7. Hunter #2
I snapped my eyes to hers within a second. Just hearing her say the word was enough to make my skin heat, to make my cock twitch, to make the memories of Oahu flood back in with a vengeance. “Is that normally something you do in front of a crowd, Lottie?”
The little breath that escaped from her lips was shaky. “No.”
“Then it won’t be expected of you,” I said simply, calming myself with another sip of wine. “It’s not exactly frowned upon, either to be clear.”
“Of course it’s not,” she mumbled, her eyes flicking upward in irritation.
“I’m just saying. It’ll be a long six months for me without being with anyone else. You too. And I know damn well you enjoyed yourself back in Oahu. Those sexy little sounds you were making were oh so sweet.” She squirmed in her seat, lifting her legs to her chest.
“You’re disgusting, Hunter.”
“You didn’t think that when you came around my cock on my bed.”
“Shut up ,” she groaned. “Drop it and you have a deal.”
I was on my feet in a second, glass of wine forgotten on the little table between us. I held out my hand to her, an offering and a sealing of the deal, and she looked up at me with an expression that asked a thousand questions. “Shake on it.”
Slowly, she set her glass of wine down and pushed up from the chair, nearly slipping when it rocked beneath her. She took my hand, warm skin against skin, her cheeks flushed from the little buzz of alcohol. “It’s a deal,” she said.
Relief flooded my system and demanded I celebrate. “It’s a deal,” I echoed.
In a quickness that surprised even me, I wrapped one arm around her waist and hoisted her onto her tiptoes, briefly pressing my lips against hers.
Just a little mark of something she would need to get used to seeing as we would be doing this for the next six months.
I let go as quickly as I’d brought her in, and she backed up a step, her eyes hazy, unfocused and blinking.
“We need to go public soon,” I said, steadying her shoulders with my hands. “Tomorrow, ideally. We can go out tomorrow night, be seen together, get people talking. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“What?” she breathed. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No. That’s too quick. I should be seen around the ranch first, get things going in my job, and then people will put two and two together,” her brows narrowed as she looked up at me, that quick burst of adrenaline from the kiss wearing off. Maybe I should kiss her again.
She wasn’t necessarily wrong. But I didn’t have that kind of time. Dad was talking about retiring within the next four months—six at the latest—and I needed to sell this fast. “We don’t have that kind of time, Lottie.”
“I don’t care. If you want to sell it, sell it right. Sell it organically. Otherwise, they’ll think you picked me up off the damned street.”
“No,” I said, parroting her with a little grin as I took a step toward her. “We start tomorrow.”
“We give it time or we give it nothing at all.” She took a step back toward the glass door, that hardened look on her face coming straight from Brody’s likeness.
I wasn’t sure if I should feel weird about finding that unbearably sexy.
“My dad will ask questions. And if we don’t play our cards right, the whole thing will crumble when he does. ”
I didn’t like it when she was right. I stepped closer, coaxing her back to the glass. I stood over her just as I did at the wedding, boxing her in, bringing out that terrified, deer-in-the-headlights reaction that turned me on just as much as it had before. “We start privately now . ”
Her eyes widened as I tipped my head down, pressing my lips to hers before she could object. That last kiss hadn’t been enough, even if I hadn’t been planning on it. I wanted more.
Her hands pushed gently against my chest, separating us just an inch. “My dad will be home soon.”
I let my hand explore the side of her abdomen as the words slowly sunk in. I knew Brody couldn’t find out this early. And I definitely didn’t need him knowing how I wanted to touch his daughter, let alone how I already had.
On the flip side, though, I was impatient, and that testosterone-fueled need in my gut was screaming at me.
“Fuck it,” I breathed, pushing my way back to her.
I kissed her greedily, hungrily, ears trained on any noises coming from inside or out front.
She took my urgency and increased it tenfold, her hands pushing again on my chest. Her mind was telling her this was a bad idea.
But her lips, God , her lips revealed the truth.
She wanted it just as much as I did, and she kissed me back eagerly.
My fingers found the waistband of her black-and-white checkered pajama pants.
She sucked in a breath as I tugged at the elastic, just enough to slip inside, just enough to feel the lack of fucking anything beneath them.
That was twice, now, that I’d gotten that far and both times she’d not been wearing undergarments when I went exploring.
I couldn’t even imagine the places my mind would take me whenever I saw her, whether I’d question if there was anything beneath her clothes. It was going to drive me insane.
“Hunter,” she rasped, a slight bit of irritation as my hand sunk lower, over the mound of flesh that sat between the blades of her hips and between damp lips. Her little gasp pulled my lower lip into her mouth the moment my fingertips brushed against her swollen clit.
She was so wet. Dripping, almost. Suspicion arose as to why she was so turned on.
I lifted my lips from hers. “Fuck,” I said, sliding two fingers inside of her with ease. Her body shook around them. “Is this what you were doing before I showed up?”
Her cheeks heated drastically as she moaned, her hips pressing in against the palm of my hand for friction. “Shut up.”
“Oh my God . ” My cock throbbed in my jeans. It wanted nothing more than to slide itself inside of her, fill her better than she could fill herself. I didn’t even fucking care if Brody showed up. “You were fucking yourself senseless, weren’t you, sweetheart?”
She stayed silent as I slowly began to pump my fingers, curling them just enough to get that same rise out of her that she gave me back in Oahu. She felt better than I remembered, softer, warmer. The moment my thumb started to circle her clit, she whimpered, her knees buckling.
I shoved my knee between her legs to keep her upright.
Moving my lips to her ear and leaving little kisses along the way, I whispered, “Tell me, Lottie, did it feel as good as when I buried myself inside of you?”
“No.” The little break in her voice nearly made me take my jeans off right fucking then. “It didn’t.”
The more I worked at her, the more she came undone in my hands.
A pool of her dampness formed in my palm, and I wanted nothing more than to taste it, to devour her, to drink her in like fucking water.
“How long?” I asked. I took her earlobe between my teeth, giving it a little tug.
“How long were you touching yourself before I showed up?”
Her breaths came quicker, shallower, her walls closing in. I knew damn well she was approaching the edge. “A, close to an hour, I guess,” she whimpered.
Holy fucking shit. She’d been at it for a while. No wonder she was falling apart around my fingers. “Did you come?”
“No.”
A dark, hearty laugh bubbled up from my throat. The temptation to stop just before she tumbled over the edge, just to drive the knife in, was so intense I nearly let myself do it. But that would only make her more frustrated, only anger her more. And I wanted to calm her down.
Her walls tightened. She gasped for air, moaning between breaths, fingernails digging into my chest. So close. So fucking close.
“Do you want to come for me?” I asked, veiling my voice with sympathy, still fighting the urge to stop and deny her what she wanted more than anything.
“Please,” she muttered. I circled faster, pumped my fingers just a little bit harder. “Fuck, oh my God, please .”
“Please what?”
“Please can I come?”
Those four words were almost enough to make me feral.
I fucking savored them every time I heard them, no matter who they came from, but coming from her lips made them sound so much sweeter than any other time I’d heard them before.
She was going to drive me insane. “Come,” I growled. “Come for me, Lottie.”
As if on command, her body snapped, her legs fully giving out as her orgasm tore through her. I kept her upright with my knee, taking the brunt of her weight, and fucked her with my fingers long enough to let her ride the wave that left her gasping for air and clutching onto me.
“Good girl.”