Page 37 of Hunter

He gestured me forward, and I walked up the steps to the house and unlocked the door, swinging it open wide enough for him to pass through.

He headed for the steps, and as I was about to follow him up, he stopped and looked down at me.

“Wait there.” He carried on up the steps with Adair’s chubby face smashed against his shoulder and neck and disappeared into our bedroom.

My brain and body both moaned in protest when I realized Hunter’s unsaid words.

We needed to talk.

I sighed, knowing there was no way I could get out of it, or at the least postpone it until I’d had a minimum of three days of sleep. So, I made two cups of coffee and sat down at the breakfast bar.

When Hunter came down less than a minute later, my brain was already functioning a little more, thanks to the caffeine.

He looked more ragged than I had ever seen him. His hair was all over the place, his eyes tired, and his shirt was wrinkled with what looked like a little bit of drool on his shoulder.

He reached past me and grabbed the other cup before walking over to the second sitting area at the back of the house. I followed him as he opened the back door and strode out.

The summer air was humid but warm, even in the dead of night, as Hunter settled on the wooden bench. Over my two weeks of living with him, I had seen him sit on that bench more times than I could count. If I ever needed to find him for something, though I often refrained from doing so unless there was no way I could do whatever task it was, I would find him out here.

“Sit,” Hunter said, keeping his gaze down the length of the yard.

“I think I’d rather stand.”

“Sit.”

Nope. No getting out of this one.

I took cautious steps around him until I sat on the other side of the bench. His body was so big and bulky that he took up at least two-thirds of it, leaving me with a tiny bit of room to squeeze my round ass into while trying to put as much room between us as I could. The intimately small length of the bench didn’t offer much help.

I brought my coffee to my lips, the steam rolling over my face as if it might become a veil for the topic Hunter wanted to discuss. I was about ninety percent sure I wouldn’t want to hear it.

I was about to take a sip when Hunter finally spoke.

“Why were you crying?”

“What?” I choked, almost spilling my coffee.

“In the car, in the parking lot.”

“How did you—”

“Security camera.”

“Oh.” I looked down into the mug of dark, burnt liquid, watching the light of the house flicker over its rippling surface. I tipped my mug side to side, watching it swirl and wash against the side of the white porcelain.

When I looked back up, I found Hunter looking down at me. His green eyes were intense, the backlight from the house catching them at the right angle, making them seem like they were glowing. His eyebrows were drawn together, as if mystified by my actions.

“Why?” Why did he want to know? From his expression, I could see it wasn’t plain curiosity.

“Just tell me.”

“And if I say I don’t want to talk about it?”

“Tell me anyway.”

His persistence made me curious. After the way he had treated me, aside from the icing moment, he had done nothing but treat me as an attachment of his nephew’s. A thing he had to tolerate and took every opportunity to badger into doing things I didn’t want to do.

“An eye for an eye,” I said. “Tell me why you want to know, and I’ll tell you why I was crying.”

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