“How do you know he’s still alive?” I need him to give me a reason so I don’t spiral.
“Whoever abducted him wants him alive, or they would have killed him at the mansion.”
I nod.
He caresses my hair. “Don’t think about the worst. We’ll find him. I have to make him beg for your forgiveness, how can I let him die in peace before that?”
I chuckle.
He smiles.
Chapter 1
Hunter
18 months later.
“Her.” I point toward the woman in the red dress with brown wavy hair and round brown eyes.
The club lights could fool anyone into thinking her hair is brown, or some dark shade of another color, but not me. I can pick out every woman with this combination of hair and eyes, in any light they sit under. I know how the shade of brown I’m hunting looks in different lights.
She’s flirting with the man seated in front of her at the bar, his back to me. Could be her boyfriend, or some random guy for the night. Hard to tell. Everyone in the club pretends to be too familiar with the people they’ve just met.
Logan reaches her side. She checks him out and gives the same flirty smile to him. When he speaks, she leans closer, too much for her to pretend it’s because she can’t hear him over the music. When Logan finishes, she looks toward me. Her smilefalters for a moment, but as her gaze trails down my body, it slides back into place.
She gets up from her stool and comes toward me. The man she was promising the night to turns his head and meets my eyes with a frown, but he can’t hold the contact for more than a second before jerking his gaze away.
Logan always laughs at such situations. He says I have the eyes of a grim reaper, people see their demise the second they look into them.
The woman settles onto the couch beside me. I study her up close. The brown of her eyes is too dark. The hair has the wrong texture, nowhere near the silk my fingers ache to touch. I know what I’m chasing, but I’m getting nowhere.
Logan has tried to set me up with every kind of woman, and no one has managed to pique even my interest, let alone lust or any other emotion. Lust especially is something too difficult for me. I don’t feel sexual desire unless I’m dreaming of a faceless woman. The only time I get hard is while I’m sleeping, because she comes to me in my dreams.
She smiles. “Hey.”
I turn my head away.
Not the right woman.
Never has been.
Only women with brown wavy hair and brown doe eyes draw my interest, but every time they come close, I lose it.
She slides closer and places her hand on my chest. The smell of alcohol mingled with her perfume, and her unwanted touch brings back that familiar nausea. I feel it rising to my throat and push her hand away.
I pick up the glass of my Macallan 25 and gulp the contents down in one go. Cherishing the burn in my throat, I rise.
“He misunderstood you for someone else,” Logan says from the adjacent couch. “I’m sorry for his behavior.” He gets to his feet.
I don’t wait for him to finish his usual speech and leave the club. It has already started to suffocate me. I have a limit to how long I can stay among too many people.
I light my cigarette and wait for Logan to come out. He steps outside and takes the cigarette from me.
“You’re never going to get laid if this keeps up.” He takes a long drag. “She was a really nice girl.”
We walk toward the VIP parking lot where our car is parked.
“I’m sure you got her number.”
