Chapter 7
SEVEN
HUNTER
Icurse under my breath as she flees the sunroom. That’s not at all how I wanted that conversation to go, and now I kick myself for how stupid I’ve been. Hell, I already want to take back my words, that stupid comment an amalgamation of all the things I’ve been trying to deny.
But I can’t take it back. The damage is done.
And yet, I push out of my chair and follow her. I don’t exactly know where I’m going, although it’s not hard to figure out where she might be. I find myself outside the guest room door, listening as she moves around the room too quietly.
Teeth gritted, I knock on the door. “Sylvie?”
Beyond, I hear a huff. “Don’t worry about me, Hunter. I’ll be out of your hair in a few minutes.”
A frustrated breath falls from my lips as I close my eyes. There’s a tightness in my chest I can’t identify, a worry pressing into me that makes it hard to breathe. “That’s not…” I stop and growl. “That’s not what I want.”
There’s a rustling of clothes as she laughs.
“Seriously? I think you’ve made it clear what you want, and that’s me out of your life for good,” she replies loudly.
“Ever since I got here, you’ve done nothing but complain about me.
Whether that be my ideas or my attitude or my wardrobe or where I live or—”
Without thinking, I push open the door. The frustration building within me only grows worse at having to speak to her through a door, and everything she thinks I’ve been complaining about…
They haven’t been complaints about her specifically.
Her ideas have always been better than mine, and maybe it was pride or my own desire to remain set in my ways, but I’ll be the first to admit she knows what she’s doing—and she does it well.
Clearly, I’ve not made that clear enough for her since last night, but if she wants me to tell her repeatedly how amazing she is at her job, then I will.
And her attitude…there’s nothing wrong with her attitude. She’s bubbly and kind, and she draws in a crowd with how bright she shines. Anyone who crosses her path can tell she actually cares—which is why my comment made me a bastard. She wouldn’t have put in so much time or effort if she didn’t.
I’ve only ever complained about her wardrobe when she’s severely underdressed for the weather, but that’s an entirely different fight to be had.
But as I push into the guest room, all logical thought completely disappears as I take her in.
Soft, blonde curls fall to her shoulder blades.
It’s the rest of her that takes my breath away; naked, she looks like a depiction of Aphrodite carved by the hands of an ancient artist. Her curves are soft, pliable, like the falling of fresh snow.
Pillowy thighs clench, skin so smooth it looks almost impossible.
I try to swallow, but it becomes difficult as I let my eyes drift over her, taking in the heavy swells of her breaths, the tightening of her nipples. A hunger I’ve never felt before awakens inside me, and something worse thrums in my chest.
A need to have her. To make her mine.
Sylvie grabs the flannel I lent her and uses it to cover her chest, but it barely goes to the apex of her thighs. “Hunter!”
This time when I try to swallow, I bypass the lump in my throat. Dragging my eyes to hers, I notice the deep pink flush to her cheeks, the flash of heat in her eyes.
My dick goes uncomfortably stiff, the desire to have her so powerful it hurts. “I’m sorry,” I rasp, voice rough, heart pounding. “But fuck it.”
I slam the door behind me as I stalk into the room, her shaky gasp swallowed by my lips as I kiss her.
Sylvie doesn’t fight me, not as she drops the flannel and slumps into my arms, her hands moving to my shirt and fisting the material.
I gather her to me, enjoying the way her thick curves balance out the harsh ridges of my body, moaning at the soft press of her stomach against the stiffness of my cock.
Just the simple touch of her body almost has me finishing in my pants, but by some miracle, I don’t. It’s not strength that saves me, but a need to see her come undone first.
I deepen the kiss with a hand in her hair, moving it to the back of her head and tilting her face towards mine. The soft mewling noise she makes as I swipe my tongue against hers loosens some primal, animalistic need within me. All I want to do is claim her. Make her mine.
It’s an instinct I’ve never had before. Not with Opal’s mother, not with any other woman I’ve dated. But with Sylvie, all of my natural instincts disappear. I think they’ve been disappearing since I met her.
My free hand slips down her waist and moves to her ass, giving the globe a squeeze.
It has another small sound slipping free of her lips, one I take greedily as I massage the flesh.
The roundness of it has always piqued my interest, ever since I picked her up on her first day in Willow Ridge.
Her tight jeans had left nothing to the imagination, and just as I’d imagined, her ass is as soft as snowfall.
Sylvie pulls away with a gasp, her lips swollen and red, her cheeks dark with a flush. Hunger fills her darkened eyes as she pants in my arms.
