Hunte Read online

  He stared at me for a second before awareness sharpened his features. “I’ll be goddamned. Hunter Sexton.” He snapped a fast salute then grabbed me in a quick hug. His voice lowered, “You’re still Hunter Sexton, right?”

  “For the time being. Putting down some roots here. You?” I leaned back and squinted at him.

  “Same. I think.” A flash of indecision flatlined his lips. “I haven’t been out too long.” He knocked his knuckles against his forehead. “Still working on getting this thing straightened out. Bad times. Bad times at the end.”

  Pretty sure his farewell story could rival the bad ending of mine, I leaned closer. “Listen. I don’t want to overstep, but I know some good people. One in particular you could talk to. And if you’re looking for a solid MC, I got just the place for you. I can get you patched right through. Might help with the shakes, you know?”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll take you up on that.”

  “Help you with the reentry into civilian world, as they say.” I smirked.

  “If there’s one motherfucking phrase I hate.” Bo cupped his junk. “I’ve got some reentry right here.” He gave the old dirty laugh I remembered, before the shadows from his past chased it away.

  His chuckle died out as the metallic and motor thunder rumbled the pavement. I looked toward the noise then doubled back for another take.

  “Ho-lee shit,” I groaned.

  “Who’s that?” Bo asked, his gaze following the babe handling the Ducati Diavel with fire engine red accents.

  Just then JB lifted off her helmet and flipped those long chestnut curls back as she straddled the sexy street bike. And guess what? Her lips were fire engine red, too.

  Red lipstick on my cock. Hello.

  “Who’s that? Mine,” I stated, pure and simple.

  “Good to know.” Bo slapped my back. “Better go get to her before someone else snaps her up.”

  I made my way back to the Retribution and Redemption group. My palms were damp. My thighs shaky. I’d figured JB might show up but seeing her astride the Ducati? My mouth was agape, and possibly drooling.

  Brodie stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Hunter, you are a dead man, my friend.” He glanced between JB and me. “I recognize that look from the mirror.”

  “Shut it, jackass.” I shoved him away, intent on JB.

  Bo wasn’t wrong. Guys gathered around her, Cole among them. I cut him off at the pass after stopping to pick up something from my motorcycle, which I tucked inside my jacket pocket.

  “Aw, man. Don’t tell me this is gonna be just like Brodie with Ashe,” he complained.

  “Huh?”

  “Bites off anyone’s hand who even comes close to touching the good detective?”

  “Yeah. Sounds about right.”

  “I don’t see your name on her.” Cole pointed toward JB.

  “Gimme twenty-four hours.”

  One more time I wished I had my Glock holstered. I’d shoot it into the air. Fuckwits would scatter, leaving JB all to me. Or maybe I could pull out my badge to clear the area . . .

  Instead of going ninja cop, I shouldered my way to JB who sat on her bike, soaking up the attention like the clear November sun on her upturned face. Those amazing freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. I wondered if her shoulders and tits were freckled too, because then I’d just have to give in and take her. Too bad her leather jacket was zipped up, guarding against the cool fall day.

  “So I was an ass.” I spread my hands before her.

  Yeah, that was how I played it cool with the ladies.

  “You were.” JB gazed over my shoulder, her remarkable nearly black irises hard and glinting.

  “I should apologize.”

  “Hmm.”

  “The thing is, it’s still true. What I said.” I lowered my mouth to her neck. “I’m bad. No good. You’d be better off telling me to get lost.” My lips moved to her dainty earlobe. “But I’m already lost in you.”

  Her hands wandered up my chest and into my hair, tugging sharply. “You give good non-apology, Hunter.”

  Stepping back, I peered down at her. Soft midnight eyes looked up at me, those red lips puckered for a kiss, glossy and juicy.

  “Not done with not saying sorry yet. I brought you something.” Fuck. This woman made me nervous. I thrust the stuffed animal into her hands, feeling like a pudwhacker. “I donated toys for the run and paid the fee too. But I bought this one for you.”

  It was a stupid-ass stuffed teddy bear wearing a Santa hat decorated with hearts. I’d found the dumb huggable thing at the store even though it wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet.

