The Hunter (Boston Belles 1)

I realized he was nervous, too.

I opened it, and what I saw inside brought tears to my eyes. It wasn’t just an engagement ring. No. The stones—rubies and diamonds—were arranged in the shape of a bow. It must’ve cost a fortune. Not to mention it was definitely a custom design. I looked up, wide-eyed.

“Before you say anything.” He leaned down, grabbing a second velvet box from under the pillow. He threw it into my hands. This time I caught it without a problem. “This one’s mine. You know, if you say yes.”

I opened the second box. Hunter’s ring was black, with three gold stripes in the shape of an arrow.

I was the bow.

He was the arrow.

We hunted together. A team.

We were also each other’s prey.

“I want you,” he said gruffly. “Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. Forever. I want you to be mine, Sailor Brennan. No one else’s, ever.”

“Yes,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “I want that, too.”

He slid the ring onto my engagement finger, leaned down, and kissed me hard. It was a blur of passion, tears, and hunger. The kiss turned feral. He flipped me to my stomach and was inside me, just like he’d said he wanted to be when he woke me up. I didn’t care much for my morning breath, nor for the fact that he was probably running late for work.

“Aingeal dian,” he whispered to my nape as he thrust into me.

“My favorite Hunter,” I whimpered beneath him.

He would never know, I thought.

How he’d caught me.

How he’d captured me.

How he truly owned me.

The boy who let the hail drown him.

Who didn’t fight back.

Who once gave up.

He would never know, because in his eyes, I was the one who’d caught him.

“What’d you send him this time?” Cillian asked, going through a thick pile of envelopes on his desk.

Who the fuck sent snail mail anymore? Did people give zero craps about the rainforests? I mean, okay, I worked for a company producing fucking fuel—I could see the glaring irony in my statement—but fuel was essential to run cars and airplanes. It was vital to run heaters and build asphalt. Paper was wholly unnecessary at this point. Want to read? Buy a Kindle. Want to send a letter? Email someone. Use Messenger. WhatsApp. Carve a message in a fucking cave.

I took a seat in front of a standing Kill, rolling the ring I was already wearing on my wedding finger. “Just a few pictures of us in Barbados. Some souvenirs from our weekend in Puerto Rico.”

It had become a hobby of mine to send Syllie a biannual update on how the company was doing without him—great, by the way—and what we were doing in the outside world. I sent him pictures of me smiling in vacations, getting my degree, and apartment shopping with Sailor. I got a sick kick out of it, knowing he was rotting in a cell for the rest of his life for attempted murders while I lived my best life with the woman I loved.

Cillian wasn’t so personal with his hatred toward Syllie. Don’t get me wrong, he would go to extreme lengths to ruin people’s lives, but he needed them to be able to fight back. Syllie was a done deal, and Cillian was above playing with his food.

Me? I was the asshole in the cafeteria who started the food fight.

“Nicely done,” Cillian clipped, gathering all the envelopes his secretary had sorted for him alphabetically and dumping them into the trash can under his desk. “Now get out of my office. Your contentment is ruining my appetite.”

“Are you sure it’s my contentment and not an allergic reaction to life?” I pretended to salute, standing up.

“Positive.”

“Nothing about you is positive, fuckface.” I laughed.

“You kiss our mother with that mouth?” he tutted, sitting down to take a call.

“Cursing is the least of the dirty things I do with my mouth, son.” I clucked my tongue, gunning him down with both index fingers.

“Call me son one more time and the rest of your meals will be consumed through a straw,” Kill hissed. “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.”

“Aww. You said ass.” I slapped a hand over my mouth, feigning shock. “That’s a potty word. Go put a dollar in the piggy bank.”

Cillian picked up a small golden statue on his desk and hurled it at me. I dodged it by inches, laughing as it crashed against the glass wall, sending the eyes of everyone outside flying to watch what happened.

He smirked up at me, a devious glint in his eyes. “Out.”

“Don’t forget eight o’clock. We have this dinner thing with Sailor and her parents.” I pointed at him. He shook his head.

“Gread leat.” He was now throwing me out in Gaelic.

“Love you, bro.”

“I’ll call security,” he threatened.

He wasn’t even kidding. We’d been known to use security on each other multiple times during our disagreements in the last four years. I got out of his office, making my way to mine—approximately three steps away. I had my own assistant now. Since I’d graduated, actually. People actually gave a shit about my opinion in this place.