“She’s got her hands full trying to deal with Kade,” he said. He reached for the bottle of water the waiter had left at our table and refilled both of our glasses.
I already knew that, of course. It was the reason they’d given me when they’d turned down my dinner invitation the night I’d nearly burned Hunter’s new house to the ground, but there was no good reason I couldn’t help Hunter’s parents out. I could do that without getting too attached if that was what he was worried about. I took a sip, letting the thoughts swirl in my head in the same way the water was swirling in my mouth.
“Why couldn’t I give her a hand with him?”
Hunter’s head shot up. “I don’t want you having anything to do with my brother.” No upturned lip. He was dead serious and ready to snap.
This wasn’t going well.
I nearly shot something back at him, about him having made it abundantly clear that he didn’t want to share any part of his life with me, but he didn’t need to be such a grump about it, but I managed to bite down on my tongue instead. You win more flies with honey, I reminded myself, letting Mama’s words run over and over in my head.
“All right,” I said calmly. “But I’ve got to find something to do with myself or I’ll go crazy. If I’m not careful, I’ll be running to Lance and asking him what I should do.” I was used to always having something to do, even if that something was sitting still for an hour of airbrushing or whatever. All this idleness, where I didn’t have a specific time to be doing a specific thing, was getting to me.
He immediately softened, as though he’d remembered we were in public and supposed to be head-over-heels in love with each other. He reached across and caressed the back of my hand like a man utterly devoted to his wife, like he was completely wrapped around my little finger. If people could see the truth of things… “Do me a favor. Don’t go to Lance. I’m positive you can figure something out without resorting to that.”
“Glad one of us is so sure of that.” I made up my mind to come up with a plan, though, because whether I believed I could think of something to do with myself on my own or not, I didn’t want to take a step backward in my life. I’d finally gotten out from under Lance’s thumb. Now I had to figure out a way to
stay
out from under it. “Maybe I could get together with some of the guys’ wives?” I suggested. It couldn’t hurt to plant the thought in his mind, in case he didn’t remember what he’d told me before. “We could maybe—”
“Not yet,” he cut in. “Soon. I already told you I barely know any of these guys yet, let alone their wives. Half the team hasn’t even shown up in Tulsa. Once training camp starts, it’ll be easier to plan something along those lines. I’m sure Zee’s wife can introduce you around, show you the ropes.”
Zee was one of the guys on the team that Hunter already knew, but he hadn’t arrived yet. He apparently had toddlers, not kids old enough to go to school, so they didn’t need to be here until time for training camp to open.
I tried not to let my disappointment show since I expected people were watching us. And then I had to wonder—was he really keeping me from the other guys’ wives because of the reasons he’d told me, or was he just trying to shut me out of that part of his life? I honestly wasn’t sure at this point.
Hunter’s fingers teased the skin on my arm, and soon we fell into a conversation about a quirk Easton had of doing everything in sets of thirteen and whether that meant he was superstitious, a topic that was more in line with our body language than the earlier tension between us. We’d both realized that it was easier to act like lovebirds when we weren’t talking about things that made one or both of us uncomfortable. In no time, we were cozied up next to each other again, making sure everyone around us caught on to all the vibes we were giving off.
Those little touches were getting to be too much, particularly after what had happened that day on the beach. Hunter had never said another word about it, so I hadn’t either. If he’d had any interest in following through with what we’d started, he could have. That day was all it had taken to show me that, for him, the act we were putting on for the world was just an act. Nothing more. He didn’t want to be with me, and I wasn’t going to beg, no matter how desperate I was for him to do more than just touch me. I’d made it pretty clear where I stood on that matter that day on the beach; the ball was in his court now. Not only had he rejected my overtures when I’d made them, he hadn’t done a damn thing since.
It was good that the girls had introduced me to vibrators while I’d been in college, because every time Hunter got me all hot and bothered only to leave me to my own devices, I gave that baby a good workout. By the time we left the restaurant and headed for his car, his arm wrapped snug around my waist so that his scent was pouring over me in waves, I knew I needed to be sure that sucker was well charged tonight. I was going to need him once Hunter and I got home and we headed our separate ways.
