#Repost
~WINGLESS AND BEAUTIFU~ L
EPISODE FOURTEEN
As soon as Hunter’s sm-irk faded from
his face, we saw
bright lights streak the skies, followed
by the loud, booming
sounds of thun-der. A few seconds later,
heaven let out its
wrath and large drops of water soa-ked
our skin.
I turned on my heel and headed back to
the house. I
tried to run. Unfortunately, the rain made
the dock floor
sli-ppery and my sli-ppers were not sli-p-
proof. I took one step
too quic-k and lost my balance. I
skrie-ked, knowing well
enough that I would fall flat on my as-s
in three, two…
But I felt arms wra-p around me
immediately, breaking
my fall, catching me. I looked up above
me and saw Hunter
looking down at me with an amused
expression on his face,
his arms wra-pped all around me.
He pu-ll-ed me up and before I could
settle both my feet
on the ground to secure my balance, I
felt his arms un-der
my legs and the floor disappeared below
me. I let out
another skrie-k. Hunter had scooped up
on his arms and
started walking towards the house.
“Put me down,” I protested.
He shook his head. “No way. You’re
clumsy, Allison.”
I bit myl-ip. My heart pounded inside my
che-st again. I
couldn’t breathe and I was pretty sure
my face was turning
violet from my blus-h.
Allison… we make a dangerous pair. I’m
blind and
you’re clumsy.
I remember him saying those words to
me like he just
said them yesterday.
Does he remember saying them? Does
he remember
me? Does he want to remember me at
all? Or was I just p@rt of the nightmares
he chose to leave behind?
We reached the house and he settled me
down on my
feet. We were both drenched from the
rain. I refused to look
at him and went into the bathroom to
gr-ab a towel for
myself and another one for Hunter. I
went back to the living
room and handed it to him. He took it
without a word, also
refusing to look me in the eye.
I wra-pped the towel around my
shoulders to keep me
warm. Hunter took off his drenched shi-t
and went to the
fireplace. I watched him lit the fire. My
thoughts were
running wild and my nerves were going
on a haywire.
What was I going to do here alone with
Hunter? The
house was not exactly hvge for us to
pl@yhide and seek
while we tried to avoid each other. It
was almost impossible
not to talk or even look at each other.
When he turned around, his perfect abs
were expo-sed
to my view once again. I quic-kly turned
away from him. I
would not be caught drooling over his
b©dy twice!
Without a word, he went to the
be-droom. When he
returned, he was alre-ady wearing a fresh
white shi-t.
“Are you not gonna change?” he asked.
“You’re going to
get sick.”
“I only brou-ght one shi-t from the main
house,” I replied
in a quiet voice.
He went back into the be-droom and,
when he returned,
he handed me a gray shi-t.
“Borrow mine. Go change before you
catch a cold.”
I didn’t argue with him. I took the shi-t,
murmuring my
thanks before I headed to the bathroom.
When I went back
to the living room, Hunter was standing
by the glas-s doors,
watching the rain. Thun-der continued to
bellow and it didn’t
look like the storm had any plans of
st©pping any minute.
I went in front of the fireplace to keep
myself warm.
There was a beautiful wood coffee table
beside me. The
sides were engraved with flowers and
vines. The varnished table t©p had
checkered patterns in the center. It took
me a
moment to realize that the patterns
made up a chessboard.
I smiled. It was cleverly done. It was
very well-fitting for
the owner of the house who happened
to be a chess master.
“You wanna pla-y?” Hunter asked behind
me. I turned
around to look at him. He’d been
watching me look at his
chessboard coffee table.
“I don’t know,” was all I could say. And
it was the only
answer I had. I didn’t know if I wanted
to pl@yagainst the
genius chess master in front of me. I
didn’t know if I wanted
to remember our first d@t£. I didn’t know
if I could sit in front
of him for hours and pretend that we
didn’t have a bomb
hanging over our heads, re-ady to drop
and b!ow everything
out of proportion. I didn’t know if I could
endure Hunter’s
snide remarks and insulting glares. I
didn’t know if I could be
a hypocrite and pretend I could take any
more of his refusal
to acknowledge me… and our past.
He walked towards the coffee table,
opened the drawer
and took out the chess pieces. He
quietly set the board up
and then he sat on one of the couches.
He raised a brow at
me and waited for me to sit in front of
him. When I didn’t
budge, he frowned. “It’s not like you’re
going anywhere,” he
said dryly. “At this rate of the storm, it
looks like we’ll be
stuck here for an hour, maybe more.”
