It felt like he wanted to swallow me whole, and in that moment, I would have let him. My breasts were crushed to his chest, and a heartbeat raged out of control—only I wasn’t sure if it was my own or his. Jesus, where does a man learn to kiss like this?
I was breathless and stunned when our kiss broke. Hunter sucked on my bottom lip, tugging it before releasing my mouth.
His voice was strained. “Change your flight. We’re not done here.”
I swallowed, trying to gain some composure. “I can’t.” My voice was barely a whisper. It was all I could muster.
“Can’t or don’t want to?”
“Can’t. Izzy comes home today.”
Hunter pulled his head back, giving me some room to breathe, some room to speak. “Izzy?”
“My stepdaughter who hates my guts.”
Chapter 4
Hunter
12 years ago
Damn. I’m going to the wrong school.
It was the hottest day I could remember. The car radio said it was already a hundred and four out, but it was the unusual humidity in Los Angeles that made it unbearable. Since I was a few hours early to meet my brother and didn’t know my way around his campus, I took a seat on a brick staircase across from a fountain in a wide-open field, hoping to catch a breeze. That breeze didn’t show, but something a fuck of a lot better did. The most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen walked up to the circular fountain a hundred feet away, slipped off her shoes, stepped up on the ledge, and jumped into the thing. She dove under and came up for air, pushing her soaked blond hair off her face.
People passing by glanced over at her, but she didn’t seem to notice or care one bit. She floated on her back in what was probably only two feet of water. The smile on her face was contagious, and I found myself mesmerized watching her. It had been almost a month since my mother died, and feeling that happy and free seemed like a lifetime ago.
After a few minutes, the girl sat up and looked in my direction. “Are you gonna join me, or are you just gonna watch from over there like a creeper?”
I looked around to make sure she was talking to me. No one else was in the vicinity. So I got up and walked over to the fountain.
“Is this some sort of a sorority-initiation thing?”
She smiled. “Will it make you feel better if I say yes? Because you were looking at me like I was a weirdo from back there.”
“I wasn’t looking at you like you were a weirdo.”
“It looked that way to me.”
I kicked off my shoes and climbed into the fountain. “I was looking at you wondering if you always smile this way or if cooling off just really made you happy.”
She tilted her head to the side, studying me. “What’s not to be happy about? We’re alive, aren’t we?”
The cool water felt damn good. We floated around in silence for a while, smiling each time one of us caught the other looking.
“I’m Summer,” she said.
“Hunter.”
“Do you like the heat?”
“Not like this.”
“What’s your favorite season, Hunter?”
I smirked. “Summer.”
She paddled over to the edge of the fountain and leaned her elbows on the brick, watching the never-ending spray of water in the center. I followed suit, positioning myself next to her and trying not to stare down at her nipples protruding through her wet T-shirt. It wasn’t an easy task.
Summer turned to look at me. “Do you go to school here?”
“No. My brother does. Came for the weekend for a visit. How about you? You go to school here or just come to cool off in the fountain?”
Her smile was as blinding as the sun. “I go here. Art major.”
She pushed off the ledge and swam to the other side of the fountain. I watched, intrigued by the randomness of her actions. Once she settled again, she cupped both sides of her mouth to yell to me, even though the fountain wasn’t that big. “Truth or dare?”
This girl was bizarre. And gorgeous. Who knew bizarrely gorgeous could be such a damn sexy combination.
“Truth,” I yelled back.
Her face scrunched in the cutest fucking way while she tapped her finger to her chin. When she figured out what she was going to ask, her face lit up so bright the only thing missing was a bubble over her head with a light bulb. I chuckled to myself.
“What’s the one thing you’re most afraid of?” she yelled.
The normal answer would have been death, considering I’d recently lost my mother. Or maybe I should’ve given a generic answer like spiders, or heights. But instead, I did what always got me into trouble—answering with unfiltered honesty.
“You breaking my heart.”