The restaurant wasn’t far from home, so it didn’t take long before he had parked in the garage and we were heading inside. He held the door open for me, his arm up above for me to pass underneath. I accidentally brushed up against him as I entered the house, my bare shoulder gliding along the smooth fabric covering his chest muscles. The hint of his cologne tickled my nostrils.
“Sorry,” I murmured. I was way too attuned to him for my own good, but damn if I had a clue what to do about it.
I moved into the kitchen and set my purse down on the bar. When I turned around, Hunter was right there. In my space. Leaning in close to me, so near it startled me, and I backed up until my butt bumped into the counter.
“Why are you sorry? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.” He placed his hands on the edge of the counter on either side of me, and my pulse kicked into overdrive.
“I just… I don’t…” I couldn’t think straight.
His eyes roved over me, making me feel as if he were undressing me. Like he could see straight through my clothes. Straight through my skin, even.
I couldn’t look anywhere but at his mouth, a subconscious thing on my part because I was imagining those lips being on me like they hadn’t been since that afternoon in Maui. Not when we were alone, like this. Not when we weren’t putting on a show for whomever needed to see it.
He came a half step closer, so close he was practically inside me. “What do you want, Tallie?” he asked, his words coming out smooth and low.
I shook my head. I couldn’t bear to tell him what I wanted, because he didn’t want to hear it. If he wanted what I did, then he would have come to bed with me that day in Maui. He would have tried to get in my pants since we’d been back in Tulsa. He didn’t want what I did. Not a chance.
But he was still crowding into my space and making me want it more than I should, even though there was no one here to witness it.
“Tell me,” he said. “Or show me if you can’t.”
Instinctively, I put a hand on his chest. The pounding of his heart tattooed my fingertips, and his chest rose and fell at a rate almost as rapid as mine. Maybe I’d been wrong. But if I had been, why hadn’t he kissed me or touched me or taken me to bed in all this time? It didn’t make any sense.
He dropped his head down to me, and his lips pressed softly against mine. Too softly. It was just a whisper, light as a feather, just enough to make my body burn for more. I lifted up toward him, seeking more, but he moved on to kiss me with the same barely there brush of his lips on my chin, my cheek, my eyelid, the lobe of my ear, the fluttering pulse in my neck…so many places I couldn’t keep track of them, only wanting there to be more. I wanted him to lean into me, to press his length against me. I wanted to feel the weight of his body holding me in place.
But I couldn’t seem to ask for what I wanted or to grab hold of him and take it. I wanted these things, but the fear of repeated rejection kept me locked in a trance. If he wanted me, why wouldn’t he take what I had offered when we were on our honeymoon?
In my experience, when a man wanted something, he reached out and took it. That was what Leo Brunetti had done with me in Cancun. It was what I’d seen so many times with my sorority sisters. Their boyfriends just went for it, but Hunter wasn’t doing anything of the sort. His kisses were soft, gentle, almost apologetic. I didn’t understand him. I didn’t understand
this.
Not at all.
He backed away, his eyes glazed and his lips parted as he met my gaze. “Maybe there’s something to doing things in thirteens,” he said, his voice husky.
I shook my head, not following.
The corner of his lips quirked up in a grin. “Thirteen kisses.” He brushed a fingertip over each of the places he’d just kissed me, thirteen in all, his touch nothing more than a tickle.
I’d rather have thirteen kisses where he was ravaging me, plundering, taking as much as he gave.
He gave me a curious look, his brows furrowing together. “What’s going on in your head?”
“I want you to really kiss me,” I said before I could stop the words from coming out. I didn’t have a lot of pride, but asking him almost made me feel like I was begging, like I was desperate. I kind of was desperate, but that was beside the point. I didn’t want to come across as needy. Not when he didn’t want the same things I wanted, and when I wasn’t even sure I had a good grasp on that myself. Not when he could just walk away again.