I sighed and sat on the chair opposite
him. pla-ying
chess would keep my head preoccu-pied
with other things. It
would be a challenge to beat him in this
game, but it sure
would be easier than trying to figure out
what I had to do
about him in real life.
I moved my pawn. He moved his. I
moved my knight. He
moved his bishop. I put my pawn as
bait, he refused to take
it. Instead, he took another move that
took me on a
crossroad. Take him down or take the
higher road.
In a way, in real life, Hunter and I were
pla-ying chess. It
was all mind games. Each of us trying
to re-ad the other,
anticipating the other’s moves,
strategizing how to save our pieces,
refusing to give in to the other and trying
our best to
walk away broken but victorious.
Finally, I was down to my two pieces.
Hunter with four. I
reached for my bishop and hesitated.
When I looked up,
Hunter was looking me intensely. He
was studying me. I
couldn’t re-ad the emotions on his face.
In his eyes, I saw
disbelief and admiration that I lasted
this long. But we both
knew the inevitable. Only one of us
could win this game.
Only one would walk away scathe-free.
And sadly, it wouldn’t be me.
I sighed and moved my piece. The only
possible move I
could make. Hunter never took his eyes
away from me. He
didn’t have to look where I put my
piece. He reached
forward and moved his queen. And in a
soft whisper, he
said, “Checkmate.”
I fli-cked my king gently in frustration. I
leaned back on
my seat and stared at the chessboard. I
sat there for a
whole minute, just staring at my fallen
king. Realization
crept throu-gh me like a treacherous
friend waiting to stab
me in the back. I would not win this.
When I raised my eyes to Hunter, I
found that he was
staring at me as intensely as I was
staring at my fallen
chess piece. His eyes were boring holes
throu-gh my soul.
His expression was a mixture of
frustration, anger and
sadness.
He won. But why was he staring at me
like it wasn’t
enough? Like he wasn’t done yet?
“Don’t you ever get tired of winning?” I
asked in a weak
voice.
He didn’t answer at first. Then in a
sober voice, he
replied, “Who said I ever win at all?” I
thought there was
anger in his voice again, but he was
trying to control it.
Before I could open my mouth to say
something, a
booming sound interrupted us. Hunter
finally took his eyes
off me and stared at the glas-s doors
outside where the rain
was stronger than ever.
“I never said thank you,” I said. “You
know… this
afternoon. You saved me. What you did
was dangerous for
you… for your…” I trailed off.
It is true. He shouldn’t have jumped into
the lake water
without protec-tion on his eyes. It was
dangerous for his
transplant.
When I looked up, I found that Hunter
was studying my
face again, as if he was trying to re-ad
the emotions behind
my words. Then he sighed and said, “It
doesn’t matter.” He
paused for a while and added, “I don’t
care anymore.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked, trying to
control my
voice. I remembered what he said when
he left. He wanted
to do the transplant so he could protect
me.
He shook his head. “We do things for a
reason. I did the
transplant for a reason. But that reason
is… gone.”
I couldn’t bear the weight of his stare. It
made me feel
sad, guilty and more broken than I
alre-ady was.
“I guess we’re not going to be rescued
soon,” I
murmured, standing up from my seat
and turning to the
glas-s windows behind me, staring at the
dark sky which was
being illuminated by lightning at least
every ten seconds.
“We could be stuck here for hours,” he
said behind me.
“I’m sure Anderson won’t be happy
about that.” The tone in
his voice sounded like a combination of
amusement, disgust
and mockery. I turned to look at his
face. He added,
“Although if I were him, I wouldn’t have
left without you in
the first place.”
His eyes were burning throu-gh my entire
being. Then he
looked down my che-st and my hands
automatically went to
the chain around my n£¢k, clutching the
pendant in my
palm.
“Do you have something to say to me?”
I asked, raising
a brow at him.
I saw him sm-irk again and then he
shook his head. It
looked like he wanted to say something
but chose not to. He looked like he was
about to let hell break lose, but at the
last moment, he was able to get a grip
of his emotions.
I couldn’t un-derstand him. It seemed
that he was
harboring very ill feelings for me. Since
he c@m£ back, he’d
done all he could to ignore me, avoid
me. And whenever we
were in the same room, he looked at me
like it was me who
did something terrible to him.
If there was one person who had a right
to be mad, it
was me! I waited for him for more than
a year, hoping he
would make good of his promises
before he left. But when
he c@m£ back, he acted like I was
nothing to him… that he
couldn’t care less about me.
