Eruption (The Hunted, #3)

by Ivy Smoak

"This charade has gone on long enough. I thought it would sizzle out on its own, but now I see that we need to step in before it's too late. So that's what we're doing. Because we do care about his happiness. And we won't let him ruin his life over some girl. It's just a matter of time before he comes to his senses. We're just helping it along. Now take the money and disappear from his life. That's the offer." "I don't want your money." I had clenched my hands into fists. "You think this is showing him that you care? Instead of accepting him how he is? Your son is sweet and caring and..." "And he doesn't know what's best for him. You think marrying a middle class girl is helping him? Pulling him down to your level?" She made the same noise with her throat that Isabella had made earlier. "He's a Hunter." She picked up the checks and threw them at me. Her words made me shiver. "He may be a Hunter, but he's in love with me." "He doesn't love you." She looked me up and down. "He's attracted to you for some reason. And I don't even see why. You're quite common. Isabella and him have a real bond. Our families are connected. And they're going to work it out."

James' father cleared his throat. "Miss Taylor, you seem like a smart girl. We hope that you'll make the right decision. Please let yourself out when you've calmed down." He took a step toward the door.

"Enough!" yelled his dad. "Our son's shortcomings are no one's fault but his own. He's never known what's best for him. He chose to find solace in vices because he's weak. He's always been weak." His father's words made tears come to my eyes.

"James is the strongest person I know. Strong enough to walk away from his own parents. And thank goodness, because the thought of ever being in the same room as either of you again makes me feel sick to my stomach. You're both pretentious snobs. And you don't deserve his love."

I sunk into one of the chairs in front of the desk and put my face in my hands, finally letting my tears free. Why hadn't I just left with James when he told me to? I hadn't believed him. I didn't think there was any way that his parents were as bad as he said. But he was right. They were absolutely horrid. And now James was out somewhere alone. I thought about earlier in the week when his mother called. He had seemed so happy that they were finally willing to meet me. He let himself get his hopes up, just to be crushed by them again. And I had put him in that situation. He was probably furious with me. The thought just made me cry even harder. "Oh my. I'm guessing your little conversation didn't go so well?" My whole body felt cold. I quickly wiped my tears away and looked up at Isabella. "Please, Isabella. Not right now."

"Why can't you just leave him alone?" "I let him have his fling. I gave him the distance he needed. It's time for us to work things out." "You loathe each other. What on earth are you talking about?" "Just because he's not addicted to me doesn't mean he doesn't love me. It's a sickness. If you want what's best for him, you'll let him go. I'm the only one who knows what he needs. I can help him." "He doesn't need your help." I stood up. "And he's not addicted to me. He loves me." "It's a fine line. And I'm afraid it's a little blurry for him."

"He doesn't need to be taken care of. We've been together for two and a half years and I've seen nothing. He's fine. He's over whatever it is you're talking about. We're both fine." "He's not fine. He's addicted to you." "Stop saying that." I knew she was just trying to make me paranoid. But James was fine. He wasn't like that anymore.

She laughed. "I'm so unbelievably scared." She smiled at me. "There's two weeks until your wedding. Which means I have two weeks to make James see the light. It's plenty of time. I just have to remind him about what he's missing. I'll only need a few minutes alone with him. Until he's screaming my name instead of yours." "You bitch." She slapped me hard across the face.

turned away from the bookshelf and saw a picture tucked into the side of the mirror above his dresser. But it wasn't of him. I walked over, staring at the girl in the picture, and pulled it off the mirror.

It had to be his high school girlfriend, Rachel. Young love. It was something I knew nothing about. James was my first real boyfriend. I guess I was young when I first met him. I didn't feel young anymore though. And compared to the girl in the picture, I doubted I looked young either. James must have kept her picture hanging here all through college too. The only reason that they had broken up was because his parents thought she wasn't suitable for him. If they had liked her, would they still be together? Would he have had a happier life?

James hadn't read these books for the cute little redheaded girl. That part had been a tease. He read them because he needed an escape. He felt trapped here. I looked up at the very blue room. Living up to his parents' expectations must have been stifling. He dumped the girl that he loved and married a girl he never would. But that's all I really knew. And that wasn't his childhood. What horrible things had they made him do before that?

I had told him I was nerdy growing up, preferring a book over socializing, but he had never told me that he was the same. Maybe we had more in common than I ever realized.

It was a list of criteria for emancipation. James had crossed out each line, probably because none of them applied to him. A permanent escape was unattainable. So where had this boy gone? Why had he tried to become independent from his family only to do whatever they wanted for the next ten years of his life? What had changed? It couldn't have just been the issue of money. His parents were plenty generous with that. Offering me five million dollars to disappear to supposedly protect their son. They would never have really cut him off, would they? It didn't make any sense. There must have been something James hadn't told me.

