Hearts of the Hunted Read Online Free PDF

back
and forth, our lips refusing to part as we engaged in a dance of
power and submission, passivity and activity. It was a dance that I
knew instinctively could never be learned by a man, who would
always crave control, but one to which we both knew the steps, deep
in our souls.
    It could have been hours
or only minutes, but the kiss was unhurried, not a prelude but an
act in itself, and it was shocking and abrupt when the alarm on her
watch chimed and drove us apart. Hannah panted, more startled than
I had been, and I grinned at her, pleased at my prowess and the
distraction I'd provided. I was less pleased when she told me it
was time to cram myself into a mini skirt and heels that I most
certainly could not run in.
    In the end, we compromised
on the skirt length (I got something that skimmed the top of my
knees), but I had to promise not to complain while she did my hair
and makeup, which was torture this time since she was trying to
'sex me up'.
    By the time she was
finished, I looked startlingly presentable, and the sky outside was
just beginning to darken into dusk. "Let's grab a quick bite," I
said. "It'll be at least after full dark before he starts hunting,
I think."
    Hannah agreed, and within
ten minutes had whipped up some sort of pasta dish. Since I was
used to eating out of tin cans while on the run—half the time
without even bothering to heat them over a camp stove first—I was
suitably impressed.
    When I said so, Hannah
looked at me like I'd grown an extra arm. "It's like you were
raised by wolves or something," she muttered.
    I stuffed a forkful of
pasta in my mouth, but chewed with my mouth closed and swallowed
before I responded. "Well I have spent a lot of time running through the
woods."
    She sighed. "I keep
forgetting. Especially since you clean up so well."
    "You think I look good?"
The words came out before I could stop them, and I wanted to kick
myself. Stuff me into a dress for one fucking day and I turn into a
needy little princess?
    "Your job tonight is to
look good, remember?" she said, her voice light and teasing. "And
it was my job to make you look good. And I am apparently amazing at my
job."
    I gave her a sour look,
but it was good to see a sparkle in her eye and hear laughter in
her voice. It wasn't until then that I noticed the strained,
controlled tone that had threaded through everything she'd said
from yesterday when I'd met her, making itself obvious by its
sudden absence. She had been scared and in pain, and I had given
her a mission and maybe even provided a bit of a distraction. That
thought brought my mood back around, and I grinned, but I played
dumb when she raised her eyebrows at me.
    "So how does this work?" I
asked, knowing the plan and wanting to go over it again, anyway. It
was something Riley had taught me through example: don't tell
people to hash out the plan again; ask them to remind you
like you're the
idiot.
    "You'll walk downtown,
window shop, look pretty and inviting and helpless, and pass
through as many shadows and as close to as many alleys as
possible," Hannah said. Her eyebrows told me that she knew what I
was doing and was merely playing along. I didn't care as long as
she continued to play.
    "And you walk with me?" I
asked, putting a little extra 'village idiot' into my voice. I
cleared the table as a peace offering for my attitude, and Hannah
smiled at me and shook her head.
    "And I follow you at a
distance, looking slouchy and ugly and tough."
    "You're going to have a
hard time looking anything but beautiful with that hair," I said,
shocking myself with my wistful tone. I moved behind her and ran my
fingers through the red-gold silkiness, watching it spill over my
fingers.
    "Watch this," she said.
She grabbed a hair tie, twisted her hair, and suddenly the whole,
long mass of it was contained in a smallish ball at the back of her
head. Then she pulled a plain beanie down over it, and her shining
hair vanished. The whole room seemed darker, as if a lamp had