Heart of the Hunter (110 page)

Elle blushed.

“And still, you’re only just beginning,” Forrester continued. “You’re carrying my child as we speak. You’re giving me the gift of fatherhood. You’re giving me a baby. And you’re giving me the gift of marriage too.”

Elle was overwhelmed. She knew Forrester loved her, she knew he loved her with an all-consuming passion that she’d never seen in her life until him, but it still overwhelmed her when he presented it to her. She felt like the luckiest woman who’d ever lived.

“You really are my soulmate, aren’t you, Forrester?”

He nodded, and began opening his belt.

“Oh, God,” she gasped. “Here? Now?”

He nodded. “I want you so badly I can hardly think straight,” he said.

“Well,” Elle said, “I want something too.”

“Anything,” Forrester said.

“I want to show you how much I love you Forrester. I want to show you how grateful I am to you for bringing me here and offering me this new life with you and your family. I want to give you pleasure.”

His pants were already around his ankles and she saw his cock throb through his boxers at the sound of her words.

“I’d like that,” he said.

Elle smiled. Then she dropped to her knees, and very slowly, as seductively as she could, she crawled toward him. He stood there and looked at her with so much gratitude on his face that she knew he loved her completely. She was carrying his child, she thought. She was his now.

When she reached him she pulled his boxers down and uncovered the treasure inside. His rigid shaft pointed itself at her like a predator that was about to attack her. She opened her mouth and took it, all the way into the back of her throat. Forrester moaned in pleasure, and Elle felt completely in control. For the first time in her life, she felt as if she knew what she was doing. She was in a place that was safe and secure. She was where she belonged. She was with a man who loved her, who’d put his child inside her, and put his mother’s engagement ring on her finger. He’d introduced her to his loving family. And now, he was moaning in pleasure because of what her mouth was doing to his delicious, beautiful, penis.

His pleasure was under her control. It was a new power, a new control, and it made her feel so overwhelmingly sexual. She teased him, licking his pink head in little circles with her tongue.

“Oh, Elle.”

She looked up at him.

“Who’s going to be your wife?” she said.

“You are.”

“That’s right.”

She let him slide into her mouth and played with him, licking his shaft, bringing him close to orgasm, his cock throbbing with such arousal it was clear it was going to explode soon.

She stopped to speak again. “Who’s going to give you a baby?”

“You are, Elle,” he said.

“Correct,” she said and rewarded him again, this time sucking his sack so tenderly and passionately that he grabbed her head in his hands and pulled at her hair.

“Who is the woman you love?” she said.

“You’re the woman I love,” he said.

She touched the tip of his cock with her teeth, and then gently rubbed his shaft against them. She could taste the salt in his pre-cum. He was so close to exploding he could hardly bear it. He was breathing as if he had to gasp for air.

“Who’s the woman that makes you come?” she teased.

“Oh, god.”

“Tell me,” she said teasingly.

“You are, Elle.”

She sucked him like his cock was a nipple, as if she was trying to get something out of it. He was swollen and throbbing. He was looking at her with a look approaching agony on his face.

“Elle,” he moaned. “Oh, Elle.”

She stopped, for one final time. She was ready to give him release now.

“Who’s the girl that swallows for you,” she said.

Forrester’s face transformed into a look of complete ecstasy.

“You,” he moaned, and at the same moment, Elle leaned her head back, resting the tip of his cock on her lower lip.

He shot his orgasm into her, spilled it into her mouth, and she kneeled there with her head tilted back so that he could see everything he’d given her. She waited till he was finished, until everything he had inside him was in her mouth, and she looked up at him, her mouth open wide.

He looked down at her with so much gratitude. She knew he would do anything for her. He would die for her. He would be loyal until the end.

And then she swallowed everything in a single gulp.

Chapter 51

Elle

E
LLE’S DAYS IN THE MANSION
passed in a blur of happiness. She called Kelly every day, but she’d already told her friend that she wasn’t coming back. At least not to live. She’d loved her time in Stone Peak, it had changed her life, but her future was in Socorro Valley with Forrester and the Brotherhood. Even without having the discussion with Forrester, she knew in her heart it was the right life for her.

