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And it doesn’t.
He kisses me again, sets me back on my feet, and pulls me into the house. I spare a single thought for the bear—I feel terrible that it had to lose its life just for happening to be here—but all are secondary to the way my skin burns everywhere Hunter touches me. We only make it to the entryway before I begin working on the buttons of his shirt. Cocoa follows us in looking utterly confused and collapses on her bed in the corner as Hunter presses me against the wall, our mouths working together. He lifts my t-shirt away from my waist, his calloused fingers running over my soft skin.
Shivers run up my spine, and I gasp. I’m overcome with how much I want him—it’s more than just wanting sex. I want to be with him, stay with him here in this haven in the woods, just the two of us making a home and a life far away from the rest of the world.
I want to stay here, and if that means that we both have to commit to forever together even though we’ve only barely met, so be it. At this moment, it feels like a small price to pay for this little slice of heaven.
I pull his shirt open and press against him, feeling his warm skin against mine. He pulls my shirt up and over my head, and I tug him toward the stairs, toward his bedroom. We barely get to the stairwell before we’re all over each other again, me sitting on a higher stair with my legs around his waist, him kissing the tops of my breasts as I gasp and arch my back. I run my fingers through his hair, feeling his hands holding me tight. This is everything I want, everything I need.
8
Hunter
My head swims as Sophia and I kiss on the stairs, her legs around my waist, our bodies rubbing against each other in ways that make me burn for her. She must be able to feel me, hard against her, but she isn’t pulling back.
Quite the opposite. As my lips graze her breasts, she arches back, gasping, and I’m consumed by a desire I haven’t felt in longer than I care to admit.
I could’ve lost her. I’d warned her about bears in the woods, but they come around so rarely, and the noise almost always scares them off. She and Cocoa should’ve been making plenty of that, but God, that moment when the bear charged her; I thought that was the end.
I almost lost her, and this terrifies me more than I thought it would. Any decent person would want to protect her from that animal, and now I’m going to have to answer to a ranger for it. But this is more than that.
It would tear me up to lose her.
Her hand slips below the waistband of my slacks, and I can’t take it anymore. I scoop her up into my arms and carry her up the stairs and into my bedroom.
Sophia beams up at me as I lay her on the bed. Her bra is pale pink and lacy, and I wonder if she always wears such delicate underwear or if she were hoping this would eventually happen.
I haven’t been able to bring myself to hope. This is my home, and she’d come such a long way. I didn’t want to come on too strong, to make her feel like I expect something of her.
But these last few nights, lying in this bed, knowing she was doing the same across the hall, wondering if she was imagining what it would be like to lie beside each other, wondering how she would react if I invited her to spend the night with me…it’s made my body ache with a longing I haven’t felt in years. I’ve spent hours in the dark, hoping she might sneak into my bed, wanting to invite her in even just to sleep beside her, and at the same time knowing I’d want so much more than that.
We look at each other, and then suddenly, Sophia giggles. I smile at her as her giggling reaches a fever pitch. “What?” I ask finally.
She shakes her head. “It’s just the absurdity of the whole situation. Not long ago I was back home, working at the market, worried about paying bills, still living in the apartment I shared with my mother. Normal life. And now here I am in the middle of nowhere with you, in America, of all places, being saved from a charging bear by a man with a shotgun. Which I didn’t know you had, by the way, but you seem to know how to use it.”
“Does that make you uncomfortable?” I ask. I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with guns. In Europe, I hear it’s even truer than it is here.
She shakes her head. “You’ve just saved my life with that thing, so I believe it would be foolish of me to protest to its existence.”
I smile. “I live in bear country. I carry it with me if I wander too far from the house, but usually, they don’t come that close.” I look out the window, at the tops of the trees. “I’ve never enjoyed killing things, but I can put a sick deer out of its misery, or defend myself if I need to.”
Sophia lifts her legs around my waist, squeezing my hips between her thighs. “Or defend me.”
I look down at her, and I’m struck again by how beautiful she is. Her strawberry hair falls around her shoulders on the comforter; her face just flushed enough to add color to her cheeks. I run one hand up her thigh, eliciting a small shudder. I search for what to say next, afraid that the moment is passing us by, that the awkwardness is going to return.
But then she runs her hand around my waist, pulling me down toward her. I kiss her again, long and deep, and then unbutton her jeans and slide them off. She does the same with my own, and we’re lying against each other in nothing but our underwear. Sophia wraps her legs around me again, and there are only thin layers of cotton between us.
“You’re alright with this?” I ask her.
“Hunter,” she says, and I love the sound of my name when she says it. “This was my idea.”
I laugh and draw her closer, run my
teeth gently up the outside of her ear, and then reach around to release the hook to her bra.
Her breasts are perfect, milky white and articulate, and I run a thumb over one of her nipples, eliciting a groan. My fingers brush against her silver star necklace, and I take it in my palm.
“Why do you wear this?” I ask. “You never seem to take it off.”