  Jesus Christ. I’d clearly never bought anything for a woman before. Hell, Mel hadn’t even gotten a ring out of me.

  “That’s . . .” JB raised a hand to her mouth and held the bear against her chest. “Thank you. That’s really cute of you.”

  “Don’t let anyone else hear that.”

  My rep is going in the crapper after this stunt.

  She tucked the stuffed toy away. “I won’t. Your secret’s safe with me.”

  I relaxed, taking in the vision of her on the ballsy bike. “Ducati, huh?” I was impressed, and hornier than ever for her.

  “What’d you expect? A pink Huffy with a flowery handlebar basket?”

  “Wouldn’t have expected any such thing from you, JB.” Every moment that passed, I drew closer and closer to her luscious lips.

  “Where’s your Deus?” she asked, her fingers walking up my chest.

  “Over there.” I waved behind me. “Somewhere.”

  “Ohh!” she moaned when my lips finally settled over hers.

  Just like before our kiss went from innocent touch to insane heat in zero seconds flat. Her tongue traipsed into my mouth, and mine curled around it. I gathered her to me, pushing my chest against her tits. Her soft noises spurring me on, I pulled her leg over the bike and up to my hip.

  Moving from her lips with a soft, wet suck, I licked her neck, nibbling with light bites from my teeth. Her hips curled up to my erection with every wet touch of my tongue.

  When my hands moved to toy with the zipper of her jacket, she stopped me. “Not here.”

  Well, no. I didn’t suppose getting her naked on top of her Ducati in the middle of a crowd was a smart idea.

  “Later. Maybe.” She brushed her palm over my cock. “Definitely later.”

  “Ride next to me?”

  Shaking out her hair, she looked me dead in the eye. “If you’ll let me ride you later.”

  “That can definitely be arranged.” My voice was thick and my jeans way too damn tight all of a sudden.

  We lined up at the starting point: Boomer, Brodie and Tucker/Friar Tuck at the start and the rest of us winged behind. Tucker, the gray-haired grandfather and all around-philosopher of Retribution reached back to knock me on the shoulder.

  “Don’t do any more dick moves with the new honey,” he said.

  “Excuse me. But the new honey is right here.” JB lifted the visor on her helmet.

  “Yeah, you are. What I really meant to say was keep Hunter in his place.”

  “Between my legs?” she replied without batting an eyelash.

  Tuck laughed uproariously. I went right back to pole-position hard in a nanosecond.

  A few weeks before Thanksgiving, we were getting a head start on the toy drive for the lowcountry’s less fortunate. Under the police escort—Detective Ashe Kingston was probably up there somewhere—we trekked for two hours through marshlands and town centers and downtown Charleston.

  Riding my machine was like riding the wind, no longer chased by the demons of my past. It felt even better with JB by my side.

  A good five hundred MC members rolled along Charleston’s roads before the run ended with lunch and music and live bands for dancing.

  My patience shredded after the first hour of partying.

  Too many people in one place made the back of my neck itch right along with my trigger finger. Too many men che
cking out JB as she grooved to the music called to the mercenary in me—the killer I’d been so close to the surface. I didn’t dance, but fuck if I’d hang on the sidelines with her drawing dudes to her like mouth-breathing moths to the flame.

  I held her in my arms, moving with her motions. Unhurried. All the time in the world to enjoy this new feeling except need and desire and must-have won out by miles over manners.

  “Come home with me,” I blurted.

  “Subtle.” She rubbed her face against my chest.

  “I only do subtle when I work. Not when I’m fucking. I’m probably no good at romance either, but I take care of my people, and I can definitely take care of you in all the right ways, sweetheart.”

  She drew my mouth to hers.

  I stopped before our lips met, barely brushing hers. “Do you have to buddy-call Rayce?”

  “You want me to?”

  “I want you to know I’m gonna come at you hard and fast, but you’re safe with me.”

  “You always give the same PSA?” She leaned back in my arms.

  “No. You’re different.”

  “I don’t need to call Rayce. Take me home, Hunter.” She tucked her hair inside the back of her jacket and lifted her helmet. “I can’t wait for you to come at me hard and fast.”