Between getting to know everyone, helping Faith and Lacey with the babies, spending romantic time with Forrester, and learning the ins and outs of her new environment, she was pretty busy. And every morning when she woke up in that beautiful bed, Forrester’s tender arms wrapped around her, she thanked God for the life she was being given. She loved the house, the pool, the vineyards. She loved the town with it’s pretty main street and ocean views. She loved the clean, clear mountain air.

And most of all, she loved being with Forrester.

One of the things that surprised her most was that Forrester was taking the lead in planning the wedding. He’d told her that it was something he wanted to do for her, and he was making it his business to get Grant and Jackson to show him all the places they’d gone to get the things that made their weddings so perfect. Forrester was adamant that they have the ceremony on the same mountain top that Grant and Lacey had been married on. There was a gazebo up there that he loved. He said he couldn’t imagine getting married anywhere else.

And Elle loved it. She loved that he was so invested in the process. She’d always thought that men just went along with wedding plans, but didn’t play such an active roll. This was perfect. He’d even arranged for her to meet some fancy wedding dress designer in the city and Faith and Lacey had insisted on accompanying her.

On the drive into the city, the women questioned her non-stop.

“So, how did you know Forrester was the one for you?” Lacey asked her.

Elle blushed a little. She was sitting in the passenger seat next to Lacey. Faith had insisted on sitting in the back between the two babies.

“There was just something about him,” Elle said, “something calm.”

Lacey nodded. “Like a pool of deep water,” she said.

“Exactly,” Elle said. “When Forrester came into my life, it was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. I never knew men could be like that. Deep and passionate and caring. He was the first
real
man I ever knew.”

Faith was nodding from the back seat. “That’s exactly how it was for me with Jackson,” she said. “Before Jackson came along I was in a really bad place. I was with a monster of a man.”

Lacey nodded in agreement.

Faith continued. “When Jackson came into my life, I had a hard time believing he was for real. I was like, I thought I knew men. I thought I knew what they wanted. I thought I knew how they treated women, and what they wanted from us. And then, in walked Jackson, and I was a real bitch to him.”

Elle and Lacey laughed.

“No kidding,” Faith went on, “I really was.”

“Who was the man you were with?” Elle said.

Lacey and Faith both went very quiet.

“What?” Elle said. “Should I not have asked that?”

“No, of course you should, sweetie,” Faith said. “It’s just, you still need to talk to Jackson, right?”

“About my past?”

“Yes. About
Los Lobos
.”

Elle went pale. She felt her heart thumping at the name of the gang she’d been sold to. “What’s that got to do with this?” she said.

“Well, it’s pretty crazy, but I was involved with Los Lobos too, Elle.”

“You were?”

Elle’s eyes widened. It was crazy. In all her years, she’d never met anyone who knew the least thing about Los Lobos. They were one of the deadliest criminal gangs in Nevada in their day, but they were all dead now, and they hadn’t let out many secrets. People had heard of them, they knew
of
them, but they didn’t actually know them.

Now she kept hearing from Forrester and others that she had to talk to Jackson about it.

Faith leaned forward in her seat and put her hand on Elle’s shoulder.

“Look,” Faith said, “I don’t want to get into it now. It’s not something we should talk about on a day as happy as this one. Today is about getting you a dress for your wedding.”

“All right,” Elle said, a little uncertainly.

“I promise you we’ll talk about Los Lobos soon,” Faith said. “For now, I’ll just tell you that I was involved with them too. I was young, I was vulnerable, and they got their claws into me.”

“Oh no,” Elle said.

“It wasn’t nice,” Faith said, “but from what I’ve heard from Forrester, it wasn’t nearly as bad as what you had to go through.”

Elle looked back at Faith and their eyes met. There was so much compassion in Faith’s face that Elle felt reassured. Ordinarily, talking about Los Lobos would have been her worst nightmare, but with Faith she felt safe.

“How did you get away?” Elle said, her voice quiet and serious.

“Jackson got me out.”

