“You should be, too. It’s been a long night.” I wish I had taken more Tylenol; my hand’s starting to smart underneath the cast, but I try and use all sorts of techniques to block it off of my emotional landscape. Here, in his bed with him, I just want to feel good. Safe. Wanted.
Hunter’s quiet.
“I’m sorry I’m not sorry that I said those things to Alysha.” God, I can feel him grin in the dark. Matty’s steady breathing counts the time between answers. “Is that how it is between you two?”
Hunter clears his throat, his whisper even closer to me as he rustles the sheets and shifts closer. I tamp down a squeal of delight, and the urge to haul him closer so our bodies are pressed close.
“Aly and I have been off and on forever. I was with her when I was a kid, and she was the first person I told when I learned I had diabetes. I was seventeen at the time, and thought I was in love. She thought she could fuck me through it.”
A gurgle comes out of me, half-laugh, half-gasp.
“Yeah, baby.” He’s most definitely smiling now. “Aly’s M.O. is all about her and what she can get out of it. She doesn’t deal with my lows or my highs, or with Matty. She doesn’t deal with anything but her need to come.”
I turn red; my cheeks are burning. I think I’m going to go all Human Torch and flame on!
“Is that why she came to see you tonight? To get her fix?” Hunter MacLaine is a drug I could so get addicted to.
Hunt grunts in the darkness. “She just needed reminding it was over. That I’m not going to answer to her beck and call ever again, no matter how much manipulating she does.”
I’m pretty sure I’m glowing red right about now. “I don’t think you should be telling me this when Matty’s asleep between us, and we’re in your bed. I’m sure that’s not good parenting,” I whisper, settling myself deeper into his pillow. It’s all I can do to ignore the way my skin is tingling, the way my heart is racing in my chest.
“I really wish I could kiss you right now.”
Screeeeeech. My heart’s stopped beating.
“But you’re going to turn me down, again. I can hear it, those wheels spinning in your head. You don’t think I’m good enough.” I open my mouth to tell him I think no such fraking thing.“S’alright, I’ve got my dreams.”
I need a crash cart – Jesus, ventricular fibrillation! Somebody help me!
I pull in a breath, ease it out. “Thank you for taking me to the hospital, and thank you for hanging out with me. You didn’t have to, but you did. So, thanks.” The words seem inadequate, and I squirm to get into a better position. No matter what, my left arm’s gonna go numb.
“I figure we’re on even footing now. One trip to the hospital each.”
I don’t like what he’s saying – like he’s somehow less of a man for having diabetes, when he isn’t. Not to me.
My tongue comes unstuck. “You know that picture you drew of me?” Hunter grunts an affirmative. “You really see me like that?”
He turns his head towards me, a vague gray shape changing form in the darkness. “Baby, I did that from memory – it doesn’t do you justice. Not when I have the real thing right next to me, keeping me and Matty warm.”
“God, stop talking.” I close my eyes, and draw the covers over my head. Sensory. Overload. This beautiful man wants me!
“It’s torture not being able to touch you, to feel your skin under my hands. To taste your mouth, the hollow of your shoulder, the dent between your collarbones.”
I shiver under the covers, just stopping shy of covering my ears. I want to hear what he has to say, what he wants. I want it, too.
“I want to hear those noises you make when you read when I’m inside you. I can’t wait when those shirts of yours to be on my floor, right before I take you to my bed. I want you, Sera.”
I peek out of the covers for some much needed oxygen. His big body is another shade of gray in the darkness, but it’s there, ominous, alive, and all mine if I just step forward and take what I want.
Can I do that?
Can I?
“Fuck, baby. Do you think you could want me back?”
I didn’t sleep at all last night. His perfect words ricocheted around my skull, playing back at me at different angles, echoing and going on forever. Every time I shut my eyes, they were there – taunting me, telling me to do what he said – to be brave and want him back. To show him that I want him.
Coward as I am, I couldn’t move, or do anything to show him I’m ready to be with him in that way. I just stayed in bed, opposite him and Matty and pretended to fall asleep. I couldn’t even answer him when he said those words.