Chapter 25
Devyn
S he’s not my biological daughter.” Hunter paces the living room as I sit on the arm of a Bordeaux and cherry oak recliner that matches everything else in his house with Pinterest perfection. I guess when you film a lot of your content in your own home you want it to feel neat and put together most of the time.
I try not to post too much of myself on my page. It decreases the times I get drawn to looking at myself and picking apart one thousand and two things I can’t stand. I learned long ago it’s best not to pay attention to photos or video clips of myself, so I try to post group settings and events in fun, artsy ways instead.
I lost several thousand followers when I quit the station and stopped posting selfies. Eye-opening is what that is.
But not as eye-opening as what he just told me.
“Of course, she’s yours. Hunter, you don’t have to sugarcoat this for me. I hung out with her all morning. She looks like you, acts like you, has your last name, and calls you Papa. She’s—”
“Samuel’s.”
He watches me carefully as I take in this new information. A swift breath of air releases from my lungs and escapes my lips, as relief floods over me. But he frowns, and I try to take it back.
It’s too late. And my blatant relief is over the very thing that might be causing him pain.
“I wish she were mine.” His eyes meet mine, and his message is loud and clear. This is still very much his child, father or not. “Devyn, I don’t want to scare you off.” He grabs my hand, toying with the crease of my Starburst ring where yellow joins orange. “But she’s mine. I’m hers. We’re a package deal.”
“I understand,” I say, linking my fingers with his. “And I’m not running yet, am I?”
I surprise myself with that revelation, because a whole lot has happened in the last few days, and most of it revolves around Hunter and this life I didn’t even know existed a week ago. A life that feels so ingrained in me that there’s no way I’ve been away from it for this long.
I’m not ready to leave it behind, either.
He has a child. A niece, I correct myself, watching as his eyes bore a hole into my soul, waiting for something more. I can live with that.
“What happened last night,” I say, switching gears, “I know we were drinking, but I wanted all of that to happen. I needed you to know that.”
He smiles a shit-eating grin that’s so damn smug, I wish I could take my words back just to give him hell longer.
“Oh, I know.” He licks his lips, leaning in and getting dangerously close to my ear. “My jeans from last night are covered in how much you wanted all of that to happen, remember?” I shiver, hating that he’s right and loving how downright slutty it makes me feel, which is a whole new kink Hunter has seemed to unlock that I didn’t know I had.
I swat him away, lifting my body from his lap and turning to put my hands on his shoulders as I tower over him. “Excuse me. We are taking things slow, Mr. Isaac. You just sprang some soap opera level news on me about a secret daughter, and then basically all but molested my ear, so I feel the need to point that out.”
I stand and walk away, giggling quietly as I hear him groan. He follows me to the kitchen, spinning me around to face him, his hands on my hips like electricity in my veins.
“Call me Mr. Isaac again, wife.” He leans in and presses a light kiss to the corner of my lips, and I can’t help the smile that pulls at the edges of my mouth even when I’m trying desperately to make it do the opposite.
“Oh, my gosh, you can’t say that.” But I’m practically melting into his arms and shoving my neck into his warm, languid kisses as he tongues and bites and all but fucks the skin on my neck. I back up, holding him closer and angling to give him more access to all parts of my body as heat takes over and claws its way through me.
“I’m gonna fuck you so hard once you let me.” His teeth scrape my earlobe as he pulls away, sending pulses to my center with every swipe of his hot mouth on my body.
I want him all over me, inside me, on top of me. I want him everywhere. I grind my body against his, and he picks me up by my butt, hoisting me and wrapping my legs around him. His hand pushes between us, and his fingers brush my clit.
“Feels so good,” I moan as I press my body harder into his and rub myself over his fingers until I can feel the slickness from inside me seeping out all over him, and fuck if this isn’t the hottest thing I’ve ever done. I want more.
I want so much more with Hunter Isaac, and I don’t even know what more there is.
But a voice in my head keeps saying we need to protect ourselves. We need to take this slow.
