I clear my throat and croak, “He says he didn’t.” I sniff, move a hand out of her grip to wipe my face. “He says he loves me.”
Katie is quiet for some time, and the warmth in her eyes dissolves into a hard glare.
“And why don’t you believe him?”
“About which part?”
“About fucking all of it! Why are you sitting here crying your eyes out for no bloody reason!?”
I rear back from the anger in her voice. I didn’t do anything wrong.
“When people say I love you, they generally mean it. When I tell you I love you, you believe it, right?” She’s so agitated, she stands up and starts pacing back and forth in front of my stall.
I nod.
She throws her arms out palms up. “Well, what then? How come you don’t believe Hunter loves you? I swear to God, if you even attempt to throw the fat card right now, this stiletto is going so far up your ass, you’ll be admiring them from a much closer vantage point!” She growls, panting as she looks at me with fire in her eyes.
I clench my teeth together. I don’t fraking deserve this attitude. I stand, walking towards her with an index finger pointed out like a weapon.
“Watch yourself. I didn’t do anything wrong! He cheated on me!” I’m just trying to make a point. “Besides, he stayed with her after the fact! He didn’t come after me!”
“He said he didn’t on you.” She clutches her head like she can’t believe what’s coming out of my mouth. “I believe him. He knows what he has with you, why would he go and ruin that?”
“Maybe ‘cause I didn’t spread my legs fast enough!”
Her mouth firms up and her nostrils flare as she breathes in deep through her nose. She looks like a bull about to skewer me for kicks and giggles.
“Even better! Goddamn it, Sera, he cares about you, don’t you see? For being so smart, you don’t do good with deductive reasoning, huh?”
“Now is not the time to compare me to Sherlock Holmes.”
Katie shakes her head and the way her mouth twitches, she’s so fighting a grin.
“Do you really want to risk the chance of ruining what you guys have because some bitch drove him to the hospital?”
My breath hitches. I will not cry. No, not me. “How can I trust him ever again?” That’s not the real question, Delos, and you know it. Stop making excuses.
Katie shakes her head. “Did you forgive that shit-head Russia?”
“That’s different and you know it!”
She looks up the ceiling for guidance. “We both know he’s going to be a dick in the near future, and open his stupid ass mouth and spout shit. We know this, and yet, we all still love him. And you forgave him, even when he lies about telling you he’d never do it again.”
I yoga deep-breathe.
“Now, you have this guy who begged me to set this up, knowing full well that our friends would maul his ass if he fucked up. Hunter could be fighting to the death right now for all I know.” She flashes me a bloodthirsty grin. “All so he could apologize for his behavior and explain to you how he didn’t fucking touch that slore for anything. And then, he tells you he loves you. I mean, how thick are you?”
“People say shit they don’t mean all the time,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Am I lying to you?”
I frown, and stare at her. “No,” I say, not sure where she’s going with this.
“Have any of the guys ever lied to you? Forget your family for a second, we know they’re assholes.”
“No?”
“Say it like you mean it. Jesus.”
I clear my throat, ignoring the way the beat of my heart has sped up. “No.”
“Sherlock it out, sweetie.” She says softly. “I’ve never seen you so happy, Sera. Ever. That man and his son put that smile on your face. Don’t you think you should try and keep that, no matter what?”
I put my face in my hands, shaking my head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know anymore. I’m scared, I’m so so scared. I… I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I want to feel good.”
Katie pulls my hands away from my face. “How can you appreciate the good if you’ve never had the bad? You know what your life is like without him, and you prefer it with him and Matty, right? Then my vote is you believe him and try to work it out.”
Katie snickers. “Who knows? Maybe this time next year, we’ll be having this kind of party for you and Hunter.”
***
Hunter left. I don’t know why that pisses me off so much, but it does. Like, couldn’t he have even said goodbye? After all the ‘I love you’s’ I think I deserved a fraking goodbye. At least.
I don’t want to be here anymore. I don’t want all the guys to ask me if I’m alright and then show off how much testosterone they have by inventing gruesome methods of torture for Hunter. I just want to go home, put on some sweats and go to sleep for days.
