My breath catches in my throat and Hunter lunges forward and grasps the side of my face with the palm of his hand, pulling me into him until his mouth is over mine. I feel his tongue push between my parted lips, and I let out a small, excited gasp.
All critical thought, all self-restraint, all fear of what is going to happen if I let this man touch me again—it all flies out the window as I kiss him back, circling my tongue around his and yearning for the familiar taste of him.
It isn’t until this very moment that I realize how direly I have missed him. He absolutelywreckedme, and yet I long for him more than makes sense.
Hunter wraps both arms around me as I tangle my hands in his hair. My eyes flick open for just long enough to see our reflection in the mirror that hangs on the opposite wall. My long tendrils of blonde hair fall against his forearms as he lifts my shirt over my head, and I can see the muscles in his back tense as I run my fingers down his chest. I close my eyes again, immersing myself in this moment and tracing his body with my fingertips.
When I reach the top of his jeans, my entire body quivers with excitement as I slide my hand down the front of them and wrap my grasp around the hard, throbbing mass that lies there. I feel as if I willdieif I can’t have him tonight, and as soon as he feels me tug at the top of his jeans to unbutton them, Hunter lifts me up onto his waist and carries me into his bedroom.
This is a moment that I never thought I would have again with him. And it’s also the reason that I knew I shouldn’t have taken this job. I can’t let myself give in to this seduction, only to have my heart crushed again. But at the moment, there is nothing that I wouldn’t give to make love to him. I would give my entire soul, my eternal happiness, in trade for this one anticipatory moment.
Within seconds, all of our clothes are off, strewn to the far corners of the room as we lay nakedly on the top of his bed together. Hunter crouches over me, his weighty cock lying against my thigh as he bends down to kiss me. I arch my back, leaning up to meet his lips and urge my body against him. It’s nearly impossible for me to keep still.
It fills me with a new feeling that hasn’t been there between us before—he couldn’t touch another woman tonight because ofme, and that means that I’m not the only one that couldn’t let our past relationship go.
For a moment, I stare into his longing eyes, but then he pushes into me with the slow, deliberate strength of a passion that has resisted dying even though we’ve been apart for years. Now, it’s like the force of being pulled back into each other’s orbits as our bodies push together until he fills me completely.
I kiss him and clench my hands against his back, wanting to indulge completely in every simultaneous sensation. Hunter and I have had sex before, but this is different. This is laden with an intensity, an emotion that drives higher than anything I’ve ever felt. This is the stuff that my fantasies are made of and the daydreams that I have about him that ruined my life for anyone else. With every push and pull within me, every swirl of his tongue, and every carnal groan that escapes his mouth, I feel as though I am falling into a chasm of passion that I will never be able to climb out of. I try desperately to hold onto the moments as they escalate in intensity. I don’t want this to end. I just want to sit on the precipice of pleasure as it deliciously tortures me to tip over into a crash of climactic bliss. But eventually, I can’t hold on any longer, and the rising sensation erupts out of control. I feel my muscles clench and my body shake as I release myself to him, and Hunter shortly follows. His strong arms shake as they hold me, and his body convulses as he presses his face to mine.
I may have known him for most of my life, but this is a part of him—a part ofus—that is new. Even I, in all of my crazy affection for him, have never felt this way before. Something is different now, and I don’t know whether it’s going to last. Maybe that is why it is so hot this time, because I know it is dangerous, because I know that this might be the drug that lures me in and leaves me wanting more with no guarantee that I will get it.
After we catch our breath, Hunter slides carefully over onto the bed next to me and pulls me gently up onto his chest to rest my head. I realize that I still haven’t said anything at all to him tonight in response to what he told me. But I’m guessing that our actions are speaking louder than are words right now.
I lay there with my ear pressed against his chest, listening to his pounding heart and feeling my hair matted with sweat against my cheek. This is how I want to stay, here in his bed in this house with his arm around me. I don’t feel like the nanny now, or the ex-girlfriend, and I don’t feel like Hunter is the man that I hate for having broken my heart. Right now, I feel as if everything is perfect, which of course means that it won’t last.
For the rest of the weekend, we spend time with Teddie during the day and spend time talking by the fire at night. I can’t even remember what it was like to live in a small apartment without a sprawling fireplace hearth anymore. And I can’t imagine what my life was before Hunter and Teddie were in it. I can feel my time in Europe fade like distant memories. And even more than that, I can feel the resentment and heartache that I felt toward Hunter dissolve.
By the time Monday rolls around again, it doesn’t feel like I have only been living here for a single week. It feels as if this hasalwaysbeen my home, and as if Hunter and Teddie were meant to be my family.
This is the danger that my head was trying to warn me about. But now it’s too late. I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole again, and this time I have no desire to find my way out.
Hunter gets ready to go into work, and I get ready to spend the day with Teddie. In the back of my mind, I know that I need to find a new job in six months, to figure out what it is that I actually want to do with myself. I know that I will need to take my money and move out of this mansion. But what if Idon’t.
Hunter kisses Teddie on the cheek and says goodbye, then smiles at me with those molten chocolate eyes that make me feel as if I am melting from the inside out. And suddenly, I find myself not just playing a part anymore but actuallyfeelingas if this is where I belong.
“Snap yourself together,” I whisper beneath my breath after Hunter leaves. “This isn’t your life.”
“What?” Teddie whispers. I look down and see that he is standing beside me with Archie hanging from his hand. “Did you say something?”
“Uh, yeah, I said let’s go whip up some breakfast, kid,” I smile as I put my arm around him and steer the both of us toward the kitchen. “Pancakes or waffles?”
“Waffles,” he grins as he sits up in his chair. “Dad says that waffles are better because they aren’t all floppy like pancakes.”
“Well then, waffles it is,” I chuckle. “We can’t have things being all floppy, can we?”
Teddie laughs and makes Archie pretend to do a flop onto the table while I make my cup of coffee in the four-hundred-dollar espresso machine.
Chapter Eight
Hunter
For a few weeks, everything seems to feellighter.
It’s as if the dark clouds that have hovered over my life the last few years have suddenly parted and allowed in a stream of light—and that stream of light isTabitha.
I haven’t slept with Tabitha again, not for lack of wanting to. I’ve wanted to make love to her again so bad that it’s practically all I’ve been able to think about. Every time I see her, I feel a stiffening that makes me need to duck into the nearest chair that I can sit down in so that I can cover the rising trouble in my crotch with my hands crossed in my lap.
Neither of us have eventalkedabout what happened between us, and I think that there is a mutual understanding that we are both afraid to speak about it and jinx it. Things feel like they’re in a good spot right now, and I don’t want it to get fucked up. With each passing day, if feels like Tabitha and I are growing closer, and embers of a rekindled romance keep popping up through shared glances and small touches throughout the days and evenings together.