Chapter 42
42
For the first time in months, he can breathe.
We end up on the porch swing, staring silently into the murky darkness, listening to the chirp of cicadas.
I remember the last time we were here, like this. It wasn’t all that different a scenario. I was a little banged up, like I am now. He was a cocktail of calmly disappointed anger, like he is now. My life was falling apart, and it still is. I’m not sure I should find it a comfort that his is too, in a way. His marriage, at least. Though, I’m not sure he shares my devastation.
“I’m sorry,” I still find myself saying because that’s what you’re supposed to say, right? I know it’s what he wanted—what he said he wanted—but it’s the end of a marriage. It’s a big thing. “Are you okay?”
A thump sounds as his head hits the wall behind us. I look over just in time to watch the slow spread of a smile curling his mouth. “I’m so fucking relieved, Caroline.”
Some of the tension making my shoulders ache lessens. God, I didn’t realize how badly I needed to hear that. “Do you wanna talk about it?”
“No,” he barks on a laugh, shaking his head, still smiling. “I don’t want to talk about it ever again. Do you want to talk about your dad?”
My head throbs at the mere thought. “Not right now.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” I stare at my hands—one holding his, cradled in my lap, and the other wrapped around his lower arm. “About what you said—”
“That I love you?”
My heart thumps a little more erratically. “Yeah.”
“What about it, honey?”
I hesitate before asking, “Are you sure?”
“Completely.”
He sounds it. He really, really sounds it. “But it hasn’t been that long.”
“Does that matter?”
“Of course, it does.”
“Why?”
“Because…” I'm at a loss. “Because it does. It’s too quick.”
“Based on what, Caroline?”
I have no idea. I don’t know what I’m saying, why I’m arguing. It, he , just feels so unbelievable. The way I feel is unbelievable. That he could possibly be feeling the same…
Unbelievable.
Terrifying , too.
“I was sure I loved Jackson,” I find myself saying quietly. “I was sure he loved me. And it turned out I was wrong, and it was horrible, and I really, really don’t wanna be wrong about this. I don’t think… I don’t think I could handle that.”
“I’m not Jackson.”
“I know that.”
“Then don’t compare us, honey.”
“That’s not—” That’s not what I’m doing , I start to say, except it is. It’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s what I always do. Compare what I lost to what I could lose. It’s a horrifically unhealthy cycle, I know that, and yet I do it anyway. I can't stop it. My head hurts with how hard I try, but I can’t. I whisper, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“That’s okay.” Lifting our joint hands, he maneuvers them so he can slip his arm around my shoulders and tug me into his side. “We can take things slow, okay? I’m not in a rush. I just wanna be with you.”
At least, for all my faults and inadequacies, I can admit, “I want that too.”
“Good.” Lips brush my unblemished temple, and then he tilts my head to the side so he can kiss the other one too. Against it, he grumbles, “You said you were sure you loved Jackson. What changed your mind?”
He sounds like he knows the answer—he sounds like a smug little bastard—but I humor him anyway. “I didn’t feel like this.”
“Hm.” He chuffs proudly, smiling as he presses another lingering kiss to my skin. “I know exactly what you mean.”
We sit there for a while, holding each other. Only when I try and fail to stifle a yawn does he stand and pull me up with him, patting my butt and urging me into the house. I’m halfway to the bathroom before I realize he hasn’t followed, and by the time I retrace my steps, he’s walking inside and placing something on the kitchen counter.
A box.
A cardboard box.
A cardboard box with her handwriting on it.
I already know what’s in it, but I peek inside anyway, I gasp anyway, I feel my heart jump to my throat anyway.
“I grabbed it when I was at yours,” the man who says he loves me, who wraps his arms around me, whispers. “Knew you’d want them.”
When I move to pick up one of the surviving glass flowers, he lets me go. He walks away as I grasp something I could never, ever replace, letting me have a moment alone that I don't want.
I don’t want to take things slow either, I realize.
My whole life, I’ve been taking things slow. Approaching everything with caution. I don’t want to do that with Hunter. I don’t want to waste this, to lose time, because I’m scared.
