Page 59 of Hunt

“Yeah, Riley.” The tenderness in his tone urged me to glance at his face, and the goofy dude was suppressing a smirk, but I could see his fondness for her in his eyes.

“You have a one-track mind,” I poked fun at him, which prompted him to look away from me so I couldn’t see the dopey expression on his face. “And no, she said the staff talk mostly about work-related topics, which is why we pay them.”

“She gave me her new phone number earlier after her other phone was broken,” he sighed, then pressed his lips together. “You know, I just can’t get my head around her. Part of me thinks she’s so sweet and kind, yet something beneath the surface is insincere.”

I nodded in understanding. I didn’t know the girl well enough to judge her character, so I had to go by what Gunner and Ronan said about her. But there were far too many red flags to ignore.

“Gunner said her phone was bugged,” he blurted, and my eyes widened.

“Seriously?” I probed. “Who bugged it? I mean…did she know someone was tracking her?”

Ronan rubbed his jaw with the back of his fist. “It’s hard to know what’s happening because we’re getting conflicting stories.” He shuffled restlessly, and I knew he wanted to ask me something hard for him to say. “It’s also hard to gauge when I can’t get close to her.”

I snorted. “Oh, I see,” lighting my cigar and taking a strong pull, blowing the smoke out. “You want to fuck her.”

He shrugged, not denying it. “There are things spoken in bed when the girl is relaxed that aren’t spoken normally.”

I threw my head back laughing, then pointed my cigar at him. “Good try, Ronan, but rules are rules.”

“Yeah, well,” he confessed, “It was worth a try.” Returning to his office, he yelled, “I’ll just use my hand.”

“Don’t we all, mate,” I mumbled gruffly as my humor drained from my bones with every returning thought of prison and my arrest, thenher—that girl who walked into my office, cheeks burning, glasses skewed, terror behind her eyes.

Gunner believed she was Annika. Ronan thought she was a spy. Yet, both longed to fuck her again as if she put a spell on them where they were unable to look at another girl ever again.

But all I saw was a pretty, shy girl who smelled like flowers and melted like butter in the palm of my hand.

23

I’ll give you a ride home, Riley,” I offered. Getting her alone was my priority as I had a plan for us tonight. If I was forbidden to fuck her, I could do other things to stop me from turning into a gooner. Far too many gooners at college who chose OnlyFans fantasy girls over the real girls before then and then would rather jack off to their fake OF girl, then slide their cock inside a real girl. These guys were the lowest of low incel men and there were far too many of them living in a false reality where one day they’ll wake up lonely and in horror that the girl they’d been speaking to was some underpaid dude in India.

A real girl, skin and bones, dimpled cheeks and fluttering eyelashes, despite the grief she might cause a man, I would still rather be pained by the real thing than live in a shallow fantasy.

“Oh, okay,” she startled, glancing up from scrubbing the stainless-steel sink. “You don’t have to go out of your way. I can take the bus back to campus.”

“I don’t like you waiting at the bus stop in the middle of the night, so come up to my office when your shift is over, and I’ll call you back,” I told her.

She smiled, adjusted her glasses, blushed a little, then beat her eyelashes. “Okay, thank you.”

I had no intention of taking her home, well, not straight away, and ran up to my office to wait eagerly for her shift to end. Mikky was still in his office, while Gunner came in for an hour, then left again. I couldn’t concentrate on my work, so I stood at the window and watched the club in full swing, girls dancing on the stage, most seats taken at the casino tables, men perched at the bar, while other members disappeared into the secret rooms upstairs.

Finally, her shift was over, and I grabbed my phone, car key, and bag with two clean, dry towels stuffed inside that I borrowed from the Red Velvet rooms. Instead of waiting for her to come up, I raced downstairs, high on adrenaline, and found her in the locker room, taking her bag out.

“Ready?” I asked her and she nodded a reply.

I waited until we were on the road when I asked, “So…fancy a late-night swim?”

Her ponytail swung about as she turned to look at me. “Where?”

“In the forest,” I proposed, hoping she’d say yes. I wouldn’t force her to go, but I hoped she’d be open to it.

A surprised but elated gasp erupted from her and I startled, unsure if she was pleased or not, until she sighed, “Oh, I was just thinking that I hadn’t been there for what felt like so long because I’ve been so busy and it’s such a pain to get there without a car. You know, I have to take three buses to get there. But night swimming? I haven’t done that in years when I used to jump the fence back home and swim in the school pool.”

“So…is that a yes or a no? Because you have to tell me now, before I make a turn off,” I replied. Her enthusiasm sounded like a yes, but it’s sometimes hard to tell with girls.

She squealed excitedly, and I jumped in fright. “Yes. Oh my god, yes.”

“Good,” I answered, grinning smugly in the dark. There was nothing more satisfying than making a girl happy, especially this girl who worked hard and might be more than what she claims to be.

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