I beg Katie to take me home, and she relents, vowing that she’s going to try and convince me of Hunter’s innocence the whole ride home. By the time I get to my door and unlock it, my ears are ringing and I have a supreme headache. My eyelids are heavy and my eyes feel like I’ve face-planted onto a beach. My bed is calling me with sweet lullabies, and my feet are killing me.
Before I get the door open, I look to my right at Hunter’s door. Dare I?
Not giving myself time to think, I rush over to his door and knock, heart racing in my chest, blood pounding in my ears. If this keeps up, I’m going to pass out before he even opens the door.
But it’s like he was waiting just behind it, waiting for me to get home, the door opens so fast. And there he is, my Hunter, standing in the doorway, still wearing his suit and looking at me like I’ve created a miracle before his eyes.
I pull in air like I’m on the verge of drowning and let him pull me into his apartment. Action is good. I don’t want to think. I want to do. I stumble forward in my heels, hitting his chest while he wraps his arms around me. He’s shaking and I know I did the right thing by coming over here.
Words surface in my memories, and I decide to put them to the test.
“Kiss me, Hunter. Kiss me like I’m the only you’ll ever want.”
His hands come up to palm my cheeks as he tilts my face upwards and kisses me. Long and deep, with sweeps of tongue and nibbling and sucking. God, I missed him so much. My hands are somehow on his head, scraping through his scalp, his hair tickling my palms. His hands move to my lower back, one palming my left cheek.
I need more, I need more of him.
He licks at my mouth, tasting every corner of me, making me dizzy as all I can do is feel. He possesses me in the way his mouth molds over mine, as he shapes my lips, tasting and learning every inch of me.
His arms become bands of steel at my lower back, pressing us closer together, so I can feel all the hard ridges of his muscles, his hips, him, and all the softness that is me crushed up against his big body.
Hunter pulls away and lets me catch my breath. For a second, I don’t know where I am, what day it is.
“I love you,” he whispers, kissing the corner of my mouth. “I love you.” A kiss to my cheek bone. “I love you,” he ghosts another kiss right below my ear, making my whole body erupt in shivers and goosebumps.
“I know you didn’t cheat on me. I… I guess I used it as an excuse. This whole time we were together… I thought it was too good to be true, you know? That I was going to mess it up and you’d leave me.” I read for his arm, sneaking my hand underneath his shirt and suit jacket until I touch his skin. “We’re all self-fulfilling prophecies. I’m sorry, too. I’m going to need to get used to this, to us. It’s your turn not to give up on me, okay?”
“Thank you, baby,” he smiles, and it’s a real smile, like he’s truly happy. Warmth hits my chest in a glow that has me feeling like I’m going to burst at the seams. I put that smile there. Like magic. Harry Potter’s got nothing on me.
I kiss him, gasping when he uses
his arms at my lower back to lift me clear off my feet so we’re the same height. That shouldn’t be hot, him being able to lift me. It shouldn’t be hot the way he rumbles in his chest, like a lion purring.
I’m on fire, and I need to burn him for it to leave me.
“Come with me,” he says, pulling away and grabbing my hand. I follow him blindly into his room, wait for him to turn the light on. I can’t stop staring at the bed. I mean, it’s a bed. A mattress. With springs and stuff that gives you lumbar support and whatever to sleep on. I don’t intend to sleep.
“We go as far as you want, baby.”
I want to ask him who he’s been talking to but find my mouth opening to give out orders. “I want you to lie down, right here, next to me.” When he lies down, my brain gets in gear. “Where’s Matty?”
Hunter snickers and kisses the corner of my mouth, like I’m being cute. “At my mom’s. We’re alone tonight.”
I refuse to gulp like I’m in major trouble. When I expect him to take over and start kissing the life out of me, he just settles on his side and brings me close so that we’re face to face. He looks at me for a long time.