His parents had taken away the love of his life, and I knew better than anyone how strongly James loved. So he had given up on life. He realized he was destined to be miserable and just seemed to accept it. James wasn't weak. He was the exact opposite. He was stoic. His parents repeatedly tried to break him and he just took it. Anyone would have needed an escape. A book, a bottle of scotch, sex. His escapes had matured with him.

He wasn't addicted to me. We were both an escape for each other from our normal lives. We were each other's happy endings. The fairy tales in the books that lined his shelves really did exist. It wasn't an addiction. It was our reality. We were the lucky ones because we had found each other. No one could ever convince me otherwise.

"I've been looking everywhere for you," he said, ignoring my comment. He sounded on edge, like he really had searched through the whole house for me. "I texted you to tell you I was in your room." I stood up but kept my face turned to the ground. I knew there was a bruise forming on my cheek and I didn't want him to see it. Not until we were far away from this awful party.

"Oh. Is it okay if I take this?" I asked and picked up the book. "We don't have a copy at our place." "No." He cleared his throat. "We'll buy a new copy for us." He hadn't wanted me to see the paper inside. I shouldn't have come in here. I had invaded his privacy. I put the book back down. "Okay, let's go then." I pretended to scratch my cheek and I walked past him so that he wouldn't be able to see my face.

"They tried to pay you off?" He lowered his eyebrows slightly and then ran both his hands down his face. It looked like he was understanding something for the first time. Like how evil his parents truly were. "Did you take it?" It came out as a barely audible whisper. "What?" He stared at me. He looked defeated and tired.

"Don't apologize, this is what I wanted. You knew I wanted to meet them, so you made it happen. And now I have. It's done. We don't have to see them ever again." He sighed. "Except for the wedding in two weeks." "I uninvited them."

He laughed. "What?" "Oh." I leaned back to look up at him. "Sorry, I mean, it was just in the heat of the moment. Obviously if you want them there..." "No." He put his hand on the side of my face, gently rubbing his thumb over the bruise on my cheek. "No, I don't want them there. I'm done with them."

"I'm sorry that I forced all this. I just thought if they met me, maybe I could change their minds, you know? I was just trying to help." "You can't change my parents' minds. Trust me, I've tried my whole life." I wanted to ask him about the paper in his book, about his relationship with Rachel, about his whole childhood. I wanted him to fill in all the blanks. But right now all I wanted was for him...

He put his hands on the windowsill and looked back at me. "I used to sneak out of my room all the time. Let's leave this way." I looked past him toward the lawn. We were really high up. "I'm wearing heels. And I've had too much to drink." "I dare you." I smiled. Neither one of us had ever backed down from a dare.

"Did you really just jump?" I tossed my shoes out the window and watched them hit the lawn below. "It seems kind of high."

"Geez, no." He grabbed my arm and started laughing. "Were you seriously going to jump out the window?" "You said you did it all the time. And you dared me." "There's a trellis." He stuck his head out the window and pointed to the right. He started laughing again. "Don't make fun of me for trusting you." I poked him in the middle of the chest.

"Where are we going?" I whispered. "You don't have to whisper, we're all alone. There it is," he said, pointing in front of us. I squinted my eyes. It was hard seeing in the dark. "I don't..." I stopped when I saw it. "Is that a tree house?"

He kissed the crook of my elbow again. "Of all the things here, this was the only thing that was truly mine. Jen and Rob never even came up unless I invited them to." He stopped at the base of the tree trunk and let me slide off his back. "I was barely ever in my room in the house. I used to come here all the time. You have no idea how many times I nagged my parents to let me get a zip line from my window to the tree house." I laughed. "So why was this your special place?"

"Am I allowed to come up? Or are no girls allowed?" He laughed. "Let me see if it's still stable." I watched him climb up the steps that were nailed into the side of the tree. The boards creaked when he stepped up into the house, but nothing broke. He put his hand down. "Penny Taylor, I'm officially inviting you up into my tree house."

I laughed and climbed the little ladder. I grabbed his hand and he helped pull me up inside. This was more what I was expecting his room to be like. I laughed as I looked around at all the toys and comic books on the floor. There were actual windows in the little tree house, which had somehow preserved everything despite the hole in the floor. There were even pictures that lined the wall. Photos of James as a happy little boy. He had the same facial features, in an adorable little boy kind of way. "You're so cute. Is this you and Mason?" James laughed and unpinned the picture from the wall. "Yeah. That was taken at summer camp one year."

"I'm gaining the best family I could possibly ask for, you know. Not your parents, obviously. But your siblings and your friends. I love all of them so much." He scratched the scruff along his jaw line. "You have such a positive way of thinking about everything." "That's what they are. Our family."

"When you asked me why I preferred here over my bedroom, I just..." His voice trailed off. "It was the only place where I felt like I could breathe." He had said that to me before. That he felt like he could finally breathe again when he was with me. I moved onto his lap, straddling him. "So, now I'm your tree house?" "I wouldn't put it that way." He placed a soft kiss against my lips, cradling the back of my head in his hand. "How would you put it?"

