22. Hunter
Hunter
It was one in the morning when the apartment door banged open — she always banged the door, she'd never learned to close anything quietly in her life — and her voice arrived before the rest of her.
"The numbers are in. The fair grossed forty-two percent above last year. Forty-two percent, Hunt. The sponsors are already confirmed for next year. The county commissioner used the word exceptional, and I don't think he's used that word since the Reagan administration."
She dropped her bag on the chair. Tossed her heels to the floor.
Her dress flowed with her as she crossed the kitchen in bare feet, opened the fridge, pulled out the orange juice, and drank straight from the carton — something she'd started doing in week two and that I'd stopped pretending bothered me in week three.
I put two plates of leftovers from the gala on the counter.
She took them to the couch. I followed. She slung her legs over my lap and kept talking while her hands carved the air.
Her accent dropping in on exceptional and county and commissioner.
Her cheeks flushed. Her eyes bright. She said next year.
Then she said it again. And a third time — next year, next year, next year — and the words landed in me one after another.
My hand tightened on my fork, and my jaw ached, trying to force the words building up in me down.
She kept talking, oblivious to it, and her face didn't change, and something I couldn't look at directly was pressing inward.
She looked up. Caught me. "You're staring."
I smirked. “What are you gonna do about it, sweetheart?”
Her lips parted. She set the plate on the coffee table. Her eyes held mine — dark, warm. Her tongue touched her lower lip. The lamp hummed. The room was still.
“It’s later,” she rasped.
I cocked my head. “Is it?”
Her legs swung off my lap, and she shifted — not away, toward.
She swung one leg across and straddled me on the couch, her knees on either side of my hips, her hands landing on my chest. The weight of her settled into my lap.
This was how I was meant to exist — holding her.
My hands found her thighs — bare, warm, the muscles tensing under my palms.
She leaned in. Her mouth found my jaw. Slow.
Her lips dragging along the bone — from my chin to the hinge, her breath warm against my skin, her teeth grazing the spot below my ear.
“Yeah, it is,” she whispered against my skin.
My hands tightened on her thighs. My hips shifted under her. She smiled against my neck.
Her fingers found the hem of my shirt. Pulled it up.
Over my ribs, my chest, my shoulders. I lifted my arms, and she dragged it over my head and tossed it.
Her eyes moved down my bare chest, and her hands followed — her palms flat, dragging from my collarbones to my stomach, her fingers tracing the lines of muscle, her thumbs finding my hip bones above the waistband of my jeans.
"Keep your hands to yourself."
Her voice was low. Her eyes on mine. Her hips pressed down against me, and I groaned. My cock was already hard underneath her, and the pressure of her weight on it made my jaw clench, and my hands grip the couch cushion.
"Jess —"
"Hands. To. Yourself."
My fingers dug into the cushion. She grinned.
Her hand slid down my stomach. Found the waistband of my sweats.
Her fingers slid inside — warm, sure, wrapping around me through the cotton of my boxers.
My hips bucked, and a sound came out of me that wasn't dignified, but I didn’t care.
Like hell I wasn’t going to let her know how fucking good she made me feel.
She pulled me free. Her hand wrapped around my cock. My stomach clenched. My knuckles went white on the cushion. She stroked — slow, base to tip, her grip tightening on the upstroke, her thumb circling the head on each pass. My head fell back against the couch. My breathing was already wrecked.
She slid off my lap. Down to her knees between my legs.
Her hands on my thighs. Her face level with my cock and her eyes looking up at me.
The sight of her on her knees with that look on her face — dark, hungry, pleased with herself — made my balls tighten, and my hands grip the cushion hard enough that the seam bit into my fingers.
Her mouth closed around me, and I nearly lost it.
Warm. Wet. Her lips sliding down the length — slow, taking me deep, her tongue pressing flat against the underside.
She pulled back to the tip. Her tongue circled the head.
She took me deep again — deeper, her throat opening, the hot wet pressure making my vision blur and my hips push forward.
