Chapter 25
Natalia
I woke to an empty bed.
I’d left my phone somewhere in the living room, and there wasn’t a bedside alarm clock. The blinds were drawn, but the slats were open, and since no light was coming in, I guessed it wasn’t yet morning. But where was Hunter? I waited a few minutes to see if he’d just gotten up to get a drink or use the bathroom, but he didn’t come back, and the apartment had no sound of anyone moving around. Unable to fall back asleep, I wrapped a sheet around my naked body and went to look for the man whose arms I’d drifted off in.
All of the lights were off, but the city from beyond the sliding glass doors illuminated the apartment enough for me to see that Hunter wasn’t in it. Finding my phone, I checked the time—four-thirty in the morning. We’d only fallen asleep a couple of hours ago. Perhaps Hunter was an early riser gym rat?
This girl wasn’t, so I decided to head back to bed and get the answer when I woke back up in a few more hours. I was almost at the door to the bedroom when movement from the balcony caught my attention. Hunter was sitting outside.
I watched him for a few moments as he stared off into space. He looked deep in thought, almost troubled. Eventually I walked to the door and slid it open. He turned at the sound.
“Hey. What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“Just getting some fresh air.”
I pulled the sheet tighter around me. “It’s freaking cold.”
“Didn’t even notice.”
“You looked lost in thought. Anything you want to talk about?”
Hunter’s eyes met mine. He seemed to deliberate for a moment, but then he shook his head and looked away as he spoke.
“No. Just couldn’t sleep.” He stood. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed.”
He was quiet as we walked back to the bedroom and even quieter as we slipped back into bed. Just like last night, he lay on his back and pulled me to him so my head rested on his chest. I listened to his heartbeat for a while, and even though I found it soothing, I still had an unsettled feeling.
Turning over from my side to my belly, I put two hands on Hunter’s chest and used them to prop up my head so I could see his face while I spoke.
“Do you have trouble sleeping often?”
“Sometimes.”
“Is it trouble falling asleep or staying asleep?”
“Both.”
“Is it because you have a lot on your mind?”
“Maybe.”
“You know what I heard helps with that?”
“What?”
“Giving more than a one-word answer,” I said sarcastically.
Hunter’s lip twitched. “You know what I heard helps?”
“What?”
He did some ninja-like move that flipped me onto my back, and suddenly he was hovering over me. “Strenuous physical activity.”
“Umm…how often do you wake up? Because if that’s the case, I might not be able to walk by Monday.”
The cloud that had shadowed his eyes only a few moments earlier seemed to lift. “Would you think I was a total dick if I admitted I’d love for you to burn every time you sit down on Monday?”
“You want me in pain?”
“No, I want you to remember what it felt like for me to be inside you.”
I was certain that wouldn’t be a problem. I raised my hands over my head and arched my back, hoisting my breasts toward his face. “Do your best, Mr. Delucia.”
***
Hunter had a few hours of work he needed to do, so I went down to the Italian grocery store I’d spotted at the corner to pick up something for lunch. We’d stayed up until after the sun rose and finally fallen back asleep until after ten. I’d woken to Hunter’s erection prodding me from behind as we spooned. The man had an insatiable appetite for sex.
I picked out all of my favorite finger foods to snack on for lunch—black olives, stuffed grape leaves, fresh mozzarella and tomatoes with basil, marinated mushrooms—rather than just a boring sandwich or something. By the time I got to the cash register, my handheld basket weighed a ton, and I’d managed to ring up eighty dollars worth of crap.
Hunter had given me a key to get back in, but my hands were too full, so I used my foot to knock. He came to the door with a pencil behind his ear, a pair of low-hanging sweatpants, and no shirt. Damn. All these good Italian snacks—and him.
“Sorry. I didn’t want to put everything down to use the key because one of the bags is starting to break. I think the olive container spilled because my hand is holding the groceries in.”
Hunter grabbed the two bags from my left arm and attempted to take the other.
“No, I got this one. I don’t want it to break.”
In the kitchen, Hunter peeked into the bags. “What is all this stuff? I thought you were going to the deli to get lunch?”
“This is lunch.”
He furrowed his brow and reached into one bag. “Cannolis?”
“It’s dairy. One of the four main food groups.”
