Chapter 32
32
Every time he looks at her, something in his chest throbs.
The third time I have to stop, the man at my side releases a long, undeniable irked exhale.
“Sorry,” I grumble between alternating gulps of air and water—though, I’m not sure why I’m apologizing. I certainly didn’t ask him to join me. “I didn’t sleep great last night.”
The guy hums, hands on his hips, fingers tapping impatiently as he stares at the group still trudging along ahead of us. Caleb, I think his name is. I wasn’t really listening when he introduced himself, nor when a handful of his friends did the same. I didn’t think I needed to commit any of them to memory when, after sharing a meager breakfast of crumbly granola bars and fruit at our campsite, we would likely never see each other again.
I just had to mention the hike Hunter and I were planning on doing. I had to rave about the view from Panther Gap. I had to make it sound like the greatest trail in the world and give Maybe Caleb and his friends no choice but to join us.
Hunter gave me the stink eye for at least the first thirty minutes of the hike. He only stopped because, sleep-deprived and overheating, I’ve been moving at a pace too slow for his long legs to comfortably mimic. The moment we fell out of step, Caleb was suddenly at my side and a pretty brunette took my spot beside Hunter.
Between noting what a pretty side profile she has and trying to decipher Hunter’s emotions by staring at the back of his head, I haven’t heard much of what’s come out of my hiking buddy’s mouth. But I do hear, “You know, you look really familiar.”
Slipping my water bottle back into the side pocket of my backpack, I wonder if that statement makes the average person so panicked. “Oh?”
We start walking again, and he half-turns to study me. “What did you say your name was again?”
His more-smug-than-sorry smile makes me feel like I’m supposed to be offended, but considering I’ve been calling him Caleb? in my head all morning, I don’t take it personally. “It’s Caroline.”
He makes a thoughtful noise, rubbing at his chin and looking at me in a way that makes my skin crawl. “Caroline… Brennan?”
“Yeah,” I confirm cautiously, eyeing him warily. “How’d you know?”
“I know your dad.”
If this were a cartoon, the screeching sound of brakes would echo through the air, signaling my abrupt halt. “How?” I ask, dreading the answer before the question even shakily leaves my mouth.
Stopping too, Caleb seems oblivious to the fact my stomach is somewhere around my feet. “I’m from Ponderosa Falls,” he names the next town over from Haven Ridge, names the bar where he works too, but I don’t hear the specifics, what with the steadily growing ringing in my ears.
A bartender who knows my dad. A bartender who knows my dad. Not in a ‘yeah, I could pick him out of a line-up’ way. He knows him enough, sees him enough, to recognize me. Because, “You look just like him,” Caleb says, and doesn’t that hit me like a punch to the gut, don’t I flinch .
I was just starting to feel okay. I was starting to forget, or I was at least getting really good at shoving him to the darkest, untouched depths of my mind. I could see a life without his influence, without his stain . I could feel it, touch it, taste it, and then, bam . Right as I’m teetering on the precipice of something new, I’m reminded of his existence.
“Baby.”
My gaze snaps into focus, my mind going quiet at the sight of Hunter walking towards me— limping towards me. Concern elbowing its way to the forefront of my emotional tangle, I manage to suck enough air into my lungs to ask what happened. Fingers dance across my shoulder, along my cheek, cup the back of my neck. “Think I pulled somethin’. You mind if we head back?”
I almost buckle with relief. “Of course not.”
As Hunter wraps his hand around mine and tugs me away, I try to look at least somewhat sorry as I call a quick goodbye over my shoulder, try to muster up some guilt about the immense amount of gratitude I’m feeling towards a pulled muscle.
A pulled muscle that mysteriously unpulls itself within a handful of steps.
“Thank fuck,” Hunter mutters as his stride rights itself, and I gape at him. “Sorry, honey, I tried, but they were annoyin’ as hell.”
Choking on my disbelief, I check over my shoulder to make sure the group is out of sight before hissing, “You were faking ?”
The side-eye Hunter shoots me is half smug, half pitiful. “That girl kept tryna read my chakra.”
Unbelievable. He is unbelievable .
I think I might love him a little.
“So you’re fine.”
“Uh-huh.” He squeezes my hand. “Are you?”
“Yeah.” The lie comes out before I even make the conscious decision to say it. I don’t even know why . Hunter knows about my dad, he knows more than anyone else, he knows the absolute worst of it, yet my stomach still rolls at the thought of bringing him up. I don’t want to ruin the day by talking about him, by reminding Hunter of the skeletons in my closet. So, I lie some more. “Just a little winded.”
Hunter hums. Slipping off one strap of his rucksack, he swings it around to his front so he can rummage through the side pocket. When he finds what he’s looking for and extends a closed fist towards me, I hold out my hand for him to drop a small bottle onto my palm. “It’s supposed to be good for asthma,” he tells me as I read the label, noting an ingredients list of green tea, eucalyptus, ginger, and a handful of other things praised for helping with respiration.