Her hand wrapped around the base and worked what her mouth couldn't reach, and the dual sensation — her mouth and her hand moving together — was pulling me toward the edge faster than I wanted to go.
My cock throbbed in her mouth, and the heat was building at the base of my spine, and I was close. Too close. Her mouth was too good, and if she kept going, I was going to come in the next thirty seconds, but I didn’t want to be finished with her.
I reached down. My hand found the back of her head. My fingers slid into her hair — not pulling, guiding. I eased her off. She looked up at me — her lips wet, her eyes bright, a strand of saliva connecting her lower lip to the tip of my cock.
"Get up."
"I was busy."
"Get up, Jess.” I left no room for discussion.
I pulled her to her feet. Her grin was wide and satisfied, and I kissed it off her mouth — hard, deep, my hands tugged at the zipper of her dress, and it pooled at her feet.
I walked her to the bed, popping her bra off and sending her panties to her feet as we went.
Turned her. Her knees hit the mattress, and she fell back.
I followed her down, and her legs opened around me, and her arms reached for my shoulders.
Her hands. Everywhere again. My chest. My neck. My hair. Pulling, grabbing, trying to take the wheel.
I grabbed the t-shirt off the floor. The one she'd pulled off me on the couch.
Her eyes widened. "What are you —"
I caught both her wrists. Lifted them above her head.
Wrapped the t-shirt around them — twice, firm, the cotton soft against her skin, but the knot tight — and looped it through the headboard slat.
Her arms stretched above her. Her fingers flexed.
She pulled — testing, the fabric holding, the headboard creaking once.
She was heaving for breath. Her eyes were wide and dark and locked on mine. Her lips were parted. Her body was stretched out beneath me — arms above her head, breasts bare, her stomach rising and falling with each breath, her legs open.
"Hunt." Her voice was rough. Shaking. Not with fear. "Oh my God."
"Too much?"
"Don't you dare stop."
I didn't stop.
I kissed down her body, starting at her throat. Her head tipped back. The t-shirt pulled taut above her, and her fingers gripped the fabric, and her back arched off the mattress.
Then her breasts. My mouth closed around one nipple, my hand toyed with the other. A sharp cry tore from her throat. When I switched, the headboard creaked as her arms strained.
I kissed down her ribs, her stomach, and hips.
She whimpered when my tongue slid along the crease where her thigh met her body.
Her hips chased after my mouth when my breath drifted across the heat between her legs.
I pressed them down with one hand. Flat on her stomach. Holding her against the mattress.
She whimpered. “Hunt, please. I need…”
My mouth found her inner thigh. Kissed the soft skin.
Slow. Moved higher — my lips dragging, my tongue tracing.
Closer. Her legs trembled. Her breathing became ragged.
My mouth was an inch from where she needed it, and I held there.
My breath warm against her clit, but not touching.
Her hips strained against my hand. The headboard creaked so loud I thought she was going to pull the slat loose.
I gave her one stroke. My tongue flat against her clit. She moaned loud and long, heavy with relief.
Then I pulled back.
A sound came from her throat that was half moan and half sob. “Hunter, you can't — please.”
I kissed back up her hip to her ribs, then her breast while she begged me, voice cracking, to put my head back between her legs. To do something.
My tongue circled her nipple while my hand slid between her legs.
My fingers ghosted through the slick heat, barely touching, the contact light enough to make her body chase my hand without getting what it needed.
She was soaked. My fingers slid into her with no resistance.
Her hips rolled into my hand, her moans were desperate.
and I took her to the edge only to pull her back another four times before she completely lost it.
“If you don’t fuck me in the next —“
“What, baby?” I cut her off, let my lips graze her ear as I said, “What are you gonna do about it?”
“Please,” she sobbed. "Please, I need to come. Please let me come.”
I slid two fingers back inside her. Deep.
Curled. Added a third. Found the spot that ruined her and pressed.
Her whole body jerked against the t-shirt.
I added my thumb on her clit — circling, the pressure firm — and my mouth found her nipple, and the triple contact hit her like a current.
Her back arched. Her thighs clamped around my hand. The headboard slammed against the wall.