The Hunter (Boston Belles #1)(34)

I was going to protest, but he was actually doing me a favor. The best thing I could do right now was give my shoulder some rest and ice it when we got home. I slid into the passenger seat, careful to close the door with my healthy left arm.

“Where to?” I buckled, peering at him when I was sure he was busy trying to arrange his long limbs into my space. He looked comically big, his knees touching the steering wheel on both sides. He adjusted my seat, starting the car.

“It’s a surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“Shocker. Close your eyes until we get there.” He backed out of the parking spot at thirty miles per hour, gunning out of the lot like a demon. In the rearview mirror, I saw Junsu standing on the stairs to the club, brows furrowed, hands on his hips.

Not happy.

“I can’t,” I heard my voice through the pounding panic in my head. Technically, Junsu couldn’t tell me what to do. He couldn’t tell me who to date. Lana Alder dated all the time. She’d even had a high-profile affair with that actor who played the new Spiderman. “I’ll get nauseous.”

“Damn, Sailor. Way to crap on carpe diem.” Hunter reached over to pat my thigh, and I inwardly winced.

I was wearing yoga pants and a bland DriFit shirt and looked like Ed Sheeran in tights. He, on the other hand, looked like he was attending the Oscars. Hunter headed toward the highway at a speed more fitting for a plane taking off.

“So how come the daughter of the infamous Troy Brennan is such a dork?” he asked conversationally.

“First of all, my father is a reputable businessman unless proven otherwise.” I repeated the words Dad had told me to say ever since I was old enough to talk. People felt the urge to poke and prod about the patriarch of my family like it was a national sport.

Hunter snorted, keeping his eyes on the road. “And second of all?”

“We’re not our parents. Case in point, your father runs one of the largest corporations in America, and you, in contrast, are an amateur porn star.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve seen me in action?” A grin curved over his face.

“Nope. You asked me not to Google you, remember?”

“Before I realized you could handle me. Shame. New customers get the first ride free.”

“I’ll pass. I hear the movie is better.”

He howled with laughter, his voice sexy and gruff. Determined to ignore the butterflies swarming in my chest, I stared out the window, munching on the skin around my thumbnail.

“For your information, Alice, the chick you caught me checking out on Saturday, is just a friend.”

“Does that mean you haven’t slept with her?” My eyes were still trained on the darkness outside, but hope flared in my stomach. We were driving outside of Boston, up north.

“Nah, I’ve slept with her plenty, but she’s a total herb. Plus, she doesn’t use my balls as Baoding balls like you do. With you, I’m outmatched, outwitted, and outrageously irritated.”

“So what are you saying? That I’m too smart and mouthy to be your friend?”

“You’re too everything. I’m happy to pop your cherry, but let me give you a piece of advice—you need to tone the intensity down. I think the only thing I can beat you at is polo.”

“And a fistfight,” I mused, not correcting his assumption that I was a virgin.

You shouldn’t care, and he should never find out.

“Debatable.” He side-eyed me.

“Anyway, I know how to horseback ride.” I pressed my furnace-hot cheek against the cool window. Whenever I was around Hunter, I felt like my IQ dropped forty points. Nature was a jackass like that. My brain told me to stay the hell away, but my body begged to reproduce with this beautifully destructive male specimen.

“Polo takes more than being an accomplished equestrian.”

“I can take down a galloping horse blindfolded with one arrow,” I reminded him. “So technically, I can still beat you at polo.”

He laughed again, shaking his head.

“Never met a girl who can be so ice cold and fire hot at the same time. One second I think you’re for sure gonna faint if I touch your hand, the other I’m certain you’re about to kill me in my sleep. You’re a trip, CT.”

Hunter parked my car on a graveled road outside an old tavern in the middle of nowhere. The Tudor-style pub’s chimney produced a white trail of smoke, spiraling up to a cloudless, starless sky. There was the faint noise of crickets, the highway beyond the trees, and maybe an owl.

“How do you know about this place? I’ve lived here my entire life and never heard of it. You barely even know Boston.” I unfastened my seatbelt. As I said it, I realized the implication of this truth. Hunter had grown up away from his family, in a foreign land, with strangers.

Yesterday, Aisling had told us she got to spend her childhood in Boston entirely by chance. An all-girl boarding school opened in our area before she hit first grade. It helped that her parents went easier on her academically, since she was a girl, and Gerald never put pressure on her to join the family business. But Cillian and Hunter were both sent abroad promptly after their sixth birthday, and while Cillian completed his high school education in New England, Hunter was sent all the way to California so his parents didn’t have to deal with him.