"You're my life, my heart, my soul, my everything." He was so sweet. But for some reason all I could seem to focus on was how handsome he looked with the moonlight streaming in through the branches of the trees, dancing across his face. I spread my legs even wider and pulled my dress up my thighs.

"You must have had fantasies of bringing girls up here, James." I reached out for the button of his dress pants. "I never thought I'd be this lucky."

I yelped as the elastic in my thong snapped against my hip as he tore it off of me. But the sensation was quickly replaced by pleasure as he thrust himself deep inside of me. Fuck.

It felt like I couldn't get close enough to him. I hooked my ankles behind him, drawing him even closer, and wrapped my arms around the back of his neck. I couldn't get enough. "More," I said breathlessly.

We should have been clumsy in the darkness, but I knew his body better than I knew my own. I had explored every rippling muscle and every inch of his skin. I felt the fire building in my stomach and I could feel myself clenching around him. Not yet. I wasn't done with him.

"Come for me, baby." And just like that, I lost control. "James!" I felt my back arch and my body shudder beneath his as I came down hard. I immediately felt his warmth spread up into me and heard his satisfied groan. His breath was warm on the side of my neck and the comforting feeling made a lingering chill run down my spine. His chest rose and fell against mine, pressing against my taut nipples. Everything he did was perfect. Everything.

"Strictly professional, huh?" asked James. "You know what I mean." I squeezed James' hand as we crossed the street. He ran his other hand through his hair and looked down at me. "Not really. Will you at least eat lunch with me?" He flashed me a smile. "Of course I'll eat lunch with you." "So you're fine with everyone knowing that you're my fiancée?" "Yes. I've already met a bunch of your employees. But the interns are new. They won't know who I am. Of course they'll find out, but I want them to know me first, you know? So I just mean like, don't make out with me in my cubicle in front of everyone." He laughed and squeezed my hand back. "I'm the boss. I can do whatever I want."

My only real job before this was at a retail store during summers of high school and my first summer of college. I hadn't worked since I had met James. He had insisted that he wanted my free time to be spent with him. And since I had been so busy during the school year, the summers had quickly become my favorite. Now when I looked up at the sky rise building in front of me, it suddenly hit me that I'd never have a real summer again.

I had been inside the building countless times. Lunches, late dinners, just to stop in and say hi. Even a few late night rendezvous, which I hoped he wouldn't want to repeat now that I was going to be coworkers with all these people.

He smiled at me as he pressed the button for the elevator. "Stop looking at me like that." I smiled back at him. "Like what?" "In that way you do." He leaned forward. "You mean, in that way where I'm undressing you with my eyes and wishing I was about to fuck you in the elevator?"

"Don't freak her out, Tavon," Zach said. He sat down at the desk diagonally from mine. "I'm sure she's not marrying a guy like you." "Yeah because I'm not whipped. I wouldn't send a girl flowers on her first day of work. It's kinda desperate." "I think it's romantic." Sierra gave me a small smile. "I wish a guy would send me flowers." "Then you probably shouldn't date Tavon," I said. Sierra and Zach both laughed.

Zach leaned on the armrest and whispered in my ear. "So what happened to your eye?" I immediately removed my arm from the armrest and nodded to the person standing up in front of the large conference room.

"He's so dreamy," Sierra whispered. Yes, he is. "I'm pretty sure he's engaged," I said instead. I had become just as territorial as him. Other girls thought he was dreamy, but he was mine.

"Even his voice is sexy," Sierra said. I wasn't sure how much I liked her anymore. I silently laughed at myself.

It wasn't like I hadn't experienced the way other women were around him. He had this magnetism that no one seemed to be immune to. Everyone loved him. If only his parents would open their eyes. I realized I was so in my own head that I was missing his speech.

looked over my shoulder to see James talking to some of the interns in the front row. It was only a few hours until lunch, but it felt like I hadn't gotten to talk to him in forever. Or taste him. What? He wasn't an addict. I was.

I walked over and put my face close to the window to see if I could see him through the slants in the blinds. What the fuck?! I grabbed the handle of his office door.

"He's still in his meeting, Penny. He asked me to make sure no one disturbed him. I can give you a call when he's free if you want?" "No. That's okay, Nita." What the hell? I started to walk away but quickly went back over to her.

My heart was beating out of my chest. Maybe I was wrong. It was just the back of her head. Fuck. No. It was definitely Isabella. I kept my eyes on the ground as I made my way toward my desk. What was he doing talking to her? Did he seriously stand me up to have lunch with that bitch? I knew there was nothing going on between them, but I couldn't help the jealously that seemed to surge through me. What on earth could they be talking about? After she had slapped me, I thought he'd never speak to her again. Instead they were having a nice, private chat in his office. Why couldn't she just leave us alone?

My phone started vibrating. Thank God. I pulled it out of my purse and saw that James was calling me. I'd talk to him after work.