I pull the sheet around me and hop down off the bed, moving with borrowed bravado. Hunter, still sleeping peacefully behind me, is my inspiration. He's got enough on his plate. He doesn't need a drop by from Priscilla. Normally my insecurity might cause me to question that—maybe he's in love with her; blah blah blah—but I know deep down he's not. I'm not even sure he likes her, and if nothing else, I know she won't be as gentle with him today as I will.
Holding the sheet tightly around myself with one hand, I use the other one to point at the door. “I have no idea what you're doing here, but it's creepy and you need to leave. He's asleep, as you can see. He isn't feeling well.”
Priscilla laughs. “His little hooker. What a spitfire you are.” She rakes her mean gaze up and down my figure. “I'd like to know what you did to lose all that weight. That night I saw you at Hunter's party you were quite the fat ass.”
Her comment bounces off me. I stalk closer to her and jerk my finger at the door. “Get out of here. I’ll tell Hunter you came by, and he can decided if he wants you back.” If she doesn't leave in just a second, I might claw her.
She laughs, a throaty, knowing sound. “I see what this is. You actually have a thing for him.”
I look down at myself. “Um, I think it's clearly mutual.”
She shakes her head and makes a tsk-ing sound. “Believe me sweetheart, you don't want to get involved with him. He's poison.”
I frown at her. This makes no sense. Hasn't she spent the last few months—or even longer—having sex with him? Good sex, from what I saw through the powder room keyhole.
Intuition tells me she's full of crap, so I roll my eyes as I wave at her again. “I know what I want, and I don't trust a word out of your mouth.”
She shrugs. “Your choice Triple X. But if you think he's yours, keep dreaming.”
It takes me a minute to realize she's not calling me X-rated; she's calling me plus-sized. I snort. “You're ridiculous, and believe me, you really need to leave before I call security.” It's a bluff—a stupid one, since I have no idea how much she knows about his house—but she takes a small step backward, the backs of her heels bumping the door.
I glance again at Hunter's sleeping form, and I know in my gut that isn't true, what she said. He's not poison. She is. “Get out of here and don't come back. You sadist.”
I march forward, and to my shock, Priscilla turns, opens the door, and steps into the hall. “I'm going,” she says in an airy tone, “but it's not because of you, Elizabeth DeVille. I'll be back when Hunter has time to enjoy his true pleasures.”
The sad thing is, I might have believed her, had a gray-haired man dressed in a butler's outfit not come striding down the hall at that second. “Ms. Heat?” He takes a few quick strides, closing the distance between the two of them, and I'm surprised by how fast he's got her by the waist.
“Hal, I—”
“Mr. West has placed you on the do-not-admit list,” he says, as he hauls her off. “I don't know how you got in through the back gate, but it's time for you to go.”
Priscilla shrieks, and I watch as he unceremoniously tosses her over his shoulders and marches toward the stairs.
As they disappear from sight, and I sink down in front of Hunter's door, shaking. What have I gotten myself into?
*
When I return to Hunter's room, he's still sleeping. I hesitate only a minute before unraveling the sheet from around my body and lying it gently over his. I slip back into my teddy and robe and go next door to call Suri.
“Hi.” I smile, feeling oddly content after my little run-in with Priscilla.
“Hi! Lizzy, how is everything? I want to hear about it all. I'm sorry I haven't been a good friend this last little while. Has he put the moves on you?”
“Sort of.” I blush. “But I want to hear about Cross first.”
She says Cross is awake, but he's quiet and moody. I smile, because that sounds about right.
“I'm sure he'd love to talk to you, but there's a social worker in there with him now. Do you want to call back later?”
I agree to do that, and after a few more minutes of filling her in on the days' events, I hang up and go back into the room with Hunter. I slip into the bed and snuggle up to him. Within seconds, his eyes are open and he's blinking at me.
He reaches out and thumps my nose as a gentle smile spreads over his lips. “How are you?”
“Good. How are you?”
He sits up, revealing his amazing chest, and I worry I may combust. I think he notices, because he smirks and runs his finger up my throat, the way you might stroke a cat. It makes me shiver, and I find myself giggling like a teenager.
As he slides off the bed, totally, gloriously nude, and begins to look for his clothes, he peeks over his shoulder. “I'm sorry about earlier. Damned embarrassing.” It takes me a second to realize he's talking about the mess he made of his room—not about Priscilla.
"It's okay. Don't be embarrassed."
He grabs some boxer-briefs off the floor, and it takes everything I have not to watch his perfect package as he steps into them. Holy moly.
"I've thrown things around since I was a kid. It's how I used to deal with anger I guess."
I nod, toying with the silky sheets. "You lost your mom. It makes sense that you would have had anger issues."
He gives me a charming little sideways smile. "You're wise for your age."
I arch a brow. "My mom has been hard in other ways."
"I can believe that." I watch in bliss as he throws a few handfuls of clothes into one of the drawers, his chest rippling. As he steps toward my side of the bed, I know I must be flushed. I watch as he swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. "I know we haven't had the main event yet. I just wanted you to know that it's not because I don't want to."
Holy cow. My blush gets blushier. “Thank you,” I say awkwardly. “That's nice to know.”
He leans against the bed and pulls me up against his chest. “If I'd known what I was missing out on, I'd have looked you up while you up a while ago. Actually,” he adds, smiling a little, “I sort of did.”
“You did?”
He nods. “One day I just got curious about little Libby DeVille, and I looked you up in the campus registry. Kind of a pervy thing to do when you're in your mid-20s.”
I laugh. “You liar. You're thirty.”
“Indeed, but I wasn't then.”
Holy crap. Hunter looked me up when I was an undergrad? The belly bats turn into butterflies, and they soar around my stomach.