He glanced down at her. “Why? Who did ye kill?”
“No one, but I definitely made a few people want to kill meover the years. Maybe more figuratively than literally, but still, I was a nightmare from about ten-years-old to fifteen—stealing, skipping school, running away, getting into fights, drinking underage, getting hauled in by the cops, generally doing everything in my power to make a mess of my life,” she said with a bittersweet smile, remembering the lost, resentful girl who would lash out at just about everyone.
He pulled her a little tighter into his hard body. “How old are ye now?”
“It’s rude to ask a woman that,” she retorted with a grin. “But I’m twenty-seven. I think it’s fair to say that I turned things around.”
“Twenty-seven?” There was a note of shock in his voice that drew her gaze up to him, her eyes narrowing. “And ye daenae have a husband? Or do ye, back in the Americas?”
She puffed out a breath. “Where I come from, no one is getting married anymore, and barely anyone is doing it young. If I were back in New York and announced I was getting hitched, they’d call me a child bride. So, no, I don’t have a husband. Not even close.”
A low chuckle rumbled in the back of his throat, though his look of surprise lingered. “Ye come from an odd place, lass.”
“You have no idea.”
Whether she was home in New York or home-home in New Jersey, both would seem bizarre to someone like him. Hell, she’d been living in New York for five years, and it still seemed strange to her at times. There were things one encountered in that city, especially on the subway or late at night, that felt like a fever dream.
A few moments of silence passed before he spoke again. “So, ye were a brawler, were ye? I can imagine it. Ye’ve a lot of fight in ye, lass.”
“You wouldn’t take me on?” She smirked.
“I wouldnae have to.” His eyes glittered with amusement. “I’d just have to kiss ye, then spread yer legs and run me t?—”
“I was cold and needed warming up!” she interrupted, her face flooding with heat. “That was life-saving. If I wanted to fight you, it would be your life that needed saving.”
She realized, a beat too late, that that was exactly what his former wife had done. She had wanted him dead, so she’d called upon her brother to assassinate him, and woefully misjudged what Hunter’s reaction would be.
But Hunter took it well, a smirk lingering on his lips as he continued to gaze down at her. “I’m pleased I could resurrect ye, but if ye think ye could beat me in a fight, try to get out of me arms.”
With a snort of amusement, Nancy pushed against his chest to try to free herself from his unexpected embrace. All he had to do was tighten his arm a little, barely putting any effort into it at all, and she stayed stuck to his side.
Not that she actuallywantedto remove herself from his embrace, not when he was so warm, and she felt so content and sleepy, her body completely relaxed in the afterglow of her orgasm.
“I wasn’t a brawler,” she said with a smile, “just angry.”
“Ye’ve a temper, then?”
She hesitated. “Sometimes, but it wasn’t that kind of anger. It was an… angry-at-the-world kind of anger. Stealing and fighting and being insufferable were just my way of alleviating that anger for a little bit.”
“Why were ye angry at the world? I ken the feeling, but why was it there for ye?” he asked, his voice softer, making her eyelids heavier.
Nancy lowered her gaze, focusing on the ridges of his bare abdomen and the faint scars that marred his skin. “My mom went missing, and I blamed myself… then I blamed her, and then I blamed the world that made it possible for her to go missing.”
“What happened?” he asked, before falling into a silence that she felt compelled to fill.
She settled deeper into his embrace, surprised by how natural it felt. How easy. As if they’d lain that way a thousand times before.
“She was all I had,” she began quietly, hesitantly, as if recounting a dream. “It was always just me and her. Didn’t know my dad, not his name or what he looked like. My mom never told me anything about him, other than the fact that he was dead and that if he’d been around, he would have loved me very much. Never spoke about how he died or anything like that. I’d ask sometimes, and she’d just… glaze over, getting this distant look in her eyes. Then, she’d change the subject, and I’d forget until the next time I asked.”
“I ken that look,” Hunter said softly as his fingertips lightly stroked her arm.
He’s lost people, too. How many, I wonder?
In this era, it was probably more unusual to have both parents still alive than it was to have both of them gone, whether by sickness or war or famine or something as simple as a cut that got infected.
“She worked two jobs to make ends meet,” Nancy continued as that silent encouragement nudged her again. “She was the most beautiful woman in the world. I remember being little and a man walking straight into a lamppost. He was so distracted by herbeauty. She had me young, though probably old in comparison to here.”
An awkward chuckle shook her chest, and though she wasn’t looking at Hunter, she sensed him smile.