“Stop,” I gasp. And he stills, instantly pulling his hand from between our bodies and bringing me back down to the floor, eyes wide with worry.
I feel so fucking embarrassed for that. I made this so damn awkward.
“I wanted that,” I assure him. “I did. I just…I think I need us to slow down a bit longer before we pick it back up to whatever that level is.”
He smirks, and I can feel my cheeks turning pink. “I’m so awkward. I’m sorry.” Spinning around, I place my hands on the counter. The immaculate, beautiful counter he almost fucked me on.
It would have been just as good as any fantasy I’ve ever had, too. He would have spread me out, and I’d probably hang off the edge a little, and—
“You okay there?” he asks, breaking me out of my daydream, yet again.
“Yeah,” I say, heaving a wistful sigh. “I am, but I’m also hungry, and you have a whole lot more to tell me, so let me cook you something and we can chat. Take things slow.” I gesture to the stool directly in front of the island, making sure to state my boundaries loud and clear. I’m not sure if that’s to him or to myself, but it’s been stated all the same.
“I got it, Dev.” He smirks. “I told you, I’m only gonna fuck you hard once you let me. Consent is very sexy.” He winks then moves to the other side of the counter, sitting at the barstools I imagined our non-existent children sitting at only hours ago. Only, that’s no longer true. He does have a child who likely sits here and does homework.
I smile at that.
“Okay, husband,” I tease, spinning to the fridge and opening it wide, “you have ground turkey, soy sauce, green onions. Do you have honey?”
“In the pantry.” He smirks as he watches me skip around his kitchen in search of utensils, and I smile brightly as I take the ingredients to the counter in front of Hunter, because I’m obviously putting on a cooking show for him if I’m gonna do this.
I laugh at his skepticism, eyeing me suspiciously.
“No offense, Dev, but since when do you cook?”
“Since a while. I have secrets, too, ya know.”
We stay in the kitchen for roughly an hour, and he tells me all about his pride and joy.
Eleanor Rosemary Isaac.
It turns out he named her after her maternal grandmother, Eleanor, who was the only one of her mother’s family to show up at the hospital for her birth, not long after our own Ellie died. “Something about that name felt…fated to me, Dev. I can’t change how it happened or why. I took one look at her, and I knew her name was Ellie.”
Ellie’s mother, it so happens, was a drug addict, too doped up to even fill out the birth certificate or any other paperwork when she was born and taken back to the state penitentiary shortly after they got her detoxed.
She never asked about Ellie again after that day.
Here he was, a nineteen-year-old boy, fresh out of a heartbreaking relationship and the loss of one child, and he was responsible for his teenage brother’s daughter. He was the next best choice, along with his elderly Aunt Sarah as a licensed foster care provider and unofficial co-guardian.
I can’t imagine the kind of responsibility he was faced with in just a matter of seconds.
I watch him as he tells me his story, the way his face changes and morphs as he goes from happy memories of baby Ellie and her first steps and pony rides, to scarier times like meet and greets with her biological mother after she was released from prison.
I want to know what Sam did to earn a life sentence at sixteen. To be wrapped up with a teenage drug addict he ended up impregnating. But I know what it’s like to be from Pine Forest well enough, and I can tell Hunter isn’t willing to talk any more about Sam or Ellie for a while.
I get lost for a little while in dancing around the kitchen to whatever music Hunter has streaming, but it stops abruptly when his phone rings and he takes it off Bluetooth for the call. It turns out Ellie’s social worker called to say she’s made arrangements for Ellie to stay next door with the family who has respite care certifications until she can come by and get my fingerprints tomorrow. I didn’t realize what sort of ripples I was creating being here with Hunter and Ellie, and the weight of the situation officially hits me in the chest.
But I can’t run, I remind myself. New and improved, less of a bitch, Devyn doesn’t do that anymore. She faces her anxieties with logic.
Hunter comes back and inhales dramatically. “It smells amazing, babygirl.”
I blush; I can’t help it. I’ve always wanted this moment. The one where my husband walks through the door and smells what I’m cooking, and I’m all swoony as he takes me into his arms and dips me for a kiss.
