Chapter 13
MAGGIE
My body still thrummed with everything we’d just done, even though neither of us had spoken in the last twenty minutes.
The silence did nothing to calm me down. If anything, it only made it worse, my attention catching on every small thing.
I fixed my shirt with shaky hands as we pulled up outside the bakery, and I realized the damn thing was on backward. There was no way in hell I was fixing it now, no way I was sticking around in this truck longer than I had to.
I knew exactly what was going to come next. I could practically already hear Hunter’s voice telling me we shouldn’t do this, that it was a mistake, and I couldn’t fucking bear it.
The moment he put the truck in park, I was already climbing out.
“Maggie,” he called my name, but I swung the door shut and crossed in front of his truck as I fished my keys out of my purse.
I fumbled with the keys, dropping them on the sidewalk, and I could hear his truck door open behind me. He didn’t say my name this time, but I could feel him at my back.
I bent to grab the keys, fingers shaking, then jammed my key into the lock. My heart beat so hard I swear he had to hear the thing desperate to outrun the rest of me.
“Maggie, come on,” Hunter said just as I pushed the door open, and I took a deep breath before I turned to face him.
“Thank you for the ride, Hunter.” I avoided meeting his eyes. “I had fun.”
“You had fun?” He barked out a laugh, and I knew if I didn’t get the hell away from him, I was going to do or say something I regretted.
I climbed the stairs that led up to my apartment, but he didn’t stop.
I could hear his footsteps directly behind mine, and I climbed faster, desperate for distance, desperate for anything that would slow the heat still racing under my skin.
But every step I took he was right there, a shadow burning against my back, his presence so hot and insistent I could feel it on the bare strip of skin between my shirt and my jeans.
“Will you fucking stop?” he asked, or demanded, just as I reached my apartment door.
I fumbled with the keys again and cursed under my breath. The metal rattled against the doorframe, and my hands shook so badly I almost dropped them for a second time.
I was already halfway inside when Hunter’s palm hit the door, shoving it open before I could even consider closing it in his face.
I didn’t answer him. I set my purse and keys down on my small entry table and kicked off my boots, one at a time, because I needed something before I reached for him.
The air in my apartment was cooler than it was outside, but it didn’t help. Every place his hands had been still felt lit up, like the heat had gotten under my skin and branded me.
The door shut hard behind me, and I flinched.
“What the hell are you doing, Maggie?”
When I turned, my arm caught against his chest, and I made the mistake of looking up. His jaw was tight, his breathing uneven, and I recognized the look on his face because I knew it was on mine too.
“I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.” I tried to step away from him, but Hunter was already moving past me.
He pressed his palm flat against the wall in my hallway, barring my path so completely my only choice was to crane my neck up at him. The lamplight from my small kitchen cut across his jaw, shadowing his mouth, and every inch of me remembered exactly what that mouth had felt like on my skin.
“We should talk.” His words hit me as his eyes tracked every flicker on my face, picking me apart like he could see the whole mess of want and regret and panic that was burning through me.
I could barely stand to look at him.
“We don’t need to talk,” I said, my words coming out flat, almost clipped. “It’s late. You should just…go home.”
But he didn’t budge. He just stood there in my hallway, filling up the space and stealing all my logic. He crowded me, and I hated that it felt good, hated that even the shadow he cast was enough to make my pulse go haywire.
“Cut the shit, Mags.” His voice was thick. “You know that’s not how this goes.”
My throat tightened, and the back of my eyes burned.
I had wanted Hunter for longer than I could justify, longer than was good for me, and now that I knew exactly what his hand felt like, what his mouth felt like, I couldn’t unknow it.
And that was the problem.
I couldn’t do this.
I couldn’t learn him like this and then act like it hadn’t meant anything when he decided it hadn’t.
Hunter’s body was so close I could feel the heat of him, even though he wasn’t touching me. One wide palm braced on the wall by my head and the other was balled into a fist at his side, like he’d lose his mind if he moved any closer to me.
“Don’t worry about me,” I said, and made myself meet his gaze as I patted his chest. “Me and my trusty vibrator can take care of me. You don’t need to stick around to finish the job.”