“Hunt—what—” She gasps, arching into me as my fingers move to the apex of her thighs and slide through the gathered arousal at the entrance of her pussy.
“You never gave me a chance to tell you how wrong you were,” I murmur, dipping my face to the column of her throat.
She smells like a mixture of us both; her perfume and my cologne clinging to her skin.
“Fucking hell, Sylvie. I don’t complain because I don’t like you.
” My fingers dip between the lips of her pussy.
“I complain because you get under my skin.”
She shivers in my arms, arching into me. “That doesn’t…make it any better,” she pants.
I chuckle against her neck as I plunge a finger inside her warm heat. “You make me feel things I haven’t felt before, you vixen. And I know you don’t do it on purpose, but fuck, you drive me insane.”
Sylvie moans and presses into me further as I insert another finger. There’s something about the way she trembles that has my cock pulsating. Something about how easily she falls apart on just my fingers that has me needing more.
“Ever since you came into my life, I’ve wanted to bend you over my knee, and I don’t know if that’s because I want to spank you or fuck you until you know you’re mine.
You have a sort of power over me I can’t escape, and any time I try to pull out of your spell, I fall right back in.
Whether it be because of your smile—” I add another finger and smile when she shudders, pussy tightening around me.
“Or because you know the right way to make me open up, but it doesn’t matter anymore. ”
I feel it the moment she shatters. Sylvie cries out, her legs trembling as the waves of her climax rush through her. I use my free hand to hold her up and against me as the shocks of her release leave her spent.
Sylvie fists her hands in my shirt and buries her face in my chest, her breaths harsh. “Hunter…” she trails off, another shudder rolling through her as I slide my fingers free from her heat.
“Give me permission,” I murmur in her ear.
“For what?” she whispers, voice shaky.
I swallow hard and firmly plant my hand on her ass again. “To fuck you the way you deserve.”
For a moment, Sylvie is quiet, just the sound of our harsh breaths and pounding hearts to fill the room. The rest of the house is silent, still like it’s also awaiting her response.
As much as I badly want to know what it feels like to have her, if she tells me to walk away, I will.
But I don’t know if I’ll be able to stay away.
The part of me that would have, the part of me that was responsible and cautious died last night when I kissed her, and now the parts of me that remain don’t want to let this woman go.
“Hunt?” she whispers, pulling away enough to meet my eye. I look down into her gorgeous, shining eyes, taking in the gentle slope of her nose, the slight pout to her full lips, the light smattering of freckles along the ridge of her nose and over her flushed cheeks.
“Yes?”
Her throat bobs as she swallows, something flaring in her eyes that I can’t read. “You’re not sick, are you?”
I blink in confusion and rear back. “What?”
She clears her throat, blush darkening. “This seems entirely out of character for you, and well, I need to know: are you sure you’re okay?”
I don’t know if she’s joking until the pout turns into a smirk. That subtle shift has my heart hammering for an entirely different reason now, making my chest heat with…I don’t know. Happiness? Excitement? Warmth?
I pull her into me and claim her lips in another kiss as I lower her onto the bed. “You still haven’t given me your answer,” I murmur against her lips as I situate her beneath me. “What is it, vixen?”
Sylvie parts her thighs, wiggling so I’m directly between them. “You think you can keep up with me, old man?”
“I’m barely forty,” I growl, rising to my knees above her and unbuckling my belt.
Now, I have a perfect view of her pussy.
She’s not as bare as I thought she was. There’s a neat little bundle of hair above her slit, a deep brown that goes against the natural hue of her hair.
But with her legs parted, I can also see how wet she is. Her pussy glistens, ready for me.
As I pull my jeans and boxers down to my thighs, I watch her expression shift from teasing to hunger again as she assesses me.
“I think you’re the one who won’t be able to keep up with me,” I tell her as I lower myself to her, stroking myself as I guide my tip to her entrance.
“Because once I get a taste, I won’t give you up. ”
Her throat bobs as she swallows, something shifting in her dark eyes. She only gasps when I insert the tip, her body bowing off the bed. “Prove it then,” she says, meeting my stare. “No more words. Show me you mean it.”
My nostrils flare, and each deep breath I pull in is filled with her; the sweetness of her perfume, the heady scent of her arousal. As I slowly enter her, she’s all I feel.
Every inch is met with a tightening of her cunt, a fluttering of her walls. Now, I use all my strength not to come undone, but I’m a tightly wound ball of tension, and I’m one moan or flutter away from exploding.
And I think Sylvie knows that, too.
As she winds her arms around my shoulders and guides my face to hers, I know intimately just how fucked I really am.
And I don’t think I mind it anymore.