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“Sophie,” she says, smiling, before she leans in and envelopes me in her arms. “We’re huggers,” she says by way of explanation. “I’m Kathryn Cartwright and it’s wonderful to meet you.” She squeezes my shoulders as she looks me over. “Hunter doesn’t introduce us to many of his lady friends.”
“Mom—” Hunter starts to interject when a man, who I’m assuming is Hunter’s father, walks in.
“Ah, Hunter. We didn’t expect to see you this weekend.” His dad pulls him in for a hug and claps him on the back.
“I put my name in the house calendar. You know, the place we check to see if someone has reserved the lake house.”
“Oh, I didn’t even check it,” Kathryn says, waving her hand. “We were in Palm Beach, but it was ghastly hot, so we decided to make a change of plans.”
“Yeah, it would have been nice to know you were coming.” Hunter’s gaze locks with mine and I can see the apology there. Our private weekend is now a family reunion.
“Oh, well. The more, the merrier, right?” His mom laughs.
“And who is this?” His dad has finally caught up with the rest of the group and realized there’s a new face in his lake house kitchen.
“Sophie.” I extend my hand, which is shaking from the adrenaline my body primed when it was preparing to run.
His large hand envelopes mine. “Marshall Cartwright. Pleasure to meet you.”
I nod and smile.
“You got a cheeseboard from Nettle Meadows?” His mom claps in delight. “That will go perfectly with the Chablis we brought.”
A man brings in a handful of paper shopping bags and sets them on the counter.
“Thank you, Eugene.” Kathryn starts unpacking the bags. “We should have a snack and relax on the porch. Watch the sunset.” She looks up from the bags. “Unless you two had other plans?”
Hunter’s eyes meet mine. My lips are pressed tightly together. I can’t even let myself think about what we were planning to do before his parents showed up. Hunter’s brows lift and there’s a secret smile on his lips. I know he’s thinking about it, too.
“That all sounds good, but I think we’ll go get settled first.”
* * *
HUNTER
“Staying in separate rooms isn’t going to convince my parents that we’re not together,” I tell Sophie who is currently unpacking her clothes into the dresser in one of the guest rooms.
After I introduced Sophie to my parents, we brought our luggage upstairs to unpack. Sophie has now refused to sleep in the same bedroom as me. It’s kind of cute that she thinks us staying in different rooms is going to stop me from sneaking in to see her.
“We aren’t together. Not like that.”
“You know what I mean.”
A lacy thong falls from the armful of clothes Sophie is shoving into one of the drawers. I reach to pick it up. Just the sight of her underwear has my mind returning to where things were going before my parents arrived.
Sophie must pick up on my thoughts. She snatches the rogue thong from my hand and tosses it in the drawer.
“You can forget about anal. We’re not even going to have missionary sex. There will be no P in the V with your parents in the house.”
“I’m thirty-five years old. They don’t think I’m a virgin.”
“Well, I’m twenty-two and I could be one for all they know.”
“Is that why you’re flustered? They aren’t judging you. In fact, my mom is likely in awe of you. The first woman that I’ve brought to our family lake house.”
“I’m not flustered,” she argues, clearly full of nervous energy. “But telling me I’m the first woman you’ve brought here isn’t helping.”
I wrap my arms around her, one hand firmly against her lower back while one hand reaches up to tease my fingers into the ends of her hair.
