What she felt for Hunter was something deep. Something beyond her reach.
Something she could hardly understand, much less resist.
If she didn’t want to. She was done with it.
The fact of the matter was that even though she walked around pretending that she was brave, half the time Elsie Garrett felt like the motherless child she was. She felt unloved, abandoned and unwanted, no matter how much Wolf and Sawyer had rallied around her and been the most wonderful brothers she could’ve ever asked for.
She felt a deep hole inside of her soul. And there was something about the way that Hunter looked at her that satisfied it.
Even if only for a moment.
Then there was this. The way he kissed her. The way he touched her.
His mouth was firm and hard against hers, decisive. They were in private now. She had thought that he was out of control in the parking lot, had thought that he was being unrestrained, but it was nothing compared to this. He cupped the back of her head with his strong hand, and used it to guide her, to direct her movements. He parted her mouth beneath his and tasted her. Deep.
It made her want to cry because had she thought that she was going to go into this with Travis?
Had she really thought she’d be able to do this with him when it was Hunter she wanted?
She hadn’t known. She hadn’t known anything.
And the depth and breadth of her ignorance was becoming more and more apparent the deeper Hunter took the case. The deeper they walked into her cabin.
She put her hands beneath the hem of his shirt and felt hot skin, his hard stomach. She pushed it up farther, up to his chest, and she remembered how beautiful it was. With just the right amount of dark hair and sculpted muscle.
And suddenly, she was desperate to see him. Desperate to see him in a moment when she was able to look. When she didn’t have to be embarrassed about the fact that she was attracted to him.
She pulled away and looked up at him, and just for a moment, she was overcome by the strangeness of it all. She felt like she was standing in the center of a deep ocean. And somewhere behind her she knew there were shadows.
She wouldn’t let herself fear them, not now.
Not long ago, she had looked at him and her primary emotion had been annoyance. A little bit of affection, given everything he had taught her, but mostly, he’d gotten under her skin.
But that was a distant memory.
Now she looked at him and she saw something entirely different, and she felt something...
Something that she had never imagined.
She was out here in the middle of the ocean, and she should be afraid that she was going to drown. But she wasn’t. Her desire for him was all around her. Fathomless. Above her, below her. Pressing in on all sides, but she didn’t want to turn away from it. She wanted to embrace it.
So she did. She pushed his shirt up over his head and cast it onto the floor, and embraced it and him. And he didn’t protest. Instead, a hard growl reverberated in the back of his throat, and she swallowed it down.
She had never been this close to another person before. And it somehow seemed both wildly wrong and totally right that the person be Hunter.
They parted again, and she put her hand flat on his chest. “Well, you did teach me how to ride.”
He closed his eyes. Like he was in pain.
“It seems relevant for now,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t have to be...everything,” he said, breathing hard. “Not now.”
She shook her head. “It does. It does.” She said it twice, affirming it, not just to him, but herself.
He picked her up and carried her to the couch. Her heart was thundering so fast she thought she might pass out. But she didn’t want him to stop.
He kept on kissing her.
Kissing her until her mouth was swollen, and her face felt prickly. His body was hard and muscular over the top of hers. And she wrapped her arms around his neck, pushed her fingers through his hair and sighed at the delicious sensations that he created inside her.
He moved his hands down her back, around to the front, palming her breast, his thumb flicking over her tightened nipple. She arched against him, silently begging him for more. She had never felt anything like this. She had never imagined that she could feel like this. This was the promise that had been laid out in front of her on the banks of the river. And it was more, better than she had ever imagined it could be.
He pushed his hands up underneath her top, his thumb skimming the edge of her bra cup, where it met sensitive flesh.
She wiggled.
And she looked up at him. It should be strange that it was Hunter, but it wasn’t. He might have thought it was a little bit cheesy when she brought up the fact that he had taught her to ride. Taught her to dance. Suddenly it all made sense to her. It all became clear. This was right. It was the way things were supposed to be.
It was the way they were supposed to be.
There had never been another man for this moment. And she had been a fool to think that there was.
It wasn’t about love or anything like that. It was just about the way her life was built. The way it had been structured. It was just about the fact that he was him, and she was her.
And that mattered. It always had. He was... She would never be able to explain exactly what Hunter McCloud meant to her. Because it was too complicated. Because he got under her skin in a way that nobody else did. In a way that nobody else ever had. But he was also that mountain.
Who was always there, unwavering, and would be there, no matter what. No matter what she called him during a poker game, no matter if she threw him into a river.
Because here they were, with that not too far in the distance, and now he was holding her like she was something precious. Even though she had been a spiteful varmint, and he had been happy to call her out for it.
She clung to his shoulders, arching against him as he kissed his way down her neck, down to her collarbone, and pushed her T-shirt up over her head, leaving her in only her bra. He kissed his way down the valley of her breasts, over the top of the fabric, down her stomach. And then he made his way back up to her lips.
As she was watching him. She knew that she should probably have her eyes closed, but she was held captive.
Because this was another look at the Hunter McCloud that she had never known. The Hunter McCloud that she’d heard rumors of, that she knew women loved, but that she had never herself experienced. Dark and handsome and intense.
She had always imagined that he would be funny.
When she had let herself imagine it.
When she had let herself really wonder why it was women couldn’t resist him. She had figured that he was that charmer. With a quick and ready smile, because she had seen that in him. But it wasn’t that. He was intense, and he was focused. And it was all on her. It was so intent she thought she might break apart with it. Thought she might burst into tears because of it.