Chapter 9
Natalia
A warm stream of light shining directly into my eyes woke me up. Disoriented, I had no idea where I was or what day it was. I sat up in the comfy bed and looked around the familiar room until the morning came back to me. Hunter’s house. I’d left my phone in my purse, which was still in the kitchen—I think—and there was no sign of a clock in the guestroom. So after a quick trip to the ensuite bathroom, I headed out to quietly retrieve my cell, hoping not to wake Hunter if he was still sleeping.
Only…Hunter was definitely not sleeping.
I froze as I turned the corner from the bedroom hallway to the open kitchen and living room. He stood with his back to me at the stove, cooking what smelled like bacon—shirtless, while dancing to Billy Joel.
As far as wake-ups go, this view was up there. Hunter wore gray sweatpants that hung low on his narrow waist, and the muscles in his back rallied together to form a V that led up to broad shoulders. There was no doubt the man worked out—a lot. I stood in silence, taking in the way his hips swayed to the music and remembering how good his rhythm was when we’d danced together at Anna’s wedding. Damn.
“Hope you’re not a vegetarian. I don’t make tofu anything, especially not bacon.” I jumped at the sound of his husky voice. He’d never turned around to see me, and still hadn’t when he spoke.
My heart raced in my chest. “You scared the crap out of me.”
He finally turned around. “Me? I didn’t sneak up on you while you were frying hot bacon to ogle your ass.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I wasn’t ogling your ass.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
“I wasn’t ogling your ass.”
Hunter turned back around to the stove, reached up to the cabinet on the right to grab a dish, and then used tongs to pick the bacon from the frying pan.
“The more we deny the truth, the more power it has over us.” He set the plate on the table before returning his attention to me with a cheeky grin. “On second thought, keep denying it. It’ll just make you focus on it more.”
“You’re really a big ass, you know that?”
Hunter held a hand to his ear. “What’s that? You really dig my ass?”
“Are you always this obnoxious in the morning? No wonder you live alone.”
“It hasn’t been morning for hours. It’s almost three o’clock. Come. Sit and eat. Your eggs will be done in a minute.”
“Three o’clock?” I walked to the table forgetting about his ass comment. “I slept the entire day away.”
“You needed it.”
He poured a mug of coffee and held it up to me. “Cream and sugar?”
“Yes, please. I can’t believe how long I slept. What time did you wake up?”
“Around eleven.”
Hunter brought me coffee. “Thank you.” As he handed it to me, my eyes did an involuntary sweep of his chest. It would have been fast and harmless, had the jackass not watched me do it. God, the man didn’t miss a beat. He quirked a brow and smirked.
“Shut up. Go put some clothes on if you don’t want me to look.”
“I never said I didn’t want you to look.”
“What are you, a peacock? Walking around fanning your tail feathers, trying to attract a female?”
“That’s not a bad idea. Let me show you my tail.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Let’s start over. Good morning, Hunter.”
His smile was genuine. He nodded. “Good morning, Natalia.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“I did. You?”
“I can’t remember the last time I was out that cold. That bed is really comfortable.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. Just an FYI, the one in the master bedroom is the same model if you’d like to try it out next.”
I shook my head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you? It always comes back to sex.”
He chuckled and went to the stove to get the eggs. “I spoke to Derek a little while ago. He said Anna and the baby are doing great, and they’ll probably go home tomorrow morning.”
“Wow. So fast. I think I’d want a few days at the hospital for people to take care of me before I went home.”
“Derek will take good care of her.”
“You’re right. I forget she has an amazing husband.” I scoffed. “I forget they exist sometimes.”
“Derek told me you were divorced. That was about all I could get out of him.”
“Derek is a gentleman. He goes by the say nothing if you don’t have anything nice to say rule, so I’m sure he had nothing extra to say about Garrett.”
“You mentioned something about prison this morning. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I’ll give you the short version. Married after six months of dating. Lived the American dream in a penthouse with a gorgeous, wealthy man. He was arrested three years later for securities fraud, and I saw none of it coming. I was blindsided in every way. He left me with more than my annual salary in debt that he’d racked up in my name and as the sole caregiver of his then-thirteen-year-old daughter who hated me. I’m still working to get both under control two years later.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah.” I was anxious to change the subject. “Do you know what time visiting hours are?”
“3:30 to 5:30 and 6:30 to 8:30. But Derek said to try to come up for the afternoon hours because he has some big surprise dinner being delivered from Anna’s favorite restaurant at 6:30.”
“He’s so sweet. I guess we should get going soon then. I was hoping to check into a hotel and shower before we went back to visit, but I don’t think we’ll have time.”
“You’re welcome to shower here. And stay as long as you want. I have an early flight out tomorrow morning for work up north anyway, so you’d have the place to yourself after tonight.”
