Chapter Twenty Nine
Hunter
The first thing I noticed when she stepped into my apartment wasn’t how out of place she looked, it was how everything in the room shifted around her.
My place had always been simple: clean lines, quiet, untouched.
But with her there, curls falling over her shoulder, the faint scent of rain clinging to her clothes, it suddenly felt lived in. Warmer.
She curled into the couch, blanket sliding down her shoulders, the lamplight catching the gold in her hair. She tried to look relaxed, but I could see the nerves in the way she tucked her hands into the blanket and laughed at nothing. The air between us felt charged.
She smiled down at her phone, trying to stifle a laugh. I didn’t have to guess who it was. Her mom. The same woman who’d told her not to come home tonight. Camille turned the screen toward me, cheeks flushed.
Mom: Don’t rush home. The kids and I
are having fun.
Camille buried her face against me, giggling into my shirt. “She’s incorrigible.”
I chuckled, pressing my lips to her hair. “Smart woman.”
She swatted my chest lightly but didn’t pull away. Instead, she leaned closer, her hand sliding across my ribs to rest over my heart.
Then more messages crossed the screen.
Mom: I’m serious.
Mom: And no, I won’t let Zeke eat cereal
for dinner, stop worrying.
Mom: Have fun. XO.
Camille groaned, burying her face in her hands.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. A real one, the kind that shook through my chest. “Sounds like she’s your biggest wing man.”
“She’s embarrassing,” she mumbled, though her shoulders shook with her own laugh.
“Embarrassing or not,” I said, leaning a little closer, “she’s right.”
The rain kept tapping against the windows, filling the silence that grew between us. She shifted closer, her knee brushing mine, and I could feel her pulse in the air, the push and pull of wanting and holding back.
“This place feels like you,” she said softly.
“Yeah?”
That’s how the night began. Not with nerves or rushing, but with laughter, trust, and the quiet certainty that something ordinary had turned extraordinary.
Two glasses on the coffee table, a single sock left behind in our scramble, curled at the foot of the couch.
A small sign that my apartment was ours, even if just for tonight.
Her eyes flicked up at me, wide, searching. And there it was again. The weight of all her hesitations, the careful walls she’d built. I felt it in the way her breath hitched, even as she leaned toward me.
So I didn’t push. I just reached over, brushed a curl back from her cheek, and let my hand linger for a second longer than necessary. “No pressure, Camille. Not tonight. Not ever. ”
Her lips parted, and she whispered, “Okay.” A beat later, she looked at me, her brown eyes solemn. “What if…” I swallowed hard. “What if you don’t like what you see?”
My brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“My body.” The words slipped out before she could stop them, quiet and raw. “The stretch marks. The stomach. The parts of me that don’t look the way they used to.”
My hands found her face, holding her firm but gentle as I led her to meet my eyes. “Camille, I like you. All of you. Every curve, every mark, every scar, because they’re you. And I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
“You’re beautiful,” I said quietly, the words confident and certain. “Not just when you try, not just when you hide in the right clothes. Always. And it drives me crazy that you can’t see it.”
She blinked fast, not knowing what to do with that. “You have to say that,” she whispered. “You’re supposed to say that.”
I shook my head, a small grin tugging at my mouth. “Nope. If I were supposed to, I’d just nod when you talk down about yourself. But I’m not. Because it isn’t true.”
She groaned, covering her face with both hands. “You’re so annoying.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, prying her hands away, brushing my beard against her knuckles before pressing a kiss there. “Annoying enough to keep reminding you until it finally sticks.”
She laughed under her breath, quiet and shaky. And then, just when I thought the moment had settled, she whispered something that cracked me open. “You really don’t give up, do you?”
I grinned, the corner of my mouth twitching because she didn’t realize how right she was. “Not when it comes to you.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, wide, questioning. So I went on, because she needed to hear it.
“You’ve got this habit of muttering under your breath when you think I’m not listening. Usually it’s harmless — grocery lists, school stuff, to-dos. But sometimes, it’s not.”
“Not?” she echoed.
I exhaled slowly. “Sometimes it’s little daggers. Things you say about yourself. Things that aren’t true.”
She didn’t speak, and for a moment, the quiet between us pulsed with everything unspoken. I went on, my voice low. “You wrinkle your nose at your reflection. You mutter about not being enough. And every time, it’s like watching someone kick a diamond into the dirt.”
She tried to roll her eyes. “You make it sound so dramatic.”
“It is dramatic,” I said simply. “Because it’s you.”
That pulled a real laugh out of her, soft and wet at the edges from tears she didn’t want to let fall.
“You really think that?” she whispered.
“I don’t think it,” I said, my thumb tracing her jaw. “I know it. And maybe that’s why I tease you. Why I make you laugh. Because it’s the only way I know how to drown out that voice in your head that won’t shut up.”
She pressed her forehead to my chest, her breath catching as a tear slid warm through my shirt. “You’re too good at this,” she said.
“Maybe,” I murmured, my hand finding the back of her neck, thumb stroking her hairline. “But I mean it. And I’ll keep telling you. I’ll keep showing you, in every way I know, that you’re more than enough. Even if you never fully believe it. Even if it takes the rest of my life.”
She lifted her head then, and I saw it, that quiet breaking open behind her eyes. The walls she’d spent years building, softening under the weight of trust. “Why?”
I smiled, slow and lopsided. “Because I love you. Frustrations, doubts, stubborn walls, and all. Loving you isn’t hard, Cami. It’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done.”
Her breath hitched, the air between us shifting, trembling, then settling as her shoulders relaxed and the tension eased out of her body. I could feel the shift. She leaned in a little more, close enough that her breath warmed my collarbone, and I felt my chest tighten.
Desire thrummed through me, slow and deliberate. Not hunger, not heat, but something deeper. I wanted to learn her by touch, to prove to her she was more than the lies in her head. She wasn’t a dream. She was flesh and fire, solid and here.
I didn’t push, didn’t rush. I just sat there, my hand cradling her jaw, my thumb sweeping slow circles across her cheek. When she finally looked up, the uncertainty was gone. And when she kissed me slowly, searching, I knew this wasn’t just another night.