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Chapter 20
As falls went, it was the best one Hunter had ever experienced.
For the next few days, he reluctantly left Aria to her café work in the morning while he, even more reluctantly, finalized the Oceanview plans and continued his quest for signed contracts.
Juliette returned to Manhattan—and Hunter didn’t know what she intended to tell her father about his progress. With eight votes locked down, he was doing his job as well as he ever had. He’d learned at a young age how to compartmentalize, so separating his work from his intense feelings for Aria wasn’t difficult.
As long as he didn’t think about it too much.
The second the clock hit five—or several minutes before—he was back at Meow and Then, impatiently waiting for her to turn the Closed sign and lock the door so he could pull her into his arms and kiss her deeply.
After he helped her take care of the cats—though his work mostly consisted of feeding and petting Fang—they went out so Aria could reveal more of Bliss Cove’s secrets. She showed him the six historical murals scattered throughout town, the best rocky coves to explore tidepools, the ice-cream stand on the boardwalk where Ghost Pepper Chocolate was a secret menu item only attainable if you asked for it by name.
“It’s delicious because it’s sweet and spicy at the same time.” Aria darted her tongue out to lick her cone, the action causing heat to rush to his lower body.
“Kind of like you.” He kissed a drop of ice cream off the corner of her mouth.
“You sure you don’t want one of your own?” She held up her cone to let him take a bite.
“I’ve got one of my own.” He patted her ass, which he did as often as he could because first, he loved the sensation of her round, firm rear under his palm, and second, because she always flashed him a smile when he did.
After she finished her cone, they walked from the boardwalk to Pelican Beach. Aria pointed to a patch of sand near the pier. “Right about there was where you caught Porkchop. Oh, I meant to tell you, a family came in yesterday and filled out an application for him.”
“Did you tell them he’s a pain in the ass?”
“Hey.” She swatted his arm. “If it wasn’t for Porkchop, we wouldn’t have met.”
“That would have been a damned shame.”
Andthatwas an understatement. He couldn’t even imagine how different things would have been if he’d walked into Meow and Then without having joined forces with Aria to catch an escaped cat. Without having kissed her. He didn’t want to imagine it.
“So, what’s Porkchop’s story?” He pressed his hand to her lower back as they stepped onto the rocky pathway leading back to the inn.
“He belonged to an elderly woman who was a retired chef, and she cooked gourmet meals for him all the time. He got a bit hefty as a result, not to mention spoiled rotten. When she passed away, there was no one willing or able to adopt him, so he ended up at the Rescue House.”
“I hope his adoption works out.” Hunter started toward the front of the inn, when Aria stopped him with a hand on his arm. “What’s wrong?”
She grimaced and indicated the windows. “I don’t want Mrs. Higgins to see me going to your room.”
He frowned, unexpectedly stung by the implication that she didn’t want to be seen withhim.
“Hunter, she’s vice-president of the Ground Hogs…that’s the gardening club run by Mrs. Bowers, the mayor, and she’ll totally drop hints at the next meeting that Aria Prescott went to Hunter Armstrong’s room at nine-thirty at night, and she’s pretty sure they weren’t going to discuss the stock market. Then because Sugar Joy provides all the pastries for the Ground Hogs meetings, Mrs. Bowers will casually mention to my mother that isn’t itinterestinghow her daughter has hooked up with Hunter, of all people, and—”
“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands in surrender and strode toward the window of his room. “We’ll do this the old-fashioned way. Which I guess is alsoourway.”
Glad that he’d left the window unlocked, he pushed it open and lifted Aria into the room before climbing in after her. He closed and locked it, as she went into the bathroom to check out the new bottles of lotion and shampoo left in the complimentary toiletries’ basket.
He followed her, breathing in the fragrant air. “What kind is that?”
She dabbed lotion on her arms and studied the little bottle. “Orange flower and vanilla. Smell.”
She thrust her arm under his nose. He sniffed appreciatively. “Nice. Did you know oranges are an aphrodisiac?”
“I suspect that for you, everything is an aphrodisiac.” She rolled her eyes and capped the bottle, leaning past him to return it to the basket.
“Everything aboutyou, yes.” He took hold of her hips and eased her forward against the counter. “Now that you smell like oranges more than usual, I’m revved up to full speed.”
He pushed his groin against her rear so there was no mistaking his erection. She caught her breath, her eyes widening in the reflection in the mirror.