Suddenly, the tightness in my chest has nothing to do with panic or a lack of oxygen. Shame lowers my gaze to the ground, the full weight of lying like an asshole sucker-punching me in the gut.
“How long have you been carrying this around?”
Hunter smiles, soft and sweet and shy . “How long we been hikin’ together?”
As I gaze up at him with freaking hearts surely dancing in my eyes, I don’t tell him that I haven’t had an asthma attack in years—that I likely never will again since I had the kind you grow out of.
I do, however, use the stopper to place three drops on my tongue anyway. And when he tucks the bottle away before taking my hand again, I hold onto it extra tight.
Even as exhaustion scratches at the corners of my mind, I can’t stop thinking about my dad.
I should’ve been smarter earlier. I shouldn’t have frozen up. I shouldn’t have reacted like that, all suspicious like I had something to hide; I shouldn’t have reacted at all. Who cares if some random bartender knows my dad? I sure shouldn’t. I shouldn’t be regretting not asking Caleb if he’d seen him lately, if he knows if he’s okay, if he knows anything about the state of a man who doesn’t deserve my concern.
I shouldn’t feel like a bad daughter. I shouldn’t feel like the worst person in the world for fleeing one absent parent when I already lost the other. I shouldn’t feel the need to lie lest the man with a thigh tucked beneath my head remembers how utterly unwanted the girl whose hair he’s threading his fingers through is. How much baggage I come with. How the weight of that baggage has pinned me in place my entire life—how it probably always will.
When I hear, “I could stay here forever,” it doesn’t comfort me. I open my eyes and the sight of the sun setting and casting the lake in warm light doesn’t either, not like it usually would. Because I’m spiraling. I’m thinking about how Hunter could stay here forever. Not that he will. And how timely is it, how freaking perfect, that as I’m lamenting being stuck here, he reminds me that he isn’t.
Shifting to stare up at him, it’s a relief to find him not staring back. He’s barely taken his eyes off me all afternoon, either convinced I’m prone to an asthmatic fit at any moment or well aware that I lied earlier. Whichever one it is has him watching my every move; even when we jumped in the lake to cool— and clean—off, I could feel the burn of his gaze the whole time, concerned and unrelenting. Like a silent plea to talk to him that I pretended not to understand.
I wonder if I’m what he’s thinking about hard enough for those little creases beside his eyes to form. I don’t get the chance to ask. A holler of our names—my full freaking name makes me wince—draws our attention to the familiar group tiredly trodding our way.
Hunter groans, and I pinch his thigh in gentle reprimand as I sit up, calling out a greeting. Although, when Caleb holds up a bottle I recognize all too well, I stifle a groan myself. “We’re gonna have a drink, if you wanna join us.”
While Hunter declines as emphatically as I’ve ever seen him doing anything, I’m a little kinder as I say, “I don’t drink.”
Caleb’s brows go up, the corners of his mouth too, and I see the quip on his lips before he makes it—I shut it down before he can. “Actually, I was gonna head to bed.”
He pulls a face, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight; he was probably only offering to be polite, which is fine by me. Though, I’m not so fine with essentially trapping myself in a teeny, hot tent before the sun’s even gone down. But I certainly prefer the company; it appears Hunter did not, in fact, pack a tent of his own.
Or he did and he follows me into mine just because.
Flopping onto his back on my sleeping mat, he lets loose a loud, tired exhale and props his arms behind his head, biceps bulging. “Think you broke his heart a little, honey.”
Laughing weakly, I gather my hair to pull it up into a ponytail only to be impeded by tiny braids Hunter must’ve plaited into my hair without me noticing. I loathe to mess them up, but the thought of sleeping with my hair down in this heat makes me sweat preemptively so I gently start unweaving them, frowning when I find another obstacle. There was a rather large thigh between me and the ground yet somehow, I managed to get grass in my—
Bringing my hand to my face, I stare at the definitely not-grass between my fingers. I stare at the horizontal man approximately one deep breath away from snoring. I touch the back of my head again, grabbing one of the thin braids to examine it, and my throat gets a little tight.
Flowers . He wove pretty wildflowers into my hair.
He really doesn't make things easy for me, does he?
Carefully picking them out, I set them aside in a neat pile, feeling so very warm at the colorful sight. I glance at Hunter, and the warmth spreads. Makes me feel… different. Needy. Desperate for more warm and fuzzy, less cold and confused and unwanted.
When I crawl on top of him, he opens his eyes lazily. “Whatcha doin’, pretty girl?”
Tucking my hair behind my ears, I put on my metaphorical big girl pants as I peel off my literal top.
Hunter’s amused grin drops, and his gaze does too, zoning in on the swell of my breasts above the neckline of my sports bra. I feel my chest flush, feel the heat crawl up my neck, feel the tips of his fingers trace the heated skin, and before I lose my nerve, I kiss him.
He reciprocates with zero hesitation, kissing me with startling ferocity, letting loose a noise that sounds awfully relieved—the kind you make when you finally do something you’ve been waiting to do all day.
