Chapter Ten
Abby
Most people left Libby and Mason’s party after the snow starting to stick on the ground. Their cabin was about halfway up the mountain and the roads could be treacherous when bad weather hit, especially without snow tires. Hunter, like most of the other people there, hadn’t wanted to risk the conditions getting worse.
I wasn’t sure why I’d invited Hunter in for a drink after he’d dropped me home, but as I made the cup of coffee he’d requested, a nervous fluttering feeling started swirling around in my belly.
Despite the slight nervousness, I felt around him, I was in high spirits.
That might have been because of the happy atmosphere at the party or the buzz of excitement as people watched the snow falling with their children while the holiday music drifted out softly from the speakers—whatever the reason, I felt better than I had in a long time.
In fact, the last time I’d felt so upbeat and positive had probably been before my diagnosis. I was pretty sure that a lot of that had to do with Hunter. He had this knack of making me laugh and making me feel good about myself all at the same time.
At first, after we’d heard Andrea and Ethan’s news, despite being happy for them, I’d felt slightly melancholy. It had yet again brought home the fact that I had no business being at that party with Hunter. But as the night wore on, I decided to let go of my issues and just enjoy myself. And I had.
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had as much fun.
And that fun had carried through into the ride home, so much so I’d invited him in for a nightcap. The trouble was, I hadn’t counted on how it would feel to be alone in my house with Hunter, a man whose charisma was off the charts. A man I fancied the pants off.
What in the heck had I been thinking?
I felt rather than heard Hunter step up behind me and I braced myself as if he was going to touch me.
He didn’t.
“Anything I can do to help?” he asked, his voice a low, seductive rasp.
I shivered.
“No, I’ve got it covered, thanks.”
“Abby…” he said.
How was he able to make my name sound like a plea?
I didn’t reply.
I couldn’t.
My breathing was coming in short, shallow breaths.
This was exactly what I’d been afraid of.
I couldn’t turn around because I knew I wouldn’t be able to resist him if we were face to face.
But I wanted to.
The dilemma was monumental.
And then everything seemed to happen at once.
One moment I was afraid to move for fear of what I might do and the next I had spun around and practically thrown myself into his arms. When my lips descended on his, a low ragged groan tore from his mouth and he pulled me to him, kissing me back with a hunger that was bordering on starvation.
I jumped up, wrapping my legs around his waist and he caught me, his hands cupping the cheeks of my ass. He walked us forward until we reached the counter then leaned me against it, pressing against me as he continued to ravish my mouth.
It was the hottest, craziest, most spontaneous thing I’d ever done in my life and it felt incredible—so incredible that I never wanted it to end.
When our mouths finally separated so that we could get some much-needed air into our lungs, I was only without his lips for a moment before he pressed them to my neck, licking, sucking and biting his way down to my collarbone.
I gasped.
“Hunter.”
In reply, he lifted me and carried me towards the hallway that led to the bedrooms and I was too turned on to object.
I needed this.
For some weird reason, I suspected that we both did.
I directed him to the right door and as we crashed through it, I attacked his mouth once again. I was crazed, my mind reeling, my senses short-circuiting and desperate for skin on skin. I tore at his clothes and when he threw me down on the bed, I pulled him on top of me and continued to fight with his sweater until I had lifted it and dragged it over his head.
When I finally got my hands on his hot, muscular chest, I let out a groan of pleasure. It was dark in the room so I couldn’t see what he looked like, but the skin on his chest was so very smooth—unnaturally smooth. Still, it wasn’t a bad sensation beneath my fingertips, just different.
It had been too long since I’d experienced this type of intimacy and I wasn’t going to waste a moment of it. Hunter got my sweater off too and when our bodies connected again, the sensation of our damp, heated flesh sliding together was almost too much to bear.
My taut nipples poked through the lacy material of my bra. They scraped against the hairs of Hunter’s chest, sending shockwaves of sensation rippling through my body and making a beeline to my core.
One touch down there where I needed most it and I would surely explode.
No question.
When Hunter’s mouth came back to mine, he forced his tongue inside while his deft fingers made quick work of the button and zipper of my slacks. Then he slid his hand inside, cupping my mound and it was game over. I arched my back and as he nimbly pushed aside the material of my panties and sought out my clit with his long, thick fingers, a ragged shout ripped from my throat.
I started to come, screaming and shuddering as waves of ecstasy rolled through my body.
“Jesus Christ.” Hunter ground out and when I started to come down from the haze of euphoria, I realized that he had his cock in his hand and was fisting it furiously, his grip firm and insistent.
“Let me,” I said, but it was too late.
He grunted and the warm, wet heat of his release splashed against my belly.
I threw my head back against the pillow to let my breathing return to normal, but when Hunter’s warm body landed next to mine and he pulled me back against his chest, my eyes started to fall closed.
