Bury the Hatchet (25 page)

I shook my head. “Never mind. Not now.” Then I kissed her, hard and fast, before rolling myself away from her so I could shed the last of my clothes.

Single-minded dumbass that I was, I only realized I didn’t have any protection when I reached for the drawer in my nightstand, where—before I’d been married and under the impression that I wouldn’t be getting laid for a year—I would have kept at least a small supply of condoms. There wasn’t any point in opening the drawer, though. I knew I hadn’t bothered to buy anything since I’d arrived in Tulsa. What was the point? If I wasn’t fucking Tallie, then I wasn’t going to be fucking anyone. That much had been made clear early on.

I groaned, flopping back on the bed.

She crawled over, following me, immediately reaching for my cock with her right hand. Her fingers closed around me, and my hips responded, driving up into her grip.

“Tallie,” I warned.

“What?” Again, with the batting lashes.

“You’re playing with fire, baby.”

She slid her hand up and down my length. “Silly me. I thought I was playing with you.”

I reached for her, drew her in to place a kiss on her forehead even as I groaned. “I don’t have any condoms.”

“We were both tested before we got married,” she said matter-of-factly. “Couldn’t get the license otherwise, silly. And we both know that neither of us has been with anyone else since then.”

“But you could get pregnant.”

She licked her lips in concentration, pumping me with a fierce determination I’d rarely seen in her. “On the pill.”

“The pill doesn’t always work.”

“Neither do condoms.” She propped herself up with her free arm, leaning over me. Then she licked a circle around my nipple like I’d done to her earlier, drawing back to blow cool air over the wetness.

That was almost too much for me. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, focusing as hard as I could on holding back my orgasm. Although, I couldn’t quite figure out why. I mean, if I wasn’t going to fuck her, then I might as well come from a hand job, especially one delivered so sweetly.

I didn’t want to blow my load like this, though. I wanted to be inside her just as badly as she wanted it, but one of us had to be reasonable about this, think things through with a clear head. The head on my shoulders. Not the one being driven to the point of no return in her small-but-untiring hand.

I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to focus so I could think.

Tallie took that opportunity to straddle me.

“What are you doing?” My eyes popped open, and I stared at her. She stared back, until I finally gave a slow nod.

She lowered herself onto me, using that same hand to guide me inside. She was so wet that I just slipped right in, balls deep, despite the fact that she fit me like a glove. I could feel…everything. I’d never, not once in my life, done the deed without a condom. Never felt this sort of skin-to-skin contact, her slickness blanketing me. It felt like heaven.

“So good,” she said, putting her hand on my chest to steady herself as she rose again.

And then I was lost.

She lifted off me, dropped down to grind against me. I reached for her waist and hips, helping her balance as she rode me like she was made to be in my saddle. It wasn’t long before she tossed her head back, increasing her pace. Since I was holding on to her, she lifted her hands and teased her breasts, making the sweetest sounds of pleasure I’d ever heard.

And she clamped down on me, her pussy clenching with the beginnings of another orgasm. That was it. I couldn’t hold out any longer. I held her tight and drove up into her, hard and fast, listening as her sexy sounds turned to shouts. Or maybe I was shouting, my sounds matching the frenzied need of my body as I shot my load inside her.

She collapsed against me, her face turned to mine with the cutest smile on her lips. I brushed her hair out of her eyes so I could see all of her face. But then I couldn’t seem to stop myself from stroking her hair, easing my fingers through the tangled strands and working out the knots.

I did the same with my other hand, stroking her back. Her ass. Her thighs. She lay there, boneless, letting me do as I would.

So I did. I kept touching her, holding her, caressing her, until I recognized my mistake. I shouldn’t be doing this, because if I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall for her. That went against everything we’d agreed upon from the outset. But I couldn’t seem to make myself stop, and she sure as hell wasn’t doing anything about it.

Before I knew it, she was asleep in my arms, and I’d be damned if I wanted things to be any other way.

LIFE WITH HUNTER
took a sharp and decided turn after that, much as we’d known it would. Whatever our relationship was morphing into, we weren’t just roommates putting on a show for the media anymore. Kissing and touching each other no longer had to stop the second we were in private. A whole new world was open to us now, but I still wasn’t sure how that was going to work itself out. I doubted he had a true sense of where our relationship was heading, either.

Did he think what we’d shared was meant to be for one night only? It was a hell of a single night, if that was where he stood on the matter. I’d lost count of how many times he’d brought me to ecstasy. Throughout the night, we had dozed for a while and then had sex for a while before dozing some more. We’d been wrapped up in each other all night long, unable to untangle our limbs for more than brief spurts. If he got it in his head that he wanted to end the physical side of our relationship and go back to how things had been before, I was going to have a hard time coming to grips with it.

When we got up in the morning, he showered and got ready for practice while I fixed him some breakfast. Fruit and oatmeal—not something I could screw up and not something that would require much use of my hand, which was a heck of a lot more sensitive now than it had been last night. Adrenaline? Or maybe sex endorphins. Either way, I needed more of it today, please and thanks. The whole time I worked on putting together Hunter’s breakfast, I worried about what last night would mean for us in the long run. Was he starting to feel for me the way I felt for him? Should I dare to ask?