“That’s very nice of you. Maybe I’ll take you up on the shower if you really don’t mind. And then I can find a hotel after we visit the hospital.”
“After dinner, you mean?”
“Dinner?”
“My birthday dinner. You agreed to have dinner with me.”
“God. I totally forgot. It seems like that conversation was a week ago instead of this morning. It’s still your birthday?”
“Yep. But I’m passing the torch to baby Caroline after today. Thirty is the last one I celebrate. After this, it’s all hers. So you’re going to help me celebrate the very last one I get.”
“That’s a lot of pressure. Now I feel like I’m going to have put on a dress and be entertaining and witty.”
Hunter winked. “Feel free to make that dress cut low in the front and showing off a lot of leg.”
***
“You look beautiful, Natalia.”
After we visited the hospital, Hunter had dropped me off at a hotel so I could check in and get ready for dinner.
“Thank you.” It was the second time he’d complimented me since he’d picked me up. Even though he liked to tease me about sex—some of which was not really teasing—I was somehow certain his praise was sincere tonight. “You don’t look bad yourself for a man in his thirties.”
“Take it easy. I’m about eight hours into my thirties.”
The waitress came to our table. “Can I start you off with something to drink? Tonight’s special drink is a coconut margarita. It has fresh cream of coconut, lime juice, Cointreau, and Patrón tequila. The glass is lined with salted, toasted coconut.”
“Mmmm. That sounds delicious. I’ll try one of those,” I said.
Hunter ordered a Coke.
“What? It’s your birthday. Your last birthday. Aren’t you going to join me for a drink?”
“I’m driving, and I have a 6 a.m. flight.”
I turned to the waitress. “Can you make a virgin coconut margarita?”
“Sure can.”
“He’ll have one of those. And put an umbrella or something in it. It’s his thirtieth birthday.”
She smiled and looked to Hunter for approval to change his order.
He chuckled. “That’s fine. Thanks.”
After she walked away, I looked around at the rooftop Mexican restaurant. The view of a twinkling L.A. was breathtaking.
“This place is great. Do you come here often?”
“First time.”
“Really? I would think this place would be in your dating arsenal—impressive restaurant with a view and a long drink menu on top of a hotel. It’s like a playboy’s one-stop-shopping dream. Couple of drinks…grab a room…”
“I prefer to keep a mattress in the bed of my pickup. It’s cheaper and easier to dump them off when I’m done.”
I laughed. “Smart.”
“You know I’m not really a whore.”
The waitress delivered our drinks, so I sipped mine. It was the most delicious drink I’d ever tasted—like a melted, toasted coconut ice cream bar.
“Really? So how many women have you dated in, say, the last month?”
He thought about it for a minute. “Three.”
“Hmph. That’s not so bad, I guess.” I sipped my drink again and squinted at him. “Unless you slept with all of them. Sleeping with three different women a month would be thirty-six a year…after ten years of singlehood that would be upwards of three hundred and sixty different women. That’s kinda gross.”
Hunter frowned.
I smirked. “Slept with ’em all, huh?”
“I travel a lot for work. Sometimes I spend the better part of three months on a job site out of state, so I don’t always get to date that often.”
“So you don’t date when traveling? You’ve never met a woman at a bar while on the road and brought her back to your room?”
Another frown. “Did we or did we not meet when I overheard you deciding to bring some random—boring as shit, I might add—guy back to your room while you were traveling?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“I have a good reason for not wanting anything more than sex from a man these days. Plus, I don’t do it very often.”
Hunter said nothing. He seemed to like to argue with me, so my guess was his sudden silence was because I’d hit upon something he didn’t want to talk about. Perhaps he had his own good reasons for not wanting anything but a sexual relationship with someone.
“So, tell me something about your love life, birthday boy who isn’t a whore. I gave you the thirty-second version of my heartache this afternoon. What’s your deal?”
“Not much to tell.”
“Ever married?”
“Nope.”
“Engaged?”
“Nope.”
“Serious girlfriend.”
“One.”
I took another sip. “Now we’re getting somewhere. How long was that relationship?”
“A few years.”
Although that surprised me, it did make sense. I wanted no part of a relationship because of my sour outlook after my marriage. “Why did you break up?”
He shifted in his seat. “Life.”
“Ah. That tells me a lot.”
“I prefer to live my life looking forward, not backward. You look in the rearview mirror too often, sometimes you miss what’s right in front of you.”
Huh. Not the answer I expected. But a damn good point.
The waitress came back to our table. Her timing was perfect for a change in the tone of our conversation. After she took our dinner order, and I finished off my large margarita, I shared something I’d been thinking about earlier as I was getting ready.
