Ellie’s eyes widened innocently. “Me? I would never—ow!” The smile faded. “What the hell?” She pulled her hand sharply from his pocket, holding something in her fingers. A drawing pin.
A crease appeared between her brows. “Why have you got a drawing pin in your pocket?”
Hunter willed his muscles to stay relaxed. She wouldn’t know what he used it for. To her it was just a drawing pin, nothing more. “I have no idea. Must have put it in there by accident.”
“There’s blood on it. Did you—”
“I’d love to stay and chat about drawing pins, sweetheart, but aren’t there are other things you’d rather be doing?”
Her frown vanished. “Good point.”
Keeping his movements unhurried, Hunter took the pin from her hand and stuck it back in his pocket. “Then what are you waiting for? After you, sweetness.”
Chapter Twelve
Okay, so she knew Vin had a problem, but right at this point in time, after a couple of hours in Hunter’s bed, Ellie couldn’t bring herself to care. She only had a few days left with Hunter and dammit, she’d take what she could get when she could get it.
Sitting on his workbench in the garage, wearing nothing but one of his T-shirts, Ellie gave a small, happy sigh. Crazy as it was, she rather enjoyed watching him fiddle with his motorbike. She’d been talking to him about her game app idea while he was busy doing something with a bit of metal. He didn’t say much—he never did while she talked—but she knew he’d listened. Had even asked her a couple of interesting questions that had got her thinking off on a tangent about something else. Another, bigger idea.
She swung her legs idly, watching him, trying not to think about her idea because really, she didn’t have the time to concentrate on that quite yet. Not when she had him to look at.
He was crouched down by the bike on his haunches, wearing only a pair of jeans. And bloody hell, he was hot. The denim pulled tight across his butt and thighs. His back bare, his tattoo sweeping across his shoulders and down his spine. Black feathers on brown skin.
She gave a little, delicious shiver, her fingers itching to trace it yet again. That afternoon she’d spent a good ten minutes indulging her weird obsession with it. Hunter had just lain there while she’d run her fingers over him, not saying a word and yet letting her touch wherever she would. Questions had filled her head as she’d done so. Why had he gotten it? Why wings? How long had it taken? Had it hurt? But the questions had remained unasked. Silent in her head. She couldn’t ask him. The weight of what had happened to him rested between them and something told her the wings were part of that.
The moment—all the moments she had with him—had been too precious to break with silly questions. And she was still too scared to ask.
Vaguely annoyed with the direction of her thoughts, Ellie leaned back on her hands, studying him as he began to place the bit of metal he held into the bike’s innards. He was careful, precise. She’d watched him working on a building site often enough over the years to know that when he worked like this, he gave it his full attention, not letting his mind wander.
“So, did you ever want to be a lawyer?” she asked idly. “Like your dad?”
His careful hands didn’t falter. “No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like lawyers.”
“Oh?”
“Dad.” The short, clipped word held a world of questions all on its own.
Ellie bit down on them. Of course. The thing with Liz would probably have coloured his relationship with his father whether his father knew about it or not. God, that woman should be shot. Hunter seemed to think it had been all his fault, but how culpable could a sixteen-year-old boy be when pestered for sex by a thirty-eight-year-old woman?
She knew what she’d been like at sixteen. All her emotions had been new and raw, and so very, very deep. And if Hunter had thought he was in love with Liz, what chance had he at saying no? If Hunter had done to her what Liz had done to him, she would have laid herself at his feet without even thinking about it. Before she was ready for it.
“I told him about Liz,” Hunter said unexpectedly. He didn’t look at her, still concentrating on his bike. “I told him because I thought I loved her and I thought she loved me, and I imagined telling him was the right thing to do.” Hunter shifted slightly, his attention on the bike and what he was doing. “But he didn’t believe me. Called me a liar. Even now he still thinks I made it up because I was going through a ‘phase’.”
There was no emotion in the words and the detachment in his voice brought tears to her eyes. How could he think this didn’t affect him?