He came into the kitchen and fixed a cup of coffee before kissing me on the cheek. He smelled good enough to eat, the scent of the coffee combining with the scent that was purely
him
, and I fought to keep my composure.

Then he sat down on one of the chairs across the bar and settled in to eat. “Forgot to tell you last night, with everything going on. We’ve got our first preseason game tonight, if you want to come.”

My heart fluttered to life. “Really?” This would be the first time he’d included me in anything to do with his professional life, and it sounded as if it was voluntary on his part.

“Yeah. I’ll take you in early and introduce you to Dana Zellinger. She can help you get settled.”

“I’d like that.” I’d like it more than I could ever hope to explain. There was a sense of nervous excitement bubbling up within me.

He took a bite of his banana, chewing it with pensive eyes on me. “And there’s an Ice Breaker event on Thursday afternoon. First time the team is getting out with the public, letting them see who we are. They want me to bring you, so I hope you’re not busy.”

I deflated slightly at that. For one thing, pointing out that the team wanted me to be present meant Hunter wasn’t on board with it, or at the very least, it hadn’t been his idea. For another, I’d been planning to spend time with Kade at Horizons every afternoon, even though I knew neither Hunter nor Kade was particularly keen on the idea. If I went to the Ice Breaker, I wouldn’t be able to go on Thursday. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for me to skip the one visit. Besides, that would be a great opportunity for me and Hunter to be seen together by those who mattered, other than just dinners out and things of that nature, which was probably why the team had suggested he bring me.

I skimmed my fingers over the smooth granite countertop, tracing the lines I found while I screwed up my courage. “Do
you
want me to be there?”

He set the banana on a plate, covering my hand with his and stopping me from my continual nervous outlining of the patterns in the stone.

I flashed my eyes up to meet his. Green. Heated. Piercing. He could melt me with nothing more than a look.

“I think after last night, you should realize I like being with you,” he said.

I flushed, lips parted, and my palms got all sweaty. How could he do that to me with nothing more than a few words and a sexy look? But I nodded. “I like being with you, too,” I said shyly. “Of course I’ll come. Whatever you need me to do.”

A slight scowl brought a crease between his brows, but it was gone before I could comment on it. He finished his breakfast, and I went off to shower—a slow process due to needing to change the bandage on my hand. By the time I was dressed, he had left for practice.

I intended to visit Kade this afternoon, and then tonight I’d be going to the game, but I still had hours to kill before either of those things came to pass. Instead of hitting the gym, since I didn’t want to aggravate the burn on my hand, I went for a jog through the neighborhood, which necessitated another shower and change once I got home. Then I didn’t know what to do with myself. At least not at first.

I pulled out my phone and tooled around, checking my email and playing a few rounds of Bejeweled Blitz before an idea came me. Then I started Googling everything I could about cooking classes in the area. A few clicks later, I found one that sounded promising and called to sign up, but the classes wouldn’t start until next week. In one sense, that was good because it would give my hand time to heal. In another sense, it was bad because it meant I had another week of mornings to fill and no good idea what to do with them.

I kept coming back to Kade, though. Hunter had his reasons for not wanting to be too involved with his brother, and I absolutely respected that. Maybe he was right, and there wasn’t any hope for Kade’s recovery. I wasn’t sure I believed that, though, and I was determined to find a way to help repair that relationship, no matter what sort of end this marriage might come to.

The idea of searching for information on drug addiction and recovery grabbed on and wouldn’t let me go, so I started searching for that in the hope it would give me some insight about what I might be getting myself into as far as Kade was concerned. Rehab, counseling, twelve-step programs... I found all sorts of information, but very little of it was anything I could play a part in.

I was still curled up on the couch, poring over the oodles of info I’d found, when Hunter returned so we could have lunch together. He tossed a box of condoms on the counter, effectively answering my unasked question from earlier. He didn’t want this new side of our relationship to be just last night any more than I did. The little seed of hope that this could become something more permanent took root inside me.

Admittedly, he had been right that the pill wasn’t completely effective. We both knew it, so ignoring the fact that we didn’t have condoms and sleeping together last night anyway was probably not the brightest decision either of us had ever made. I tried to push that thought out of my mind because worrying over it wouldn’t do any good. Either I was going to end up pregnant or I wasn’t. Going forward, we would be more careful.

I shut down the browser before shoving my phone into my pocket and getting up to greet him. He surprised me by drawing me into his arms and kissing me, a deep, sound kiss that had me rising up on my toes to meet him.

“Hi,” I said, breathless and flustered, when he released me.

“Hi, yourself. How’s the hand?” Without waiting for my answer, he gently lifted my arm so he could take a look for himself, even though there was nothing for him to see, thanks to the bandage.

“Better,” I lied.

His eyes turned to suspicious green slits.

“Okay, not better.”

“Hmm. Still no blistering, though?”

I shook my head.

“Well, are you up to going out for lunch?”