Wicked Truths (Hunt Legacy Duology 2)

My head falls back on my shoulders. ‘Oh, Becker,’ He’s meticulous, precise . . . fucking amazing. The pleasure-induced haze he’s shoved me into is heaven. I have the ability to push myself over the threshold that will see me coasting furiously towards explosion, but I have no inclination to finish just yet. He feels too good. I want to stay here forever, feeling like this. Overwhelmed. Bursting with love for my certified unlawful man. I have strong morals, but I have stronger feelings for Becker Hunt. I’ve never experienced feelings so intense. Feelings that change your outlook, play with your principles, and challenge your integrity. And most of all, clouds any inclination to find them. Because they would be easy to find. All of those things are built into me. They are there somewhere, but even more significant is my willingness to hide them, to not want to find them, to change my mindset completely. To make myself understand him, because I know he’s not all bad. Maybe a little questionable in the ethics department, but not bad. He loves me. He’s given up on something for me. He needs me more than redemption or peace. I’m his source of peace now.

‘Talk to me, Eleanor,’ he demands, strained and lusty. ‘Tell me how you feel.’ I know what he wants. Reassurance. ‘Tell me,’ he presses.

He’s upped the stakes, increased his pace, washed my mind of everything except the sensations he’s creating. He’s preparing to come. I can hear it in the change of his breathing pattern.

‘I’m still lost in your maze.’ I roll my forehead on his, absorbing each drive. Becker Hunt is a jigsaw puzzle. I know he thought the sculpture was the missing piece that would complete him. Now he believes I am his missing piece. ‘I’m happy lost in your labyrinth of debasement.’

‘Good. That makes me feel a whole lot better about what I’m going to say next.’ He pulls out of me slowly, depriving me of the gorgeous feel of him, and stands, detaching me from his front and placing me on my feet. He turns away from me and walks across to a cabinet. What’s he doing? Oh no. My prize. What’s he going to hit me with now? The police? Lady Winchester? Another forged treasure?

‘Becker?’ I ask, gulping down the strength I might need as he opens and closes the cabinet and returns to me. He negotiates my useless body to the side. And when he’s happy with my placement, he drops to one knee before me.

What the bloody hell?

I study him, my eyes getting progressively wider by the second. ‘What are you doing?’ I ask, moving away, taking a few steps back, like distance might make the sight before me clearer, because I know I can’t be seeing right. He’s gazing up at me with a cheeky smile on his face, yet I can see nerves there, too.

He holds something up. A ring. A gorgeous emerald ring that deserves far more admiration than I’m giving it. I take only a quick glance at the stunning piece, just to check if I’m following, before my eyes are back on Becker. I laugh, my hand coming up to my chest and applying pressure. ‘Becker, this isn’t funny. Stop it.’

‘Will you marry me, princess?’

I laugh harder, beginning to feel hot as I back away from his naked, kneeling form. I have to stop when the back of my thighs meet a table. ‘Very funny.’

‘I’m not playing, Eleanor. You’ve just scaled my grand hall naked. You were made for me.’ He thrusts the ring at me, walking forward on his knees. ‘Will you marry me?’

‘The ring,’ I say, moving away, scared of it, and not just because it’s flawlessly beautiful. It’s a whopper of an emerald, set in a thick band of precious metal.

‘What about it?’ Becker asks, looking down at it. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Is it real?’ I spit my words out quickly, my mind completely scrambled.

‘Really, princess?’ He looks insulted. I have no idea why when he’s hit me from every direction with revelation after revelation. I’m surprised I haven’t keeled over with shock after everything my poor mind has been subjected to since I met him. And now this?

‘Well, I don’t know.’ I say on a laugh, throwing my arms above my head. ‘You’re a master forger. You forge shit. Expensive shit. You pass worthless shit off as priceless shit.’

‘It’s real,’ he says tiredly. ‘So will you?’

‘Seriously?’ I blurt out, all laughter evaporating and my shock now being demonstrated as you would expect.

‘Am I speaking in a foreign language, princess? What don’t you understand?’

‘You,’ I cry, sticking myself to the table behind me. ‘You’ve barely figured out that you’re in love with me. Now you want to marry me?’

His bottom lip juts out on a sulk.