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To her surprise, he reached across her front and lightly tweaked her nipple to shush her, sending a jolt of pleasure through her body. “You do that to prepare it for pollination from the other rose. They’re covered to prevent them from being pollinated from another rose.”
“Rose condoms. Gotcha.”
He leaned in and nipped at her earlobe. His fingers continued to tease her nipples through her clothing, and she felt him hardening against her buttocks. “Do you always interrupt?”
“Yes. But don’t let that stop you.”
“I won’t. Do you want to hear more?”
“Absolutely,” she breathed. “This is as dirty as those letters I’ve been reading.”
He chuckled again, which never failed to cause her to squirm with pleasure. “We want the Papa Meilland to bloom and mature. Once it has, we take the pollen from the Papa Meilland and transfer it to the Blue Girl. We let the Blue Girl go to seed, collect those, and plant them to see what we’ve created.”
“Hmm,” she said, her voice breathy with distraction from his touch. “This isn’t a fast hobby, is it.”
“I’m a patient man.”
“You think long term, don’t you?” If what he was saying was true, it’d definitely be months—maybe even years—before her rose ever came to fruition. Would they even know each other by then? She’d be long gone.
For some reason, that sent a stab of unhappiness through her. She turned her face slightly, offering her lips for a kiss. She wanted to be taken hard and rough by him to forget all about her troubles.
But the kiss he pressed on her lips was light, soft, and tender, the barest brush of his mouth across hers. “I love you, Gretchen. Don’t be sad.”
He loved her? All breath escaped her lungs. She stared up at him in surprise. “Hunter, I . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything.” His hands continued to caress her, moving all over her body, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. “I’ve never met anyone like you. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never feel as deeply for anyone as I feel for you right now. You bring light and sunshine to my life. I’m not telling you that I love you to make you unhappy. I’m telling you thank you. Thank you for coming into my life.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but was stopped when he pressed a finger to her lips.
“Don’t say anything, Gretchen,” he murmured. “I’m a practical man. I never thought to have a woman in my life, ever. I thought my face would turn off any woman worth having. I never thought I would be lucky enough to meet someone like you. I have no illusions as to what this means to you, but for me, it is the world.”
She smiled softly at him and snuggled closer. “Sounds like fate’s brought us together.”
“Yes,” he said, and his voice was curiously dry. “Fate.”
***
I love you most ardently, my dearest. It’s becoming impossible for me to spend even a day without you. This is interminable, these endless partings between us. I ache to be with you. My love grows every moment of every hour, much like my passion for you. I—
Gretchen put the letter aside with a sigh. For some reason, reading the endless declarings of adoration and oversexed adulations of Lula and Ben were bothering her today. Maybe she’d woken up in a bad mood. She thought of the way that Hunter had woken her up that morning—with a kiss and his hand between her legs. Nah, that hadn’t been it.
Maybe it was the rapidly mounting piles of work and her ever-approaching deadlines.
Or maybe it was because she felt like a jerk.
Lula and Ben were clearly in love. Wildly, passionately in love. Every day they wrote letters to the other, going on and on about how much they loved each other and wanted to be together. And last night, Hunter had declared his love for her.
And she’d sat there and stammered like an idiot.
It wasn’t surprising that this had happened. They were spending a lot of time together. Pretty much every moment that one of them wasn’t working, in fact. They were having an intense sexual relationship. And on top of that, she was Hunter’s one and only sexual relationship. Of course her lovely, scarred virgin had fallen in love with her. The question was, why did that make her feel like an ass?
He’d told her that she didn’t need to declare love for him.
She’d only known him for three weeks.
He was a man with Issues with a capital I.
And yet . . . he was really wonderful for her. He looked at her as if she were the smartest, funniest, sexiest woman he’d ever met. He listened to everything she said, laughed at all her jokes, and blushed when she deliberately tried to make him blush. Sex with Hunter was some of the best she’d ever had—and what he lacked in experience, he was more than making up for in enthusiasm and intensity. He always made sure that she came. He was rich, handsome, and devoted.
