My heart stalls.
“Hunter,” I say softly, trying to peel his greedy hands off me. I cast an anxious look back at Anderson and see he’s staring right at us. “Stop it. He’s watching.”
“Like I give a fuck if he’s watching.” He walks me back up against a tree. “Let him watch.”
“Hunter, no. Come on, you promised you’d play nice if I did what you wanted.”
He smiles, his eyes glinting with genuine pleasure. “That sounds nice. Say it again.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Look, I’m not fighting you, all right? I’ll break up with him like you told me to. But I need an extension, and I need you to not make him look like an asshole in the meantime.”
“Wow, you come to me tonight with a lot of requests.” Hunter closes in, bringing his hard body against mine and making my heart race faster. “Tell me, Catnip. How do you intend to pay me back if I grant them?”
“Please stop.” I push harder, trying to get his hands off me. My stomach is doing somersaults at his closeness, but I’m too cognizant of our audience, too guilty to even enjoy it. “Anderson is right over there.”
“Don’t care. Next problem.” Instead of giving me space, he pushes even closer.
I instinctively step back to get away from him, but there’s nowhere to go. I feel the rough bark at my back, the heat of Hunter’s muscled torso pressed against my front.
My blood heats and my heart pounds wildly. I feel an insuppressible stirring of interest between my legs. I start to shuffle my feet awkwardly, and Hunter casually wedges his thigh between my legs. The pressure of his thigh against my most intimate place ramps up my arousal instantaneously.
“Anderson’s dog died,” I say abruptly.
Hunter pauses and looks at me. “What?”
I release a breath, knowing that’s probably the strangest thing anyone has ever said to him when he was about to maul them, but… well, that’s the next problem.
“His dog died today. I met him for breakfast to break up with him, but… how could I dump the guy when his dog just died?”
Hunter stares at me blankly, like for once, he doesn’t have a single clue what to say. “His dog died,” he repeats blankly.
I nod, pleading with him for some empathy. “So, you see, I can’t dump him tonight. It would be too mean.”
I watch his face as he considers my problem. I know Hunter is reasonable, so even though he’s being a big jerkface right now, I’m fairly confident he will summon enough sympathy to allow me a deadline extension.
Given my faith in his basic decency, I’m completely unprepared when he shares his decision. “Doesn’t matter. Dogs die, that’s sad. You still have to break up with him tonight.”
“Hunter,” I say, staring at him.
He shakes his head. “It’s gotta be tonight. I’ve made enough compromises. I’m not making any more—not where he’s concerned, at least.”
I’m too stunned to react at first.
Hunter doesn’t have the same problem. With his thigh still pressed between my legs, he leans close again. As if he didn’t just heartlessly reject my request for an extension to break up with my boyfriend, he brushes my hair behind my ear and gives me a tender little smile. “You look pretty tonight.”
My poor heart. It’s like a puppet, dancing every time he pulls the strings.
It took a few years, but I think I’m starting to see why my mom had such a problem with Hunter in middle school. He wasn’t as aggressive back then so I didn’t really need to, but right now I’m realizing he’s pretty hard to resist. My boyfriend is standing maybe 50 feet away and he’s already sad today, but if Hunter would have just pressed his lips to the curve of my neck, I would have been tempted to tilt it and let him keep going.
I need to get away from him before he makes things even worse.
Darting a glance back toward Chuck Whitehouse’s car, I spot Anderson—and this time he’s not just looking, he’s heading toward us.
My heart falls. I push against Hunter again with more force. “Hunter, please.”
Responding to the alarm dripping from my tone, Hunter pulls back this time. Only a few inches at first, just enough to lessen the pressure of his body against mine, but when I push him away again, he finally takes a couple steps back.
“All right, all right. I suppose I can wait a couple more hours.”
The husky timbre of his voice almost makes me regret having to pull away, but then I spot Anderson storming toward us and alarm grips me.
Without a word, I brush past Hunter and race toward Anderson.
I need to get to him before he gets to Hunter.
His expression is thunderous when I get close enough to see it.
“Let’s go inside,” I say quickly, grabbing his shoulder and trying to corral him toward the door. I don’t really want to go inside Valerie’s house, but I do want to get Anderson as far away from Hunter as I possibly can.
Hunter let me drag him away, but Anderson doesn’t. He’s pissed and he doesn’t want to go inside, so he rips his arm from my grasp. “Were you ever planning to tell me about your history with Hunter Maxwell?”
I stop, but not before casting a nervous glance back in Hunter’s direction to see if he’s following.
He’s not. He’s leaning on the tree trunk he had me pinned against, watching us.
My gaze darts back to Anderson, a little less on edge now that I know Hunter’s not pursuing. “We do have a history, but if your source is Chuck Whitehouse, it’s not what you think it is.”
“Did you sleep with him?” he asks, point blank.
“No. Yes, but not—we didn’t have sex. He spent the night at my house one time, it wasn’t intentional, we were just hanging out and we fell asleep. But then some stuff happened and he wanted to hurt me, so he told everyone we had sex.”
“Charming. I can definitely see why he’s someone you sneak off into dark corners with.”
Embarrassment creeps up on me, heating my cheeks. “I don’t sneak off into dark corners with him,” I mutter.
Anderson’s gaze is cool and unsympathetic. “You just did. In front of my teammates. The guy already hassles me—I guess now I see why.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I look down at the ground, feeling a little ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
“You should have told me. Maybe if I knew he was your ex, I would’ve been a little more prepared for him to hate me.”
“He’s not my ex,” I mutter. “We were never really more than friends.”
“Yeah, well… looks like he wants to be more than friends now,” he says, jerking his head in the direction of the tree but not looking back at Hunter.
I’m not sure what exactly Hunter wants from me, but it’s clear he wants something. What’s more, I’m not sure it matters what he wants—he’s not going to stop until he gets it. If he has already caused this much trouble in less than a week, what will the rest of the year be like?
This is not how I wanted to do this, but it seems unavoidable now.
“I think we should break up,” I say gently, looking up at him.
He looks hurt, and it makes me feel wretched. “So you can be with him?”