Chapter Eighteen: Hunter
When Abi awoke the next morning, she found herself laying next to a very still Constantine, who was still naked but sleeping as though dead.
Although, she supposed with a shudder, he really was.
His eyes sunk into his face and no pulse beat at his neck. Thanks to the blackout curtains keeping all sunlight from the room, shadows shrouded him and kept him safe until the moon would rise again and night would find him reborn.
Slowly she reached out a and and touched his arm, the muscles stiff with death. He was cold and tinged blue, and did not stir from the touch of her warm hand against his skin. Where ever he was, he wasn't earthbound. She was touching a corpse.
A corpse she hadn't minded fucking just the night before.
With a gasp she yanked her hand back and scooted off of the bed. The sides of her neck throbbed, raw with the wounds she had begged for during a night of unchecked salaciousness. She slipped into a silk robe hanging on the back of a chair and then crept out of the room.
Bella was large and sprawling, and it took several detours for Abi to finally find a bathroom. Unlike the rest of the house it was bright with sunlight, and when she faced herself in the mirror she immediately felt sick with remorse.
Her makeup was smeared, her hair mussed, and blood dried on her neck. She fought back the tears as she squared her shoulders, slipped the robe to the ground and headed toward the tub that sat atop claw feet. Steam rose from the hot water as it filled the tub, and she immersed herself fully into the near scalding water to baptize her sinful desires away.
It was sheer luck that she was alive this morning instead of laying dead beside Constantine. Luck, and their inexplicable display of self control. She had felt herself spiral down into unconsciousness under their mouths and their fangs, sinking into a cloud to be carried away where ever sinful souls fled. It was like slipping underwater, and instead of fighting to survive she was surrendering willingly to death.
It was insanity.
She thought of Raven and those dark, bottomless eyes that seemed to consume her. Whenever he touched her, whenever he held her, she just wanted it to go on forever.
And, in a strange way, she felt the same for Constantine.
They were two but one, and she found herself lost to both.
She closed her eyes to squeeze away any tears. She wasn't going to cry for another man -- vampire or not. She had made that mistake once before and was determined not to go there again. Once a heart was broken, it never truly healed.
She knew that more than anyone.
She submerged herself under the water to try and drown away the memories. And just like the night before she felt herself slowly slip away, floating away on a cloud of apathy.
When she thought she heard a male's voice she sprung back up again, certain to see Raven or Constantine risking themselves in the sun to save her.
Only it was Hunter's face she saw, hardened with an unreadable expression, seemingly angry or disappointed or both. She covered herself promptly, which made him snicker.
"What's the matter, Red? You forget you don't have anything I haven't seen before."
"What are you doing in here? Where's Ginger?"
"Asleep," was his curt reply. "Where's your lover boy?" he asked and then with a sneer, "his coffin?"
She jumped up out of the water and grabbed a towel, hastily wrapping it around her naked body while he, much to her embarrassment, looked on. It was as though he could see the brands her vampire lovers had left on her body. Immediately she felt ashamed.
"What does it matter to you?" she bit out, unable to look him in the face.
The next thing she knew his hands were on her shoulders. He spun her around to face him. "Why doesn't it matter to you?" he demanded softly.
She stared into those cold, steel blue eyes. She felt the years between them melt away -- and remembered the very last time she was naked in his arms and lost in those eyes. It surprised her how a love long buried could spring up with just the hint of a memory.
She wrenched away from him and in doing so the towel unwound around her and slid to the floor. She fought the impulse to scramble down to fetch it, and instead tipped her chin in defiance as she stared at him -- tears just behind eyes that wouldn't let them fall.
His jaw clenched as he stared back at her, trying his best not to let his eyes travel downward to her ample breasts, the swell of her stomach, those hips that begged to be touched. She had long been his kryptonite, and he was severely disappointed in himself to find her seductive power over him had not changed.
From the moment he had first given in to her first, tentative kiss she had been like a drug to him. He couldn't get enough. He tried to fool himself into thinking it was because she was a replacement for what he felt for Ginger, but the truth was the scent of her in his nostrils brought out something very primal in him. And now, as she stood in front of him, glistening wet and naked, he clinched every muscle to force himself not to touch her.
Abi had to smile. The physical evidence of what she was doing to him showed in his tense muscles and the stiffening in his loose fitting jeans. "What's the matter, Hunter? I don't have anything you haven't seen before."
He gritted his teeth. "Weren't your vampires enough for you?" he asked, referring to the fresh wounds on either side of her neck.
She moved toward him. "There's only been one who has been man enough for me," she told him as she touched his arm.