“I swear I’ll never hurt you again.” He moves the bulk of my hair over my shoulder, exposing the skin of my throat. He leans in and kisses me, the softest grazing of his lips. The feeling is bliss and torture mixed together. My body is made of electricity dancing along my skin, along my insides as I feel myself needing him, wanting him like I’ve never wanted anyone before.
When he reaches that spot just below my ear, I shiver hard enough for him to be dislodged and hear his chuckle as he nuzzles my neck. “Fuck, everything you do gets me hard.”
I’m astonished that I can do that – make him hard, by really doing nothing at all. “I didn’t even do anything.”
Hunter doesn’t answer because he’s kissing me, and I’m kissing him back and it’s never been this good, this desperate. I become acutely aware that I can do this; I can give him my virginity.
When my arms go around his neck and I crush myself to him, Hunter rolls us so I’m on my back and he’s got one thigh between my legs, pinning the skirt of my dress to the bed underneath his weight. I feel him, hard through his pants, resting against my hip, and I want him, I need him inside me.
One of his hands goes to the base of my throat, the drum of my pulse beating against his fingers as I slowly become wild with lust. I tug at the shoulders of his suit, unwilling to move my mouth from his to tell him to take it off.
Hunter pulls himself from me, struggling with his suit jacket, trying to take it off before tossing it to the ground. Panting and up on his knees he looks down at me like he can’t believe his luck, like he can’t believe I’m real.
“I... I did something dumb. Or genius.” he says, going for the buttons of his shirt. He looks down at the buttons and chuckles, but in the light I can tell he’s blushing. Hunter MacLaine is blushing. Oh, wow.
“I was hoping you’d be in my bed tonight, so I needed some extra insurance. It just seems really stupid now, like you’d really go for it...”
I don’t even care what he’s saying, I’m completely fascinated by what his fingers are showing me as he undoes button after button. I don’t see any slice of skin, but rather, another shirt underneath...
Oh, God. Fuck.
My Loki panties are soaked, and I can’t help but moan as he spreads his half-opened shirt and reveals what’s underneath. My breath comes in little hitches and I’m aching for him, body on fire at what I see.
Hunter MacLaine is spreading his shirt open while he’s wearing another shirt underneath. Not just any shirt... a Superman shirt, like he’s the Man of Steel ready to take off his Clark Kent disguise and go save Metropolis.
I squeeze my thighs together, hands going to my mouth as I moan.
“Oh my God. Oh, God. Hunt-Hunter. What?” I somehow get on my knees and practically slam into him, shoving my tongue into his mouth and rubbing my body all over him. He laughs at me between kisses, and sweeps of tongue.
“Fuck, baby, if I knew it would get you this excited-”
“No more talking. No! Don’t take off the shirt!” My hands go to his as he tries to reach behind him to yank them both off with one go. “I want it on,” I pant, wrapping my hands around his wrists.
This is a problem. I want to touch him all over. I want to glide my hands over his thick muscles, over the ridges on his ribs, and the shallow dips of his abs. This is too good to pass up. I can always touch later.
Hunter takes control again, kissing me while his hands go to my back and on the tab of my zipper. I can’t help my reaction to freeze and want to push him away. The only person who has ever seen me naked is me, and I haven’t been very nice to myself.
“I need to tell you something,” I mumble against his mouth, having missed this contact so much. “Hunter?”
He’s not paying attention and all of mine has zeroed in on the lowering of my zipper from the top of my spine to just above the waistband of my Loki panties. Shit. He’s going to see them.
Hunter pulls away from me, staring. His mouth is wet from me, open as he tries to catch his breath. Every time his chest expands for air, it brushes against my aching nipples and I need more, more, more.
“We’re going to do this slow, baby.” His hands have stopped moving. Why have they stopped moving? “If I do anything you don’t like, you just have to tell me, yeah? Anything at all, and I’ll stop. Swear to God.”
My throat’s too tight to speak, my heart drumming hard in my chest cavity. This is it. There’s too much to process, but everything feels too good to stop. I’m terrified and elated; I’m crippled with nerves and high on his kiss all at the same time.
I should tell him. I should tell him right now.