“You’re daydreaming again, wife.” He winks, moving behind me to the fridge and squeezing my ass on the way. I yelp, giggling as I search the drawers for silverware.
“You cannot keep calling me wife.” I point a butter knife his way. But I obviously hope he doesn’t stop.
“I’ll stop calling you wife when you stop cooking barefoot in my kitchen looking far tastier than the meal I’m meant to eat.”
“You are so bad,” I say, smiling from ear to ear and biting my lip to keep from letting him get the satisfaction of saying I did so.
“It honestly does look good. Smells good, too.” He peers at the stovetop, where I’ve just placed the meatballs to cool and am arranging the rice and veggies on our plates. “I might have to let you cook for me more often.”
“Don’t get too carried away. I’ve only done like three Fresh Doorstep kits so far, so I’m not exactly swimming with skills yet.”
“Fresh Doorstep. I knew it was too good to be true. You’re a fraud, Mrs. Isaac.” He takes me in with darkening eyes when we both realize what he said. The room is thick with our desire, and I’m not stupid enough to deny that’s what this is.
Pure, animalistic desire.
“Shit!” I suddenly remember. “I need to call and cancel my subscription before they renew! I won’t be home for two or three months. It’s just gonna sit there rotting.”
“Why don’t you just send a neighbor to grab them for you?”
“A neighbor?” I blink.
“Yeah, I’m sure someone would want to make the meals that are already scheduled to deliver.”
I shake my head, almost too embarrassed to look him in the eye. “I don’t know any neighbors.”
“A friend, then?” he asks, raising an eyebrow that tells me he’s not gonna let this one go. “Someone who lives near you who you could text?”
I turn away, pressing my fingertips to my stinging tear ducts, and he pauses, reaching across the counter and placing a hand on my shoulder and spinning me around. My eyes burn because I don’t like to confront pieces of me that are less than what they should be, but he squeezes my shoulder, and I don’t feel so alone. Not with Hunter.
I just can’t figure out if that scares me or not.
“Don’t you have any friends in the city, Dev?”
“Look, I just worked a lot when I was on the news, okay? Went out with work people if I did things. It’s not a big deal. Can you just hand me my phone?” I point to the end table behind him by the recliner where my sunflower and daisy phone case glitters in the light, and mentally lock my walls back in place around parts of me that feel far too raw and exposed for how new this is.
Hunter creases his brow but complies, reaching over to grab my phone which seems to be lit up with notifications, from what I can see. Probably more Pinterest wedding boards from Claudette and Molly. They’ve been texting them all day long, and I’m honestly about to tell them it’s a fake marriage just to get them to back off for a few hours.
I wish I would let myself loose on Hunter. My mind and my body are telling me two wildly different things about what I should and shouldn’t do with him, but he looks like a god sitting at his bar in his house on his farm and calling me his wife.
I’m hopeless.
Hunter finds my phone and squints down at the notifications, a sly smile spreading across his face that gives me pause.
“What is the Obscene AF Book Club?”
My face pales . Shit. No, no, no, no . That is not a corner of my phone he should be on.
“It’s nothing!” I shout, practically leaping over the counter at him, and earning an even deeper grin as he raises one eyebrow, drawing his hand back so I can’t reach it, and scrolling on.
“Well, nothing, as you call it, is texting you left and right. You got another man I should be worried about?” His eyes gleam as he scrolls through what I know with one hundred percent certainty is not another man, but worse. A complete cesspool of debauchery. Mortification falls over me in boundless waves.
Rightfully so. Because that chat group? It’s not for normal books. I slide around the living room, waiting for the perfect moment to snatch my phone back.
“My Internet friends and I read books and chat about them. It’s nothing,” I say, getting close enough to touch the hem of his T-shirt. But as soon as I do, he twists his body around and flops to the couch, holding up a pillow shield while he reads on.
“Interesting. So, you do have friends.”
I roll my eyes. Maybe it’s better to use reverse psychology on him.