Resolution settling in my gut, I carefully pack the flower away. I murmur Hunter’s name. As he turns, I take a step towards him, and another, and they feel like the right steps. And, in a move that I’m sure I’ll come to be embarrassed about in the not-so-distant future, I throw myself at him, and I kiss him.
“It’s late,” he murmurs, but he doesn’t stop kissing me.
My head jerks in agreement, but I don’t stop kissing him either. “Uh-huh.”
His lips leave mine to drag along my jaw, teeth scraping my skin. “We should get some sleep.”
My eyes flutter shut as he sucks on the sensitive skin above my fluttering pulse. “Sure.”
“A lot happened tonight.”
That makes me pull away for a moment, to catch my breath, to collect my thoughts. He’s right. A lot has happened.
A lot that I only want to deal with tomorrow.
I back up a step. I breathe deep. I stumble over my words as I shed my tank top, but I manage to rasp, “I just want to feel loved right now.”
My top barely hits the ground before Hunter follows suit, gripping his t-shirt by the nape and tugging it over his head in one swift movement. Before I lose my nerve, I wriggle out of my shorts, shivering as his eyes rake over me, at the bob of his throat as he swallows loudly. The sound of his belt sliding free is downright pornographic, the rasp of his zipper being undone making goosebumps pebble across my skin.
While he’s distracted kicking the denim aside, I struggle out of my sports bra as gracefully as possible, and when his gaze lands on me again, he takes a jerky step forward—involuntary, almost, hands clenched at his sides. Hands that unfurl slowly, that move to the waistband of his underwear and tug them down, down, down .
My mouth goes dry. My bones disintegrate when Hunter fists the steadily hardening appendage between those thick thighs, one harsh tug making my head go fuzzy. Considering I’m not sure my hands would obey if I told them to move, it’s a good thing he steps forward and rasps, “Let me.”
At my nod, he hooks his fingers around my panties, rubbing the cotton between his fingertips. “Still have that other pair,” he murmurs, staring at the fabric like he’s trying to burn it off my body with the power of his gaze alone. “From the barn. Remember that?”
When my lips won’t form the words, I hope the breathy noise I make conveys that yes, I do remember. Vividly. How could I possibly forget?
“I think about it a lot. Too much. Even when I try not to ‘cause it doesn’t feel right, not with you being mad at me.” He fists my panties, pulling them taut in a way that makes me gasp, and stoops to eye-level. “You still mad at me?”
Right now? Not particularly. But something in his voice, something in his face, something in me possesses me to nod.
Hunter kisses his teeth and shakes his head—a self-reprimand, I think. “I can make it better. Know I can.”
Big, calloused hands slip beneath my panties and cup my ass, and I squeal as he hoists me up. In just as smooth a movement, he drops me on the dining table that’s barely long enough to accommodate me as he pushes me to lie on my back, looming over me in the next second.
“Please.” He kisses my neck, my sternum, the swell of my breast. “Please, honey, let me make it better.”
One moment of thought, one jerky nod, and then my panties are gone, his face is between my thighs, and I’m bowing off the table, crying out. My hands wind tightly in his hair, an attempt to ground myself that doesn’t really work because embarrassingly quickly, I’m there. All it takes is his a few leisurely licks, his beard abrading my thighs, his lips wrapping around my clit and sucking for me to go off like a firework.
Still, he doesn’t stop, and I don’t want him to. When he comes up for air and lowly asks if I’m still mad, I nod furiously.
Though I’m not sure my noodle of a spine can support me, I let Hunter drag me upright. I let a hand on my thigh push one leg as wide as it can go, let him lift the other to place my foot on the table, baring me so I couldn’t possibly hide, and I can’t possibly be embarrassed either because I don’t have the mental capacity for it. I just stretch an arm out behind me for extra support—though, that’s dangerously shaky too—and let him .
