No. I know I couldn’t handle her hands on me. There’s no way I could stop. The moment she’d wrap her delicate fingers around my dick, I’d pin her down, and everything would change.
This moment was for her.
“I’d never think that, Lennon. Never,” I reassure her.
She looks up at me, her beautiful blue eyes that I’ve memorized since the night we met.
Lennon pulls her arm back and shifts to face me. “Thank you, Hunter.” She brings a hand up and cups my cheek, her thumb rubbing slow across my hot skin.
I give her a small nod, then lean down and kiss her forehead.
“You’re one of the good ones,” she says when I pull away. “I wish things were different in our world. You deserve someone so much better than me—”
I open my mouth to disagree, but she shakes her head at me not to interrupt her.
“Someone who isn’t such an emotional mess and could give you everything and more the way you always give to others. And when you find her, she’ll be the luckiest woman in the world.”
God.
I want to say so much to her right now.
Tell her I already have.
Remind her it’s her I want. She’s who I’ve always wanted.
Tell her how good we’d be together, how good we already are even as just friends.
Beg her to fight for me.
But I don’t say shit.
I can’t.
I’m thankful we’re in the dark and she can’t see the tears brimming in my eyes. When it comes to her, I’m so fucking torn. I know she feels something for me, yet she refuses to allow herself to do anything about it.
I know Brandon was the love of her life, and that’s something I’ll never be.
Chapter Sixteen
Lennon
It’s been a month since the hospital tour, and I’d be lying if I said the thought of Hunter having a baby with Jenna didn’t make me a tad bit stabby.
Okay, a lot stabby.
I know what Hunter said and that his chances of having kids are low, which I believe, but even if there’s a one in a million chance that he could, what if Jenna’s right and he really is the father?
It’s something that weighs on me, though it shouldn’t, considering he’s not mine to be territorial of. I still feel protective of him, though, as my best friend. Maybe it was those feelings or the fact that I keep resisting how I truly feel that had me texting him that night to lay with me.
The moment he wrapped his body around mine, I didn’t care about the consequences, the guilt, or the past. All that I could think of was the present and how badly I wanted him to touch me—even if just once. I didn’t actually think he would, though I should’ve known better. His hands so intimately on my body caught every nerve on fire, and I burned hot for him. I needed him—in any way he’d give me—and when my body shook, I knew my feelings poured out after holding them back.
I was lusting over him.
Or worse—falling.
That night with him in the dark is exactly where things between us stayed. When I woke up the next morning, he was gone. I found him in the kitchen making breakfast, and it was as if nothing happened. We ate together like always, I left for work, and he texted me a couple of times to check on me. That night, we ate dinner together, watched the season’s final episode of YOU that had us both dropping our jaws, and chatted more about baby names.
I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t bringing it up for my sake or if he wanted us to pretend it never happened since I nearly begged him to touch me in the first place. Did he only do it to make me happy and he was now embarrassed? Was it too awkward to even discuss?
Did he wish it never happened?
The thoughts flooded my mind for days, and since he never brought it up, neither did I. Now a month has passed, and it’s like we’ve both decided to take this secret to the grave. I’m not sure what I would say anyway if he did mention it, especially after all this time, but I can’t help thinking what it meant to him—if anything.
Did it mean as much to him as it did to me?
Why would it? He poured his heart out to me, and I turned him down. Now all I can think about is how he touched me out of pity, and the thought gives me secondhand embarrassment.
Ugh.
We managed to survive Thanksgiving together. It was the first big holiday without Brandon, which brought on bouts of sadness, but Sophie and Maddie came over, and we all feasted together. Didn’t hear from my other either, not that I expected to at this point. My sisters helped keep my mind busy enough not to dwell on my feelings though.