Hunter is more than a head taller than most of them. His wide shoulders almost triple the width of teenie, tiny Brina Lulle. He's nodding at something she's saying, the look on his face politely solicitous, but I tell myself that underneath, he's brain-killingly bored. Honey Neighton fans herself with her hand, drawing attention to her br**sts, and I smirk down at my gown. It's like a bad regency romance: Everyone gathers at the nobleman's estate for a hunt and the unmarried ladies fawn all over the awkward and ornery—but charming!—duke.
Hunter West isn't a brooding romance novel hero, though. He has too much breeding to be awkward and he's too straightforward to play at anything—although he is hard to get; he's impossible.
I watch him produce a convincing and completely gorgeous grin for Brina before he turns to Mary Baldwin, ruffling her chin-length hair and laughing with his blond head thrown back. This earns him a small smile, which, coming from Brina, is like a lap dance.
Suddenly, Hunter turns and looks over his shoulder, and I can see his eyebrows arch. Marchant Radcliffe, one of Hunter's hell-raising friends, tosses a glass bottle over the heads of a cluster of middle-aged women, and Hunter catches it with one hand, saying something that makes his admirers smile before turning to the wet bar behind him and opening a cabinet.
He pours liquor, and his ladies wait. Even filling shot glasses, he seems completely in command of himself and what's around him. I've moved in or near his circle for a while, despite our seven year age difference, and I've never seen him not look like that. Like a man at the helm of the universe.
It's kind of surprising, considering he spends most of his time in Vegas, playing poker (professionally, of all things), man-whoring, and tossing back his family's infamous Louisiana bourbon. That was his great-grandfather, Willard West's legacy. Hunter's father, Conrad West, after a long life in politics, is Secretary of State.
He disapproves of Hunter’s lifestyle, or so I’ve heard. I've only actually seen Conrad West in person twice, and both times from a distance, so I don't know much about him, but I wish I did. I collect Hunter details like my best friend Suri collects Hermès jewelry.
Watching Hunter turn around with a platter of tall shots balanced on his big hand and a sly smile on his face, I can't help imaging him lying on the Egyptian cotton sheets I know hug all the mattresses here at his Napa estate.
It wouldn’t start there, though. As he tosses back his shot, I envision him backed against a wall, his shoulders bare and round and wide, that plump lower lip just begging to be bitten. Something about him makes me want to bite. If I was anybody else, maybe I would try to arrange that.
As it is, I'm Elizabeth DeVille, super spy and resident poor girl, and watching him out of the corner of my eye will have to do.
I nod at something my best friend Suri is saying to me, feeling like a shitty friend because I'm not really listening.
“I'm surprised she's wearing Oscar because I heard she's not modeling anymore,” she says.
“Oh really,” I reply, hoping that's the right response.
“Maybe someone on the design team is a friend of hers, because otherwise I don’t know how she would get her hands on it.”
Hunter leans against the fireplace, fingering a flask that sticks out of his pants pocket. I catch him wipe a hand back through his slightly wavy hair as his groupies shift their attention to a curvy black-haired girl who's gesturing wildly about something. For half a second, Hunter's gaze lifts. I think it rests on me, but then a blonde bombshell in a wispy red gown steps around me, and I'm sure his gaze is on her.
I'm watching him more brazenly than ever now, curious to see how he reacts to the sexpot stalking his way. I'm surprised when his jaw tightens. He almost seems to wince. Then she is close enough to reach for him. He drapes an arm around her shoulder, a gentleman greeting a fond acquaintance, and I realize who she is: Priscilla Heat, resident p**n star and my good friend Cross's arch nemesis. I don’t know what went wrong between the two of them—he hasn’t even told me how he knows her—but Cross seriously hates the woman.
I wonder if he's seen her yet.
A soft giggle pulls me back to earth, to Suri, who's standing beside me in front of a wall of glass doors that lead onto a balcony overlooking Hunter’s vineyards. Even as I turn to Suri, I can sense Hunter at the other end of the room, exuding a low-level hum that makes my electrons feel unstable.
"I knew you still wanted to do him," Suri whispers, wiggling her eyebrows like she's trying to attract attention.
"I do not," I hiss.
Squinting my left eye, I look around us, mindful of who is close enough to eavesdrop. I can't see faces clearly because my left contact fell out in Suri's limousine, but I think I spot Carolitta Hamshon in a circle of gowns just beyond the couch in front of me.
I angle my body more toward Suri. "I do not," I whisper, even lower. There's no way I want Carolitta's coven of bitches to hear this. It's embarrassing enough that Suri spotted me.
"Yes you do, girlie. You've wanted him since sweet sixteen."
Suri knows all about the time Mom's Porsche broke down on the winding road that runs past West Vineyard. Hunter came to my rescue at just past midnight, leaving a beautiful brunette in a silky gown watching from his front door as he pushed Mom's Porsche down his long driveway and into his garage. He'd pushed it up a ramp and stripped down to his jeans, then pulled out a rolling body-board, eased his broad torso onto it, and scooted his fine self beneath the belly of the car. He emerged twenty minutes later covered in oil smudges, with grease in his golden hair and a self-satisfied smile on his tiger face, inexplicably smelling slightly of bourbon. He'd insisted I stay the night in his spacious guesthouse. Suri also knows how, the next morning, I'd heard moans coming from the direction of the pool. And how, from that point on, my insides have quivered every time I see him on Moneyline or read about his poker tournaments in a newspaper. It's even worse when the gossip blogs feature him toting a trophy date to this event or that. Every time I read about him with a woman, I feel like scratching her eyeballs out.
I don't like it, but it's something I'm just going to have to live with.
"I'm not lying," I mumble, but Suri's no longer paying attention to me. She's shifted slightly in her silver Manolos, tossing a not-at-all-discreet glance Hunter's way.
"Suri, stop," I hiss.
"His eyes are almost yellow," she murmurs, this time having the tact to lean her head near mine. "You told me they were green, but when he passed by earlier, I swear they looked like cat eyes."