No matter how much I tell myself I need to.
The urge to reach out and touch him is real, which I hate.
The door shuts.
“Not true,” I murmur.
“Ah, that’s where I think you’re lying, Dekker.” He closes the distance with another step. Our chests are all but touching as he braces himself, placing one hand on the wall beside my head. “Your lips and eyes aren’t matching up there. Sure, you’re telling me you don’t think of me, but your eyes”—he emits a guttural hum in the back of his throat—“they’re telling me you can’t stop thinking about me . . . because as you know, I’m the triple threat.”
“Triple threat?”
“All stick, all finesse . . . all stamina.”
I roll my eyes at his macho, chest thumping. “See? That’s why whatever it was between us never worked—”
“You mean sleeping together?” he asks.
“Yes. That.”
“Can you not say it? Can you not say ‘having sex with you,’ because that’s what we did.” He leans in so his lips are near my ear, so one hand can trail a finger down the line of my jaw, and whispers, “We had a lot of sex. Incredible sex. Mind-blowing sex. Incomparable sex.”
“Sex is sex,” I lie as my nipples harden at the thought of us together, the palpability of our attraction still volatile in nature even all these years later.
“Not ours.”
I lift a lone eyebrow to meet the dare in his eyes and know it’s a mistake.
“Then I’ll remind you.”
His lips are on mine before I can process his words, a torrent of desire owning my thoughts—and my body.
Good sense tells me I should resist him, but the heat of his body and warmth of his tongue fires everything inside me that dear ole Chad never could.
Funny how I never noticed it until now.
Hunter’s hands don’t touch me, but stay positioned on either side of my head. His body doesn’t meet mine, but brushes ever so subtly.
But his lips own mine. How they move, how they possess, how they control.
And as much as I want to say I’m helpless to the onslaught of desire they bring me, I also want to own every damn sensation they summon within me. The chills chasing, the adrenaline coursing, the ache simmering, and the desire mounting.
There’s comfort in the familiarity and a thrill of newness simultaneously.
Need wars against want as he launches an all-out assault on my senses with his mouth.
The man can kiss.
How did I forget how devastating his lips were when they connected with mine?
“Dekker,” he murmurs. The strain in his voice mirrors how I feel—flustered and aroused, dashed with a mix of regret.
I lose track of my senses, of my resolve, and with lust leading my thoughts and the memory of him urging it along, my hands are on him. His chest. The back of his neck. His ass.
And it’s maddening that his only reaction to my touch is to push and hold the door close button on the elevator so we’re not interrupted. To pause this from ending but to do nothing to further it along.
Does he not feel this? The unsated need? The desperate desire? The damn everything that makes me want and need and not be ashamed in the least?
My hands are on the buckle of his belt.
On the button of his waistband.
On the zipper of his pants.
When I cup him, he groans into my mouth. When I slide my hand between the fabric of his underwear and begin to stroke the thickness of him, his entire body tenses, his hands fisting against the wall beside my head, and his lips faltering momentarily in their sensual destruction of mine.
I crave the feel of his hands on me.
It sounds so simple yet stupid, but Hunter knows how to touch a woman. My body remembers.
Because I’ve missed it.
His touch.
Him.
Touch me.
I stroke my hand up him and rub my thumb over the crest of his cock.
Want me.
The nails of my other hand score down his back through his shirt.
Take me.
The ding of the elevator shocks me to my senses, and the way that Hunter jolts back, has me looking toward the door in fear of being caught by a guest.
When I look back to him, he’s tucking himself back into his pants, and the smirk on his lips is almost as taunting as his words. “Now you’ll know how it feels. Now you know what it’s like to watch me walk away.” His chuckle is low.
“What?” I look up to meet his eyes, curious and darkened with desire neither of us can deny.
“Good night, Dekker. It was good to see you again.”
When he strides out of the elevator, I stare after him with shock etched in every muscle of my body.
That shock morphs to embarrassment. The embarrassment churns to anger. That anger fuels self-loathing.
The dig is real, and the sting from it hits harder than it should.
But I caused this. He kissed me, yet I overstepped every damn line there is.
You almost just gave him a blowjob in the elevator.
I didn’t, but my mind was there. The want was there. The goddamn urge was there.
I let the door close. I let the car ride to my floor. I let the doors open. All the while my mind reels, and my temper simmers from the utter mortification of what I just did.
Each step I take toward my room is emphasized by my thoughts.
How could I be so unprofessional?
Step.
How could I let him play me like that?
Step.
How could I let those unrequited everythings I feel when it comes to him resurface?
Step.
How could I be so weak?
Even worse, how can I stand here trying to put my key card in the door and question how I’m going to carry out my dad’s professional wishes when they clash with my personal desires?
This is bad.
So very bad.
“This can’t happen. You can’t let this happen,” I mutter as I move into the room. “We’re not good together. We can’t be good together. Not even for a night.” Shit. Shit. Shit. “This was a huge mistake. Christ, the last time . . .”
I kick my heels off and fling them carelessly into the hotel room as my mental chastisement for what I almost let happen reigns.
For what I wanted to happen.
The last time . . .
I undress with trembling hands, and my need to take back everything that just happened owns my every thought.
But I can’t. I know, I can’t.
And I hate that a small, unprofessional part of me doesn’t want to.
The last time . . .
Those three words keep repeating in my mind as I climb into the shower.
As I crawl into bed.
As I try to clear my head and not think about him when the taste of his kiss still lingers on my tongue.
The last time . . .
The last time almost broke me, because it was only after I walked away that I realized I’d fallen in love with him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DEKKER
3 years earlier
“DEKKER.” HUNTER GROANS MY NAME and every part of me aches as he pushes his way into me.
Our fingers link and our bodies churn with a deep-seated burn that neither of us can put out. Time after time. Hookup after hookup.
We may be in a new hotel, in a different city than usual, but dammit, Hunter knows exactly what I need, and how I need it.