Working in tandem with his mouth, one finger slips inside me, then two, then three, and God, that’s a stretch, but it’s so good and I need it, I know I need it, because I know where this is going and Hunter does too, he’s getting me ready. So skillfully, he quickly brings me to orgasm again, and I can’t hold myself up anymore—I fall back on my elbows, practically screaming, surprised I don’t start levitating when still, he doesn’t relent.
My head rolls to one side so I can squint at him through watery eyes. I find him staring back, watching me, and somehow, I know he’s been watching me the whole time, and that makes me flush, makes me hot, makes me feel so very good . Even better when he drags a third orgasm out of me, a slower, gentle one, a lovely one that makes me feel boneless and sated.
I smile at the ceiling, smile against Hunter’s mouth when he crawls over me, kisses me, tastes like me.
“Still mad?” he asks, and I wrap my arms around his neck, my legs around his waist, and cling as he stands and carries me to the bedroom.
“What if I am?”
“Then I still have some work to do.”
“Then I’m furious.”
He laughs as he lays me gently on the bed. Looming over me, he dips to drop a kiss to my cheek, right over the butterfly stitches. “I love you.”
I beam from the inside out.
“I know you love me.”
I squirm at the accusation, but I think I might be glowing.
“But that doesn’t mean we have to do anythin’.”
I take his face in my hands, the scruff of his beard tickling my palms as I trace the contours of his face. “I want to.”
“You sure?”
“Very.”
My thumb dips into the divot of his dimples as he smiles, bright and wide and relieved .
Drawing away, Hunter gets up and starts towards his drawer, but he abruptly stops halfway. He turns back around, and I’m so distracted by the rest of him—God, by his cock —I don’t notice his scrunched-up expression until he says, “I don’t have any condoms.”
I prop myself up on my elbows. “Why not?”
He looks at me like I should know the answer to that—he looks mildly offended. “Haven’t been having sex, honey.”
I’m bare-ass naked, he’s bare-ass naked, he just had his tongue inside of me, and yet now, I squirm. “And you didn’t think…”
“I didn’t wanna presume anything, or make you feel like I was pressuring you.”
Right. That’s sweet. Very sweet. If I’d found condoms in his drawers—because I spend a lot of time rifling through his drawers, obviously—I would’ve freaked out. But… “Shit.”
Hunter coughs out a laugh, distracting me with those ridiculous biceps as he rakes his hands through his hair. “It’s okay. We can do other stuff.”
I wonder if look as disappointed as I sound. “Yeah.”
“Or I can go get a vasectomy right now.”
It’s my turn to laugh, a noise that I swallow quickly as a silly, reckless, horny thought starts twirling around in my silly, reckless, horny brain. “Or…”
I don’t elaborate, but I’m pretty sure Hunter gets it. He’d have to be a special kind of dense not to get it—I’m staring at his cock and licking my lips, for God’s sake.
“I got tested after I found out Cheryl cheated,” he grinds out, teeth clenched with… restraint? Anticipation? Desire . “And I haven’t had sex in a year and a half.”
I frown. “But you haven’t been separated for that long.”
Hunter crooks a brow. “You really wanna talk about this right now?”
Right . “I’m good too. And I’m on the pill. Not because I have a lot of sex, I haven’t had sex in, like, five years, but I get really bad periods, and you never know, you know, and I don’t want kids. Right now,” I add for some reason, and out of everything in my ramble, that admission is what makes me flush.
Hunter looks a little flushed too. A little… wild. Downright feral as he rasps, “Just this once, then.”
“You can buy condoms tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, I will buy so many condoms.”
I try to reign it in, I really, really do. But no amount of self-control in the world can keep, “Do they even make condoms big enough for you?” from flying out of my mouth.
His laughter bounces off the walls, smug as anything. “Yeah, honey, they do.”
In the blink of an eye, he’s all over me again, and all the humor in the air fades, suffocated when he starts kissing me again. A possessive hand on my thigh creeps upwards and slips between them, drawing a moan out of me. “You gotta tell me if I hurt you, okay? You gotta promise.”
Only when I do does Hunter sit back, powerful thighs straining. Dragging me down the bed closer to him, one hand lifts me up for a better angle. With the other, he notches his cock at my entrance, and I suck in a breath when I feel him slip inside just a little, and even that’s a stretch.
