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“Were we playing?” She leaned back, bracing her hands on the edges of the vanity. Her gaze was riveted on him, watching as he tore open the foil and rolled the condom into place. When he stepped close and hooked his hands behind her knees, she raised her eyes to his. “I’m not playing with you, Hunter. I love you.”
Her solemn words did him in. He slid his hands up her thighs and palmed her hips, tilting her to receive him. Kat’s head fell back with the first thrust. A low moan slid past her parted lips. Unable to resist, he lowered his head and slanted his lips across hers. Kat shifted to wrap her arms around his neck. Good damn thing, because he couldn’t promise a smooth ride.
Chapter Ten
New Year’s Day arrived with cold winter rain in tow. The weather suited Kat’s mood, which had suffered from not seeing Hunter for several days. They’d gone to dinner with Adele , but it could hardly be called a roaring success. Hunter kept to himself, making little effort to reconnect with old friends. In the end, they’d left early, and she’d had to be satisfied that he’d at least gone.
Hunter drove to Baltimore two days after Christmas, and she and Liam had visited him in D.C. the day before yesterday. Kat tried to maintain daily contact with Hunter via texts but she received minimal return for her efforts. At one point, she’d cross-checked her contact list with Liam’s just to be sure she hadn’t entered Hunter’s number incorrectly. Both her and Liam’s contact lists matched. Hunter was some kind of non-texting freak of nature.
Kat wrestled a box of ornaments into the attic and put her hands on her hips. She surveyed the cramped space with a frown and no idea what to do with the stuff she and Liam had accumulated over the years. Everything they’d saved in the name of keepsakes now seemed like chains holding them in place. It had to go. That was the only solution. If she and Liam were going to be flexible enough to work with Hunter’s military orders, all the stuff had to go.
She slid the box of ornaments to the side, out of the way. First things first, then. They needed to sort the must have from the nice to have. Pushing up the cabled sleeves of her sweater, she shook her head at herself. No time like the present.
She’d made a reasonable dent in the boxes when Liam’s swearing caught her attention. Wincing, she left the box she was working on and started down the attic ladder. Liam met her in the second-story hallway. Lines of tension stamped the corners of his lips. He tried to erase them when he saw her, but she knew him too well to be fooled.
“Jen is a fucking idiot,” he said before she asked.
Kat grimaced. “Do I want to know?”
“No, you don’t.”
She might not need to know, but Liam needed to vent. “Tell me anyway,” Kat said.
“The guy she’s been living with hit her.” Liam pitched his voice to imitate Jen’s bad habit of making excuses. “He’s under a lot of stress.”
She didn’t have to ask why Jen called Liam with her problems. “I wondered when she would get around to asking you for money instead of hinting in emails to me.”
“He has her convinced everything would be fine if I’d just set them up.” Disgust colored his tone, along with something that was almost, but not quite, guilt.
Kat bit her lip. She’d long ago given up any attempt at convincing Liam he wasn’t responsible for Jen’s choices, which almost always became mistakes. Liam might never be prepared to let go of his sense of obligation to protect the younger woman from the harm she dealt herself. Ordinarily, Kat would join Liam in a session of sympathy bitching and give her okay to a loan she knew would never be repaid. Tonight, however, she shook her head.
“Liam, we can’t. You heard Hunter. He’s on a ninety-day assignment and will be receiving new orders in two months or less. We’re going to be juggling a mortgage and rent, at least for a little while. We just can’t.”
He didn’t deny the truth but he didn’t agree with her, either. “She’s my sister.”
“And she’s an adult,” Kat said gently.
Liam growled. “Why the hell does she have to be so damned gullible?”
Kat shrugged, then folded up the ladder and eased up the access panel. “She just is. You can’t manage her life forever. She doesn’t listen to you anyway.”
“God, that’s so true. She never listens. Okay, you’re right.” He dusted his hands together. “There, gone. We’ll deal with Jen later if we need to.” He forced a smile before heading into the bedroom. “You might want to wash the attic dirt off your face and get your agenda together before Hunter gets here.”
Wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans, Kat followed. “I don’t have an agenda. Is that how you think this meeting is going to go?”
Something in her tone must have clued Liam in to how little she appreciated his making light of the matter. He pulled a fresh shirt from the closet and shot her an apologetic glance. “Sorry, babe. Jen is getting to me.”
“It’s not just Jen, is it?”
Liam ran his hand over his face. “I wish Hunter was more accessible. I knew this was going to be reality but I didn’t know how much it would bother me.”
“I know. It bothers me, too. We’ll talk about it today. Talking about it should help.”
“As long as we don’t get so bogged down in talking that we don’t get to the action portion of the day.” He removed the paint-splattered T-shirt he’d put on that morning and pitched it into the hamper.
Kat curled her bare toes in the carpet. “Why don’t you meet him at the door by yourself? You two can catch up and take off a little of the edge. He’s probably feeling it too, even if he isn’t sexting us with cock shots.”
“God, K-K, that is exactly what I need. Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”
