He swiveled his body on the bed so that he was directly facing me. Then he touched his hand to my chin and tilted it up so that I was looking right into his eyes. “I know you have no reason to trust me or believe me, but I swear, from here on out, I’m going to do everything I can to show you how sorry I am.”
“Okay,” I murmured. By now I was reeling with shock and confusion. I had no idea this evening would take such a drastic turn.
“Do you believe me?” Hunter asked, eyes widening slightly.
For a moment—a brief, foolish moment—I knew he was telling me the truth. I just knew. But that had nothing to do with common sense or logic. After everything he’d done to me, I had no reason to believe this wasn’t some sort of trick.
“I… I don’t know,” I said, my voice scarcely above a whisper.
He reached out to stroke my cheek, his touch gentler than I ever thought was possible for a guy like him. “Please believe me, Laney. I’ll do anything to prove it.”
He looked so earnest, so genuinely remorseful. His fingertips on my skin ignited something inside me, burning right to my core, and in that moment, I began to believe him. Began to believe in us.
All those conflicting things I felt when he was around… they made sense now. I wasn’t crazy or broken. There was actually something real here. Something we both needed.
“Okay,” I said softly. “I believe you.”
Hunter breathed a sigh of relief and pulled me closer to him. His cologne filled my head, all woodsy and spicy, so masculine it made my heart flutter and my limbs turn weak and boneless. My skin was hot all over, burning with a mixture of fear and need, but when Hunter put one hand on my chin and tilted my face up to look at him again, all the fear evaporated.
There was such sincerity in his passionate gaze that I couldn’t help but surrender to it. It made me feel alive in a way I had never experienced before, and for the first time since the incident four years ago, I didn’t feel a scrap of dread or reticence about having a man’s hands on me. Instead I felt strong, like I was finally regaining a few scraps of the power my piano teacher stole from me all those years ago.
I wanted Hunter to kiss me. I wanted his hands on me. I wanted him to feel me, hold me, stay with me through the night.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “I know I don’t deserve it.”
I thought he might kiss me then, but instead he pulled me into another tight hug, letting my chin rest on his shoulder.
I let out a contented sigh, and then I happened to dart my eyes to the right, where my dressing table stood on the other side of the room. I wanted to see the two of us reflected in the mirror; wanted to see how well we fit together.
That was when I saw it—the tiny little smirk turning Hunter’s lips up at the corners. And then I knew. I felt the awful truth rippling down my spine, raising the little hairs on the back of my neck.
I was right earlier. He was lying. Playing with me.
For some reason—a reason that still eluded me—Hunter had chosen me as his prey from the first moment he saw me, and tonight was just another part of that. The dramatic irony of that statement wasn’t lost on me, either. Hunter. Prey.
People like him often used gifts and endearing words to soften up their targets—like the flowers, chocolate, and heartfelt speech I received earlier. They did this to lull their target into a false sense of security so that they’d never see it coming when they finally decided to pounce and destroy them.
And look how easily you fell for it,I imagined him saying to me once he had his way with me. Look how stupid and pathetic you are. So desperate for love you’d believe anything.
My heart hammered as my whole body started to shake with adrenaline. On the back of it all rode a dark wave of anger. Part of it was aimed at him for messing with me yet again, and the rest was aimed at myself for falling for it, even if it was only for a few seconds.
I suppose I couldn’t entirely blame myself for that, though. Hunter was a bad guy, but I didn’t think he’d be so bad that he’d try to trick me into sleeping with him by pretending to have caught real feelings for me.
I knew that seemed hypocritical, because I tricked him into coming over here in the first place, ostensibly for sex, but I never actually intended to take it all the way. He did. He was just that ruthless.
I gritted my teeth, wondering what made him this way. Did something happen to him to turn him into a callous asshole with a severe lack of empathy, or was he just born with something off in his brain?
Did he have any form of conscience at all, or was he pure evil?
What did he get out of hurting other people? Pleasure? Simple amusement to stave off the boredom?
As my mind raced with all of those questions, I tried to figure out a way to extricate myself from our embrace without making him suspicious. If I was too abrupt, he might figure out that I lured him here as part of a greater scheme.
Before I could think of a single excuse to make him leave, he pulled back and crushed his mouth to mine. His lips moved slowly at first, soft and playful, and then his tongue ran along my bottom lip, begging me to deepen the kiss.
My lips parted in a shocked whimper, giving him all the opening he needed.
He devoured me, hot tongue swirling relentlessly around mine, exploring my mouth with wild urgency. At the same time, his hands ran through my hair and over my body. I struggled to control my breathing as he teased me, caressing me through the thin satin of my nightdress, his rhythm slow and steady.