“My mom’s a big gardener. Growing up, she would plant a different flower on my birthday each year—one that would bloom around my spring birthday. Every year, we’d go outside to plant a new one, and all of my birthday plants would be in bloom. When I went away to college, she would snap pictures and send them in my card. It’s kind of goofy, but I loved it and looked forward to it each year. Yesterday, when you showed me your mom’s birthday birdhouses, it made me think maybe we could start some sort of a tradition for Caroline.”
Hunter sat back in his chair. “I’d like that. What did you have in mind?”
“You know the big oak tree that’s right outside Caroline’s bedroom window in the yard?”
“Yeah.”
“I was thinking maybe we could send her plants every year to hang from that tree on her birthday. You could make Anna and Derek a flower box to keep all the flowers in individual containers with hangers. Then on her birthday each year, we could take turns going over the night before and hanging all the plants on the tree—sort of like a Christmas tree, but a birthday tree instead.”
Hunter stared at me funny for a minute. I thought it might’ve been a look of disappointment, which caused me to say, “If you think it’s silly, we can just forget it.”
“No, not at all. I think it’s a great idea.”
“Oh, okay. You made a weird face, so I thought maybe you thought it was a dumb idea.”
Hunter scratched his chin and did this squinty thing with his eyes that looked like he was trying to figure out a problem.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Tell me. I saw on your face that you were thinking something.”
He stared for another minute before leaning forward and folding his hands on the table. “Alright, when I went to Anna to try to get your telephone number after you blew me off with the wrong one, she refused, and when I asked her why, she said, ‘I’m not giving it to you for your own good. She’s as beautiful inside as she is out, and she’ll break your heart when you realize she’s not ready to let anyone in.’” He paused. “Figured she was full of shit and was trying to pass on your rejection so it wouldn’t hurt my fragile ego. Now I’m not so sure anymore.”
***
Hunter didn’t joke around about us having sex when we left the restaurant. To my surprise, he didn’t even attempt to come up to my room after he walked me into the lobby.
“Thank you for dinner, even though I should’ve been the one who paid since it’s your birthday. And thank you for picking me up at the airport, letting me crash at your house, and shuttling me all over.”
“You’re welcome.”
I pressed the button to the elevator. “I guess I’ll be in touch next year for our first joint Caroline-birthday-tradition present?”
“Going to need to exchange numbers to get in touch next year. Think you can give me the right number now that we’ve made friends?”
I smiled. “Sure.”
Hunter dug into his pocket for his cell and extended it to me, but when I went to take it, he latched onto my hand. “Kiss me once more.”
I looked around the hotel. There were people milling around in the lobby, even a family with kids. “I’m not sure our kiss would be G-rated enough for the lobby.”
As if it was in cahoots with the man, the elevator dinged, announcing its arrival. Hunter took my hand and pulled me inside. He pressed the button to close the doors and tugged me close. “Now we have privacy. What floor?”
“Fifteen. But I’m not going—”
The rest of my sentence was swallowed into a kiss as Hunter planted his mouth over mine. Perhaps it was third time’s a charm, or perhaps I was aware that the elevator ride wouldn’t last very long and subconsciously didn’t want to waste even a second, but I didn’t bother to try to fight it. I opened for him, and my body melted into his the minute his eager tongue found mine. The electricity that had been zapping between us since the very first kiss ignited like a two-hundred-and-twenty-volt switch had been flipped on. Hunter gripped my wrists and held them behind my back, which only made my need to touch him even more desperate.
When the kiss broke, I was confused. My heart raced, my breaths were ragged and uneven, and the elevator doors I’d watched close were now open again. Apparently we’d risen fifteen floors, and I hadn’t felt a thing. Hunter knelt and picked his cell up from the floor. I’d dropped it without even realizing. That seemed to be a common thing when he kissed me—my ability to focus on anything other than the kiss disappeared.
He held out his phone and cleared his throat, although his voice was still hoarse when he spoke. “If you want me to be a gentleman and stay on this elevator, put your number in. Otherwise, we’re going to your room until you give it up.”
I collected myself and nodded, still unable to find my voice. Before that kiss, I’d had every intention of giving Hunter my phone number. What was the harm? He lived three-thousand miles away, and I was reasonably assured he wasn’t a serial killer. Plus, we now had an annual gift to coordinate for our sweet Caroline. But my still-racing heart reminded me that this was a man I should minimize contact with. There was no specific reason, yet I knew it was the right thing to do. It was like when someone throws a punch and you instinctively raise your hands to protect your face. Hunter’s kiss sent my body into self-protective mode. Smiling up at him and taking in his handsome face one last time, I punched seven digits into his phone and offered it back.
“You sure it’s the right number this time?”
I lied. “Yes.” Then I practically ran out of the elevator. “Goodnight, Hunter. Happy birthday. Take care of yourself.”