Scandalize Me

Not that everything was about sex. There was the way he looked at her, as if he truly did cherish her, the way she’d imagined he might that morning in his kitchen. There was that kernel of hope inside her that grew a little bit bigger every day. That let her smile wider, enjoy him, enjoy this. That let her worry less about the things that she thought she lacked, and think more about the ways they seemed to fit together.

Very much as if they’d been waiting for each other through all these dark years.

As if dawn had finally come, for both of them.

He shifted, pulling her to him so her head was pillowed on his shoulder, then smoothing her hair away from her face.

“What is it?” His voice was a rasp in the dark. “You’re still vibrating with tension, and without flattering myself too much, I think we both know that should be impossible.”

She smiled. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re slipping?”

Hunter snorted as if that was impossible. Then he let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Fine,” he said, as if they’d been arguing for hours. “What will make you happy? Do you need to paint every wall in this penthouse so it doesn’t look like—what did you call it?”

“Abattoir chic?” she asked idly, grinning as she remembered the look of outrage on his face when she’d said it earlier. And his earthy response had involved her hands flat against the windows in his living room and him hard and hot behind her, then deep inside her.

“I’ll stop fighting the inevitable,” he said now. “Just promise me it won’t be pastels.”

She twisted around to look at him.

“That’s not a bad idea,” she said, as if he’d been serious. “You’re not in purgatory anymore, Hunter. You didn’t die ten years ago. You deserve to live.”

His face was shadowed but she still felt the impact of that bright, blue stare. She felt his big hand clutch her shoulder briefly, then return to its lazy smoothing, up and down her back.

“So do you,” he said gruffly.

Zoe thought about what he’d said to her over and over again in these wild, beautiful days she still couldn’t quite believe were real. That they could replace dark memories with new and better fantasies. And it clicked into place then. Just like that. Maybe it had always been inevitable. Maybe she’d been waiting for this. This...happiness, if that was what this was. It was still new, but it didn’t feel fragile. She didn’t think the wrong word or moment or fight could dislodge it.

She wasn’t sure anything could. It felt right.

Hunter didn’t think she was an unpleasant duty the way her grandparents had. She knew he wouldn’t turn on her and abuse her, as Jason Treffen had. Hadn’t he proved it to her when she’d knelt down before him and he’d refused to accept that?

He didn’t want to own her. He wanted to love her.

And that changed everything. It set her free, in all the ways she hadn’t understood she wasn’t when she’d ousted Jason Treffen from that law firm. Because this time, the fear wouldn’t stop her. This time, she knew enough to let Hunter help her.

“I think I have to do it,” she said then, in a rush. She felt Hunter tense beneath her, and flattened her hands against his smooth, hard chest. “Not because anyone expects it of me, or because Alex thinks it’s a good idea to have one of the victims take part in the interview. But because I have to do it for me. Because I want to.”

He was quiet, but she knew he was as focused on her as when he was deep inside her, when all that mattered was the heat and that fire, that beautiful dance that was only theirs. More, perhaps.

“You don’t have to be a part of it,” she told him quickly. “I’ll understand if you don’t want—”

“Zoe.”

“It will probably get ugly,” she continued doggedly, because she still wanted to protect him. He’d started new relationships with his family. He was teaching those kids football. He really was a good man now, a new man, and she was still a scandal. Likely a big one, if Alex had his way. “I’ll be called a lot of names. So will you. People don’t like it when their heroes get pushed off of pedestals, especially not when the pusher can be dismissed as a grasping whore. And I will be.”

“Please shut up,” he said. “I’m not having this conversation. And I’m not going anywhere. I told you.” He took her chin in his hand, his thumb rubbing over her lips, possessive and hot and somehow deeply comforting, too. “I’ll never stop wanting you, Zoe. This is a done deal.”