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eeling brazen, I said, “Take your time putting that on. I wanna know just how you like it done,” between choppy breaths.
Hunter trailed toward me, a ghost of a smile played over his lips and he was as solid as he was going to get. When he hovered over me, he kissed me and we both made gratified sounds. I liked tasting us on my tongue. He ripped open the condom packet. His kiss journeyed toward my chest, suckling each nipple before he pulled from me. Reaching between us, I grabbed his length, enjoying how smooth and firm he was, the perfect depiction of who he was. I reached the tip and came in contact with the fluid evidence of his excitement. I rubbed it between my fingers, and on top of my groin.
Sucking a breath through his teeth, he rolled the condom down his impressive cock. Taking a precaution looked so much hotter than it sounded. “Always tell me what you need me to do,” he told me through a tight voice.
I raised my hips and looked at him directly. I wanted to say, “Make love to me,” but I didn’t want him to change his mind again. I took a fortifying breath. “I want you. Only you,” was all I could manage. It was honest enough not to scare him off.
A look flashed over his face that was puzzling. There was a deep emotion in it, but I couldn’t tap into it. He’d push me away. As he settled between my legs again, I wrapped my legs around him and touched his flexing jaw with my hands. His hair had grown enough hair at the front and top of his head that it now automatically parted as it fell forward. Hunter passed his lips over mine, as his fingertips skimmed along my inner thighs. When his tip brushed over my folds and filled me to the hilt, I felt a little discomfort, not the pain Beth had described about her first time. My hands drifted over his washboard abs and then glided to where we were joined. I massaged his sack and he grunted. His head flew back and my pulse thrummed at how beautiful he was.
Hunter’s eyes connected with my own, and he slid in and out of me with delicate purpose.
“I don’t want you to forget how every inch of me feels inside you,” his voice was rough. He rotated his hips and the words elicited a tingle all over my body. Violently, I quickened the pace, and all I felt was pleasure and the pain ebbed away. After we climaxed, the cool air caressed my sweat-covered skin as Hunter nestled me against his body, his arms around me.
***
“HUNTER,” I SAID THE next morning as I stretched my arms on the bed.
“I am here.” His voice was distant. I turned on my side and looked on as he held a sketch board in his hand, a graphic drawing pencil in the other. He’d been drawing me with my backside bared to him.
As I shifted on my side, I grimaced at the throbbing pain in my core. In the middle of the morning, I’d grabbed another condom from one of his clean boxers in his book bag. Slowly, he’d made love to me while we’d been on our sides with his hand wrapped around my thigh. My foot had limply dangled in the air and his chest rubbed against my slick back. Later on, I’d faced him, and watched with a heavy heart as a lone tear ran down his face. He’d shut eyes. And for the first time in days, he’d drifted off.
“I hope you’re not drawing any bad parts, Hunter.”
He shook his head, holding his sketch board and graphic pencil on the chair as he rose from his chair. When he was on his side of the bed, his gaze slid over me. His cheekbones hardened as a frown overtook his face. “You don’t have any bad parts. Not you. You’ve just got real parts to you.” He set his drawing of me on the bed and I marveled at the lines of my body. In the back of my mind, I’d thought he could only appreciate a curvaceous physique like Beth’s. This was how he saw me. As if I was sexy, like her. The woman he’d drawn wasn’t me. She seemed bold and confident and sure of herself. I wasn’t any of those things. But my friend was becoming that kind of person.
“Are you sore?”
“I ache a little, like when I cramp up every month.”
As he was about to get up, I gestured him to sit down. “I don’t need anything to dull the pain.”
“You just said it was an ache,” he protested. “Why would you want to be in pain?”
“I don’t want to be in pain, Hunter. But I do want my body to feel that ache from when you were buried deep inside me. I don’t just want the memories of it.” My heart raced as his expression changed from worried to pensive. “Hunter, I froze up. I didn’t mean to be a coward when my mom and dad saw us.” I traced my finger over Marion Lovell’s tattoo on the left side of his chest. He’d had two important women in his life who weren’t here in body, but I believed they’d always be with him in spirit. In some way, they’d carry him through, so that he would continue to fight the constant hurdle of maintaining his recovery and see himself as the man I’d come to see him as: stronger, because of his weaknesses, brave in the face of his limitations, and, most of all, courageous for not passively going through life, but living it. I thought his mom and grandmother were his reasons for trying to make something of himself. I couldn’t think of better motivators than them. “How was your mom?” I changed the subject, wanting to feel close to him again.
He covered his hand over mine, placing it over his grandmother’s tattoo. “My mother had a big heart. It was always about Chase and I with her.” He dropped our hands on his thigh and shifted his eyes to the drawing of me that he’d placed on his side of the bed. “I knew she wasn’t happy. I didn’t know why.” Hunter grew quiet for a moment and a thoughtful expression flitted across his face. “She was really private, now that I think about it. Really smart about bringing the conversation back to Chase and I. She made me promise her, like Nana had, to never stop drawing. No matter what career I may have taken up. I think that was a small window into what mattered to her, you know? Living her dreams. But she couldn’t, or didn’t, so she’d pushed me to do what I was passionate about. People had been certain that Mom and Nana were actually mother and daughter, because they were so close. They were my advocates.” He released a sigh and then added, “Mom would’ve liked you.” He chuckled a little. “But you would’ve had to win my Nana over. She could be sweet, but that was only with Chase and me.”
“I would’ve fought tooth and nail to be in your grandmother’s good graces, Hunter.”
“I know that you were scared of losing your parents’ love. Even now you are,” Hunter said in a whisper. “I may not know your parents, but I don’t see that happening. They don’t want you to lose your way, like I had. But I won’t go another day without you.”
I rose from the bed and threw my arms over him. He clutched onto me with a snug grip.
Hunter
DAD EMBRACED CHASE AS we all stood in the middle of the hallway. Looking well-rested, Dad was clean-shaven and in a sharp suit. Absent was any sign that he’d tried to wash his grief down with glasses of bourbon. Beth’s perceptive gaze darted over to me as I watched them, while Mariska held onto my hand. I’d wanted that hug last night from him, or to able to say that we were going to bridge the gap in our non-existent relationship. However, now, I just hoped that receiving some affection from our Dad would help Chase feel less pain down the road.
As we all headed out of the townhouse, Dad grabbed onto my arm and I almost elbowed him in the middle of his chest when my I saw the envelope in his hand.
“Mr. Walsh, her lawyer, was here early this morning,” he told me. “In the event of her death, she’d instructed him to give this to you, or to have me give it to you in person.”
My gaze swung from the envelope to meet Dad’s eyes. “Thanks for giving it to me, and for allowing us to stay in your home.”
Dad gave me a courteous look. “Have a safe flight, and whatever you’re doing to stay off the bad stuff, keep it up.”
He waited a few steps from where I’d stood with him, as I mentally said goodbye to him and the simple memorable times I’d had with mother inside that house.