And then Tania c@m£. There was a girl
in his past that he
forgot to tell me about. And now that he
wasn’t blind
anymore, she was the perfect girl for
him again.
I glared at him angrily. I could feel fury
flaring inside me
in magnitudes I could ba-rely control.
I’m done!
I’m done taking cra-p from him! He had
ignored me far
too much. He knew me. He remembered
me. But he was
ashamed to let people know of that!
Fine!
No one’s here with us now. It’s the
perfect time to finally
confront him.
Whatever he’s thinking, he can say it in
my face.
Whatever I felt, it was time to tell him,
and then we can
finally go on our separate ways and
forget about each other
—for good—forever.
“What did I ever do to you, Hunter?” I
asked in a weak
voice. I took a de-ep breath to gather
more courage. “Why
does it seem like you’re always mad at
me? Like the mere
pres£nce of me disgusts you!”
Tears rolled down my cheeks but I
refused to back down.
I started this alre-ady. I found the
courage to finally confront
him. Even if it hurt! I nee-d to know the
truth, so I could
move on with my life. I nee-ded closure.
“Tell me, Hunter Vaughn! Why do you
hate me so much?
What did I ever do to you?”
He stared back at me with a shocked
expression on his
face, like he wasn’t expecting my
sudden outrage. He was
not prepared to answer the questions I
was asking him.
He shook his head. “Allison…”
I stood there, tears streaming down my
cheeks. In
broken sobs, I asked, “Why do you look
at me like I was a…
a plague? Don’t you ever get tired of
glaring at me? Ignoring
me? Aren’t you tired of pla-ying these
games?”
Finally, he stood up from his seat and
slowly walked
towards me. He stood too close, we
were almost tou-ching
from the knees up. I stared up at him
and tried to make out
the expression on his face.
He su-cked in a de-ep breath. “You’re
wrong.” He shook
his head. Surprisingly, his voice was
calm… gentle even. “I
don’t hate you. And I’m most definitely
not disgusted by
you. You re-ad me all wrong.”
I stared up at him squarely. I didn’t say
anything, but I
was letting him know that I’m not going
to back down.
As his eyes searched mine, I could see
the frustration on
his face. He raised his hand and pushed
a lock of hair away
from my face. He tucked it behind my
ear, ex-posing my scar
to his view. Then he whispered, “But
you’re right.” His
expression was broken, his voice was
hoarse. “I am tired.”
He took another heavy breath and then
he added, “I’m tired
of fighting this.”
And suddenly, his arms sn-ked around
my w@!st as he
pu-ll-ed me to him. Then he leaned
forward and covered my
li-ps with his. Before I could even blink,
Hunter was k!ssing
me… thor0ûghly… pas-sionately.
He k!$$£d me like he found an
opportune moment to
steal a little piece of heaven. He k!$$£d
me like he couldn’t
find the right things to say and, instead,
he was pouring out
all his emotions, all his anger in those
k!sses. He k!$$£d me like… he’d been
wanting to k!ssme but thought this
moment would never happen anymore.
I didn’t think… couldn’t think even if I
wanted to. My
own arms c@m£ to life and they
wra-pped themselves around
Hunter’s n£¢k. I k!$$£d him back. I
k!$$£d him like I wanted
to pour out all my bottled emotions in
that k!ss. I k!$$£d him
like I have been wanting to k!sshim
since the day he left
me.
Hunter lifted me off my feet and carried
me towards the
be-droom like I weighed nothing. Hisl-ips
never left mine, his
arms were like iron chains around my
w@!st.
He gently la-id me on the mattress of his
be-d. I m0@n ed
as intense emotions spiraled throu-gh me
with a f0rç£ I could
not control.
His palm t©uçhed my cheek and I felt
him ca-ress my
scar. His t©uçh was familiar against my
damaged skin. He
k!$$£d my jaw, my n£¢k and then finally,
he k!$$£d my
scars… the way he used to k!ssthem
before he left.
Then he rested his forehead against my
chin and
breathed in the scent of me. Sobs were
escaping myl-ips,
tears were flowing endlessly from my
eyes.
He raised his head so he could look at
me. When I found
the courage to look back at him, I saw
that tears were
rolling down his cheeks too. He was
looking down at me with
a broken expression on his face and
then he wiped my tears
with his f!ngers.
He took a de-ep breath and asked, “Does
it look like I’m
appalled by you at all, Allison?”
I bit my l!pbut didn’t answer.