  Good thing I’d done my homework and nosed around some of the other Redemption ladies to get a few of JB’s most pertinent details. Fresh-faced? Yes. Knowing? Hell yes. Of age? Thank fuck. She was twenty-five to my thirty-one. Jailbait still for a man of my experience and all I’d done, but she felt so absolutely right in my arms I couldn’t let her go.

  JB was about to be mine in less than twenty-four hours, like I’d warned Cole.

  Chapter Three

  WHEN I’D TOLD JB she was different, that was no joke. I wasn’t in the habit of bringing women to my place. In the past I’d refrained from taking chicks home at all. I tended to do my fucking at their place, in a hotel, occasionally in public. More recently, I’d been on the celibate side, putting my wild days behind me. Probably why I’d felt the need to warn JB I was going to ravage her until she couldn’t walk straight.

  As I turned into my driveway with JB rumbling in behind me on that fuckhot Ducati, I tried to remember if I’d cleaned up before taking Jack home or, at least, sufficiently aired the place out after yesterday’s pizza fiasco. I didn’t want to look like a complete slob.

  Christ. I couldn’t believe this girl was making me so nervous. But the fact was I’d brought JB home because she wasn’t the type of woman you got your dick wet with in a seedy motel, in public, or even in a car . . . at least not the first time.

  I waited for her to take off her helmet and set it on the seat of her bike before I captured her hand and led her up the porch.

  “Not too shabby,” she commented with a grin.

  My house was a decent spread on a couple acres of land. I wasn’t all that fond of having neighbors—or fond of people in general—so I’d purchased the lot and had the house built smack dab in the middle of it. Two stories, big yard, plenty of space for Jack and close enough to Mt. Pleasant proper I wasn’t stuck all the way in the boonies. I’d earned enough in danger pay to have a healthy bank account and investment portfolio, so I dropped a few bucks on the house. Putting down those roots so I could stay near Jack.

  Inside I threw my keys and wallet on a table near the door and turned on a few lights. JB walked farther inside, treating me to a first class view of her ass in the butt-cupping jeans. I followed her across the polished pine floorboards into the living room. It was sunken down a few steps and featured a big brick fireplace—the kind Norman Rockwell paintings were made of.

  “No pets?” she asked.

  “Not really an animal person.”

  “Funny.”

  “What?”

  Sauntering to me, she unzipped her jacket. The seductive look in her eyes had cock-hardening powers, and a hot rush of arousal raced right through my body. I licked my lips, just waiting to taste hers, and dropped my gaze as the tight jacket opened. The padded black leather gaped around her high, round tits, but the shirt she wore kept the tops of her breasts out of sight. No worries, I’d find out about the rest of her freckles soon.

  “You look a little wild yourself.” Her pornstar lips curved in a teasing smile.

  I slipped the jacket from her shoulders and added it to mine on the couch.

  Turning back to her, I asked, “Hungry?” With my hand spanning her neck, my fingertips reached her plush lips, resting against them.

  “No.” She nipped at the pad of my index finger.

  “Thirsty?” Let it be known I tried to be a good host before fucking her brains out.

  With a shake of her head, she took my thumb inside her mouth. My skin burned, my cock filled, lengthening. Leaning down, I dragged my lips up her neck to her ear. In her flat-heeled biker boots, JB only reached my chin. The perfect size to fit against my larger body.

  Just as my hand drifted to the bottom of her shirt, she strolled away, leaving me grasping air with a laugh rumbling out of my chest. At the fireplace, she scanned the photos on the mantle then took one from it.

  I groaned. It was my graduation picture from the Academy. Full uniform, clean-cut, neatly shaved, short hair. Nothing like I looked now with the thick hair dusting the collar of my shirt and the thicker stubble lining my jaw. The new crinkles around my no longer worry-free eyes.

  I’d also been about fifty pounds lighter than the two hundred and ten-pound man standing in front of JB.

  “Oh wow, this is you?” She traced the photo with her fingertips as she stared at my younger, more innocent self.

  “Yeah.” I was no longer nervous but insanely hard.