I promised myself that I would just stay there for a moment and that was the last coherent thought I had before I drifted off into oblivion.
Sometime later, the screaming ripped me from my dream.
It was loud and tortured and caused the hairs on practically every part of my body to stand on end. I came to in an instant and switched on the bedside lamp. Hunter was writhing on the bed as if in absolute agony and the screams that continued to fall from his lips were the most terrifying sound I’d ever encountered.
“Hunter,” I called. “Wake up! You’re having a bad dream. Wake up.”
I shook him, gently at first then with more force. “Wake up!”
His eyes flew open and he roared. He grabbed me and rolled us until his big, muscular body was atop of mine. He was breathing as heavily as if he’d just swam the length of the Atlantic Ocean.
His cock was hard and heavy and prodding against my thigh. I gasped, glancing between us.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It was just a bad dream.” Although in reality, it had been much, much more. “You’re okay.”
His cock jerked against my hip, so, holding his gaze, I reached a hand down to touch it. The growl that tore from his throat sounded more animal than human and without warning, he flipped me over to lie on my belly and tugged at my slacks until he had them pulled down over my ass. Just as the blunt head of his cock pressed against my entrance, his mouth came to my ear.
“Let me,” he said hoarsely.
My whispered reply of ‘yes’ was barely out of my mouth before he pushed inside me in one long, deep thrust.
And dear God, was that…?
I shouted out from the surprise of it and the realization that his cock was pierced, but I had no time to adjust to his wide girth or the feeling of being stretched so fully because he started to fuck me with fast, hard thrusts of his hips. The cold metal of the piercing scraped against me, stimulating parts of me that had evidently never been stimulated before.
I reached out, braced my hands against the headboard and took it. The pounding he gave me was without mercy. And soon, I was soaking wet and lifting my ass, pushing back against him to get each plunge of his cock to go deeper inside me. He didn’t disappoint.
It was hard and fast and brutal and I loved every second.
“Kiss me,” he instructed.
The command in his voice had my head tilting to the side as if on its own accord.
His lips crashed against mine and he slid his tongue inside my mouth in an almost claiming manor and as he lowered himself to reach my mouth, the angle of his hips changed so that each time he pushed into me, his cock ring scraped against all the nerve endings inside me until I was practically vibrating with pleasure and the need to climax.
“Don’t go easy on me,” I asked when our lips separated. “I need this.”
He grunted out a reply that might have been “Won’t.”
I wasn’t sure exactly.
I was too lost in the moment to focus on anything other than the driving force of his hips and the deep plunge of his cock.
The faster he fucked me, the higher it took me. I arched my back, needing more. And then one of his hands slid beneath me and the talented fingers I’d remembered from earlier found my clit and started rubbing against it in fast, furious strokes. I closed my eyes and without warning, I came, hard, shouting out his name into the dark room.
His thrusts became frantic then. He fucked me through my orgasm, his body seeming to have a mind and will of its own. I took everything he gave me—short, shallow thrusts and long deep plunges until his hips began to move like pistons, working faster and faster with each passing moment. There was no finesse or grace about the way we moved together.
It was just raw, primal, fucking.
And it was magnificent.
Hunter thrust one last time into me then roared out my name. His hips stilled and as the shouts of pleasure poured from his mouth, the warm, wet heat of his release spilled inside me.
Finally, he collapsed on top of me. Spent.
It didn’t take very long before he rolled off me with a murmured apology. “I’m too heavy for you.”
I lifted my shoulder in a half shrug which he probably couldn’t see in the dark room. “It’s okay. It felt good.”
We lay there together for a while, neither of us feeling the need to speak, but it was Hunter who broke the silence.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said. “The screaming, I mean. Did I frighten you?”
“No. Not at all. Do you always have nightmares like that?”
He sighed. “Pretty much, yeah. They started about a year after I got back from Afghanistan. I can’t seem to shake them. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“Why not?”
He was quiet at first—so much so I thought he didn’t intend to answer my question, but then he made a quiet admission that made me close my eyes in despair.
“Because I like you,” he said. “Because I think we could be good together and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I don’t want to scare you off.”
I squeezed my eyes shut and fought the tears that threatened to fall. The realization that I could fall for this man hook, line and sinker hit me with the force and speed of a freight train.
I couldn’t let that happen.
Because if I fell for him, it would be that much harder to take when he left me for someone who was whole.
His words deserved an answer of some kind, but I didn’t have one that he would want to hear. Fortunately, I didn’t have to give an answer because just as I opened my mouth to speak, his breathing became heavier and the sound of a soft snore slipped from his lips.
Unfortunately, the reprieve would only be temporary because he deserved to know the truth.
What had just happened between us could never be repeated.