Chapter 19

They ate at Parelli’s Pizza, brought the girls home, and got them tucked in.

She took a long, hot shower. Her feet ached, but the rest of her body felt strong and limber from the hike. She’d hurt all over tomorrow, but now she luxuriated in the sensation of the steaming water on her bare skin.

She faced the shower, letting the water tease her nipples to standing, as if the anticipation of what Hunter had taunted her with wasn’t enough. She was at least three-quarters of the way to not being able to stand it anymore—the looks he cast her, dirty and full of intention, the surreptitious, light touches, most often in places—like the inside of her wrist—that shouldn’t have set her blood boiling but did anyway.

And just—the fun. Life was better with Hunter in it. More alive, more sunlight glancing off water, more whispered secrets, more laughing so hard her stomach ached.

She’d told herself she’d give it today to let things play out before she made a decision about the future. The decision was made—at least in her own mind. She was incapable of turning away from Hunter.

She toweled off and got dressed and went downstairs to the living room.

No Hunter.

She searched the house but couldn’t find him.

What if—

Doubt whispered, raising the hairs on the back of her neck.

What if after all this, after today, what if he still had second thoughts?

He didn’t remember everything.

He felt guilty about his marriage.

Something had happened in Afghanistan he didn’t understand.

What if she told him she wanted to stay, and he didn’t want her to?

She heard footsteps on the back deck, then the sound of the door opening and closing.

“Close your eyes. I have a surprise.”

Relief, and pleasure, flooded her. He’d come up behind her and whispered it in her ear, his body just shy of touching hers, his presence rustling her clothes and making hairs stand on end and nerves light up. She felt his breath brush her ear and shivered. Her body bloomed.

She pushed aside her doubts. She pushed aside her fears.

She did as instructed and closed her eyes.

“Come with me.”

She followed him, surprisingly disoriented even in a house she had come to think of as her own, out the back kitchen door, down the deck steps. Her senses, in the absence of sight, attuned. To his warm hand wrapped around hers, the charge it conveyed, the scent of fir, cedar, soap, and his skin.

“The old tree house?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He guided her up the steps—a mash-up of true steps and a ladder—his body close behind hers, so close that she found herself swaying toward him as if drawn, trying to feel his hard solidness at her back. He reached around her to open the door for her, and she loved the wrap of that strong arm, the grip and release of muscle against her ribs; she wanted to grab him and turn in his arms and press herself against him to get more of it, full-length.

“Okay. Open.”

She opened her eyes. He’d spread a thick quilt on the floor, lit a ring of squat votives in glasses, and set out two slices of cake, an open bottle of red wine, and two glasses.

“Oh.” She seemed to have been robbed of more sophisticated speech.

“You like it?”

“Oh, Hunter. I love it. Where did the chocolate cake come from?”

The crinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened. “You know how I ‘accidentally’ left the leftover pizza box on the table and had to go back in?”

“Oh, clever!”

“That’s me.”

She searched his face. There was something sad in his eyes. “Hunter. You don’t—you don’t have to compete with him. With the old you. You know that, right?” She waited for assent, but he was just watching. Listening. “I just want you to know that for me—I’m past that. Past where you need to impress me.”

“I know,” he said. “But—I don’t want to feel like I missed it. Getting to woo you. You don’t mind?”

“God, no, I don’t mind at all. I love it. I don’t think any woman ever minds being wooed.”

She sat on the blanket cross-legged and drew one of the plates of cake into her lap. He sat across from her and took the other.

“Do the girls know where we are?” she asked.

“Yup. Told them to text if they need me. But the last time I looked, Clara was mostly asleep and Phoebe’s eyes kept fluttering shut. Wine?”

“Yes, sir.”

He shot her a sharp look, then poured her a glass, handed it to her, poured his own, and raised it in a toast.

“To the best day I can remember.”

Her hand flew to her throat. “Oh.”

He tilted his head, a question in his eyes.

“It’s the best day I remember, too.” She lifted her glass again and touched it lightly to his. The chime of glass on glass shimmered up her arm. “To outdoing yourself.” She smiled mischievously at him. “Last time, we ate the chocolate cake at Parelli’s with the girls.”

“Damn. I thought at least the cake was a new touch.”

“I’m teasing you,” she admitted. “There was no chocolate cake last time.”

He laughed. “Guess I’m kind of an easy mark, huh?”

“Yeah, just think how bad I could mess with your head if I wanted to.”

She sipped her wine. She didn’t know crap about wine, except that there were some that went down so easy she knew they had to be expensive. This was one of those. It soothed her mouth and throat, slid down and warmed her all over. She didn’t drink often, had drunk almost never when Hunter was deployed and she’d been in charge of Phoebe and Clara, only girls’ nights here and there with good friends. So she was a lightweight. And in a few sips she could feel the slight hum under her lips and in her feet that preceded the loss of inhibition. Not that she needed any less. Seven-eighths, she thought. Seven-eighths of the way to blazing with impatience. Seven-eighths of the way to crawling across the floor and taking his mouth for her own.

“Oh. Wow. This is good.” She pulled a bite of cake, moist, rich, and flavorful, slowly off her fork, savoring, and caught him watching her mouth.

Nine-tenths.

“Do that again,” he said, eyes dark.

Eleven-twelfths. She did it again, her eyes on his this time. Licked the remaining dark chocolate icing off the fork when she was done, and then, purely for the effect she knew it would have on him, tipped her gaze down to the fly of his khaki shorts, where there was definite action.

“Trina.”

She’d turned his voice rough, into almost a plea. But there was nothing she could do to him that she couldn’t feel, too, no way to give him pleasure without it touching her. Her nipples were tight knots, her skin tuned, receptive. She had turned to something molten, and she wanted to pour her liquid self all over him, into him.

She set her plate on the floor, her fork beside her mostly uneaten cake. Crawled across the floor to him. He stretched his legs out and leaned on his hands, and she climbed over him and straddled him.

She settled herself so she could feel his erection pressing up against the seam of her jeans.

“Hunter.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He was teasing her, pretending nonchalance, but there was no doubt in her head she was messing with him. Even if she hadn’t been able to feel him shifting restlessly against her through layers of clothing, his eyes wouldn’t leave hers and they were so dark now they were almost black, and there was a flush under his tanned skin.

“I can’t stand it any—”

But she didn’t get to finish. His mouth cut off the last word.