****
"What's this one for?" I asked, pointing to the dove scored onto his left pectoral in permanent black ink. I'd spent the last thirty or so minutes picking out random tattoos on his body and asking him to explain their meaning.
"The dove?" he asked, looking down at his own chest. "That's for my mom."
"What was she like?"
"Too good a woman to end up with a son like me," he replied without hesitation.
"Hunter, don’t –"
"Relax, HC," he chuckled. "I'm not having a crisis here, I'm just stating the truth." Sighing heavily, he tucked an arm behind his head and said, "When I went down, she came every week. Every fucking week without fail. I knew she was sick. She'd been fighting it for years. The visits slowed during chemo. Dropped to once a month, sometimes six weeks. Then there was nothing…" Pausing, Hunter reached up and scratched his chin before adding, "Nothing but a letter from the warden and a clap on the back." He shook his head and exhaled a heavy sigh. "My mother was dead – the only family I had."
"Hunter…" Feeling helpless, I pressed a kiss to his tattoo and said, "I wish I could have met her."
So I could thank her in person for creating this beautifully broken man.
"She was beautiful," he added. "Best woman I ever knew." He cast a glance down at me and frowned. "She would've loved you, Hope Carter."
"Yeah?"
He nodded. "Her wayward son finding a good woman?" He smiled fondly. "Shit, if the cancer hadn't killed her, she would've died and gone to heaven meeting you."
Warmth flooded my belly.
Listening to him explain his feelings for his mother gave me hope.
It showed me that he was, indeed, human.
Sometimes it felt like he was gone from me, like he was on a playing field I couldn’t quite reach. But then he gave me a glimpse of his humanity and we were side by side again.
"What happened then?" I whispered, the need to know every thought and feeling inside of this man burning me up. "After you found out she had passed?"
"Lost my mind a little after that," he admitted. "Got fucked up real bad. Fell in with the wrong kind of people… I won't disturb you with the details. Just know that it was bad. I was bad." He shook his head and exhaled a heavy sigh. "And then something happened."
"What happened?"
He flashed a smirk. "I got a new cellmate."
"Noah," I whispered.
He winked. "The very one."
We were quiet then, just laying together on his bed, both lost in our own thoughts until Hunter shifted beneath me.
"What are you doing?" I asked when he reached an arm over my naked body and grabbed the remote from the nightstand.
"I want you to listen to this song," he said. "Reminds me of you."
"Hozier?" I asked with a smirk.
"Not tonight," he countered, tapping my nose with his finger.
He pressed a few buttons and then the sound of Kings of Leon's Closer began to drift from the iPod dock across the room.
Hunter looked me dead in the eyes just as the lead singer began to sing, his lyrics haunting and full of meaning.
The words of the song flooded my mind.
They were deep, meaningful, and everything to me in this moment.
Because they reminded him of me.
He wanted me to hear this.
To listen.
To feel.
Unable to stand another second of this silent torture, and with the song still playing loudly in the background, I pushed Hunter onto his back and straddled his lap.
Without a word, I pressed my palms against his hard, tattoo covered chest and stared into his icy blue eyes. He felt so good under my touch. The heat of his skin, the hardness of his muscles.
Hovering close to his mouth, I pressed a kiss to the corner of his lip and exhaled heavily. "Don't ever leave me."
He didn’t say anything in return, but I knew he heard me.
I could feel it in the way his muscles contracted under my touch.
"Because," I whispered as I slipped a hand between our bodies. "I," using my hand, I guided his rock-hard cock inside me. "Love," he filled me to the brim and I gasped at the pressure before crying out, "you."
A sharp, erotic hissing sound tore from his lips seconds before his hands clamped down hard on my waist.
The feel of his hips gyrating beneath me was too much, bringing with it friction to my throbbing clit that only he seemed to know I needed.
It was too much.
He was too much.
My feelings.
Everything.
"Say it again," Hunter growled as he rocked me on top of his cock.
"I love you," I cried out the dirty truth as I rode him hard and rough.
"Open your goddamn eyes and look at me when you say it," he ordered, his tone husky and full of want.
"I fucking love you, Hunter!" I snapped, clawing at his chest. "Jesus, I'm crazy in love with you."
"Good," he practically snarled before tossing me onto my back and re-entering me in one swift movement. He pressed harder, pushed deeper, demanded more from me with every thrust of his hips. "Because I'm fucking lost in you."
I threw my head back and cried out loudly as the familiar swell of desire pooled inside of my body, causing my pussy to clench and my body to tremble.
This man knew how to handle me. He knew how to touch me and he knew how to take.
He was going to make me come again, and I was going to revel in every moment of it.