I ducked under his arm, but his hand caught my wrist before I’d made it a full step. He reeled me back against his chest, his arm locking around my stomach, and his mouth was close enough to my neck that I could feel him breathing.
I froze, my whole body lighting up the way it had in his truck, every inch of skin prickling with awareness. His chest pressed into my shoulder blades and sent a jolt through me so sharp I nearly gasped.
“Let go,” I bit out, but my voice trembled. “I’m serious, Hunter. We both know this was a mistake.”
But his arm only tightened, forearm banded across me, and his lips brushed against my neck.
Heat shot straight down my spine, and I nearly lost my balance as he nipped at my earlobe.
“Hunter, don’t,” I whispered, but I did the opposite, my spine curving back into him like my body had decided what it wanted despite what I said.
The groan he let out was loud and rough and his arm cinched tighter across my stomach, pulling me flush against him like he feared I’d slip through his fingers.
“We’re friends,” I managed, my voice coming out embarrassingly unsteady. “This is a bad idea.”
He walked me forward until my chest pressed against the wall, and he pressed himself against me until I could feel exactly how bad of an idea this was.
His mouth dragged against the side of my neck, and I whimpered.
“Is it?” Hunter’s mouth dragged lower, and his hand slid from my stomach down to my hip, fingers curling in, as he pulled me firmly against him. “Feels pretty fucking good to me.”
But that was the fucking problem. It felt too good, too real. The weight of his hand on my hip, the heat of his body soaking up all my boundaries until there was nothing left but want and the terrifying ache of hope. I wanted him everywhere, in every way. And it scared the hell out of me.
Because I already knew how it ended, and I would let it happen anyway.
“How long’s it been since you’ve been in this apartment, Hunter?”
He leaned in closer, and his hand on my hip pressed harder.
“You used to come here for Ella.” My voice trembled as his free hand dragged up my waist. “Remember?”
The problem wasn’t that I didn’t want him. The problem was that I did, completely, in a way that left no room for pretending otherwise. And once I stopped pretending, I had nothing left.
Because the only thing worse than not having him was having him and then losing him.
His hand moved higher, curving around my throat, and his thumb pressed against my pulse like he wanted to feel exactly what he was doing to me.
“I remember everything, Sunshine.” His drawl was low, and his thumb traced idle little circles beneath my jaw. It felt so infuriatingly intimate, I nearly begged him for more. “And you’re the only thing I can bring myself to give a damn about.”
His whisper was a confession, and I hated how much I needed to believe it. He kissed the back of my neck again, and the smell of him clawed up my defenses and set them on fire.
I pressed my forehead to the wall, my breath coming in shallow, frantic pants, but he didn’t let up. His hand around my throat gentled, fingers splayed possessively, and he nudged my chin until I arched back against his chest.
I could feel the weight of him everywhere. Hot, hungry, and demanding in a way that made my insides twist. I didn’t want soft, didn’t want gentle. I wanted him to ruin me the way only he could.
His mouth dragged down my throat, and I arched up into it. Shame burned through me at how helpless I was to stop myself from wanting him, but I needed more.
The heat of his breath grazed my neck as he pressed his cock against my ass. His hand tightened around my throat, one finger tracing slowly up my jaw, tilting my head back and to the side until I had no choice but to look at him over my shoulder.
His eyes met mine, dark and unbearably patient, and the look in them was so naked and certain that my breath snagged in my throat. The hand at my hip slid to my lower stomach and stopped there, fingers splayed, thumb hooking just inside my waistband and going no farther.
My hips rolled back against him, and the sound he made had me clenching my thighs together, and suddenly desperate to beg him for more.
“Tell me to go.” His thumb grazed slowly beneath my waistband, barely an inch lower than before, and his voice was wrecked. “I’ll leave if that’s what you really want.”
My breath rattled out of me, shaky and uneven. I felt the promise of his words, and for a second, I almost lied. I almost told him to leave.
It would have been so much easier to push him out that door, easier to pretend that what happened in his truck was a mistake instead of an inevitable collision we’d been running from for years.
But the heat between us was a living thing, blistering through my veins and branding me right there in the dark of my hallway. There was sweat at the curve of my lower back, the muscles in my thighs trembled, and even though I tried to pretend otherwise, I wanted him so badly it hurt.