“But he must have known,” she murmured, anguish sharp inside her at the thought of Hunter gathering his courage to tell his father—because it must have taken courage. And then his father calling him a liar. Jesus.
“Of course he knew.” A thread of bitterness crept into his tone. “He would have had to have been blind not to see what was going on. He just didn’t want to admit he did. Because then he’d have to take some fucking responsibility.”
“Oh, Hunter…” She stopped, her voice gone thick with pain.
His hands dropped from the bike. “So now you know why I never went into law. Dad places a lot of store on his career and Justin’s. Think of the scandal if it ever got out his wife was screwing his teenage son. It would have meant the death of his career. Justin’s too.”
“Bastard,” Ellie said fiercely as anger swept through her. Anger for Hunter and how he’d been treated. “Your father was a complete bastard.”
He stared at her for a moment. Then rose to his feet in a graceful, fluid movement, coming over to the workbench where she sat. Gently he put his hands on her knees and pushed her legs apart, leaning in to stand between her thighs. Ellie blinked as he took her face in his hands, stroking her jaw with his thumbs. A tender touch. Her heart swelled inside her chest, a balloon filling up with air.
“It’s okay, sweetness,” he said softly. “It was a long time ago.”
She looked up into his face, at the concern in it and knew it was for her. As if it had happened to her, not himself. Looked like his father wasn’t the only one in his family capable of denial.
Ellie knew she should push it, but when he touched her like that, gently and with tenderness, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The walls would come up and she would lose him again. And she didn’t want to lose what little she had of him already. She couldn’t.
So she said nothing. Closing her eyes as he bent down, his mouth brushing hers. Tightened her thighs around his hips and slid her hands around to his back. Holding him as he kissed her. The kiss was hot and slow and consuming.
Until suddenly he was ripped from her arms.
“What the fuck are you doing?” someone shouted.
For a minute Ellie couldn’t move, dazed by the kiss, struggling to make sense of what was going on. Because she couldn’t get her head around it. What the hell was Vin doing here? He stood behind Hunter, a look of murderous fury on his face. Bloody hell, she’d never even heard him arrive.
Hunter had been pulled round to face his friend, and now he shifted so he stood directly in front of her as if shielding her.
“Tell me what the fuck you’re doing with my sister!” Vin shouted again.
Hunter stepped toward his friend. “Kissing her. What does it look like I’m doing?”
Vin lashed out, right fist connecting to Hunter’s jaw in a punch that knocked Hunter’s head back and sent him down to the ground, the crack of it echoing around the garage area. “I trusted you, you prick!” Vin drew his foot back, kicked him in the stomach. “You were supposed to be looking after her, not screwing her!”
A shot of adrenaline burst through Ellie’s veins, shattering her paralysis. “Stop it, Vin!” she yelled, propelling herself off the workbench and straight at her brother. “Leave him alone!”
Vin wasn’t looking at her, his face twisted with such rage it shocked her. Vin was usually the cool, calm and collected one. Always in charge and knowing what he was doing. She’d never seen him so angry. Putting herself between Hunter’s figure prone on the floor and her brother, she pushed Vin hard in the chest. “I said, leave him the hell alone!”
Behind her she could hear Hunter moving and she braced herself, waiting for his retaliation. But it didn’t come.
Vin had gone back a couple of steps, his chest heaving, his furious gaze switching to her. “Did he hurt you? Did he?”
“No, of course he didn’t! Where the hell do you get off? And what are you doing here anyway?”
“I came to apologise. But fuck that. How long has he been screwing you?”
“That’s none of your fucking business! It’s got nothing to do with you.”
A blue flame burned in Vin’s eyes. “Nothing to do with me? It’s got everything to do with me! I’m the reason you’re staying with him. I’m the reason you even met him in the first place. And he was supposed to look after you, not go screwing you behind my fucking back!”
Ellie felt her own rage boil up inside her. “Like I had no choice in the matter, right?”