Chapter 23 #2
“I changed the plans for a double oven here.” He moved through the kitchen and pointed to the empty space.
“And I built the island big enough for whatever you’d want.
You could try out your recipes, or don’t touch it at all.
” He laughed, but there was so much tension in it.
“I just kept thinking about Ruby sitting on that side of it, watching you. I kept thinking—” He stopped, jaw working.
“I kept thinking about a whole mess of kids that look just like you, running through every room of this place.”
My knees nearly buckled.
The picture he painted was wild and so beautiful it hurt, clawing open some soft, frantic place inside of me.
I stared at the double oven spot, the enormous island, the window throwing gold over every inch of his skin, and all I could see was a life I never thought I’d get to have.
My hands started to shake, so I knotted them together and pressed them hard into my stomach.
I’d never even let myself picture a future where someone wanted me this much, wanted to build something real with me, right in the open, everything bright and unhidden. But Hunter watched me like he already saw an entire messy, beautiful life with me stitched into every inch of this house.
“Hunter,” I breathed his name, and he moved then, grabbing my hands and pulling me around the island until we both stood in front of the window.
“I know it sounds crazy,” he said finally, voice rougher now, “but this stupid, half-built house? I only want to call it home if you’re in it.”
I couldn’t breathe. Every bone in my body felt hollowed out and trembling, and there he was, right in front of me, laying out his heart in this raw, fumbled, desperate way that made everything inside me ache.
I tried to say something, anything, but I opened my mouth and nothing came out except a wrecked little sound, half laugh, half sob. Hunter’s hands cupped my face, and his thumb swept under my eye where I hadn’t even realized a tear had slipped free.
“It’s not crazy,” I whispered. “No one has ever…” My fingers curled into his shirt, needing to ground myself against him. “No one has ever chosen me like this.”
He stared right at me, warm brown eyes so open it almost hurt. “I choose you, Mags. You were always the only choice. You get that?”
Something in me gave way. Not slowly or gently. It just snapped, like the part of me that’d always been braced for him to realize this wasn’t what he wanted finally buckled beneath the weight of the truth.
Hunter wrapped his arms around me, steadying me like it was nothing. His breath was hot against my ear as he pulled me in, my face pressed to his chest, and I could feel how hard his heart hammered beneath my hands.
My whole body shook, but he didn’t let go, not even when I hid my face and braced myself, just trying to get the wild swing of my feelings to calm down.
I couldn’t. There was no calming, no quiet.
Not with his arms around me, not with the unfinished house pressed in on us from every angle like it could already sense the shape of whatever future we’d make of it.
“When you said a whole mess of children, how many exactly did you mean?” My voice shook, but his laughter rumbled through his chest and poured into me.
It was like he’d torn a hole right through my composure, all that wild, hungry need roaring up and swallowing every old ache in its path.
The sound of his laugh tangled in my hair, sank into my skin, and made my knees go soft.
I clung to him, desperate to memorize the feel of him, the heat and the hard lines and the way he held me without a single ounce of hesitation.
“As many as you’ll give me as long as they have your smile.” He chuckled, and I couldn’t move.
I didn’t even want to breathe for fear that this moment might dissolve around us. All I could do was stare up at him, and his eyes didn’t waver from mine, open and warm and so fucking wild with hope it took everything in me not to fall apart.
“As many as you want, Sunshine.” His voice was lower now. “Or none at all. I don’t care as long as I get you.”
I couldn’t stop shaking. Not from fear, not anymore, but from the overwhelming want that rifled through my veins every time he looked at me like that. Like I was the very thing he’d been crawling through fire to reach.
He was so close, the heat of him a low, steady thrum just under my skin. His hands anchored me, thumbs digging into my jaw, and the world outside the open window fell away until it was only him and me.
“I want all of it,” I said, but my voice was threadbare, nothing but a tremble in the space between us.
Hunter stared at me, and there wasn’t a trace of laughter left in his face.
“You can have it all,” he told me, his voice pitched low. “Whatever you want of me, this house, this life. I’ll tear the damn world in half to give it to you, Maggie.”
Something inside me snapped in the giddy, wild way that made my lips ache from smiling. All that pent-up want and fear just gave way, and I burst out laughing, grabbing both sides of his beautiful face. I kissed him hard, like I could pour every trembling ache into his mouth and let him taste it.
“Are you alright?” He smiled against my mouth.
“Of course, I’m alright,” I said, heat crawling up every inch of my skin. “You built a whole damn house for us.” I laughed again. “How could I not be alright?”
He smiled, and something about the way his hand found the back of my neck, thumb grazing my jaw, told me everything I’d ever wanted to hear before he even opened his mouth.
“I know it’s a lot and way too fast.” His voice was rough and a little shy beneath the bravado. “But you deserve the world, Sunshine, and I want to be the one to give it to you.”
I wanted that too.
God, I wanted everything he would give me.
“You didn’t have to build a house.” I smiled up at him and ran my hand over the scruff on his jaw. “You already give me everything I need.”
His hands found my waist and then kept moving, and the next thing I knew my feet had left the floor. I squealed, grabbing his shoulders as my legs found his waist.
“What are you doing?”
“I built us a dock too.” He tilted his head toward the window. I could see the lake from where we stood, and sure enough, there it was. “We’ve got some unfinished business out there.”
I laughed again, my forehead dropping against his. “Do we?”
“Yeah, Sunshine.” He was already moving toward what would be our back door. “We do.”