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.”