Page 35 of Dare To Kiss You
“Will you stay tonight?” I ask quietly, already knowing the answer.
“I can’t risk someone seeing me in the morning.”
“You could go through the back door.”
“I didn’t leave mine unlocked and I don’t have the right keys.”
A small disappointed sigh escapes me, and Hunter rolls me onto my back, moving over me. “I’m sorry, Kitty Kat. But we’ll tell everyone soon, and then we won’t have to sneak around. Please, please be patient with me.”
His lips find mine and he kisses me, desperation mixing with need. I kiss him back, trying to lose myself in his touch. His hands slide under my back, he unhooks my bra, and I shrug it off. His mouth trails down my body until he covers my breast with his kiss.
“I need you, Kat. Just be patient. Please.” He lifts his head up to look at me, and the wild look in his eyes scorches me to my heart.
“I will be. I need you, too,” I whisper. He surges up to kiss my lips again, his hands touching me everywhere, lighting me up. My legs fall open, and I start to rock underneath him, the friction from my panties amplifying the sensation of his length sliding up and down on me.
“Now, please, Hunter,” I gasp.
He tears off his underwear, then mine. Grabbing a condom from my bedside drawer, I watch him roll it on with shaky hands and then he’s back, covering me and thrusting inside in one motion.
We start to make love, and it’s raw, messy, and fast. There’s no romance, but it’s no less intimate. I can feel something coiling around us, dark and worrisome. But I push it back. He’s here with me, and that’s all that matters. We can figure everything else out later.
“Kat, I’m sorry, babe. It’s fast. I can’t —” Hunter starts babbling, his movements frantic and chaotic to match his wild eyes. His hands are gripping the sheets beside me.
I wrap my arms tighter around his shoulders and do my best to match his thrusts. This isn’t for me right now. This is for him. “It’s okay, Hunter. I’m here. Let go.”
He cries out my name, his face dropping into the crook of my neck as I feel his release. Eventually, he stops moving, and his body sags down on top of me. I relish the feel of his heavy weight on me and move to turn my head so I can kiss him. But he doesn’t look my way. Instead, he rolls off and away from me, leaving a chill in his place.
I start to speak, to ask him if he’s okay, but he bolts out of the room, and the next thing I hear is the bathroom door shutting firmly.
Shutting me out.
My heart squeezes painfully in my chest.What. The. Heck. Was. That.
Chapter sixteen
Hunter
I put trembling hands on Kat’s bathroom counter and let my head hang down. What the fuck is wrong with me? I don’t know what that was out there, me running away leaving her unsatisfied and probably confused as fuck, but it wasn’t anything she deserves.
I should just leave. Make up an excuse and leave.
But I can’t do that to her. Somehow, she’s become the most important thing in my life. She is the only thing that comes even remotely close to having the power to snap me out of the kind of mental slump that has creeped up on me tonight. Which is at odds with the fact that my relationship with her hascaused the slump.
Pushing off the counter, I stare at myself in the mirror. Kat Donnelly has chosen me as the man she wants to be with. No goddamn way am I going to take that for granted. Not for a second.
“Man up, Callaghan,” I whisper to my reflection. It’s never that easy, I know. If I could erase my anxiety with just a few words of self talk, I’d be fine. But that does nothing to tame the beast.
However, at least for now, the bigger beast is the mess I just made with Kat, andthatgives me enough courage to face her.
When I go back into the bedroom, she’s sitting up, leaning against the headboard with her knees drawn up and the sheet covering most of her body. She’s fidgeting with her fingers, and my heart sinks. I hate that I made her feel like anything less than the amazing woman she is.
“Kat, I’m sorry. That was…” I trail off, running my hands through my hair. “I don’t know how to explain what that was, but it wasn’t okay.”
I approach slowly, relief flooding me when she looks up and pats the bed beside her. At least she isn’t kicking me out. I slide under the sheet and open my arms. Thank fuck, she accepts the invitation and snuggles up against me, her hand coming to rest on my abdomen.
I’m still ready for her to be mad, or at least annoyed, that I ran right after sex. Mediocre sex, at that. But I should have known Kat wouldn’t see it that way.
“Don’t beat yourself up. Please. Yes, we need to talk about what just happened, but it’s okay that you needed something I could give you.”