“To really kiss you?” he repeated, his voice dropping down an octave.
I still had my hand on his chest, and I pressed my palm flat. His heart stuttered against my touch. I didn’t want to wait around for him to tell me no. Not again. That would be too humiliating to bear. I twisted his shirt in my fist, dragging him down to me.
A humming sound came from somewhere in his chest, and he slid his tongue along the seam of my lips. I opened readily, greedily, welcoming him in.
And then his hands weren’t on the edge of the counter anymore; they were on me. One went to cup my bottom and draw me closer. The other slipped up my side, teasing my rib cage with his fingers before trailing them over my breast.
I gasped for air, tossing my head back. His mouth went to the soft underside of my jaw. He nibbled, and I wrapped both arms around his neck and back, reeling him in. He was hard, his cock pulsing against my belly.
“Hunter,” I said, no longer caring that it sounded like I was begging. Because I was. And I was too needy to give a damn how pathetic it made me.
In a snap, he put both hands on my waist, lifted me up, and set me on the countertop. I opened my legs, and he moved between them. His heat melded with mine. He leaned over me, angling me back against the cool granite until I had to put my arms behind me and lock my elbows to hold myself up, or else I would be on my back.
But then again, that might not be so bad.
Hunter put just enough distance between us that he could look down at me. He slid a hand down the center of my chest, directly between my breasts, watching his progress. My heart was beating so hard I thought it might as well jump out of my body. There was no chance I’d be able to keep it contained inside me much longer. One at a time, he undid the buttons of my blouse. It fell open, slipping down my arms until it pooled on the countertop and my hands, leaving nothing but my bra between me and his gaze.
“Teal,” he murmured, outlining the edges of the silky fabric with his thumb.
“Lance always says it’s my color.” I wished I could take the words back as soon as they left my mouth.
Hunter’s gaze came back into focus, sharp as pinpricks, and he dropped his hands to his side. “Fuck, Tallie. I don’t want to hear his name when I’m touching you,” he ground out.
“I know.” I drew his hand up to cup me again, but he let it drop away. I didn’t want this to end just because I’d been stupid and stopped thinking. That response had popped into my head and out of my mouth in one fell swoop. I straightened myself briefly so I could reach behind my back and unclasp my bra, desperate to get the mood back to what it had been. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Forget I ever mentioned—”
Hunter’s cell beeped with a text message before I could finish what I was saying or release the hooks behind my back.
“Don’t,” I begged, reaching for his hand. “Check it later.”
But he dug his phone out of his pocket, releasing his hold on me. I glanced over as he checked the message. It was from John.
Kade’s back in the hospital. Camera crews everywhere. You’d better get over here, pronto.
Hunter tensed up so much I was tangled in his knot. “I’d better go deal with this.”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, already shrugging my shoulders back into my shirt. I knew Hunter didn’t want me to be involved with his family, but he needed someone there for him, whatever this latest issue might bring, and if anything was going to interrupt what we’d had going on just now, I wanted to be part of it.
“I’d rather you not get messed up with my asshole brother and all the shit he brings to the table.”
“I’ll just follow you to the hospital, so you might as well take me with you when you go,” I countered.
In the end, Hunter gave in. He was silent the whole way to the hospital. John and Darren met us at the door to the ER. Hunter said something quietly to the two brothers before heading through some double doors with Darren, leaving me behind with John. He glanced over his shoulder just before the two of them disappeared, his eyes imploring me.
Hunter’s agent filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee and brought it over, passing it to me. “He asked me to take you home.”
“I’m not going home.”
He winked. “That’s why I brought you the coffee.”
I laughed, which seemed like an insensitive thing to do at a time like this, but I couldn’t help it.
“He just doesn’t want you to get dragged down,” he said after I had taken a sip. “He wants to keep you out of it. To protect you.”
Could that really be what was behind the way he was treating me in regard to his family? Was he trying to protect me, to put bubble wrap around me and insulate me from the world? If so, I wished he would just tell me.