“Whatever.” I cross my arms over my chest and assume nonchalance. “It’s probably nothing. Sometimes we find a new book and the text chain just goes off for a while.”
“But why is it obscene?” he teases, still scrolling. When I realize my reverse psychology very much isn’t working, I dart around the corner and yank the pillow shield from his hand.
“You really don’t want to know, I promise. Just give me the phone.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Little Miss Perfect.” He holds the phone closer, and his smile suddenly widens, his gaze shooting to mine.
“Dev, are you one of those book girls?”
His darkening stare could pin me to the wall, and I really wouldn’t mind. If he stares at me like that for the rest of my life, I’ll stay pinned wherever the fuck he wants me.
Holy shit.
“You’re thinking filthy fucking things when you make that face and stare off into space. I just know it.”
His teasing words snap me out of my fantasy.
But is it a fantasy if he’s offering it up on a silver platter? It could be a reality if you let it.
“No! I mean…well, yeah, I guess.”
His smile twists. “This is golden. You’re into those kinky Shades of Sex books, aren’t you?”
“Oh, my God, that’s not the title of those,” I scoff, maneuvering around the side table. “Look, you really don’t want to read that. If you think those books are bad, you aren’t ready for what’s lingering in the depths of my Kindle. Promise.” I shake my head, unable to stop the heated blush spreading across my face, as he lies back into the pillows and kicks up his feet, waving one hand while the other stays clutched to my phone like it’s the morning paper and we’re in a fifties sitcom.
“You go finish dinner, wife. Leave me to my research. I need to see what I’m up against so I can be your happily ever after.”
“I don’t think you’re gonna like what you’re up against.” I snort, tongue in cheek.
“Hold the fuck up.” He sits up suddenly, eyes wide and serious. “You’re telling me that you, and thirty other women you know, have read Stuffed by The Mashed Potato Man ?”
“And liked it.” I smirk proudly.
“ Auctioned Off to My Alien Stepbrothers ? What the hell, Dev?” He shakes his head, looking back and forth between me and the phone in disbelief. Laughter breaks free from my body and fills the room.
“They’re not as bad as they sound, honest. Most of the time, we just read the crazy ones to have something to joke about all day long, but other times…” I shake my head and whistle through my teeth. “I gave the mashed potato one four stars, not gonna lie.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
“Nope, that spice was spicin’.”
Hunter loses it, bent over the counter, laughing so hard his face is turning red, and I’m laughing too because, fuck it. If I can’t share my weird kinky side with the man I feel most intimate with, then who can I?
My heart stills at that thought, and I smile, running my hand through Hunter’s hair and kissing the top of his head where it rests on his arms along the counter. His laughter settles, and he pushes up to his elbows.
“Who knew our sweet little beauty queen would grow up to be a closet freak?”
“Don’t make fun! At least I’m reading, Mr. Thirst Trap.”
He rolls his eyes, but I’m not done convincing him.
“Next month, we’re reading a lovely holiday romance about redemption and giving.”
“ Claiming Santa’s Lap ?” He points to my screen. “I can already tell you that one doesn’t have a happy ending.” He pushes himself up, rounding the side of the counter and closing me in against it, my back flush to his chest, his breath so hot and inviting against my skin that I lean against him, begging him to press his lips to my neck.
“Why not?” I gasp as he sucks at my skin.
His kisses grow deeper, his free hand threading through my hair and sending pleasure between my legs. He pushes my cheek down against the counter, running his hand down my body, kneading my curves and squeezing my flesh like he can’t get enough of it. His hand rides lower, until he’s brushing the back of my thighs and fingering the hem of my dress. I gasp when I feel his fingers trace the edges of my panties, but I rock into them all the same. I want nothing more right now than to submit to him. Whatever it is he wants to do to me, he can have it all, as long as he never stops his touch. His tongue swipes against my ear, teasing and biting until I’m moaning, arching my back to give him better access because God, I just need him to touch me, and then he lifts his hand and slaps it hard against my ass.
“Santa only comes for good girls.”
Then he tugs my skirt back in place and walks away.