“I’m a virgin.” I wince at the sound of my voice barely above a whisper. I set my shoulders and give him a glare. “I’m a virgin,” I say, more loudly now.
Frak. The man has turned into a statue while I’m about to burst into flame with my need for him. Say something. Anything. If you stop this, I’m going to claw your eyes out.
His body relaxes, and he comes close to touch his mouth to mine. I don’t understand what just happened.
“Just when I thought I couldn’t love you anymore.”
I snort as my cheeks start to burn. “It’s a piece of skin. Don’t go getting a big head.”
His grin is dark and wicked and promises a whole bunch of things I’m dying to try out. “No, stupid. That you’re giving me this, that you told me when I already guessed at it. That you’re here with me even though I’m sure you’re freaking out if the way your eyebrows are popped high is any indication.”
I groan. Of course he knew. “Well, I was never going to be a spy anyway. Less talking. More doing.”
Hunter pulls in a breath through his nose, kisses me softly, achingly slow so that it feels like it’s travelled to my heart and sews itself there as a memory.
“I’m going to take care of you. Do you believe me?”
I gulp and nod once, twice. I can do this. Fraking sixteen year old little prosti-tots can do it, then so can I, damn it.
I jump when the pads of his fingers skim the exposed flesh of my back through the gaping material of my dress. They travel up, up, up until one hand lands on each shoulder, dragging the back of my dress with it.
Okay, he’s undressing me. C’mon, Sera, move your arms.
I’m sorta naked from the waist up, in just my black bra in front of him. Hunter’s blue eyes go from my face, to my chest, and back again. Ever so slowly, he moves forward and gets his hands behind me, going for the clasp of my bra.
I think I forgot to breathe and now spots are dancing in front of my eyes.
“Breathe, baby. I just want to see you. I’ve been dying to see you for so long.”
I suck in air, and let it out slowly, trying not to shake with my nerves, telling my body to stay fraking still.
Cold air sweeps across my skin,
and my nipples tingle. I swallow convulsively, watching his face as he stares at me.
Hunter groans as he drags my bra down one arm, then the other, tossing it to the ground in the direction of his suit jacket. I’m completely bared to him from the waist up. He’s looking at me like I’m some sort of goddess that has fallen on the Earth to make him a happy man.
I want to cover myself, but I check the spasm in my muscles and just let him look.
My body is a raging inferno, and I feel myself dampening my panties even more as he just looks at me with hunger in his eyes. Hunter MacLaine wants me and it’s the most beautiful his face has ever looked.
“You’re going to have to stand for me, Sera.” My hands are in his and he’s pulling me up to stand, right next to his big bed. Letting go of me, he steps closer and pushes the material over my hips and watches as I wiggle until my dress falls to the floor with a small thump. “Fuck. Just look at you.”
Hunter pulls me toward the center of his room with enough floor space all around. I tremble as I feel him make a circle around me, when I’m dying, dying for his touch and to help me to stop over-thinking everything.
I hold my hands in front of me, and keep my gaze trained on the far wall where all his beautiful drawings are plastered to. God, I need him to touch me, to kiss me, to lick me. I need it all, and I can’t wait anymore.
I feel his heat at my back, his hands coming to rest at my hips. I can feel his pants and shirt on my exposed skin, rasping against the nerves that I feel in my sex. Oh, God. I want to rub myself all over him like a kitten, but the hard grip he has on my hips won’t let me move. I can’t help my moan.
“What’s this?” One of Hunter’s hands skims over the generous globes of my ass, sweeping right over the material of my Loki panties.
Oh, oh, fuck. My Loki panties. The ones that say: ‘Kneel before me’. Oh, no. Oh, yes!
I clear my throat, but my voice still comes out in a squeak. “My nerdy underwear.”
I’m spun around, try to get my bearings before the world disappeared in a blur. Facing Hunter now, I clutch his biceps over his dress shirt, and stare at the S on his chest. I bite my lip to keep from moaning again. I can’t help the way my nipples tighten into hard points are the way I ache for him.