“You’ll fit,” I tell him, tell myself, tell— beg —the universe. “You will.”
And he does. Barely. Slowly, steadily, he works himself inside me, and it’s a tight fit, God, is it a tight fit, and there’s a definite thrumming ache, a little pinching that takes my breath away momentarily, but then he just fits .
Gripping the wrist attached to the hand curled around my waist, I practically rip the bedsheets to shreds with my other hand. I feel so full. So full. As I stare at where we join, I half expect to see my abdomen bulging with the girth of him.
Unnaturally still, something desperate contorts his face. “You okay?”
Guess that depends on one’s definition of okay . “I can’t feel anything but you.”
Hunter mouths a curse, his grip tightening, but he still doesn’t move, not until my nails dig into his skin and I beg him to. He thrusts slowly at first, testing what I can handle.
I moan at the slow, torturous drag. “More, please.”
He pauses. Breathes deep. Pulses inside me, makes me moan a little more when he leans forward to kiss me and his pelvis grazes my clit, wraps both hands around my waist as he straightens up again. And then, he starts pounding .
It’s all I can do to hold on, one hand braced against the headboard, the other still clamped around his wrist, the only part of him I can reach at this angle. At this angle, he can reach every part of me, and he does. He can’t decide where to touch, rubbing between my thighs and palming my breasts and cupping the slope of my neck, but he never stops hitting that perfect spot inside of me. He never stops looking at me, gazing into my eyes, and that’s what makes me feel so very good .
It doesn’t take long until I feel that tightening in my lower belly again. I gasp as I clench around Hunter, squirm as he smirks knowingly, come so damn hard when he says, “Could stay inside you forever, Caroline. Feel so damn good. Feel like mine .”
I see stars. Fireworks. God .
I shake like a leaf as I sob Hunter’s name, reaching for him at the same time he drops to his elbows and kisses me desperately, lovingly . Through it all, he never stops thrusting, chasing his own high.
“I want you on top,” he moans against my mouth. “Want you to ride me.”
I’ve never done that, but God, am I willing to try.
Without pulling out for even a second, Hunter rolls onto his back and drags me with him. My thighs burn as I straddle his wide hips, my breath stilted and I adjust to him all over again. He feels bigger like this—an impossible feat. I feel even fuller, and when glides a palm along my lower stomach and presses down gently, I buckle, both hands braced against his chest as I cry out from so much glorious pressure.
Instinct takes over. I roll my hips, slow at first until I get the hang of it, faster when I feel like I can handle the intense stretch, and two big hands encircling my waist help me rise up until just the tip of him is inside me and slam back down again. Again and again and again, until I’m crying out, until Hunter’s moans are so loud, I feel them in my bones.
“Doin’ so good, honey,” he rasps. “Fuckin’ look at you. ”
I do. My head drops forward so I can watch where we connect, and I could come again from the sight alone. I almost do when I glance up at Hunter again, and the euphoric, reverent look on his face sears through me.
“Next time I’m bare inside you, coming inside you—” With a groan, he cuts himself off, his eyes slamming shut in a visible display of restraint.
I really want him to finish that sentence, even though I have a pretty good guess. I want to hear it, even though I still feel like a kid myself sometimes, let alone capable of raising one, even though we’ve known each other for less time than it takes to grow a freaking child. It shouldn’t, but the idea does something to me; Hunter wanting me pregnant does something to me.
I find myself moving a little faster, clenching around him a little tighter, dropping a little lower so I can murmur in his ear, “Next time,” and that’s what gets him.
He comes hard, moaning my name hopelessly as he thrusts sloppily, and that and the feel of him releasing inside me triggers me once more.
Trembling, I collapse on top of him. Panting and sweating, and my thighs scream in protest, but I don’t move a muscle. I feel something trickle down my thigh, but I still don’t move, and Hunter doesn’t either.
He stays beneath me, soft inside me, and soft on the outside too as he whispers in my ear that he loves me.
And I almost, I almost , tell him that I love him too.