Hunt Me! I Crave the Chase (Spooky Boys #3)

There were pine cones lining the back wall.

A giant orange maple leaf was taped to the door.

Several of my t-shirts were scattered across the floor. T-shirts I’d been certain I’d lost. And apparently hadn’t, because they’d been stolen. A giant cement garden gnome sat in one corner of the room, glaring at me grumpily. I could only assume he’d stolen it, or bought it from a yard sale, it was so beat up.

“Nice gnome,” I complimented. Mutt made a confused sound, and when I gestured toward the statue he brightened. His tail beat the mattress.

“You like my tiny angry man?” he said happily. “I knew you were perfect.”

I laughed, unable to help myself. I’d finished my Pop Tart, and as I tipped my head up to look at him better, I grimaced. The stitches tugged.

“Did you steal him?” I asked, lips twisting into a smile I couldn’t swallow, even if I wanted to.

“Steal him?” Mutt cupped my face with one hand, thumb stroking below my eye. He stared at me. Stared and stared and stared. Like I was a pretty sunset. Something magnificent, and meant to be admired. “I did not steal.” His lips twisted up into a mischievous smirk, the boy who’d dunked me into the ocean like a total shithead coming to the surface. “Is it stealing if they did not want him? No. It is not.”

“How do you know they didn’t want him?” I had no idea who “they” was, but I was suddenly desperate to find out.

“He was sitting out on the lawn,” Mutt huffed in disappointment. “Abandoned.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that that was where lawn gnomes were supposed to go. So I just grinned and prayed to whatever god was listening, that Mutt would get away with his petty crime.

Mutt and I spent the entire weekend together. I told him about Blair, and the conversation I’d overheard—because he was annoying as hell and would not stop asking me why I’d been sad when I’d picked him up.

At one point, I sent Mutt to my apartment for my laptop—and when I’d given him a key to get in he acted appropriately honored.

Not even Blair had a key to my house.

I guess Mutt was just…the right kind of threatening. Because his strength was used to protect me, and not used against me. And it wasn’t that I didn’t trust Blair—because I did. It was just…well…

It was my special space. The only place that had ever been my own. And apparently there was a Mutt-sized space left open. Maybe because I knew he’d seen behind my walls. Maybe because when he looked at me I didn’t feel broken, I felt…well.

I felt like one of those weeds that breaks through cement.

Like maybe I hadn’t grown where I was supposed to. Maybe it’d been hard, and hurt. But I was blossoming either way. And when Mutt saw me, waving in the wind, out of place, he smiled, charmed by my resilience.

I wasn’t wrong, I was beautiful.

Mutt brought me my laptop, my phone charger, and my favorite blanket. I had to explain what the chargers looked like, and where they were—but I hadn’t minded. And we holed up in his room for days, snuggled up under the blankets, watching movies and taking turns sucking each other off.

Watching movies wasn’t something I’d done with anyone but Blair, so it felt kinda monumental. Like I’d truly accepted Mutt into my little bubble where he belonged. He laughed at all the wrong spots, and very obviously copied me sometimes so it would look like he knew what was happening when he didn’t. But there was no hiding how absolutely stoked he was to be in bed with me, and that felt really fucking good. Mutt made me feel valued, even when I was at my shittiest.

Mutt liked dumb cartoons, probably because he didn’t get the more complicated shit. So we took turns picking to make it fair.

At one point, after we’d finished watching Lady and the Tramp, Mutt got me on all fours. And with the ferocity of an animal in heat, he ate my ass till it was achy and wet and loose—and then finger fucked me with the lube from my basket till I came all over the sheets.

I liked his knot.

Liked toying with it. Playing with it. Squeezing and flicking it, as he humped my grip and bore his fangs at me. He was feral in the sheets, this hungry, needy twist to his expression that was ridiculously attractive.

He liked to bite.

Liked to bite and suck, and leave bruises. Liked to play with my hair, to grip and slap my ass. Liked to rake his claws down my thighs, and up my back, and over my nipples till I was shaky and quivery and needy—and the only word I remembered was, “please.”

He was soft too.

Kind.

He looked after my stitches with dogged determination. He counted my freckles one by one, and told me they were marvelous. He kissed my fingers, my toes, the backs of my knees, and the dimples above my ass.