He nodded slowly. “But you’re right. I
was trying my
damn best to stay away from you. But
not because of the
reasons you thought.” He su-cked in
another de-ep breath.
“Every time I looked at you, Allison, I’m
re-sisting the urge to
pu-ll you into my arms… and k!ssyou
like I just did.”
He gently pu-ll-ed away from me and sat
up from the be-d.
“What are you saying, Hunter?” I sat up
on the be-d
beside him, lifting my knees to my che-st
to hvg them.
He looked at me with a wistful
expression on his face.
Then he said, “I’m saying I want you,
Allison. And it kills me
every single day that we cannot be
together.”
We cannot be together?
I wiped the tears on my cheeks.
“You want me but you’re mad at me.
You want me but
we cannot be together. Because I
wasn’t perfect. Because
you deserved better,” I muttered.
“What?”
I stared at him evenly.
“What did you say?” he asked again.
I shook my head. “What was I thinking,
right? Did I really
make myself believe that the great
Hunter Vaughn would
really want to be with a broken girl like
me?”
“How could you say that?” he asked.
His voice was low,
sober, as he tried to control his
emotions.
“How could I not say that? Since you
arrived in school,
you always looked like you’re mad at
me, like I did
something so grave to you. It’s not fair
because I have no
idea what it was.”
He stood up from the be-d and walked
towards the
window. I watched his handsome face
illuminated by the
streaks of lightning from the sky
outside.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe
it’s because I am
angry.”
“What did I ever do to you?”
He sighed. “It’s what you didn’t do for
me.” Slowly, he
turned around to face me. His eyes were
brimmed with
tears. He blinked them back and then he
stared back at me
with a sullen expression on his face.
Then he said, “You
didn’t wait for me. And you broke my
heart… Angel.”
I didn’t even dare breathe. I looked into
his eyes, trying
to absorb what he said.
I realized that all this time he was
breaking my heart, he
was doing it because his heart was
broken too. Because he
thought I gave up on him… I gave up on
us.
He looked into my eyes and for the first
time I saw his
pain. I saw the tears he wanted to shed,
the heartache he
was trying to conceal with anger and
arrogance.
For once, he was not hiding his
emotions from me. I saw
the boy I fell in love with during our brief
moments in our
garden. I also saw a broken boy…
pained, heartbroken and
frustrated. He looked like a guy who
tried so ha-rd and did
everything he could… only to find out
that his fight was not
worth it… that he was too late.
I looked up at him. A tear rolled down
his cheek.
“Hunter…” I whispered.
He took a de-ep breath.
“I nee-d some air,” he said in a low, soft
voice. He walked
towards the door and closed the door
behind him.
I threw myself in the be-d. I hvgged a
pillow, buried my
face on it and cried my heart out.
All this time, Hunter was shielding the
pain he hid
inside. When I thought he was being a
prick, he was actually
heartbroken.
I l@yon the be-d, motionless, listening to
the uneven
beats of the rain on the rooft©p, feeling
the rhythmic
thumping of my heart inside my che-st.
I was sure my eyes would be swollen in
the morning. But
I knew that no matter how many more
tears I shed tonight,
it wasn’t going to make things better.
Hunter and I lost a lot
of time being ap@rt. And until now, I
couldn’t see a hope for
our future.
Maybe we were never meant to be
together in the first
place. Or maybe we were meant to be
torn ap@rt by bad
timing and a series of unfortunate
misun-derstandings.
Fatigue and heartache got the better of
me. I closed my
eyes and fell asleep, hoping that the
nightmares would not
come chasing me again, hoping that
when I wake up,Hunter wouldn’t be
hurting because of me. And I wouldn’t
be hurting because of him.
I didn’t know how long I’d sle-pt. But
when I opened my
eyes again, I found myself staring into
Hunter’s beautiful
blue eyes. He was lying on his side
beside me. He didn’t
look like he had sle-pt at all. He was
watching me with tired,
yearning eyes.
He raised a hand to push a lock of hair
away from my
cheeks, ex-posing my scars to his view.
He gently t©uçhed
them with his cool f!ngers.
“You didn’t eat,” he whispered softly.
“I wasn’t hungry.”
“You didn’t have anything all day.” I
could hear the
concern in his voice.
“Did you eat?”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t hungry.”
“What time is it?”
“Six in the morning.”
“Did you sleep?”
He shook his head again. “I couldn’t
sleep either.”
“Are you still mad at me?”
