to look after Vin’s precious little sister.
Hunter had never forgotten that trust. And he’d never thought he’d abuse it either. Not until Ellie had changed the rules on him and he’d found himself wanting what he shouldn’t.
The whole situation was such a goddamned mess. Not only had he crossed the line with Ellie, he’d put at risk his relationship with Vin. The guy who’d stood by him through some pretty shitty times.
Anger twisted in his gut, and he had to fight not to let it show.
Vin’s frown had deepened. “Well, something’s up. Ellie’s been pissy with me for the past couple of days and she won’t tell me why.”
Hunter bent and picked up the nail gun he’d prepped earlier. Nothing like ramming nails into wood when he was feeling like this. “You’re not the only one. She’s been pissy with me too.” He didn’t add that, of course, he knew the reason for the pissyness. “Perhaps it’s leaving nerves.”
“Could be. Why don’t you have a chat to her and see what’s up, huh?”
“Me?” Oh Jesus, that’s the last thing he wanted to do. Sit down and have a heart-to-heart with Ellie. He’d been quite happy avoiding her the past couple of days, and yes, he knew avoidance wasn’t the way to deal with it, but shit, even being in the same room with her was difficult, let alone sitting down and having a bloody conversation. He wanted her too much, that was the problem. She’d put a crack in the dam and now the water was flooding out, unstoppable, uncontrollable, overwhelming. He couldn’t be near her when he felt like that, he couldn’t.
“Yeah, you.” Vin put his pencil back in his tool belt. “You’ve always been good with her, Hunt. She never tells me a damn thing.”
“Have you even tried asking her?”
Something flickered through Vin’s gaze. Something that Hunter was sure looked like guilt. “A couple of times. But she tells me she’s fine and to piss off with the questions.”
“Did you ask what’s wrong or did you demand an explanation?” Vin tended to be demanding when he wanted something. A method that didn’t often work with Ellie.
Vin muttered a curse. “Hey, I wanted to know.”
“So more Hitler and less Dalai Lama.”
The other man scowled. “Ellie’s my sister. I need to know what’s going on with her.”
“Yeah, but she’s also not an out-of-line apprentice.”
“Which is where you come in, buddy.” Vin hefted the Skilsaw. “You can talk to her about it at the wedding. Chicks love weddings.”
There was, of course, no way out of this. Any more protesting and Vin would assume something was up between the two of them.
Hunter’s grip on the nail gun tightened, though he tried to keep his posture loose and casual. “I’m not an out-of-line apprentice either.”
“I know.” Vin gave him a look. “But I don’t like to see her unhappy. And I know she is. A wedding might cheer her up and give you a chance to see what’s going on with her.”
“Justin’s wedding? With my fucking family?”
“Hey, there’ll be free champagne, right? Give her a couple of those. She’ll be fine.”
“You suggesting I get her drunk?”
His friend grinned. “It’s not a suggestion, it’s a tip.” Then the grin faded. “Please, Hunt. I don’t want her leaving for Tokyo upset. Or at least not knowing what the matter is.”
Shit, now he really had no choice. Vin never said please. Not ever. “Can I record this for posterity? I don’t think you’ve ever said the P-word to me before.”
But Vin didn’t smile. “Take her, Hunter.”
Pity the connotations that instantly leapt to mind with that particular phrase were not at all the ones he should be thinking of. “Yeah, okay,” Hunter said. And he meant the wedding.
Of course he meant the wedding.
Ellie bent over the stove and sampled the pasta sauce simmering in the pan. Needed a touch more…something. Picking up the bottle of red wine she’d opened ten minutes earlier, she poured a liberal amount into the sauce, gave it a quick stir then tasted again. Yep, better.
She wasn’t renowned for her cooking skills, but she could make a mean pasta sauce when the occasion demanded it. And the occasion demanded it now.
Tonight she was cooking Hunter dinner, and he was bloody well going to sit down in the same room with her and eat it.
For two days now he’d been avoiding her and this time, she’d let him. She felt too exposed, too vulnerable. And she was afraid of his denial. Afraid he’d act as if all those fevered confessions of hers meant nothing. Maybe it was a pathetic response, but there it was.
And the worst part about it was that she had no one to blame for it but herself. She’d been the one to change their relationship. Take it where perhaps it should never have gone.
Ellie’s throat closed. She tried to forget the feel of Hunter in her hand, the heat of him. The hoarse sound of his voice. The scent of his skin as she’d pressed her face against his spine. Sweat, musk and spice.