Elle nodded. As the car began entering the city of San Francisco, the buildings rising up ahead of them along the freeway, she began to realize something about her past that she’d never imagined.
Jackson
. Was it Jackson who’d killed Los Lobos? If that was true, she owed Jackson her life.

She reached back and took Faith’s hand.

The rest of the afternoon passed blissfully. The girls put serious things like Los Lobos as far as possible from their minds and made the most of their day in the city. They ate lunch at the flower market and the women showed Elle the types of flowers that Forrester was looking at for the wedding. They wanted to make sure she liked them. She was speechless when she saw them. They were so breathtakingly beautiful that she didn’t know what to think. She cried and had to reapply her makeup.

The highlight was the dress shop though. She hadn’t realized it, but she had an appointment with one of the most famous wedding dress designers in the world. After trying on several fabulous gowns, she settled on a simple, white dress that flattered her figure and accentuated her breasts and curves.

When Lacey and Faith saw her, to Elle’s amazement, they both started to cry.

“Oh sweetie,” Lacey said.

“You look absolutely beautiful,” Faith said.

“Really?” Elle said, almost unable to believe she was having such an impact on two women she’d only just met.

Already, they were like family to her. They were for real. They were the big sisters she’d never had. She took photos and sent them to Kelly back in Stone Peak. She felt a twang of guilt that she wasn’t with Kelly now, and wouldn’t be seeing her friend until the wedding, but that was the way life was. Sometimes, when you moved forward, you had to let go of the people you loved, at least a little bit. She missed Kelly and Grace, but she was so excited to start her new life that she couldn’t stay sad for long.

“Forrester is going to ravish you when he sees you in this,” Faith said.

“Do you really think so?” Elle said.

“Girl, if you weren’t already carrying his baby, he’d make sure he put one inside you on your wedding night. You look like an angel.”

Chapter 52

Elle

T
HAT NIGHT, ELLE FOUND HERSELF
sitting on the sofa in the stunning living room of the mansion. She was holding a glass of red wine that Jackson and Grant had made with their own hands. Sitting next to her was Forrester, his hand resting reassuringly on her lap. She looked down at it, the hand of the man who was going to become her husband.

Sitting across from her were Jackson and Faith.

“All right,” she said, trying to get rid of the sense of apprehension she felt in her stomach. “What is it? Just tell me everything.”

Jackson smiled at her. He looked at Forrester before speaking.

“So, Elle,” he started. “Forrester told me that you had some trouble in the past with Los Lobos.”

“Trouble is an understatement,” Elle said. “My mother sold me to the gang when I was still a baby. My existence, up until the time I was rescued, was a living nightmare.”

“I can imagine,” Faith said.

Jackson spoke again. His voice was measured and calm. He was trying to soothe her, but the truth was, Elle felt safe in this place, with these people, and didn’t mind discussing the past with them if they felt it was important for her. She already suspected she knew what Jackson was going to tell her.

“Faith was Wolf Staten’s girl when I met her.”

Elle’s eyes grew. She had expected something like this, but it still took her by surprise. Even the mention of Wolf Staten’s name brought back terrible memories. He’d done things to her she’d never forget, and yet had somehow managed to block out of her conscious mind. He was a cruel and brutal man, deeply disturbed. He appeared to Elle in her nightmares.

“Oh no,” she said, looking at Faith.

“It was a long time ago, sweetie,” Faith said.

“Faith was vulnerable, much like your mother must have been,” Jackson continued, “and Los Lobos were always expert at preying on vulnerable women. They had an instinct for it. They got their claws into her and wouldn’t let her go.”

“That’s awful,” Elle said.

“It was,” Faith said, “but not as awful as what they did to you.”

“Did you know?” Elle said, hesitantly. “Did you know they were buying babies?”

Faith looked into Elle’s eyes. “I knew they were buying women. I knew some of them were children. But I never would have imagined they were buying babies. It’s like something out of a horror story.”

“You have no idea,” Elle said.

“Well,” Faith said, continuing the story where Jackson had left off. “Over time, I learned more and more about Los Lobos. I learned how evil they were. I learned that Wolf wanted to lock me up in a private cell, so that he would be the only man who ever saw me.”