He sighed. “I don’t think I can ever stay
mad at you,
angel.”
The way he said the word ‘angel’ made
me want to cry
again. It sounded so soft, so gentle
against hisl-ips.
“You didn’t tell me you had a girlfriend
when you left
Jacksonville.”
He blinked back at me. He drew his
brows together and
said, “I would have told you if I was
aware that I had a
girlfriend in Jacksonville. Seriously, I
was blinded. I didn’t
have amnesia.”
“Come on, Hunter. Tania?”
“Tania?” he echoed. “Seriously?”
“No, I’m kidding.” I replied sarcastically.
He shook his head. “Tania and I were
childhood friends.
Our parents were best friends. We’ve
known each other since first grade,” he
explained. “Maybe our parents wanted
us to end up together. I guess she’s in
on the plan too. But I
wasn’t. Never was.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes. Because I’m telling the truth,” he
replied.
“She c@m£ here and she was all over
you,” I argued.
“Did you see me all over her?” he asked
evenly.
“I can’t really say. You spent all your
time hating the
world.”
“You would too if you went throu-gh a
corneal transplant
only to live each day watching your
girlfriend with another
guy.”
“What?”
“Anderson,” he replied.
“Chaise is just my friend.”
“You might want to recheck that
because the rest of the
world didn’t get the memo—including
Anderson himself!”
“I made it clear to him that I couldn’t
offer him more
than friendsh!p. But he was…
persistent.”
“Then you should have told him to fv¢k
off!”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t hurt
Chaise’s feelings. He’s
become a dear friend. I owe him a lot.
More than anything, I
owe him my life.”
Hunter raised a brow. “Your life?”
I nodded. “My life hadn’t been a walk in
the park,
Hunter. I battled and survived all sorts of
obstacles, pains
and dangers. From stupid, mean high
school kids to
potheads who dared take advantage of
me.”
“Potheads?”
I nodded. “I was walking home one
night. I was in the
wrong place at the wrong time. I almost
got… as-saulted or
m©l£st£d. And Chaise happened to be
there. He followed me
home and thank God he did. He saved
me.”
I still shiver at the memory of that night.
If it weren’t for
Chaise, I wouldn’t be here anymore.
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wouldn’t even
be able to see me at all.
“He… he saved you?” Hunter asked. The
~tone of his
voice told me he couldn’t believe Chaise
was capable of
doing that at all. He shifted in the be-d to
lie on his back,
staring at the ceiling above us.
“I have always been telling Chaise to
stay away from
me. But I~ was thankful that he didn’t
listen. Because if he
did, then something really bad would
have happened to me.
I was just really grateful to him for
saving me.”
Hunter continued boring holes at the
ceiling. I wish he
would un-derstand why Chaise meant a
lot to me now. And I
couldn’t bear to hurt his feelings too.
I looked up and saw the frown on
Hunter’s face. He
looked angry again. And I knew it was
because of what I
said about Chaise. But I couldn’t help
that. I wasn’t in love
with Chaise but that did not mean I
didn’t care if his heart
was breaking.
Chaise.
Tania.
Denise.
Hunter’s parents.
I let out a sad sigh when I thought about
the people who
would be unhappy or heartbroken if
Hunter and I got
together.
But on the other hand… it was me. It
was Hunter. It was
a case of us versus them.
I l@yon my back too, looking straight
towards the
ceiling, lost in my own thoughts.
“I feel like there are many f0rç£s in the
world that
wouldn’t allow us to be together,” I
murmured.
Hunter didn’t say anything for a while.
Then I felt him
move closer to me, propping up on an
elbow so he could
look into my eyes. He searched my face
for a moment. Then
he reached forward and gently ca-ressed
my scar with the
back of his f!ngers.
I raised my hand to his face and
t©uçhed his cheek. He
turned sideways and k!$$£d my palm.
Then he turned to look at me in the eyes
again.
“We’d be hurting a lot of people.”
“Well, I don’t really give a damn about
what they feel,”
he said in a serious voice. “Especially
Anderson. He can go
eat his heart out for all I care! You were
mine first. You’re
mine forever!”
Then he leaned forward and captured
myl-ips in his. He
k!$$£d me gently at first. And then his
k!sses bec@m£ even
more demanding.
I savored the feel of his velvetl-ips on
mine. He moved
so he was on t©p of me now. He left a
trail of k!sses from my
li-ps to my scars. He k!$$£d them gently
and then he nuzzled
my n£¢k. I m0@n ed involuntarily as I felt
him svçkgently on
my skin.
