A thump and growling curse spurred me ahead.
In the living room, against the windows, Hunter looked like he’d become part man, part tree. He kicked a quarter of a tree on the floor and pressed his thumb against his lips.
“What happened? Are you okay?” I rushed across the room.
He spun around, and his eyes widened. “You’re back early.” His smile warmed me from the inside out. Standing in front of the glow of the lights strewn all over the floor in the comfy T-shirt I knew he only wore at home—at home with me—he made me want things I hadn’t thought I’d want again for a long time.
“We got an earlier train out of DC after Cat may or may not have gotten us all added to an Interpol list.”
His head jerked back with furrowed brows, and he dropped the tree pieces he’d been holding. “Do I want to know?”
“No, you do not. I don’t want you added to the list right alongside me.”
Wrapping his arms around me, he pressed his palms against my lower back. “I wouldn’t mind being anywhere as long as I’m with you.”
“Remember that when Cat gets us all shipped to Siberia.” I rested my palms against his chest, running my fingers over the threadbare fabric, so thin I felt like I could see his skin through the cotton.
He dropped his head, nudging my head up with his forehead and resting his against mine. “I missed you.” His eyes were full of an open vulnerability I’d have never thought he’d show me.
I trusted that he did. I trusted him to at least be one hundred percent real with me, even if he wore the facade outside of these apartment walls. I dragged my fingers along his stubbly chin. The sharp facial fuzz scraped across my skin, sending tingles dancing down my spine. “I missed you too.”
His lips were on mine, hungry but savoring all at the same time like I’d come back from a month away, not less than forty-eight hours.
The kiss left me light-headed and wobbly and wanting. I ran my hands along the bottom of his shirt and up to his stomach, squeezing them between us.
He broke the connection and looked down at me with a glimmer in his eyes. “Ah-ah-ah, no fun until we get this tree up. Then I can give you a proper welcome home.”
We worked together, cranking up the Christmas music, popping popcorn on the stove to string for the tree, and getting tangled up in lights, which wasn’t all that bad when I was tangled up with Hunter.
I was happy. From head to toe, everything finally felt like the tide had changed.
Perched on top of the stepladder with Hunter’s hands on the backs of my thighs for “balance,” I set the star on top of the tree and handed him the plug. The metal star with smaller star and sparkle cutouts came alive, lighting up the top of the tree, and covered me with geometric designs.
“We did it.” I looked down at him, feeling keenly aware of how perfect this moment was. It was a moment I’d stamp on my heart and recall by just closing my eyes and being wrapped up in these feelings all over again. Staring into his eyes, I said a thing I’d been afraid to say for fear it would all evaporate, going up in a poof right from my in-box. “I have a contract sitting in my e-mail from a company that wants to buy one of my designs.”
His eyes widened, crinkling with the creases of a smile. “You did it!” He grabbed me off the ladder.
I yelped and tried to grab onto the stepladder.
With strong arms wrapped around me, he took me down to the couch like I’d told him I’d won a Nobel Prize, falling on top of me. “I knew you could do it.”
My stomach fluttered and flipped, exhilaration flushing my body. “That makes one of us.”
“Two.” He spoke in between kisses peppering my face and lips. “Cat’s solidly on board the Sabrina-will-kick-some-design-ass team, isn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you tell her already?”
“No.” I dropped my gaze, feeling silly. “You were the first person I wanted to tell." For some reason I’d held out until now, wanting to share it with him, like that would make it feel even more real.
He stilled on top of me. “Thank you for letting me be your first.” He said it so earnestly and innocently I couldn’t hold back my laugh.
The bright, shiny feeling in my chest rivaled the tree light. It rivaled the sunrise. “Thank you for being in my corner.”
“Always.”
Overwhelmed with emotions welling and cresting, I pulled his face down and captured his lips with mine.
We were naked in record time, clothes discarded in a pile on the living room floor.
Hunter focused his attention on me. “How’d I get so lucky as to be here with you tonight?”
“No idea. Have you been stealing birthday wishes again?”
His laugh was deep and rich, husky and weighty.
Sprawled out in front of him, I welcomed his gaze without a hint of doubt or self-consciousness. I wanted him to see me. I wanted to give him what he wanted, and that was more of me.
The path of his eyes set my skin on fire, making it tingle with anticipation.
My legs were locked around his waist, holding on throughout each thrust. The couch burn on my back was soothed by the cold sheets on Hunter’s bed.
His whispers against my neck added to the pleasure coursing through my body, shooting me straight to the precipice of carnal bliss.
“Do you know what you do to me?”
“No.” I moaned. My fingers sank into his back, losing myself to the overwhelming feelings. The sizzling turned to sparks tearing their way down my spine, tightening every muscle, all centered around the sensations streaking across my skin.
“You make me crazy. You make it hard for me to remember what my life was like before you were in it.”
My heart was full to bursting. “You make me crazy too.” In so many different, terrible, wondrous ways he’d made me every kind of crazy.
His hips snapped, pounding into me in a way that left me clawing at the sheets and feeling like I was coming out of my body. White-hot currents of sensation swamped my nerve endings, turning me into a writhing mess under Hunter as he unleashed his restraint.
“God, Sabrina.”
I wanted to respond, but a shift of his hips above mine and I was shot off the mountain peak into the stratosphere. My vision darkened, filled with stars like the twinkling lights on the Christmas tree. My present had come early, and it was wrapped in the most beautiful man who looked at me like he was lucky to have found me.
Hunter stiffened above me, his angle changed, driving across my G-spot and triggering another spasm inside, leaving me clamping and convulsing against his expanding shaft.
My core overly soaked and sated, I collapsed with my limbs heavy and sluggish.
Breathless, sweaty, and with a chuckle, he dropped down on top of me, kissing my neck.
“Was that a proper enough welcome home for you?” He pushed back the sweaty streaks of hair stuck to the side of my face.
“I’ll need to leave more often if that’s what I get to come back to.”
“I hate it when you go.” He pecked me on the lips before hesitating and then pressing up and pulling out of me.
I groaned at the loss of him between my legs and his warmth blanketing me. The nakedness of his words had nothing on the nakedness of our bodies. I hated going, too.