Pulling another item from the bag, he held up a container of rainbow cookies.
I pointed. “That falls into breads and cereals.”
He lifted a brow.
“What? It has the same ingredients. Flour, salt, eggs…”
He set it down and pulled out a package of stuffed grape leaves. My mouth watered. “Fruits and vegetables.”
He shook his head. “It’s the leaf of a fruit. Not quite sure it counts as a fruit or vegetable itself.”
I took them from his hand. “Semantics.”
Chuckling, he reached in again. This time, he came up with a large jar of Nutella. “This one I know.”
“You do?”
He ignored me and opened the jar, peeling back the silver freshness seal before sticking his finger in and scooping out some of the heavenly creamy stuff inside. I knew from the cheeky grin on his face when he looked up that his interest had nothing to do with the deliciousness of the spread. Leaning in, he ran his finger along my exposed collarbone before bending to suck the hazelnut off.
“Body paint. This goes in the bedroom for later.”
I laughed because I thought he was kidding, but he disappeared into the bedroom with that jar. My mind started to race with what I’d be painting and sucking later.
When he returned, he squeezed me from behind and kissed the top of my head. “Thank you for going to the store. I’ll help you unpack and then finish up. I only need ten more minutes or so.”
“Don’t be silly. Go do your work. I’ll get everything unpacked and put away and make us a nice spread of snacks.”
Hunter kissed my forehead. “Thanks.” He walked halfway to the dining room table and turned back. “Almost forgot...Derek called while you were out. He’s coming to town for business in two weeks. Wants to meet us for drinks.”
“Okay. That sounds great. Anna mentioned he had a trip coming up.”
I took my time with the groceries and made a sampler platter of all the goodies. Hunter had blueprints spread all over the table, and when I saw him begin to ravel the top one back into a roll, I brought lunch and some plates to the table.
“Looks awesome,” he said.
“Did you get done what you needed to do?”
“Yeah. This project’s been going on for years. We’re the third builder on it. Whenever there’s more than one builder, there’s a reason.” He wrapped a rubber band around the roll he’d been working on and tapped it to the table. “Owner is from Dubai and doesn’t realize New York City has a byzantine building code. The building is old and needs structural reinforcements for everything he wants to do. Which is fine, but when you change the weight of what you’re building three times during the renovation, and the first builder used beams that barely supported the first set of plans, you’re basically starting over. And even though almost all blueprints and plans are done on a computer now, he wants to see every set of changes on an old-school, pencil-and-paper blueprint drawing.”
“What does he keep changing that makes it so heavy?”
“The house on top of the building.”
I’d thought I’d heard him wrong. “He’s housing something on top of the building?”
“Yeah. A house.” Hunter chuckled. “He’s building a house on top of the roof of an old cast-iron building.”
“A whole house?”
“Pretty much.”
“Why? Is the building not residential?”
“No, most of it’s residential except for the commercial storefronts on the bottom two floors.”
“So why not just renovate an apartment instead of building a house on top of the roof. I don’t get it.”
“Building is a playground for the extraordinarily wealthy in New York. You can’t look for logic. The answer is always the same—because they can.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Keeps me employed. This particular building is actually really beautiful. I’ll take you to see it one day, if you want. The top floors are closed during renovations, and we’re at a standstill until the city approves the recent round of changes.”
“I’d like that. Even though I’ve lived here all my life, I don’t really take the time to appreciate the architecture.”
“Ever think about living somewhere else?” Hunter asked.
“I used to. I went to college here in the city, and Anna went to school out in California. We’d take turns visiting each other over breaks and had big plans for me to move out to the west coast so we could live next door to each other again. We planned to be pregnant at the same time and for our daughters to be second-generation best friends.”
“Could still happen. I’m sure Anna and Derek will have more kids.”
A picture of Anna and me sitting in Hunter’s yard with babies on our laps, while Derek and Hunter stood nearby at the barbeque making dinner, suddenly flashed before my eyes. The thought warmed me, even though it also scared the crap out of me that my head had gone there. Hunter wasn’t in this for the long haul. This was just a fling. Wasn’t it?
I smiled hesitantly, afraid to get my hopes up, but deep down knowing they already were. “Maybe. You never know, I guess.”