  At the sound of my gruff voice, she looked up. I watched her lips part and her eyes darken. She held the photo frame clutched in both hands.

  Stalking to her, I kept my gaze locked on hers. “Enough sightseeing.” I returned the photo to its place.

  “Something else you want to see?” Wide innocent eyes the color of a night sky delved into mine.

  “Yeah. You. Naked.” On my bed.

  I lead her upstairs without another word spoken. In my bedroom, I switched on a small light because I was not about to waste this opportunity. Our lips crashed together, and hers were warm and pliable, her tongue motherfucking acrobatic as it danced and dived around mine. For a moment, we tasted each other outside of our mouths, lips held open, tongues touching, and it was so hot I broke away with a groan.

  “I need . . .”

  “What do you need, baby?” JB’s voice lowered to a dirty gritty lusty tone.

  My cock lay at an awkward angle inside the constricting jeans. I popped open the top buttons, worked my hand inside, and straightened myself. The wet engorged tip kissed my stomach, stretching beyond the waist of my jeans. “Needed some breathing room.”

  “Show me.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “If your cock’s so hard because of me you can’t fit in your jeans anymore, I deserve to see what I’m getting.”

  Far be it for me to argue. I drew my shirt off and tossed it aside.

  My cock needed no coercion making an appearance. Another couple inches pulsed out of the opening, splitting the denim wide.

  “Good Lord,” JB gasped. “You’ve got girth.”

  My shoulders shook with a laugh. “Girth?”

  “Holy shit, yeah. You’re . . . um”—she pulled her top lip through her teeth, leaving it shiny and still lipstick red—“thick as my wrist. See?”

  She lined up her hand with my shaft butting out of the jeans. My thighs tensed at the touch of her skin against mine. I glanced down then slammed my eyes shut. She wasn’t wrong.

  “Oh my God.” Her hands flew to my chest, and I looked at her through half-slit eyes.

  Her touch ignited the fire racing to my nads. “What?”

  “Chest hair, too. Sexy.” She tweaked my flat brown nipples and I shuddered hard.

&
nbsp; I was a man, yeah I had chest hair, a black smattering across my pecs that formed a straight line down my abs and beyond.

  She seemed to approve, rubbing her cheek against the light pelt then attaching her hot moist mouth to my skin, on the move to my stomach.

  “Not so fast.” I pulled her up. “Fair’s fair. Top off.”

  Crossing both arms, she reached for the hem of her shirt. With a wink, she pulled the long-sleeved top up and away. Encased in a sheer black bra, her tits bounced, and her nipples were dark, coin-sized, pebbled. As I’d imagined, hoped, fantasized, she had tiny dots of freckles on her shoulders and across the high, full, creamy mounds.

  Pulling her to my chest, I looked down her back. Those tempting butterfly tats increased in size the lower they were inked on her spine until the largest—bright blue, violet, and black—decorated her skin just above the dimples of her ass.

  Finding what I was looking for, I snapped open the clasp of her bra. I hooked one strap then the other off her shoulders. When I pushed her a step back, the bra fell to floor.

  I ran my hands from the flair of her hips to the indent of her waist, over her ribs and up to her breasts. Cupping the twin mounds of so-soft flesh, I watched her plum-colored nipples peek between my fingers.

  “Gorgeous.” I bent, kissing one nub with a lingering suck then the other. I crouched even farther, trailing the tip of my tongue from her belly button and up through her deep cleavage. “Freckles,” I moaned. “I love your freckles.”

  I tongued all the little dots I could find, palming her generous tits, scraping my thumbs across her nipples.

  She raked her fingers through my hair before tugging on it. “My turn to see more.”

  I stared at her breasts, frowning. “For a small woman, you sure are bossy.”

  JB cupped her tits, pinching her nipples. “Small?”

  “I take that back.”

  While her incredible tits distracted me, she tackled the rest of the buttons on my jeans. Before I knew it, I was undressed to my skin, and JB had stopped talking, stopped moving, possibly stopped breathing.

  “You’re uncut.”

  I pulled the foreskin between two fingers. There wasn’t much give. I was so hard for her my cockhead pulsed, completely unhooded.