“Angel…” he whispered.
He pu-ll-ed away so he could look into my
eyes. The look
on his face was gentle and rou-gh,
triumphant and dark all
the same time, like he was having an
inner battle within
himself. He k!$$£d me again with
fevered pas-sion, but I
could feel he was controlling his
emotions, trying his best to
take it slow for fear of scaring me off.
I wasn’t sure where this was going but I
sure as hell
didn’t want it to st©p.
We had hurt each other in the past. And
before this, I
couldn’t even picture us k!ss!nglike this.
I felt his hand on my th!gh as he pu-ll-ed
my leg up. He
ca-ressed my skin as he nuzzled my
n£¢k, giving me
goosebu-mps, ma-king me m0@n .
“Hunter…” I whispered his name.
“I have always loved the sound of my
name on yourl-ips,
angel,” he whispered as he nipped at my
ear-lobe. “Say it
again.”
I took a de-ep breath. “Hunter.”
I felt his hands on the edge of the shi-t I
was wearing.
Then his f!ngersgently slid un-der it,
tou-ching my ba-re skin.
I didn’t really know where this was
headed, but I knew
that it felt good. It felt wonderful
because it was with
Hunter. It didn’t feel awkward or
unsettling like the way I felt
whenever Chaise put an arm around me
or hvgged me.
Hunter’s embr@ce felt like home… his
k!sses felt like
heaven.
If we were going too fast, I didn’t feel it.
If this was
wrong, I simply didn’t care. I was a
vir-gin, but I knew… I’d
always known since our first d@t£… my
first time would be
with Hunter.
I felt his hand moving up higher and my
heart couldn’t
st©p pounding loudly inside my ribcage.
I wra-pped my arms
around his n£¢k, pu-lling him to me,
giving him permission.
“Alice! Hunter!”
We were startled at the sound of
Denise’s voice outside
the house. We immediately st©pped
k!ssing, and blinked
back at each other like we were pu-ll-ed
back from the state
of trance we were in.
We pu-ll-ed away from each other. I sat
up and Hunter
stood up on the opposite end of the be-d.
He looked at me apologetically. He
opened his mouth to
say something but the door barged open
before a word
could escape hisl-ips.
“Alice!” Denise said walking towards
me. “Are you
okay?”
$h!t!
I did not even know what I looked like.
My hair was
definitely disheveled. Myl-ips were
probably bruised from
Hunter’s k!sses and I knew my face was
a whole new shade
of crimson.
“I’m fine, Denise,” I said, combing my
hair with my
f!ngers, trying my best to look
nonchalant.
She hvgged me. It was only then that I
saw Chaise
standing behind her. He was staring at
Hunter, who was
leaning against the wall.
Hunter had a grave look on his face
directed towards
Chaise. He looked like he wanted to
punch the living
daylights out of Chaise, but he was
trying his damn best not
to make a scene. He didn’t want to fight
him. Not here. Not
now. Not in front of me.
I held my breath. I could feel blood
pulsing throu-gh my
veins.
Oh God! plea-se don’t let them fight!
Chaise to-re his gaze from Hunter and
walked towards
me. He reached out his hand to cu-p my
cheek with his palm.
Then he pu-ll-ed me towards him and
gave me a hvg, much
to my surprise. I didn’t hvg him back.
I reluctantly looked at Hunter. He was
watching us
carefully. The expression on his face
was stoic, but I knew
him better. Beneath that ice cold façade,
he was fuming
with anger. I quic-kly to-re myself away
from Chaise’s
embr@ce.
“Are you okay?” he asked, concern
written all over his
face. There were dark circles beneath
his eyes. It seemed he
too, didn’t get enough sleep last night.
I nodded, slightly pu-lling away from him.
“I’m okay.”
“I was so worried about you,” Chaise
said. “We wanted
to come back for you but we couldn’t
because of the very
bad weather.”
“He almost c@m£ back for you,” Denise
said. “I almost
tied him up to make sure he doesn’t get
on the boat to
come here.”
“You didn’t have to worry. We were
perfectly safe here,”
I as-sured him.
“I told him Hunter would make sure
nothing will happen
to you.”
Chaise’s face ha-rd ened at the mention
of Hunter’s
name. I stole a glance at Hunter. He
shook his head and
walked out of the room.
I wanted to run after him, but decided
not to. If ever
Hunter and I would be together, I nee-ded
to do this right. I had to set things
straight. And I just might break Chaise’s
heart in the process.