It floods me with the exact warmth I’ve been yearning for, eddies my mind of everything and anything that doesn’t involve the man beneath me, makes me kiss him even harder. He mouths a curse as he grips my hips tightly, making them roll, drawing a ragged noise out of us both.
With a strained groan, Hunter pulls back, hand on my heaving chest pushing to put some distance between us. “Don’t think I can be quiet.”
Right. Because there’s people nearby. People who might hear us. Who might hear him because he can’t keep quiet.
Because of me .
Despite the thrill of pleasure that zips up my spine, I sit up, trying to catch my breath, to cool down, but actually achieving the opposite. Because sitting up leaves me sitting on his lap. Sitting on… him
Sitting on the large bulge straining against cotton.
With a surprised squeak I’m not proud of, I hastily move down—I look down too, unable to help from gawking at the outline of him.
Jesus .
Nostrils flaring with every heavy breath, Hunter stares at the space between my spread legs that throbs under his gaze. “On second thought,” his hands fall to my thighs, his tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip, “don’t really give a fuck.”
I’m shaking, every inch of me. So oversensitive beneath his fingertips, my skin burns as they dig into my inner thighs. Tracing slow circles, he moves higher and higher and higher until he slips beneath the loose fabric of my pajama shorts, and I know exactly where he’s heading next.
Impulsively, I grab his wrist to stop him. I move his hands away and place mine on his lower stomach, feeling muscles contracting beneath my palms. He’s always doing stuff for me— to me. It’s his turn, right?
Trembling just a little, my fingers graze the waistband of his shorts. I meet his gaze, his hooded, dark gaze, and it emboldens me to pull the fabric down just enough for him to spring free.
And then, poof. My intended offer goes up in flames because that is not fitting in my mouth. That’s not fitting inside of me, period. I’m not even sure I could wrap my hand around it, let alone anything else.
A hand on my lower back keeps me steady as Hunter sits up. Rock hard where he digs into my stomach, he’s utterly soft everywhere else, tender as he brushes his knuckles against my cheek. “Don’t have to do anythin’, honey.”
I swallow hard. “You don’t want…”
“Didn’t say that,” he grumbles mirthfully, strained but patient. “I don’t want you doin’ anythin’ because you think you have to. I meant it when I said I didn’t come out here for that.”
“Right.” I swallow again. I can’t stop looking . Despite the nerves, despite the intimidation—a whole lot of intimidation to match a whole lot of cock —I’m… curious. I keep thinking about what he said, about not being able to stay quiet, and I want… well I kind of want to put that to the test.
Okay. Okay .
Releasing a shaky breath, I rasp, “Show me what you like?”
Hunter breathes hard through his nose.
He hesitates—giving me a chance to back out, I think—before taking me by the wrist. Bringing my hand up, he holds it, palm-up, in front of my mouth. “Spit, baby.”
As if I’m in a trance, I do it, flushing bright red when Hunter does the same. Murmured praise is my reward and it warms me from the inside out, going straight between my thighs as my hand goes straight between Hunter’s. The first brush of hot skin makes my breath hitch. My grip tightens instinctively, and Hunter hisses through his teeth—a good hiss, I confirm when his hand, wrapped around mine, squeezes tighter too.
As he guides me through leisurely strokes, my gaze falls again, and I find out I was right. I can’t wrap my hand around him—my fingers don’t quite touch. The sight is as ridiculous as it is erotic, and I can’t help from clenching around nothing, from whispering, “You’re really big.”
Hunter’s head drops to my shoulder, a groan rattling his ribcage as he throbs beneath my palm, and our long strokes become shorter, quicker, harder. He likes when I talk, I realize. Like how I like when he does.
If there’s anything I know how to do, it’s talk.
“You think…” I breathe hard, almost as hard as him. “You think I’ll be able to take it?”
The sound that rips out of Hunter is purely feral. I feel teeth graze my shoulder, hard enough to leave a mark without breaking the skin. “Gonna stretch you out for sure, honey.”
And then his fingers are doing just that, slipping inside me easily and matching my frantic pace, making me whimper as desperately as I make him moan. Lips skim my throat, my chin, and then we’re kissing in a sloppy mutual effort to stay quiet.
It’s our thumbs that do it; a hard press of his against my clit, a swipe of mine over the head of his cock, and we crumble together, swallowing each other's sounds, making a mess of each other.
God, does he make a mess of me. I feel it on my hands, on my stomach, the hot, sticky proof that he came as hard as I did—an odd source of pride for me. For him, too. He certainly looks proud as he sits back on his palms, as out of breath as I’ve ever seen him, and cocks his head, and stares . Smiles. Nods sharply, just once, before tucking two clean fingers beneath the band of my bra and tugging me forward to mouth against my cheek, “I like you a whole fuckin’ lot, Caroline.”
It’s entirely possible that I glow . “That good, hm?”
“Yeah, pretty girl.” He smiles wider, all teeth and charm. “That good.”